Lightening as an energy source?

With all over the clever people that there are in the world, there must be someone who can find a way to harness the energy of lightening!  There has to be a way to attract the lightening to the same place on a regular basis.  Then the trick is to take the sudden and incredibly vast amount of electrical energy from a lightening strike and divide it into smaller amounts that can be either stored or input into our energy grids?  It seems to me that once a method to funnel the energy is found, then the same equipment can be used as lightening is attracted into those systems over and over again. The high cost of damage from lightening strikes could be reduced or even eliminated since the lightening will follow the easiest and quickest path to the ground.

"Given that the average Midwest thunderstorm releases enough electrical energy to power the entire U.S. for 20 minutes, who knows what the potential is for the harvesting of lightning fields and arrays of bolt conductors." 

http://inhabitat.com/power-your-home-with-lightening/

Since the Tampa Bay area of Florida is the "Lightening Capital of the United States", perhaps funding should be provided to conduct research on this fascinating possibility here in Tampa Bay!  With the increasing high cost of energy, now is a better time than ever to make progress on this and other forms of "green energy". 

Reform Healthcare?

I find it hard to believe that any middle class American can laugh or endorse this stupidity.  It is the wealthest Americans who get all of the tax cuts and pay tax accountants to find loopholes so that they don't have to pay any taxes at all!  These wealthy ultraconservatives bulk at government spending but are quickly willing to take advantage of the programs that the government pays for. 

Healthcare reform?  Let's be serious-the Republicans don't want to reform health care, they want to eliminate it.  The Senators and Representatives who oppose what they call "Obama Care" that would allow every American have access to health care are the same ones who accept large contributions from the wealthy Pharmaceutical companies and the health care industry.   Every other Industrialized Nation in the world has some type of health care coverage for their citizens.
 

Enough stupid voters in Florida elected a Governor who had ran a health care company that swindled the Medicare Program out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Being a Chief Executive Officer of a company should imply that you know what is going on in and take responsibility for your company.  Rick Scott either declared no knowledge of, refused to answer questions about, or took the fifth amendment to avoid taking responsibility.  Rick Scott should be in prison not in the Governor's Mansion!

A friend of my wife sent a video of a comedian who does a routine about "wasteful" government spending, the You Tube video, "Tim Hawkins - The Government Can".  Her daughter sent it to her with a note that it was hilarious!  My wife's friend can not afford to pay for healthcare for herself or her mother who has Alzheimer's.  She relies on Medicare. Yet she thinks that the government programs that provide these services for her and her Mom are a waste of taxpayers money!?!   Her daughter somehow managed file bankruptcy twice and was still able to buy a new car!  Her daughter use to get medicaid.  She and her daughter spend thousands of dollars traveling all over the country going to seminars that promise that you don't have to pay your taxes or your mortgage, but was totally suprised when the bank forclosed on the daughter's house! This is a case of either not thinking things through or plain and simple hyprocrisy!

You wouldn't be so gun ho to reform  health care if you couldn't get any medical or health care for you or your loved ones because you couldn't pay for it.  How about me?  I have Alzheimer's, once I can no longer work and I lose my health insurance, I'll end up on Medicaid.  Who pays for all of these programs, the middle class tax payer.  When the wealthy get ill, they can afford to go anywhere in the world to be treated.  Yet the wealthy bulk at the very thought of anyone else getting any type of health care.

  

IF YOU ultra conservatives really what do reform health care, voluntarily and publically pledge to remove yourself from taking advantage of the health care system.  Those Senators and Representatives who want to eliminate "Obama Care" should unenroll themselves from the excellent Health Insurance Program that we, the taxpayers, pay for. When you are willing to put your money where your mouth is, then maybe the rest of us will listen to you.  Until then, PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

Support the movement to protect the privacy of individuals on the Internet.

In their report, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change", the Federal Trade Commission backed the creation of a "Do Not Track" option to protect the privacy of individuals using the Internet.  The Internet is growing rapidly and is being coming more widely used by more people with each passing day.  It is important that our right to privacy be protected.  Contact your  governments representatives to pass legislation to create this option and protect our privacy while shopping, chatting, surfing or doing anything on the web. 

