Death? And Taxes

A Letter to Republicans

2010-09-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

Stop supporting the Bigots within your party. Unless you want to run on that in the next election. I know I will be more active politically now that this has happened.

Work with the President to pass the cuts for a majority of the populace already, it's been 2 years, get over the fact that you no longer have a majority. Also, anyone who makes 1 million+ can take a small increase in their taxes.

You have officially become the party of NO. You have illustrated that by deciding not to compromise with the President to give relief to families that need it. You are like that kid who loses at the game, but declares they won. Stop saying the Stimulus was not successful, all economists on both sides are saying it was, own up to your mistakes, and quit being cry babies.

A little side note to the leader of the Republicans. John Boehner, seriously, you can't say we need to reduce the deficit, and then turn around and say we need to keep tax cuts for the extremely wealthy in place. (Tax cuts must be paid for as well.) And don't say we have to cut services, if you had it your way we would all live in anarchy living in our own feces while everyone hid their money under mattresses because they didn't want to pay taxes. The Obama administration has made it a point to make the government more transparent in their operations.

- Evil Monkey

Breyer v. Scalia

2010-03-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Last week, a Discussion between Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia took place revolving around their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Breyer sees the Constitution as an immortal living creature genetically engineered and forever nurtured and educated by a forever evolving Democratic Society while Scalia sees it as an automaton containing only the knowledge that our founding fathers put into it on September 17, 1787 upon it's construction.

I have the following scenario for the 2 Justices.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 35, the character Data's rights as a sentient being are being questioned. If he loses the case, a scientist will be able to take him apart killing him to create an army of sentient beings just like him. If he wins, he is free. Since the constitution does not explicitly give artificially sentient beings the same rights as biologically sentient beings, and prior to that point there exists no precedence either in law or in previous court cases pertaining to the rights of sentient beings, would you deny Data the right to live?

Now I could ask this question of Justice Scalia, but I don't have to. Justice Scalia's rigid view of the U.S. Constitution allows me to predict his exact response. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say anything about artificially sentient beings, just a lot about humans. Therefore, to the chopping block with you Data, where you can be turned into a slave race of sentient beings. (If only Picard had declared Data a corporation, the recent case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission would give him as a corporation the rights of a human.)

So Justice Scalia, if the U.S. Constitution is to be taken literally and not amended, how do we incorporate into our Constitution things we discover as a society to be as important as the separation of powers, the separation of church and state, and other fundamentals of our Constitution? How do we remove fundamentals placed in our constitution that contradict itself (Slavery for example)?

Justice Scalia will say legislation should be the primary mechanism of dealing with things not addressed in the U.S. Constitution, but legislation is a much too volatile mechanism of storage for newly discovered inalienable rights. Changes to the Constitution and in the interpretation of it allow us to place newly discovered inalienable rights into a more robust storage mechanism not subject to the 2-4 year terms of politicians. This is the same reason we give Supreme Court Justices appointment for life, they are not swayed by politics which allows them to hold strong our inalienable rights and the judicial process itself which allows us to have peaceful transitions of power.

I am predicting that in the absence of Constitutional mention or Judicial precedence, Justice Breyer would use his education, experience, and power as an objective viewer to stand up for the unrepresented minority, in this case one single artificially sentient being.

In my opinion, making an ultimate decision based on Context in the absence of the definition of law is the job of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. A Supreme Court Justice is not just a life long appointed guardian of a dogmatic unchanging 200+ year old document, he/she is an intelligent objective interpreter of that document and all the truths as a nation we hold to be self evident.

"Your Honor, a courtroom is a crucible; in it we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a purer product: the truth, for all time." - Picard

Sincerely,

-Immortal Monkey

author of episode reference above: http://www.melindasnodgrass.com/

The Day Freedom Died

2010-03-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

March 23rd, 2010, A day that will live in infamy.

Yes ladies and gents, it appears Freedom has died.

