Crazy Ruskies!!

My friend just passed me this post from the Huffington Post…

Russian Professor Says U.S. Will Break Up After Economic Crisis

By Robin Stringer

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — A professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. will break into six parts because of the nation’s financial crisis.

“The dollar isn’t secured by anything,” Igor Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian newspaper Izvestia today. “The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse.”

Panarin said in the interview that the financial crisis will worsen, unemployment will rise and people will lose their savings — factors that will cause the country’s breakup.

“Dissatisfaction is growing, and it is only being held back at the moment by the elections, and the hope” that President- elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he said. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

The U.S. will fracture into six parts: the Pacific coast; the South; Texas; the Atlantic coast, central states and the northern states.

“Now we will see a change to the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will cease to be the world’s regulator,” to be replaced by China and Russia, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a3sayDZz.QKc&refer=us

Sounds like propaganda if I’ve ever heard of it. Okay, China’s rise I can understand – but Russia!?!? That day has come and gone, Igor. Stop living in the past and thinking that a winning a war with Georgia means Russia is a future super-power. Excuse my nationalism.

I’ll Be Stuck With Her Sister… Her Name is Defeat

(Taken in a roundabout manner from http://www.hiphoproll.com/ – Good looks)

Yea, I heard this leaked Jay-Z track a while back, but I had to listen to it again. It’s called “History” and the first verse is the most poignant verse for me.

In search of Victory, she keeps eluding me.
If only we could be together momentarily.
We can make love and make History.
Why won’t you visit me? Until she visit me,
I’ll be stuck with her sister, her name is Defeat.
She gives me agony, so much agony!
She brings me so much pain, so much misery.
Like missing your last shot and falling to your knees,
As the crowd screams for the other team-
I practice so hard for this moment, victory don’t leave.
I know what this means, I’m stuck in this routine
Whole new different day, same old thing.
All I got is dreams, nobody else can see
Nobody else believes, nobody else but me.
Where are you Victory? I need you desperately.
Not just for the moment, to make History…

-Jay-Z

That’s straight up bars. Interestingly enough, not many rappers, or black men, or men, can admit their foibles quite like this. That feeling of despair and hopelessness resonates pretty strongly with me at least. i know I’ve had those moments where I feel like I keep missing the clutch shot – and there are not many worse feelings than that, ya know?

The rest of the song goes quite hard also, I must admit. Despite the fact that Jay is getting old (i.e. 30 being the new 20 – I guess I’m 12), that dude still brings the heat. Rappers definitely need to step their verses up because this one track probably outdoes most albums and mixtapes. I mean, hard not to argue that one.

Here’s a link to the Google search for “History” by Jay-Z. I’m not sure about WordPress’ policy on posting leaked tracks.

It’s Unsettling

Been on my poetry grind lately, even though it’s been nowhere near the quality or quantity of material I once produced. Hurting me right now that I’ve got to admit it.

it’s unsettling
to see ur feelings unraveling
unfolding
ur heart is cracking
apart and babbling
and u see the pieces back again
back together again
like it’s scrabble
but it’s more like scrambled eggs
not ur brain on
but ur phase gone
from the days gone
when u had plans to change last names hun
what can i say hun?
one changes
love changes
and best friends become lovers
then strangers
so strange huh?
can u explain it.
i know u can’t b/c i was the one that changed us
got not much to say but
it’s getting feeble
i stuck it with a needle
gave it the evil of hiv
had a change of heart
so i stuck it with a needle
then gave it a boost of cells t
and put it on iv
we might be something u see on tv…
it might be too late tho.

I’ll get back to it soon enough.

The Hand of God is Upon Me

It dawned on me slow yet strongly
The thought and longing – the hand of God is upon me.
Despite the wrongs that I spawn, seeds
That grow into scrawny long green weeds
The hand of God is upon me.
It moves me along like a rook or a pawn
Or a knight or a king, in dreams and in songs.
Despite the words and thoughts, and the emotions in which I’m lost
I take up my cross.
The hand of God is upon me.

