More College News

I have been accepted to the engineering school of the University of Colorado at Boulder (a little blue jewel in red Colorado, often called "The People's Republic of Boulder").

The Colorado School of Mines sent me financial aid confirmation this past weekend. I will receive $7,881 in grants, $1,500 in work-study, and $7,500 in subsidized federal loans. This leaves $5,000 outstanding on the estimated costs, should I choose to attend there.

College Announcement

From the Colorado School of Mines Admissions Office, dated February 12, 2008:

"Dear Zachary:

As part of our Golden Scholars Program, it's a pleasure to offer you admission for fall 2008. You're among the select students who will attend Mines, and we congratulate you on your achievements."

I just opened this letter. I'm sure it's been here at my dad's house for a few days, but I've been at my mom's house. The Colorado School of Mines is an engineering school - in fact, it's pretty much THE engineering school of Colorado. The University of Colorado at Boulder has an engineering program, and not a bad one at all, but Mines is probably better. :P

This is exciting. You should be excited.

Why Iowa?

This will be a short post, because my opinion on the matter can be summed up rather quickly, and I see no need to really go into extreme detail about such an obvious stance.

In this year's presidential primaries, a few states, primarily Iowa and New Hampshire, have received most of the attention of the candidates from each party. And this is a practice that has been going on for some time, and shows no signs of changing. Political pundits and analists speak openly about how the candidates can best strategize around their performance in these early primary and caucus states, as though that's the way it ought to be. The entire nation simply sits by on our couches and watches the pundits speculate on which way the vote in these two states of no particular significance is going to go, and we eagerly await the final results in Iowa today, hoping these voters of no particular significance go for the candidates we want. And if these voters of no particular significance happen to throw us a curveball, the pundits say it will probably change the course of our votes, openly admitting that the additional media coverage of the winners in Iowa and New Hampshire will sway more people to vote for them on Super Tuesday.

I do not even begin to understand the justification for this system. It is a direct affront on democracy, working to subvert the will of the people nationwide and replace our decision-making processes with the decisions made by a few voters of no particular significance.

In a perfect world, all the states in the nation would hold their primaries on the same day. The only way any other system could possibly be justified is if there were something wrong with that ideal system. And I have not heard a single solid argument against the idea of all the states holding primaries on the same day.

Primary Season and My Favorite Candidate

Note to reader(s): I intend to get seriously writing for the remainder of my Christmas break (which ends on the 7th). Primary season is coming up, and now's the time for all of us to be looking into the candidates and issues most seriously. I will be filling this blog, and the identical one over on MySpace, with posts dealing with the race for the presidency. For the first of these posts, I want to discuss my general views on the '08 presidential race, and profile the candidate who comes closest of all to getting my all-out support.

I know most people my age, and the majority of people in general, don't care about politics much, if at all. The 2008 presidential election, however, presents us with a choice that will shape American politics and foreign and domestic policy for years to come. A presidential election is never a good thing to get wrong. But with America having problems in everything from healthcare, to our civil liberties, to immigration, to the war in Iraq, the stakes are raised so high that we simply cannot afford to get it wrong this time around. For this reason, if not for any other reason whatsoever, we all ought to be very seriously considering our options.

The most significant piece of my opinion on the 2008 presidential field is a general disappointment in the choice of "top-tier" candidates; frankly, they all suck, spewing the same dressed-up rhetorical stump speeches their respective parties have been giving for years, trying to distinguish themselves from each other through the slightest of differences in opinion. This is not the political system as I imagined it when I was just starting to learn about it in the 2000 election. This is not the America I thought I was growing up in, where people have a diversity of opinions that are all (or mostly) given a proper place in the national debates and elections.

And to make matters worse, it's all too heavily influenced by rich special interests and corporate lobbyists. Mike Gravel, as I recall, was fond of suggesting in the Democratic debates earlier this year that just about everyone else on the stage was a puppet of special interests ("Follow the money!" he would say, shaking his fist, though the fist-shaking may just be my imagination). Unfortunately, though Gravel tends to seem rather nutty in just about anything he does, he's not wrong. There is something ingenuine, something plastic about them all, and I can't help but feel like they don't really have the best interests of the people at heart, and are instead obsessed with getting the support of the special interests, at any cost.

