I never wanted this little blog to be really political. There are many blogs that do that already and do it much better than I can. I just wanted to be someone that chronicled things that I thought were awesome. I have to accept that from time to time I will have to comment on things that happen politically that just happen to be awesome. So today I am going to take a moment to comment on something that is happening that is absolutely awesome.

I was seven years old way back in the dark ages of 1979 when a group of theocratic, left wing radicals overthrew the Shah of Iran and took American citizens hostage on the sovereign soil of our embassy in Tehran. Even at that tender young age I knew that was not right and I remember my father’s outrage at how Jimmy Carter just weakly turned his back on one of the few allies in the region. Every night the news would let us know how many days they were being held. This crisis was was the final nail in the coffin of Carter’s political career. 444 days later on January 20, 1981 on the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan they let our people go, mostly out of fear because they feared Reagan. You have to remember that they respect strength in that region and if you are meek and mealy mouth you get smacked around. Unfortunately the realities of the Cold War with Russian (with who the new leaders of Iran now had a bit of an alliance) prevented us from delivering a massive payback on them. We lost an ally in the region and got a 30 year pain the butt in return.

The policy of the United States when it has come to Iran for the past 30 years has been that we want the Iranian people to do a repeat and overthrow their government and come to democracy instead of the Islamic Socialism that they have now. Our belief has always been that man has a God given yearning for freedom and eventually will tire of their shackles and throw them off. It has taken a long time but it now seems as if things are reaching that point in Iran.

This movement has had fits and starts over the years there, but have always been brutally repressed. A big part of this has been that the government there has had an iron clad grip on the flow of information. That is no longer the obstacle that  it has been in the past. Our 24/7 news cycle, the internet, cell phones and social networking have given folks the ability to get information in and out of these places. Yes, ladies and gentlemen the new revolution is being tweeted and facebooked. This is awesome. If information cannot be controlled then you cannot be controlled. These people can get it all out to the world that is so addicted to drama that we stop for a moment and take notice.

I find it interesting that since we have a Carteresqe president in office now that this is taking place over there. When revolution came to Iran 30 years ago we were indifferent to it and it caused us a world of problems ever since. It cost us an ally, let a brutal regime keep control oil we depend on and help fuel the cold war. I want it to be different this time. If we truly care about freedom and letting people have an opportunity to decide their own destiny we will support the Iranian people.

More than likely this current uprising will be brutally squashed. It seems that every movement for liberty requires a Boston Massacre to galvanize it. The difference is that if they know they have allies in the world and support it gets done faster and you end up with allies and partners for peace in the region. If we do not support it the revolution will come anyway, but with a long memory for who helped them get there. The last time there was a revolution in Iran they remembered who turned their backs on them (the U.S.) and who supported them (the Soviet Union) and we paid the price for it. What will happen when a new Iran emerges and has nuclear weapons and long memories?

So support them. Follow them on the internet. Pray for them. There is a yearning for freedom over there and once they taste the awesomeness of it they will not be satisfied until they get it.

We need an official logo for Awesometific American. So we have decided that we want our readers to develop and submit a logo. If you have the skills and the desire to extend your awesomeness then send one in. If it is chosen by our staff to become the official logo of Awesometific American you will receive all the praise and adoration we can provide (sorry no money involved, we are still working on converting awesome to cash).

So send your submissions to here.

Folks have been telling me how awesome Twitter is. From what I can tell it is like blogging for folks with short attention spans. I guess the appeal is that if you follow a celebrity then the chances are they will read your Tweet and respond to it. Then I guess it is like they are talking to you and you are virtual BFF (even though from what I have been told these celebrities are paying someone to tweet for them).

Well, the lab insists that we test this out and see if Twitter is really awesome or just awesomely hyped. I have created a Twitter account. If you want to follow me you can do so here. Our preliminary research indicates that the Twitter experience is more fun if you pick some folks and follow them. So far I have picked Steven Crowder (who has not returned my request for an interview) and Stephen Baldwin (I have my reasons). If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

So the experiment begins. Is Twitter awesome or not?

Only I can decide.

Today is a great day in the annuals of awesomeness. I hereby award the blog site IMAO with the very first Awesometific American Award of Awesome for consistent and over the top awesomeness. Congratulations to Frank J,, Harvey, Basil and all of the other fine folks at IMAO. I can truly say that if it was not for the daily awesomeness you guys spew I would not have been inspired to dedicate myself to the study of awesome. We salute you!

