So Crazy

So I got a summons in the mail. I've never gotten a summons.

Now I have to go to a freaking courthouse on Wednesday, and miss out
on the office.

LAME!

Food Inc

So I guess that I am a heartless bastard.

A friend told me about the documentary "Food Inc" and recommended that I watch it. What a crock of shit that was. Seriously I can't think of a single motive behind the production of the damn thing beyond promoting a return to an archaic system of production and business. I really wonder how much the SEIU contributed to the production budget. The film talks about the need for more unions and seriously glamorizes, of all things, the auto unions. What the hell do you think has driven the American auto industry to near bankruptcy? And now we want to do that with the food supply? They talk about subsidizing organic and natural foods. Fuck that.

The current methods of farming and production have kept Americans well fed, and provided Americans with one of the lowest cost to income ratios for food in the world.

And it's not just Americans. Much of the world has benefited from the current methods of food production, and the world's population could not be sustained by "going back to the old ways." Is anyone complaining about going to a store and paying $3.00 a pound for meat? I am pretty sure that everyone would complain about paying $13... If you have a problem with the system, but "organic." Buy "free range." But don't try to vilify the system that keeps food on the table for a couple hundred million Americans and billions of people worldwide.

Farming is not "pretty," farming is not "glamorous," and farming is not something that most people want to see. As the grandson of a corn, wheat, and cattle farmer, I have seen the system in action and I know that it works. It may not be pretty, but it works.

And the "organic farmer" in the film was a joke. Some old hayseed hippie ranting about the way that things should be, and how he feels about the animals. Screw his cattle, I want a steak, NOW. Screw his pigs, I want some bacon, NOW. And last but not least, screw him. The thought that just because he wants to live in harmony with nature, I should overpay for beef, pork, and eggs?

Laughable.

His desire to not be "the biggest," and to care about his animals and the land...

The world isn't a damn Disney movie, and the "old ways" were left behind for a reason.

The film's attacks on the Bush administration were truly LOL funny. Give me a fucking break. There hasn't been a president in my lifetime who has argued heavily for increased regulation of food production...

My heart aches for lady in the film who lost her son to E-Coli. No parent should lose a child like that. I lost a brother when I was 13. He was 12. It hurt like hell... But, I heard nothing about PROPERLY COOKING FOOD mentioned in her arguments. Preparing a hamburger "well done" kills E-Coli. Plain and simple. 73,000 people have infections from E-Coli every year, and only 61 people die. The young are more susceptible, as are the elderly, but at the end of the day cooking food properly would have saved him.

As for fast food. Another instance of "give me a fucking break." The film states that fast food companies are "engineering food" and that Americans have very little choice.

FUCK THAT

Americans have massive amounts of choice.

Type-2 Diabetes : Put Down The Soda. The family makes the comment "the soda is so cheap." Yeah, water runs from my tap for a very low price. I bet that it comes from their tap at a similar low rate.

Monsanto... The company patented a genetically engineered strain of bean that produced a higher yield. They spent MILLIONS developing a specific strain of the bean that was resistant to pesticides and disease, and it is their property. I love the comparison to Microsoft, as if somehow that is a bad thing. Microsoft is a company that has developed a product that a majority of users willingly choose as the best on the market. They have made billions as a result of that production. If Monsanto is "monopoly" then they can be sued by the government. And yet somehow they have not. Perhaps it's because people can choose to not use Monsanto's product. They can buy and plant whatever seed they please.

The hippie who owned the organic food company made a point that I think fits best. "We had to prove that we were profitable." This ass sold out to Dannon, and he is somehow going to bash people who sold out to Coke, Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, etc... What a freaking hypocrite. He's sitting there talking about how bad large producers are, and in the same shot he is going to talk about a multi billion dollar deal with WalMart? And that's where this whole "natural" movement will fail.

People want to profit. Enough people want to profit that they are going to chose to work towards the most profitable end result. And at the end of the day, the "old way" is not profitable.

Oddly enough, I buy my food from a locally owned market. One of those things that I do to support a local business that I feel best represents my interests, and the interests of my community. And I buy locally grown produce when possible.

I do not "look for" organic, and for the most part I do not make any effort to buy organic. If you want to, good for you.

But to make a film indoctrinating people with the idea that somehow large farming operations are evil, and to not provide a single counterpoint is just ridiculous.

A Giant Production

So I really am one of those people who hates it when something becomes a bigger deal than it needs to be. Today's big production was someone thinking that they were more important than they are...

I spent almost an hour on the phone with them today talking about policy changes that they were made aware of months ago. There are rules, I do not write the rules, but we will all live by them because we have no choice...

Except this person. They were convinced that they were above the rules, until I told them that they were not.

Then they tried to get me to OK a change in the rules just for them. They kept on it for a while but I didn't budge. The rules are the rules. I did not write them, so I don't try to change them.

