I saw on the news yesterday morning that a good Samaritan had pulled over to the side of the road to help someone. That someone killed the good Samaritan and stole his car.

I recently read something similar online about a woman, or a woman and a man, who were trekking across Europe in search of the "good" in people. I believe they too were murdered.

I remember the "Don't Tase Me Bro" incident, where a college kid went off on a diatribe during a John Kerry event, and was subsequently chased, caught, subdued, and then it would seem unnecessarily tasered. One might argue that the policy of the College Cops was to get a perpetrator on his stomach by any means necessary. In the video, it looks like the college guy is about half on his stomach, and slightly leaning to the side. His hands were already cuffed. And then they zapped him.

Anyway, I remember seeing in the news (during the somewhat intense coverage that followed the incident) that reporters were shocked about how the college kid's peers did extremely little to help him. Using footage to back up their argument, you could see what appeared to be a stifling of the 1st amendment by a brutal authority. (Although it could be argued that the guy was an idiot and deserved to be shut up, but either scenario seems to melt into the other in a "Total Recall" way.) Meanwhile, the local citizenry (meaning students sitting 4 feet away and watching) does nothing. Well, not totally nothing. One girl started yelling as the cops continued about their business and ignored her.

It all just makes me wonder what kind of a world we live in. I'm the kind of person who takes into consideration some pretty horrible possible outcomes in any given situation. Like, "If you do this, then this bad thing might happen…" "Oh please, that's just paranoia." I don't seriously expect the worst outcome, it just pops into my head as one of many possibilities.

I guess a lot of people are buying into the paranoia…

Or should be, given the first two events I mentioned here.

This was on Yahoo:

Isn't that amazing? That dog was so lucky, but even more than that…

The kid!

The kid made me think of how lucky the youth of today are to be living in a time when technology is opening up vast new horizons for everybody.

Seeing that kid sit next to such a cool device just made me think back to the old saying, "The future is now!"

I recently came across PaintYourLife.com, a website and company that can convert your favorite photos into painted or hand-drawn works of art. You can order something done in Oil, Watercolor, Charcoal, Pastel, Acrylic, or Pencil. If you want, they’ll ship it to you in a tube, or you could have it framed.

The site is very user friendly, and they’ve got a ton of pictures to browse. This is my favorite image from their site:

Depending on the type of art and the service you choose, your custom painting can arrive in anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks. You can preview your painting before receiving it. You can buy gift certificates for your friends. And you can provide special instructions for the artist, as is the case when you want the painting to be different in some way from the photograph. I always insist on adding Scarlett Johansson to every painting I commission!

I think one of the rules of giving great and unique gifts is to make them personalized and memorable. Secretly ordering a professional piece of art based on a photograph is a neat way to surprise someone. Won’t they be thrilled to be immortalized on canvas? I think so. And if the Dorian Gray effect occurs, so much the better!

These days, with so much digital this and digital that, it’s highly comforting to be able to relax and enjoy a quality painting on the wall that isn’t of strangers, or flowers, or clowns. It’s of you and your loved ones, and it looks terrific! Thank goodness for PaintYourLife.com.

Dot fm is really for the Federated States of Micronesia, but anyone can register it, and it's good for radio stations. But HowTo.fm isn't exclusively about the radio. It looks like it's about everything!

I really like the design. It feels professional, modern, and intelligent. And maybe a little red.

It's got heaps of articles people have submitted about How To do all kinds of things, from Maximizing Your Google AdWords Impact to Modifying Content by Using Paired Custom Tags. It's really neat.

The thing I like most is how the ads flow with the content. I don't really like sites that try to shove ads in your face, and with HowTo.fm there seems to be a nice, even flow. It's like the content is kept in a giant, clean room, and the ads take up only a little wall space. Nice.

Wow, there's still so much cool stuff on the web that I don't know about! At least now I'm a little bit further from total ignorance.

I was just reading about how the U.S. wanted to possibly replace old, aging nukes with newer ones. This was in Scientific American in April of 2007.

Some guys said that the bombs would still work after 100 years.

