I found this on Gizmodo.com
Travis Clay
Archive for April, 2009
Stand By Me – Playing for Change
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009How do we end racism? (part 2)
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009Seems that Washington Examiner didn’t get the memo.
CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON REGARDING RACE IN AMERICA?
By posting this (again), apparently I am still not listening.
Travis Clay
Townhall for Hope – Dave Ramsey
Friday, April 24th, 2009Growing up, I remember helping build and repair wooden things. The problem was that I was not the best hammerer. I would constantly miss or bend nails. Instead of tossing the nail to the side, I would have to hammer it out straight and try again. If we were repairing something and the nail was removed bent, I would have to do the same thing. This was a good example of not being wasteful. Reusing a nail may not have saved us millions of dollars, but it did help. It was something my father was taught. It was something I was taught.
Last night Amy and I went to the Dave Ramsey “Townhall for Hope” at a local church. It was an hour and a half of financial discussion and advice. Dave was able to express his thoughts on why our economy is currently in a recession.
His main point is that the spirit of fear has gripped our country. From Wall Street to Politicians to Media, fear is being pushed to ordinary citizens thus effecting everyone’s outlook on the situation. He pointed out the fact that we are no where close to living in a time similar to the Great Depression. We are also not as bad off as the recessions of 1972 and 1982. But because of the talking heads and the spend happy maniacs on Capital Hill, you would think we were about to crash and burn.
Another point he presented was that gold was not a solid investment. If our currency collapsed today, people would not all of the sudden start trading gold with each other. Instead, they would start bartering and trading goods and services. So think about that before you pick up the phone to order gold.
So don’t fear. It also would not hurt to ask your Congressmen and women to “Stop stimulating STUPID.”
If you do fear, Dave gave 3 points of advice:
1) Get Up and Take Action – “You are the cure, America. No one else is going to solve your problems for you—that’s your job! Find out how you can take control of your money, turn back the fear in your community, and hold your representatives accountable for the decisions they’re making on your behalf. ”
2) Stop Listening to Loser Talk – “We’re sick and tired of the “loser talk” that has permeated the media, the water cooler and the internet. Stop listening to the garbage, and start speaking a word of hope!”
3) Start Giving – “Learning how to give—whether it’s money, time or support—changes your whole mindset. Dave says it pretty clearly: “We can’t win if we can’t give.” If you want to win with money and change the nation, you’ve got to learn how to give again.”
(Thank God for copy and paste!)
I’m convinced that we are going to make it through this. In the end we will be smarter, stronger and more cautious.
If you are interested in watching the event, it will be rebroadcast.
Travis Clay
Earth Day: I’m just happy to be here.
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009The following is the prologue to Michael Crichton’s book Jurassic Park:
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land.
Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.
Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety.
Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It’s powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that’s happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.
When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time.
A hundred years ago we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.