-Nalej Bonz

Going through it right now. Sometimes I get the feeling that life is just slipping through my fingers. But I’m confident that things will get better – even if they have to get worse beforehand. I know that God has a plan for me.

Fraternity, Equality, Liberty… with French Fries

Mitterrand tried to create both job growth and wage growth by nationalizing huge swaths of the economy, including some big industries — automaker Renault, for instance. You haven’t driven a Renault lately because Renault couldn’t sell them here. Imagine that: an auto company that couldn’t compete with a Dodge Colt. But the Renault takeover ultimately proved successful, and Renault became a private company again in 1996, although the government retains about 15% of its shares.

Now the U.S. is faced with the same prospect in the auto industry. GM and Ford need money to develop greener cars that can compete with Toyota and Honda. And they’re looking to Uncle Sam for investment — an investment that could have been avoided had Washington imposed more stringent mileage standards years earlier. But we don’t want to interfere with market forces like the French do — until we do.

Someone passed this Times article titled “How We Became the United States of France” to me. Thought it was interesting. Suspect to exaggeration and oversimplification in some ways, but the author makes a good point.

Wallpapering

(Image taken from SocWall.com)

I heart computer desktop wallpapers. Maybe you do too. Here are some sites that I use to get wallpapers from…

Social Wallpaper

sxc.hu

HDRwalls.com

WallpaperStock

InterfaceLIFT: High-Resolution Widescreen Wallpaper

Wallpaper’s from the Hubble Telescope

And generally, I think del.icio.us has a good listing of wallpapers.

Freshies… Disappearing Car Door

I thought this disappearing car door was a unique idea. Pretty fresh honestly. Now my only thing is… what happens if there’s a malfunction? How would you then close or open your door?

What I’d Do With A Lottery Win, Parte Uno

(Image taken from Taluda on Sxc.hu)

When I was a kid, my family would ask ourselves what we’d do with a million dollars. It was fun to explore my imagination and think of all the wonderful things that money can buy. Looking back, it was probably a product of the scarce resources we had – a type of escape. Money was always an issue and we never had enough of it. My parents always struggled to get more, but it always slipped away for one reason or another. Now that I’m older, I think about it from time-to-time, but it doesn’t have the same cathartic effect that it had in my youth. It’s more of a distracting thought now. But I was thinking about it the other day and so I decided to write about what I would do with a million dollars.

Step 1: Get the Lump-Sum

When I was younger, it made perfect sense to “stretch” the money out as long as possible by getting installment payments. The danger of lump-sum was that if you made one crucial mistake with it, it would be gone. But after learning about interest rates and return on investments in my Microeconomics class in college (one of the benefits of a college education imho – you learn useful things that you may not have learned otherwise) I realized that lump-sum is the best option. There is always the spectre that you’ll do something idiotic with the money and lose it, but the beauty of lump-sum is that if you follow a sensible plan and invest wisely, you’re going to get more bang for your buck. Conversely, the problem with installment payments is that although you’re getting the same nominal amount of money, that amount of money isn’t worth as much as it was before. It’s like how a movie once cost 5 cents but now it’s like $9 minimum.

Step 2: Tithing

As a Christian, I’m gonna tithe. I mean, God has hooked me up, and I don’t mind sharing some of the love, ya dig? Haha. But in all seriousness, I think it’s important to give 10% back to God (and not necessarily to one church). I know that there’s a lot of noise about tithing. For me, whether I make the tithe before or after taxes, as long as my conscience is clear I think I’m good.

Step 3: Reset to Zero

Even though my family’s financial situation is more stable and we’re worth more now, we all carry a lot of debt. The increasing costs of higher education means that my siblings and I have had to take on more debt. And since the parental units already have mortgage, credit card debt, insurance, etc. etc. I prefer to shoulder the debt myself. So, considering our heavy debt-loads, I would try to erase that debt, starting from the parents on down. I can imagine that would be anywhere from 500K to 1M. But I think it’s the most important thing to do. It’s a matter of freedom.

