Brad's World View

The voting poor, vs. the poor

2012-02-04T06:42:00.000-06:00

Tam wrote about Mitt Romney's crude words, "I don't care about the poor."

I don't feign concern for the poor, either. Well, unless you count myself; I'm pretty concerned about me, after all.

One comment to her post, Anonymous 3:56 wondered:

I have to wonder how many of these candidates would be worried about the poor if the poor couldn't vote?

I think the poor would still be on the agenda, if the poor couldn't vote.

Let any segment of the population get too irate, and bad things happen. Women, unions, minorities, they all were capable of disrupting "business", all capable of destroying property and injuring or at least inconveniencing "voters".

The alternative to letting poor people vote is to define a class system, to restrict privileges and legal penalties by class. To use laws and government attention to control "undesirables". Wait, we already do that.

But at least the good poor people can vote, as long as they don't get convicted of a felony. And keep a residence and voter registration current. Even if that makes it look like we call "poor" those middle class people that can barely afford to live like middle class people.

And that those actually poor, that have given up trying to live like middle class America or never could, can't vote. Maybe what politicians refer to as poor voters is really just a scare tactic to sway middle class voters that fear losing more income, facing higher prices, and losing more ability to afford a middle class or wealthy life style.

Harry S. Truman got it right.

2012-01-23T09:06:00.000-06:00

"All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Harry S Truman, Letter to his sister, Nov. 14, 1947
33rd president of US (1884 - 1972)"

I think the part of President B. Hussein Obama's presidency that scares me the most, is that he cares nothing for what people are supposed to do anyway. He wants us to do what he wants, which violates the mandate for a President.

Hollywood -- panderer, miser

2012-01-20T19:30:00.000-06:00

So, I just read Wired.com's article on the new movie "Red Tails" (one of their articles). They point out that Hollywood as an industry rejected the notion of the movie, refused to get involved. An action movie with an all African-America cast, about racism in the US Army and in America, and how racism got in the way of fighting WWII. And how Americans, of various races, survived the conflicts.

So I checked. There is one theater in rural Ponca City, OK. Four screens, the Northpark Cinema Four, a Carmike Theaters theater.

And it *isn't* playing Red Tails. Nor is it playing "Haywired" (the movie I actually wanted to see this weekend.

And, you know, that whole SOPA crap just really hit home to me.

Here is Hollywood, advertising on local stations movies they flat out do not intend to show in my area (not within fifty miles). They are already advertising the DVD release. Their industry isn't about serving my community with quality entertainment, not Hollywood, not Carmike Cinema.

Now, Carmike I can see, picking and choosing which films to show. I mean, they charge an extra three or five bucks a ticked when they can flag a '3D' film. The one 3D film I saw wasn't worth the three bucks, let alone ticket+$3. And the 3D wasn't the part worth seeing, not for me.

So I kind of resent that they are holding for the fourth or fifth week a second screen of some Disney re-release, instead of an interesting new flick. You have to understand the theaters, I know. The theater gets to keep like 5% to 10% of the ticket price the first week or three, depending on the distributor and the contract the movie chain signs with the distributor. That is why "no passes for the first week(s)" thing. But the revenue share goes up, if you hang onto the movie for four or five weeks, so if 20 people go to see the movie the fifth week, the theater makes as much, or more as if 100 to 200 people see it opening week, barring popcorn sales. And leaving the movie there simplifies bookkeeping for everyone, so we see movies hanging on, taking the places that might have been used by fresher releases.

When a popular movie is well received and the community continues to return and return (Star Wars, Sound of Music, Shooter come to mind), this works out OK. Otherwise, not so much.

My own feeling is anger. If the movie makers are so disrespectful of my town they won't show, in movie theaters, the movies I want to see and that they are pimping hither and yon, then I care less about whether the "oh, by the way" fees and crap get enforced.

SOPA - where is the porn?

2012-01-19T10:56:00.000-06:00

OK, SOPA is supposed to be front money for the recording industry. I mean, Elvis' estate is still going big guns, making big money for a cherished few. Disney properties continue to reap the "re-release the thing every seven years to keep the market fresh and lucrative" windfall of ever-renewed copyrights.

But think back to cell phones receiving video. Think back to what made the internet grow.

It was dirty pictures. Pornography. Pics of folks frolicking like a day-time soap, with the sheets pulled down. It was porn that drove the new technology, that created the mass appeal that brought the prices down, so that Mom can hand 8 year old Junior his cell phone and wander off across Wal-Mart without the tyke bothering her.

Now we don't hardly (many of us) think of the internet as a place for porn. We think of news stories, and favorite blogs. Real, homey kinds of stuff we share with Mom. Well, we might show her P!nk's 'clean' version of Pretty Pretty Please video on YouTube.com, rather than the original "Fuckin Perfect" lyrics. Same song, different sensibility/market.

Now the internet tracks the sites we visit, so that marketers can better whack each of us with whatever they are pushing, from pirated purses to that getaway vacation on an Italian cruise ship. Oh. That was last week. Anyway.

The suits, lawyers, and marketing wonks have moved in and sucked up the landscape to make their careers and profits. Some of us remember when you couldn't see the traffic road signs for the billboards, as marketing jumped onto that marketing opportunity. They just moved to the so-called "information superhighway". Of course, most of us just take side-trips, but that is another story.

Fighting copyright crap is really fighting marketing crap. Marketing takes old, fossil ways of doing things, trying to capture the market and revenues, and usually in a piratical manner to cut the opposition's throat. That is what we are seeing with SOPA and DMCA and other sops to marketing. They have nothing to do with family values, with benefit to America except to enrich those with deep pockets and an intent to capitalize on whatever they can get away with.

So, where is the porn? Where is the interest of Americans that isn't driven by marketing. It isn't made by Apple. At one time is was the fishing pole, or the hot rod impromptu race car. Another time it was the bicycle, or the motor car, or the steam locomotive burning wood and pulling two cars if it was a bigger engine.

It might be the garden that Ferry-Morse and WalMart (cute packages this year, with only slightly higher prices than last year) aren't planting. Maybe RareSeeds.com (Baker Creek Nursery) or Richter's have a clue about gardening with heritage (sustainable) seeds and perennial vegetable gardens, were flowers are planted not for landscaping but for supporting bees and spiders (nature's bug predators).

It might be the John Michael Greer's ArchdruidReport, and GreenWizard.com, in planning for the long descent from economic affluence as the wealth generation from burning cheap fossil fuels dwindles as the fuels become less accessible and less cheap.

But it won't be protected by SOPA.

OMG! Dilbert reads DayByDay!

2012-01-17T10:02:00.000-06:00

OK, not Dilbert, but Scott Adams that writes the Dilbert comic strip on life in the dead-end corporate world. Today, Wally gets paid off for being discriminated against -- and he wonders what to do with a $1 billion dollars, now that he is one of the 1%. Pointy haired boss directs him to "the tiny unicorn with a golden key".

On DayByDayCartoon.com, Damon (sorry about this link. It just seems the most cynical,apropos snark on the pursuit of the opposite sex, ever.) has been running for US President (from the comic strip). DbD has always been non-Demcrat, pits two sisters and their families across the liberal/conservative divide. The take is that liberals have good intentions but tend to make matters worse for the most people, and there *is* no voice for conservatives, since the Republican party is so heavily invested in business as usual, they are uninterested in Constitutional government, checks and balances, or the will of the Republican party let alone the American people.

DbD tends to lampoon President Obama as a throwback to the pre-Revolutionary war French king, with period costume and obsequious lackeys.

Another touch point of mine on the internet is a farmer from Indiana, Frank W. James. Mr. James is a professional gun writer of long standing, with several books to his credit, and several magazine articles and columns currently. Frank refers to the current resident of the White House as President Unicorn, with scant admiration.

It is seldom that Dilbert strays so far from mundane office politics and snark, even indirectly into Presidential commentary. To be fair, this might be a snide comment on the Occupy rudderless disturbances (with their support from labor unions and Obama's re-election committee). The 1% is an Occupy/Obama talking point reference. The unicorn, though has long been a symbol used by President B. Hussein Obama's detractors.

You go, Dilbert!

I voted Republican since Gerald Ford

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

And yet, I think Hillary Clinton might be the least-bad choice for America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/keller-just-the-ticket.html?ref=opinion

I think the Democratic party needs to jettison Obama for Hillary; that would be my preferred scenario. The NY Times' Bill Keller thinks a more likely scenario would move Hillary into the VP spot come November. That, I think, would be terrible for America, leaving the Obama tribunal at the top of the feeding frenzy pyramid. I shudder to think what an extra *month* of Obama will do.

But the Republican party has shown itself to be remarkably resilient -- and resistant to learning anything about why Congress is so mistrusted, why winning the election seems so at odds with what the Tea Party and even the Occupy movements signify.

That is, unless something radical happens between now and then, I don't see myself voting Republican this year. And most incumbents had better have a damned virtuous -- and conservative, constitutional -- track record.

No one is planning to steal Republican voters. The GOP is shooing them out the door.

2011-12-21T12:02:00.000-06:00

The mass media is reporting that Ron Pauls ascendency in the polls and refusal to rule out a third party run threatens to steal republican voters.

Hah.

The Republican party was given a *mandate*, the authority and expectation of change to limit the size and scope of the US government, to bring spending into line with *reducing* the federal deficit *now*.

The few members of the House and Senate that still adhere to that mandate are called out as "tea party" republicans, are are depicted by both Republican party leadership and the mass media as "not real Republicans" at all.

Those same people that saw what the Tea Party had to say, and saw that it makes sense in today's world and what we build for tomorrow, still want the truth, the discipline that upset things in 2010.

And the Republican party pulls out the next old white guy standing in line. Romney and Gingrich, even Perry still represent the monied interests running things since Dole, since McCain. The Bush's worked well for the Party, but Bush II was a disaster for America. And the Republican party, like any big for-profit multinational corporation, is in it for the money. There is precious little room in the Republican party, demonstrated by it's actions, for loyalty, for honesty, for ethics and adherence to convictions.

There is an argument to be made that the big threat right now is Obama, and everything that helps unseat this President is a necessary stratagem for the survival of America. But the result of delaying the building of a restored America makes that goal less attainable.

Too many people, Republicans among them, understand this.

We spout out about the "will of the people", when the Republican party continuously rubs America's face in the fact that the Republican party merely wants to exploit voters for it's own ends.

So, no. Past NM governor Gary Johnson isn't stealing Republican party voters -- he is offering the Republican party's throw-aways a chance to believe in someone. Ron Paul's chimera of a third party run isn't stealing Republican voters -- or donations. He has tapped into a knowledgeable pool of people that vote, and understand the implications of doing nothing as the Republican party seems invested in doing.

I was raised Democrat

2011-12-19T17:10:00.001-06:00

My parents were strong Democrats. Mom to this day thinks of herself that way. I was raised in a Democratic home, and thought that the Democrats were just better.

But I recall Gerald Ford as President of the US. He took the office at a troubled time in US history, as Richard Nixon resigned the office under the cloud of impeachment. President Ford was, to me, dependable. Nearly harmless, he didn't do much to inspire my loyalty or pride, or disappointment. That last is important.

Jimmy Carter failed miserably, in his campaign for President, to convince me that he had any credentials, or that he committed himself to anything I found worthwhile. Having served in the US Navy, I found Carter's inability to pronounce nuclear (new-clee-ar, not Carter's new-kyu-ler) correctly to be petty, but still it biased my antipathy against Carter.

The Democrats have failed to put forth a candidate since then to make me reconsider my Republican-by-default political leanings.

In 2008 I decried Hilary Clinton, B. Hussein Obama, Sen. McCain, pretty much universally. The most promising move of the campaign, I thought, was nominating Sarah Palin for VP candidate. I thought at the time this meant that the staid, old-white-guy, you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours good old boy clicque running the GOP were changing, were changing in their perception of reality and of the needs of the nation.

McCain, being McCain, should not have been elected. He shouldn't have been nominated. His war record not withstanding, his morals and ethics seemed entirely too . . fluid. And the Republican party has shown itself completely immune to ethics, morals, change, and any interest in serving Republicans.

I still think the stated values of the Republican party are superior -- sound economics, defense of freedoms, limited government. I do *not* believe the Republican National Committee has any intention of doing anything toward any of those stated values.

So, on Politico.com, an opinion piece by Caddell and Shoen leap off in a new direction: Draft Hillary Clinton.

In 2008 I hated Hillary with a passion. I felt that remaining married to husband and past President Bill Clinton, she showed an historic lack of character. I felt that leaving Arkansas to run for the Senate from New York was mercenary, shallow, and an abuse of the people of New York. I never asked any Arkansas people if they missed having the Clintons when Bill and Hillary moved back East after their terms in Washington, D.C.

And, yet, the Republicans have shown themselves to be too heavily invested in the runaway economy to correct anything substantial. The leading Republican candidates, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, are all proof that the Republican Party intends to keep running the-next-good-old-boy in line.

And I found myself thinking, "I could vote for Hillary."

The nation will have to watch Hillary, if she is elected, closely. Her anti-gun position is as adamant as B. Hussein Obama and his Chicago thug pals. Hillary has the labor unions behind her, with all of their special interests that seem to support wrecking the profit motive and creation of work in America.

But she is still less scary than Obama or the GOP (where is the "Grand" part in "Grand Old Party", anymore?) candidates.

Hillary hasn't changed since the Clinton Administration, nor since 2008. I haven't changed my views that much since then. But the times, and the field of "hopefuls" has gotten really scary for me.

I could easily change my mind. All it would take would be a Republican candidate superior to Cain. Or a Democratic VP nominee with less appeal than VP Joe Biden. Any number of things could happen before next November, that might convince me to change my mind.

But, wow is that startling, to think that I might vote for Hillary Clinton for President in 2012, with no regrets. Amazing.

Is "Employed Applicants Only" unfair?

2011-08-30T22:29:00.000-05:00

Reason.com reports that Kelly Wiedemer has been unemployed all too long. But she is still active.

Kelly is suing Monster.com, the massive job listing site. Kelly is incensed that Monster.com accepts ads stating "unemployed need not apply" or "current employment required", or any variation.

When looking at the vasty number of people that President Obama's socialist policies have made unemployed, and kept them that way, it might appear that getting those "discouraged" people (not employed, but been that way the government doesn't have to count them in the unemployment numbers) should get hired right away, that will solve one of the nation's problems.

I don't see this blatant affirmative action as helping anyone, except maybe Kelly W.

Affirmative action has always hurt, hindered, encumbered, disenfranchised, and held back those that are targeted.

Think of it this way. A company hires people to do a certain amount of production, that is, processing materials to construct something with more value than cost. Getting competent people skilled in the production that the company operates is one way. And employers screen applicants for employment. They want to know that the person has a history of responsible behavior, has whatever knowledge and skills are claimed on the application, and has a certain amount of character and discipline at work -- shows up when expected, every time, keeps personal problems in perspective and out of the work place (within reason), gets the task done without constant close supervision, and works well with others.

Many times an employer takes a chance on a prospect that looks trainable. The character and discipline seem solid and dependable, and experience in related tasks seems to indicate the applicant would make the transition fairly easily. The risk is that it will take days to months -- or longer -- to determine if this applicant actually fits the need, once trained and worked into the company production stream. This is a cost of doing business. The more failed attempts a company makes, the more reputation for "difficult" practices grows among applicants and the industries that live off job applicants -- head hunters, state job services, resume services, etc.

My concern about hiring someone that has been unemployed long term is exactly the same as hiring a homeless person. They have had to adapt to a foreign environment. Just like going to college changes a person, it makes them unsuitable for certain jobs. Trust me, there are many jobs in Ponca City, OK, that will *not* hire anyone that has been to college. Supervisors used to high school graduates don't want the challenges, questions, attitudes, and perspectives of those that have been to college.

Long term unemployment means that work references are out of date. The previous supervisor may be unavailable, the business may not exist any longer, and getting a reliable feel for the long-term unemployed applicant becomes a serious problem.

Next is that unemployment insurance requires one to live according to unemployment insurance rules. The supervision, expectations, team environment -- all are unlike any company production stream. And the long-term unemployed applicant has been training and meeting the expectations of the unemployment insurance lifestyle instead of working related work.

Long-term unemployed often develop changed perspectives and tasks at home; reverting to a typical "leave the home life at home" work ethic may well be difficult, for both the worker and family members. This has the potential to cost an employer a lot, depending on how many interruptions for home issues occur each day.

An employer owes it to the company owners or stock holders to screen applicants fairly, to employ the best applicants for each position, to do a responsible job of screening out costly mistakes.

I feel employers are being responsible when they advertise "employed applicants only". This is not a new policy, because the previous work history is always scrutinized for gaps in related employment. Gaps in employment often indicate potential problems for the employer.

Employers cannot afford to overlook people afflicted with despair and depression, long term. They cannot afford the health benefits to cover applicants with pre-existing problems.

Long-term unemployment is an injury to a person, not a genetic or social barrier. What is needed is not to handicap, permanently, those hired under affirmative action. What is needed is a rehabilitation mechanism. A doctor's affidavit that applicant X has been treated and examined, and is fit to go back to work.

And ultimately, the profit a company makes, the employee costs they minimize, results in the ability to hire and train employees. Increase costs without increased productivity (i.e., profit), and the company cannot afford to employ as many people -- less hiring, more employees laid off.

Reducing the number of employees, and reducing productivity has been the common effect of affirmative action. Such efforts at social engineering are ineffective or destructive to employer and employed.

How about that, Kelly Wiedener? How about working with employers to devise a re-employment certificate that employers can rely on (not just imposed by the state, or even well-meaning affirmative action activists) that covers the unemployed period, the reasons for the unemployment, what workplace discipline and skills are exhibited, long term, and a responsible supervisor that can be contacted, and trusted to give a responsible evaluation of the applicant?

The SF 100. Thanks, Tam.

2011-08-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

Tam at View From The Porch continued a bloggish meme.

"(The list, for the two of you that didn't know, is the "100 Best SF/Fantasy Books" based on a poll of NPR listeners. The meme that's going about its to bold the ones you've read.) "

I think I read a couple of the others, but I don't recall the author or title that firmly.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King (Only the first two.)
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Some I chose to skip, some I would have listed much, much, much lower on a list of maybe 4,000 or so. And no one listed Wen Spencer's "A Brothers Price" or Mike Shepherd's "Kris Longknife" books. Or McCaffrey's "A Ship Who Sang". Or Frezza's "McLendon's Syndrome". Or Weber's Honor Harrington books. Etc. And even if it was NPR listeners, where is Esther Friesner's "Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three" (An anthology based on Leslie Fish's filk song by the same title.) Where are Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe books? Where is Elizabeth Moon's "Once a Hero" or her Vatta's War series?

Dammit, where is Stasheff's Starship Troupers series?

Anyway, this was my list.

Efficiency, resilience, and ethics.

2011-07-25T10:43:00.000-05:00

John Michael Greer has an important post about systems in general, focusing on efficiency and how efficiency is achieved at the cost of resilience. Please read it; JMG and the commenters have many important things to say.

Myself, I diverge from the conclusion that JMG makes. I find that efficiency is the quality of a system that measures how much output is produced from a given amount of input, based on the primary inputs and outputs of a system. Resilience, to me, is how much change there is in the expected output from inputs that are not the designed input.

Take a rain gauge, and a one inch rain fall. A very efficient rain gauge will report that 1.000 inches of rain fell. A resilient rain gauge will report the same thing, regardless of the presence of dust, bugs, sunlight or clouds, or street work three blocks away.

Efficiency, then, and resilience can both be engineered into a system, with only modest compromises. A well engineered system, either through adjustments and corrections over extended use or by good design, might well have both good efficiency and good resilience.

What JMG, and others, look at, is skewed engineering. That is, emphasizing efficiency while ignoring, or actively degrading, resilience. Few people want a car that gets great fuel efficiency if it means the thing falls over when you turn a corner (one of the examples JMG uses). That is a focus on efficiency without attending resilience. Making a car that won't pollute California, on the other hand, resulted in too many vehicles that were massively inefficient in use of fuel, but very efficient at passing California screening standards (that should not have been a primary output of the design).

So, today I read about Seth Godin's comments on happy and unhappy versions of business ethics.

The happy theory of business ethics is this: do the right thing and you will also maximize your long-term profit.

After all, the thinking goes, doing the right thing builds your brand, burnishes your reputation, helps you attract better staff and gives back to the community, the very community that will in turn buy from you. Do all of that and of course you'll make more money. Problem solved.

The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here.

If you would like to believe in business ethics, the unhappy theory is a huge problem.

I see a direct example of efficiency and resilience. In the "happy" theory, the focus is on resilience, on making changes and unexpected inputs to the system (the company) simple noise, and not impacting the ability to do business. In the "unhappy" theory, resilience is deliberately avoided as the sole engineering paradigm is focused on the "efficiency" of making a profit, and avoiding loss.

And I think that Seth and JMG both overlook the obvious.

That is, a resilient design, with good efficiency, is necessary. Spend to much effort on resilience, on effects on the system that don't pay off in supporting the designed output, and you waste resources and opportunities. Any system that fails to produce enough output will fail or be abandoned, so efficiency at some level is needed for survival of the system.

I look at a system differently. The health of the system might describe the ability to survive and perform in the presence of unexpected occurrences, and be described as resilience. Production would be the output of the system, and be described by the limits to how much can be produced, and by the efficiency of using inputs to produce a given output. Basal needs would describe inputs needed for the health and operation of the system that don't directly result in primary output production.

And I think that the definitions of efficiency and resilience are two different axes on a graph, and not opposite ends of a continuous spectrum. The better the design or engineering, the more each is maximized.

For Seth, the happy theory is useless to an organization that doesn't know how to do business. The unhappy theory makes an unwarranted assumption that ruthless operation is necessarily a successful business tactic; it can and often is a more rapid path to dissolution.

About the myth of "buy American"

2011-07-07T09:36:00.000-05:00

I got an email, from someone that believes the union line that we have to "buy American" when they really mean "buy Union" so that unions can do what they do with more money.

> http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/18/business/la-fi-auto-quality-20100
> 618
>
>
>
>
> We don't need government intervention to save ourselves as a country.
> We need a movement. A unified movement for the people, by the people.
> As members of the greatest nation, we owe it to ourselves and the rest of
> the world to protect and strengthen our economy. With the greatest "buying
> power" of any nation, all that is needed for a national resurrection is
> for us to give the power back to ourselves. Support Made In the U.S.A.
> Support yourself. Support US, so that we may continue supporting others.
>
>
> Before your next purchase go to www.MadeInTheUSA.com to search for an
> American manufacturer of that product.

Ultimately, American economic affluence has been built on debt, and only indirectly on spending.

The problem today at the national level is that fewer families have nearly as much money to spend, and major assets like homes have significantly less value to use as collateral. The result is that fewer people have the means or confidence to service as much debt as previously.

Revolving credit accounts (credit cards) are being paid off more than in recent times, so that the total consumer debt is shrinking. Too many people cannot pay, and their accounts are being closed and taken as losses. That means that credit brokers and speculators have a shrinking mass of debt to manage, to package and sell, and to trade amongst themselves.

You are familiar, I hope, with the mortgage problems people are having. Many families believed the hype that they could pay three and four times the cost of their house and consider it an investment, a lump of value to be used into the future. With the current reduced ability to service mortgages, and the way houses have lost face value, fewer homes are being sold as "investments". Which contributes in a big way to the collapse of the value of mortgages outstanding, and even more to the illusory "assets" of the credit default swap and mortgage derivative industries.

The national debt, on the other hand, isn't collapsing or shrinking. The US is more like the family who cannot find jobs that pay as well as before, that sees the values of assets and incomes dropping because of things outside their control. Unfortunately, President Obama seems intent on following the family destined to foreclosure, instead of the choices many families made to reduce their debt to something they could manage on their reduced income, or eliminate entirely.

How families and individuals choose to spend their (fewer) dollars won't matter much, because it won't restore the debt levels that fueled the bubble in the American economy.

Industry won't be nearly as able to respond to increased local demand, today, because the direct and indirect costs have skyrocketed. Government regulations are more onerous. Limits on access to energy, including oil and electricity, are becoming more apparent and limiting growth, and the prices aren't going to be coming down as demand increases and market supplies continue to decline. And too many of the workers of yesterday have fallen from the workplace, and the younger workers that should have been learning industry are mowing yards and hanging out.

Traditional transition jobs, with low pay and providing discipline and training to the young, are going instead to older and more experienced workers displaced from higher skilled jobs by the collapse of credit, increased cost of meeting government regulations, and increases in minimum wage. The lowered family incomes and growing masses of untrained never-employed young and minority people that should have been workers amount to a problem that may take decades -- and much more than choosing to buy American -- to fix.

The mass of unemployed and under-employed people are a drag and a drain on the American economy. While they are potentially a resource, today they consume collected tax revenue and community resources that deplete the assets that others might have used to provide jobs. They are not increasing in skills and future value to the market place; they instead represent a growing body of difficult to hire, difficult and expensive to train, and unreliable workers. The virtues of Americans in previous decades was much less about our liberty and craft, but much because of our dedication to community and nation, our employ-ability and ever increasing body of skill and knowledge.

The body of unsuitable non-workers is building. We are amassing a regulatory quagmire. Their is an increasing squeeze of declining energy available and increasing energy costs. In short, the ability of industry in America to respond to increased demand is limited.

Besides, when you hold out for the Made In America label, think of the number of jobs, in America, you threaten - that distribute, transport, and sell those products.

Choosing what to buy based on where products are made is a mere puff of breath, when applied to the problems of the torrent of economic and personal liberties abuse coming from Washington, DC and the Obama Administration, and this and previous Congresses.

If you want to fix the American economy, I suggest that you start with supporting those Senators and Congresspeople opposed to the current regulatory and tax and debt agendas. I suggest that the most effective steps to make buying American and restoring the American economy is to fix the problems facing the American workplace.

I think that the most hopeful future will hold a lot less affluence, a lot less ability to leverage debt into a sellable commodity, but with more people working for sensible wages (and not whatever government or unions can impose).

"We don't need government intervention" to solve these problems? I disagree. Government intervention is, I believe, the biggest part of America's economic woes and the biggest reason so many young and minority people are unemployable at present, and that so many American families are making do with less than in previous years, with little hope for a quick recovery. Government intervention has to be addressed first, to make anything else worth the effort.

I think much of the growth of American affluence has been directly related to the expenditure of cheap energy -- mostly fossil fuels. Fuels are no longer as cheap, and President Obama is hell-bent on making all energy, including oil and natural gas, more expensive. Those individuals, industries, and governments expecting the historical models of generating lots of money to work in the future are doomed to be disappointed, without the no-longer-available cheap energy those expectations are based upon.

Brad K.
Ponca City, OK

Getting the economy backwards

2011-06-30T09:50:00.001-05:00

President Obama got it backwards, at his press conference. You don't use tax revenue (collections) to create jobs. Collecting revenue destroys jobs, it always has. The more you collect (the higher the tax rate), the more jobs you destroy.

You destroy jobs when you increase the cost of hiring someone, that should have been obvious decades ago, but I guess the news hasn't gotten to Harvard Law School. I bet B. Hussein Obama could have gotten a straight answer from the Business School at Harvard, but the Harvard Business School doesn't talk about socialism as much. Business schools tend more toward making capitalism work well.

For the government to get more revenue, they need to get more people working. See, businesses don't pay taxes, they collect them. Any tax the IRS takes from any business increases the cost of doing business, which means that the business charges its customers more, or has to fire an employee or three, so that it can show the owner a profit. Or the business moves out of town (out of the country), or closes.

This also happens when you make regulations that cost the business, such as the EPA's grand "let's shut down the energy plants by making them too expensive to build and operate" scheme. Burning coal and oil don't put as much CO2 in the air as the swamps (protected wetlands, many of them) put out methane, as methane is much more green-housey than CO2. Well, and then there is the whole Brazilian effort to tear down the rain forest to grow "sustainable" ethanol, and then China is busy stripping the rain forests of Asia for lumber and charcoal to heat homes and cook meals. Tearing down old-growth forests, now, seems to this farm boy a pretty sure way to change the "climate".

After the profligate oil and coal burning, not to mention gunpowder use of the 1940s (WWII), how did it turn out that the 1950s were reputed to be the mildest decade on record, if putting out CO2 is supposed to de-stabilise the atmosphere?

