Before I am Famous

My oh my this is an election to remember, for the first time in the history of this nation a black man was chosen by his party to run for President. And now John McCain sweeps in, raises the ante and choose Alaska govenor, Sarah Palin for his Vice President choice, the first women to on the republican ticket as vice president.

I don’t have anything against her I don’t know who she is but I am wondering about the timing. Here on the demcratic side Hillary and Obama made waves and made history. Now a woman is running alongside John Mc Cain. Doesn’t it seem odd to you? Like I said, I don’t know her, I don’t live in Alaska she might be a fine lady I just think it is a little odd that is all. It seems like John McCain is hoping for some of the women and minority vote by choosing the Alaska govenor.

This will be an election for the ages.

What do you think? I want to know.

Everyday somewhere in the world ultimate craziness beseiges a person and they do something insane. When a local news story is picked up the AP (associated press) it must be big news. And to be honest it is a bizarre story. When a person is killed by police it typically happens in a big city like Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, you get the idea not in a place like State College. For this story, this event happening in State College is a little too close to home eventhough I don’t live in State College but close enough.

Yesterday, a 50 year old, bipolar man went to a used car dealership and laid a rifle on the counter and demaned money. This is not bizarre. He went on tell the person behind the counter that he was going to the Christian radio station in State College because he wanted to broadcast something about his life, rambling about a conspiracy theory between him and drugs and the FBI. After the perp left, the man behind the counter called the radio station and the police.

Police across the county had an APB on a man with a beard driving a white Ford Bronco. A little after 10 am he made it to the radio station the same time as the local police. Gunshots between the police and the perp rang out through the air. The man in the Bronco rammed into police crusiers until finally a police man shot and killed him. According to centredaily.com, this was the first death by police ever in the Centre County region. Witnesses in and around the scene said the perp could have driven away but kept antagonizing the police. Many believe he wanted to commit suicide by police.

The investigation is continuing and a motive is not clear.  A truly bizarre story and if weren’t for the guy at the car dealership, people could have lost their lives.

Energy Star appliances have been around a long time but I think now Energy star products are becoming more in the fore front of people’s minds. Take a walk through Lowe’s or Home Depot and the Energy Stars are in the front of a section as opposed to the back. Using energy efficient products will help save the environment and reduce your electric bill. An energy efficient product may cost a little extra but the savings will soon add up.

For instance purchasing a front loading washer as opposed to a standard top loader because you can save you detergent costs (uses less detergent), energy costs and space costs as you can stack the dryer on top. Because of it’s larger capacity you stuff more clothes in there and that will save water and save you time to do something more interesting.

I can’t stress enough how much a simple change such as changing your incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescents can save so much money in 2 ways. These light bulbs are to last a lot long almost 2 years per bulb with regular use so you are saving money there because because even the incandescents can add up if you are always buying lightbulbs. Not only that they cut down on energy costs saving money on your energy bill. For a 40W fluorescent youa re using about 8W of energy. Do you see the huge amount in energy consumption. Spending the little extra now could save you bundles over time.

In this day and age when price of energy just keeps going up, it is the time to buy energy reducing/ saving products. Shop around, find the best deal and start saving money, energy and the environment today.

Last week, I watched the PBS special Struggling in Silence -Doctors Struggling with Depression they featured a woman who was manic depressive and suffered from hypergraphia (the urge to write incessantly) she is also a neurologist. She wrote a book called The Midnight Disease a book about why people write, the dreaded writer’s block and the make up of the creative mind. I had to buy this book, which I did used off of half.com for $5 for a hardback and it came today. I have been waiting for a week now.

Maybe I am wrong but writers want to know why we write. Some say it is a compulsion to write that we are driven to write from some unknown source. Maybe this book has the answer. I come from a family on non writers and very few were even artistic people. Am I the fluke in the natural selection or maybe I am insane and I don’t know it. I do want to know what makes my brain tick and why I write.

