Have you ever had an overwhelming desire to learn about the deficit?

Yeah, I don't think I have either. But once my father decides he's going to tell you something, you sit down, shut up, and listen. 

Today's topic was the deficit. It was fairly short too, so hopefully you'll come away from this somewhat more enlightened and not bored to tears. 

He explained it like this:

Imagine you're a working person. You're on your own, have a steady income. But, you're spending $350 more than you're earning. And you've been doing so for the last three months. 

This month, you realize, "crap! I've been spending too much!" 

So what do you do? You budget. You look at what you've been spending and decide what you can cut out. 
 
You look through your purchases and stuff and you realize that once a week you've been eating at McDonalds for breakfast. Each breakfast is about $4.25. You don't really need that, and decide to cut that from your schedule.

Is your problem solved now? What? It's not? But you cut that extra McDonalds from your spending!

Oh... 4.25*4 is actually only $17. Not quite the $350 you need. Just to not overspend this month, never mind paying back the last three months' debts. 

That's a little like what the U.S. government has done. 

We've been deficit spending for at least the last 12 years. Going from an already significant debt, that makes our current debt enormous. 

In real life terms, this is what happened:

We were deficit spending. About to hit the debt ceiling (which is the maximum borrowing power of the government.) The government either needed to revise the budget or raise the debt ceiling. Democrats wanted to raise the ceiling. Republicans did not. So they said that the ceiling could be raised, if cuts were also made. 

So they put together a group of people to decide how to fix/make the budget. They had a time limit, and if they didn't decide on something before March 1, 2013, then the sequester would be enacted. This means things would get cut. Things that no one wanted to get cut.

The government said, "DON'T WORRY Y'ALL, THIS COMMITTEE WILL FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS THESE CUTS." 

March 1st, guess what happened? 

Yupp. 

Those cuts. 

Did you notice?

Nope. 

Neither did I.

That's because those cuts were, as my father said, "a drop in the bucket." It was that $4.25 at McDonalds once a week.

Then he went a little into how Medicare and Medicaid were the problem, but yeah. 

There's the deficit for you. 

Feel enlightened.   

The convenience of today

Every day, we take for granted all the amazing technology we have today. I mean, just think about it.

• Heating/Cooling- We can CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE. I don't think you understand how amazing that is. Back in the olden days, you just had to hope you had a good blanket and that the fire wouldn't start your wooden house on fire tonight while you were sleeping. Now we can heat homes and even cool them. 
• Phones- We can talk to people on the other side of the world. You used to be lucky if you talked to someone from another state. And that's just with regular phones. Will cell phones, you can be anywhere, and you can talk into a little metal/plastic device and someone in downtown Chicago can hear you. Practically telepathy. You'd be burned at the stake for being a witch.
• Cars- Now cars are just ridiculous. If someone proposed cars now to the Department of Safety of the U.S., they would be rejected. I mean seriously. Giant metal contraptions we control at high speeds? And everyone has one? Too dangerous, vetoed. These even allow us to cross the country in less than a week. I It used to take around half a year just to get halfway across. 
• Lights- We have lights, that run out after weeks, months even, and they are very little risk for starting fires. In fact, we have so much light that we often can't even see the stars in big cities. Back in the day, you had to conserve any candles you had, and they were pretty poor lighting. 
• Glasses- Glasses are just amazing. We can make someone's vision perfect, even if they can't see their hand in front of their face. We are tampering with the human body, without actually touching the eyes. It's amazing how we have learned to mold some simple glass into something useful to us.
• Fireworks- Fireworks are just weird. If you think about it, what's the point? Back in ancient China, I believe they were used in war, but don't trust me, I'm just too lazy to Google it. Honestly though, we set things on fire so that they make pretty colored fire in pretty shapes. It's weird. 
• MP3 Players- We have the capabilities to listen to music, just us, in our heads. We can hear a guitar, a bass, a drumset, and a singer, all at once, without them actually being there. Once again, if you showed up with one in the olden days, you'd be burned as a witch. 
• Electric Blankets- This is a personal favorite of mine. I would die without mine. I hate the cold. I can create heat, with just electricity, just for my bed. Without this "technology," I would have to put hot water bottles under my sheets and wait for it to heat up my sheets and hope that none of them spilled. I think that's what they did in on of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books anyway.

So those are just a few of the modern miracles we have nowadays. So the next time you turn up your thermostat or text your friend, just remember: you are a witch. 

(W)REC(k)

I know, I am just so clever.

But yep. I recently saw [REC]³ Génesis. It's the third in the series, as you can tell by the itsy bitsy three. It is also completely in Spanish.