Take a million bucks. Spend it on entitlements, to, say, a thousand people. How many jobs did you create, outside the bureaucracy of administering the plan (requiring more tax spending to pay for careers, facilities, benefits, and pensions)? Now take another million bucks, not collected as taxes, from, say a big company. How many jobs are not threatened? Maybe four, maybe fifty, depending on salaries and benefits.

The US Government cannot spend money that creates a job, that doesn't dismantle the ability of American employers to maintain or create more jobs somewhere else, not when they tax employers.

Either President Obama lies when he says he wants to use the government to create jobs, or he is just plain ignorant. I am sure at least one person has been able to describe what increasing taxes means to jobs growth or jobs lost. So is it lies, or is it refusal to hear the truth?

President Obama yesterday held a so-called press conference, All questions were pre-approved, the reporters asking were allowed, by name, to participate in a pre-determined order. It sounded more like a rehearsed press release/propaganda presentation/re-election speech.

And B. Hussein Obama trotted out the waste of the corporate jet again. Like his disparagement of the ATM machine, the corporate jet doesn't represent too much profit -- it represents the jobs of the folk that built and maintain that plane, that operate it daily. And it represents, all too often, a cost savings to the company. I mean, corporations exist to pay profits to the owners, and spending too much on anything from CEO salaries to jets, etc., can be expected to get the company in trouble with investors.

When government increases the costs of corporations and other businesses by collecting taxes, by increasing regulations and the minimum wage, they increase the amount of money that that business has to take in, that comes from the economy. Which leaves the customers of that business, and all other businesses, with less money to pay taxes and live comfortably.

And that means raising tax rates, especially for those in business or wealthy, make taxes harder to pay for the working people and middle class and poor.

I could wish that the American President didn't sound like a college protestor from the 1960s, with the Marxist change of "destroy the military industrial complex". Because this President is doing what the anti Vietnam War protestors advocated. And that Marx prescribed, to prepare a resisting culture for Communist rule. Or even a Chicago gang boss would want to make himself rich.

I think we are all correct - America is racist.

2011-05-07T09:53:00.000-05:00

I watched an interesting take on PJTV, about how the liberal left and Democratic party have taken to refer to all dissent as 'racist'.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=346&load=5386

Tony Katz (The Conversation), discusses the political label, "racers" - those that call all dissent 'racism'.

I think the problem is that there are two conflicting definitions in play for the concept of racism.

I think there is a racially-oriented agenda within the African-American community, that the liberal left is promoting. Agenda issues include affirmative action, avenging historical prejudices, biases, and harm.

This, any conflict with that political agenda actually is racist.

The version of racism I learned was an over-riding bias or prejudice one holds, that acts against others solely on the basis of their apparent or real race.

At dictionary.reference.com: Racism:

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

PJTV discusses personal opinions of individuals, and whether, as a group, non-liberals share a common antipathy toward black or African-American people. Which appears to not be the case.

Hatred of white people, on the other hand, seems to be a shared and common hatred and prejudice among a sizable and vocal part of the black and liberal communities. So the conservative right is content to point at the racism of the left as being the cause of the miscommunication.

At the same time, the agenda of the left is discounted by the right, earning a blanket condemnation for racism of those same conservatives.

The part that bothers me most is that some rude and disrespectful leaders on many sides use the distrust and enmity to further their own personal financial and political ambition. It seems that calmness and communication will resolve the enmity.

Time wounds all heels. (Isaac Asimov)

Sharon's Grim Picture

2011-02-24T14:13:00.000-06:00

Sharon Astyk writes at Casaubon's Book about unrest in Libya and other oil producing nations. And the picture is grim.

As Sharon states in a comment,

Saudi Arabia announced it was phasing out wheat production a few years ago, so this is largely expected, and Saudi Arabia has been a major new landowner in the global land grab for grain-growing land. But yes, it is a factor because Saudi Arabia absolutely needs to be able to buy grain on the world markets - as does China and several other major nations with deep pockets. So what happens when the entire Canadian Wheat harvest, say, is needed on the marketplace?

My answer to Sharon:

You paint a grim picture, Sharon. If China and other major nations are bidding up the price of wheat and other grains - what does that mean for the poor and those in less affluent countries?

As for where we would be now, having started to take things seriously in 1998? I would like to think we wouldn't be shipping milled steel at junk prices - i.e., old model cars and farm equipment, some of which is repairable - to China, instead of letting China spend the energy we will have to, to mine and process steel and iron to replace the implements and material we are now throwing away. We might all be living within walking distance of work, or at least see the average commute distance - via public or private transport - diminish significantly each year. We might see communities and cities denigrate the entertainment and shopping centers in favor of neighborhood, around the corner stores and services. We might be seeing more green (planted garden/grassland habitat) roofs and insulation-clad siding projects to make current structures more energy efficient.

We might see Washington, D.C. have to report not just the dollars they spend, but the energy loading for each program dollar (fuel, support for administration, material procurement and maintenance, support for each government employee, etc.). Heavens, we might have and actual, court-enforced, national energy budget, that even the President and Congress would have to honor. That might make an interesting Constitutional amendment, actually: Require the budget to 'balance' energy consumption without consuming any foreign energy or any hydrocarbon fossil fuel or other non-renewable mineral source.

Unfortunately, people are willing to drive longer distances to commute to work in this tough economic climate. Employers are even less interested in keeping employees energy usage under control. Stores can hardly afford to worry about the fuel their customers consume in getting to the store. And the government wastes energy in profligate amounts on projects with little actual use (that is, high speed rail, intended to address a wrongly perceived issue from a couple of decades back). Oh, and the nation and world want to buy their way back to living the way we did back before we ran into food, money, and energy constraints.

Sharon,

I look at how long ago the space shuttle program was supposed to be a brief transition to an efficient transport to space. I look at how long now they have been 'retiring' the space shuttle, and how the Hubble telescope was in use years after it was supposed to have been replaced. And I really have to wonder if any project that takes longer than the 12 months between swearing in a Congress and the next campaign season could have made a difference.

Kennedy's adventure to put a man on the moon, that happened in what? seven years? That built on technology already in development, and McNamara's predecessor to today's big government 'Federal Acquisition Regulations' hadn't really kicked in yet. Today the government cannot do anything without first creating a new bureaucracy (to assure that all hindrances and regulations are observed, with added costs rolled into the expected program over-runs). What won WWII was the ability of contractors to talk to the military, and come back with a plane or ship, and say, "What do you think?" "We'll take a thousand!".

I have lived much of my life being told that the US Dept of Education has outlived its purpose - yet it is still a bulwark of union teachers and Democratic social engineering.

I don't think starting in 1998 government would have accomplished much, nor allowed industry to accomplish much, either. My fear is that with the weak economy threatening national security, and the rising tide of violence (with food prices and oil prices), that we may not be able to depend on the government to keep hostile forces out of our back yards.

Because I don't believe for one minute that the unrest in the oil producing nations is an accident, or that they are each spontaneous. Nothing I have read in history, or that I have read of our world today, imputes stupidity to all those people. There is no reason for anyone to believe that changing the government will change food and energy prices - so, where did the organization come from to raise all the protests? And is there any reason to think they aren't aimed at weakening the US for future hostile actions?

The Federal Budget, and Peak Oil.

2011-02-21T11:17:00.000-06:00

I sent the following message to my US House representative.

Every thousand dollars of budget represents a finite and measurable amount of oil, coal, electricity, and other forms of energy.

The US budget to date has depended on unfettered access to cheap energy - oil, coal, hydroelectric, and to some extent, natural gas.

Other forms, from nuclear to wind and solar power, are forms of energy - but not cheap. Not cheap to build the structures, not cheap to operate. Most forms seem to burn tax dollars to produce energy.

The world faces a change, as the ability to produce expected amounts of oil in a day was passed back in 2005, by some estimates. As demand in the developing world continues to increase, nothing America does to conserve will have an impact - worldwide demand for oil will continue to outpace the ability to produce oil on any given day. Federal expenditures represent energy usage. Fuel used in the course of doing business, energy used to produce vehicles, structures, material and supplies - and to maintain, dispose of, and account for each.

Energy is consumed in the private lives of every government employee - diverting energy from the economy, as well as talents not being used to produce goods and services to maintain the America we have come to know.

A sound, sustainable energy plan has to begin with accepting the energy burden of government employment and government expenditures. The security of the nation demands that we move to a lower-energy economy, and form of government, now - while we still have access to the energy needed to build the structures and infrastructure needed for the future.

The security of the nation has always depended on a strong US economy. While not moribund, today's US economy hasn't yet begun to face a future of restricted access to cheap energy. We risk losing the ability to stand strong in the face of foreign competition.

The federal budget, as monstrous as it has grown, is but the tip of the iceberg. I see no way around the debt deflation facing the nation as the artificial wealth represented in the housing bubble and especially the banking and security shenanigans continue to collapse. Throwing tax dollars (energy and talents diverted from productive use in the economy) at the collapse won't help the nation.

Funding big government is a luxury of the past, that perhaps we never could afford. Today over-spending is a risk of our nation and our way of life.

Compare "Big Government" to an alcoholic, and the federal budget is the bottle. Get the picture?

Tax dollars = energy expended. Government employees have been pulled from the available work force just as if they had moved to a foreign country.

We cannot afford the brain drain or energy expense of big government.

Will the Egypt riots spread to Cairo, Illinois?

2011-01-31T23:19:00.000-06:00

Sharon writes at Casaubon's Book "It all comes back to food" about the riots in Egypt.

I think Dmitri (Club Orlov) called it, when he described the uprising in Egypt as people who had lost faith that their government could do something for them.

That hasn't happened in the US, yet, on any kind of grand scale.

But it could.

I recall the feeling back in 1992, when paperback book prices jumped a dollar. I forget, that might have been when they went to 5.99 or 6.99. I remember the anger of the moment, though all I did was make a pointed and blunt, moderately courteous comment to the B. Dalton store clerk.

I picked up a 2 lb package of Wal-Mart popcorn today. $1.44 isn't bad, and it works decently in my air popper. But I recall a few years back, that package was $0.77. Bread has gone from ninety-some cents to $1.20. Etc. And these are all mild price increases.

Forget worrying about clobbering farm ground with non-productive urban sprawl. Worry that we have designed our cities and workplaces to require the expenditure of cheap energy to get from shelter to work to shopping to recreation to school. You are right, probably the first impact of loss of cheap energy will be food supplies and other essentials - they don't make toilet paper here in Oklahoma, as far as I know, nor enough coffee or peanut butter for the whole state.

But dealing with local food security is probably minor, compared to the hidebound thinking of city planners, housing developers, and business planners. If energy prices rise significantly again, the first steps will be to conserve, share rides, etc. But there are limits to what can be done. Very few businesses participate in planning how much housing nearby is available for their work force, nor whether there is grocery shopping and entertainment nearby.

I don't like government programs for the same reason I don't like dictators. Any mistakes are too horrid to be believed. The cumbersomeness, inefficiency, and extended time it takes for Democracy to accomplish anything means there is a good chance that the best things never happen - but many of the worst things likewise end before starting. If every community addresses a given problem, such as food security, so many things might be tried that surely some approaches will help. When a community notices a mistake, they can be fairly agile in correcting the problem. Correcting a problem in a program at the national level, well, we mostly just have to live with the errors.

And, yes, Obama's stated policy of 'streamlining' regulation and rule making scares me, as it disconnects from much of the apparatus for stopping bad ideas from harming the nation. Recent actions by the EPA, FCC, and other agencies show this stated policy is and has been in force under President Obama.

If Orlov's premise is correct, that only belief that our government can provide assistance is keeping Americans from taking to the streets in protest, then the disregard of Obama and others in government for what is harmful and contrary to the will of the people is particularly scary; President Obama could be in the middle of the process of throwing away all the stability of 200 plus years under the US Constitution.

Ending the unsustainable extended jobless benefits without putting people back to work (you know, drop business taxes, eliminate burdensome business regulations that don't work, and disband intrusive government interventions), that would be a step in eroding confidence that the government could help us. Cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments could embitter our elders, and those that have come to depend on government handouts; again, increasing the odds of disaffection for the government.

I expect we will see protests in the street, from those sympathetic to the Egyptian people, and probably also from those that identify with the class differences and lack of government service to those that need it - the poor. I don't think government payments are the best help, or even useful. But the government can assure that the poor have access to jobs, shelter, and that businesses of the poor are able to compete with businesses run from more affluent neighborhoods.

The Arizona Shootings, Jan 8, 2011

2011-01-09T00:29:00.000-06:00

First off - the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, was criminal, and unjustified.

Several aspects of that shooting come to mind. At this time, I haven't seen any motive or agenda, and all I know about the shooter is that a second actor is being sought.

1) 12 people were downed by the reputed lone gunman. While Fox News (the report I saw) harped on and on about what that might mean about beefing up security for other Congresspeople and Senators - I can't get away from one glaring fact.

12 people were hurt because only 1 person had a gun. And the one with the gun was not the one defending his family and neighbors.

15 years ago Arizona had an open carry policy - I once did a double take, standing in line at my bank, behind a gentleman with a six-shooter on his belt. Surprisingly to some, but not to me, no one was shot that day. I don't know what Tuscon does, that may be anywhere from open carry to a Disarmed Victim Zone. The crowd at Congresswoman Gifford's event yesterday certainly failed to protect themselves and their neighbors.

2) Lawless behavior. Shooting someone is a lawless act, unless protecting oneself or family or others from imminent danger. The shooting in Tucson was certainly lawless.

The outgoing 111th Congress under Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, in collaboration with President B. Hussein Obama, set a lot of 'precedents', they bent a lot of rules, and if they didn't violate laws and the US Constitution, they certainly appeared to. That is, the past Congress could be said to have been 'lawless', in a manner similar to the shooting in Arizona. Certainly, ObamaCare bids fair to directly cause the death of thousands or more, through denial of services and "death counseling" to those already troubled and depressed. I imagine that the case will be made that when Congress acted lawlessly, to the satisfaction of one citizen of Tucson, AZ, that constituted tyranny - perhaps the main reason the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution assures each and every citizen the right to possess and own the means to confront tyrants. Acting against a tyrant - such as the good Congresswoman as a representative of the apparently lawless 111th Congress is against the law. There is no question about that, the 2nd Amendment doesn't provide any basis for taking the law into one's own hands. The 2nd Amendment merely assures that when any citizen is convinced of the need to act, that citizen has the means to act, even though doing so is legally murder and carries the penalties associated with murder. The intent is to avoid tyranny - lawless behavior - in government.

Was this shooting related to the Congresswoman's record, her association with the 111th Congress or the incoming 112th Congress, or her identification with the Democratic party? I don't know, and whatever is released or claimed, the truth may never be known. For all I know, this shooting was an infantile bid for attention by someone that should have known better.

3) This last point bothers me a lot. President B. Hussein Obama is on record as claiming to "not let a crisis go unexploited" or words to that effect. This shooting of a 'moderate Democrat' could turn out to be a wedge the Administration under Obama uses to disrupt the grand plans of the incoming Tea Party and Republican lead House of representatives. Could President Obama have instigated the shooting, coming as he does from Chicago, the home of Mayor Daley and Al Capone? Could the Democratic leadership have been sending an unsubtle message to so-called 'moderate' Democrats - about straying from the party line?

Granted, Arizona has several issues from state solvency and federal (unfunded or underfunded) mandates, to illegal immigration and state sovereignty. Could this shooting have been related to one of these issues, or illegal drugs? Yes, certainly. And I pray that President Obama hasn't begun shooting Congresspeople that might not agree with him.

What I am convinced of, is that we need less lawlessness, and especially the appearance of less lawlessness, in this next congress. And I pray that the Congresswoman from the 8th district of Arizona is a major player in this new congress. All the best to her, and the families of those injured or killed in Tucson yesterday.

co: On objecting to the Pledge of Allegiance in America

2010-11-13T09:31:00.000-06:00

Kollapsnik at Club Orlov reminded us about November 7,the anniversary of the Stalin revolt in Russia that ended the sovereignty of the Czars, and rang in Communist rule.

One of the comments brought out a recent event, where a school student refused the class pledge of allegiance to the US and the flag - and the coach physically and verbally abused the student, attempting to twist the young person's arm into the expected hand-over-heart position.

I can see how someone might disagree with the boy's point of view and manner of protest but if this is supposed to be a free country, what is the point of trying to force him?

Another comment went on to object to the pledge itself.

. . Furthermore it's unconstitutional, as it includes a reference to "God," whereas the Constitution explicitly states that Congress shall pass no law respecting religion. The Pledge of Allegiance was rammed through during the 1950s and has no legitimate association with the Fourth of July, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence. Moreover that kind of compulsory group behavior is a violation of the spirit of all those things, in my opinion. So I'm against it.

For 15 years or so after WWII, the US faced an active threat from Russia, from infiltrating and local communist agents and activists, many with known membership in a Communist Party. The threat intended to escalate into an American version of the 1917 revolution where the Russian government was overthrown by Communist rebels against their government. Senator Joe McCarthy won a deservedly (in my opinion) tyrannical and corrupt reputation by riding that very real threat into a cartoonish reign of terror on Americans.

Part of the response to that threat from within and without, with anti-American activities being funded by Russia and other fronts, was the pledge of allegiance.

Most American Communists at that time were passionate and determined enough to openly despise the US Constitution and it's Constitutional form of government - they refused the pledge. So the pledge was seen as a test for citizenship, a public demonstration that community and leaders were indeed engaged in legitimate discourse and governance under local, state, and federal laws.

I think the flag was chosen as the symbol of adherence to the Constitution, because the battle flag has always been an important icon for the uniformed services. The flag plays the military role of identifying leadership, authority, and a visible reassurance that our side is still engaged, still battling or carrying on. The US grew from the Revolution and leaders recently experienced in that military conflict. In post-WWII America, millions of citizens had just recently been released from military service. The US flag was, and is, a powerful emblem and symbol of the nation, national leadership, and here in America, the Constitution that many public leaders and all military enlistees are required to swear an oath to defend, from enemies foreign and domestic. The flag as a symbol is a remembrance, and a reminder, that America was won on the battlefield, partly, and owes it’s continued existence, in part, to readiness to defend against armed aggression.

Anyone should be permitted to choose to refuse the pledge of allegiance; it should have to be a deliberate and sincerely considered refusal. Refusing the pledge should carry the consequences understood when the pledge was first imposed. No one that can conscientiously object to the pledge of allegiance should be allowed any position of civil, legal, military, or other civic responsibility or authority.

One of the basic strengths of America is adherence to the Constitution. From the President of the United States, to the gentlepeople collecting garbage for the city, every single person should be engaged in their assigned duties in a manner that defends and protects the Constitution of the United States.

Quarrels with individual laws aside from the Constitution, or with words, positions, or actions of any public office holder, are all legitimate defenses of the Constitution, and are part of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of each citizen of the United States. The onus to consider and choose what to support and what to oppose does not extend, in my opinion, to the US Constitution, the flag, or even to the pledge of allegiance.

Today the issue of Sharia law is a direct challenge to the Constitution in federal and state courts. Sharia law is to the Muslim, what the Ten Commandments are to Christian and Jewish faithful. They contradict the rights and responsibilities of citizens under the Constitution. Muslim beliefs of religious teachings superseding secular laws violate the Constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state. Harsh mutilation and stoning requirements under Sharia law violate freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Death to Islam non-believers violates guarantees against discrimination based on faith.

There are those that refuse the pledge of allegiance on the grounds that the pledge represents a secular kind of 'belief', almost a religious faith.

Those that do not believe that the Constitution is or should be the basis for laws common to all Americans must and should be tolerated. But the Constitution requires that leadership and laws and governing bodies adhere strictly to the Constitution, to not compromise the guarantees of citizenship, nor to exceed the limits imposed by the Constitution on governance in America.

Thus, I see the pledge as a check and a privilege of Constitutional citizenship, and a bare requirement for leadership and authority.

As to "God" in the pledge, the Constitution mandates separation of church and state, and adheres quite closely to actual faith in a divine Creator. Faith and church are two very different entities. Faith is a description of beliefs and truths that an individual incorporates in relating to that individual's concepts of divinity and that individual's relationship to that divinity.

Church, and other forms of organized religion, is an organization of people, often bound to each other by common faiths and beliefs. The US Constitution establishes that no church of any faith may over-rule the US Government, nor may they interfere with the rights, protections, and responsibilities that derive from the Constitution or Federal, state, or local laws. The Constitution also, importantly, protects citizens from churches and faiths, and actions by churches and faithful, that contradict the rights, protections, and responsibilities of secular (non-faith based) laws and regulations.

The Constitution prohibits the government from allowing or acting from a basis of faith or church. Individuals, including office holders, are expected to act within their own faith and beliefs, as long as those actions adhere to the protections and limits of the Constitution and subsequent laws.

That is, the Constitution both establishes the creation of our nation within the belief in God (an amorphous expression of Judeo-Christian faith), and protects the individual's right and responsibility to believe and worship as their conscience dictates. The limits on church and faith protect the rights of each and every American to believe as they understand their relationship to God and divinity.

At least, that is how I feel about it.

Did Adobe just kill YouTube.com?

2010-11-08T20:19:00.000-06:00

OK, so the Natasha Bedingfield video (Pocket full of sunshine) I have been watching - and watching, etc., stopped working. They needed me to update to the latest Flash player.

So now I not only get to see Natasha, hear a reasonably good song - but I get to watch ads, too, ticker-taping across the blasted video.

Hurray for RIAA, etc.

Only - the ads detract from the reason I am there. If I want to watch ads, I would hie me to the blasted TV set, and, like, maybe plug in antennae for the first time in nine years. I might pull the spam and popup and script blockers off my browser and un-firewall my computer. I might for goodness' sake buy the local news (and ad) paper.

Hint, you folks at YouTube - newspapers and broadcast TV and cable TV put a lot of effort into getting those ads to throw at their viewers. Hint 2: Their business model is kinda spotty, with some doing well - and many not doing so well.

If I wanted to be paying RIAA for the music, I would consider paying for a CD or download *without restrictions, add-ons, ads, etc.*

Natasha - I am sure your video is still nice enough. I don't get enough out of it, though, to put up with ads on the video at the same time. Sorry. Have a nice career.

YouTube, Google - for shame. I kinda home you find a way to broadcast video without Adobe's ads. Else look for others to jump into the massive opening you created, for credible and useful alternatives.

Remember, kiddies. Patents and copyright laws were established by the US Congress and Constitution for a very important reason: To generate lots of ideas and creativity - and get those ideas and creativity into the public domain. Patents and copyrights were created to be a very limited period of protection for inventors and authors, to assure they got recognition (no one stole the idea) and a chance to profit from those ideas. Then, after a decent period, all those tunes and lyrics and poetry stanzas and books and papers and such - were to become public knowledge and a value to all the nation.

Words have power. Power to make people grow in useful and interesting ways, words can inflame passions, and unravel angers, words can soothe, and share an expression of beauty that enlarges the spirit. Words can also do other things - it is one of the obligations of a mature person to sort through the words, and make good use of what is good and fruitful.

And my word is that I am looking for something non-Adobe to read pdf files, and I for something else that shows Flash without the ads. I know I never wanted to do a Flash project, so none of my web design clients need worry, nor the visitors to their web sites.

And to the good folks at Adobe? I use the Photoshop Elements. And I still refer to every single Adobe product as "the Adobe Virus" - because starting up an Adobe application causes my computer to lock up, gasping, as if a virus attack had grabbed my computer, had stopped all my interfaces, and was busily erasing my computer's hard drive. The arrogance of the way Adobe software is installed and starts to run, abusing resources and my time, feels rude to me, and lacks respect. Yes, you bought Macromedia so you could do what you want with Flash. My hope is that you price yourself, and de-feature yourself, right out of the marketplace.

vftp: Lame duck Congress, FSA - S.510, and DADT

2010-11-05T07:54:00.000-05:00

Tam at View From The Porch laments the damage this lame duck Congress - those folk with all the authority of their elected office, but with replacements with different agendas already selected - can do in their misdirected energy and bitter sense of loss. Tam lists some of the projected topics - and hopes they spend all the dwindling days of this Congress on DADT - the Clinton-era invention of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that stopped the military from assuring it's members were heterosexual, but clobbered anyone that was revealed to be . . different.

S.510 - So-called Food Safety Enhancement, and the FSA

We will have to watch this Congress. With Malice Aforethought - the Senate scheduled for this month - immediately after the election - S.510, the Food Safety Administration (Food Safety Enhancement Act or some such). The bill wants every farmer, trucker, farmers market, and truck farm listed and inspected by the feds - including mandated testing of foods and stuff that *could* be used in food for people *or animals*. S.510 includes the Fed capacity to shut down or outright confiscate anyone that botches the paperwork, fails an inspection, or fails to stick to Federally mandated practices to produce, transport, or store food or anything that could be a food component for people or for animals.

This will tap and hinder everyone that consumes food (like you and I) and everyone with contact with food - perhaps anyone selling at any Farmers market or roadside stand.

For those that think this sounds like increased food safety - recall that the existing laws prohibited that peanut butter incident from happening, and the Iowa egg thing, and didn't. Additional laws hamper the law abiding, without affecting the unscrupulous or ignorant. This also has the potential to put a lot of people right out of business that aren't using Monsanto based concepts - and expenses - of raising crops and livestock.

There are a ton of regulations required - but not written yet - in the bill, massive penalties, and it all rolls up into another brand-new bureaucracy, the Food Safety Administration.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Oh, please, please let them dither over DADT until the new batch get there. I served in the Navy some 30-35 years ago when women started serving in wider capacities. I heard most of the same arguments then about women as the military raises about gays. For the most part, most of us had little sexual contact with the others in our unit, and I doubt that will change. 'Way back then, when it was all guys (and the only dates discussed were female), there were some that preferred blondes, others with provocative clothes, or a habit of regular alcohol and frolicking about. Other than the hangovers, it didn't much affect the work. Sheesh. The military fears the gays mostly because they were taught to fear the gays. If they can learn to march in step, because they are told to, I expect most all can handle respecting the person next to them.

Even if the Army has to re-evaluate making skirts optional for both genders. Kilts didn't seem to hamper the Scots much.

tae: EQ - inflation, or a trap for the prudent?

2010-10-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

On the Automatic Earth,
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/10/october-26-2010-can-qe2-save-banks.html

- Ilargi describes how "QE", quantitative easing (Bernanke printing money will he, nil he) must create massive deposits - the $2 trillion and growing available money corporations are holding onto.

In her famous lecture A Century Of Challenges, The Automatic Earth's Stoneleigh uses the following image to explain what the liquidity trap is. The Fed can keep on pumping money, but it can't make it move. If you're fearful or uncertain, you will hold on to what you got, not spend it.

Stoneleigh compares it to "running your car with the oil light on". That is to say, the liquidity trap results in an economy without sufficient lubricant (credit, money) to run in a healthy fashion.

So - QE2 might be misunderstood economics, or a case of ignorant politics over-riding good sense.

But what if this is planned? If the bankrupting of the nation is intended to create a scenario when the citizens of the US cry out "Oh, save us, Barrack Hussein Obama!" And the man, and corrupt political machine behind him, nationalize all the industry, the commerce, and private institutions, to "save" the nation B. Hussein Obama has intended to "build" since he started?

Because the stage is nearly set. The players - the Organized Labor unions, the ACORN and other socialist forces, the armed DEA and Immigration forces that have been building, the nation divided into regional districts with headquarters and bases and leaders lined up. All bank records are now open to the feds, without warrants, so that no deposits or transactions can be concealed from the Feds, if the feds ever turn to the oversight and vilification of, say, soviet Russia.

Is this another wild conspiracy theory - or is there an actual, demonstrable, anti-Constitutional plan in play?

Pres. Obama practiced nationalizing GM and Chrysler, then the banks. Does that mean that the govt is ready to start nationalizing all savings (since they cleared the way to snatch 401k principal to buy mandatory ObamaCare insurance) and money not spent? Has this been Obama's long term "hope and change", his mantra about redistributing the wealth (which necessarily means stealing from someone)??

DayByDayCartoon.com certainly expressed one concern about this coming election, that Obama would count what outcome he wants, and disregard actual ballots cast.

Then the news came out, that SEIU, the same government service union that posted thugs to interrupt "Town Hall" meetings between Obama rivals in Congress and the people that were outraged by Obama's policies - has the exclusive contract to operate all voting equipment in Nevada. And the machines have been biased to favor Harry Reid.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Keep in mind, the Department of Just-Us has had to face criticism from Congress this fall - for an official, Presidential directive that forbids prosecuting any voting law violations - if the harmed voters are white.