Out of this disdain for the process and its front-runners came my love of Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich. For the greater part of this year, I was in love with his campaign. He was the first politician I'd ever seen who is truly honest, intelligent, and reasonable. (generally, it seems, politicians are only one or two of those, if any at all). His ideas are all so fresh, so populist, so Democratic. Universalize healthcare. Reform trade negotiations with other nations, to reflect a pursuit of human rights and environmental protection. End the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy.

Recently, however, two things have happened that have persuaded me that he is not the best candidate in the race. Firstly, it has become quite obvious that his campaign is hopeless. He has not been treated fairly by the media, and his campaign simply hasn't come up with enough money or support to force anyone to pay attention. Secondly, I have found a candidate whose ideas make more sense than Kucinich's ever have, despite being on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

That candidate is Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a Republican, currently serving as a U.S. Representative from Texas, a position he has held 18 of the 31 years since 1976. He is 72 years old, married (for 50 years) with 5 children. Before joining into the political arena, and during the lapses in his Congressional service, he has been an ob/gyn physician, delivering over 4,000 babies. He was also a flight surgeon in the Air Force from 1963 to 1965.

But it is his politics, not his personal life, that make this man extraordinary. In a day and age when politicians shape their views around the shifting of special interests and political parties, Ron Paul has not only stuck to his beliefs for his whole political life, but has based those beliefs on the most simple, powerful foundation imaginable: The United States Constitution.

And it is that foundation that makes his message so powerful. He's not treading new, radical ground, but urging us to go back to the old way of looking at the federal government: In the words of Thomas Paine, revolutionary and author of "Common Sense" (and who I'm possibly related to), "That government is best which governs least."

Profiling Dr. Paul's viewpoint on every issue facing America would make this blog far longer than I want it to be. But I'd like to look at a few highlights:

He is a strong believer in states' rights, prefering to leave issues like education, stem-cell research, abortion, and marriage rights completely out of the hands of the federal government.

He is a proponent of a non-interventionist foreign policy, in which the U.S. does not police the world with its military, but instead pursues, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." He says the war in Iraq is patently unconstitutional; in the days leading up to the war, he repeatedly put forth a resolution to declare war on Iraq, and it was repeatedly struck down.

He believes the civil liberties of the people are vital to the interests of the nation, and that they have been seriously undermined by the war effort. In the words of James Madison, another of our founding fathers, "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." He believes that the best way to be a strong nation is to be a nation of free people. Liberty from government control and regulation is central to his message, and his belief system.

He wants to abolish the IRS and all federal income taxes and repeal the 16th Amendment that allows for it, citing the fact that income taxes account for only a third of federal government revenue, and that cutting federal spending by a third would put it at 2000 levels, which obviously wouldn't be very hard to do. In addition to this, he wants to phase out government entitlement systems like social security and welfare, prefering instead to allow everyone to keep the fruits of his or her labor and use them as he or she sees fit; again, a view straight from Jefferson, who believed we ought to "prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them". Ron Paul has great confidence in the free market, and in each person's ability, right, and responsibility to take care of themselves.

Through all of this, there is a clear theme of going back to the America that the founders intended to create, the America they set forth in the Constitution. In fact, Dr. Paul has a nickname on Capitol Hill, "Dr. No", which emphasizes his extreme unwillingness to vote for any bills or resolutions that are not expressely permitted by the Constitution. He is, in short, a true conservative, holding to the beliefs that made that political mindset actually make sense before it was hijacked by social conservatives in the past few decades.

Typical "Ron Paul Revolution" banner.
Taken from http://www.rescue-us.org/

And unlike the other "long-shot" candidates in the race, Ron Paul's views have actually caught on, putting him in a position from which it is not entirely impossible for him to win the Republican nomination. His current fourth quarter fundraising total is $19.4 million, more than any other candidate in the race, including over $6 million on one day, December 16, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. And this fundraising is entirely grass-roots, spontaneously organized by people who have no official connection to the campaign. His message has found a large niche in the Internet community, a community that has, through these donations as well as all the straw polls and post-debate polls that Paul has won, proven that it has the power to make a candidate viable.

