--I'm not really sure why the Indy 500 is the most popular race in the world (and the most attended sporting event). It's really rather boring. At least it makes a giant oval seem tight, unlike NASCAR, as some of these cars yesterday were lapping at an average speed of nearly 230 mph (NASCAR is maybe 180 on the same sort of track). Those tiny cars were flying around the track. And they stick to the ground, too, thanks to all the downforce. In fact, they're so short, they look *flat* from the cameras, just sprites being projected from the screen of the track. Not only that, but they used graphics in interesting ways, right on the track under the cars! They were ads, of course. (Of course.)

There was one NASCAR-style wreck where the guy's car caught air and landed upside down. Keep in mind these are open cockpit cars. But the guy was completely unhurt--such is the excellent design of these cars that in many respects they're actually safer in a wreck than the ancient NASCAR design.

Gil de Farran won the race and for some reason they gave him a jug of sweet cold milk at the winner's circle. He said "I Love Milk" to the mic and took a good swig. Amen to that!!

--I'm reading Brief Interviews with Hideous Men again--actually some of it for the first time since I skipped around before. I need to get Broom of the System, or maybe Girl with Curious Hair. And yes, Infinite Jest did kick my ass and beat me into submission. YOU try to read it (at 1079 pages of small type, it is the most dense and daunting and often incomprehensible book I've ever seen... and I *think* I had more fun reading Plutarch's Lives... I'll stick to DFW's less abusive (and infinite) writing, thank you--in some way, I think I disproved his thesis--that some force compels us to finish and actually convince ourselves we *like* a book that definitely hates us!). I really want to read Fahrenheit 451 again though (obviously not DFW). I was just in Junior High when I read it.

--One week and school starts. I have a couple job interviews this week. The AG Edwards internship didn't happen, which is fine. I'm alright. The weekend after school starts, we have our first SIG meeting of the Summer, and then the real fun begins. I know I'll be busy as heck getting everything together. I'm banking on Dave coming back for the Fall. Please? I also need Larry and Danielle to be my left and right hands. I cannot do this alone! I never wanted to be supreme ruler of the SIG, and Jason's got enough on his plate covering all the stuff that ISN'T Portfolio Management. I also desperately need to have a meeting with all the Finance professors.

--I never watch TV commercials. But I saw a Saturn ad the other day which contained a guy I've met. When I worked for Follett (UD Bookstore), we had to do our own "training" video--they would choose one store every few weeks to make some kind of point to the rest of the stores. So they had this guy who talked way too fast and seemed like he was on cocaine. And now he's doing Saturn ads.

--News flash: Lightning can and most often DOES strike the same spot twice, or even three or four times.

--I was listening to the radio. A guy with a low voice and a woman with a high voice were basically speaking simultaneously. But I found I could discern both voices at once, perhaps because of the quite different frequency ranges. Interesting. Yet if I had headphones on (100% stereo separation) and the same (or a similar) voice was saying different things in each ear, I'd only be able to fully comprehend one side at once.

--But while I'm discussing the radio, let me express my distaste and frustration for this new interference on my AM reception. I have four AM-capable radios in the living quarters, and they all now suffer from the same blaring interference which started five days ago and hasn't let up for a second. It makes no difference whether I tune up or down a little, or adjust antennae. I even tried switching stations, but 1080 actually comes in the best, which is depressing. AM radio is my news lifeline. It's what I listen to when I'm not listening to music. I'm not happy about this. I don't know where to start though. Is it someone here in the building running something? Would I have ANY recourse even if I knew for a fact what was causing it? Will it be like this all Summer? Makes me want to smash my face against the wall. Why can't it be my FM reception? I wouldn't care about that now that the NBA is drawing to a close.

--And my Self CD is very late. Eight days late if it comes tomorrow. This is the first time an Amazon Marketplace seller has been anything less than perfect. I'm a little suspicious since I ordered this one from "musicbrokers" rather than just some person out there with a few CDs to sell. It's only a couple bucks though.

--Whenever I visit my father's house for a few days I get a taste of what it would be like to be able to afford lots of food and to easily transport it home and to never worry about rationing it over the month. It's healthy. I get veggies, fruits, as much milk as I like, hearty meat, a lot of variety, five or six good meals a day. I like it. It would cost a lot to eat that way at home. They also get free food brought to them at the clinic nearly every day, so there is that. There's always something new. I'm not crying poverty here, but I mean yesterday I had two slices of bread for breakfast, a Ramen for lunch, and Lipton noodles for dinner, and that's it. That comes in at about 950 calories, according to the packages, except I prepared the noodles without the recommended milk (only water), so it's less. I also did a fair amount of exercise, including about forty-five minutes of shooting baskets and several miles of cycling. It wears you down to eat like that, after a while. I would guess I was up around 4000 calories a day in Fort Worth. Also had air-conditioning there (I don't run mine), which I think makes a metabolic difference.

--Mavs are done. Well, almost. They lost again. I believe they will all have a nice vacation after tomorrow evening. It's like in that movie where the one swordsman pulls the other swordsman slowly down onto his sword--he's convulsing and screaming at first, but as the sword goes deeper he gets a calm and stops struggling and is almost anesthetized to it and accepting and finally the first swordsman is done and lets the dead swordsman down almost gently on the ground. I believe this is the last I'll speak of my Mavs this year. See em again in November.