Talk about inviting the fox into the hen house, or sending a chilling message to voters in America.

So - what is it to be? Default on the debt - or seize that pesky money prudent companies and individuals have been keeping from Obama's (deliberately damaged) economy?

An idiot at the Atlantic monthly

2010-09-24T09:35:00.000-05:00

Michael Kinsley at TheAtlantic magazine, writes about the Baby Boomer generation and how they can make their mark in history. He pooh-poohs Joe Klein, writing in Time a year ago, for suggesting that legalizing marijuana would be a suitable mark.

So what do you give the country that has everything? You give it cash. The biggest peril Americans now face isn’t Islamo-fascism. It’s our own inability to live within our means. It would be nice to give our country the wisdom and self-discipline to stop running up the credit card. And we should try. But it’s unlikely that we can remake the national character (including our own) in 19 years. What we can do is offer a lecture and a fresh start. We should pass on to the next generation an America that’s free from debt.

What an idiotic thing to propose.

One would think that the need is for responsible money handling, which would have long-lasting impacts. Gifts, especially of cash, have the opposite effect.

Kinsley returns to the era of WWII and the Greatest Generation, and glosses over the massive use of mass media and deliberate government propaganda to manipulate a nation. This introduction to mass marketing became, after WWII, today's merchandising and marketing advertisement, and a consumerist culture who's bubble is bursting now with the current round of deflation. It is the lack of morals in advertising to create a perception of need in the target audience that most marks the legacy of the Greatest Generation that hinders today's world. Marketing designed to benefit makers of consumer products and consumer debt have little regard to endangering, as a nation, the discipline or values of the Baby Boomers.

The mark of the 1960's Boomers was the drop-out Hippie, in an age affluent enough that much of a generation could stop contributing to their own support and turn to drugs (crime) and indolence, without dying out completely. The Hippie movement ended as members were reabsorbed into a working - at the individual level - society. The mark of the Greatest Generation of the 1960s was a man on the moon, and Russian imperialism held at bay.

Bring home candy for the kids when you go to the grocery store. The next time you return home, what do the kids do? Right. Not greet you, but demand "their" candy. Kinsley's proposal to cash out the Boomers will merely give the next generation a free pass to continue living as if affluence were a virtue and a certainty - and guarantee the overspending continues but without an example of how to stop (which is to stop spending).

Death taxes or voluntary donations of estates result in money withdrawn from the economy, denied to heirs that might have been otherwise been ready to continue ongoing businesses and enterprises - like farmland. Snatching estates for government use rewards government spending (vote buying), while ruining lives for the people living on the ongoing business of living, related to that estate.

Lack of discipline is the problem, and gifts are not the answer.

The Tea Party, Communications, and Politics - and the Constitution

2010-09-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

When the US was young, general communications were limited almost to gossip, hearsay, and the occasional traveler. Much of the course of the Revolution, and later the Civil War, were laid out with control of information, both among allies and used against opponents.

The telegraph, distributing information to media channels like newspaper and town meetings, began a change. Newspapers carried national politics and news within days of happening. Politicians began receiving letters and telegrams and other communications from a vastly wider cross section of their constituents - and the constituents started getting better insight into what their representatives were doing.

Since the 1960s TV and Radio increased the immediacy and intimacy of broadcast media, challenging the traditional newspapers for accuracy and respect. More people got involved, more special interest groups formed and applied pressure to Congress, the President, courts, and states. Easier communications redefined the role of the representative from acting on his own beliefs, to responding to imminent feedback from his district, often assumed to be the expression of the special interest groups and paid lobbyists.

Now the Internet starts to change the political landscape again. Peggy Noonan writes persuasively for the Wall Street Journal that there are two central reasons for the current prominence of the Tea Party: The clock and the Yardstick. The clock is counting up the cost of delaying drastic remedies to the current crisis of big government having overspent the nation. The yardstick is a measure of how far to the liberal, big government end of the stick so-called Republicans are playing to the liberal goals. The Tea Party is focused on dragging things back to the middle of that yardstick, and quickly.

Chris Anderson of the TED conferences waxed eloquent about Crowd Accelerated Innovation. His components for CAI are content, light, and desire. I might describe the Tea Party movement as substantive issues (content), exposure of deceit and offering plain, responsible remedies, and a real passion to accomplish the needed changes in time to reduce the impact of what has been going on for decades.

I think Chris' Crowd Accelerated Innovation explains how the Tea Party came to be so influential in such a relatively short time, how so many people got involved, how the course of the effort has steadied onto the biggest single factor that most of those interested can get behind - overspending by today's government. Other issues have less consensus, but fail to diminish the force of the movement. This also explains a popular movement without the traditional charismatic leader, though a few have tried to don that mantle. But claiming leadership of a minority to create status and power is an old-boy trick, and this new model of quick and reliable, viral communication exposes and disposes of chicanery, as quickly as it exposed the SEIU shills stuffing the early "town hall" meetings.

Where Peggy Noonan explains the impact of the Tea Party, and in part why the Republican Party establishment is afraid of, and unable to draw power and funds from, the Tea Party, it is Chris Anderson's Crowd Accelerated Innovation that explains why the Tea Party works so well.

The Democratic and Republican party leaderships are still founded on the days of controllable and restricted media of the mid-20th Century, as modified by the cheap energy era - and easy money - that blossomed so grandly for American from the 1950s through the early 2000s.

What brings the Tea Party to the fore now? The United States is called a "capitalist" nation. I had to look that up. Capitalism is a form of government that supports and encourages capitalists. That is, the wealthy, but especially those investing and managing capital investments for industry, commerce, and other kinds of production. Capitalists invest to create profits - jobs, goods, etc. And Capitalism encourages that. Because of the chances for abuse in an unregulated climate, there are a few necessary controls - monopolies and unfair business practices are punished, deceit and fraud are punished. But now we have a President that hates capitalism. In his haste to dismantle the economic basis of what used to be a wealthy nation, a nation that used to rebuild countries in the shape we are in today, he has made the US a second world power, inviting other nations to assert their own dominance in the world. And he continues to punish capitalists - the very people and organizations needed to restore any semblance of a sustainable economy.

Three other important issues highlight the crisis that the Tea Party addresses. Global Warming has been made an international bogey man. Whether or not the climate is changing or will change, the political impact has been felt. Whether or not the political infighting that has tainted any possibility of getting a definitive answer about causes and effects from the science community is moot at this point. The UN and certain factions in the Obama administration are using the argument to continue disrupting the US economy, punish the capitalists that frankly made the US the power it became for World War II, and would be required if any great national effort in the future were to succeed.

The next great issue is biting now. Sources differ, whether the peak oil production fell below world demand, on a day-by-day basis, in 2005 - or will in the next couple of years. Peak Oil means that the demand for oil is and will be forever, greater than the ability to produce oil. Yes, there are reserves of oil to last centuries. But it can no longer be produced at a rate to satisfy world demand today. The result is expected to be a gradual ratcheting up, with spikes of increased cost of energy alternating with relative easing of cost - as various economies retract under the strain, reducing demand. But each cycle will ratchet ever higher. The reasons are clear - existing fields are getting closer to empty, and the cost per barrel is increasing at the same time the amount produced per well is declining. One report shows Saudia Arabia needed $18 per barrel in 2000 to break even. That break even point was $68 per barrel in 2009. New finds are more difficult to get to, regulations and costs make getting that oil to market more expensive, and some of us see a profound change coming in how we look at energy. The promise of alternate energy is about as scientifically and economically compromised as the science behind global warming. Wind power generators are dependent on the wind blowing. Alternative sources have to be online and available when the wind stops, or maintenance needs to be done. The cost of wind energy is currently highly subsidized - it couldn't pay for itself on today's market without soaking up bunches of tax dollars. There are other options - wave and tide motors, geothermal and deep sea cold taps, variations on hydroelectric generators - but Washington keeps spending tax money on labor unions and banks that make a profit off the national debt. Reduce taxes, make business regulations relevant to the "land of the free" and the capitalists might be able to make something work.

To my own delight, the Tea Party is focused on the traditional US Constitution and Bill of Rights to restore responsibility in government, as the means to achieve responsible economic reform. Makes sense to me.

TED - on Crowd Accelerated Inspiration

2010-09-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

Chris Anderson curates the TED conference, which highlights important ideas.

Chris himself speaks on Crowd Accelerated Inspiration. Chris considers the three contributing factors - content, light or exposure (visibility or transparency, in today's PC dialect), and desire. He highlights the 6 year old dance whiz and other examples.

His point is that video has the potential to accelerate changes for the better. Better exposure means crowds can define what is "better". Desire to improve means that the crowd's measures of "better" can be used to target new efforts, and light on what is considered the best sets an ever-higher goal.

The USDA organized a series of county fairs some century ago or so, so that at harvest time farmers and ranchers could gather and compare produce and crops, and see what yields the best crop, costs the least, what controls erosion, what equipment works and what doesn't. Most of these state and county fairs still continue, though at most of them, the money from attendees has become the point, and little enough focus remains on what chicken breeds grow faster or lay eggs longer.

I think this is a excellent example of what Chris forsees for online video.

But I think Chris makes one glaring, overweening and unfair assumption. Chris sees the development of the best teachers and the best ideas, and disseminating them to everyone, is the same thing as immensely improving learning.

It isn't so.

Learning is about what information we master. What Chris' video-polishing will accomplish is to burnish and correct data. That is not the same thing as selecting, organizing, presenting those best ideas and videos in such a manner that any particular individual actually learns the material.

The successes in Chris' spotlight varied from the six year old dancer, to the urban gardening revolution in an slum. Let me suggest that the six year old dancer won't be impressed - or pay attention to - the burlap bag gardening or the slum conditions. And the videographer from the slum won't be studying dance moves from anyone.

No, merely improving the facts we wish to teach or to learn, won't necessarily make a big improvement in learning.

I don't care who you are [. .]

2010-09-14T12:31:00.000-05:00

[. .] that's not funny.

Davezilla.com shares a video cartoon, an animated projection of Margaret Gallagher approaching Peter at the Pearly Gates to Heaven.

Now, Heaven, Saint Peter, and marriage are all religious concepts and teachings, and none are universal. Death itself, is mostly universal, and secular as well as a matter of faith. Other than that, this piece is satire aimed at one specific point of fundamentalist Christian dogma - "defense of marriage".

I thought some of the most potent arguments got left out. The famed biblical "Wedding of Canaan" specifies that there is a wedding - a religious rite - and a groom and a bride. One would have to overlook the rest of the bible to assume that no other wives or brides might be present in that groom's household, and that none would join later. Because the bible clearly states that that marriage - a rite of the Jewish faith adopted by Christian churches - had a bride and a groom.

[Robert Frezza's "McLendon's Syndrome" immortalizes another aspect of that Biblical story, "reminded of the Wedding at Canaan. They served jug wine until someone important showed up."]

The critical fallacies I see in the argument about whether "marriage" is about one man and one woman joining in "holy" matrimony - is projecting the religious rite onto secular governance. In secular - non-religious - context, a marriage creates a legal entity that then exists aside from the adults that make it up. Any intimation or explicit formula for genders and roles of participants is essentially religious, or at most secular whim. Laws of the land ought not to embody on religious interpretation (as the early Mormons in their bloody trail of persecution and violent clashes with other Christians from New England to Utah). Whim should be changed immediately when it is recognized to be wrong or inconvenient.

The right answer is for the state and nation to repeal legislation regarding marriage, or as a minimum, revise all statues to recognize all marriage ceremonies performed by any recognized religious organization. The issue isn't just gender mix - there are families living today in a multiple-adult household, in a just and disciplined fashion, creating loving and supportive homes for themselves, their children, and acting as assets of their communities. The Muslim entering America with several wives - are we to rewrite all our marriage laws to accommodate whatever arrangements exist between such adults, to allow or forbid?

Then there is the criminal side. People want laws against sodomy and "unnatural" sex applied to others - but have stopped prosecuting or reporting for criminal prosecution acts of adultery, fornication, and for the most part, statutory rape. Abandonment of family is seen as grounds for divorce - seldom is anyone leaving their avowed responsibility actually arrested and prosecuted for *gasp* foreswearing them selves. You know - like perjury? When in court you swear to tell the truth, then get caught in a lie? You swear to take this adult to you to have and to hold (a witnessed oath, recorded in a cognizant court) - at least, until you change your mind? In such a society where "the family" is often twisted by lack of discipline and lack of respect - and outright violence, substance abuse - and communities are apathetic or blocked by court rulings from intervening - how is anyone served (except perhaps by publicity-seeking church activists?) attacking a household of disciplined, respectful, loving adults doing their best to raise their children?

Don't criticize the mote in someone else's eye, indeed, until you remove the splinter from your own.

Some activists in San Francisco, a few decades back, agitated to forbid lesbian couples from raising children - because the children couldn't thrive in such an environment. The school board commissioned a couple of studies, and found that on average the children in lesbian homes did better in school, were better adjusted and happier, than the average "couple" parented home could accomplish.

Hate is a four-letter word. The long and bloody history of the Christian Church has proven that hate is still a vicious, double-edged weapon.

A family should be defined as adults agreeing to form a household with the intention of nurturing each other and raising and nurturing progeny. If the point of coming together is *not* to raise children, then calling a couple or group a family doesn't make it one - whatever the gender mix.

At least that is the way I see it. Your view?

Obama - an invitation to the next world war

2010-08-21T10:19:00.000-05:00

Arguably the single diplomatic blunder that invited conquerors to initiate two world wars - was appeasement. Tolerance of aggressive, deceitful and malicious opponents. By failing to confront aggression and hatred, the hateful - Nazi and imperialist Japan of the 1930s alike - perceived themselves in a position of overwhelming strength about to roll over inept puppets unwilling to defend themselves.

President Obama is following the "How To Create A World War" play book. Sec'y of State Clinton seems cut from the same cloth, disrespecting allies and "tolerating" avowed, stated enemies. One wonders at what point Harvard Law School failed to explain about "treason" and "grave harm to the state". I personally hold every member of the House of Representatives responsible for failing to criticize, censure, and even impeach the President - as is the obligation and responsibility of each - for any perceived excess of authority, abuse of office, or violation of law and the Constitution of the US. Such as interfering with the bankruptcy proceedings at GM. Such as failing to prosecute fully the "New Black Panther" and ACORN intimidation of voters, and fraudulent registration and voter influence practices. Etc.

Bill Whittle of PajamaMedia explains his view of the Victory Mosque the Muslims plan for Ground Zero in New York, to commemorate their heroes that drove the planes that brought down the World Trade Center.

When I enlisted in the US Navy, I was required to list a religion. At that time, Federal Law recognized any belief that did not embrace the violent (extra-legal) overthrow of the US Government. Like Islam, with its stated agenda to kill all non-believers, and destroy all that aren't Muslim. Where is B. Hussein Obama's understanding of that part of US Law?

AmericaGirl - Presidential snark

2010-06-20T07:14:00.000-05:00

Day By Day (DayByDayCartoon.com) is fun to read; I pick it up with my Bloglines RSS reader.

Today is again a pointed snark at President B. Hussein Obama - pitting his spending and regulating spree firmly against the US Constitution, against American values, and against the will of (at least some) of the people.

Filed under "Arrogance and Elitism", please check out America Girl today.

Thank you, Chris Muir.

A cruel snipe at global warming

2010-03-11T22:48:00.000-06:00

Ann Coulter takes umbrage at Human Events, at Vice President Cheney's request for a list of lawyers at the US Department of Justice that have defended detainees at the terrorist camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One snipe at the ethics of lawyers in general takes an environmental swerve.

Defending terrorists gives status-conscious attorneys a chance to get standing ovations at the annual ABA convention -- much like promoting "global warming" makes climatologists feel like they're saving the world, rather than studying water vapor.

As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "That's funny, I don't care who you are." At least, I found the slighting of climatologists so distorted, so absurdly trivializing, that regardless of what is happening - or not - with climate change, this is high comedy.

I think Ms. Coulter's hilarity aside, though, that there is still room for honest doubt about climate, climate science, and the politics of climate science. And about global warming. "Neither a denier nor a warmer be, for a denier will be called psychotic, and a warmer wants to tax you to offset carbon in the air." Or something.

The UN, and the US Government, have known about racial cleansing, corruption, and repeated massacres in Africa. They have known about civil rights violations in South America, drug cartels and terror activities around the world, immense poverty around the world - so, why is it now that I believe the UN, with it's history of corruption, and the US, with it's history of politics overcoming truth, that they know anything useful about the environment?

Hint: I learned that "We are from the government, and we're here to help" is but one of a list of three biggest lies in life.

But Ann Coulter did have one snide and funny snipe.

tc: Assumed, infinitely expanding affluence - and commercialism

2010-03-03T08:42:00.000-06:00

Rob writes at Transition Culture on Frank Field Tells It How It Is: “This Mega Debt Crisis Which Threatens Our Very Existence”

In commenting on the (excellent!) article, a couple of observations came to mind.

My comment about affluence and the poor is the artificial way welfare payments usually perpetuate an illusion of affluence – of continuing the pre-packaged, individual dwelling, individual transport lifestyle of the upper middle class. It doesn’t work for those receiving welfare, but it doesn’t help people achieve an independent, community-involved, secure way of life, either. What welfare does do for recipients and others pursuing the “looks like affluent” lifestyle is to perpetuate a demand for the high energy products and structure of living that keeps the world rooted in huge demands for oil.

I am trying to understand how there can be people in the past, such as pioneers and peasants, that could live lives from atrocious and fraught with insecurity – to comfortable – without oil and high energy products. Yet we aren’t trying to learn much, or involve today’s very poor, in breaking away from Government Minimum Standards.

Humankind survived and persisted to grow into out modern society – often with large families in single room dwellings. Yet today we are guilty of child abuse for putting three children in too small a bed room, and heaven forbid pubescent children should share a bed room with siblings or parents. Is this morality, or encapsulated conspicuous consumption?

Throughout history the elite have chosen attitudes and displays of wealth, often uncomfortable or requiring multiple assistants to dress or conduct their business of the day. How many of our attitudes must we challenge for sustainable energy suitability?

A part of my concern is to identify the directions for discretionary spending that those that have resources use. Where that spending is directed to sustainable choices is fine, and needs to be identified and encourage. But it seems most of the worst, failing supports of today's mindset occurs where better choices could be made - discretionary spending. It doesn't take a lot of extra assets to borrow for a car, to buy a home miles and miles from work, to buy into the hype about needing to redecorate the living room for appearances. Buying new cars (with the mining, transportation, manufacturing energy required, disposal of the old vehicle, etc.) cannot be the answer to reducing energy expended on long commutes from bedroom communities to big industrial and office employment centers. Transforming corridors through the countryside and villages and cities, building out the infrastructure and equipment for rail or light rail - which I haven't seen many proposals for mule pulled or wood burning options - or using buses on existing street, still perpetuate the myth that only central, massive employment centers make sense. For today's concentrated wealth paradigm. I do *not* understand that antipathy to "big box stores", and not an anger at the zoning support and underlying assumptions of the big employer, where the assumption is to commute long distances - because the employment is fickle and changes rapidly.

Any entity that assumes a customer/employee base from further than a healthy walking distance, perhaps 1-2 km, should be examined. And challenged.

tar: Efficiency, and economic decline

2010-02-25T10:25:00.000-06:00

John Michael Greer writes the Archdruid Report. Last week Mr. Greer wrote on a continuing topic, descent of the United States and the rest of the world to "Third World" economy and lifestyle, Why Factories Aren't Efficient. Only his picture isn't bleak for the citizenry, only the industrial magnates.

After describing "efficiency" as defined by putting more (or less) money in someone's pocket, I smiled when I read the setup for Imaginaria. "You are the president of the newly independent Republic of Imaginaria. You’ve got a population that’s not particularly well fed, clothed, and housed, and a fairly high unemployment rate.

Unemployment, huh? I like Sharon Astyk's terms of formal and informal economy. The formal economy is the economist playground, the Gross National Product kind of thing - someone making a monetary profit.

I think the term "unemployment" has been perverted to mean "not contributing to the formal economy; not putting profit in someone's pocket." I would think that description especially pertinent when talking about re-localizing crafts and production.

There is a difference between those unemployed as in not being employed, not producing anything or serving anyone, and those not employed at putting profit in someone's pocket. Many of the unemployed are still serving, at household tasks and parenting tasks, some at day work and unreported income efforts.

What you apparently propose is to permanently remove the bulk of people currently working to put profit into someone's pocket from the industrial workforce, to serve their community and family in efforts with meaning, directly, only at the local level. Huh. I bet that does irritate some Organized union leaders, political fund raisers, and transcontinental trucking operations.

I kind of like the way Leo Frankowski reinvented technology in his sf "Cross Time Engineer" novels - including horse and mule-drawn rail, reliance on steam power and wind, and even working within a feudal political system.

My own notion of perpetual motion is a hydroelectric generator that requires 2 feet of water head. Installed every hundred yards in minor rivers, requiring no major damming or ponding, in sizes down to seasonal farm creeks.

Reading about your concerns over ethanol - has anyone worked toward solar-heated steam or water sources of mechanical or electric - or even compressed air or gas - energy options? Or hydro-mechanical (like the quaint songs about "the old mill stream"). It worked once, after all. The wood to build the wheel and races, that can be hacked out. With tools and skill.

I can see where the current "fad" in heritage seeds and seed saving contribute to Schumacher style utilization of resources. Also the victory garden approach to diversifying reliance on transcontinental food production and distribution.

ar: Economic Decline, security - the rise of Imperialism?

2010-02-25T09:08:00.000-06:00

Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book mentioned an astute gentleman, John Michael Greer, who writes the Archdruid Report. Today Mr. Greer writes on a continuing topic, descent of the United States and the rest of the world to "Third World" economy and lifestyle. Only his picture isn't bleak for the citizenry, only the industrial magnates.

One issue that flows, for me, from Greer's reference to Gandhi's economics and Schumachers, is national security.

One aspect of declining fortunes of the GNP type bothers me. National security. Larger nations are attacked relatively less often, because they field bigger armies. When the Gandhi plan, though, the reduction in centralizing monetary resources implies more difficulty in maintaining a national defense. We have the Interstate Highway system with a defense shield for a symbol, because in his Army days Dwight Eisenhower formulated a response to the need for moving people and material to meet security needs.

Militaries are energy profligate. Energy, and especially oil, was a central strategic barrier and goal of all parties in WWII. I expect no less, militarily, as supplies of oil dwindle. Hungry people are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous wealth. I might posit that the decline of the British Empire was brougth about by the rise of cheap energy. It follows then - what prevents the decline of cheap energy from reverting to an imperial form, merely to control security by taking direct control over distance threats? Today's industrial concentration of wealth provides monetary levers to collectively manage adventurers and despots. But what happens as those levers fail?

Wars are fought to put money in someone's pockets. Today, cheap energy fuels potent militaries that make battle inefficient, even among relatively smaller antagonists. When expensive energy again makes war profitable, what means, other than assimilation - empire - will provide security from external threat?

cb: Life with Food Stamps

2010-02-22T09:40:00.000-06:00

Sharon writes about "Life with Food Stamps as your only income," on Casaubon's Book.

Sharon shares part of a story of Eva, struggling in Harford, Conn. The comments vastly exceed the story in trite and thoughtful responses. One issue that came up was fat-cat bailouts, vs. social support programs.

I don't see fat-cat bailouts as solving problems. A business either succeeds, or someone else should have a chance. But we *have* to have the wealthy, the successful, and those that have proven by their own efforts that their investments result in assets being produced and jobs created and preserved.

Right now, the US seems embedded in a belief in "being your own rich man". Own or rent your own home, have all your luxuries from private bath to private kitchen and laundry, from private car to private entertainment - or you aren't keeping up with the Joneses. Conspicuous consumption is the real failing that Eva suffers. And trying to compete with her community in conspicuous consumption isn't finding her a way out of her dilemma.

In 1974 the US Navy was putting up an experimental barracks design, at Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago. Four shared bedrooms shared a common area and kitchen area. I don't see Hartford or other communities looking to reduce the cost of housing for people by creating variations on shared facilities, on the old time boarding house, etc. And I don't see that happening any time soon. Subsidies for housing and living, today, reward the "single family dwelling" myth investors - landlords and builders. People are reluctant to consider multi-generational or extended family dwellings.

Changing building codes, to enable and support multi-family dwellings, would be an important start.

Maybe certify neighborhood educators, to enable teaching neighbors for their GED, outside the formal economy. Learning doesn't take place in schools because the school has a license; learning takes place because a teacher and student come together.

Eva wants nothing to do with her daugther's father. The community began failing Eva, when children are raised in the community, that aren't suitable to be parents and mates. Every unsuitable adult is a weakness and threat to the community.

Found - place to dump US nuclear waste. Not.

2010-02-18T23:39:00.000-06:00

OK, so the NRN cartoon is funny - B. Hussein Obama closes the Yucca Mt. dump for the nation's nuclear waste - building for what, 20, 30 years?

The cartoonist laments a need for a useless place that no one will care if the stuff gets dumped there - a worker is in place to use the US Capital building, implying the less than useful halls of government might as well be put to constructive use.

Ha, ha.

The reality is that there is heat - energy - left in "spent" nuclear reactor fuel. Plus, the by-products and such might make B. Hussein some real good friends. Like in Iran and Venezuela. Today, it isn't commercially viable to recover useful material - why recycle, after all? - it costs more than it will produce. Much like recycling plastic and aluminum, and paper. And regulations might be prohibitive, too.

But that isn't to say that B. Hussein might not see the advantage of getting all of that nuclear material to someone that would appreciate it. He has to be thinking of his retirement nest egg, after all.

ar: Why Americans don't contribute to communities

2010-02-12T00:19:00.000-06:00

John Michael Greer writes about "This Presupposition of Passivity" in his Archdruid's Report.

Greer argues that community isn't being taken from Americans, that Americans walked away from the concept of a cooperative, supportive community. He gives that as the reason Americans talk about organizing communities to prepare for an economic upheaval as the forces of history - dissolution of the stuctures keep an elite minority in power - and peak oil combine to move America down the road to becomeing a Third World nation, not even necessarily a Third World Power.

Some thoughts on what happened, to take people out of community. The same pressures and events also took farm kids and rural town children away from their homes, their families, and communities.

I think that forming a family, that is adults coming together to share lives and fortunes, is an act of culture, an atom of culture. The determination of what is right and expected, the selection of traditions and rituals, are unique to the family. If the family members respect their parent families, they will draw on and honor those cultures. Likewise, if they respect and honor their community, they will incorporate from there as well. If they respect their parent cultures, they will also be drawn to procreate, to express their respect and honor by passing their culture, their ethics, traditions, and rituals, onto the next generation.

It is the culture of the families that come together, to make up the culture of the community, and of the extended family. I don’t think you can have real community without the generational span of family as an atomic, key parameter. Without adding members, no community is sustained for long. The community must manage assimilating new members, whether raising children or indoctrinating adoptees.

The challenge of community in America stems from consumerism in marketing and governance, and liberalism/indoctrination in the schools. Americans didn’t just walk away from communities. For generations we have been giving our children away.

You cannot give your child to the state or the nation to learn ethics, and expect to get them back to build family and community. It won't happen.

I have seen children engaged in Transition projects, but not a direct description of taking charge of their children's education. This simple fact, incorporating community into education of the young, I think, is a big part of the durability of Quaker and Amish communities. The information given isn't the biggest part of the problem, the problem is the filters that either denigrate all family and community ethics in favor of government agendas, as against the private school's opportunity to indoctrinate children in the community culture.

After WWII, veterans were greeted with a variety of opportunities. Industry had expanded, and new openings were easy to develop for the returning GI. Communities still demanded adults marry. Communities understood and acted on a need to assimilate those within its bounds. Thus, GIs found jobs, and wives, and families, and community strengths were maintained.

Vietnam saw a general turmoil, where distrust of the government at all levels from community draft boards to the office of the President of the United States (When LBJ admitted not knowing what to do about Vietnam). Vietnam vets were *blamed* for serving a war they were drafted to fight – and ostracized. The nation was taught a strict lesson by those hating, spitting, flower-wielding long-haired hippies on TV - that serving the community or nation was hateful, something only cowards did. And communities were less active, in assimilating and accommodating returning vets.

Honoring service in the military hasn't been a national priority since. Many communities never recovered from the antagonism to local draft boards. Not to mention lingering antipathy from the friends and children of those hippies.