I do have my misgivings about Ron Paul. I don't have the same unquestioning faith in the free market as he has. I think the federal government needs to be involved in some things like healthcare, in order to make sure the vital needs of the people are handled properly. I have said before that universal, socialized healthcare is the way to go, and I don't think there's anything Ron Paul could say to me to change my mind on that. I also disagree with him on some of his personal social views, but he says those things should be left up to the states, so it doesn't matter anyway. All things considered, though, he is the best candidate that I see in the race right now.

Any thoughts on this are greatly appreciated.

'Yes' to Socialized Healthcare, Part 2

Note to my faithful reader(s): I wrote part 1 of this 2-part series as a response to a debate prompt on helium.com, an online writers' community. Imagine my shock when, the very next morning, I saw a new prompt on that same site asking whether further privatization and deregulation of the healthcare system would solve the problem. I was forced to chime in on this, and the following was the result:

Many Americans believe that the solution to our healthcare dilemma is to further privatize and deregulate the system. If we free up the healthcare market, there is some reason to believe that it will behave like other free markets - costs will go down, allowing more people to get insurance, and quality will go up. This is the basis behind most Democrats' plans for what they call universal healthcare. However, this notion fails to take into consideration a few basic aspects of the healthcare system that make further privatization and deregulation a bad idea.

Firstly, the limited market. Let's say you're in the business of selling cars. It can reasonably be assumed that cars will never go out of style, and that, as more and more people around the world reap the benefits of industrialization, one of the things they will buy with their newfound money will be cars. Therefore, in this day and age, the automotive industry has a virtually unlimited market. This causes car companies to compete with each other for the constant stream of new customers. This is one of the prerequisites to a truly successful and beneficial free market: If there is not a growing market, a good deal of the helpful competition simply does not happen. If you've been buying Ford cars your whole life, you're less likely to go out and buy a Chevy, almost entirely regardless of the corporate competition going on. On the other hand, someone who is a first time car buyer reaps the full benefits of capitalism - Ford and Chevy both want them, so they'll both lower their prices and increase the quality of their products to win them over.

Healthcare doesn't work this way. There are a limited number of people in the United States (with a yearly population growth of less than .9%), and an even smaller number of people who are not already insured. Once all of those 40 million or so people got coverage, the burst of corporate competition that brought that about would immediately come to a halt. And after that point, there would be virtually NO market growth, and very limited competition, and corporations would be free to hike up their prices as much as they see fit. If the only two car companies in America were Ford and Chevy, and neither company had any new customers to entice, what's to stop them from both, little by little, increasing their prices?

This leads me nicely toward the second reason further deregulation of healthcare is unfeasible: the obvious greed of the conglomerates which currently have control over the system. If, as in the aforementioned scenario, they became able to raise their prices, they absolutely would. These corporations clearly do not hold themselves to very high moral standards - just watch "Sicko", or ask any of the millions of people who have struggled with their health insurance providers. Corporations that make money based on not giving people healthcare would have no qualms about raising prices, if it was a feasible business practice, which it is now and still would be under a further deregulated system. Even though the initial burst in competition would probably allow many of the currently uninsured people to become insured, eventually corporations would raise their prices again, once again excluding more and more people from the system while keeping corporate profits intact, and even growing.

Even if further deregulation and privatization of healthcare worked, and managed to permanently extend insurance coverage to all Americans, there still exist fundamental flaws in ANY privatized healthcare system. HMOs profit, and the system survives, based on how much healthcare they can deny their customers. This proposed plan would only give that same crappy coverage to everyone. That's like having an automotive industry in which Ford increases its sales and profits by building cars that break down beyond repair at 5,000 miles. And it's even worse, because we're not talking about a luxury, but a basic human right.

Clearly, this proposal is not the right way to handle the healthcare crisis. The best answer to our healthcare woes is not further "freeing up the market", but changing the entire system to a universal, single-payer, and yes, socialized plan.