Christopher Reeves was a spokesperson for the most controversial thing in medicine right now. If you don’t know he tried to have stem cell research legal. Breifly stem cells are found in embryos and these cells do not have a set pupose yet until they are developed fully. It is believed from scientists in other countries that these cells can regenerate nerves, body parts, spines and other parts of the human body. I suppose you see where the controversy lies. The scientists want to use embryos that have been frozen for people who had them frozen for making children.  That is another whole topic all together.

The reason I bring this up, is I was looking at CNNMoney for some ideas for Healthy Moola and I found this interesting news story about harvesting stem cells from a woman’s menstruation. I don’t see why this would be as controversial because during the cycle, the egg and the uterine lining are sloughed out either in the trash or the toilet. In fact the egg is just a cell. A company called C’Elle, offers women the opportunity to collect her menstruation and have it cyro-preserved for future use.  I don’t know there could be a future in this. Visit celle.com for information.

 If you have thoughts about this lets discuss them.

Here is some information from the Company:

Taking Control: Future Therapies for a Host of Serious Diseases May Be Found in Women’s Menstrual Blood

July 07, 2008: 01:28 PM EST

OLDSMAR, Fla., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — With today’s hectic lifestyle, where most women are juggling careers, family, relationships, and a host of activities, the idea of possibly facing a serious illness in the future is not something that readily comes to mind — especially when a woman is in the prime of her life. But what most women don’t know, is that the key to treating a number of possibly life-threatening diseases that she, a parent, a sibling or even her children may face in later years, such as osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, may be found within her own body — in vital stem cells, which can now be harvested from her own menstrual blood.

Now, thanks to the revolutionary research and technology of C’elle, a service dedicated to providing women with a safe and easy method of collecting and preserving stem cells found in her menstrual fluid each month, even the busiest woman can take control of her future, right in the privacy of her own home. With C’elle’s non-invasive collection process, menstrual cells are processed and cryo-preserved (stored at a very low temperature) for potential cellular therapies that may be used in the future. These self-renewing cells one day may even be used for sports medicine or cosmeceutical treatments, such as anti-aging therapies.

“C’elle enables and empowers a woman to take control of her future health, and possibly of those genetically closest to her, in a fast, painless and stress free way,” said Michelle Kay, Marketing and Sales Manager for C’elle. “We live in exciting times, as science and technology are discovering how extremely valuable menstrual blood stem cells really are, and the enormous treatment potential they represent for future therapies. C’elle’s ongoing research is supporting these promising findings.”

For more information about C’elle, please call 1-877-892-3553 or visit www.celle.com.

With GPS tracking readily available to anyone at an affordable price, people are using them for any reason to know where you are. Such as employers, spouses, parents and law enforcement use these to keep track of vehicles and persons. I think there are some instances GPS is a good thing and other times it in an invasion of privacy.

Pedophiles once they are caught should be monitored at all times with GPS tracking. I don’t believe they can ever be reformed. If they did it once more than likely they will do it again. Sure there is Megan’s Law and most states have a Megan’s Law website where people can find out if any pedophile is living near. That doesn’t stop the pedophile from hanging out at the local park, looking for kids, gaining their trust. They are not supposed to be there anyway but they don’t care. Law enforcement already uses GPS to track persons under house arrest. Company vehicles that are driven on company time. There is logic behind this because the company is responsible for you and the car if something happens to either one, they would want to know exactly where you were.

GPS tracking on employees is a invasion of privacy. If the employee gets the job done and does it well, it shouldn’t matter what they are doing in their off time. In my opinion monitoring people, unless they are criminals is a lack of trust. Sure if you are a parent knowing where you child is at every moment might be reassuring but if you taught your child and trust your child then you should trust the child. Same with an alleged cheating spouse, if you believe your spouse is cheating but you don’t know with whom track them only to find out nothing.

Using GPS shatters the trust between people. When trust is broken because of suspicion where does that leave us?