There were many pressures created since the 1950's to focus Americans on individual aspirations, to the exclusion of the community. One was the nationalization of education that now included desegregation and affirmative action in race relations - and a whole host of other individualist, liberal agenda items. Another was marketing, the whole "keeping up with the Joneses" thing introduced an element of actively striving against members of the community. Businesses hired individuals, often from across the nation. This pulled people from their community, then plunked them down in new-built "housing developments" without the resources to *be* a community, just a collection of houses.

At one time, communities invested heavily in families and, probably, Christian, behavior. That has been coming unraveled since the 1950's explosion of "Everyone to college, for fun and (bed) games" to all classes of Americans. Even before the "summer of love" (there seemed to be a lot more sex than love) and women's liberation challenged the notion of family, let alone community.

Any attempt to plan for the future is going to have to take the children away from the Federal Government, as a first step. Whatever else is planned, stopping the indoctrination of our children to be ambition-drive drones, irreverent of their parent's faith and culture - that has to come first, or there will be no one to come after the "community".

w: I am cynical about fixing Haiti

2010-02-11T09:52:00.000-06:00

Wired.com has an article on fixing Haiti, including redefining their social structure - single class of people - and taking everyone's needs into account.

The idiots.

It sounds good on paper. Just like "fixing" Iraq sounded good - get the horrible Saddam Hussein out of the road, tear down that awful oppressive government, and everyone will grow daisies and live peacefully and happily.

Haiti has lived nearly lawless. Drugs move through Haiti, the government runs on flows of money, official and otherwise, and not on equality or service to citizens. Protection and serving the needs of the privileged and powerful is the rule of government down there. The religion lends itself to random violence, not peaceful coexistence.

The US and other helping providers have stirred a *lot* of resentment. Hungry people, people without shelter, people that listened to loved ones die because no one got there to dig out their crushed building in time. Just the sight and thought of the vast amounts of wealth pouring into Haiti now - has to anger a *lot* of people, that there was so much wealth in the world that *could* have been shared before the earthquake, but was held onto by richer folk than they.

The cynic in me thinks that what Haiti really needs right now is a strong hand. A vested interest to take charge, grab the rescue goods and kick the do-gooders the hell out. Assign work and tasks to everyone and their dog, enforce their commands, and *do* something. One of the old time Railroad robber barons comes to mind. A Monsanto, an Archer Daniels-Midland. A Chavez or Castro would get more people sheltered, fed, and moving on faster than waiting for the UN and some coalition of charity organizations to get around to getting the people of Haiti involved with living the next weeks and months and years.

Perhaps it is as simple as stepping back and letting the oppressive military and gang organizations have a free hand for a while. Because frankly, I don't see the anger that survived the rubble turning to civilization for very much, any time soon.

One report suggests organizing a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to institute a training center or three, to train 25 to 35 Haitians and others from around the world to raise food in a permaculture manner. The outsiders would pay a hefty fee to join the training and internship to finance the operation, so a few Haitians could learn to raise food in a non-Monsanto chemical based form of agriculture. Permaculture, as I understand it, emphasizes continuous fertility and increased food production without relying on outside chemicals and soil amendments, much.

The thought is nice, for the long term, and seems like a great idea somewhere down the road. But growing food in the back yard? When you don't have physical security, the expectation that gangs and neighbors don't raid each other, that seems a "generous" kind of donation to the neighborhood, and not a way to feed yourself and your family.

Some few Haitians are probably organizing and trying to get back to life as they knew it. Convincing them that they should instead do something different, that foreigners tell them, "trust us", that won't pay off for six weeks or four months, and they will be subject to gangs - or the army - swiping everything of value, again, all that time.

I am just cynical. I want to see Haitians, or some other strong vested interest, rebuild Haiti.

w: BAS at 100 years - a matter of National Security

2010-02-09T11:03:00.000-06:00

Call me ignorant. I believe the versions I learned in school before the recent decades of history revisionism (rewriting what is known about what happened in the past, usually to suit someone's purpose today. You know, like Al Gore's "I invented the Internet.")

That public schools were created in the first place to achieve a universal, necessary minimum ability to participate in a Democratically organized government. Basic citizenship skills were all that schools were tasked with - until graduation from eighth grade, or age sixteen (16), whichever happened first. Sixteen (16) was the age of majority - adult responsibility under the law - and age of consent (for marriage and other sexual acts).

That school competitive sports were organized, team sports, that is, to prepare young men for the battlefield. The concept of team organization, of captains on the field being coached by someone responsible for game strategy. Huh, who would have thought this would prepare young people for basic training, with a Sargeant or Petty Officer guiding and working the group, under the orders of officers?

And that the Boy Scouts were organized for the same purpose. The need of the military for mentally agile, prepared people familiar with living outside the usual society, has not diminished.

Wired.com GeekDads writer Dave Banks writes about "After 100 Years, Are Boy Scouts Still Relevant?".

Banks covers the usual, the camping, the guidance, the criticisms over national policy - strict Judeo-Christian beliefs (although not strictly enforced at the local level), strict bias against gays (although not strictly envforced outside the national staff) - and using public facilities at reduced or no cost, from church meeting rooms to recruiting in public schools to extraordinary (though proven useful to all) access to national parks. He talks about friendships and relationships with family, and the prominence of past Boy Scouts.

But he overlooked something important.

The way Boy Scouts prepare citizens for military service. Banks quotes several numbers and statistics - but not how many enlisting service people have been in the Scouting program, nor how they fare in the military. If I recall correctly - Scouts tend to do well, for themselves and for our nation.

In times of emergency, having a core number of people thinking about community resources, about group tactics and looking ahead to the next step in survival - whether after storm, or flood, riot or other forms of unrest - can help a lot of people survive the experience, and recover their lives faster.

In short, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other programs that prepare young people for service to community and country. If we care to pay for public education, for military defense of the nation, and a salary for the President, it only makes sense that we continue to encourage and support scouting programs.

Scouting, after all, takes its name from the military task of investigating the near or extended area for surprises, in advance of movement of a unit. It has become a synonym for people that customarily do tough and thankless jobs. There was a time that "Scout" was a common, and revered, dog's name. Scout is a nickname always bestowed as a term of respect.

I think Dave Banks wrote a sorry piece of article, leaving out measurements of the health of communities where Boy Scouts are active, vs. places that have banned or no longer enjoy a significant Scout presence - and what the profile of the community looks like five (5), ten (10), and twenty (20) years after Boy Scouts wither in their community.

Businesses grow by the accumulation of wealth. Communities grow with children and newcomers, as they assimilate and acculturate each other. Scouts get short shrift on an economic scale. For getting to know, honor, and promote the community and its citizens, I know which I think promotes stability, resilience, and strength.

w, nrdc: Idiots think mass transit wards off mortgage foreclosures.

2010-02-02T21:18:00.000-06:00

Wired.com is carrying a story put out by the National Resource Defense Council (golly, that recalls the fictitional "Global Defense Council" eco group from the movie "An American President"), finding that there were fewer mortgage foreclosures in (.pdf file) "compact" neighborhoods with mass transit nearby. The conclusion - living where you depend on your car makes foreclosure more likely, and mass transit wards off foreclosure.

What idiots.

Foreclosures happen because people have been convinced to live in debt. Expect a 25 or 30 year mortgage - anything else and you are wasting your money. Hah.

Where do you find mass transit - mass transit that works, that serves the community, that doesn't exist solely on subsidies? Mass transit works when there are a lot of places to go, right next to the station. Travel from high rise apartments to high rise offices? Check. Travel from massive suburban parking lots to high rise offices? Check.

Now look at new housing developments. They build out in the boonies, often dismantling regular gridded street patterns (at least they did, regularly, in Arizona. I lost home owner insurance, because the response time from the nearest fire station changed when they remade a 50 MPH section line road into 25 MPH, curved, inside-the-development-fence, narrow residential cul-de-sac lined capillary road system.) Housing developments that it may take residents 10-15 minutes to go from one side to the other (about 1-2 miles). Housing developments selling to people barely able to afford the mortgage, then sold on "upgrades".

I bet the damned study didn't take into account whether the mortgage foreclosures had anything to do with first mortgages or houses bought from developers. I bet the study didn't compare ratio of mortgaged residences to non-mortgaged residences (as in, it might make a difference if the community was stable, and actually had enough amenities to make living there worth while).

I bet the study didn't take into account the amount of time it took the average wage earner to commute to work each day, or the distance involved.

I bet the study didn't take into account the percentage of the mortgage to the selling price, in an effect on foreclosures. Or whether the community was "distressed".

People interested in Suburbia or housing developments - or buying a house deliberately away from mass transit for less traffic and exposure to undesirables - are often fascinated by status symbols. Including forming a family with someone on the basis of their status symbol value, rather than discipline, integrity, and an aptitude and drive to form a family and interact with the community as a family (housing developments seldom develop much of a real community, in the sense of regular, daily personal interactions as in RFD Mayberry).

Mass transit doesn't ward off mortgage foreclosures.

People interested in being part of a community, picking an intimate partner to be a life-mate and co-parent, people connected to extended family and neighbors - that kind of people won't often put themselves in high-risk situations like the dreamers and Upwardly Mobile crowd.

The difference between high rates of foreclosure and mass transit neighborhoods is nothing less than leveraged consumerism. The foreclosure neighborhoods have it, the mass transit neighborhoods have learned to live (better) without it.

dn: End of America's quest for Outer Space

2010-01-29T20:04:00.000-06:00

Brian Williams reflects on his disappointment at the State of the Union Address, about the end of the US Space Program.

I have to say, my first reaction is that this makes sense. The ghetto thug worries about walling up his neighborhood, keeping the fuzz and rival gangs out.

When America tried that, after WWI, it was called the Monroe Doctrine. That is, we don't interfere overseas, and other nations won't bother us. This is the flip side of the "appeasement" strategy, which tends to encourage hostile enemies. The US Monroe Doctrine is considered to be a primary factor leading to the loss of US ships (like the passenger liner Lusitania, sunk off the Atlantic Coast by German U-Boats) and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. To be blunt - keeping our interests and troops at home bought us WWII.

Space Race

First, an apology for the "Outer Space" term. That may have been in vogue at one time, but that was before I was aware. Hollywood movies have used the term, and science fiction writers. As far as I know, about the earth the atmosphere - the air - gets very, very thin, to the point that it doesn't act much like air anymore. That is where "Low Earth Orbit" begins. Farther out the speed to remain in orbit will keep you steadily hovering directly above one single spot on earth, about 22,000 miles. We have intelligence and communications satellites there. There is room for a lot of them - an orbit at that height would be about two * pi * 22,000 miles (2 * 3.1415926 * 22,000 = 138,320 miles), all of that orbit at the same height above the earth. And, yes, I know I used an approximately correct value for pi, and for the height of a geocentric orbit.

The moon orbits the earth. The distance varies a little bit, somewhere around 239,000 miles, I think. The United States has sent spaceships to photograph, and astronauts to view, the backside of the moon (since the moon rotates so the same "face" stays turned toward the earth, approximately). There weren't a lot of surprises back there, but it is worth knowing even that much.

The US government, and science fiction writers and economists and cultists and many others have had designs and plans for living and working on the moon. Just one for-instance something killed off all the dinosaurs long ago. A similar catastrophic event may be due - wouldn't it be nice to think your children would outlive - and possibly be ready to assist in recovery - if something like that should happen again?

We used the moon, once, to communicate. I am not sure if we still do it today. One way is to aim a radio signal at the moon. When it hits, part of it will bounce back toward the Earth. You reply the same way. Now, someone else might be able to pick up one or both signals - but never be able to tell where the other sender is. Science experiments have beamed radar and lasers at the moon, garnering information about distances and the nature of the universe.

People have gotten wealthy selling the rocks brought back from the moon. And also rocks said to have come from the moon.

The story goes that high powered radar - the really big ones - kill. Walk in front of one in operation, and it is like being dropped into the center of a huge microwave. So, one day this engineer, working on a smaller radar, walks through the transmitted beam - and notices that the candy bar in his pocket melts right away. Today we call this the microwave.

Vacuum tubes, the ancestors of television CRT picture tubes - remember the ones that were deeper behind than they were wide? - were difficult to make work when things start shaking. The way airplanes, rockets, and space ships do while in the atmosphere, and occasionally even when outside the atmosphere if the rocket motors are pushing hard. So research turned out the transistor. Then the integrated circuit, when the number of transistors, and hand-soldered wires, were too big for the space and weight available. The transistor is directly a child of the space race.

In 1960 there were lots of mechanics to fix cars and farm tractors. Lots of people worked on trains, or farms.

Research to support the space effort showed us how to prepare food better, to freeze dry orange juice (Tang, before they started putting artificial sweetener into it). Many medical problems were discovered and solved in keeping people healthy in space, and in learning to detect when things go wrong. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, if not millions, live longer today because of science discovered in the quest for space.

And America, in 1960, had far fewer PhD and other college degrees per hundred thousand. Severely handicapped Americans, and their families, owe a lot to education and medicine developed to put a man on the moon, and since.

Conceding the space race

What do you call it, when in the face of armed and hostile enemies, you unilaterally throw down your weapons and refuse to defend your home and those that count on you?

That is what B. Hussein Obama is doing. Granted, the US Space Program has been running in place for decades, since Jimmy Carter (who served as an officer in the US Nuclear Navy, and never learned to pronounce nuclear correctly - it is 'nuh-clee-er'm and *not* 'nuh-kyoo-ler') and the mid 1970's. Advances and achievements have been linear and incremental. Congress and Presidents robbed NASA for money for other projects. So, no, there hasn't been a lot to show from space this year, or last year, either.

So - are we ready to build those walls, stop watching and defending against those that preach death of America and Americans or attack Americans abroad? Are we ready to invite WWIII?

Because many Americans will have (some) food to eat this year. A billion people around the world won't have enough food this year. America owes a lot of money to many nations around the world - they will not be impressed that America now says "don't bother us." India, for one example, has more honor students in high school, than America has students.

Are we done?

Are we ready to declare that sending US astronauts, and serving military men(!) at that, to the moon, is all we need to learn about space? That there is nothing for science or industry or psychology or medicine or electronics or physics or agriculture or air conditioning or energy or long-for-goodness'-sake-distance internet operation? That we want to, forever more, buy any useful information to come from the quest for space?

Because India, China, Russia, France and the European Union and others, they aren't backing down. They are pursuing manned space flight as well as automated projects. They are pursuing killer satellites and ways to live between planets and on Mars and the Moon. They are gearing up to mine and exploit asteroids, to set precedent and allegiance of locations off-earth.

As a nation we may have no desire to claim the moon as our own, kill-you-if-you-trespass (or maybe tax you) territory - but are we ready for anyone else to tell us "keep out"?

When the US engaged in the space race, back in the 1960's and 1970', the sheer adventure of the concept drew the best minds from around the globe. "Brain drain" from other nations became a foreign policy issue. Are we ready to watch the best scientists, the most imaginative, the ones most likely to be involved in occupying that "final frontier" - find solace in leaving America for places the thugs aren't walling up the 'hood?

The continued push for manned space flight, for establishing viable colonies in orbit and on the Moon and Mars, mining mineral-rich - and less concern about polluting aquifers and air - asteroids, is not a budget issue.

It is a matter of meeting responsibility. Unlike the coward that takes it on himself to unilaterally disarm in the face of an armed and hostile enemy.

nrn, we: Dishonor of MainStreamMedia, or unfair expectation?

2010-01-07T18:38:00.000-06:00

Net Right Nation reports an editorial in today's Washington Examiner. The story lists what happens with local governments, how the press reports "executive sessions" behind closed doors with big money interests. And the Washington Examiner criticizes the national mainstream media for allowing Reid/Pelosi/Obama to take personal, secret control of writing ObamaCare.

The press isn't reporting the secret meetings, or the process used to reconcile the bills. See, the House version of health care takeover passed. Then the Senate wrote a bill loosely based on that House version, all taking into account potential benefits for national labor unions and existing money interests. Then Reid started paying off Senators to bribe them into voting for the result.

The Story

Congress, until now, used to form a Conference Committee with representatives from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and work through differences between two versions of bills. Meetings would be bipartisan, the needs and interests of supporters and critics alike would, more or less, be respected. The Conference Committee, then, under a Constitutional form of government such as the US had before the Obama non-inauguration, a merged compromise between the two versions would be reported out, and that report bill would be voted again by each house, to assure that the result was approved by both houses, then be sent to the President for signing or passing into law - or return to the Congress.

Only, Obama doesn't care for the public scrutiny or lack of control that turning the two versions over to a Conference Committee might risk. Senator Reid, especially, cannot allow a compromise bill to undue any of the graft and kickbacks added on to placate various Senators - that might lose a vote or two that might not get the report bill passed.

And we all know how badly organized . . um, labor, takes disappointment. Pelosi and Reid, and Obama, are too worried to allow the law to take it's Constitutional course.

So, that is the story.

The Problem

The problem, aside from violations of the US Constitution, is that major media reporters and organizations aren't reporting this corruption of established procedure. They aren't agitating for adherence to the promises each of the triumvirate made, about having a free and open government.

The Washington Examiner editorial and Net Right News make that point - that instead of the howling and accusations at abuses during the Bush years, the reporting seems to quietly accept payoffs and backroom dealings on the first grand expansion of the federal government this year. (Wait for the Food Safety Organization bill, the NAIS program to kick in, and wait for labor unions to win the rest of their payoffs for swinging the 2008 elections.)

Business assignments, vs. obeying the law

The Washington Examiner points out the requirements that professionalism and the nature of the task assigned to reporters covering the US Government. Except their assignment and responsibility is a matter of business practice. News organizations exist to make money, either directly for their parent media company, or as a loss leader. Stories are dropped, trimmed, edited, and reinvented based primarily on what will "sell" - first to the editor, then to the publisher, and last to the public

It is Obama, and Reid and Pelosi, that swore and oath, and oath that defines their legal status, authority, and responsibilities. They each swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and swore furthermore to execute the office to which they were elected/selected according to the definition of that office in the Constitution and in published regulations.

That doesn't seem to bother any of them, that they abuse their oath of office, they violate the authority invested in them.

Reporters, editors, and publishers for mainstream media have a business obligation to do good. It is a legal requirement for Reid/Pelosi/Obama to abide by the law.

Let's keep that straight, at the Washington Examiner and Net Right Nation. We can and should feel disappointed at the disrespect of the mainstream media, for not reporting about corruption, graft, and abuse of process in an accurate and timely manner. We should feel outraged that no one is filing criminal complaints and impeaching those that abuse their office and seek to avoid or ignore restrictions on authority defined in the US Constitution.

As you can tell, I agree with the outrage and disappointment of the Washington Examiner editorial. I just think they assume facts not in evidence - no one reporting "news" has a real, moral requirement to be complete and honest. They have jobs. Like most other US Citizens, they are entitled to pay attention or ignore the details and scope of what is done in the name of governing the United States.

Let's go through it once again. These reporters are doing what their business wants them to do. Those Congress people and that President are violating procedure and the Constitution.

The difference is pretty clear to me.

tc: Can't find Transition's Golden Land

2010-01-07T10:20:00.000-06:00

Transition Culture us a great site. Today's post is a collection of seven videos (A Delicious array of short films about Transition) about Transition - the expected economic and ecologic decline because of global warming and Peak Oil (the end of cheap energy).

Listening to the camera guy (first video), he focuses on a traditional economy. He defines development of products, promotion of business goals, business community activation as the path to Transition. He wants to adapt a consumer-driven business model to engage in sustainable living, eschewing products transported across nations and oceans in favor of the security of locally produced food and goods. Right. That is like selling brussell's sprouts instead of Girl Scout Cookies or candy to raise money.

What I ask is - how do you engage the public? Can Transition afford to overlook the young parents of young children, striving to keep food and utilities, shelter and clothing and hygiene intact? Is it enough to rely on advertising and marketing and even political momentum to convince, in economic terms, a consuming republic to "buy" the concept?

What will cause those feeling burdened with care and nurturing others to recommend significant change?

It seems that there has to be a demonstrable "golden land" goal, lauded by those that have jumped to a new life, to assure the curious and worried that Transition is possible. There must also be a demonstrable and visceral belief that change has to happen to avoid death.

I find there are many forms of death, or massive change - a clearing away of the life from before. Change is almost always seen as the alternative to a worse loss, and is measured in pain.

Transition, done individually or piecemeal, is a change that will be devastating to cultural, social, and family ties and values. How do you move entire cultures or societies, cause painful change? Do you impose change with violence, or make TV commercials? Do you organize college professors or do you invest the plumber's union with motivation and impetus?

I have seen street protests, and formation of nearly closed groups of Transition, Peak Oil, and Warmer believers - where is the change to national building and electric code? Where are the "green" replacement engines for today's transportation vehicles, instead of wasting the energy and resources to replace the metal and (petrochemical) plastic of the whole vehicle? Where are the wholesale overhauls to mass media and public education to replace consumer-driven ethics and buying practices with sustainable and localized lifestyles?

Here in Oklahoma, US, there are many agribusiness farms and ranches. There are also the odd lots and fields left unused - why aren't there people looking to utilize those odd spaces for additional local food production, for demonstration that sustainable practices are viable and useful?

I have a reprint of a book, "10 acres enough". "No man should farm more ground than he can adequately manure (fertilize)." Breaking down big agribusiness means that the number of smaller enterprises - from a couple acres to maybe 80 or 160 acres per family. That means a *lot* of new housing, that should be build and furnished in a sustainable manner. That means a *lot* of tools to be created, from field tools to garden tools to transport from myriad fields to distribution centers. Where is all this infrastructure? If the septic system and county-wide sewer system is to be replace with composting toilets, again there is a need for a *lot* of sustainable system designs. Where are they?

In computer programming circles, it has been noted that the really good systemic changes - aside from hardware - take 20 years. The "C" programming language, Linux, Perl, object oriented programming - it took a couple of decades to find acceptance among people responsible for assets and resources.

The outcome of Kyoto, and now Copenhagen, should be seen as well-deserved bad reviews of poorly executed engineering - defined as "design to cost". It isn't enough to convince academics and a handful of politicians. Why was Copenhagen allowed to happen, without a clamor of support from labor unions and multinational corporations, from school teachers and new parents and those confined to beds or wheel chairs?

Where is the "golden land"?

December 7, A day that will live in Infamy - Pearl Harbor, 1941 - or Copenhagen, 2009?

2009-12-06T08:18:00.001-06:00

B. Hussein Obama is gearing up to sell out America. The "Climate Change" shindig in Copenhagen, Denmark, is set to open on a day that is remembered in America. The unprovoked attack, a part of naked, international aggression on the part of Imperial Japan, attacked what were considered the most important components of the US Navy's fleet in the Pacific Ocean - the battleships and cruisers anchored, at peace, in the harbor at Pearl Harbor. All battleships present were sunk, the USS Arizona remains today as a memorial to the thousands of Navy people killed.

President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed December 7, 1941, "A day that will live in infamy."

B. Hussein, acting in his office as defined by the Constitution of the United States, a document, a concept, an institution he swore to serve and defend, is widely expected to sign the proposed treaty offered at Copenhagen. The proposed treaty would institute an international authority to tax and penalize America for "Climate Debt" - redistribute the wealth of America to countries that want more money - and the Cap and Tax plan that failed in Congress.

Evidently, Obama's oath of office means less to him, aside from what it buys him, than his campaign promises. I have to wonder whether there has been any turnover in the Secret Service. Secret Service agents serve in a Constitutionally defined office, filling a vital role in defense of the United States and the Constitution. So how must it feel, to be tasked to defend a President that cares what is in the Constitution only so he can disable it?

The premise of Copenhagen is the observation that the climate has been disturbed in recent decades. Funny, that seemed to have been the predictions about chopping down the Amazon rain forest, and it happened. But the people in the affected region don't have much money (that goes to the well-lawyered rich in Sao Paulo and Rio), so the "green" community focused on CO2 and methane as being to blame. So, following the money - and easier targets than poor farmers - the attack is on America, and on fossil fuels. I mean, the greeners can't make any money without working, mining coal or delivering fuels, so they fund-raise to play politics.

You know about politics, right? You "discover" a problem, you invent an enemy, and entice people to let you lead the opposition.

The Peak Oil argument, that the remaining, unmined and unpumped coal and oil can never be produced again at the rate the world is hungry to consume them, is more compelling, and easy to observe in operation. The prediction that the tailing off of availability vs. demand will be erratic, with fits and starts, has been borne out. Last year's $150 oil triggered a world-wide recession - which choked off demand back to a level at or below the world's ability to produce oil and coal. Prices are easing up again, as the world resumes an economic recovery - and demands more energy. Each excursion of prices and demand is expected to ratchet, gradually, higher and higher. One expectation is that by 2012 (yes, that year again), the average American family will be unable to afford their utility bill.

So what does this mean to our precious Kenyan, B. Hussein Obama? Hey, don't blame me for being skeptical about Obama's birth - Kenya believes he is their native son, now ruling over America. One nation or the other has been deceived. And I like the way Obama is "black", but is son of a white woman. Curious, that.

Back to energy. What Cap and Tax (some call it Cap and Trade) does is to tax the life out of American industry, utilities, and citizens. That money, the part that doesn't stick to pockets for Obama supporters and labor unions, goes to reward other countries, with other sticky pockets, for not being America. Those other countries receive a free pass to burn oil and coal, since they were too poor to afford it before.

Cap and Tax, the heart of what Climate Change scam artists want to do in Copenhagen, is nothing less than a corruption magnet, creating untold opportunities for graft around the world. It also intends to destroy the economy of the industries and nations that provide actual jobs, and pay checks, to much of the working world.

If we cannot keep B. Hussein Obama and his representatives home for the Copenhagen conference, our only hope to avoid the policy laundering, Chicago thug style, is to hope the US Senate refuses to ratify the treaty.

Seems like slim hope left for America. December 7, once again. I wonder if this one will claim more lives, and ruin more nations?

Slanted news

2009-11-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

This is a general issue. Blame Tam for mentioning the problem. I just emailed Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor for the evening MSNBC news program, and the Daily Nightly blog.

Sirs,

Tam, blogging at ViewFromThePorch, seems pretty level-headed. She does own and shoots, for recreation, several firearms. In some matters, including history of shooting and firearms, she is fairly well respected.

So, I have to wonder how you respond to her comment on the blatant bias of the Today show, and NBC in general?

http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2009/11/monday-morning-potpourri.html

"What is up with the Democrat Party [..] at NBC? The peacock is green all week to celebrate Al Gore's guest spot on 30 Rock, and half the Today Show this morning was dedicated to reminding us that [..] Sarah Palin eats her young and is known to sacrifice kittens to Cthulhu. It's getting to the point that I wouldn't believe these %&*$ers if they told me Palin woke up in the morning."

[Editing marks are my own.]

There are several issues that seriously divide communities today. Guns is one - where blind "get rid of guns" gun control says if there weren't any guns, no one would get shot. Didn't happen in England, Canda. On the other side is the observation that mass shootings only take place in gun free, excuse me, *disarmed victim*, zones. And then there is the embarrassing statistic that communities that have mandated every head of household own and possess a firearm - violent crime has gone down.

Sarah Palin might be as naive and inept as she appears. That holds nothing to the background Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to politics. Need I mention Al Franken, or that guy that played Gopher on the Love Boat TV show - and governed very successfully in Iowa [Fred Grandy].

Whatever Palin's views and capability, she has stirred a lot of attention in some circles. Al Gore, for all his winning ways with the Nobel Peace Prize, garners less respect for the *content* of his message each day. As I recall, by hook or by crook, he *lost* his bid for the Presidency. As a bare minimum, he did *not* command overwhelming respect and support. That hasn't changed that much.

President Obama's administration looks shabbier, ethically, each week. The mainstream media is *not* calling the administration on faked numbers of jobs "saved" - including practices of counting pay raises, for whatever reason, as a job "saved", as well as requiring people, like shoe store owner Bud Moore [You Can Officially Ignore All Future Administration Jobs Numbers] to *invent* a number, to avoid "assistance" in arriving at a number, for an order for 9 pairs of shoes["nine pairs of work boots"] for the Army Corps of Engineers. ["sent in her answer: nine jobs, because her father helped nine members of the Corps to work"]

There is too little notice being given to the impact on job losses due to proposed legislation - such as the oncoming ObamaCare and the Food Safety Enhancement Act, S.521. In addition, as the jobless rate remains high, the ballast effect of reduced productivity has to be exerting greater and greater pressure on the economy, creating more inertia to turn the story around.

