The Pursuit of Happyness

I saw this movie with Will Smith tonight, "The Pursuit of Happyness", thinking that it'd be an okay way to kill 2 hours. But it really made me think. It made me think, for one, about how lucky I am. That although I don't have a job at the moment, I was able to save to prepare for such a possibility, so I don't have to worry about money the way Chris Gardner (who is based on a real person, and Smith plays him in the movie) did. I'm surrounded by all these luxuries that I take for granted, including the computer I'm typing on. Now that I have all this time on my hands until I get something, I go down to the Starbucks that just opened near me and I have a few cups of coffee, maybe a snack, while I'm reading and looking for work. Chris didn't have the money for coffee, plus there probably weren't any Starbucks in his day either.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm pampered. I've had to work hard to get my degree, and I walk a lot because I can't drive. Not to boast, but I do walk long distances sometimes and people look at me in disbelief when they realize this. I'm disabled, and I've had to overcome quite a bit of challenges. I still have more battles to go. But this movie's helped make me realize that I didn't do it all by myself. I've had help, a loving family (well, my mom and brother anyway) who's always been supportive and have helped me realize these opportunities. Not everyone has that.

There have been times when I'd feel sorry for myself and would obsess over the opportunities that have been denied to me over the years for being the kind of person I am. There have also been times when I'd tell myself that I've done a lot, when no one expected me to, that I got my degree, and that it's okay to sit back and relax, and not to worry. But this movie showed me that you should never feel comfortable, that you should always keep striving and pushing for your dream, no matter the pain or the hardship. The more I think about it, the more I want to make law school, and being a lawyer, happen. It's going to be a lot of work, and cost a lot of money. But I can't let that deter me. This is my due.

But you really should see this movie. It's very inspiring and has a great message.

Dumbass of the Day

One of my guilty pleasures is reading (and sometimes blogging) about a person who does a really dumb thing. It's usually a criminal; for example, last week someone was arrested at a courthouse in my county for bringing a stolen car to court on another matter. Seriously, what kind of idiot drives a stolen car to court?

Anyway, this wasn't so much stupid as it was a simple matter of being outsmarted. A producer from Dateline NBC smuggled in a hidden camera to a hackers' convention in Las Vegas. She was outed by somebody within NBC to Defcon, the hackers' conference. In turn, she was then outed by the people at Defcon, and fled the scene. I don't know what Dateline was thinking. An attractive blond lady is going to stick out like a sore thumb at a geeks' convention. What, there were no online predators or IPod thieves for Dateline to bring to justice this week?

Watch the video here

Get a free air freshener

Here is a chance for you to get a free air freshener, but there's a catch. You have to join the online community of the Sierra Club, which is free. The air freshener is also quite useful, it contains a list of the best and worst oil companies in terms of polluting the environment, their positions on global warming, and other things. So it comes in handy when you need to fill up.

Get it here

New funds for U.S. infrastructure proposed hours before bridge collapse

From cqpolitics.com:

Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: New Bridge and Road Funds Proposed — Hours Before Tragedy

By Craig Crawford | 12:00 PM; Aug. 02, 2007 | Email This Article

Just hours before the Minneapolis bridge collapsed yesterday, two senators with presidential ambitions jointly introduced legislation that would rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska deserve some credit for foresight in trying to spotlight a desperate need before this latest disaster sent politicians scrambling to talk up the problem.

Their bill proposes a national bank charged with prioritizing projects and developing creative ways to finance them. And notably, the supporting materials for the Dodd/Hagel plan shows that at $132 billion a year, the overall price tag for repairing dilapidated roads and bridges is quite close to the annual $120 billion that the U.S. is spending in Iraq.

Considering that Dodd and Hagel are calling for an end to the Iraq war, the Minneapolis tragedy hands them an enticing opportunity to argue that Americans should rebuild their own country before spending billions more on someone else’s.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This bridge tragedy, more than anything else, should outline the risks of fiscal conservatism. It leads to cutting corners and only giving the bare-bones treatment to our nation's infrastructure, such as our bridges. And then when something like this happens, our politicians say that this is a tragedy which shouldn't have happened, and then they throw money at the problem, when it probably would have cost less if they'd given the issue the money it needed in the first place.