First, I'll give you a bit of background. It started out in [REC] as a zombie-seeming movie. Some people in an apartment building, someone goes crazy, the government quarantines the building. Stuff goes badly for most of the people. There was actually an English version of this movie, called Quarantine. None of the others in the series got English versions though.
  
[Rec] ² continues in the same building, but adds in some religious theme stuff. It was weird.

But seeing as how they made a third, it obviously had some appeal, right?

Well.

For the third, there's a completely different setting. It starts out at a wedding, and then they move to the reception. That's where things go bad.

Going with the traditional filming style of the REC movies, they start out with the camera angle being from actual characters carrying cameras. But then they break from that theme when someone breaks the last camera. From then on, it's all professional filming. It was a little disappointing. Having the movies shot from the point of view of the characters really set it apart in the other movies. But when they switched to regular filming, it wasn't as good. Just one of my complaints.

It really wasn't bad. But it wasn't good. The characters were harder to relate to. One of the main characters, the bride, was incredibly bipolar and I couldn't figure out if she was a huge wimp or a chainsaw wielding psycho. I didn't really like her. Her husband wasn't much better. 

There were also just points in the movie where I was dumbfounded. Like at one point, hubby and one of his buddies come out wearing full knight armor they stole from a nearby church. Yeah. I don't know. Then they almost immediately ditch it all. Smart movie, homie. 

Then the religious aspect comes back in to play when a preist starts reciting bible verses and the zombie type things stop moving and just kind of have seizures. So he goes on the loudspeaker and just kinda starts reading. The thing is, I thought someone tried that in the second movie and it didn't work. I don't know, maybe this priest was just more holy. 

I also didn't like the ending. Again, the characters were stupid and all. I won't ruin it for you, in case some night you're just really bored and on Netflix and you decide to watch it. It wasn't a complete waste of time, but I certainly could have been doing better things with my life. 

But then again, when couldn't I be?
 

Omnivores have more fun

Humans need protein. It's a fact of life. Meat is protein. Animals are meat. More facts of life.

So I've never really gotten what vegetarians are all about. What's wrong with eating animals and meat? It's simply supplying one of our basic needs.

Sure, you're allowed to do whatever you want. I don't really care. But it's the vegetarians and vegans who are critical of us omnivores that bug me.

Firstly, it's none of your business. I'll eat meat if I want to, thank you very much. I'm not a spawn of Satan just because I eat the cooked muscles of animals. 

I also always wonder what vegetarians are trying to prove. It's not like the meat production industry is going to mourn the loss of a customer. There are plenty of meat eaters out there. One less vegetarian is not going to make them produce less. Sure if 10 million people all became vegetarians, then yeah, it'd have an impact. But what impact are they trying to make?

That meat is bad for you? It's not.  "I don't want to put things in my body that harm me, such as animal proteins..." How exactly are animal proteins bad for you? Your body just breaks them down into useful things for you.

That the treatment of animals is cruel? "I went vegan on March 11 2013 because I was watching videos of how they treat and slaughter animals and I just cried cause it wasn't right so I'm going vegan. It was kinda hard to find breakfast but I ate a real fruit fruit snack." Dude, they're going to be killed and eaten anyway. And don't use the word slaughter. It's just another way to say killed. You want to eat live meat? 

"I was a vegetarian after reading John Robbins 'may all be fed.' Food fed to animals causes starvation as soy, grains fed to animals so steak is available instead of feeding the starving billions." Okay, what? Yes, let's just ship grains over to Africa for free because that's how the world works you can just give tons of grain away and money who needs that no problem let's just burn it all lol. No. Yes, the situation with those who are starving is bad, but we can't simply take grain from the industry and ship it away. The government is the one who handles aid to foreign nations. They would have to buy the grain from the industry and then ship it away. And let's be honest, our government needs all the money it can get. At least that's what they think. 

Some people even become vegetarians to lose weight. That's just being lazy now. Cut out sugars and carbs, not meats. Seriously. Do you even know how your body works?  

"Animals are friends; they are NOT MEANT to be eaten." Haha what. What have these animals ever done for me? And if they aren't meant to be eaten, what are we supposed to do? Oh, you'll raise them as pets. Right. Do you have any idea how much it costs to raise a cow? And you're just going to have it grow old and die with you? Right-o. You do just that. 

If you are a vegetarian, no disrespect. Just don't preach at me why eating meat is bad. You'll make your choices and I'll make mine. Sounds good. Now get down off your high horse, the UK needs it.  


Quotes from vegetarian.about.com