There has been too little attention paid to the number of new, permanent Federal jobs, from border patrol officers to the proposed Food Safety Administration (intended to audit and receive reports from everyone producing or handling food for people or animals, and to enforce reporting and process control regulations), and administrators and staff for whatever ObamaCare and other regulations like Cap And Tax will require.

Washington News Observer tends to acquire interesting, short interviews that address issues that NBC seems to not want ignore away.

KGB Analyst Igor Panarin's forecast of the demise of the US - beginning with rebellion against punitive federal taxes by cash-strapped California and New York - in June/July 2010 continue to seem more likely, as President Obama continues to alienate those that don't adore him, and alienate those that won't overlook his actions. President Obama's reliance on unlimited government handouts is appallingly naive, even compared to Sarah Palin.

I fear the time is now, to heal the breech between those relying on the Constitution, and those favoring President Obama. Will MSNBC polarize the contending elements, join the President in calling (and causing to become true) loyals citizens of the United States "potential terrorists"? Or will MSNBC examine the issues, and *convince* their audience, including me, about what is true and lawful?

So, how does Daily Nightly, MSNBC, and NBC respond to the bias that Tam, and I, see in what news is presented and what is not? And the wording and editorial bias as to what is respected and what is disparaged?

Thanks for the impetus, Tam.

Electric Carbon Labeling Proposal

2009-11-13T17:49:00.000-06:00

Climate Change vs. Global Warming

Advocates of the Kyoto protocol - which was supposed to fight Global Warming by shutting off, and robbing, rich countries - prepare now for The Treaty at Copenhagen, where the plan to rob rich countries, and launder money to other countries.

Unfortunately the concept that the earth will moderate it's own climate very well, thank you, seems to have reared it's ugly head. So now the watch-word is "Climate Change", instead of "Global Warming". Different problem, but the tree huggers are still monitoring cows eking out that methane, and gasping at coal fumes.

President of the United States B. Hussein Obama is expected to laud the efforts. His own Cap and Tax plan is straight from the One World Government plan of the tree huggers heading to Copenhagen. The Treaty intends to tax our Cap and Tax plan, tax the US as a bonus, and take responsibility for enforcing the environmental provisions of The Treaty, and of the One World Government that treaty creates.

(Hint to B. Hussein Obama: They will pick someone *else* to be the world leader. You couldn't buy that ticket any more than you could buy getting the Olympic committee to pick Chicago. It won't happen. And odds are that they won't pick any of your buddies in Iran or Venezuela, either.)

My Proposal

Let's require the EPA, appliance and car makers, ISP's and hosting services, utility companies, and all others - to label the amount of carbon that a coal fired plant uses to generate that electricity.

How much carbon?

Let's survey all coal-fired plants. For each, determine how many kilowatt hours of electricity are produced in the course of a year, and how many tons of coal were burned. A year makes a nice, round, seasonally adjusted total. It doesn't take into account the variations from year to year as the earth warms . . or cools . . or other factors, but it gives us a starting figure. Only count electricity consumed or provided for use by customers of the power station.

Figure out how much electricity and fossil fuel, from diesel to natural gas to propane, to mine and transport all that coal to that power plant.

Compute the tons of coal burned, plus the carbon burden to get that ton of coal to that plant, for each kilowatt hour *delivered* from the transmission lines leading from that plant. The utility companies know and work with "line losses" all the time - they *know* what percentage of power placed on the power line is lost (heat and electromagnetic losses) in getting a kilowatt hour of energy to a customer.

Multiply the largest amount of carbon per kilowatt hour by 0.707106781187, or sqrt(2)/2. This ratio is commonly used to find the Root Mean Square, the power factor of alternating current electricity. It is the difference between peak power and RMS power - a useful distinction.

The Goal - end coal fired plants.

Let's assume, for a moment, that climate change and burning coal in power plants have anything in common. Stop laughing. Now, if we thought that burning coal in power plants was the single most reprehensible thing that humankind is doing to destroy the environment. I am looking at you and your deforestation disasters, Asia, Bolivia, Africa. And I am counting all those plane trips to Copenhagen, tree huggers.

Anyway, then obviously the goal has to be to stop using the last kilowatt hour of electricity that requires that last coal fired power plant to keep operating. I mean, if we drop our usage below that threshhold, we can stop using that power plant, right?

So, until that happy day, we label everything that uses electricity. That car charger, that electric water heater, that electric pencil sharpener. We post how many kilowatt hours that gizmo uses in a year of average use. Because if that DVD player uses one kilowatt hour per year, then that might be the very last kilowatt hour that prevents turning off that last coal fired power plant. So every kilowatt hour is identical, and each might be the last. So label each and every use as to how many pounds or tons of carbon using that electricity is responsible for.

What about stuff that doesn't use electricity - AA cell batteries, and garden broad forks, UPS delivery and Earthlink.net, GoDaddy.com and AT&T, The US Congress and the jail in Newkirk, OK? Any organization with an electric light, a computer, an electric pencil sharpener, an electric jail cell lock - they use electricity. Utility companies should include the pounds of carbon each user is responsible for, with total kilowatt hours, on each monthly bill. Each organization and individual should have to report their total kilowatt hours on their income tax return, to keep the US government apprised of who is responsible for consuming coal, and emitting carbon dioxide from electricity generation. And so the government would know when to turn off that last coal fired power plant.

All services, from fast foods to web hosting, would have to label prominently how much carbon they expended, as a function of kilowatt hours and as reported on their electric bill, the preceding month.

Electric vehicles aren't carbon free.

The point, is that electric-only cars, and plug in hybrids, still cause carbon to be consumed. Just not directly, as fossil fuels. That electricity used to charge up that car *might* have come from Hoover Dam. But that kilowatt hour is *usage*, and is no more carbon neutral than that last kilowatt hour needed to justify keeping that last coal-fired power plant on line.

And new cars, of whatever fuel, should have a sticker that lists how much carbon, in direct fossil fuels and electric-equivalents, was consumed to mine and process the metals and other components of that car, of transporting materials from origin, processing, to assembly, then transported to the point of sale.

And no fair only including carbon expended within the US, for materials and goods imported from other countries. If you can't audit the carbon trail, you can't sell it in America. Ha! We could all be California boys and girls!

Socialism v. Capitalism

2009-11-13T08:21:00.000-06:00

This isn't a new question. Barracuda Babes picked up the Donahue TV show segment discussing socialism and capitalism with Milton Friedman.

History is clear, no system holds a candle to capitalism, for improving the lot of the common people.

Take that, Copenhagen/Kyoto tree huggers, and your concepts of "climate debt".

Do it for the family

2009-11-12T21:36:00.000-06:00

I just got an email. I was surprised at the sly twist to the message, a bit of propaganda disguised as being patriotic and family-friendly.

A politician said this not too long ago;
"We don't need government intervention to save ourselves as a country.
We need a movement. A unified movement for the people, by the people.
As a member of the greatest nation, we owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to protect and strengthen our economy.
With the greatest "buying power" of any nation, all that is needed for a national resurrection is for us to give our power back to ourselves.
Support Made In the U.S.A. Support yourself. Support US, so that we may continue supporting others. "

I can't remember his name or where I read it, but it is simple and makes sense. I copied and pasted and it and now use it as my signature for all of my emails. PLEASE do the same!!! If we could spread this message around the country, imagine what we could accomplish!!

Unfortunately, this looks like a clandestine union bit of propaganda.

Yes, America needs jobs. But Fiat bought Chrysler, Ford and GM cars and trucks are assembled in Canada and Mexico, your local Ace Hardware store is a local franchise - of an out of state chain, not that unlike Wal-Mart. Unions commonly portray Wal-Mart as the common, un-American villain, because Wal-Mart employees have refused, time after time, to organize and join labor unions. I note that Toyota, Hyundai, and other manufacturers build lots of cars in America, with Americans filling their jobs, but are disparaged because the unions don't get to collect union dues in most plants.

That means labor unions don't collect dues from Wal-Mart employees. Or car plants hiring Americans that aren't union.

I have a neighbor that adamantly states that belonging to a labor union got him benefits he wouldn't have had if not for the union. I say that unions have prevented employers from providing common employment benefits, to maintain union leverage, union dues, and union membership.

I have never seen a labor union act, or form, in order to preserve and improve profits at a business. There used to be, at one time, craft based unions that established and maintained training and skill standards. Much more common today is reliance on the union to prevent firing employees that cost their employer productivity and expenses. Union work also tends to isolate work from management, interjecting rigid rules and additional paperwork and record keeping, restrictive rules about work, about hiring and firing, etc. Unions often create an adversarial relationship between employer and union labor, which might or might not have existed without the unions.

Buying "American" doesn't do a danged thing to influence the economy or preserve jobs. Protectionism, avoiding or penalizing products from various and sundry countries hurts America and Americans. The only change is who gets richer here in America - the propagandist or the importer. If someone in the world can make a product useful to an American, and ship it to America at such a price and availability to compete in our marketplace - great. Americans bought that item, they sell it to their neighbors for a good markup, often more profit that stuff made in America. Instead of paying Americans to make it, we pay Americans to warehouse, transport, and invest in it. If it is so great, and so cheap to make elsewhere - and Americans are that good at making things - we should be able to compete, if we care to. And if the labor unions and state, federal, and local governments don't legislate and regulate away the ability to make the item and sell it at a profit.

One instance - the hemp plant. Yes, I know some folk get hung up on smoking the flowers. I recall one single argument from my time in California that struck me as compelling. When Marijuana was banned in the 1930s there were 10,000 industrial uses for the hemp plant. Those uses, and those jobs, were pushed overseas. Did you know that some farms around central Iowa and elsewhere in the Midwest were licensed to grow hemp during WWII, to provide fiber for ropes and hawsers for military use?

Raising the minimum wage in the last couple of years sounds good, right? Who doesn't want more money. Yet raising the minimum wage increases the cost of the products people making minimum wage work on, without improving productivity. This increases the cost of burgers and movie popcorn and grocery store produce, among many, many other things - and that raises the price that is charged for those things. Raising the minimum wage has always forced some businesses to cut back on the number of jobs they can pay for, costing people employment.

Now ObamaCare and the upcoming Food Safety Enhancement Act 2009 threaten to dramatically increase regulation and reporting costs, taxes, and especially for anyone producing or transporting food (Farmers markets, gardners, as well as farms and industrial processing plants) increase the cost of food. This all acts against American business, and the ability of the American economy to support jobs.

When the seed Monsanto offers is too expensive for farmers to make a profit off of any field they might plant (some $300 a bag for seed corn next spring), when fuel costs rise another 20%, when costs of servicing and repairing tractors and ag equipment rise another 5% - when banks raise their interest rates 2 or 3% - why would farmers plant crops they *have* to lose money in raising? Who would loan them money they wouldn't be able to repay? What if our supplies of food are dramatically reduced next year, for economic reasons not even counting the likelihood of increasing shortfalls of oil for the currently rising demand, and the much ballyhooed worry about climate change causing droughts and disrupting harvests and growing seasons?

What if countries that we buy cheap clothes and cars and trucks and computers from - are expecting to buy grains and other food from us to feed themselves next year, and we don't have that food?

Unions and governments need to deregulate, drop taxes, reign in unfunded spending. So, yes, return power and authority, independence back to ourselves. But be wary, protectionism and unions have always hurt the economy, and put folks out of work.

But that is just my thought.

Brad Kruse
Ponca City, OK

I wrote my Congressman. Please vote "No" on ObamaCare

2009-11-07T15:56:00.000-06:00

I sent the following email to my representative, Congressman Frank Lucas, today.
---
Congressman Lucas,

President Obama, and the Democrat Congressional leadership, cannot - *cannot* - overhaul health care or health care insurance, until they *own* health care and health care insurance.

Please oppose all attempts to involve the US government in industry, in health care, in private lives, and in retail and other small business. Government is already too intrusive. Individual rights, including property rights are being trampled. President Obama uses the power of the Executive Office to intrude into the relationship between employer and employee - at every level.

If we were to suppose that the unholy alliance of big government and big union bosses were not corrupt today - this sets the stage for wholesale, rampant corruption tomorrow.

The price of freedom is vigilance. Please oppose all actions of President Obama and the Democrat Congressional leadership to hamper, to obscure, and to denigrate vigilance on the part of each and every US citizen.

Please return the United States to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people - and not a fascist regime of big government, big unions, and powerful (often corrupt) big money interests.

Please, as a first step, show President Obama just how angry his proposals have made so very many Americans.

Please oppose President Obama and the Democrat Congressional Leadership's version of health care seizure or reform, or whatever it should be called. Vote *NO* on ObamaCare.

Instead, support and defend the Constitution - the same Constitution that President Obama swore to serve. I am appalled that President B. Hussein Obama considers his oath of office a mere campaign comment, rather that the basis, and limitation, of the power and duties of the office of President of the United States. Please help remind the President that his duties come before his whims and dreams and wild-eyed social engineering schemes.

Thank you,

Brad Kuse
Ponca City, OK
---

Have you weighed in, yet, on ObamaCare?

How to Save America . . or at least American Money

2009-10-30T21:05:00.000-05:00

I tried to leave this comment on the Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest blog. *sigh*, it got longer than the allotted 4k (4096 characters) max length. 6713, by Microsoft Word count. 21 paragraphs, 1383 words, 8141 characters with spaces. And so many great . . uh, well . . so many ideas!

So theotherryan, here is my response to your hat tip to Onion News Network's "Nations Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: "lets move in together""
---
I have a better notion.

Live with one or the other in-laws, until the first child at least completes first grade.

Next best is the polygyny method. Have the wife invite two to five additional women for an . . intimate . . sharing. Combine energies for child care, shopping, reduce the number of home decorations and remodelings by three (3) to six (6) times. Of course, this likely increases the amount of time the husband gets to be . . supervised . . by a similar margin. Three coins, and all that.

One approach that I personally favor, is to limit Congress to two staff members each, and require that all proposed laws be typed/entered by the sponsoring Representative of Senator, personally, on pain of dismissal from office. With no replacement until the following regular election. Eliminate the Department of Education, dismiss all domestic enforcement agencies except the Coast Guard, Customs inspections, and FBI; limit each of these to 75% of JFK administration staffing levels. Dismiss the ATF; limit the Secret Service to 25 total officers and 12 support. Give the IRS thirty days to confer with Congress - to arrive at a new regulation to replace all current forms, regulations, and guidelines - limited to 12 letter sized pages, 1.5 inch margins, 14 point Georgia font with 2 point leading and no kerning, no referenced documents, no appendixes, unless they fall within the 12 page total. Headings and subheadings must be 16 point Arial font, with 3 point leading. Start with taxing only voting citizens of the US - companies and businesses collect taxes, they don't pay them. All future changes and amendments, when incorporated, shall be disregarded unless the resulting amended regulations with guidelines all combined still meet the required 12 page total. I take that back - tax all corporations and businesses and other organizations at 1% gross income less business expenses, rate to be frozen forever. We want the IRS to keep their books honest.

Invite the northern tier of Mexican states, individually, to apply to enter to become part of the United States. If so many of their people are living here and sending money home - let's make it official. It would make our southern border much shorter. And we could make sure their schools teach English.

Legalize drugs; tax substances on today's controlled substance list at 20% VAT at each transaction, and turn enforcement over to the IRS.

Limit jail sentences to seven (7) years. The only term more severe would be the death penalty. Add exile as a punishment. Exile the miscreant by one to three states away from home for one to twenty years; separate the bozo from the bad influence of the home turf. Punish exile violators in the time honored fashion, with summary execution.

Convicted felons can't own guns. Why should their marriage be preserved? Impose mandatory dissolution of marriage, with forfeit of all assets by the convicted felon, on initial conviction. Let him/her make amends, if they can, if they get released, pardoned, or conviction is overturned. At least the family won't be pining and depending on the state for handouts.

Let the biggest farms with the biggest debts go broke. Then divide the property into 16 acre patches for homesteading by dismissed Federal employees and long term unemployed, on a voluntary basis. Provide a minimal prebuilt home and well/water, septic/sewer, a bag of seed beans and a hoe, a subscription to Mother Earth News, Internet connection, a goat, three chickens, and an 18 month termination date for subsidies and support; title of property to be held by the state until the patch has been occupied, with taxes paid, for 10 years. Then title would revert to the homesteader. Or let Sheriff Joe kick the idea around with Sharon Astyk; they could probably have the inhabitants weave their own tent or yurt instead of building a place for them.

You remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio, don't you? The one that showed that bologna has to get really green before you get too sick?

The military has quotas; 70% of inductees must be high school graduates, or the equivalent. Colleges and Universities should be required to have a bond of tuition, board, and books posted for 70% of all newly enrolled students. Let's cut the crap of borrowing lives away to send kids to college. And teach democracy in political science, for crying out loud. The Obama administration seems to have studied everything *but* democracy. Or the Constitution.

Require all males age 18 and over to register with the selective service board. Wait - that is already the law. So take that list, in each community, and introduce five (5) of the guys that are unmarried, chosen at random or by the local selection board, to a given unwed mother. She chooses one, and they are married, on the spot. Select guys within four (4) years of the lady's age when possible. Guys would remain vulnerable for selection until they hit 26 years, enter the military for at least three years active service, or get married. Allow deferments for missing limbs or running away to Canada.

Unwed mothers unwilling to "select" would be deemed wards of their parents, their grand parents, uncles or aunts, or their neighbors, whichever the courts deem most suitable, until age 35 or youngest kid completes high school, or equivalent.

An alternative to selective marriage, would be to hold an act of birth is an act of marriage; on giving birth, the mother is married to the biological father. Such "act of marriage" nuptials could only be ended by dissolution by reason of abandonment - leaving all assets of any parent to the remaining parent. Note that this would cross and absorb any existing marriages, partnerships, or alliances - they would all be married with merged assets and group responsibility for each. Take that, adulterer!

Decree that driving a motorized vehicle on public roads is unsafe, risky, and take at the risk of driver and passengers, joint and severally. Your car gets wrecked, you have a bill - you can make no claim on anyone else, there is no fault, just as a fallen rock climber has no claim on a friable cliff face. Car insurance then covers only what losses you might experience. Don't want someone drunk to run over you? Stay off the road. As a side issue, remove all speed limits; thin the gene pool by letting those with no judgment remove themselves from the propagation pipeline. States can sell salvage rights to wrecked cars. If you take a motor vehicle onto a public road, and can't drive it off - the state confiscates it.

Water power. Get back to the old mill stream kind of thing - creekside craft shops, creek-level power generation. How many times could you put a water turbine on a mountain stream, if you only needed 2 feet of water head? How many creeks and streams could provide a 2 foot water head for a new, low-head type turbine (or paddle wheel?) generator.

Tax commutes. For each company with three or more employees, evaluate the daily commute of each on a weekly basis. Each week, tax the employer $1 per commute mile per employee, with a deduction of 5 commute miles per employee. Think of Houston, Phoenix, and LA. If employers hired local people only, neighborhoods would change, and rush hour commute would dribble to something manageable.

Outlaw public contributions, or state or community involvement, in mass transit. If it makes sense, let the community address the issue through private interests. Keep taxi rates minimal.

Impose a $0.01 tax per 10 miles over the first 120 miles per pound on produce, fruits, vegetables, etc., that competes with produce available, at any quantity, within 100 miles. Let's go green - develop local resources for improved food security.

If I think of something else, I'll let you know.

Oh - one last thought. Engines. Replacement engines. Engines that run well, for a long time, cheaply, cheap to maintain. Engines to replace faulty, or just high-emission or low miles per gallon engines. It takes a *lot* of energy - fossil fuel - to build a new car. Tax the carbon out of new cars, and encourage the development of robust, low-priced or endowed or subsidized replacement motors. The cost of a "green" engine should be lower than the cost to rebuild a "clunker" engine. Teach auto paint, Bondo and glass repair in Junior High shop.
---

Another thought. Any employer paying less than minimum wage plus $1, has to offer minimal room and board. Chambers of Commerce can help re-establish the inexpensive boarding house. Minimal room and board would *not* include child care, Internet, TV, or all-you-can-eat.

Is Obama jealous of Afghanistan?

2009-10-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

It seems that the Obama administration can't decide what to do with Afghanistan. On the one hand, they decry the corruption, how bloated the national government and weak the local governments are (MSNBC news story).

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Hmm.

Mr. Obama - do you hear what was just said?

I would like to see the national laws limited to what can be printed on one side of 1500 pages, 14 point font size, 8 1/2 by 11 paper, with 1 inch margins, and 16 point line height. I would like to see government limited by strict interpretation of the US Constitution as written and amended, to those roles requited by that constitution. I would like to see powers and authorities vested in the local governments denied in all shapes and forms to the national government. I would like to see elections freely held, without illegal distortions, or undue influence exerted by monied internal and external interests.

And I want this for the United States of America. Then worry about showing the rest of the world what an honest election, what limited government and empowered local government looks like.

Senior activist or realist?

2009-10-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

I got an email. A copy of a letter, sent by Walt and Cindy, to A. Barry Rand, Chief Executive Officer of AARP, a commercial product promotion company that happens to also pursue certain issues and agendas relating to seniors, people 50 and older.

50 might seem young to call one a "senior", but remember the purpose of the company is to push products, and 50 is a number they can use to widen the customer base. Under certain circumstances, an IRS rule lets you retire early, at age 50, so the number isn't wholly made up.

Back to Walt and Cindy. Their letter to AARP is an answer to a (another!) promotional letter, reminding them they didn't renew their membership. That turns out to have been deliberate. Part of the letter follows. Please read the entire letter at Snopes.com - which also posts trusted authentication, showing that the letter was indeed written by Walt and Cindy, and was sent to AARP.

Dear Mr. Rand,

Recently you sent us a letter encouraging us to renew our lapsed membership in AARP by the requested date. . . Our gap in coverage is merely a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith.

While we have proudly maintained our membership for several years . . ., we can no longer endorse it's abdication of our values. Your letter specifically stated that we can count on AARP to speak up for our rights, yet the voice we hear is not ours. Your offer of being kept up to date on important issues through DIVIDED WE FAIL presents neither an impartial view nor the one we have come to embrace. . .

Once upon a time, we looked forward to being part of the senior demographic. We also looked to AARP to provide certain benefits and give our voice a power we could not possibly hope to achieve on our own. AARP gave us a sense of belonging which we no longer enjoy. The Socialist politics practiced by the Obama administration and empowered by AARP [emphasis added] serves only to raise the blood pressure my medical insurance strives to contain. Clearly a conflict of interest there!

We do not understand the AARP posture, feel greatly betrayed . . . and leave your ranks with a great sense of regret. We mitigate that disappointment with the relief of knowing that we are not contributing to the problem anymore [emphasis added] by renewing our membership. . .

This Presidential Administration scares the living daylights out of us. Not just for ourselves, but for our proud and bloodstained heritage,but even more importantly for our children and grandchildren. . . . Perhaps I became American by a great stroke of luck . . ., but in my adulthood I CHOOSE to embrace it and nurture the freedoms it represents as well as the responsibilities it requires.

. . .

We travel for a living... Walt hauls horses all over this great country, averaging over 10,000 miles a month when he is out there. He meets more people than a politician on caffeine overdose. Of all the many good folks he enjoyed on this last 10,000 miles, this trip yielded only ONE supporter of the current administration.. One of us is out of touch with mainstream America. Since our poll is conducted without funding, I have more faith in it than one which is power driven.

. . . I am disappointed as hell.
I am scared as hell.
I am MAD as hell, and I'm NOT gonna take it
anymore!

Walt & Cyndy

Interestingly, Barry Rand responds to the loss of members that disagree with AARP's positions. The August blog post date is either about the time of Walt and Cindy's letter, or a month prior (August 2009).

Since July 1st, when we started seeing a rise in phone calls and emails here at AARP as a result of the health care debate, we have lost approximately 50,000-60,000 members. While we are encouraged that almost 1.8 million people have either joined AARP or renewed their memberships over that same time span, we take the loss of any member seriously. ‪We don't want to see you, our members, leave for any reason, and understand that even when we all have the facts reasonable people may agree to disagree on the proposals being put forth by Congress.

Earlier in his post, Mr. Rand mentions the 40 million members of AARP. 50,000 would be something like 0.13% (.0013 of 40,000,000) of the members. Not a lot, really. Just a wiggle in the membership rolls, really. But how many organizations dare watch 50,000 to 60,000 people seemingly individually act in concert - and against the organization?

AARP did *nothing* to dispel the hate-mongering used during the Bush years, to besmirch and disrespect our then-President. I recall my mother, and the bitter hatred she expressed over trivia, and without cause. Someone made a *bunch* of money energizing seniors and other population segments to that level of passion.

To my mind most of the excesses and wrongs of the Bush years, including refusal to audit and correct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were the doings of the Democrat-led Congress who tied our President's hands. To be sure, President Bush was not without his faults. I do not believe that much of the enmity waged against President Bush was politically, and especially money, driven, and not criticism over legality of his actions - such as should be leveled against his predecessor and increasingly against his successor.

My sympathy to Walt and Cindy. And my thanks for getting their statement of opposition to supporters of Socialist B. Hussein Obama published.

nyt: Refusing to ask the pertinent question

2009-09-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

Thomas L. Friedman wrote a New York Times opinion-editorial piece, Where Did ‘We’ Go?

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Mr. Friedman's point that death threats and discussions about B. Hussein Obama are wrong - cannot be disputed. The America promised in the US Constitution is a nation of rule by law - extra-legal acts are against those laws. That should be simple enough for everyone to understand.

But Mr. Friedman takes a surface view only. He looks at who badmouths and belittles - and threatens - who.

I personally find that B. Hussein Obama has exceeded his authority under the Constitution. Constitutionally provided checks and balances - the Congress and the Supreme Court have not addressed those abuses of office. Congress persistantly aids and abets, in some cases, as in the hounding and badgering - for public consumption and political gain - AIG bonuses, an issue that should have been beneath the notice of Congress, in the larger issues facing America.

The Supreme Court, with it's newly appointed racially bigoted political hack justice, Sotomayor (and what did Obama do to get Souter to resign?), has yet to address Obama interfering in the restructure - and firing a CEO - of GM and Chrysler.

Pelosi/Reid/Obama have chosen to wield their power for political gain, for corrupt enrichment of hangers-on, and to punish those with wealth they covet. This is a dangerous, dangerous action, taken in such a way that they create a scenario where the safeguards of the Constitution are thwarted. In effect, by acting as tyrants, by enacting whatever they want in the face of popular opposition, they create a sense of desperation in their opponents. Desperate opponents need to see formal safeguards in action - or desperate responses may be tried.

Since taking office, President B. Hussein Obama has taken frequent steps to curtain and interfere with gun ownership, and frequently denied plans and actions taken. This pattern of bald-faced deceit has raised the hackles, paranoia, desperation, and anger of his opponents. No one doubts that Obama still intends further attacks on gun ownership - in flat defiance and disregard of the Bill of Rights - but is biding his time, planning his next moves.

This is not the way I believe a President governs in a constitutional government. In fact, I believe President Obama has violated his oath of office - to support and defend the Constitution, and thus should be impeached. I am firmly convinced that for now, the US House of Representatives is flatly incapable of honoring it's duty to consider and serve a bill of impeachment if warranted. I am convinced that the Pelosi-led House would block consideration of a bill of impeachment of the President, and would, on party lines, neglect to consider the merits of holding the President to the contents of the US Constitution, and to his oath of office. That is, the Pelosi-led House is acting in a tyrannical manner.

Reid has less of a political plurality to work with, but seems even less likely to follow the path of honor than political expedience. His Senate confirmed Sotomayor, after all. And continues to confirm fringe, radical, bigoted, and anti-American Obama appointees.

Are we to the point where the Declaration of Independence states, "When in the course of human events . . ."? I am offended at the Obama administration, and the Democrat-led Congress that this question occurs to me.

Mr. Friedman, you lament the "dangerous" atmosphere endangering our President. I do as well. But from my chair in Oklahoma, it seems that organized labor and radical elements of the Democratic party are largely to blame for making villains of opposing candidates.