I was half listening to the television the other day while my kids were watching Nickelodeon's The Penguins of Madagascar. This is a funny show and my three boys love it, (they call me Skipper and I refer to them as Rico, Kowolski and Private.) I heard this exchange on the show and had to hit the rewind button on the DVR.

Marlene: Well it was grassy so they could be from Australia, South America, Africa, maybe Asia?
Skipper: Marlene! you just named 4 of the 8 continents!
Maurice: Uh Skipper...there are only 7 continents
Skipper: I count Atlantis, trust me lemur, if you had my security clearance you would too.

So from now on, unless we can prove beyond any doubt, I am counting Atlantis in the list of continents.

Ok, I have been getting some harassment from my 2.5 readers about updates. I will be working on those soon. For those that do not know I recently became gainfully employed again (I get to build something awesome of course.) and plus I am filling in with the kids ministry at our church since our Children's Pastor left for a new position in Texas.

So I will have a review of the new Star Trek movie in Cinema Awesome and I should have something up for Channel Awesome as well. Until then keep watching and stay dedicated to the Science of Awesome.

I used to play a great game, City of Heroes. I say used to because when the economy crapped out I had to cancel my subscription to save some dough (Sporadically blogging about Awesome does not pay the bills although it should.) Anyway another thing I like are the boys and girls over at Rooster Teeth who produce the Awesome Red Vs Blue Halo inspired series. Well they have helped launch a new series called Captain Dynamic starring Ed Robertson from Barenaked Ladies. Watch episode one and you will find why my next computer must come equipped with an Awesome button.

OK this is some awesome science. Evidently some brilliant folks who deserve gobs of money rained on them have developed a laser that detects the wing beats of mosquitoes, locks on to them and fries them! Follow the this link to CNN to read this. The boys in the labs here want one and since we operate in the mosquito capital of the world, Florida, we are going to contact our congressmen to have them put stimulus money into it.

Specail thanks to the good folks at IMAO that tipped us off to this. Once I learn how to do a proper link back to you guys I will.

We are still recovering from the International Day of Awesomeness here at Awesometific American so that is why there has been no new breaking news on the Science of Awesome. We should have some things up today. The boys in the lab are working on our first Profiles in Awesomeness and hope to have that feature up and running on Monday.

Stay tuned.

Today is the International Day of Awesomeness! Celebrate today by engaging in various acts of awesomeness. If you get a chance post a comment below and tell us here at Awesometific American what you did today that was awesome.

Have you ever thought of what 1 trillion dollars looks like? I know we have all had fantasies about getting a brief case with a million dollars. We here the term 1 trillion dollars thrown around a lot, almost to the point that if the term is repeated enough then it will loose its meaning. We someone took the time and effort to show us what one trillion dollars looks like.

Here is the link, $1,000,000,000,000.00

A special thanks to the folks over at IMAO where I constantly lurk for posting this link.

Ok I am a big fan of Battlestar Galactica (which for those of us that are cool only refer to as BSG). So I am looking forward to tonight’s episode and while doing some awesome research for Awesometific American I ran across this site.

My Roommate the Cylon

These guys have two episodes up and running and they are awesome.

Why is this awesome?

Well if you are a BSG fan you will greatly appreciate how we were jerked around about who the final five are and combine that with roommates who are fanboys of the show and you can see how paranoia can run away with you. Also I like the idea of instead of everyone denying that they are the Cylon they all want to be the Cylon! Just watch and enjoy the awesome.

A friend of the family gave this nifty little gadget to us. He received it from his son who is in the Army and served over in Iraq. The chaplain was handing them out. It is called the Messenger and it is a solar powered audio player. This is one impressive little hand held device.