So after a bit of back and forth they seemed to get it. Until they called me back no more than ten minutes later to talk about the possibilities of an exception if I had time to touch base with the people above me who did write the rules.

Do some people just not understand "No," or is it just me that thinks of that as a pretty concrete term? The craziest thing is, if it had been someone trying to sell me something I would get it. I understand sales people, and I "get it" when they are persistent. This person was just a self absorbed jackass.

Screw them... Rules are rules... (Unless I actually liked them, then I might have worked to make an exception, but I didn't.)

To Connected?

So in reading some articles from the WSJ that I had sent to myself, I came across one that I really thought was nuts. People complaining about being "to connected" to the world. The article wasn't talking about people in an age bracket that wouldn't be considered tech savvy, but young people in their late twenties/early thirties. People my age...

This got me thinking about it, and for the life of me, I can't fathom being "to connected."

The fact that I email myself news so that I remember to read it aside (yeah, I know that's weird, but I won't remember to read the stories if I don't), I think that I am no more "connected" to the internet than the average person my age. I have the web at home and at work, I have iPhone, and I have PSP (built in web browser). As a whole, I have access to the internet every hour that I am awake, but I don't see that as being a bad thing at all. It's not as if I spend every hour on the net, and I think that the convenience of having the world at my finger tips is something that I wouldn't ever want to give up.

The more I read into the article, the more these people seemed like me. Ordinary professionals that updated a Facebook and a Twitter, but for the most part they suffered from no "internet addiction" or anything the looked remotely like a bad habit. And trust me, I know what an addicted internet user looks like, so I get that a problem can exist. An old roommate of mine spent every hour that he wasn't working/sleeping on Facebook/Myspace/Poker/whatever... The last I saw of him he was getting into something called Mafia Wars. Looks dumb as hell to me, and as such I haven't bothered to play it at all. For the most part, thats what every "internet problem" I have ever known about seems to be. People playing games online rather than dealing with the real world.

But the people in the article weren't gamers, they weren't addicts, and they didn't seem to have a problem. Maybe a bit of a stupidity issue. They were willing to pay a company to delete their Facebook/Twitter/MySpace accounts.

So now I have this idea rattling around in my head like a penny in a clothes dryer... WTF is "to connected"?!?!?!?!

Blogger Block

So I took the day off today, and for some reason I have been just brain dead. I can't think of anything to write about now that I have all the time in the world to do so.

There are so many little things that I need to get done around the house, and I haven't worked on any of them.

I have played around on the internet and uploaded some music to iPhone. I also read two articles in todays WSJ, which is sitting right next to me and still somehow not getting read.

I know that at sometime I will need to have something to eat, and I know that I should do some laundry.

Beyond that, I am totally lost right now. Perhaps perusing the internet a bit more to track down music that I want to buy. The one thing making it so easy to sit here and waste time is how good Pandora has been today. I think I have skipped all of three songs since I put it on hours and hours ago.

Behind Closed Doors

What ever happened to "open public debate," and "no more closed door
meetings?"

I know that it's a short post, but I am so far beyond mad. An
Administration and a party that promised me (I guess all of us)
openness and transparency in Government is now reconciling the bill
which will be the largest change to America in my life time behind
closed doors. WTF!!!

Not that I should be shocked. Most of the people in DC seem to be
crooks, and it seems like no matter how hard we try to change that,
they all just get more and more crooked.

My favorite comments of the day:

"The Louisianna Purchase" - Referring to Mary Landrieu's $300MM vote.

"Nebraskans need not worry. If unemployment forces them all onto
Medicare, at least it costs their state nothing."

"Nobody read the bill before passing it the first time, do you really
believe that they're going to bother reading it this time? The debate
behind closed doors could be a week or two of playing Wii. Hopefully
at least they're playing Wii Fit..."

... And May Lose Value

I have always had a passion for investing and the stock market. Long
before I became a part of the finance industry, the stock market
fascinated me. Being a "stock broker" was one of those jobs that
seemed so much cooler than pro-athlete or famous movie star... As I
grew older I learned more about the field and learned that the job I
really wanted was being a fund manager for a mutual fund.

Years later, I'm on my way to that goal, and yet somehow my goals have
changed again. More on that change later...

For now, me and my buddies have a "fantasy stock market game." Much
like our Fantasy Football Games, our stock game is a heated
competition and the season never ends. We all kicked off with a
million dollars and numerous investment restrictions that are to
monotonous to list here. As of today I am showing a return of 116%
this year, and leading the game. Granted, that is with tremendous
investment risk, and is by no means any way that ordinary people
should invest.

But DAMN it is fun to have shown that kind of return!

2010 kicks off a new year, and new numbers. The market did some great
things today, and kicked off the year right for me. I'm sure that you
will hear more from me about the game on The2KXproject, good and bad.
Please never take any of it as investment advice. Just remember that
investments are not FDIC insured, are not bank products, and may lose
value...

:-)