As for the birth certificate - three supposed facts keep the issue alive for me. Kenya, as a nation, believes Obama to be their native son. The certificate of live birth from Hawaii is incomplete as a birth certificate of a natural born citizen of the United States, not requiring that the birth took place at the facility cited. B. Hussein Obama has spent time, energy, and effort to conceal the original of his birth certificate. In addition, there are so many questions about Obama's background, including who financed his Ivy League college education, what his participation was in the Chicago politics that sold his Senate seat - did those same factors buy it for him in the first place? Obama claims to be Christian, with a 20 year membership in Rev. Wright's racially polarized congretion. Yet, within days of publication about that congregation, Obama no longer belongs - was it faith that kept him going to church, political expediency, or a cover for the Muslim beliefs of his early schooling and childhood?

It seems incredible to me that a closet-raised, inept, unschooled person could make as many foreign affairs blunders by accident. If President Obama isn't deliberately trying to dismantle America's place in world stability - by giving away our honor, our promises, our friendships - he sure makes himself look stupid. And this from a background of world travel, Ivy League education, and a sitting US Senator.

I think the right place to start is an intense review of the most polarizing efforts by Congress and the President. Let supporters and opponents hear the arguments, and ask their questions. Let bills and actions be submitted for public comment and review. Act as representatives of the nation, rather than autocrats ruling with an iron fist and no concern about nay-sayers.

I actually think that the atmosphere of antagonism can be returned to a hashing of issues quite readily. It just takes all parties allowing their pet agendas to be legal, shaped by all interested parties, and a dedication to rule of law and the Constitution. There are laws and procedures and best practices in place for all of this. Let the leaders show that the Constitutional protections against tyranny are in place and that they work. That would be a really worthwhile change.

The coup that went away.

2009-09-30T12:56:00.000-05:00

Where to start.

1) Newsmax.com contributor John Perry wrote a piece, an opinion, expressing concern that at least one scenario might be more likely now than in the past - the military intervening in the President's affairs - a coup.

2) Newsmax.com took the page down, the article is not listed, now, on John L. Perry's author page where his other articles are listed.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

And others pick it up.

3) Little Green Footballs reports that the Perry piece was written - and pulled (This article contains the full text of the initial post).

Bad Craziness at Newsmax: Obama Risks a Domestic Military Intervention

Weird | Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 9:03:51 am PDT

Newsmax columnist John L. Perry published this article at the site yesterday, and it’s apparently been tossed down the memory hole.

For obvious reasons.

Beltway Blips mentions the piece. TPM LiveWire includes the NewsMax announcement about removing the piece. MediaMatters reports Newsmax columnist: Military coup "to resolve the 'Obama problem' " is not "unrealistic"

4) TimesOnLine.com relates Gore Vidal's opinion - not related to the Perry piece - that America is facing a dictator soon.

Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it

Note that the Times, (known the world over as The London Times paper), is published outside the US, and outside White House influence - the Vidal article has not been removed.

5) Comments mostly range between calling the article sedition and treason, to goofy.

What is disturbing is the apparent censorship and chilling effect on free speech.

I doubt that Mr. Perry's piece is complete. I believe there though the military might conclude - maybe, in some hypothetical space and time - that President Obama had abandoned devotion and obedience to the US Constitution - that they would not act, unless the Congress and Supreme Court also abandoned the Constitution. So I don't believe military intervention is any closer today than it has been since (General) George Washington was first sworn in as the first President of the United States. Intervention - a coup - could happen, it could always have happened. But the military, at least during my service in the US Navy, teaches and lives the premise that the military must be governed by civilian authority to maintain a rule of law and order - and that the military exists to provide security for that rule of law and order, as defined in the US Constitution.

As well imagine a general officer of the military walking into a meeting with B. Hussein Obama and intervening, as a fund raiser from Chicago walking into the White House and telling B. Hussein Obama, "Get the Olympics into Chicago, now, or else." Actually, I have less experience with fund raisers from Chicago, so that might not be a fair comparison.

No, what I find disturbing is how the original piece was seditious and treasonous - though it warned of an existing threat, not create or advocate a threat - and was so contrary to the good of the nation that it had to be removed. And yet those that agree with the gravity of the situation, or especially those that ridicule the notion, are free to copy and comment on the content of that dangerous piece.

There have been rumors of other blogs and online content that have been affected, when they rose to the notice of the White House. Did B. Hussein Obama, the Secret Service, or other staff or representatives - or other government agencies or marshals - intervene at NewsMax or directly to John L. Perry? We may have to wait for the next Presidential administration - or impeachment hearings for B. Hussein Obama, if that should happen - to find out.

Personnel is policy: With appointees like these, how can we not fear ObamaCare?

2009-09-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

ALG Research, writing for NetRightNation, presents in Appointment Watch: Jarrett and Holdren:

John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (Science Czar)

* Holdren has been a big proponent of population control.
* Holdren has suggested adding a sterilant to drinking water in order to control the population.
* Holdren advocated a “de-development” of the United States.

Holdren was confirmed March 19, 2009, with not one single Senator voting against.

When Obama keeps appointing people that advocate "abortions" until two years after birth and right to sue for animals, and people like Holdren, who can wonder what kind of social leverage Obama intends to inflict with his so-called Health Care package?

After reviewing Holdren’s views one would hope that his appointment as a Czar was an anomaly. Unfortunately Holdren’s appointment follows Obama’s pattern of appointing people with views to the left of almost everyone on Earth.
-Don Todd, Director of Research,
Americans for Limited Government

bim: ObamaCare starting to look like a horror movie

2009-09-28T07:04:00.000-05:00

Billll at Billll's Idle Mind writes about Cast for Codgers.

Under the Cash For Codgers program, if someone came in seeking health care services that were judged “excessive” by a locally appointed appraisal board, then their nearest relative will be granted power of attorney to make the decision, and will be offered $3500 to $4500 for such organs as are usable, and the patient would then be humanely parted out[emphasis added]. Unusable portions will be disposed of in an ecologically approved manner, with preferences given to demands of the agriculture industry.

Movie fans may recall a couple of old-time, science fiction horror movies: Logan's Run and Soylent Green.

Soylent Green invited people to step into the vat, to be surprised to emerge as canned food headed for the nearest grocery. Logan's Run sounds eerily like Cash for Codgers - at age 35 people are deemed "too old", and participate in a major media event - a "run" with the promise of being let to live if they escape the many dangers and traps. Until Logan, of course, none are permitted to survive. Logan manages to escape.

I wonder if people have thought through this rationed health care. For one popular instance, suppose B. Hussein Obama sets himself as a national icon of health.
- Want to see a doctor, but weigh more than The One? Wait until you lose the weight.
- Want to see a doctor, but don't run like a top Marine Sargeant? Get practicing - the doctor is on the other side of the obstacle course.
- Want your kid to see the doctor, but the little tyke is throwing a tantrum? Come back when the toddler shows discipline and courtesy, and reverance for Big Foot and B. Hussein Obama.
- Want to see the doctor but didn't vote for Obama? Maybe after the next election Alderman Obama will have time for the doctor to see you.
- Want to see the doctor but smoke/take drugs? Have to pass the pee-in-the-bottle test and pass the 60-days without exposure to smokers sniff test.
- Want to see a doctor but aren't married and sexually active? Well, the doctor will be available as soon as you have been "fixed".
- Want to see a doctor, you are pregnant with more than one kid at home? The doctor will see you right after the abortion and after you get "fixed".
- Make more money, or have more assets, than a retired grocery store clerk? Tough. Hire an illegal Mexican to be your family doctor. Just don't expect to have access to legal pharmacies and diagnostic equipment.

This may answer Frank W. James' "I've Got A few Questions" post, on why Obama gives a rip. Oh! Bummer! wants control of average Americans.

Back in the Reagan Presidency, one conservative quote angered Liberals: The more you spend on health care, the more expensive health care becomes. If someone survives cancer, a car crash, or anaphylactic shock, the odds are great that the person will be using, at some time, additional medical services. Invent a new drug or machine that helps critically ill patients - and it will get used on those that *might* benefit. Look at how frequently viagra happens to be used for recreation rather than medical necessity. Or how often Tylenol gets used when drinking less alcohol, or more water, the night before would have sufficed. Back 100 to 200 years ago, you got the flu or dysentery, and you died or got over it, with few people seeing a doctor. The advent of health insurance now insures lots and lots of people see the doctor for a few palliative prescriptions and instructions to get plenty of rest in bed, drink fluids, and take tylenol/aspirin. Doctors get the income, insurance companies make out, pharmaceutical companies make out big time.

The answer has to lie somewhere in between. There has to be a way to improve health care for those that cannot afford the elite prices and elite services and elite pharmaceuticals that the American Medical Association, big hospitals, and big drug companies have established as "minimum". There has to be a way to reduce costs, improve availability and reduce waste (fraud happens in Medicare and Medicaid; other providers and insurers don't put up with it).

Reducing cost and waste has to include reducing difficulty in getting care.

I propose an underlayer to the layers of medical care in America: Healers. A medical practitioner with credentials to practice overseas, or a BS with apprenticeship, capable of treating minor scrapes and breaks and viruses, and charging about what a movie ticket costs. And able to screen patients to identify those that need traditional or advanced medical care. Healers with immunity to mere negligence law suits; it would take active assault and intent to inflict harm for a healer, or doctor, to lose in court.

fwj: Where does the Constitution permit ObamaCare??!?

2009-09-27T23:01:00.000-05:00

Frank W. James writes on Corn, Beans, Spent Brass, an empty page and a deadline about disturbing questions regarding ObamaCare: I'VE GOT A FEW QUESTIONS????...

I am afraid there is a fallacy in leaning on the interpretation that the founding fathers had for the Constitution.

That is, the Constitution has always been a living document. It wasn't ratified, or wouldn't have been, without the Bill of Rights - the first 10 substantive changes or Amendments.

I fear and hate the agenda pursued by the deceitful, dishonorable President B. Hussein Obama. There may come a day that the world will naturally and rightfully fall under a single world government. We aren't there by a long ways, not when Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and Venezuela entertain so many military interests and factions from so very many nations. We aren't ready when Muslim's can be found that hate anyone not of their belief, or Christians or anyone else. It is suicide of family, community, and nation to proceed as if we can accommodate or appease hostile forces in the world.

The unfortunate truth is that many Americans share the vision and what they have been told is the agenda of B. Hussein Obama; I fear there is still much deception hiding the truth from most of them. In the past, it has been the compromises between left and right, between those wanting change and those wanting stability, that has been the major source of the strength of the United States.

What I see happening is a lack of compromise, that the liberal and socialist agenda is proceeding unchecked. And proceeding unchecked is a clear and real invitation to tyranny - which does violate the Constitution.

I am appalled at the White House interfering in GM and Chrysler far beyond the authority of the White House. I am horrified that Congress participated in the "overpay and bonus" witch hunt at AIG. But what really gets my goat is that there has been no motion to censure the President for exceeding his authority, no move to impeach him for interference and intimidation in private business. If a court were to find that B. Hussein Obama had violated the Constitutional bounds of his office, does that violate his oath of office - and thereby unseat the President? The question hasn't been asked. And that bothers me, a lot.

Regardless of how one views the intent of the Constitution at the founding of the country, I contend that the current wording and interpretation in the courts holds true. As a nation of laws, I am disappointed that the President is permitted to ignore the Constitution, rather than wait out the process to amend it or whatever would be required to support his extralegal shenanigans.

I still want to know what Obama did to get Souter to quit the Supreme Court; it is obvious he needed a bought judge, Sotomayor, to cover his butt when ObamaCare lands before the Supreme Court - it cannot help but start out there.

There have been no publicized moves to recall any of the privileged players treating the President's proposals as if they were simply another proposed law - one that they don't need to worry about what it contains.

What I fear is a breakdown of civil authority, unless the Constitutionally mandated checks and balances start exerting a dampening influence on the outrages coming from the Obama White House.

I have heard anecdotes that President Obama appears to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That there is a psychological explanation for why he considers anyone thwarting him to be evil and deranged, why his every whim seems to him to be the Truth Before God. I dunno. I figure his tenacious pursuit of ObamaCare is either deranged obsession that he knows better than most Americans, or that he keeps ObamaCare on the media fire to prevent us looking at H.R. 2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act or gun control efforts or other underhanded misuses he is making of the US Government. I suppose it could be both.

I consider Obama's conduct outside the authority of the Presidency and against the limits of the Constitution to be illegal. But the same House majority that helps assure passage of Demcrat-sponsored legislation means that a move to impeach cannot be voted out of the House of Representatives, either. Obama's butt is covered against being prosecuted, at least for now. Which amounts to another invitation to tyranny - freedom from prosecution for illegal acts.

Frank, your worded your piece in a fallacious manner, implying you were unsure if the Constitution either required or even permits what ObamaCare is attempting to do. I think most of the argument was lost when LBJ launched his War on Poverty. Right or wrong, I think ObamaCare could well end up being implemented if passed. My Representative and Senators have been told how I feel about the program - that it is unconstitutional, devised to destroy incomes of physicians and hospitals in favor of government operated services, that it is another step in implementing government management of wages at all levels from part time custodial on up. ObamaCare rewards certain of Obama's secret backers, and destroys additional American infrastructure, as a means to dismantle America.

Because the America Obama is headed for has nothing to do with the US Constitution. Just wait until he irritates enough people he has reason to invoke martial law, and see what gets set aside and what doesn't.

But that is just my thought tonight.

Obama's school address

2009-09-24T14:04:00.000-05:00

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post writes about President B. Hussein Obama's speech to America's school children.

Kathleen writes - Why all the fuss? An A in Overreaction.

Granting a super-sized benefit of the doubt to protesters, Obama's speech originally included classroom instructional materials from the Education Department that asked students to express how they were inspired by the president and how they might help him.

. . .

Okay, benefit-of-the-doubt rescinded. Even asking kids to help the president improve the nation doesn't justify charges of socialist indoctrination. John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" is hardly considered a bugle call to summer camp in the Urals.

Actually, I see a lot of difference. John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address - not even a speech publicized as directed to school students - quotes George Bernard Shaw's line - to serve your country. That is way different, to my mind, than how to serve B. Hussein Obama, who at best will be President four or eight years. We need students and communities and states to serve, support, and protect the institutions that keep America strong and safe for her citizens.

Administrations come and go. As a nation, the founding fathers determined that a king, an individual representing the sanctified spirit and soul of the nation, was inappropriate. Thus we have had a Pledge of Allegiance - to a flag, and a republic. Thus we swear on entering public office or military service, to serve - the constitution. Having the President inspire school children to consider how they might server B. Hussein Obama is a spit in the eye to Americans that honor the Constitution of the United States.

I cannot understand that the venerable pledge of allegiance (to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.) could be challenged in court - and Obama's call for allegiance to President Obama to go unchallenged. It amazes me. President Obama is not a fitting repository of devotion and reverence. The office of the President of the United States is, the Constitution is, the Congress is, but the individual holding office deserves respect only insofar as he or she fulfills the requirements of that office.

Ultimately Kathleen Parker's piece covers the criticisms and the resulting speech. But she fails to acknowledge the way criticism before hand shaped the speech that was ultimately delivered, to avoid the most egregious abuses.

I think President Obama should thank those that pointed out the dangers to a democracy of some parts of his original message. I think the change in the speech, from first concept to delivery, is entirely to the benefit of America.

As for your article, Kathleen Parker, Ma'am, I think you completely missed the point. Your article chronicles the education of a President, and the strength of the right to free speech in criticizing the President. Calling this process overreaction is disrespectful and disingenuous.

Stimulus fever running high in Oklahoma

2009-09-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

According to the AP, Oklahoma is late to the storm. State unemployment for August 2009 was up 2.9% since August 2008, and up .9% since July, according to the Associated Press out of Oklahoma City, OK.

It turns out the state gained some 1700 jobs in government last month. 1700 - that is a lot of stimulus money, and a lot of ongoing payroll. Now, remind me. What is it that government produces, what value does government add to the economy?

Because the state lost 1900 manufacturing and related jobs last month, and another 1100 in the service sector of the workforce.

Trading two jobs for one, while losing the ability of 3000 employees to increase value and serve the state and the nation.

Well, at least President B. Hussein Obama's union-owned car makers are doing better than they were. I sure wish Oh! Bummer had fewer political debts to pay off at the cost of the nation.

Quack, quack, Mr. President.

2009-09-16T13:23:00.000-05:00

If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck - maybe, just maybe, it is a duck.

Racism

I consider racism to be someone that permits stereotypes of racial actions and qualities to overcome their perceptions of people as people. A racist is one that prejudges people because of racial characteristics.

Is Glenn Beck racist? Beck calls B. Hussein Obama racist, with deep seated hatred of white people or white culture. Does that make the President racist? The Ed Show, MSNBC's Chris Matthews calls Glenn Beck racist - does that make these people or networks racist?

Is there a fundamental difference between attributing qualifications and character to a race - or an ideological label, and acting in hate-filled and dismissive manner toward all that identify them selves with the opposition on a spectrum of liberal / conservative?

So why is it that hating Glenn Beck is great, and worthy "news" and opinion fodder, yet expressing concern (as Glenn Beck did) that B. Hussein Obama is racist is hate speech?

The Ed Show takes off on bashing Glenn Beck. Starting with charges that Beck is "hiding behind his plastic Jesus", Ed paints Beck in an awful light.

Glenn Beck's quoted words are that B. Hussein Obama appears to have a deep hatred for white people or the white culture, Beck isn't sure which. This is a very long ways from declaring that Obama is acting in a racist manner, which is illegal.

In part two video, the Ed show gets a guest that disputes Ed's continued assertion that Beck doesn't cite any reason for the accusation, when Beck clearly cites Obama's 20 year membership in the Rev. Wright's church, with Wright's repeated white-bashing rhetoric. Personally I find the number of radical and violent and criminal figures of racial militants that keep showing up surrounding President B. Hussein Obama to be significant - of a deep opposition to the rule of law, if not hatred of the established structure or white culture or white race.

Chris "tingle down my leg" Matthews discusses the issue.

Matthew's guests, if not Chris himself, champion the extremist interpretation that the nation hates Obama because of his race, and pays no respect to those that oppose Obama's abuses of office. And Matthews and guests overlook completely the number of avowed racial hatred-centric people B. Hussein Obama has brought to Washington, D.C.

And that is what makes this look like official, sanctioned, orchestrated by the White House - Spin Control.

Spin Control

Those towing the Obama line seem to be reading from the same play book. Instead of looking at the opposition as helping to identify weaknesses and problems, they instead make the excuse that the opposition is hateful, is destruction-minded, and motivated by unthinking hatred.

Divide and conquer, isn't that how strategy is supposed to work?

When Glenn Beck states what many loyal and true American citizens observe, that our President appears to harbor hatred for whites and the America that is the result of 230 years of history, I believe Beck is correct. I do not hear Beck, or any conservative, challenge Obama's right to feel and think as he does. What I hear is an expression of concern, an erosion of the "hope and change" that was promised, that seems to be hope for some, change for the rest.

For the Tea Party tax protesters, for the gun rights advocates, for those wanting to keep America at work, watching B. Hussein Obama has been a necessary and arduous burden since before the inauguration. Fears that Obama and the rabid gun-control phobics he surrounds himself will attempt trickery, extra-legal tricks, legislation proposals, regulation changes, and any other means available to pursue their agenda - regardless of whether the legal means of proceeding indicate that the nation's consensus is that the proposals are wrong and harmful to America.

I find Fox and Friends' interview with Glenn Beck, when he made his "Obama has a deep hatred for white people or white culture, I don't know", merely places the concerns about underhanded and harmful and obnoxious dealings many have already experience from the Obama administration, into perspective.

Should we call the President racist, if we believe his actions and words are consistent with a deeply defining identity with one race in opposition to one or more other races? Yep. If I believe that the President's prejudices and history are pertinent, and racially motivated, then keeping that aspect pertinent and prominent may benefit those trying to understand those actions - and defend their own interests and / or the best interests of the United States.

Should someone stop us from calling the President a racist? Yes, if we advocate others hating him for that reason. Yes, if we advocate acting based on hatreds.

But we cannot identify and address hatred-based issues, if we are not permitted to discuss them. Obama supporters must admit to the racist actions, words, and companions of the President. Obama detractors must be clear that opposition is based on healthy disagreement with policy, or with disagreement of values, and not based on perceived or imaginary issues related to race.

bim: Irrational assumptions - gun control and term limits

2009-09-04T01:08:00.000-05:00

Bill at Billll's Idle Mind raises the issue of term limits. Bill laments the wasted opportunity, that the tea party movement might have made short work of getting term limits instituted.

Gun Control assumption

I watched The American President again last night. Same old Michael Douglas, Annette Bening story. Same rich tapestry of majesty of the Presidency, the White House, and the offices of the Government, reverently presented by Rob Reiner.

Michael J. Fox, White House Chief of Staff, comments after being told that handgun restriction measures were being left out of a proposed anti-crime bill. "Can we return to the subject for just one moment? It would be easier to fight crime if we weren't arming the drug dealers."

This far into the Obama administration, after their clandestine as well as public moves to thwart, limit, and abolish ownership of all guns, not just handguns - well, this assumption of the movie and Mr. Reiner caught me pretty clearly.

Those proposing eliminating or limiting handguns assume that 1) the benefit of removing handguns from criminals is worth the inconvenience of taking guns from law abiding citizens; and 2) implementing laws limiting or eliminating handguns will remove handguns from criminals.

Term limit assumptions

I have come across proposals for term limits many time.

I think the assumptions proponents make about term limits is similar to the anti-gun assumptions. 1) The benefit of removing powerful legislators that no longer serve their constituents is worth the loss of good men that might have served longer; and 2) implementing term limits will remove the very powerful and unresponsive legislators.

I don't see the connection.

If a legislator were not representing the interests of the people of the district that elects them - surely we can count on an opponent to woo enough votes next election to unseat the incumbent. And nothing I have seen establishes to my satisfaction the supposition that the cost of losing a good legislator too soon, due to term limits, is in any way worth tossing out other people that hit the term limit.

And I don't see that term limits will necessarily end the influence of powerful people.

Sorry, Bill. I just don't see that your assumptions are valid.

Brain drain a'coming

2009-08-24T14:58:00.000-05:00

So, lets assume that the wreck is on it's way, that ObamaCare is coming in some way, shape, or form.

How does the President hire enough paper pushers to fill all the offices that haven't been built yet?

Where do all the people come that will pursue a career in government service - and be unavailable to participate in the national economy?

One estimate has that 45 million, plus or minus, are uninsured. That ObamaCare disrupts everyone's health insurance while leaving 35 million still uninsured.

Are those 35 million uninsured to be drafted, to work civil service jobs and thus fall under civil service health insurance?

Remember, the government claims that unemployment is what, 9 or 10%? That is, not counting the additional 10% that aren't collecting unemployment because there aren't any jobs, but Washington, DC didn't like the numbers so they stopped counting them.

Unemployed and underemployed people are a problem for the economy - but they are also a vast and rich resource. Many are people that have educated and skilled backgrounds. As the economy improves, hiring should increase - will there be any left, after staffing Big Government, that will be ready to hire, ready to produce products and wealth that will feed families and pay taxes?

Will the managers and specialists needed to run the government's health care plan, by their absence, cripple companies wanting to increase production, to provide new services, to meet increased regulations?

Or is B. Hussein Obama planning to pull a gangster style packing operation, putting all his patronage chips in the hopper, putting all his cronies and ACORN and illegals and others into slots they aren't - and won't be for years - qualified to fill?

Oath or convictions - choose, Mr. President

2009-08-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

So, ok. We saw or read about or heard about the inauguration when B. Hussein Obama took an oath to uphold the US Constitution, and execute the office of President.

That is, he took an oath. A pledge, a promise. He gave his word. This was a big-deal ceremony - remember the tons of trash afterwards? Lots of trash to pick up - because he wasn't President until he finished with the oath.

So, now we have B. Hussein Obama doing what he thinks he should, acting as if he were President of the United States. As long as those in authority act like he is President, he has a certain cache in claiming the title, privileges, and responsibilities.

But what happens if there is dissent about whether he has failed his duties - or flat out broken his promise to uphold the Constitution?

I could point to the ex-CEO of General Motors, and claim that no President is allowed to step outside the prescribed authority of his office to do that. B. Hussein Obama has taken public and legislative steps to ban or restrict gun ownership, and also a few clandestine and underhanded moves. Recall the snafu a few months ago, when the Department of Defense told the ammunition manufacturers buying back the millions of pieces of brass - the leftovers after firing weapons in training - that they changed their procedures, and instead of being useful for reloading and selling at moderate expense to civilian shooters, the brass would now be shredded first.

The DoD shredded cartridge brass decision was changed, almost overnight. It turns out that that civilian market for less expensive brass - also supplied most training ammunition for many police and sheriff organizations. This clear intent to crater the market for ammunition was deliberately intended to drive the availability of ammo down, and inflate the price of ammo for shooters wanting to train or keep a quantity on hand.

When the President sets out to deliberately interfere with the amount of ammunition available to gun owners in America - is he in fact violating the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms? Arguably, preventing gun owners from obtaining ammunition pretty much blocks their ability to bear those arms. As they guy in Arizona said, if your gun isn't loaded, it isn't much good.

I still want to know what B. Hussein Obama did to cause Supreme Justice Souter to leave the bench. We know why - Obama wanted the cache of putting a chosen pick on the Supreme Court, and squandered that by selecting Sotomayor. Now-Justice Sotomayor has the advantage of being a liberal Democrat; her detractions include disparagement for the wording and history of the Court and the Constitution. There is likely room to be concerned about her competence in her chosen profession. Getting Sotomayor named and sworn in to the Supreme Court makes her a Supreme Court Justice. It does not answer questions about her competence, or whether she is an example of affirmative action, and not a symbol of the rise of someone based on overwhelming merit.

So, at what point is it imperative the question be asked - is B. Hussein Obama still true to his oath of office, and if not, does he actually hold that office?

Reducing traffic accident health care costs

2009-08-15T10:01:00.000-05:00

I got an email this morning, complaining about how fragile the new Smart Car looks in heavy traffic.

I didn't get the date, but the ambulance is from the West Jefferson Medical Center Ambulance Service in Marrero, Louisiana.

I suppose this is another concept, like abortion and end of life counseling, that B. Hussein Obama expects to use to keep health care costs down.

ObamaCare end of life counseling

2009-08-13T09:19:00.000-05:00

First - the gross mis-statement. What I am calling ObamaCare is not health care, and does nothing to care for anyone but insurance companies and B. Hussein Obama's good buddies.

But - end of life counseling, that has been touted as euthanasia and an excuse to withhold care for the elderly or grievously injured or ill, this is supposed to be an implementation of living wills.

Living wills go by several names, my mother has one, my father did before he died. This is where you make a legal, binding request that hospitals not make any "heroic" intervention or effort to resuscitate or revive you, if you are close to death.

People do choose this kind of restriction on their doctor. Often the ventilator, the vegetable coma, the impairment and pain of partial successes seem so daunting, that one chooses not to. For many, they struggle for all the breaths available, and wish for every chance for another day. That is, they choose, or refuse to consider or choose the matter, which is another kind of choice.

What some families have faced, though, is hospitals, nurses, and doctors that refuse to follow clear and legal instructions. Instead they impose their particular morality - without accepting the legal, moral, human, and financial consequences.

One summary of end of life counseling as expressed in the House-passed version of the bill today, is that this means the physician discusses wishes and options, about every five (5) years for the elderly or infirm. I would compare this to counseling women before performing an abortion - bring care giver and patient together for a review of options and to confirm the patient's choice.

In either case, abortion or end of life, it would be immeasurably sad to overlook an alternative that would have been reasonable, beforehand, to the patient.

In both cases, though, government participation raises a spectre, a shadow of grave concern. Just as liberal forces have played our elementary schools to inflict their social engineering on our nation's children, there is the real likelihood that someone at some level - local, regional, national - will use the counseling provision to slant the message. To recommend, refuse to discuss, or demand one choice or another. That federal programs will introduce intimidation, denial of services, or harassment to bias "choices" in a preferred direction.

It is guaranteed that the "counseling", when implemented by the government, will expand the scope to include additional provisions, etc. Governments hire bureaucrats that only advance within government circles, and most often by expanding the scope and range of their organization.

If end of life counseling and abortion counseling were recommendations of the American Medical Association - and every American visited a family physician regularly - I would be much happier about this topic.

I am much happier that Mom talked to (the late) Dr. Frink about resuscitation, about heroic interventions, than to the IRS agent at my last audit. Dr. Frink never, to my knowledge, lied to a patient, or made up problems.

