The Future

This is a topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately mostly because I have a lot of unanswered questions about my own future.

Such as, when will I be able to buy my first flying car! Teenagers are going to love those things, they combine two of their favorite things: flying and cars!

Sorry about the tangent, I plan to have a legitimate point to this post. So I'm in the middle of finishing grad school and trying to get a job in a strange job market. I've been lucky to have had some good interviews and I think we'll have a couple of options but I really don't have much of a clue of where we'll be a year from now. So I think about the future sometimes. In addition to the unknown nature of my own future I also wonder about where we'll be as a society in one, five, ten years.

I don't mean this in any type of gloom and doom way, I'm not writing this from some bunker in Northern Idaho, but I'm just acknowledging the fact that we're living in a pretty interesting time in terms of globalization, economic crisis, amazing scientific advancements, wars, information revolutions, etc., etc. There's a lot of stuff going on and there are a lot of opinions out there about what's down the road. You've got some people saying the economic crisis is about over and others like that Russian Economic Professor who's predicted the end of the United States will happen sometime in the next year or so. You've got the Chinese Premier questioning the financial security of US treasury bonds. The US govt. is racking up debt, another trillon this week, at an unprecedented rate. BYU continues to lose first round NCAA tournament games, etc., etc.

All this can seem pretty bleak but at the same time we often forget that instability is an inherent aspect of human existence. Just look at any period of human history, smooth sailing is not necessarily the status quo. I also think about the optimism of Pres. Hinkley. Elder Bednar recently said one in of the last meetings he attended with Pres. Hinkley that the prophet leaned over, patted him on the hand and said "David this is a great time to be alive."

So, I figure we have a lot of smart people who contribute to this blog, at least that's what I've been told by the people who contribute to this blog, and I was curious to hear some opinions on where you see yourself, the world, Hannah Montana's career, etc. in the next couple of years. I look forward to your wise prognostications.

Retroactive Tax on Bonuses Would Set a Dangerous Precedent

I'm sure you've all heard the gnashing of teeth about the bonuses payed to executives by bailed-out financial institutions. Now congress wants to slap a retroactive tax of 90% on all of those bonuses (story here). (It's ironic to hear the outrage from congressmen about wasted taxpayer money in the bonuses--didn't these guys approve the bailout in the first place?) I know everyone is angry about wasting taxpayers money but think about the precedent this kind of bill sets. I'm not a constitutional scholar but this sounds like a bill of attainder. Legal experts correct me if I'm wrong, but this is essentially a bill that punishes someone for a supposed crime without a trial. It is really a usurpation of judicial power by the legislative branch. Essentially, the government is going to confiscate private property because the public is upset and because CEO's are bad guys. These bonuses are contractual agreements agreed upon by private parties (see here for more discussion on this topic) and their priority relative to other obligations these companies have should probably be worked out in bankruptcy court, not in congress. At any rate, the government should have stipulated the conditions for disbursement of the bailout money BEFORE they flushed it all down the toilet.

Post script: It looks like someone else has the same idea.

College World Series, Buffalo Bills, Anesthesiology and Me

Happy National Residency Match Day to all!

I'm sure you all have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this day! Excited to find out where all of of your 4th year MD friends would be moving themselves and their families.

OR maybe you haven't, and well, that's just too bad. I have and you're going to continue reading this post to find the explanation to my title.

COLLEGE WORLD SERIES you might ask? And I'd respond, "if you were planning on attending this years CWS, you'll have a place to stay." Sometime in the up coming months I will be moving my family to Omaha, Nebraska where I will be enjoying 1 year of surgery intern happiness.

BUFFALO BILLS? So you've said to yourself, "I know this guy, who plays for the Bills and it would be awesome to go see one or two of his game, but where would I stay?" Your answer, starting in the 2010-11 season; you can stay at my place. In July 2010 I will be starting my residency in anesthesiology in Syracuse, NY. Syracuse, NY is conveniently located 2 hrs east of BUFFALO; Jet blue flies directly to Syracuse from SLC.

ANESTHESIOLOGY? that's "an-aes-the-si-ol-o-gy", which is the medicine concerned with anesthesia and anesthetics or in other words, "the guy who puts you asleep before surgery." That's what I'll be doing as a career.

Mr. PHS

So my little brother Jon is a contestant in Mr. PHS which is being held this Thursday. He asked me to write his bio which I share below. Talking with him brought back some good memories of that fateful night 12 years ago.........

Sorry, I passed out after realizing how along ago we were in high school. I'm better now...Here's the bio:

To know Jon Duerden is to know a young man who loves animals, children, serving the elderly, giving money to charities, laughing and crying, eating and drinking, speaking French, singing to sad people, dancing for angry people, and donating non-essential organs. Once when asked about his grandest goal in life he replied, “penmanship”. He is a world renowned expert on roast beef and receives frequent invitations from universities across the country to lecture on the topic. The modern dance troupe he founded, Dancetastic!, has won numerous awards and is the topic of an upcoming documentary entitled Watch Out! Jon Can Dance. He also plays a lot of instruments, too numerous to mention here, but let’s just say it’s way more than one. Jon especially loves white water rafting, a sport he invented, on the Main Salmon River in Idaho, which he built for his Eagle Project. If he has the honor of being chosen as the next Mr. PHS, he plans to accept.

New Playlist

Hey! New tunes ya'll, and now you control if you want to listen, and it starts from the beginning and ends at the end. Perfect for spring. Check it Prof!

1, 2, 3 Biotechnology . . . How groove it can be

This one is for Lep-dawg. These boys take the biology rap to a whole new level. During the nadir of my PhD writing I would put this bad boy on whenever it got after midnight and I needed something upbeat but still relaxing--and the science would just flow . . .

I want to hear what everyone thinks...

I want to throw something out there. Just a term. A word. And see what everyone who reads this blog (yes, everyone, even you, the person who has no intention on reacting) thinks.

I just want reactions. Honest reactions.

Are you ready? Here it is.

Marxism.

Discuss.

I Love Cougarboard

This has to be one of my favorite Cougarboard posts ever. The content of the post is phenomenal but is, in my opinion, exceeded in brilliance by the video clip in the signature line.

Speaking of music . . .

This playlist that Tony put together reminded how much I enjoy Pandora. Does anyone else use this website? You put in an artist that you like and it assembles a "radio station" of similar sounding music. It also let's you create mixes of your radio stations. I particularly enjoy it for choral music. I have a John Rutter station that makes Sundays downright celestial.