My favorite photo is this one of the Maldives. May I have a small one please?

Sure, universal health care seems to be portrayed as this extremely liberal position that no Republican would or could ever support. But here’s what I find ironic: there is a large swath of the Republican party that identifies with Christian values and campaigns have used ‘values’ as major foundations. What could be more Christian that looking out for your fellow man? I’m hardly suggesting that the government or people in general need to take care of every aspect of everyone else’s life, but if someone is sick, why can’t they get health care or at least affordable health care? Would a small town in America 100 years ago or even 50 years ago let one of their own die if they couldn’t afford to see the doctor? Perhaps I have an idyllic view of yesteryear, but somehow don’t believe I’m completely off-base. Certainly, immigrants to this new world didn’t have health insurance.

The entire Bill Moyers interview is worth watching (approx 30 mins). Parts 1, 2 & 3 are on YouTube. Thanks to HBO and the Bill Maher show for not yanking this from YouTube.

If you care even a little about your health, the quality of your food, the environment and even animal rights, then you owe it yourself to read these 2 fantastic books: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I just read these and was floored. There’s no question they’ve changed how I look at food and how I eat.

FFN focuses on the fast food industry, while IDoF takes an in-depth look at how the food industry, particularly in the Western world, has completely changed how we humans eat in less than 100 years.

While these are just 2 books among many, they’ve lead the vanguard in what is hopefully a revolution. What’s ironic is that it’ll be a ‘revolution’ to get us back to how we used to eat, a practically pre-science status.

Next up on my reading list is Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. If you’d like to read even more, you can check out these refs:

• Michael Pollan’s blog at the NY Times
• Michael Pollan’s list of links on his website
• Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed piece on family farming

At $11/mo for the paperback book plan, I think you would need to read 2-3 books per month for it to pay off. The audiobook plans are more pricey and the any format you want plan tops out at $30.49/mo.

As my reading sources have shifted to the Net, I probably wouldn’t break even – I think I’ll stick to the local library for now.

More info at Best Camarillo Dentists site. They’re also running a free teeth whitening offer.

Just today I received a rather legitimate looking e-mail that could easily be misunderstood to be from Skype. If I had clicked on the embedded link, and installed any of the software I would have been in for a world of hurt. It was one of those malware writers that makes you believe you have a virus/malware and says you need their software to clean your computer. Their ’software’ in turn ends up being garbage that costs lots of money.

Here’s how to lock down your Skype settings:

1. Go to the menu Skype-> Privacy
2. Ensure that all of the “from” settings are from “people in my Contact List only“

Here’s a screenshot of what that dialog box looks like. Click for a larger version.

There is just one minor drawback. You will need to manually add new contacts before they are allowed to call/message you. A small price to pay for a lot more security.

However, I’ve found that sometimes I don’t have time to either cook an extensive meal, go shopping and/or plan the week’s meals, or just want something different and/or simpler. So I went searching for some alternative recipe sources and found these. I was also specifically looking for ‘healthy’ dishes as it’s totally easy to get fast food or nuke a frozen dinner. I’ll bet that there are lot of these recipes that don’t qualify as ‘healthy’, but there are lots to choose from so you don’t need to depend on all of them.

1. Lifehack
2. WebMD
3. The Food Network (also has useful search tool for finding recipes with specific ingredients in under x # of minutes)
4. WHFoods

I’m yet to try any of the recipes here, but my goal wasn’t to necessarily find the best recipes, but more to find ideas. And after all, I’m yet to find a recipe that I ever followed to a ‘T’!

Any company that gets big enough where they have so many products/projects and/or groups and/or diversity such that infighting starts needs to split up and/or downsize. Pronto.

When a company starts reflecting the human race in the clannish aspect, the one group vs another, the zero-sum game that everyone thinks it is, they need to step back and take a good look at themselves, because this is not a way for any company to succeed.

Ironically, there was a great deal of pride taken in the action. This is not something to be proud of. This is symbolic of a dysfunctional company.

I’ve attached an Excel spreadsheet w/ formulae that I used to compare
mortgages. Just punch in the value of the house you want to buy, the downpayment you plan to make, and the various fees that your potential lender is going to charge you. You can adjust this to suit
you.

Good real estate sites for searching and even for background knowledge:
Realtor.com, Homes.com, Homefair.com.

I’d recommend going with a big realtor like Century21, Coldwell Banker,
etc. They typically have more resources. On the other hand, you may
find a smaller realtor will give you more personal attention – just
make sure they have access to MLS listings.

Find out about current interest rates: bankrate.com. You can
also do some comparison shopping there.

Mortgage shopping comparison: lendingtree.com. Of
course, once you plug in all your personal info, expect to get lots of
calls! Do it once you’re sure you need to secure a loan. I highly
recommend checking with the big lenders as well as what you get from a
shopping comparison agent. The big guys can typically offer you the
best rates, loans backed up by lots of money, they probably won’t
resell the loan and they have more resources to support you in the long
run. So consider: eTrade, ABNAmro, eLoan.

There is a Wharton Prof who has a really good website discussing all of the
ins and outs of mortgages, loans, banks, etc. You should definitely
check it out. In fact, it’s useful even if you already own property. He
calls himself the Mortgage Professor. Go figure…

The day you decide to lock in on an interest rate is the day that you
can expect to spend most of the day doing that (at least if you want to
try to secure the best rate and and the lowest lender closing costs).

Good luck!

PS> This was originally an e-mail that I was about to re-send to yet another person when I realized (yet again) that I should really blog this and share it with the rest of the world. That way, I don’t even need to re-send the e-mail, but instead say – just check out my blog! Yeah, some of you may not agree, but that’s ok – you don’t have to; you don’t even have to read this!