For one thing, doctors make money prescribing medicines and caring for patients. Government agents advance by keeping costs down. I know which influence I trust to waste less life and cultural experience.

Would a young doctor tomorrow, briefed on the legal requirement for end of life counseling, be affected by how the government presents the program? I cannot imagine otherwise. Would that doctor's patients then be influenced by the government procedures and representations? Yep.

The concept, or possibly even the intent of the ObamaCare end of life counseling provision might be well intentioned. Stuff happens. But I do not trust a government intervening into the discussion between doctor and patient. There is already too much intrusion.

Obama's lustre fades

2009-08-12T06:28:00.000-05:00

Lissa at Looking For Lissa ponders, I wonder what moderate Obama supporters think now?

Lissa then lists a few errors B. Hussein Obama has made, some campaign stands ignored, and broken promises. And wonders how those that supported Obama because his campaign made sense to them feel now.

Bill of Billlls Idle Mind has been watching this turnaround, the way the national average consensus has shifted.

For instance, the car window written "You don't see Obama Stickers on cars driving to work" - one very bitter sentiment.
http://billllsidlemind.blogspot.com/2009/08/working-for-living.html

Bill notes that although the recent jobless rate is reported as "encouraging", in June the Labor Department dropped some 796,000 jobless from the reported number, as being "discouraged". This made the July jobless rate look better - but doesn't reflect the way the number of jobless continue to shrink the ability of America to produce, or the increased burden they represent to America.
http://billllsidlemind.blogspot.com/2009/08/job-market.html

Back about July 9, I saw a chart that showed the proportion of people strongly supporting B. Hussein Obama had fallen below those that strongly opposed him by 8 points - reversing the sway supporters had held until shortly after June 6, 2009.
http://www.lifenews.com/nat5148.html

That trend continued, now about -7 (support minus oppose percentage)

Note on the chart, that this measures the intensity of the support and opposition - letting the intensity of support dwindle is more important than general support numbers.

Who owns the history of Nazi Germany?

2009-08-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

ABC News' Political Punch tells the story of criticism by a Jewish group, that denies Congress, commentators, and concerned people the right to pull images and similarities to historical events in explaining and warning about current events. From the story:

“Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor.

I see two flaws in Rabbi Foxman's argument. First, that though the Jewish people were horribly targeted by Hitler's Germany, that other groups - the mentally handicapped, the Polish, other religions, etc. - also have cause to consider Naziism as a particularly personal cultural bogeyman. The atrocities committed under the Nazi flag do not cede that era and those events to the custody of the Jewish peoples alone.

Nazi Germany fouled and affected the civilized world.

The other flaw I see is that we, as a nation, do not benefit if we ignore the lessons of history, when we see the mistakes of the past being repeated today, and do not heed the historical and inevitable consequences.

Mr. Foxman assumes that all of the accusations and comparisons of B. Hussein Obama, his ruthless ride on the backs of the sycophantic Congress over the will of the people of the United States, and in disregard of the Constitution of the United States - Mr. Foxman assumes that all criticisms comparing today's turmoil to the events leading to the juggernaut of Nazi Germany to be mere hyperbole, mere rabble rousing speech - and not honest fear and trepidations.

The Obama administration shares another characteristic of Adolf Hitler in his rise to power - a fragile ego, a narcissistic taste for adoration, and an eagerness to identify and punish opponents.

Does B. Hussein Obama deserve being called another Hitler? Has he moved to make himself dictator, to dismiss constitutional bounds on his authority? Arguably he has already overstepped the authority of his office, and has yet to be called to account for those misdeeds. This particular slippery slope above an abyss of anarchy and despotism is troubling, as Congress repeatedly violates strictures to honor states' rights.

I understand that some have taken the names of the past, and identified individuals with them, that in some sense the atrocities of the past may be treated lightly in today's discourse. It is that very horror of the past, that degree of atrocity, that speaks to the fears of speakers against B. Hussein Obama and Congressional leaders. I may not comprehend, personally, the consequences of the socialist agendas of the past, but I can and do fear they are being brought to renewed life in specific detail in today's Washington, D.C.

Rabbi Foxman, please do not lightly dismiss the fears of honest citizens, when you criticize comparisons of a United States President taking actions that I can not distinguish from those of a socialist reformer. The very Constitution that protects your right to criticize, to defend your beliefs, is the same Constitution threatened by today's Congress and President.

---

In writing this piece, I have no criticism of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, other than the specific topic above, criticizing the comparison of certain political statements and actions with the historical Nazi period.

I was interested to find that visiting the ADL web site, www.adl.org, was difficult. Four times out of five, the site timed out rather than allow me to visit. I never did get the contacts page to load. Perhaps access is blocked from North Central Oklahoma, United States. I hope Rabbi Foxman's apparent trust in the administration is well placed.

Where have all the doctors gone . . .

2009-07-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

I have heard Congress, B. Hussein Obama, Breda's Fallacy, Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest, Victoria Jackson of SNL fame, and others decry the $1000 fine for not buying health insurance, making it illegal for health insurers to write new policies after Obamacare starts, etc.

So - what does the AMA have to say? Where are all the doctors, the ones with dependents, families, friends and communities? The doctors with careers invested in various communities and organizations?

What about the local and city hospitals, the medical schools and teaching hospitals?

What happens to research when medical care is doled out?

And why does anyone think that doctors won't retire en masse, migrate to a real country, or go black market?

Yes, I expect that B. Hussein Obama, retired Senators, and captains of industry and churches will continue to receive premium health care, and not through Obamacare. Just look at the amount of money that is made trafficing in drugs. Now consider what socialized medicine will do - reduce the practice of medicine to the midwife and physician's assistant. With all the real money to be made in medicine "off the books". Sounds like a Chicago gangland recipe for personal aggrandizement.

Victoria Jackson's post is being touted as absurd and wacko. But she does have a point. I disagree - vehemently - on the social and personal impact, and underlying assumptions, about abortion. But her assertion that the point of Obamacare is to euthanize (legally cause people to die, in a health care setting) undesirables makes sense. From one perspective, killing sick people costs less than treating them. Especially if they are feeble, or deformed, or maimed, or . . . there are just too many caucasians, or whatever. And B. Hussein Obama has already, in the Hate Crimes bill, defined that heterosexual caucasians cannot be victims of a hate crime, because they may not be considered a "protected class". That is in the process of becoming law, and anyone that doesn't think that will affect Obamacare is deluded.

What gets me, is creating a health care plan without statements of support from the people involved - the emergency and ambulance services, the doctors, the hospitals, the clinics. We stand to gain a government bureaucracy and *drafted* doctors. Or maybe just civil servants that want to transfer and work as doctors for a couple months.

Unemployment: a double edged sword

2009-07-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

First, let me predict that unemployment will show a significant increase in July and August. In related news, the second step of Congress' increase in minimum wage takes place mid-July. $7.65 an hour, for the same productivity, for minimum wage earners, that was $5.15. Wow. How many companies, managing their business, appreciate seeing their payroll jump without getting anything extra - except a corresponding increase in the amount of taxes the employer pays on payroll.

There is a flip side to raising the federal minimum wage rate. Many employers, including mine, let many promotions go the last two years. In fact, I have gone from $0.80 above minimum wage, to $0.25 above - to minimum wage. This is simple economics, I now get paid more than I did two years ago, but still make the same as a still-in-high-school new hire. That adds to a lot of job satisfaction. Some places use the nickel and dime differences in wage to express relative authority and achievement in skill. Losing that stratification erodes the likelihood of people remaining with the employer.

There is a social cache to making more money than minimum wage. Job churning, changing jobs within an industry for a real or perceived advantage, costs the employers involved, and their industry, and the community.

Think about it. Someone coming to work has a half day or a week to read company policies, fill out government and company forms, insurance, etc. Paid time that doesn't benefit the employer. Then there is time to come up to speed. A very experienced new hire may be able to get right to work - but won't be as valuable to the new employer for some time, maybe days, maybe months. It depends on the environment.

Meanwhile the employer that lost a valued worker - has a gap in the ability to produce. It takes time, money, and effort to locate and recruit suitable replacements, interview and evaluate, and choose to hire or not. Even with unemployment high, or especially with unemployment high, employers face a daunting task: Countless gurus and government agencies have been teaching people to "game" the system. To get their foot in the door and hopefully even get hired - when they are not qualified for the job they are applying for. Head hunters, job placement programs, many of them get paid for number. Numbers of people getting a job offer. Very few get paid depending on whether the person hired was truthful and accurate, and well suited to the work as assessed six months after the hire date.

This matters. Because whether B. Hussein Obama and the Pelosi/Reid axis raise taxes and increase regularions, or replacing a valued employee, the company loses money and time and effort that could have been used serving the community. The company makes less money. Less money gets spent in the community, and other jobs are put at risk.

And that brings me to unemployment. Washington, DC wants us to think that unemployment is about people not working. It is. But it is also about companies not making money, not contributing to the community.

And every industry that involves a company that loses a worker for any reason, loses. The industry and community lose a worker that has spend years, often, learning a trade and acquiring skill and experience at producing, and making a profit for the company, industry, community, and nation. Keeping jobs secure, keeping the company's products and services available, growing the national and local economy. Each job lost turns that productivity into a cost, a reduction in productivity, even if the worker finds the same job with a new employer within hours. The new employer must process in and train, evaluate, and otherwise spend resources and time, before that worker can again apply skill and experience in the new environment.

Where someone is underemployed or otherwise changes fields the cycle is more painful. Disparaging remarks about flipping burgers and working at McDonalds overlook the cost to the community of replacing those oh-so-easily-trained high school kids, retirees, and others that can't find work somewhere else. Where someone was a valued worker elsewhere, the national and local economy, and the industry involved, lose experience and skill sets that took years or decades to develop. Those skills are no longer available; the national economy is permanently reduced. For the new person at McDonalds the impact is more personal, learning new job skills in an industry where people routinely lose their job for simple errors and mistakes, accommodating changes in lifestyle and impacts to family expectations and needs, these things do settle down. But the community lost, the nation lost, the families involved all lost.

Companies don't shut down without spending a lot of money. Some of it is in debts that don't get repaid, that hazard other companies' ability to continue contributing to the economy. Some of the money comes from company assets that won't be available to distribute to shareholders and owners, so they can reinvest the money. Starting up again, or taking back people that have been laid off - again, it costs. Most people are changed when they change jobs. When the change is involuntary, they change even more. Not all people are suitable any longer for a job they once held. Changes in work group dynamics when one or more people don't return, or new people are added, threaten or delay productivity expectations.

Playing with unemployment numbers as a reason or means to criticize the President or Congress is petty. The fact that regulations, taxes, and games with fiscal policy impact unemployment - that is, the ability of the nation to function - should be sufficient to decry or laud efforts.

I have been told, no one ever got rich working with their hands. The money, the impact or power, is in having people work for you. I guess the next step up would be financing people that have people working for them, or maybe politicians making regulations that affect others. One person can impair the ability of others to live and work - terrorists and suicide bombers, and mass shooters are examples we live with. To build something, a craftsman or gardener can supply a family, or a community. To make a significant contribution to the nation, though, it takes the work of many. Many people to build the warships and weapons that maintain our security on the seas and in the air. Many people to grow the food that feeds our cities and towns. Many people to provide and transport and service the things we need, from food and clothes to MP3 players and iPhones. Many people to care for our neighbors.

Unemployment threatens us as much as an army marching on our land. Regulations and taxes that "redistribute wealth" and "limit corporations" weaken our ability to feed and clothe ourselves, to keep other nations from deciding to conquer and take our resources.

Some regulations are needed; unbridled capitalism can lead to monopolies that punish competition, and weaken the economy and the nation. But hating the wealthy is not healthy either. It is the holders and accumulators of wealth that have the resources and experience to take advantage of opportunities.

Companies making money and wealthy people can hire people, and reduce the number of unemployed. Not governments, not communities, not regulations, and not taxes.

S. 909 - Obama's "Hate Whitey" bill

2009-07-14T20:51:00.000-05:00

Already introduced onto the floor of the Senate, Senate bill 909 is slated for fast track action. The time is slipping by to try to stop this horrendous "Hate Whitey" attack on equal justice for all.

Net Right Nation monitors right-of-center bloggers.

The highly charged "Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009" (S. 909) would make it a federal crime to violently attack anyone you hate.

Unless, of course, the anyone you hate happens to be a white heterosexual.

In the same NRN piece,

So, let’s get this straight: If Messrs. Obama and [Attorney General Eric] Holder have their way, the United States government – once fondly known as the “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” -- will begin prosecuting some of “the people” and protecting others among “the people” solely based upon said people’s skin color and sexual orientation?

Precisely. For you see, under S. 909, certain members of our society, primarily determined by the color of their skin and the lusts in their hearts, are what Obama and Holder call “protected classes.”

This is *not* a "slippery slope". This is *not* something a bit risky that might lead to something worse. S. 909 is the worse. This is the "divide and conquer" that classic warriors have found so successful.

Call your Senator. Please stop this legalized bigotry. Bigotry didn't strengthen our country before, it isn't likely to this time, either.

What next? Indentured servants - enslavement for non-payment of debts or taxes? Except among the "protected classes", I imagine.

47 years of government waste - the legacy of Robert McNamara

2009-07-07T10:26:00.000-05:00

Robert McNamara served President John F. Kennedy as Secretary of Defense, and again as Sec of Defense under Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara certainly didn't lose the Vietnam War by himself, but he didn't win it, either, and he didn't keep it from becoming a symbol of American patriotism and valor largely wasted.

A legacy of evil

McNamara was, however, indisputably the father of the $600 hammer, the golden toilet seat, and generations of overpriced government procurement.

McNamara invented today's "Federal Acquisition Regulations" that grew to encompass many fine careers, and to disillusion multitudes that wanted to see our armed services using the best equipment at reasonable prices.

If it isn't broke . . .

Robert "Bean Counter" McNamara changed the way the government bought things.

One of the astounding graces and strengths of America was the incredibly rapid way new weapons and equipment, from planes and ships to bombs, radios, and radars, went from concept to deployed in the field. Weapon makers and suppliers would visit the military offices, discuss what was needed, return with a prototype or 20, and get an order for a dozen or a thousand or more.

Leveraging car maker success to "improve" the government

Working in a era should have been aware of the ability to apply America's then-devastating might of industry to security problems, just after the Korean conflict, and during the explosion of the French fiasco in Vietnam to an American assistance, to an American hotbed of conflict - McNamara decided to apply accounting and automaker style "good business practices" to military procurement.

Evaluating business forms instead of working equipment

I recall being in St. Louis, MO, when Boeing was competing for a new fighter design, maybe the F-22. Their working prototype, their plane that flew, was rejected in favor of a competitor that won on the strength of their paperwork, and a design several years - and many millions of dollars - away from flying.

It looked good on paper

McNamara's claim was to open procurement to competition to keep prices down, to give competitors a "fair" access to all the pertinent requirements, to open the way for innovation and competition to provide the "best" design.

What really happened was to invent a new layer or three of bureaucracy build exclusively to manage the process of issuing requests for proposals, managing proposals received from potential suppliers, evaluating the proposals, selecting the provider, monitoring how the contract was performed, checking for required quality, and monitoring the conclusion, extensions, and more importantly, all the changes to the contract because what they ordered built wasn't what was needed.

Wasting resources to waste time to hide ineptness

Instead of relying on companies with skilled engineers, our current procurement process requires that the services and other entities in government use people skilled in capturing what is needed - three or four years in the future - into documented "requirements". Heaven forbid any competing contractor-candidate should use actual knowledge of what the customer needs. That might be unfair business practice, used to keep competitors out of the market.

Build a bigger empire, and you may not get caught

Then the government needed highly skilled people to do the business and contracting things - all highly skilled tasks.

And contractors don't just have to build quality planes and boats and toilets - they have to document, to the satisfaction of government program teams and FAR satisfaction that they meet the stated program requirements - not "what the customer needs", because that isn't the contract. The contract that is written is for the contractor to meet the requirements stated in the proposal.

And the first step is to have all interested contractors engineer a result, so that the government can compare the proposed solutions to the request for proposal.

It can literally cost $590 dollars for a contractor to engineer and perform required oversight, review, and documentation, to order a $10 hammer from Ace Hardware or the makers of Estes or Plumb hammers. Especially when it costs the contractor several hundred dollars to formally request clarification and documented answers to questions - like, do you want a hammer to build a house, or to fashion metal parts?

Waste in the name of blame-dodging

McNamara invented the notion that layers of paper-checking and previewing engineering - and having several independent teams of engineers wasting their time on unused solutions - was a useful application of American skill and talent. And money.

RIP, Robert McNamara, "May God bless and keep the Czar . . . far from Anatevka!"

I can't decide if I want to see McNamara buried with his legacy - on a golden toilet seat - or without, in a pine box. To be fair, I have seen some beautifully made simple wooden caskets, handmade with respect and reverence. The last one I saw was Amish made, a people that eschew everything about national government and government regulations.

Carbongate

2009-06-30T19:10:00.000-05:00

Dr. John Ray, Brisbane, Australia writes about our President, our EPA, a report that the Earth is cooling, and will through 2030. Carbongate.

Chris Beck illustrates with bombast and hyperbole, what Dr. John lays out. That an EPA report describing how the Earth is cooling - not warming - was inconvenient. Instead of publishing the report, and risking passage of the horrendous Waxman-Markey Tax and Tax bill, the inconvenient facts were suppressed. Instead, at 3 am last Friday - 15 hours before the final vote, hundreds of pages of amendments were added to the Tax and Tax bill.

While the Tax and Tax bill (some call it Cap and Trade, with a glint of mischief in their eye) claims to intend to reduce carbon emissions - the reality is that bill doesn't have anything in it that might change carbon emissions. The thing is about creating government controls, government bureaucracies - and, in true Chicago-Corrupt style - ultimately, power. Power through binding sycophants through patronage, putting friends and family and others one wants to bind to them on the government payroll.

It looks like everyone wins - through bigger budgets and more buddies on the payroll - except maybe the Coast Guard and DARPA. Maybe the bill doesn't affect the CDC, but that might be the only oversight.

The Tax and Tax bill is a boondoggle that will cost and cost, and only the amount of hot air (useless rhetoric) around the bill will affect the climate.

I mean, if I wanted to change the amount of fossil fuels consumed, I would limit imports and mining. Simple, cheap, effective. If I wanted to reduce the effect on the climate of today's automobiles, I would restrict building new cars, and restrict the ability to trade cars before they are 20 years old. (Making a new car takes more energy than a gas-guzzler can consume, once constructed, in many years.)

Our nation faces a number of crises, economic instability due to high taxes and government interference, as well as due to varying availability of inexpensive energy. We face serious water shortages in the near future, especially shortages of drinkable water. Reliance on transportation of food and products from across the nation and from around the world when transportation costs have become increasingly more volatile, when the costs of farming continue to increase, when the interference of government - including stupid patenting of food crops to limit the ability of the American farmer to react to changing weather patterns, reliance of exported food as an expression of foreign policy and the way American agriculture relies on artificial fertilizer to sustain high yields. I suspect not all the food riots in the coming year will be outside the US.

The B. Hussein Obama government has complained that the economic recovery is slowed not by high (and rising) unemployment, but by reduced spending.

Hint: If you keep businesses in business and making a profit, they keep people on the job, and the people working have money to spend, to keep the precious economy running and maybe even improving.

Instead, B. Hussein Obama is "troubled" when unrest and dissent are reported on TV. He doesn't care about the unrests, only publishing the report of the unrest.

Sleep well, Mr. "let no crisis go unexploited" President. Richard Nixon remembered Watergate all his days. How long will Carbongate, lying to Congress and America about the end of global warming, follow you?

News flash! Jobless people spend less!

2009-06-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book writes about "You Aren’t Losing Your Job, You are Holding Back Consumer Spending!". Sharon writes well, and this piece is brief and pithy.

Sharon may have intended to be sarcastic or snarky, about how unemployed people are slowing the recovery.

But just think, if a $30k job former-worker can hold back the economy, just think what damage a millionaire does when he doesn't spend have his income. Like, when he pays higher taxes.

Or a billion dollar corporation that all of a sudden faces millions and millions of new taxes that they now cannot spend to support their suppliers and shareholders. Why, with passage of one cap-and-tax bill, Congress could be making millions of shareholders act just like fired people - burdens on the economy. And, of course, there is the point that the cap-and-tax legislation passed by the House of Representatives is about taxes, and is only intended to *appear* to limit carbon dioxide production.

I am amazed at how people worry about the economy, and support "redistributing the wealth" at the same time. In the past plundering and pillaging barbarians *planned* to burn their victims to the ground, with nary a thought about what anyone would have to eat tomorrow. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cap and Tax passed the House - and the funeral effect

2009-06-27T03:47:00.000-05:00

OK, so the smokescreen that raises taxes on industry (i.e. costs jobs, impairs business, raises prices on goods made and services, too) got passed in the House.

Does this mean change for the funeral industry?

I mean, making and transporting steel or plastic coffins takes lots of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport coffins and vaults. So, is this the end of using vaults and coffins to bury the Dearly Departed - are we back to wrapping in an old blanket, and waiting for the dirt to settle later before leveling off the dirt?

Does this mean the end of cremation? Cremation takes tremendous energy to consume a human body. And that release how many pounds (hundreds of pounds, in some cases!) of carbon into the atmosphere!

So, should we do what has worked for hundreds of years for some cultures, put up a rack about head high in some place you don't normally frequent, and let the body . . . umm, dry out? Weather, cure? What do you call it as the gooey stuff feeds flies and birds, and the bones weather to dust and fragments? But at least, the carbon stays un-aired. Sort of.

Will we have to combine industries? Use jet engines, supertanker engines, and utility power plants for dual use - generate steam, generate hot water and pipe them to houses and business campuses, as well as use for body cremation? No, no, that is solving the wrong problem. Burning bodies - human and animal - turns organic matter to airborne carbon dioxide - that increases the taxes, as well as offending the "sequester the carbon" tree huggers.

Well, I guess it looks like blankets, then. Maybe this will be a good way to handle old nylon and polyester blankets, bury them for good.

Everyone does know, right, that this is a pure tax bill, and can have no effect on amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere? That B. Hussein Obama's stated intention to "redistribute" wealth - crush and destroy people with money that he hasn't take yet - is right on track to get where he wants to go? That the Thug from Chicago is completely uninterested in preserving America, the Constitution, freedom, or the economy?

Just remember that, when you need to arrange funeral services. Or fuel your car, or apply for a new job or unemployment insurance.

2009-06-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

Eric Karjaluoto writes at Ideas on Ideas, about "Epitaph for a plastic man", on the death of Michael Jackson.

Like many of the summaries of the life that Michael Jackson lived, Mr. Karjaluoto points out the revered music Jackson performed, and the alleged misdeeds.

The summary of how Jackson progressed from the first appearances I recall on the Andy Williams show - as a child, with the Jackson Five - to his death, is blamed mostly on the "toxic" nature of fame and media attention.

I think it is the other way around. People with no character, no ethics, willing to do and be anything to anyone - find a refuge in public performance. Musicians that know music and aren't drawn to a place of responsibility in their community will deceive themselves, telling themselves that the show is for the fans. The reality is that they only live vicariously.

The other significant memories of Michael Jackson that I carry with me are second hand, both of them satires.

Berkeley Breathed did a comic strip in the '80s called "Bloom County". In one episode a no-morals character is doing a Pepsi commercial as a musician, when he catches fire - too much mascara on his chest hairs. This lampooned a commercial that caught fire on Jackson - I never saw the commercial, only news reports. I loved the several days that the topic played on Bloom County.

The other legacy is enduring. "Weird" Al Yankovic writes and records parody songs. I can never hear the strains of "Beat It" without thinking the song that I recall from the Dr. Demento (Funny songs for fun people!) radio show - "Eat it!" will always be the hallmark for me, and Jackson's version just doesn't measure up.

Michael Jackson was younger than I am, by about seven (7) years. I always thought of him as closer to my age. But his music? That was a world away from mine. "Ben", the movie and song of a pet rat, are excellent performances. I could almost "Thriller", "Beat it", etc. variations on that ballad made for Jackson's voice - with little value added in meaning, in maturity, in soul, for all the years between.

Michael Jackson had brothers - four of them appeared with Michael on those long-ago Andy Williams shows, and recorded some really fine music. Jermain tried to care for Michael - and likely helped cover up some of the deviant stuff that came about in recent (and not-so-recent) years. I haven't kept up with them, but the other Jackson's haven't been making headlines and police blotters. With the same initial TV and other media exposure, we have four shining examples of citizenship and personal integrity greater than the late Michael Jackson.

Mr Karjaluoto in his article examines the forgiveness that a tainted icon receives, like Michael Jackson, on his death. Much of the predation is forgiven and glossed over, the accomplishments (recorded music and videos, and "Ben", of course) are sung widely.

I think much of this is something that also occurs in the justice system. A criminal act, a despicable act, an act of disrespect, is abhorred and reviled mostly - because we fear a repeat, fear another will be injured or harmed. On his death, Michael Jackson is no longer capable of harming the growth of another young man, of twisting another primate from healthy attitudes and behavior. We can replay his music and enjoy the vicarious performance without worrying that a new record release means another accusation of child molestation - the two events were paired, recently, almost as publicity ploys or distractions from prosecution, whichever.

Without Jackson's music I would be bereft of several "Weird" Al Yankovic parodies. And that feels like a pretty lame epitaph, for a plastic man.

Why Barry don't care if Iran spills over onto the US

2009-06-24T22:02:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter dissects B. Hussein Obama's poseur representations about the recent election in Iran and the resulting protests - Obama to Iran: Let Them Eat Ice Cream.

Two things pop out at me.

1) The reference to the tragic death of protester Neda Agha Soltan. Video and pictures of her body have swept the Internet.

2) Ms. Coulter disparages both the US President and the French President with a back-handed reference, "You might be a scaredy-cat if ... the president of France is talking tougher than you are."

First, the death of a girl storming a barricade during a revolution has become a symbol of America. What we call the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States - from the same France that Ann Coulter now disparages for their fall in WWII. The real life "liberty" figure was a young woman, carrying a torch of the period, protesting and attacking the then-government of France in the French Revolution (1789–1799).

I can see where President Barack Hussein Obama would prefer to have this particular symbol - a young woman protesting a decadent and corrupt government - become a rallying cry. It had a marked effect on the French of the day, and symbolizes freedom from the tyranny that some of Obama's plans and programs verge on today. President B. Hussein Obama does not want Americans to be thinking in terms of rebellion or illegitimate government.

And that leads to the second point that stands out for me in Ann's excellent HumanEvents.com article. That is, she disparages letting the French president sound more forceful that our own Barry-baby.

See, the French, like the UK, are dealing with a vast influx of Muslims and Islamic influences, including regions falling under Sharia (Muslim) law rather than national or local law. The French have a vested interest in siding with Muslim moderates of any stripe. The Muslim influence has been growing in Europe and has been even more disruptive than Californias fleeing to other states - and wreaking California-style legislative and social mischief "just like back home." In 1990, Coloradans called the California-refugee problem, "Californication."

On the other hand, we have President B. Hussein Obama that left his church of 20 years when it didn't further his career anymore. This same Barack Hussein Obama that was schooled, initially, in hard-core Muslim schools overseas by his Muslim father. This same Oh! Bummer! that doesn't mind a growing Muslim influence at all, since he has no Christian background to feel threatened over.

So of course President Obama sounds less militant or concerned that France does - he isn't worried about what might happen - it seems win-win to him.

Californians address money problem: Stop earning money.

2009-06-19T10:04:00.000-05:00

According to an article on the BusinessWire.com: AHF to L.A. County: Shut Down Porn Sets.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that an actress working in the business — a mainstay of the San Fernando Valley economy — tested HIV positive at the industry-affiliated Adult Industry Medical Foundation’s (AIM) testing clinic in early June. The paper subsequently reported that as many as 16 actors and actresses in the adult entertainment industry had tested positive for HIV since 2004; however, on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that County public health officials backtracked away from those claims, noting that while 16 individuals had indeed tested positive at AIM’s testing clinic, they could not confirm that any of those individuals were currently employed as performers in the industry.

Wow. 16 people tested positive in 5 years. An outbreak. Oops - and 15 of those may or may not have been involved in adult films. In California. One assumes that most of them were sexually active, and didn't catch HIV from flatulence. Oh, my.

