The Pnebleu Blog

Music is so inspirational. It can provoke any emotion. I like to listen to movie scores occasionally, just to feel the emotion that it is trying to portray. It’s such a rich medium of communication. It can convey meaning that words would never be able to. It’s so common worldwide that it breaks down boundaries that languages put up. Music has the power or ability to fill your entire body. It connects you with the musicians and the other listeners. It can be calming, enraging, rousing, depressing, enlightening or educational, and it can be primitive or guttural. Music is what we have in common with everyone else on the planet. Word can’t really describe it, so you’ll just have to listen to it yourself. (Magnatune.com has a great collection of music from around the world. You can even download a podcast with of it.)

For the most part, I not one to believe conspiracies, but I’ve just thought of one. This is completely imaginary, I don’t have any sources, I just came up with this off the top of my head.

The U.S. federal deficit is going to be approximately $500 billion this year. This is an insane number. $500,000,000,000. Where is all of the money going? The war in Iraq, you say? Well, yes, but what if that was just a cover and the cost of the war was padded? Could the government be siphoning money from itself to pay for some unknown to most, super secret project? The answer could be yes, and I know that the government does hide money for “regular” top secret projects. With all likelihood, there are probably weapons platforms orbiting Earth right now, posed as communications satellites. Well, if the government can do that, couldn’t they feed a giant project with the supposed cost of the war in Iraq?

Just a thought. Who knows what a possible project could be?

I’m just starting to hear about power outages happening across the country. New York, California, Missouri, etc. This isn’t good news. It’s hot outside, and here in Texas it’s humid. If I lost power at home, it’d be very uncomfortable. I think I would stay at the MSC. There are couches I could sleep on. More power plants need to be built if these outages keep happening. We’re the greatest nation in the world. Why can’t we keep our populous electrified?

I am getting frustrated with the internet. At home I have dial-up and we get about 40.0 kbps. At work I have DSL at about 150 kbps. At Texas A&M I get about 1.1 Mbps. That’s a wide range. Why can’t the U.S. have universal high-speed internet, at a minimum of 300 kbps. That would be really good. Higher speeds could also be purchased but that would be a good minimum. I’m so adjusted to broadband when I get home that I can’t even use dial-up. I get so impatient. There are so many things that I can’t do with dial-up. Make internet a utility and universalize it!

Everybody is talking about the price of gas right now. It’s the hot button issue, so I’m going to weigh in. Supply and demand affect the price of gas and not price gouging or any other radical idea. The only way the price will lower is if there is more supply or less demand, and I don’t see demand dropping much. So the only thing our government could do to help the situation is to reduce the regulations on drilling.

Everyone talks about becoming energy independent. Well, it’s not going to happen if oil companies aren’t allowed to drill off the East, West, and Gulf Coasts and/or Alaska. We also need more refineries.

Taking more taxes from the oil companies recent profits is not going to help the situation nor would it be good precedent in our country. Private business is a cornerstone in functioning society. If gas becomes socialized bad things will happen. Most socialized programs fail miserably.

U.S. Congress, do not even consider taxing the oil companies to get their profits or even think about socializing gas!

One fun, radical idea to fix our oil problem is to invade Canada! We’d get more cold weather croplands, more timber, more oil & natural gas, and only a little more than 30 million people. California has about 36 million. The U.S. would double in physical size. Canada has lots of fossil fuel opportunities. It would be a great economic boost. They don’t have much of a military. They can still have their provinces, but will now become states.

A less radical plan would be to slowly start buy their land right out from under them. Then, the landowners would be American and they could force the parliaments to join the Union.

All we have to do next is move south. Western Hemisphere domination!

Prof creates new form of matter – News
This is my professor for physics! That is pretty cool. Read the article.

Why is celebrity such a big deal in our country? When did this obsession really pickup steam? I don’t know, but I have several reasons why it’s bad. All of my statements are in general. There are many instances of people who don’t fit into this generalization.

1.) Celebrities are treated like they’re so special; like they are another class of people. They’re not; they have just as many if not more problems than the rest of us. One of their problems is paparazzi. I don’t have to worry about getting chased by camera toting peeping toms. Do you?

2.) So many people look up to them as role models, but they aren’t very good ones. Their marriages are a joke. It’s amazing if they last 10 years and unbelievable if they are over 20 years. Is that characteristic you want to spread across the country, because the divorce rate is already at least 50%. I’d really like to see that come down, how about you?

3.) Celebrities, directly or indirectly, promote physical attractiveness, which can make a lot of people uncomfortable with the way they look. Vanity, cosmetic surgery, and low confidence levels are effects of this beauty aspect to celebrity.

4.) Why do they deserve awards every year? Did they do anything other than work for a living like the rest of us do? Should we all have awards like the best wall painter or the best assistant?

5.) The final reason I’m going to present is how celebrity is detracting attention away from more important issues and events in our lives. Anyone who watches TV knows that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston split up last year, but how many people know the name of the position that Alberto Gonzales holds? People retain all of this information about so many “celebrities” but they don’t care to know about the people who hold power in our country, in the world?

Celebrities aren’t an upper race of people. They have many problems, some we have, some we don’t. Celebrity creates the feeling of inadequacy or imperfection for many people. They don’t do anything other than work for a living like the rest of us. Finally, celebrity-centered culture is dumbing down our citizenry.

Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy movies and TV and I don’t want to end that industry. I just want to bring the actors/actresses off of their pedestals.