Yes, I have crossed some strange line now. This morning I awoke from a dream which featured Noam Chomsky. He was coming for some kind of talk, which I helped arrange and attended. Then we all went out for a night on the town. There were a couple of people with us, the only one I can remember is my friend Leslie (one of my long lost friends from my last journal). We were out in some 3rd worldesque town (unpaved dirt streets etc.) and were looking for a bar to hang out in. Eventually we were somewhere and I was reading something Noam had written for me. It was in another language, mostly German though there were definately the words nostre and notre in it which are distinctly not German. Noam told me they were archaic but still usable (he is a world-renowned linguist after all). Leslie thought she would be able to read it, since we were in the same language courses (Japanese) in HS. She couldn't though, probably becuase it was my own strange dream language. Off to work...

I got two emails from long sorta-lost friends. Not as if I really don't know where they are, well really I don't, but I can contact them via email, so they're not technically lost. So I, in a very uncharacteristic manner, responded to both of them. It was a session of reminiscing. They are both from distinct and mostly unconnected timeframes in my life (one from HS, the other college), so it was strange remembering which memories went with which friends. Sorting out experiences, names, places, fun times, first times, etc. These happen to be two very good friends, not just run-of-the-mill types. Two people who I never would have chosen to live miles and miles away from, but through unavoidable circumstances we have become separated. It's kinda sad. Friends, how they come, how they go. People who mean so much to you at one time, and then suddenly they're just gone, never to be replaced, only remembered. The world is just so big nowadays. So many places, so many people, so little time. I wish I could pluck out the 50 people I liked the most in my life and put them on an island with me so they couldn't go away anymore (or I couldn't for that matter). Long-distance email and phone calls just aren't the same. You can read a little of their lives, but they might as well be a biography, you're not in it anymore. So morose, huh? Today the rememberescing was actually quite a pleasant experience. Thank you Leslie and Laven for giving me an excuse to bury my head in the past.

Technology should be a good thing. In its pure definition it means use of science, generally to advance some field or process. From manafacturing to medicine judicial use of technology makes us more efficient. Jobs that used to take many laborers and hours can now be performed with a much smaller percentage of laborers and man-hours. To many, technology is seen as robbing working people of jobs or decreasing their hours from simplification, and this is to a large extent true in our current system. The question, is where do the benefits of technology go?
An example: A call-site with a staff of 100 workers, paid $10/hour, takes 5000 calls/day. An automated line is developed which reduces the need for human assistance by half, in other words, only 2500 calls must be answered by workers. So, our workers' average calls/day has dropped from 50 to 25. What happens now? The standard corporate solution is to layoff half the workforce, or most of them, and make the remaining part-time. Thus, the benefits of the new technology are reaped only by the CEOs and shareholders. Is this the only way to operate? Why can't these technological benefits be assed on to the workers. Instead of a mass layoff, why don't we reduce the workweek from 40 to 35 hours (keeping the salary unchanged)? How about investing in education of your workforce? What about some paid vacation? These ideas are fast becoming unheard of. They don't fit into the standard model of "doing business."
Of course, it's not too hard to find examples of different systems, just look 50-60 years back in America or across the Atlantic. Some European countries still display this attitude of shorter workweeks, longer vacation, and more benefits, though how long this disparity will last under the pressures of modern "free-trade" and globalization is debatable. The point is that technology is not the problem, the distribution of its benefits is. Instead of going directly to CEO and shareholder accounts they should be more equally distributed throughout the workforce they affect.

Study finds differences between "gay" sheep and "straight" ones . Very weird thing to be studying if you ask me, but maybe helpful to the gay community. If it can be scientifically proven that gay people aren't making a choice to be gay but are rather genetically different than it is patently illegal to discriminate. Maybe.

And...this is just disturbing

(The sheep is on top)
Inflatable Party Sheep designed to be the friend you've always needed, the love you have always dreamed of. It's the little lamb you can love and will love you back. For all your sheep loving friends - bring out the beast in them. For centuries men the world over have known that a sheep is the next best thing to a woman. It is soft, sexy, and disease free!

A new study has found that over 2/3rds of US crops are contaminated with genetically modified material. The Independent reports that... "The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes - just eight years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US." Fun times. So eight years later...plenty of time to figure out just what the fuck these genes do. The tomacco is here and here to stay. At this point there is little hope of any of our crops remaing "pure." This is a problem. Now I don't know that I necessarily think genetic altering is a bad thing. It could lead to many innovations, leading to healthier and disease-repellant crops. But, and this is a big but, we don't know what else they might do. So we have a soy bean that matures more rapidly and is less likely to be eaten by a specific pest because we have spliced in some lemon-gene. What if it also leads to clogging of the arteries, growth of tumors, hair-loss, who knows what else. And that's the thing we just don't know, and now it may be too late to prevent every soy bean eaten from now on to be contaminated. Fucking Monsanto!

This is a good article too I think and a good idea for Kerry. Bring the whole team along I say.