I’ve always wondered why I could never drive very well, even if I did learn how to drive safely after getting into several accidents. It’s in my genes:

No need to curse that bad driver weaving in and out of the lane in front of you — he cannot help it, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

They found that people with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people with a different DNA sequence.

The study may explain why there are so many bad drivers out there — about 30 percent of Americans have the variant, the team at the University of California Irvine found.

Now, I’ve not been tested as my health insurance probably won’t cover it — it’s all I can do to manage to pay the premiums (and forget those deductibles) — but this may be the reason for that five foot-long dent in the side of my truck…

Here is some music I created in my virtual studio. I wrote all of them as MIDIs in Cakewalk on a PC, and then converted them to MP3s with GarageBand on an iMac.

Truth to tell, I can’t actually play all that well (and some parts of my songs probably can’t be played by humans anyway) but I understand music theory well enough to write music on a computer, which can play every note perfectly.

It’s lots of fun. But go ahead and tell me I suck, if that’s what ya think — anything’s better than being ignored.

I am lonely, oh so lonely, here in this lonely place. If anyone would care to join me in being largely ignored — except by spammers — just let me know.

(BTW, this is a test to see if anyone’s paying attention.)

Some facts about Zinc:

Zinc is an essential nutrient and zinc deficiency — which is quite rare in North America — can cause rather serious health problems.

Zinc can be toxic at high dosages. Symptoms of zinc toxicity include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and headaches. The maximum daily intake of zinc is 7 mg for 1 to 3 year-olds, 12 mg for 4 to 8 year-olds, 23 mg for 9 to 13 year-olds, 34 mg for 14 to 18 year-olds, and 40 mg for adults, including pregnant or lactating mothers.

Zinc can cause adverse interactions with several drugs, such as antibiotics, diuretics, and the arthritis drug penicillamine.

Zinc supplements may be useful if one is not getting sufficient zinc from foods like red meat, poultry, beans, nuts, crab, lobster, oysters, whole grains, and dairy products, but that’s all zinc supplements do. Zinc supplements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

It is an experiment, a learning experience, and part of the new way — a Web 2.0 sort of thingy plus a little “reality” TV.

Those of you who know me understand that I am not a real writer (yes, I know I can string words and sentences together in a coherent fashion that is sometimes entertaining) because writers are compelled to write, whether or not they’re any good at it, and I am not.

I have numerous interests and I don’t really have an inclination to write about all of them. The vast majority of my writing is about drug prohibition because that is a subject about which I feel passionately, even if such discussions are out of style in light of the progress of our war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and the trials and tribulations of this contemporary era in history — especially the antics of our current elected government.

My “drug war rants” toward prohibitionists (as well as the folks who think melodramatic assertions of the peoples’ right to get high on whatever substances we please will win friends and influence people for the drug policy reform movement) won’t stop until the American people come to their senses about this boondoggle that has found more success masquerading as a solution to itself than actually accomplishing its “mission,” which has something to do either with protecting the people from themselves, or the potentially disruptive economic ramifications of converting a $500 billion per year underground industry into a legal and regulated enterprise that labels its products and pays its taxes — more to come on that later.

Right now, I am interested in making videos and I am learning how to use non-linear video editing software, which is pretty easy because it’s all drag and drop. Of course, deciding which clips to drag from the collections and drop onto the timeline is somewhat more challenging. I now understand how some Hollywood directors wind up producing three-hour long epics that put movie audiences to sleep.

Then there is that age-old question of subject matter. Do I really want to just spew my unpopular opinions and peculiar notions to a camera? Who would want to watch that?

Since I have no hope of avoiding the multitudes that surround me almost 24 hours per day, I thought of making them a part of the project, too. I’ve never been really big on watching “reality television,” but it might be fun to produce — and it might even catch on.

Nonetheless and either way, I appreciate all your feedback, even if it is negative, because anything is better than living in a vacuum that needs vacuuming every day.

This is a sort of public service announcement for the numerous people who have found this web site via Yahoo, Google, or some other search engine using “the difference between ethics and morals” or some variation thereof.

(This is the third most frequent referral. References to the obvious closing lines of the first verse of our National Anthem are second. And rounding out first place, of course, are the obvious requests for free breasts, nudity, and/or sex.)

Ethics are a set of principles of right and wrong conduct, the actual written rules by which we try to work, love, play, fight, and live, according to our circumstances and beliefs, whatever they might be.

Morals arise from conscience, our inherent sense of right and wrong. We use our morals when we judge good and evil according to our perceptions. Morals are not written, but felt.

Making rules, and then sometimes breaking them (ethics), is intrinsic in our human nature, but it is our consciences (morals) that make us feel guilt, sanctimony, regret, satisfaction, remorse, or nothing at all, for having done so.

Ethics are external, morals are internal. Sometimes the two live in harmony with one another, but more often than not, it seems, they are in conflict, such as when the ethics say you can’t and your morals say you have to.

I do hope this PSA was helpful. Of course, if anybody disagrees, please feel free to educate me.