No longer can a person experience the joy of losing health insurance coverage because they get sick.
No longer can a sick girl celebrate the bankruptcy of her parents after losing her health insurance coverage.
No longer can a parent take comfort in knowing that as they die, their life savings can be used to pay their medical bills because they lost their health insurance coverage due to a Preexisting condition.
No longer can a person put off buying health insurance so that people who do have health insurance have to foot the bill when he/she can't pay for it.

These Freedoms are as American as Apple Pie being served up by a Slave Child considered to be 3/5 human.

Those who voted against the death of these Freedoms (the current Republicans in Congress) are heroes and will be remembered as such when their party transforms into the Right-Wing-Nut Tea Party.

Until then however, the current Republicans in Congress are going to fight for these freedoms.

Good luck, and God Speed you unsung heroes.

Sincerely,

-Immortal Monkey

Letter to the Senators

2010-02-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

Political expediency should take second place to the well being of our country.
I know you republicans don't like science, but you can't ignore it in this case.
The numbers indicate that if we don't reduce the cost of Health care as Obama is attempting to do, then as a country we will go bankrupt.

Republicans, stop using National Security as a political tool, Using our Judicial System to try the underwear bomber shows we have faith in it and that we do not view Terrorists as evil supermen bent on world domination who we can't stop, but as Humans who grew from circumstances (poverty,extremism,brain washing,etc..) and can be handled with our Judicial System (I mean come on, his pants were literally on fire).

Also, stop trying to paint Obama and the Democrats as evil socialists. It's obvious Obama is a Centrist.
Stop saying No to everything. I saw that lunch the other day that you had with Obama, and he clearly stated he wants to get Shit done and work with you guys.
So Work With Him.

Also Blue dog Democrats, stop doing what the republicans are doing by only representing your base, the American people are more nuanced than that and you know it. Take a chance and do what's best for the United States of America.

Sincerely,
-Bryon Fitzgerald Bowers

world a little colder.

2010-02-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

it's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder

the fox news paradox

2010-01-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

I know this has been said and is widely known by many, but I felt the recent win in Massachusetts is a indication that there are a large amount of individuals in Massachusetts that would actually watch fox news. So if you think Glen Beck is a voice of reason, please read the following.

fox news is a Joke, it distorts news to the point where you can't tell if it is a fake or real.
They are clearly biased and are using Ignorance, Fear, and Bigotry to increase ratings.

And the recent 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court doesn't make sense. A corporation does not equal a human being, it should not be able to use large amounts of money that an individual who is voting can not use. This decision is like fox news, it distorts our Democracy and provides a political arm to a party which puts corporate interests ahead of the time honored tradition of intelligent political discourse via debating of the facts and a survey of all the stake holders equally.

Also, it seems as though fox news thinks Obama is doing nothing and is doing everything at the same time. Come on guys, is he destroying America by changing everything we hold dear and near to us? Or is he Dithering? I realize logic and reason are not necessary in fox news reporting, but it would be nice if fox news at least lie consistently.

In conclusion, fox news sucks,
-immortal monkey out

Socialist New World Order Announcement

2009-10-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Do you fear for your life?
Do tears suddenly appear when Obama's name you hear?
Do you equate Reason and Science to Liberal Bias and Witchcraft?
Do you think the world is 4,000 years old?
Do you think human children road T-Rex to pre-historic Sunday schools?
Do you think 8 years of a failed cowboy foreign policy and a recession primarily caused by the failure of market self-regulation, can be fixed in 8 months?
Do you think Liberals sit in their homes late at night praying to their pagan socialist gods that they can get pregnant so they can get another abortion?
Do you think that Obama and all the individuals who want to reduce health care costs want to secretly kill your grandmother?
Do you think it is better that the country goes bankrupt rather than see Obama succeed in reducing Healthcare costs by making the system more efficient and increasing taxes on the extremely wealthy?
Do you think a government temporarily aiding a failing market in order to prevent further deterioration is a precursor to a new Evil, Communist, Liberal, Socialist World Order?
Do you think the government just wants Free Health care for everyone so they give it to those Illegal Mexicans?
Do you think Global Warming and the so called "fact" that CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat is a hoax that the New World Order of Liberals made up to prevent you from owning an SUV or Truck?

