Entourage, Season 1 Show 1 – “Entourage”

In any post I have with this kind of thing I am going to work diligently to not just be a blow by blow of the episode. I have done that in the past and I find those as boring to read as everyone else. So this is a new approach.

I am a television and movie junkie. Just ask anyone. So I have seen samplings of most stuff. I find many thing predictable.

I do however, find Entourage a new show to me, even though it has been around a while apparently refreshing.

Season 1 Show 1 is always just character introduction. This episode not only does that but it also entertains. You can see the clear potential for this series from the start.

What I find utterly refreshing is that this show makes no apologies about what it is. A show for guys about guys. It is clearly unapologetically not geared for women. I applaud them for this.

Another thing I find is that there is a character, Ari, who is geared to what goes through all of our heads at one point in time or another. When this guy is confronted with the knee jerk reaction that most people keep to themselves he says it out loud. I love this character. Its fantastic. He is brash, brazen, a jerk, rude, and dear lord says stuff out loud to people I really wish I could do in my day to day life and career. The man lives the fantasy we all have.

If you want to see what I mean watch that episode it is apparent from the moment he walks in frame.

DaScienceGuy – I will be watching more…..

Iran putting missiles in range of the United States

We always knew that Iran didn’t like us very much.

When President Obama said no to the missile shield and turned off any work going into it I believe he did it because the threat was so far from our territory. A fine idea as that is one expensive system.

Well now the story has changed..

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1714/iran-missiles-in-venezuela

Iran has now made an agreement with Venezuela to put missiles in the range of the United States. Let’s couple that with their desire for nuclear weapons and think for a second.

President Obama? Hello? Where are you on this issue.

I know you are busy. I heard there was a dream act thing and now the democrats in the house are messing around with your tax agreement. All those things are good to do but this one could be really bad.

A country with a desire for nukes, a tendancy to get testy and in range of us? Does anyone sniff a problem here?

I would hope that some diplomatic solution exists but I’m not certain of it. I am kind of glad the job of President isn’t mine at the moment.

DaScienceGuy

I’m not sure where to take this meltdown of Democrats

Sometimes I watch the Republicans and say wow they can’t all get on the same page but that is normal for any large group of people unless you are preprogrammed drones.

I used to say the Dems were just drones…That appears to be changing.

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/12/08/liberals-try-prevent-pelosi-bringing-tax-bill-floor

The President compromised and made a deal with the republicans on taxes and such. Now the democrats in the house are moving to stop him? Wow so much for bipartisanship and wow the meltdown. They say that gridlock in Washington is the fault of the incoming party yet they aren’t there yet.

Interesting. I’m not sure where to take it other than to say our President appears politically very weak and how does this play around the world? One thing I know is that it isn’t good.

Fairwell predictable politics!

DaScienceGuy

Ongoing historical comparison to modern conflicts WW I vs Afghanistan and Iraq

I have been lucky enough to have piles of documentaries on DVD in my house. I have seen most of them before in years gone by but I look at some of those concerning WWI and WWII differently now. In particular how the lessons we learned in those wars may not have taken hold like they should have.

I was watching one recently and took a few notes concerning tidbits of WWI that had certainly left my head.

The first was that in this war which took place between 1914 and 1918. During that time 22-Million people died. That is a lot. This was generationally changing. Think of how many scientists/engineers might have been in there….Poets, Artists the list goes on.

This was apparent to me that this War set the stage for WWII. That to me seems to be a parallel to Iraq parts 1 and 2. If you must go to war be sure to finish the job you start. Lesson missed? I think maybe. If George Bush (President number 41) had finished the job perhaps George Bush (president 43) may not have done what he did.

The other thing WWI did is show lots of countries what military technology to develop. I think WWI did something similar for WWII. Germany certainly developed lots of tech.

Another interesting note I saw in this recent documentary was that the European countries involved in WWI at the outset weren’t afraid of what happened if they went to War…They were afraid of what they did if we hadn’t gone to war. To anyone who paid the least bit of attention to the outset of Gulf War II this sounds EXACTLY like what president #43 was saying!!!

The other interesting bit I think that draws an IMMEDIATE parallel to modern day is that many countries and leaders assumed this war would be very fast (referring to WWI). The reason was technology. Surely with all their tech it would be over fast….Again sound familiar yet wrong?

My point here is that we all need to be students of history no matter what our field. The danger is that we repeat the mistakes.

Nancy Pelosi just doesn’t listen to the American People

Nancy Pelosi just missed the lesson of the election. Either that or she just doesn’t care what those that elected her and write her paycheck think.

She just declared war on the folks that invest money and create jobs. She is basically saying that if you are ‘rich’ you shouldn’t be. Perhaps you got there but being a jerk and ripping people off. I doubt it but maybe you did in her eyes.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/131729-house-passes-legislation-to-extend-only-some-bush-era-tax-cuts

She did something interesting. She poked a stick in the eye of Americans. She is basically saying she can do whatever she wants. The reason I say this is that even those this legislation passed the house it has no shot of passing the Senate. None….

Ok folks…I know the first comment I am going to get it ‘you rich people’. I WISH I was in those tax brackets. I hope someday to be in those brackets. But she just took the incentive away from me to work harder and get there. Why should I if I just write a larger check to the government?

If she can call us names we can call her names right? Here we go….Nancy…I know you are probably a nice woman, sure you may make a good neighbor…But I for one think you are something more a’kin to the Wicked Witch of the West than you are to someone I want living next door.

I think you should go spend more time looking for a new plastic surgeon to hide your aging than playing with the American people like you are.

Can the people of California please vote this woman out? Should I move to her district and challenge her?

DaScienceGuy

Shared Sacrifice – Obama to put off vacation – WOW!

