Recently I ordered some coffee from Peace Coffee out of Minneapolis, MN. We sampled their Tanzanian Peaberry, Guatemalan light-roast, and Ethiopian coffee. All of these were brewed using a Hario pour-over. All of the coffee was excellent.
Mar 27
Just showing off my favorite mug. I got it at a gift shop near Snowqualmie Falls in Washington. It is a quiet Saturday morning, and I’ve brewed up some organic, light-roasted Guatemalan coffee from Peace Coffee out of Minneapolis, MN.
Mar 26
Tonight in a local sports bar while watching the NCAA tournament my friend Josh and I were told by a woman that we looked a lot like the Ghost Hunters. I don’t see any resemblance.
Mar 21
This was a sort of lazy and productive day all wrapped into one.
This morning I changed the main relay in my car, which I believe has been the trouble all this time with it quitting randomly while driving. Yeah, fun issue, eh? Also, I got my wife’s car’s inside door handle fixed. After that I spent some time with my new guitar delay pedal. It is the Boss DD-20. I’m pretty impressed, honestly. It is replacing a Line6 delay I was previously using.
Outside of those thing…since I finished Mass Effect 2, which is an excellent sequel, I’ve moved on to playing Assassin’s Creed 2. Again…an excellent sequel to the first one, just like Mass Effect. I would highly recommend all four of those games.
It snowed here last night, after having been 60 degrees F the previously day. It is just rainy now, but I’ve stayed in for most of the day. My wife is bring home Chipotle and a movie on her way back from the university. Nice, lazy day.
Mar 08
For those of you reading this blog recently, it has probably become apparent that in the past few months I’ve switched by position on the health insurance reform debate from being against what I perceived to be a not especially good bill from the Senate on the issue….to being for the passing of the reform bill with reconciliation to follow.
I’ve said in the past that the Senate bill contains too many concessions to Republican interests, too many concessions to the insurance and pharma industries, and too few moves to actually address all the complexities of health care in the United States (despite the ridiculous Republican argument that the bill has too many pages). Though > 70% of the American population wants health care reform, < 25% think the Senate bill is any good.
It seemed to me at the time that the Republicans were gearing up to propose good and needed changes to the Senate bill, and that they would work with the majority to hash things out. None of this occurred.
Instead, the Republicans started to be myopic in their quest to stop all progress on everything, inciting clever names for their maneuver, like “The Tarentino” because they “kill bills”. All their ideas were summed up (as seen largely in the bipartisan health care summit recently) in proposals that have been rejected as counterproductive by independent analysis available to the Senate and the President, expansion of ideas that we have today already that aren’t helping, supposed promotion of competition from markets that are too small to actually compete, loosening regulation of insurance though public participation in insurance is failing while insurance industry profits soar, etc. Essentially the Republicans have suggested everything that we have already tried and failed with historically, or ideas that are antithetical to reforming the problem that is occurring.
And that is the reason why I felt my position on the issue needed to take a 180, and support a not-so-good bill with the understanding that reconciliation will happen afterward. And there are a number of parts that have been established to hold insurance companies accountable as well as protect the public in general. Some of which include:
- Review process of unreasonable increases in premiums
- Appeals process for people denied on a claim
- Rebates for policy holders from insurance with high administrative costs
- Public disclosure of administrative costs
- Sweeping requirement of preventative services
- Deficit neutral
I think that despite the initial obvious shortcomings of the Senate bill, the benefits to the public are good compared to a doing absolutely nothing and opposition to everything. So, thus I find myself supporting reconciliation of the bill under the current sociopolitical environment.
Hope that makes sense.
Mar 03
Thanks to DailyKosTV for the video feed.
Feb 03
Despite the decline of news coverage in Haiti concerning the disaster caused by the recent earthquakes, the people who live there are still in very desperate need. Please consider giving what you can to help feed, provide medical care, and give shelter to the Haitian people.
- Convoy of Hope
- The American Red Cross
- Habitat for Humanity
- UNICEF
- Oxfam America
- World Vision
- The United Way
- Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
- Haiti for Christ
If you live in the Springfield, MO area, it may interest you that Convoy of Hope, listed above is from this area. Also, there is a fantastic organization that packages nutritious meals called Kids Against Hunger. They are in need donations to help pay for materials to make meals as well as other additional items that they can send to Haiti. There is a list at their website. Also, they are always looking for volunteers to help package meals. Please visit their website for donation needs, drop-off sites, and volunteering information:
Jan 28
Apparently the modern running-shoe has only existed since the 1970s, but people have been running for the entirety of human existence. This study finds that barefoot running ends up being much better for your body and is not prone to repetitive action injuries. I’ll certainly miss buying expensive shoes that only last 3-4 months of running. 
Running barefoot is better, researchers find
Katherine Harmon (2010, January 27). Scientific American.
Jan 25
Just wanted to take a moment to clarify a couple things, since I spend a lot of time posting social and political commentary that I feel is particularly pointed or ridiculous. In that light I’ve been posting a lot of the commentary of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Both of these people are considered extremely liberal by the conservative media. But the reason I post their videos is because those videos happen to accurately depict or comment about a problem or issue with the political or social landscape.
If Rush Limbaugh or Gretchen Carlson or Dick Morris would accurately depict the news in commentary, I would find it just as valid to link to their work. But equally, Maddow and Olbermann do not always represent reality either. For example, recently Keith Olbermann had a number of defamatory comments to say about Scott Brown, the new Senator in Massachusetts…of which I think most of those comments are baseless, regardless of what Brown’s background or ability as a Senator may be.
So, the point is that in politics I’m looking for reason, and reasonable explanations for issues, as well as actual straight talk…and not double-standards. So, when certain Republicans talk about free-speech for the middle-class, but then legalize free-speech for a non-person (a corporation)…that is double-speak. It should be obvious that allowing a company to advertise about political issues has nothing to do with a middle-class individual’s rights. Or take people who talk about health care legislation and refer to it as “Obamacare”, even while Obama has no hand in authoring any of it…I’m less inclined to accept as authoritative much that those people say about health care reform. As a third example, when a politician just simply has his or her facts incorrect, as John McCain recently did talking about the one-way ticket of the “Underpants Bomber”…when in fact the ticket was a round-trip ticket…and gets angry when he is corrected, then I’m less likely to trust him on what he has to say about the situation considering that he is regurgitating inaccurate reporting from a news organization, and not sticking to the facts the the DHS actually has.
So…just looking for reason in the midst of the rhetoric and chaos. I can already hear many of you saying “good luck with that”. 
If my alternatives are to buy into punditry, to just not listen at all, or to listen and seek the truth…I’ll pick that last choice.
Jan 23
Conan O’Brien left the Tonight Show with class, and a good message for people’s lives.
Catch his last show in its entirety at NBC.com:
http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/episodes/#vid=1196131
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