--When I was younger, in high school and just beyond, liberalism seemed cool, seemed the way to be. The 60s seemed cool. I dug learning about that time period and trying to reflect my reverence for it. I also bought into all the stereotypes about "conservative assholes" and "evil Republicans". I thought Republicans were a bunch of unfeeling, racist, sexist gun nuts. Plus it felt good to tell my father I was a "communist". I used to have blown out arguments with my college roommate Steve, who was a [gasp!] business major and a staunch conservative (we were still friends though, despite my impenetrable thickness). I thought the world of my girlfriend Dana, who was as politically correct and bleeding of heart as they come--she could do no wrong. I thought Rush Limbaugh was Satan incarnate.

I'm here to tell you that I didn't have a single clue about what TRUE liberalism, and its more atrocious and devious cousin socialism were all about. I had absolutely NO foundation for any of my "beliefs" I argued for. Somehow I couldn't see that some of the biggest spokesmen for the left were howling retards. I had no idea how deep it ran, how fundamentally... deplorable are the underlying assumptions behind hardcore socialism. I wanted the mainstream, watered-down liberalism as something to spout about and feel embattled for, a way to feel justified and in the right about HATING conservatives. All the while, I was at heart a conservative myself, unwilling and unable to in any meaningful way actually accept the tenets of socialism, but also blind to how detestable and nauseating real, primal socialism and communism is.

--ABC news is continuing its love fest with Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'm not going to watch it, but I expect Babwa Wawters will be gushing over her, nearly begging her to please run for President this time around. Please no. We for certain do not need another Clinton administration. Remember when Der Slickmeister, in a blatant display of nepotism, handed the socialized healthcare plan off to his wife? I have to give credit to the Congressional Democrats of the day for nixing that mega-government plan.

Socialized healthcare is redistribution of wealth on a grand and indefensible scale. It would create a gigantic new bureaucratic, government organization, place an enormous new tax burden on the middle class, destroy the quality of healthcare any given citizen at any income level has access to, abolish all choice, institute federally-funded abortions, create a system several times more convoluted and bad for patients than the current HMO system, and remove much of the incentive for medical students to become medical students.

On the plus side, irresponsible, underachieving folks, like myself (currently), could have access to extremely mediocre healthcare after going to exactly the location we're told to go to and waiting for hours, all paid for by the productive members of society who achieve and prop up this country with their hard work and perseverence. On the minus side, ALL folks would have to settle for the SAME extremely mediocre healthcare with NO choice all the time (instead of just after age sixty-five as it is today).

Are the examples of Canada, Britain, Australia, Medicare, Medicaid, the VHA, and the charity hospitals not enough for us to know what a disaster socialized healthcare would be for this country?? The fact is, we have a system in this country by which people can get heathcare. It takes a bit of planning, discipline, and work on the part of citizens, and it's not just real tolerant of laziness, irresponsibility, and delinquence.

--Have you heard of the United States of Europe? Yah, they're trying to get that off the ground right now. Tony Blair is unbelievable. I don't know about the rest of Europe, because they might as well be from Mars, but here is Britain's prime minister vowing to give away Britain's SOVEREIGNTY! Parliament would be a local council. Britain's economy, its defense, foreign and immigration policies, as well as its justice, transport, health and commerce systems would all be under EU control! Blair decided AGAINST a vote or referendum, because the issue of whether to terminate the existence of Britain as a country is "too complex" for the citizens to understand!

Doesn't seem very complex to me. This is why the UN and EU can just stay the FUCK away from the US, and why the longer we avoid a hyperliberal President and/or a Democratic majority in Congress, the better. It's SIMPLE, not complex. It's the difference between having a government that is accountable to the people vs. being ruled by another law-making body from a distance. What bullshit. Told you I still didn't trust Blair. Seems he's all too ready to jump in bed with Schroeder and Chirac. This will be the end of British right to self-determination, self-defense, and protection of law.

Britain needed the Anglosphere--the US, UK, Australia, NZ, parts of Canada, and India forming their own commerce union with similar political ideas and interests. Now, instead, they're getting the EU Constitution, which they won't be voting for in any way. It's an abuse of power that's hard to imagine. "Don't worry your little plebe head, all of us smart Liberals are looking out for you". Decades of opposing the Soviet Union and its "Eastern Bloc", and in no time the EU turns itself into the Soviet Union. Why is it so hard to grasp that individual freedom works wherever it is tried, and that collectivism inevitably fails miserably? These are still human beings. The need to tell others what to do, and then coerce them to do it, is the most insiduious, despicable poison of our times. People have died for freedom, how can they abandon it so casually? Ugh.

--Wouldn't it be nice if, when you banned guns in your country, the guns went *poof* and all disappeared never to return? Doesn't work like that, does it? You may think the unofficial NRA slogan "if you ban guns only criminals will have guns" is spurious sophistry, but is THIS kind of story (from the ultra-lib BBC) really that bewildering? I think not. Want to reduce the incidence of gun crimes? Arm the citizenry. Allow them the basic human right of self-protection. Want to emulate the actions of Hitler in asserting totalitarian power in Germany? A good place to start is by banning guns.