'Yes' to Socialized Healthcare

When a nation's institutions are insufficient to meet the needs of the people, it is the government's responsibility to change national policy and fix those institutions. When every other industrialized nation in the world has adopted a different system, and it is clear that that system works far better than the one that we have, this makes the government's job in reforming the broken institution simple.

Such is the case with healthcare in America. The system is clearly broken - that's not even really up for debate. Insurance companies make money by not giving care. 31 cents on every dollar of healthcare spending goes to maintaining the conglomerates that have a stranglehold on it. Over 40 million Americans are uninsured, and even those who are insured must pay high premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, just to get insurance coverage that is clearly sub-par.

These same problems, or versions thereof, plagued every other industrialized nation as well. But while the American government has refused to address the issue, all these other nations have faced the problems, and fixed them. Socialized medicine has worked incredibly well for these nations - and it would work for us too.
One of the major arguments against socialized healthcare is that under such a system, it is necessary to ration care. A socialist system, in other words, would not be able to pay for everything for everyone. This is a sad truth. But it is a sad truth shared by ANY healthcare system. In the current healthcare system of the United States, over 40 MILLION people do not have insurance - that's one out of every seven Americans being "rationed" out of EVERY type of healthcare. Doesn't it make more sense to base the necessary rationing on the importance of different medicines and procedures, rather than on the patient's ability to pay?

Some people are still resistant to the concept of socialized medicine because of communism anxiety leftover from the Cold War. We cannot socialize our vital national institutions, they say, because that puts us on the path toward communism! While I agree that communism is the last thing this nation needs, the fact of the matter is that having a few socialized institutions does not make a country communist. For example: Since the beginning of the public education system in America, it has been a socialist institution - it is run and paid for by the government. Then there's our police, our firefighters, our infrastructure, and our military - all socialist. Yet no one would argue that America is a communist nation. Why, then, are we afraid of making one more of our vital institutions socialist, for the good of the people?

It's time to break free of the hold that unbridled capitalism has on the basic human right to healthcare. We consider ourselves to be the wealthiest, most advanced nation in the world, so we should work on having the best healthcare. Let's get on board the system that has worked for every other industrialized nation in the world.

Damn, now I have to uninstall iTunes

Actual quote from Apple's iTunes EULA (End User License Agreement), as found on this site:

"10. Export Control. You may not use or otherwise export or reexport the Apple Software except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Apple Software was obtained. In particular, but without limitation, the Apple Software may not be exported or re-exported (a) into any U.S. embargoed countries or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Person�s List or Entity List. By using the Apple Software, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." (emphasis mine)

Reading this, a few different thought processes come to mind, some satirical, others very serious:

-Damn, now I have to uninstall iTunes. My hopes of one day building an iNuke are dashed.

-I wonder if the Open-Source movement will get into an arms race with Microsoft.

-Someone was either incredibly stupid or incredibly egotistical about their product when writing this.

-Actually, we live in a day and age in which putting something like this into a user agreement is probably a sound business decision. If someone were to, say, send e-books on how to make bombs over iTunes, Apple is in no way responsible - solely because of this clause.

-Where is our society going when the concept of Apple being sued over the content distributed with its software is actually plausible?

-How long will it be before individuals have to have readily-available usage agreements? (Stapled to the back of my shirt: "By engaging in conversation with Zachary Freier ("Me"), you agree to the following terms and conditions. Any and all conversation content transmitted from any labial organ ("Mouth") owned by the second party ("You") to any auditory systems ("Ears") belonging to me is automatically devoid of any claim to copyright. No repetition on my part of vocal sounds originating from your mouth can be claimed by you or any other person or party to be a violation of copyright. You also agree that you will not use anything I say for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.")

Just some food for thought. Now excuse me, I have some "projects" I have to finish on my new music library software.

Roy Zimmerman

I just wanted to share a few musical YouTube videos from an artist I have come to like very much - Roy Zimmerman. I think he's a genius. Check these out:

Like what you see? Check out his YouTube page for more.