According to the Internet World Stats, as of June 30, 2010 there were 1,966,514,816 Internet users worldwide.  That figure must have easily passed the Two Billion mark by now.  Individual Privacy is an issue that is should be important to every citizen in every nation.  Legislation like this should be passed in every nation.  Then the issue of Individual Privacy should be expanded to not only protect our use of the Internet but should be applied to all aspects of our lives, including our personal, financial and medical information. 

If you are in the United States, go to <Congress.Org> where you can easily contact The President, your Senator's and Representatives in Congress about this and any other issue.

Now is the time to get involved and this is just the issue to do it . 

I'm Gonna Live My Life Out Loud!

Shortly after Christmas, people started saying, "Happy New Year".  In the past, New Year's Eve was never a big deal for me.  Sure, I would sometimes watch the Dick Clark special and maybe make a few resolutions, but that was about it.  Last week, I winched every time I heard it. 

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a video about Alzheimer's. It featured a discussion segment that was hosted by actor David Hyde Pierce.  In the video, one man in his early 50's, was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's.  What made this man's situation noteworthy was that his mother and two of his sister's were also stricken with Early Onset Alzheimer's.  After informing his family of his diagnosis, he stated  that he may not recognize them by next year.  That stuck in my head.  Will this be my last New Year's Eve?

I understand that people with Early Onset Alzheimer's can "live" a long time.  However, I have a problem with the term "live".  So, from this point on, I am going to refer to living or my life as the time that I have where I still have memories of family and friends and can still do things that I enjoy.  In my opinion, once I am no longer able to recognize people or remember events or complete simple tasks, that is when I will die.  After that, my wife Scherry and family, will have to deal with Zippy (the name Scherry gave to what will left of my  body or my what I call my "shell").

I had to work on New Year's Eve, and was really dreading it as I would have to hear "Happy New Years" hundreds of times that day.  As the day progressed, I began thinking that "this is bullshit!"  I'm not going to spend my last days overwhelmed and preoccupied with my quickly passing life.  I borrowed a line from the Rob Thomas song, "Someday" and decided that "I WAS GOING TO LIVE MY LIFE OUT LOUD!"   I am going to try to squeeze as much fun, adventure and purpose out of every spare lucid moment that I have left.  On a break, I went out and got a New Year's hat and some colorful beaded neck chains and wore them the rest of the evening.  I told EVERYONE that I saw to have a Happy New Year!   The hell with all of the negativity, I want to enjoy what time I have left!

Although it wasn't exciting, today we went shopping and then I spent some time cleaning off a pile of papers off of my computer table  and started to get rid of things now, so that no one else would have to.  I have to admit that I am a hell of a pack rat and have been saving clippings of newspaper articles that I found interesting and just saved just about everything else that I thought might be useful in the future.  The hoarding is going to stop.  My eldest brother died last year and he was a pack rat, too.  His apartment was so bad that he had little paths around the piles of boxes (Scherry pointed out that it must be a hereditary thing.) and other junk that he had saved.  He just had a little spot cleared out for himself in front of the television.  My family came and helped out a little, but it was my other brother, the middle brother (as I am the youngest of all of my siblings) who had to deal with all of the junk.

Later, I got on the computer and set up a Skype account for Scherry and myself.  I wrote an e-mail to my step daughter which I don't think that I have ever done before, telling her about her Mom's new Skype account and am attempting to start a dialogue with her.  She and other members of Scherry's family were really supportive and volunteered to help with taking care of me when Scherry broke the news to them about my Alzheimer's.

 After checking <Congress.Org> (a marvelous site), I sent an e-mail about the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act, stating that we must fund the use Stem Cells to aid in the research for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and all of the other diseases that would benefit from such research to my Senator's (S. 3766) and Congressman  (H.R. 4808).  I came up with a slogan, too!  "Support Government Funding for Stem Cell Research, the life you save may be your own!"

I am already thinking about what I am going to put on my BUCKET LIST, the list of things to do before you kick the bucket.   Fasten your seat belts everybody, because we are in for one hell of a ride!