I Updated My Profile

My profile, while not being bare-bones, could have had more put into it, and it has. I put down my favorite movies, books, stuff like that. So check it out by going to the left of the blog.

Adrian Campbell

Here is the email that Adrian Campbell sent me the other day. As I've explained, Adrian was featured in "Sicko" and was soon after fired from her job for appearing in the film. Please contact Meijer's to complain about their petty, vindictive treatment of Adrian. Scroll down for the phone number.


Hi Jeff,

This is Adrian Campbell, the American who goes to Canada for healthcare in SiCKO. I will attach a picture to confirm. I came across your blog, and wanted to say thank you! It means a lot when I get supporters of universal healthcare. I read your profile, and was quite impress too. Howard 100 is one of your favorite stations? That is mine too, I love having Sirius.

So, yes I am with out a job cause of my appearance in SiCKO. I am looking, but it is hard in Michigan. There are very few jobs here, cause we have the highest unemployment rate in the US. It sucks.

I am trying to make something of my appearance. I am not sure what at this point. I like the idea of Hook A Canuck, as an actual show on tv. I came across some message board on comedy central's website, and someone has dubbed me the "SiCKO Hottie."

I am going to Washington DC on September 29th, along with Donna Smith and her husband Larry to march in the Healthcare not Warfare protest.

Thanks again for your support!

Peace,

Adrian Campbell
American SiCKO

When in doubt, offer sympathy and pass the blame

A really good blog from Crooks and Liars (www.crooksandliars.com):

When in doubt, offer sympathy and pass the blame

By: Nicole Belle on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 5:00 PM - PDT

(h/t Diane)

As would be expected, Bush held a press conference (video here (.wmv)) expressing sympathy for the people of the Minneapolis area the day after the massive bridge collapse. As should be expected, Bush used it as an opportunity to slam and blame the Democrats.

We also talked about — in the Cabinet meeting talked about the status of important pieces of legislation before the Congress. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the fact that how disappointed we are that Congress hasn’t sent any spending bills to my desk. By the end of this week, members are going to be leaving for their month-long August recess. And by the time they will return, there will be less than a month before the end of the fiscal year on September the 30th, and yet they haven’t passed one of the 12 spending bills that they’re required to pass. If Congress doesn’t pass the spending bills by the end of the fiscal year, Cabinet Secretaries report that their departments may be unable to move forward with urgent priorities for our country.

This doesn’t have to be this way. The Democrats won last year’s election fair and square, and now they control the calendar for bringing up bills in Congress. They need to pass each of these spending bills individually, on time, and in a fiscally responsible way.

The budget I’ve sent to Congress fully funds America’s priorities. It increases discretionary spending by 6.9 percent. My Cabinet Secretaries assure me that this is adequate to meet the needs of our nation.

Unfortunately, Democratic leaders in Congress want to spend far more. Their budget calls for nearly $22 billion more in discretionary spending next year alone. These leaders have tried to downplay that figure. Yesterday one called this increase — and I quote — “a very small difference” from what I proposed. Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference. And that difference will keep getting bigger. Over the next five years it will total nearly $205 billion in additional discretionary spending. That $205 billion averages out to about $112 million per day, $4.7 million per hour, $78,000 per minute.

Put another way, that’s about $1,300 in higher spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for the next five years. That’s a lot of money — even for career politicians in Washington. In fact, at that pace, Democrats in Congress would have spent an extra $300,000 since I began these remarks.

And President Bush, how much have we spent in Iraq since you began your comments? Nevermind the crassness and insensitivity to the Minneapolis residents of turning this into an opportunity to play partisan politics–after six years, we’ve come to expect that. But to be so tone deaf as to chastise the Democrats for fiscal irresponsibility when he is responsible for the largest budget deficit in the history of this country and due to his wrong-headedness on Iraq, literally bleeding money into the sands of Baghdad just shows how completely out of touch with reality this President is.