I was only about 2/3 through the first page when the thought occurred to me, "Could an old nuclear bomb from the 70's spontaneously blow up?"

I remember an episode of MacGyver from the first season in which he and a friend dealt with old cases of dynamite that were leaking nitroglycerin. The nitroglycerin looked like clear hair gel. When a single drop was thrown to the ground, that small amount caused a potentially harmful explosion. Pretty serious stuff.

I was wondering about medical trials for new drugs. You test some people for a few months or years, and then say, "Well, I guess this drug is ok." Then 80 years later it turns out it causes cancer. Like cigarettes! Everyone was smoking back in the 50's, and no one was really aware of the long term harm it could cause.

So it all makes me wonder if there are long term dangers that can build up over time, with respect to aging nuclear weapons, and if there is no way we could possibly prepare for them. Like what if there's an as yet undiscovered state that the radioactive material could reach which would result in a random atomic detonation?

If this were possible, every aging bomb in existence would be at risk, and we've got thousands, right?

One thing I enjoy about life in 21st century America is the incredible amount of options we have. Technology and abundant knowledge have afforded us many opportunities to change our world, and ourselves. In the past, the human body was limited to undergoing certain, inevitable changes based on age and other circumstances. Now, with the power of skilled doctors and surgery, we can reverse certain effects and restore a natural form and function to our physique.

Hair transplants, facelifts, and vaginal tightening are just a few of the procedures that have been and continue to be used to give people back the physical look and feel that they had years ago.

It’s interesting how certain issues that used to be taboo to discuss are now a bit more openly accepted. For instance, some women are to a certain degree unimpressed with the changes their bodies accrue over time. Childbirth and aging can have major physiological effects, and many of those effects are not compatible with the most thrilling of sex lives. Not that a sex life is the only type of life. But for many, it’s highly crucial to a successful relationship.

These effects, coupled with our knowledge of the potential to reverse them, have led to a new wave of interest in plastic surgery. Dr. Miklos and Dr. Moore are two internationally renowned surgeons who operate out of Atlanta, and have used surgery and lasers to reform that certain part of a woman’s body to make it regain its lost youth. They have done this in 46 states, and in 23 countries. Their comprehensive web site can be reached at LVRAtlanta.com.

Can you believe it?! Mick Dundee…

Actually, it was a different Paul Hogan who invented High Density Polyethylene. And he had the help of Robert Banks. Both worked for Phillips Petroleum, and this was back in 1951. So they come up with this stuff, and it gets used to make hula hoops, and everybody goes nuts for those things. So HDPE immediately cements itself a place in history.

Fast forward a few decades, and HDPE is still around, being used to make all types of things, including children’s toys. Truly a superior toy material. It’s definitely better than lead! Although that lead train set is still a holiday favorite.

Anyway, you’ve probably seen HDPE in use more than you think, as milk bottles and water pipes. I’ve seen it around. It’s represented by a number 2 in the “recycle this” triangle. HDPE rules! And manufacturers of items consisting of HDPE can buy their polyethylene in a whole variety of convenient formats: film, granules, regrind, pellets, or just basic scrap.

Did you know that if you had an excess of HDPE on your hands, you could pay people to take it away? That’s right! Because they can break it down, refine it, and then sell it to companies that go through HDPE like mad. I mean if it’s everywhere, it’s got to come from somewhere. Raw Polymers Ltd is a company that will pay you for your post industrial and post consumer HDPE.

I just got finished watching "WarGames" (1983), starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy as a couple of high school students who get caught up in a potential WWIII. How did it all happen?

Broderick hacked into NORAD thinking it was a gaming company. He wanted to find the soon-to-be-released games and play them at home, ahead of time, for free. What he ended up finding in NORAD (which he didn't know about until it was too late) was a learning computer that also happened to play games. So he selected Global Thermonuclear War, and the computer began the simulation.

"Joshua" is the name of that computer, and it had recently been given control of the final launch sequence at NORAD (and perhaps elsewhere) for the nuclear missiles.

Joshua combined the simulation with reality, and it looked like it would eventually launch real missiles at Russia as part of the ongoing game. That would provoke a Russian counterstrike, and wipe out all our major cities.

