For a large part of my 20 years of living, I have been teased for my irrational fear of whales. Yes, I am a cetaphobe, but I feel like I should explain myself. I feel the need to distinguish myself from those paranoid crazies you see on Jerry Springer who fear pickles or chicken feet. I realize being afraid of whales is a silly, irrational fear. I realize that whales do not eat people and that a whale isn't going to jump out of my closet and attack me (partially due to the fact that I am landlocked). My phobia is not the fear of being eaten or attacked by a whale. Actually, its really not a fear at all. It is more of a feeling of discomfort than a out right fear. I dislike the sounds they make because they are very eery. I dislike their movement just like some people dislike the movement of the aliens in the movie "Signs". The fact that they are the size (if not bigger) than a school bus is also alarming, whether they are vegetarians or not. I attribute my fear to be caused my a combination of things. Firstly, I am a very theatrical person. This is important to the point because when I watch things, I put myself in that person's shoes, or I put myself in that scenario, or I imagine myself eating that fried cow tongue. So when I watch movies that show underwater scenes (I also have the fear of the ocean which is another topic entirely, though closely related) I put myself it that ocean with that whale and it makes me very uncomfortable. Whales are unpredictable. Did you know that scientists don't even know what the sounds they make mean!? Its a biological mystery. I don't even like it when I think humans are talking about me, let alone a mammal thats as big as a school bus. Secondly, I have deduced from watching movies and looking at whale pictures that my fear is not necessarily attributed to the whales themselves but to the ocean. Once I analyzed why I dislike the ocean so much, I found it was due to the fact that the vastness of the ocean makes me uncomfortable (which also explains why I dislike the idea of going into outer space). Thirdly, I have deduced that I fear the unknown, not in an irrational way, but in a rational way. I don't like not knowing what is to come. I am a planner. I like observe my surroundings and past experiences to make an educated guess about the future so I can better prepare myself for it. The ocean is a vast area of the unknown and its the whales territory.
As you can see, I have thought about this for a while. I felt like I needed to explain why I jump into the fetal position when the trailer for Disney's "Oceans" came on in the theater. I feel I have explained myself to the best of my ability. So hopefully, you can better understand the rationale behind this irrational fear.

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I have a lot to say so hold on to your hats people. I have been keeping this in for quite a while now and since healthcare reform is in the process of passing, I feel like I have the right to my concerns despite the fact that this rant won't change anything... whew... you ready?

Now everyone has been debating on whether we should have universal healthcare and blah, blah, blah. In theory, free healthcare for everyone sounds awesome! But it doesn't take an economist or business man to tell you that nothing in life comes free. So the real question is how are we going to pay for this? Money doesn't grow on trees, right? Now the simple answer is to raise taxes. However, we all know that this will enrage the entire Republican party (and piss off the libertarians). But how else are we to pay for it? Well, this is where the wonderful institution called the Federal Reserve comes in. We can just print the money! (See money does really grow on trees) Now to you people who think that the Fed really doesn't create money out of thin air let me explain some simple banking principles to you.
So lets start with a simple graph of the supply and demand of money, as seen to your left. So "i" represents the interest rate, or price of money, MS represents the supply of money, MD represents the demand for money, and Q represents the quantity of money in circulation. Okay, stay with me. When the FED wants to increase the money supply (say in order to afford a $900 billion dollar healthcare bill) they participate in open market operations, or they either buy or sell bonds. In this case, the FED will buy bonds from banks at a premium (more than the market value) and pay for these bonds by crediting the banks account for the appropriate amount of money. Yes, this means they simple adjust numbers on a computer, thus creating money out of thin air. This shifts MS1 to MS2, which lowers interest rates and makes everyone happy. WOOHOO!! But keep in kind that this is all in the short-run. In the long-run, this increase in money supply will increase inflation of the dollar which means that the purchasing power of the dollar will decrease (FYI, thats bad). If the FED increases the money supply to say M3, it falls into a liquidity trap. The interest rate is no longer decreasing at noticeable amounts, if changing at all. Money becomes completely worthless, thus sending us into a very nasty monetary situation.

So healthcare reform will be a great thing, relatively, just as long as the government pays for it.
Does that make sense President Obama?

That is all.

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