Well, I'm here to say you are right. All your fears are founded in sound logic. You are not a narcissistic self involved crazy person who throws reason to the wind. I myself used to live in fear that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were going to steal my house away, and give it to some poor person, most likely someone from Illegal, Mexico off the West coast of Africa. I finally decided enough was enough. I could not stand idly by and let the Nation I love so much turn into a bunch of fun loving hippies inventing stuff, advancing science, and caring about people THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW. As a law abiding Christian, I felt it was my duty to stop this from occurring. I had to bring capitalism back to its high Moral Standing. I had to do what Jesus did way back when he threw the Tax collectors out of the Temple so as to make the Temple less socialist.

So I decided to uncover this New World Order and join the Democratic party as a subversive entity. Oh I have them all fooled, I bought a prius, started watching liberal fact leaning shows like Jon Stewart and Fareed Zakaria. I discovered another secret organization called NAMBLA. Jon Stewart let it slip a few times on his show, and I started to realize a pattern.
I found that if you scramble NAMBLA and ignore all the letters, you get the fact that Glen Beck, Joe Wilson, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones are the most reasonable intelligent individuals the world has ever produced, are not crazy at all, and have no resemblance in character to Joseph McCarthy. And another fact, that Obama is not reasonable, listens to no one, aspires to be Hilter, acts in haste, wants to destroy America, is secretly a Muslim, and is not a citizen of the United States of America (Where is the proof Obama?). I am still in league with the Democratic Party in my attempt to prove the existence of this new world order, and given enough time I am fairly sure I will uncover their no good scoundrel plots of world domination. In the mean time, I will attempt to blend in with these crazy individuals who insist on listening to people when they speak and then forming their thoughts based on reason, compromise, and a basic sense of humanity.

-Evil Monkey
P.S. Joe Wilson is my hero, and I resent those who think he is a Jack Ass bigot with a pea sized brain. Those people just don't understand the importance of civil discourse in a time of trouble for a nation in order to solve problems.

Dear Right Wing Nut Job Echo Chamber

2009-03-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Incarnation of Narcissism,

I am sick of loud mouthed, non-rational, narcissistic assholes preaching how our new President is not making a broad and all encompassing attempt to reduce the effects of the current recession.

These self-serving individuals believe the market will fix itself, despite the massive over leveraging which has caused an unsound market to exist (banks are not lending around the world).
A majority of economic experts are saying that an economic stimulus in the form of immediate liquid assets (as well as well placed tax reduction) should be pushed into the economy now in order to alleviate the upcoming economic downturn. One such expert is the chairman of Obama's recently formed Council of Economic Advisers, Chistina Romer, a professor of economics who researched the Great Depression and unveiled the counter-intuitive nature of the effects of reducing taxes causes more government spending.

Obama has gone out of his way to listen to all perspectives for how to move forward. And from the last election, it appears the American people want this new Intelligent and Progressive President to move forward with such grand projects as Reducing our use of non-renewable fuels, improving our educational system, improving mass transit, and increasing Scientific funding.

So please, Right Wing Nut Job Echo Chamber, do yourself a favor and start THINKING...outside your Tampa radio box or your upcoming Republican campaign room.
Try doing what the rest of us are doing...trying to come up with ways to improve our society for future generations.

Sincerely,
Monkey Immortal

Palin, the good ol' boy

2008-09-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

thanks but no thanks to:
- personal favors and executive decisions which benefit me and my husband
favors Palin received while Mayor

Palin's Motto

2008-09-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

"thanks but no thanks to everything presidential" (- only to be said in hockey-mom English dialect)
- note: no credible female politicians were hurt in the making of this blog

National Debt Analysis

2008-09-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

-wow.

source

thanks for the data Bill!

The 30 Second Sound Bite

2008-09-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

more of my ranting...

It seems many individuals / entities are complaining about not hearing enough about the specifics of implementing Obama's proposed strategies. I think this is due partly to the fact that the media has a limited amount of space in order to convey/entertain the viewer. So detailed explanations of policies and speeches get turned into 30 second sound bites which only serve to take statements out of context and provide a ticker on the bottom of a cable news station.