Here are the vitals on this little guy:

Width: 2.5 inches

Length: 4.5 inches

Thickness: 1 inch

Weight: 5 oz

Rechargeable battery life: 10 hours

Audio output: external speaker and earpiece port

Accessories: Earpiece, power adaptor and user manual

Message content: 80 of Dr. Charles Stanley’s sermons

 

The Messenger is designed as a ministry tool and InTouch ministries have these available with sermon content in five different languages. It is not slick and high tech like an iPod, but it fits the requirements for the environments it was meant to operate in. It is rugged, dust and water resistant. The small size and very light weight is great for portability. Portability is the number one concern for any solider, especially since you have to carry nearly one hundred pounds of gear on your body and everything else you own when on deployment has to fit inside a foot locker or sea bag. The device is very simple to use and directions are not really needed. The volume is adjustable and the play back is very clear. The external speaker is great for those that engage in group study or you can use the included ear phones for private listening.  The buttons on the front are raised enough that a person using gloves should be able to operate the player with little difficulty. By using the buttons the user can navigate between sermons, skip forward or back 5 minutes or navigate in 15 second increments.  There is no read out to tell you which track you are on. I simple LED or LCD would be nice, but that could have increased the cost of production or power requirements. The user manual does provide a list of content so if you are searching for a particular sermon the old fashioned way of turning the player on and fast forwarding to the sermon you want will work. There is no way that I can see for the user to change the content themselves. There is a panel on the top that when unscrewed gets you to the memory chip inside. That way they can manufacture the player standard and put in the sermon content for wherever they are sending it. I am sure that once this thing starts getting into the hands of the troops and passed around on the mission field someone is going to find a way to use it and homebrew content.

Why this is Awesome:

There are several reasons why this is awesome. It is a neat item that is designed perfectly for its purpose.  Many times gadgets are produced more for the eye pleasing effects than practicality. Like the military it was originally designed to reach it stresses function over form.  If I was in the field I would have no worries carrying this around in a cargo pocket or vest pouch.  If anyone has ever listened to Dr. Stanley he does present Christianity in a way that anyone can understand.  InTouch ministries give these away for free to our military and to others around the world so it is a very effective ministry tool. I doubt you would see a record company doing something similar for its artist so for those that have a problem with the content think about that for a bit. Yes, there are similar ways to put out the same content in the world of iPods and Zunes, but here is the thing that trumps them all with this gadget, it is solar powered! When you are in the field a power socket is not always available to plug into.  A missionary visits your village and hands you an iPod you will enjoy it for a few hours but when the battery dies you are out of luck.  The only way you can beat being powered by the sun is being powered by nuclear power and I do not think you could produce the unit for $35 per unit that it cost InTouch to produce, translate and distribute.

You can learn more about the InTouch Messenger at their website.

www.InTouch.org


 

More images can be found in my file on photobucket. Click Here!

We have grown to 2.5 (est) readers now! Kevin Johnson over at the Painful Truth. Has linked to this site so that his readers can be kept up to date on the Science of Awesome. Thanks Kevin!

Also for the second day in a row if you go to Google and type in the words "Awesometific American" our site comes up as number 1!

Thank you for all your support!

Once again our staff here at Awesometific American is hard at work. Soon a new feature will cover some of those technological doo-dads that we have deemed as awesome. So keep your eyes and links here for some truly awesome items.

The hard working staff here at Awesometific American are working hard to keep you up to date on the cutting edge of awesome. Our public relations department as been in contact with a few high profile individuals who are doing some ground breaking work in the field. I will be profiling these courageous souls and the things they do to advance the science of awesome. Hit the RSS button and keep your eyes pealed for these profiles to hit this website soon.

We have received our first sponsor here at Awesometific American. The company is named Amy's Getaways.

Amy's Getaways is a full service, online travel agency. Anything you may need to travel anywhere in the world you can find there. They are even running contest this month for a 4 day, 3 night vacation to Paradise Village in the Rivera Nayarit including air fare. How awesome is that?

So many thanks to the folks over at Amy's Getaways for believing in advancing the Science of Awesome.

You can celebrate awesome everyday, but March 10th is the International Day of Awesome. This is a great idea and encourage everyone to celebrate. I will come up with something special to commemorate this day.

If you type in Awesometific American in the Google search engine guess which site is first? That is right this one. Just one more example of the power of awesome.

Ok, I have finally given a direction to my blog. It is not offically known as Awesometific American. I will be exploring all things Awesome. You may be asking, "Who determines the awesome things you will be exploring?" I am glad you asked that. Topics will be chosen by a panel here at the Institute for Awesome Studies (IAS). Currently that panel consist of only me. The panel feels that this is a fair and effecient system for operations. So get ready to roll up your sleeves and dig into a big pile of Awesome in the days to come.

Derek
Founder, Chairman for Life
Institute for Awesome Studies