Mexico decriminalized drugs

I almost couldn't believe: "Mexico to decriminalize pot, cocaine and heroin". So Mexico is becoming more libertarian than the U.S.A.? Wow. Too bad they don't decriminalize profit making ventures [other than drug trade]. Until they stop business restrictions, they won't stop the flow of their people moving up north. With this new law, however, they may have to keep Americans out of Mexico!

Which college don't matter: next step is?

Anyone who's been working in real world environment knows the facts made obvious by Laura Rowley with her "Success Doesn't Care Which College You Went To" -- experience matters more than any specific college name, especially after several years of real experiences.

So the logical step one should take is, why bother with college in the first place if experience is all that really matters? Why bother, indeed...

Poorest of the World chooses private schools

I found "Welcome to easyLearn, Class 1: While our unions whinge and our children fail, the slums of Africa have a lesson for us" very appropriate: public schools are failing all over the world. The only way to fix it is to take the matters into one's own hands and even the very poor in third world nations are doing just that: voting with their money. If you think the poor has it "hard" here in the U.S., read the article: those in the "third world" are much more dedicated than your typical American poor. Here's a great quote:

One father, living in the Kenyan slum of Kibera, summarised it like this: “If you go to a market and are offered free fruit and vegetables, you know they’ll be rotten. If you want fresh produce, you have to pay for it.”

So, how much are you paying for you and your children's education?

Blogging Essential to career

I noticed that "they" now require 'good' blogging to advance one's career. Sigh.

Obviously, I'm not using my real, full name to advance myself :-).

Debt crunch

"Credit Cruncher" is a Q&A of the movie maker of "Maxed Out." Good read but I disagree that more regulation is needed: in fact, there should be a lot less in my opinion. Case in point: credit dispute process is not regulated and works just fine in my opinion: in fact, too well according to merchants! [With credit cards, it's the card holders paying interest that makes money for the banks so guess who holds the "card?" Not the merchants, for sure.]

Shaky Future 2

Well my work ended last week and I was able to find a new one last Tuesday and accepted it on Wednesday. It turns out to be a 2 month contract so things aren't so clear for the future, yet....

Moving in

Here's an interesting report of 2005: United Van Lines stats on net outflow/inflow of 48 states.

Seems that more people move out of California than in. I wonder why? [high cost and no job is always a good reason -- so why am I going there again?]

Shaky Future

My boss informed me today that my job will probably end this week, as a contractor. What to do next is what I have to consider as I am in transition to California this summer. Worse case, I'll live off of our savings but a short term temp work is always a possibility. Only time will tell.....

Problem with Vaccine

Any parent who's not aware of vaccine and its politics would do well to do due diligence. There is no proof that immunization really really works. [I'll update this if someone can prove otherwise.]

Facts are (in the US):

1. Drug makers are legally exempt from being sued. [Someone at Vox Day pointed out that abortion industry is the only other exempt one.]
2. No controlled, long term (multi-decade), double blind tests have been done with vaccine. For deadly diseases it would be unethical to do so since those with placebo exposed to the disease would be supposedly sentenced to die. The only exemption would probably be in countries like Nazi Germany, USSR and Communist China [only 1 out of 3 exists today -- hmm....].
3. No exact, scientific information is available on how effective it is. Booster shots are recommended but the frequency is arbitrary. [tetanus shot is a good example: some hospitals say every 5 years while others 10 years -- what kind of science is that?]
4. Immunization is no guarantee that you won't catch the disease: for example, the recent mumps outbreak in Iowa, of those 245 with mumps, 80% of them had at least one shot of vaccine. [Can you get a refund from the drug makers? Probably not.] Flu vaccine is even more voodoo, since they change the formula every year: if you get sick they will claim that they didn't get the right mix for this year (you got the flu that's too new or not prevalent enough to be in the mix), even if it doesn't work at all. There is no way can you prove that flu vaccine didn't work for you. [Associating vaccine with voodoo may be insulting voodoo so I may edit this in the future.]
   
5. Research is done with drug makers' money. [Last time I looked was 10+ years ago, so any updates would be appreciated.] Either directly funded by drug makers or the researcher(s) are on the board of directors and/or own stocks (directly or indirectly) of drug makers. How biased can the research be? [Even with government only money, it is highly suspicious since government has exempt the drug makers in the first place.]
   
6. Drug makers are only interested in protecting themselves. If you read the proscribing information of a vaccine (see for example Daptacel), the warning section is an eye opener: they list the possible side effects but not any hard numbers on the risks of each one. The list is there to protect the drug makers, not how we parents can protect our children. Until they put the hard numbers in easy to understand format, the drug makers are only in CYA-mode.
7. Parents who sincerely believe that their child was damaged by vaccine is put between a rock and a hard place. Drug makers can't be sued and the damage payout requirements are onerous. And any damage is not accorded a criminal investigation: no one will take the time to look into the claims unless one is rich enough to hire their own [medical] investigators.
   

For us, we didn't think much about our oldest son getting immunized and went with the program (except Hepatitis B since you don't normally get it on casual contact -- it is normally sexually transmitted, no something a baby will do other than getting it from mothers with Hep B). And even when he got a fever after one of the set of shots (in the first 1 or 2) we weren't worried, but when our doctor asked next time and we mentioned it, he reprimanded us for not reporting the fever right away. That's when we started getting worried and researching about vaccine and started reading about all kinds of problems that people went through, and how little tests (esp. the long term kind) and true double blind tests are not being done. Since this was before the web (early 90's), not a whole lot of info was out there and had to dig around alot. Fortunately, we were in San Jose so the public libraries had some anti-vaccine books. Which is how I got involved into supporting NVIC.

More about research: I'd prefer to see multi-generational studies since natural immunity is known to be passed from mother to child via breast feeding. What does it mean if vaccines are passed on to a baby (even if it is ineffective). Also the studies better be done across multi-culture and multi-race, just to make sure there is no other external effects (food, environment, genes, etc.) affecting the vaccine under test. Daptacel info has studies from Sweden and Canada but they are both short term and probably not racially diverse.

[I'm looking forward to hearing of any corrections and, if any, additions to my objections. (grin) ]

Teenage and discovery and fathers influence

I heard about this on ABC news but can't find the link but did found it at CNN: "Teen's discovery could save millions of lives" has a patent based on her research of yogurt interacting with E Coli. Pretty cool for someone who attends a public school. Note that she had access to her father's lab which means he was involved in her life to have her directed to do real science rather than whatever fun she wanted to have. So yet again it's the dad's influence that matters more than any specific schooling. And how much more direct influence do we home educating fathers have with our children?