There's a reason why the founders of the U.S. Constitution wrote 85 really long articles to the public (the Federalist papers) trying to convince them to ratify the Constitution. Almost all these articles circled around the difficult intricacies of a democracy reflecting the wishes of the majority and protecting the rights of the minority while at the same time living in harmony with a free market. Granted people had a lot more free time and a limited set of texts to read from then, but if the founders had disseminated information via 30 second "text" bites, I believe we would still be a confederation of loosely governed states without a national currency and without the efficient market forces we have today because the people would not have been as informed about the radical change in the government being proposed as an alternative to the Articles of Confederation. I am not suggesting that the economic changes Obama wants to bring about are this radical, merely that more analysis and thought should be placed on the policies of the candidates not based on short sound bites, but rather the encompassing context of those bites.

The following is a transcript of Senator Barack Obama laying out details of the current state of the economy and his proposed strategy to use the market, the government, and the individual citizen to improve economic institutions within the United States of America.

!!Warning!! The following is not a 30 second sound bite, and could contain detailed analysis of current economic problems within our society and proposed strategies to solve them.

If you are Governor Sara Palin, Carl Rove, or someone working with these individuals and are looking for a reference to one of the following, this article is useless to you:
1. An animal that you domesticate as a defense mechanism by exploiting the agressive nature of its breed then place lip stick on in order to mock its non-human non-hocky-mom qualities.
2. A sexist remark from a male running for the President of the United States of America directed towards a female running as the VP on the opposite ticket.
3. Escaping Russion Pigs flying into Alaska and forcing inhabitants to wear lipstick after years of the Red's propoganda in the cruel communist practice of making pigs wear red lipstick and eating those that wore white or blue.
4. The Second Coming
5. Cavemen riding Dinosaurs

However, if you are an interested citizen looking for more details on Barack Obama's Economic policy or Senator John McCain and need to learn more about economic forces which drive a market driven democratic society constantly trying to push back the effect of the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about, read on...

Obama's Speech on Economy

note: Some Russian Pigs' dignity was tortured in the making of this article, but as Justice Scalia would say torture is not cruel and unusual punishment, "[its not even punishment]"-60 minutes interview.
note to note: the above sound bite unfortunately could not be taken out of context, that is literally what Scalia said without extra thought or hesitation!

Obama's Nomination Acceptance Speech

2008-08-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

If you watch Fox for news and Comedy Central for comedy OR believe Barack Obama is an Unpatriotic Marxist Muslim Hopemonger not born in these United States of America, Either your brain or your parents have failed you ;) reading further could only help! for hard words, use google on the series of tubes we call the internets!

Barack Obama's Nomination acceptance speech tonight was concise, informative, and very forward looking.

The Pundits are saying he should be more hard hitting against McCain, and I agree for some individuals he and the democratic party must do this. But for thoughtful and intelligent citizens, he just has to list out what he is going to do and how compared to what McCain wants to do. Which he has done extensively. Those who say he hasn't either haven't read his material or haven't listened to Barack Obama.

He obviously understands that we need an aggressive revolution in our educational system and energy framework(by implementing renewable energy acquisition/distribution networks, especially solar power).

I also like how he said that improving our education system doesn't just involve increased funding of our public schools (increased salary and affordable teaching technology can do wonders), but also the involvement of parents in their kids' life. A child in an environment that celebrates ignorance and induces children to watch tv for 4+ hours a day will create zombies of apathy who allow power-hungry ultra-religious(as in abolish separation of religion/state) nut jobs to get into office. When will they learn separation of religion/state is there to protect religious freedom.
(note: all science-fiction or political satire is exempt from this as it induces thought and invention ;)

For specific implementation details of all the plans Obama has laid out. see their official document below.

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

I would like to construct a small budget analysis for at least 2 major components of Obama's planned policy below (education,energy). note: we could have been doing this for the last 8 years.