Yea, so when I was writing this post, it seemed a bit long, so I decided to break it into three posts. More later.

Why I Admire Apple

Taken from Thomas Römhild’s Overview Desktop Pictures.

Or maybe I should say say why I admire Steve Jobs.

Anyways, when I think of Apple products nowadays, I think of something 1) easy to use, 2) clean, and 3) polished. In a discussion with one of my friends, we described their products as “perfect.” Now, of course Apple products aren’t “perfect” but they’re so damn tight!

Example #1: iPhone

I heard so much hype about the iPhone when it came out that I had to go check it out at the local Apple Store. The experience was hard to describe, but I felt that the iPhone just “popped.” It was intuitively easy-to-use and it had something of a brilliant aspect to it. Like, I really, really, really wanted to have one. I mean I had used and tested other cell phones and PDAs before (including a Blackberry) but they just weren’t the iPhone. I was just impressed by how polished it was. Just so clean that at this point in time, even if it lacked the features of other cell phones, it was just one of the most well-done products I’ve ever seen.

Example #2: OS X Leopard

You know, honestly I really wasn’t impressed by the features that were rolled out in OS X. I had seen them before in a lot of other applications. But you know what I was impressed by? I was impressed by how the features performed rather than what they were. So for instance, there are a lot of virtual desktop managers available for Windows (ex. Yod’m, VirtuaWin, Dextop) and for Linux too. But none of the ones I have seen are as clean or smooth as OS X’s Spaces. I could say the same for iChat, Quick Look, Finder, and Time Machine. They’re all so damn smooth. Even the Stacks feature on OS X’s dock menu. Smooth, ya dig?

So this is why I say I admire Apple (or Steve Jobs). They just seem like they all huddle in some corporate office and try over and over and over to create the best product possible. And I think that’s what makes them so spectacular.

Post 1L Stress Disorder

After my two exam periods this 1L year, I’ve noticed that I get the same thing that happens to me – the post-semester blues, or as I like to call it “Post 1L Stress Disorder.” What does this label that sounds curiously similar to now familiar term of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) actually mean? Well, IMHO it’s the irregular manifestations of emotions that crop up during the 1-2 week period after the madness that is first-year law school exams.

So, after fall semester exams, I was so thrilled to have about 2 weeks off with nothing to do. Instead of planning a trip out to NYC to visit some friends, I decided to recuperate in town. Big mistake. Because instead of getting away from the place where I had memories of toiling over legal work, I stayed there to “relax” – ‘cept everybody else had left. So what ended up happening? Well, I could not sleep at all – which is very strange for me. I would sleep 3-4 hours a night and just wake up and be up. That’s at 3 o’clock or 5 o’clock, essentially whenever. I did not want to be alone at all, but I hated hanging out with people or talking on the phone. I couldn’t find the motivation to handle items on my to do list. So you know I didn’t even want to go to the movies or work out. I felt lifeless and disillusioned. It was really, really strange and disturbing to me. I didn’t feel comfortable until I had started grinding and slaving away in the library.

Well, after spring semester finals, I knew what to expect. So I chucked the deuces (i.e. said goodbye) and dipped out (i.e. left lol) back to my hometown. And since I had forgotten how to relax, I forced myself to 1) get some full nights of sleep and take a lot of naps, 2) work out a bit, 3) watch more TV than I normally do, 4) hangout with my friends and family, 5) go to the movies and 6) go outside. I definitely feel better as a result. I did have some of the listless symptoms from the previous semester, but it wasn’t as bad. I’m glad for that.

So nothing is cracking out here at all really. I’ve got some things I want to write up for whoever reads this blog lol. We’ll see if I can get it popping.