Ok, you probably knew some or all of that already. But I realized a couple things watching the film that I hadn't thought of before. These don't relate to the movie, but to life in general in our Nuclear Age.

First, if we could conceivably scare ourselves into launching on the Russians because of a computer error…

…and the Russians themselves seem to have had a history of faulty, malfunctioning equipment…

…then it isn't inconceivable that they could launch on us because of a computer error.

The second thought I had was with regard to the President. I realized that…

…if all the high-up military officials are acutely aware…

…of the fact that the U.S., Russia, and other countries…

…each have nuclear missiles pointed at high-yield targets all over the planet…

…and those missiles are a little more than a button's press away from launching and wiping out millions of people…

…then the President must live by a different set of rules than most citizens. On top of the whole "He's the President, he can do whatever he wants," deal.

I hadn't really been worried about a nuclear war. I didn't really dwell on it, whether I'm outside, inside, whatever. Nothing to worry about.

But I thought for the President, there must be one of two possibilities. Either he knows the risk of an unprovoked nuclear strike at any given time, and is constantly aware of the possibility that in the next few minutes he'll have to seek shelter in a bunker somewhere…

Or he lets his assistants worry about that.

But I figure when you deal with issues this big on a daily basis, you might equate a nuclear strike with rain, and your hardened bunker with a house. Stay inside the house when its raining. Take an "umbrella" with you when it looks like rain. Always keep an eye out for other places to seek shelter from the storm.

But I guess with missile defense systems, and the apparent "calm" between the U.S. and the long-range Nuclear Powers, there's not much to worry about.

…Or is there?

I was reading about Iraq, and I saw that Baghdad is hinged on the border of chaos. After 5 years of U.S. intervention, that area is still unstable.

I wondered what things would be like if we’d left that area alone and focused on catching bin Laden.

Did you see the movie “Mr. Destiny?” Jim Belushi was living what seemed like an OK life, but his front lawn and driveway were all mud. The slacker landscaping guy wouldn’t get on the ball, and kept asking for thousands of dollars more each time he and Jim met. Then Jim goes back in time, mentally, to a crucial moment in his past, changes it, and returns to the world he would have been living in all along had the past played out like he changed it. He goes to his house. His lawn is full of lush, green grass. His driveway looks terrific. But he doesn’t live there! A cop lives there instead, because Jim now lives in a mansion. When you think about it, something must have happened between the cop and the landscaper. If he hired the same guy, he probably gave him some kind of ultimatum, and saw concrete results. (ha ha)

Well, it all just makes me wonder how Iraq would be if some aggressive dictator showed up and used brutal force to instill peace. I know the U.S. wants to maintaining a certain level of civility, and I agree that we should. But in a tactical sense, I’m wondering if the fighters and Iraqi militia guys would ever allow that method to work.

It’s like a nice babysitter comes over to watch a bunch of rambunctious kids. They see she’s nice, so they know they can take advantage of her, and pelt her with Nerf darts all day. I figure that’s why we haven’t achieved peace yet, because the violence is desired too much by some, and they don’t respond as well to “soft” treatment. And sending a brutal babysitter runs contrary to our ideals.

Hmm, but maybe not even brutality would be enough to remove the urge to war… I guess if the problem is a fundamental part of someone’s ideals, then no matter what you do, if you can’t act in accordance with those ideals, lasting peace cannot be maintained. So when someone programs themselves with ideals so stringent that they don’t allow for their neighbors to be of a certain type, I guess that is like declaring war on the world. Because everybody is neighbors with everybody.

You may be aware that I’m still not over my incredibly painful addiction to money. Good thing I don’t suffer from the similarly debilitating sports addiction. Although sometimes I just want to kick back and watch the game! With chips and dip of all varieties… And then if I don’t like what’s happening I’ll yell at the TV! And if I really don’t like what’s going on… Well let’s just say I lose more TVs that way.

I guess it would be really bad if I was a gambling junkie on top of everything, and needed to constantly update my baseball betting picks.

Thankfully, I’m a bigger fan of betting on…the DSRL!