Current Bush Executive Governmental Body:
- Iraq war: 200 billion/year

Under Obama led Executive Governmental Body:
-Continued American Elite Forces in Iraq: 10 billion/year
-Education Reform: 10 billion/year
-Energy Reform: 15 billion/year

Also, here are some weekly/monthly pod casts that Obama would do to help inform people of policies and decisions he was making and WHY.

http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/

my background: I am a computer scientist who graduated college after being raised in the foster care system. Individuals who devoted their lives to the foster care system placed me in loving homes. I agree that sometimes people are in really shitty situations, and "have no boots to pull themselves up with". Having a government implemented safety net allows those individuals to succeed and contribute back to society.

I also agree in the belief of the individual and the responsibility one must take for him/herself in order to improve one's own state of being (as well as those around them).

I am excited about Obama not because of his speeches, but because of the policies he has laid out, and the thoughtfulness with which he has done so. (the podcasts are great if you aren't into speeches)

[Stewart & Colbert for President - 2016]!!

note: No Fox News viewers were injured in the making of this blog.

Death? and Taxes

2008-08-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

[Death? and Taxes]

welcome, you have stumbled upon the web site of bryon fitzgerald bowers
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “...nothing is certain but death and taxes”
but I would like to suggest that if he lived today,
his scientific mind might have questioned part of that statement
although, it would appear I am either insane or highly optimistic,
I can assure you I am sane, and highly skeptical by nature
- required premise of above statement: I am sane ;)

My Plan for Immortality

Many people have asked me why 'on earth' would I like to live forever.

wouldn't I get bored? (This always comes before ethical over population question...are we all bored of life? Is it that bad?)

shouldn't I worry about over population of the planet?

If I get bored, I can simply let myself die.

As far as over-population is concerned, this is a problem we will have to deal with very soon, whether individuals live indefinitely or not.

I believe necessity is the mother of invention and that we will figure out creative ways to live on our planet with the resources at hand. (Control how many children we have, colonize other star systems..etc..)

Also, eventually we have to leave the planet since the Sun will burn out (in 6 billion years or so), might as well do it sooner than later...

[also, just found out the moon will leave Earth's orbit in about 1 billion years, causing earth to spin wildly, of course we could put rockets on the moon to keep it from departing orbit, but better safe than sorry :)]

the Origin of my Crazy plan to Live Forever

long story short, the future fascinates me, and indefinite life extension is one way to get there. I am a computer scientist by trade, so I tend to view solutions to problems in terms of manipulating autonomous machine states.

So I started to ask whether a human body could be repaired like we repair computers when a part goes bad.

This question initiated my quest for a pragmatic workable approach to identifying and preventing human aging (hopefully within my own lifetime)

Possible Plans of Action (very broad) Plan A:

I would like to participate in the capturing (and enhancement) of the human brain. I then hope to store my own neural configuration in a robust storage mechanism. In order to capture the human consciousness, the molecular processes which contribute to the function of the many different kinds of neurons (brain cells) must be discovered, formalized, and manipulated in order to capture and store the human brain. There has been much research in this field, and here are a minute number of sites relating to the theories of information storing mechanisms of the human brain. (more to come)

Plan B: [the pro-life version ;-)]

An alternative to storing my brain in a non-destructable format would be to contribute to the development of a cure for cellular aging, or Senescence. With the advances in molecular analysis of what we are made of, we are starting to view the human body not as a magical black box, but as a machine composed of trillions of cells being driven by underlying molecular processes working in concert. These underlying molecular processes control our aging process. I would like to contribute in whatever way I can to discovering, formalizing, and manipulating these processes in order to control (hopefully prevent) the individual human expiration date. Here are a minute number of sites which contain some known information about these molecular processes. (more to come)

My Credentials:

I have a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin
I have only been briefly introduced to Artificial Intelligence and Networks via Academia.
I am currently working towards obtaining a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. However, because of cost and the fact that I have a full time job which is not related to this area of study, this process will be very slow. As I attain a more formal education (either self-taught or academia) in the molecular processes of the human body, I hope to be able to contribute to 'Plan A' and 'Plan B' effectively within the next 10 years.
Addendum: I have attained a job with a domain of knowledge in the biological sciences, and have started my quest for immortality...still no flying cars..