The President, the Vice-President and many of the politicians we see on the news talk about shared sacrifice. This article made me want to throw things at the computer screen.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/30/obama.vacation.tax.cuts/index.html

Basically the President may delay his Hawaii vacation so he can deal with things in Washington. Well let me be the first to say THANK you Mr. President for noticing there was some work to do around the office.

When you spoke of shared sacrifice I wasn’t aware it meant waiting to get on your private jet and fly off to a place most Americans save money for years to go visit just once! I mean after all it has probably been two months since you took a vacation. Thanks for the sacrifice, I do hope you discover how to balance your work and social life better. Next thing you know it will be the basketball game gets pushed back 30 minutes.

WOW! We found their version of sacrifice. I need to fork over another 10% of what I make and he needs to DELAY (note not cancel but delay) his vacation. Well no wonder he thinks sacrifice isn’t that bad. His is pretty easy! I want his version and he can have mine!

DaScienceGuy

Historical Perspective on Today’s War – WWI vs Current Conflict

I have been thinking a lot about today’s veterans and I have to hand it to each and every person who gets on an airplane to go to war to defend our or any country.

I think, however, that the culture has changed so much that we back here tend to think in ‘who is to blame’ far more than we should.

I have been told that there is a quote from the Civil War that “War is Hell” and I was recently watching a documentary on television about World War I where several veterans said yes it is Hell on Earth.

However, I think one big difference between culture then and culture now (NOT the troops the culture here) is that in the first World War the soldiers and everyone knew that every single time there was a firefight or battle that not every soldier was going to come back. They knew it. Now we get really mad at our politicians if a soldier goes into battle and dies.

I don’t want them to die. I am a veteran. NO ONE wants them to die. But SOLDIERS go into these situations knowing that it is possible. They don’t want to but it can happen. They know it. Yet they go. That takes a real sense of duty. I think they should all be commended for facing this fear so we don’t have to. We must rally behind their feeling and accept that risk but only if we have to go to war. War should be the LAST resort. If the current wars are the last resort or not is for people smarter than me to figure out. I hold no sway nor will I render an opinion on the validity of the conflicts we are in merely accept that we are in them.

Second, in some of these interviews the WWI vets states almost uniformly that going to war caused them to appreciate life and get the most they could out of it. THey learned to work hard and sacrifice. Something as a country we need to work harder at.

Third they knew it was kill or be killed. This is something we mess up today I think. We go into war and have rules that come down from politicians who are safe and cozy that killing is a last resort. I think WWI had it right. If that guy wants to kill me…Well I really want to kill him. That is war. We are at war, and our soldiers should be fully in the mode of those from previous conflicts when it comes to those who mean to do them harm.

Also several interviewed veterans said something that stuck me as missing from most of the current dialog. They believed that contry came before self gratification. How many people today would make that statement? I suspect it is VERY few.

DaScienceGuy

Collapse of the European Union – An Insider Perspective

One of the advantages of being a professional scientist is you meet people from all over the world. In the lab this week we have a visitor from Italy.

Me being me I was curiuos about the speculation seen here about the demise of the Euro. I had a previous post in which I predicted it would die off due to all the bailouts. This appears to not be the general thought in Europe. They will want to keep it but they are thinking that what would be best is some intergovernmental controls on what other folks can do.

Interestingly they want to take the same approach as is done here in the United States. One country fifty states.

Odd how they like our approach of 50 pseudoindependent govnerments with one unifying group at the top. INDEPENDENT states with some control of what goes on between them. NOT one massive thing at the top dictating all.

They like the model. I wonder what they think of our modern day execution of that model.

I shall try to find out and get back to my faithful readers.

The European Union and Bailouts

Let us not forget that debt issues with nations are not new. Many countries of used debt as a way to finance various things, wars, roads, etc. Never before in history has it been used as a method of sustaining the ‘normal’.

I think we need look no further than Europe to see our future if we don’t adjust the steering on the ship that is the United States. There are talks now about several other countries needing bailouts. The first after Greece and Ireland being probably Spain. They are having some really bad budgetary problems and they are just hoping that deep spending cuts will fix it. Deep spending cuts normally means more people on various forms of ‘assistance’ which is a different budget column no one ever cuts. I’m sure Spain isn’t counting for what will be the increased spending there and in my opinion as a result will be asking for a HUGE bailout from the rest of the EU as they all share a currency (the Euro).

The issue is normally when a country gets in this predicament they just cause inflation therefore the money is worth less than it used to be and the level of debt doesn’t seem so bad. We are toying with that here in the US (doubt me? Wait six months then let’s talk). Here is the problem….Germany….They are the biggest bank account over there to go take from and bail out other countries. The challenge is they aren’t in THAT great a shape on their own. So after bailing out Greece and Spain what happens? I think the Euro as a currency will go away, or stupidly the US will try to bail out all of Europe.

Now that being said what happens next? The world resorts back to gold? I’m really not sure what happens next but it doesn’t appear like it will be pretty economically speaking. What I am saying is that as the world economy becomes more and more connected we may not be out of the recession woods just yet. I think it gets worse before it gets better due to lack of economic leadership that makes sense anywhere. When I say makes sense I mean like as in a world that understands ENORMOUS debt is BAD!!!!

DaScienceGuy

Don’t forget to remember what is important – The Holidays and Family Forget Politics Wikileaks, Korea, Dem Vs. Rep.

I want everyone to remember what is really important not just this time of year but every time of year. Family, friends, and loving your life whatever that life is. Enjoy what you have and never be jealous of what someone else may have that you don’t. I think that last one is what causes more problems in this country and around the world than anything else. Jealousy is just silly.

On that note I went to the mall with the wife and kid today for some obvious Christmas stuff. Such as pictures with SANTA!

DaScienceGuy