I have been seeing on the news that President Bush wants to allow companies to drill for oil off shore. I wonder is this really a solution to the much bigger problem that we face as Americans? It is not a quick fix either even if the drilling started tomorrow it still could take several years before the wells are even producing oil. We already produce oil and it is not enough to supply this country that is why we get oil from other countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

If it takes several years to produce oil, that doesn’t solve any problems really. In those several years time resources and money can be spent on implementing other fuel sources and reducing American dependence on foreign oil.  Let’s assume fueling stations for alternative fuel become as common as regular gas stations. And because of this one million people purchase new vehicles using these fuels. That is one million less vehicles that need regular gas. And because one million vehicles aren’t relying on foreign oil the demand will go down. And maybe another couple of years go by and one million more people purchase the above mentioned car and now there are two million vehicles using alternative fuel the demand will go done and the price of gas will. Of course these are environmentally friendly as well.  I see this as long term more beneficial solution to the price of gas.

And who will say this new oil will even drive down the price of gas anyway? The Kwik Fill gasoline company runs these commercials around saying “Buy American oil! And gas made from American oil!” You drive to the local Kwik Fill and the price of gas is $3.99 the exact same price as Sheetz down the road. So even if this new oil would be drilled, what oil man is going to want to charge less when people are paying $4 a gallon anyway and that means more profit for the oil company.

Off shore drilling is waste of time, with no lasting benefit at all when resources can be used elsewhere.

In my opinion, I think Hillary Clinton should commended to sticking with the race until the end. It shows a lot of guts to keep going and going it is ambitious and that is a good thing. Of course the rumors are still floating around about Hillary being asked to be Obama’s running mate. I am all for that. I said before I like both Obama and Hillary and I really think they might actually be a good team.

Not only that voters have made it known that they are people who believe in Hillary and I think if the democrats really want to be in the White House in January then having Hillary and Obama on the same ticket would be wise. I would vote for them. Of course if Hillary won the nomination I would expect her to choose Obama as her running mate as well. I do believe they might actually do some good for this country. If he chooses John Edwards, I don’t know the guy seems like a creep to me. There is something I don’t like about him. He is untrustworthy.

Reagrdless of what people say about a candidate’s ideals they also judge on the person he or she is. That is why sometimes people are not elected president because of how they are. Just my opinion.

I would love to know how the electoral college works. It would be so great if I could interview someone who took part in the 2004 election. I wonder if I can find out who these people are. I think it would make a great read.

Just because some one is 20 years old doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t want to find them. Law enforcement assumes a person of that age ran off by themselves. Though that may be the case these missing young adults could be in trouble. Such is the case of Susan Gabrielle Elmore Burns missing since February 25, 2008 and last seen with known sex offender and husband Keith Lee Burns in Columbus, Texas.

Susan has dark hair and dark eyes and 5 foot 4 in height and a 114 pounds. She is also bi-polar and learning disabilities and sometimes has a hard time making the right decisions. Her parents are worried about her and the police are no help as they have not added her to name to the missing person’s database.

For more information please visit Help Find Our Daughter Susan G Elmore Burns for photos and more information. She could be in trouble.

The boyfriend’s brother and I were talking about the citizenship test and how most Americans can not pass the test. I told him that I could. Really I think that all Americans should score 80% or better on the test. If not what does that say about our civic pride and our education system? Well I googled citizenship test and I found a sample test on MSNBC.

Good news, out of 20 questions asked I got one wrong. I scored 95%. The questions are mulitple choice. One question I just guessed because it was about the form for naturalization, I got this one right. The one I got wrong I believe is a trick question. The question was “who can declare war?” congress, the president and some other choices. I chose the president. Wrong it is congress but if I am not mistaken then president can declare war in but must get congressional approval with 48 hours or something. Maybe I am wrong maybe the president can only send troops in. Technicalities of wording but if you live in a foreign country and you see the American army coming and there hasn’t been a natural disaster and there is no war going on what would you think?

I am almost positve President Bush declared war on Iraq before congress approved it. Though shock and awe happened a few years ago, I might have to research on that because the details are fuzzy.

On the flipside I know my constitution. I am a firm believer in the consitution and I used to read it over and over. I believe in the freedoms it grants and I believe in the words. Want to take the test you can find it here and by the way you, if you made it this far you should at least have one answer right because I gave it to you.

Take the quiz just to see how much you know, just think the people that take this want to be American for those that are American we should be lucky of our birthright.