So, obviously the headline-grabbing, career-making move is for do-gooders to . . . shut down an influx to California of billions of dollars. Let's see, at 12% (my guess) tax rate, that would be - hundreds of millions of tax revenue. That would be enough to, I don't know, put a couple of state and county workers out of a job? Cause a benefit program or two to cut back? Shut down a school?

Seems like the right trade-off. While the adult industry, for their own reasons, have a stellar record of managing STD risk, including HIV/AIDS, California seems hell-bent on forbidding business of any sort to thrive.

Not to lump raising livestock and adult videos into the same lump, but they sure seem to have the same caliber of enemy.

And this is *not* a California problem. California has been driving it's citizens out into the rest of the nation for decades, with it's combination of punitive taxes and punitive business policies. And those ex-patriots taint their adoptive homes with demands for California-style spending.

About those 'Phantom' traffic jams

2009-06-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

Wired.com reports that MIT is following up on Japanese research into traffic jams that happen without having a wreck or other restriction on the road to explain why cars are stopped, waiting - for the cars ahead to move out.

A team of MIT mathematicians has developed a model that describes how and under what conditions such jams form, which could help road designers minimize the odds of their formation. The researchers reported their findings May 26 in the online edition of Physical Review E.

Key to the new study is the realization that the mathematics of such jams, which the researchers call "jamitons," are strikingly similar to the equations that describe detonation waves produced by explosions, says Aslan Kasimov, lecturer in MIT's Department of Mathematics. That discovery enabled the team to solve traffic jam equations that were first theorized in the 1950s.

So I wrote to Elizabeth Thomson at MIT.

Ms. Thomson,

Some time back I listened to the audio book, "The Goal", Eliyahu M. Goldratt, circa 1993-94. The premise of this business book was to apply physics understanding of interdependent events to improve productivity.

Application to traffic seemed obvious. Interdependent events, cars following each other in lane of traffic, combined with statistical variation - the different acceleration and braking rates of vehicles, determined by vehicle loading and capacity, and driver inclination, are the reason for traffic jams.

Given a vehicle encroaching on the vehicle behind - by driving slower, entering a busy lane too close to the following vehicle, or braking for a real or perceived hazard, causes all vehicles behind to slow. Unfortunately, the various rates of speed recovery of the affected vehicles prevents complete recovery of the preceding progress of vehicles down the lane of traffic.

The solution seem obvious to me - enforce existing laws about safe following distances. Enforce laws preventing a vehicle changing lanes to close to a vehicle already in the lane ('cutting off' the following vehicle).

Safe following distances are set by *posted* speed limits, not vehicle speed. Enforce safe following distances even when stopped for the vehicle ahead - and traffic jams will evaporate on their own. You also lose the critical aggregate density of idling vehicles that contributes to dense air pollution due to traffic jams.

I recall my driving-ed instructor explaining about pulling up behind the vehicle ahead when stopping at a stop light. I believe this "common sense" rule actually violates traffic laws regarding safe following distance - and compromises the ability of roads to handle heavy traffic rates. In all instances, I think keeping the prescribed safe following distance from the vehicle ahead *accelerates* traffic throughput as a function of vehicles per unit of time.

When a driver experiences dismay or fear at road conditions, and expresses distress by slowing, I consider that a "flinch". Flinching occurs when someone changes lanes or enters the roadway too close to oncoming traffic, and any oncoming driver slows whether to avoid an accident, or because they, rightly or wrongly, fear the potential of a collision. The flinch affects cars behind, because they then flinch - and pull closer to the vehicle ahead as the vehicle speeds decline. This compression of vehicle spacing in distance is directly related to a compression of vehicle spacing in time - and each vehicle will recover some or all of the previous speed, depending on space to the vehicle ahead, speed of preceding vehicles, etc.

The region where traffic compression in time occurs can be thought of as a source of vehicles. Until all vehicles involved have been released from the compression, that is, the traffic jam works it's way through, the likelihood is that additional vehicles will continue to arrive at the back of the queue and stacked up for later release, before all preceding vehicles compressed in time and distance are released at their lower speed and higher density. The higher density, or compressed time, restricts the ability of any individual vehicle to resume free-road speed and separation in time and distance.

My solution is to ticket everyone in a traffic jam that comes to rest or approaches the vehicle ahead within the safe following distance. This brings awareness of this particular law to the attention of drivers. Avoiding tickets by coming to rest safely spaced, drivers reduce the constraint on easing the traffic jam by relaxing the compression restraint that slows relief of the jamiton.

This is a community-type suggestions. A driver does nothing for himself/herself by maintaining a safe following distance (except for reduction in driving stress, reduction in risk of collision, and avoiding violation of the laws about safe following distances). Traffic wise, the driver that maintains the safe following distance only reduces the likelihood that some drivers *behind* the vehicle will be involved in a slow-down. Keeping the safe distance back reduces the likelihood of a flinch, and the reduced compression factor permits release of the jam before it forms - before another vehicle can arrive in the region and experience the cascading compression we call a traffic jam.

Brad Kruse
Ponca City, OK

A Troubled Barack Hussein Obama - wants violence off TV

2009-06-16T08:02:00.000-05:00

Rachel Lucas' blog (I don't think this blog means what you think it means) touched on the recent election in Iran, “God help the people of Iran. We sure won’t.” and the way conservative British accounts deride Obama's weak response. (Obama, VP Biden, Sec'y State Clinton all made public statements, that they wouldn't comment on the election in Iran.)

Last night one commenter pointed out that Obama made a statement:

“I am deeply troubled by the violence I have been seeing on television. I think the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent — all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they are troubled.”

The commenter, mightysamurai, criticized the weakness of the statement, that "troubling" was the strongest that could be said of the violence, censorship, and brutality of officials of the Ahmadinejad government.

My own feeling is

POTUS Barack Hussein Obama is fully and completely backing Iran’s Ahmadinejad. He finds it troubling to find violence *on television*. Get the TV cameras turned off, and both will be much happier.

Another commenter pointed out how quickly Obama could hound a GM CEO out of office, but won't criticize a brutal tyrant that happens to have oil - and an army - for resources. Perhaps Obama is thinking appeasement will work with this tyrant, since he is a Muslim believer, after all. That, and Obama's actions don't hold up so well, if you look at the legality of some of his actions (dismantling and parceling out Chrysler and GM, firing an investigator annoying one of Obama's buddies, signing an Executive Order requiring Federal construction use only Union labor, in defiance of states passing Right To Work laws, etc.) I still wonder at what a new President could have done to try to influence the Supreme Court, that caused Judge Souter to retire.

Obama certainly seems sympathetic with Ahmadinejad's moves to silence dissenters rather than defend free speech. Just ask Rush Limbaugh about attacks from the White House.

There are still rumblings and dissent in the US. Perhaps Barack Hussein Obama is concerned that he will need to be stifling the cameras to keep violence and protest from "troubling" Americans, at least, the Americans supporting Oh! Bummer!

PM: Barack Hussen Obama - a Secret Agenda?

2009-06-10T06:26:00.001-05:00

Nathan at One Man's Vote highlights a letter that has been floating about the blogosphere, an open letter to President Barack Hussein Obama.

Mr. Pritchett, according to Snopes, is a former vice president of Proctor & Gamble.

Snopes.com is a respected online authority that chronicles and reports authenticity of myths, urban legends - and questionable statements.

The letter runs down a startling list of actions and background influences in the Obama administration that just don't add up. You could not make a better background for an Al-Queda, organized crime, or Muslim puppet intent on weakening or destroying the US.

Barack Hussein Obama is so darned smart - he tells us so, often - but keeps repeating egregious errors. Chris Muir's DayByDayCartoon.com comic strip refers to the insanity of the "stimulous" package demonstrated at politicalmath.wordpress.com as well as elsewhere.

Are Pelosi and Reid unwitting dupes in a move deliberately designed to cripple the US' ability to respond to threats, to drain the economy to ruin, and to disable America? Because it sure looks like that is the President's agenda.

Treason or stupid - I don't see much of any other explanation for President Barack Hussein Obama's inadequacy.

Obama - Still violating the Constitution's protection of gun ownership

2009-06-08T05:31:00.000-05:00

Billll's Idle Mind calls to attention this report, of Obama using foreign agencies and treaties to get around Constitutional protection of the right to keep and bear arms (the 2nd amendment).

The President of the United States is tasked with creating and exercising foreign policy in the name of the United States. Any treaties are signed by the President - but must be ratified, or confirmed, by the US Senate before they become binding on America.

President Clinton signed this Organization of American States (about Latin America) treaty. But the Senate at the time would not ratify it. Points of the treaty that concern me include registration, denying licenses to gun dealers, and wording that prevents use of firearms "that may or are suspected" to violate human rights. A tyrant, someone intent on disarming opposition, would find language like this sufficient to say, "Why, a gun can be used to hurt someone. So, we can't allow anyone to have a gun. Except for people that work for me, of course."

Gun violence is increasing here in heartland America. Drive-by shootings and neighborhood shootings in Ponca City, OK, are more prominent and frequent than in previous years - and involve more drug deals and often Mexicans, indicating drug cartel involvement. Ponca City is a rural community, about 25,000 people, in quiet northern Oklahoma.

Laws do not disarm criminals. They disarm the law-abiding. Time after time, communities that have passed ordnances requiring every head of household to own and possess a firearm - see crime rates drop. On the other hand, gun-free zones such as schools, shopping malls, and college campuses have been the traditional setting for mass shootings - the shooter is promised a lack of opposition.

There is a perspective that one that does not carry a legally licensed, concealed carry weapon is as much to blame for hazards in their community as the thugs carrying guns to commit robberies, assaults, and murders. Tyrants in particular, as Machiavelli pointed out in 15th century Italy, focus first on disarming the populace before taking advantage of the state.

Whether Obama would be a threat to the people of the US, after disarming the nation, isn't the real problem. The real problem is that a disarmed United States would be too tempting a target for foreign nations and criminal elements, as well as corrupt local influences, to leave intact and unassailed. Just look at our schools, our shopping malls, our college campuses for the effect disarming and bans on guns have on the lawless.

Dealergate, Redistributing the wealth - of political opponents.

2009-06-01T18:59:00.000-05:00

Apparently, POTUS (President of the United States) Barack Hussein Obama has no problem with making his friends richer. It seems all a Chrysler dealer had to do to survive the cutbacks - was to avoid contributing to the Republican party.

It isn't rumor. Chrysler dealers that contributed to the Republicans, or maybe failed to contribute to the Democrats - are the dealerships that Chrysler/Obama/UAW are closing.

You can read about the deal on blogs.
Doug Ross @ Journal RED ALERT: Did anti-Obama campaign contributions dictate which Chrysler dealers were shuttered?

As an employee of one of the affected dealerships... First, this isn't just Chrysler's decision. They were forced into bankruptcy by President Obama. .. My dealership is in the top 125 out of the 3500 plus dealerships nationwide...yet we are on the list. We are not small nor are we rural. We are in a large major metropolitan area... Secondly, Chrysler is already "shopping" for dealers to take over the open "points" (another name for franchise) left by the closed dealerships. ... Lastly, and more importantly, every state has franchise law in affect that protect companies from this very thing - being forced out of business under the cloak of bankruptcy with out the benefit of due process. This is illegal!

US News & World Report Are Democrats Behind Closing Republican-Owned Chrysler Dealerships?

It may well be that America's automobile dealers are more Republican as a group; therefore any list of them would almost certainly contain more Republicans than Democrats. So it is terribly premature to allege, as some are already doing, that this is some kind of political retaliation by the White House and the labor unions against Republican donors.

On the other hand it does raise some questions that it are fair to ask and should be answered.

In May when the announcement came that some dealerships would be closing - it wasn't clear to me why. Why fire sales people if you are still selling product? Servicing purchased cars has always been lucrative business - one reason the service shops all have a salesroom out front is to maintain their service business flow.

Then the 800 dealers - of 3200 - were announced. And the closing dealers can all be traced back to patterns of political donations, to Republican action committees and candidates.

Realistically, the United Auto Workers union holds 55% ownership in Chrysler, per the Government agreement. So the closings may actually be union driven. It is no secret that labor unions tend to agitate around elections, and sponsor "public interest" advertising that just happens to support Democrat policies and candidates, and/or smearing Republican candidates and proposals. The "non affiliated" advertising has long been a bonus for Democratic candidates - they get the ads out, and the Unions pay for them. This makes Democrat ad money go further.

So what if the labor unions are targeting dealerships - to reduce campaign contributions that they will be opposing in upcoming elections?

Whether organized labor Democratic party, POTUS Barack Hussein Obama/Michelle Obama's own private agenda, or the money guys backing Obama back in Chicago - this slant on closing businesses of political opponents seems to me to be interfering in a federal election.

Brandishing - paint ball guns.

2009-05-26T20:49:00.000-05:00

Because paint ball guns spark the thought "splotch or paint", they are seldom considered in the same category as firearms.

I want part of that fixed.

I want a paintball gun being handled inside or on a moving vehicle, or in a public place, to be considered the same as brandishing a loaded pistol, rifle, or shotgun.

Many paintball guns can be cranked up to cause injury to unprotected body parts, especially the face. And, unlike the guns Mexican drug cartels are buying - contrary to supposedly trustworthy sources (US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, US President Barack Hussein Obama, the President of Mexico), paintball guns can fire in automatic mode.

The paintball goo might be machine washable. That doesn't do much for buildings that don't fit in washers. Or for broken glass, startled and scared drivers, etc. Or the obscured vision of paint-splotched windshields or car windows in the midst of traffic.

The paintball gun, used in public, has as great a chance of causing property harm and injury as a firearm. And brandishing a paintball gun, or drive-by shootings with a paintball gun, should be handled as if the gun were a gunpowder-propelled firearm.

Unlike a pistol, a paintball gun cannot be considered a prospect for personal defense - meaning there is less reason to have one in public than a loaded gun.

Patents - meant to enrich the inventor - or the public?

2009-05-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a younger gentleman, about 22 years old.

I mentioned that I had contacted US Senator Inhofe about several views, including patents. The discussion began with federal taxes, and one initiative to replace income taxes with sales taxes, applied to both business to business sales and sales to consumers, as many states do today. I felt that business organizations cannot be taxed, as a business *collects* taxes - makes their products and services more expensive. I also feel that patents should never have become the negotiable instruments that they have today.

I feel that a patent should only be issued to a living, breathing US citizen, or citizen of another nation for international patents. A business organization should not be eligible to receive, or to be sold, a patent.

Patents

My understanding of the intent of the patent system, was to enrich the public domain, indirectly.

The nation and community benefit from inventions that solve problems, that make use of resources, and that simplify tasks. To encourage this, inventions are needed. In addition, those inventions need to be made available to all, or they benefit very few.

Thus, for a limited period of years, the US Patent Office issues a patent on an invention. Today the inventor can use that patent, and a slew of lawyers, to permit others to exploit that patent, usually by assigning the patent, by selling it, or by licensing its use in return for royalty payments and licensing fees. At the end of the protection period, that invention enters the public domain, becoming general knowledge that anyone can use.

Copyrights originated in a similar fashion. The original post office was an arm of the United States Government, and what we call "postage" today was considered a tax - on the information submitted and quite unrelated to the costs of conveying mail from sender to recipient.

Because tax had been paid on that information - the letter, the manuscript (book as submitted to a publisher), the sheet music - it was considered to be a legal document - and the tax bought the author protection from unauthorized copying. Thus an author could send a book submission to three publishers, and only the one he authorized would be allowed to legally print the book for publication. Or music, or whatever. Presumably an article in a newspaper or magazine could not be used in a competing publication, without authorization from the original author - or they purchaser of that article from the author.

Since those early American days, courts have amended and modified and interpreted what is and is not copyrighted, and what that protection covers. Fair Use is a concept that says students studying material may make a copy for that purpose, of most anything, with exceptions. Someone buying a computer program could, usually, copy the program to their computer. Today there are lots of rules and exceptions, and most anything can be copyright just by someone claiming to have a copyright on it.

Expiration date.

My comment to Senator Inhofe's office was that those holding patent and copyright protections, have failed grievously in what I consider the responsibility inherent in being granted that protection - to actively publish material once the protected period has expired.

Unless inventions and thoughts and communications enter the public domain - the nation and community fail to benefit from encouraging the production of art, or the invention of new ideas.

The other expiration.

Since the intent of patents and copyrights are to benefit the author and inventor to encourage new ideas - then that protection, even if sold or licensed, should expire on the death of the author or inventor.

A company assigned a patent by an employee should see that assignment expire at the moment the employee leaves the company - and should not be subject to any form of non-compete agreement regarding the matter of the patent or other restrictions on the patent.

The MPAA and RIAA should be taken to task, and held accountable for the vast libraries of material they have failed to make public domain on expiration of their original copyright. Rather that being seen to "protect their interest", extending protections instead hurt the nation and community.

Elvis has left the building.

Elvis Presley died (maybe). Nothing done today will encourage him to continue producing music, movies, or promotional merchandise.

Cost of unexpired patents.

Patents and copyrights should be used to encourage the enrichment of the thought and art, and lives, of Americans. Companies formed to exploit patents via lawyer mobbing hinder the free working of a capitalist society, and cost the United States greatly.

There is a price to be paid, for protecting the interest of the inventor for a period - related work is hampered and made more expensive as people in related work try to identify patents that they may be infringing, try to arrange licensing, or work around techniques that have been patented. The software industry is but one example were well-trained lawyers have been able to hamper the interests of the United States for the enrichment of patent farms. Getting patents clearly and promptly, when expired, into the public domain limits the abuse and stifling effect that exists today - which hampers inventions and inventors that were supposed to be receiving encouragement.

Who is to benefit?

My friend wanted me to agree that patents were for the good of the inventor. But that is only true indirectly. The purpose of issuing and defending patents is to encourage inventors - to enrich the nation and community, on the expiration of that patent.

Gun control - or tyrant protection?

2009-05-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

I like this excerpt:

When the people decide that conditions in their town, county, state or country must change, they will change them. If the leadership has been wise, they will be able to do it peacefully through a secret ballot which is honestly counted, but if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee.

SOURCE: The Daily Post-Athenian, Athens, Tenn., August 7, 1946; pages 1, 6.

McMinn A Warning — By Eleanor Roosevelt

This refers to the Battle of Athens, a small town in Tennessee that proved the site of the most recent incident, where armed citizens defended themselves from abusive government. The result? Election corruption was overturned in Athens, TN in 1946.

Thanks to Nathan Brindle for the reminder.

Punishment for heinous acts

2009-05-06T17:43:00.000-05:00

Anger at a child killer

Lila at Total Survivalist Libertarian Bitch Fest wrote about her anger at a Florida man, Richard Anthony McTear Jr., 21, charged with murder for snatching her 18 year old girlfriend's 3 month baby, and throwing the infant from the car on a Tampa interstate highway.

A swift execution would be too good for this man. I say burning at the stake!!!!!

Honor

My father was a man of few angers. I think I learned from him that tragedies and wrongs must be met with resolve and dispassion. The first two dogs I recall growing up with were put down - shot - because the first got into the livestock and injured calves, the second attacked my cousin when she arrived late one night. In each case, the dog was treated humanely until the time came. No question was asked, the understanding that once a dog tastes fresh blood, it will attack again, was borne out through experience. The dog wasn't held to be at fault, precisely, but the penalty was still applied.

Capital punishment

In high school one year our National debate topic was about capital punishment. One very interesting argument came from Great Britain's experience. When Great Britain stopped making executions public - they saw a decline in murders and capital crimes.

Responsibility, not passion.

My own feeling about McTear, the child killer, is that his trial should be circumspect, fair, and restricted to the facts of the case. Any punishment must be applied, but should be kept to local coverage only. If sentenced to death, the penalty should be quickly and quietly applied. This is not about punishment, he will learn nothing from any sentence likely, and only the judge in the case has any position of authority to impose legal consequences for this illegal act.

Child killing.

I am appalled at the crime, and see it as a heinous act of disrespect to the mother, her family, the community, and the nation.

Deterrence - making examples of people - doesn't work with people you don't respect, and that don't respect you. Yelling "Be quiet!" at a child throwing a tantrum, it raises the energy level, the passion, and excites the tantrum to fresh and louder levels. Getting extravagant, exacting "appropriate" sentences against criminals, makes the process livid, it focuses attention on the gruesome details, not the tragedy of a life unavailable to build the community.

When we express anger at heinous acts, we surrender control to those looking for attention, for recognition. Because being ignored is such a deeply personal evil, there are many people that could become perpetrators. We need to avoid copycat murders and copycat assaults and we have to stop making showcases of gruesome crimes. We are inciting criminals, not "enlightening" the nation. When news teams compete to have the freshest, the clearest, the most factual coverage of crimes - we make that national showcase a goal, a reason for a certain type of person to strive for a place in the nation's attention.

News coverage, if meant to enable the nation to better itself, might use a test. Will a story enable voters - citizens - to make a better choice at the ballot box? Will this story cause citizens to invoke their right to communicate their fears, hopes, and needs to representatives, their Senators, their community and state leaders? Is this story about civics, about the nation, or is this just a lurid local story that will sell soap? Will this story inspire action to correct a wrong or support a good work?

So, if McTear should receive a death sentence, I pray for myself, for the nation, and for the spirit of his victim, that his death occur in the dead of night with the minimum witnesses in a forgotten location, and go unreported. He has earned nothing more.

Wallowing - let's humiliate those prisoners all over again

2009-04-26T09:16:00.000-05:00

Fox News yesterday reported about Petraeus' desire to release all interrogation-related photos.

Wow.

We have "international" interests in Europe demanding war crimes trials against former President George W. Bush, and Obama says, "Why not! Makes sense to me!" Kick 'em when they're down (song Dirty Laundry).

We have the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) holding the US Government to a higher standard - the Constitution - to avoid, prevent, and redress erosions of liberty delimited in the Constitution. The ACLU wants to assure that humane treatment of all prisoners is the only treatment anyone with prisoners employ. Because "enemies" and "necessary to get information" are incredibly slippery moral slopes. Once used, they can be used when they are "almost" as "necessary".

We have various members of Congress and the Media looking for "hooks" to advance their career. And interrogation is often gaudy enough to make news that sells lots of soap. Remember - reporting the "news" is not about public service - it is presented to make a profit, and advance careers.

While those people that have been incarcerated have suffered - many of the Islamic prisoners have additional cause for grievance. The security measures needed to deal with hardened warriors, fanatically dedicated to a cause or hatred of the US (or both!) are far removed from what Andy Griffith encountered on Mayberry, RFD.

Showing pictures of those detained for terrorist or other attacks on America and Americans, or conspiring in attacks on the US - revives their subjugation to their hated enemies, and exposes their failures and defeats to their family and honored figures of authority.

We repeat our acts against them by showing their pictures. We no longer dig up graves of Native Americans for the "quaint" weapons and pottery. We need to be careful about resurrecting what necessary security measures did to detainees.

Releasing such photos as came out of Abu Ghraib and have been released about Guantanamo Bay verge on titillation, feed division and prejudice on all sides of any question. And they perpetrate an unwarranted, public attack on the offended detainees.

Some few of those targeted as enemies of the US are hardened, experience, and very capable warriors. Their strength of body and dedication to harming the US and Americans are the result of years of dedication, toil, and belief. Keeping such people incarcerated, in a fashion that minimizes the chance they will harm or kill themselves or others, is a Herculean task. The measures taken are often hateful to the prisoners. I can see nothing good coming from making photos and descriptions of treatment taken out of context, and exploited will-he, nil-he in public.

Most of the people detained warrant, by their actions and credible evidence before, during, and since their capture, treatment using extraordinary "high security" tactics and procedures. Let us not compound the effect on those people by using them to flog others for political gain or mere ratings ambition.

The Republican Party vs marriage

2009-04-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

Hat/tip to Ryan to 2L at Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest, who points out another young spokesperson for change in the Republican party.

Meghan McCain, daughter of past Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, spoke to a group of Log Cabin Republicans.

Unsurprisingly, Meghan spoke out against the old-school leaders of the Republican Party, and their fears of change.

"Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members.

On Monday, McCain wrote an opinion piece urging the Republican Party to use more gay-friendly language. "Of all the causes I believe in and speak publicly about, this is one of the ones closest to my heart," she wrote in a blog post on the Daily Beast titled 'Memo to the GOP: Go Gay.' " If the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to get past our anti-gay rhetoric."

I have two issues here. One is religious tolerance - which the US Constitution protects. The other is institutionalizing religious practices.

Marriage is a religious practice.

Ask the Catholic Church and most Protestant Christian churches - one of the sacred rites of the church is that of marriage. Look at Islamic countries, where various practices from buying (and keeping captive) wives, to multiple wives, and other forms of marriage exist - similar to the Biblical Old Testament description of marriage (read about bringing home war brides).

Ask the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, about their history of belief in forms of marriage - and the blood shed over polygamy.

The same religious teachings defile same-sex sexual contact.

Government in Marriage

Marriage licenses are issued and recorded by the individual state. The Constitution clearly and explicitly bars the federal government - the President and Congress - from interfering with powers reserved to the states. On the face of it, Congress violates the Constitution by discussing marriage in any way but proposing a Constitutional Amendment granting Congress authority over marriages of citizens.

Instead, the Republican Party has taken religious precepts - anti-abortion, abhorrence of same-gender sexual contact, and Christian one-man, one-woman marriage - and held their religious views are also "facts" of various provenance.

The argument goes, that even though these are religious teachings, they are valid points of view to hold, and are reasonable long-term goals of the Republican Party on that basis.

Lies and damn lies.

Except this argument is disingenuous. It is deceptive. If elected, a Republican Party member must be ready and able to represent - serve - all the citizens that elect her or him, not just those that voted for her or him. Medical and social consensus seems to prove, at least as solidly as global warming has been "proven", that some of us Americans are naturally left handed. My sister is, and hasn't seemed to be morally or physically handicapped by the condition. Her four kids seem to have grown well, are well adjusted and happy and productive. Her husband of 36 years seems quite happy. Others of us are oriented differently for selecting and living with an intimate companion or mate. Or several mates.

My remedy.

I grew up thinking "the gay nineties" were the economically prosperous times of the 1890's. And the name "gay marriage" for an arrangement or institution just bugs me. All marriages should be happy (happy is a historical synonym for the word "gay").

So. I think the IRS rules that define "marriage" should be recoded to mean "household" - and mean whatever arrangement of taxpayers and dependents are reported.

Employers and insurers today - benefits providers - rely on IRS information to identify recipients (Social Security Number, claimed dependents, etc.). Let this practice continue. Just drop the assumption about how many providers and dependents form a person's close family.

Halfway there.

For all the empty rhetoric, speechifying and Bible thumping politicians do to get votes from religious voters, no one seems to have noticed or cared that most of the laws about the sanctify of marriage have already been devalued.

Christian churches teach that adultery is a sin, that a man can divorce a wife but she isn't allowed to remarry. Coveting a man's wife is a sin. Etc. Yet laws against polygamy, adultery, fornication outside marriage - none of these are regularly enforced. We lament an explosion of teenage births to unwed mothers - and seldom charge either the girl or whoever got her pregnant with statutory rape, let alone fornication. I can remember when a couple had to be married to rent or buy a residence together - but laws were passed prohibiting that simple defense of marriage and the family as "prejudicial".

Hollow posturing.

The Republican Party must restore it's image - limited government, with an emphasis on national security and economic growth. Fiscal responsibility, constraining the budget to collected tax revenues, should be a foregone conclusion. Regulations should be thoughtfully considered for impact and effectiveness - and minimal to achieve the desired objective. Budgets should only be adequate to the needs.

One practice of the Republican National Party has got to stop. Regardless of ability to swing votes and contributions, the party has to first assess the value of the candidate to the office. Bob Dole would never have been the leader America needed. President George W. Bush was merely adequate - and a poor representative of conservative values. John McCain is a nice guy - and has a truly flaky grasp of morality and ethics. This practice of "candidate by reason of seniority" has got to cease. If the party is to have a value, it *must* be to select candidates likely to enhance the office they campaign for. I want a worthy candidate. Each and every time.

The Mexican Canard

2009-04-18T00:17:00.000-05:00

It seems strange, after all the names Obama and company called President George W. Bush over Iraq. When the intelligence community reported Iraq likely had, or was getting, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and would likely use them on the US or our allies (duh!), the main stream media (MSM) and the government jumped on it. I doubt the President knew, or cared, whether Iraq had WMD. But I think the most likely scenario is that just before or after the fall of Iraq - international organized crime made off with much of the infrastructure of Iraq, including lots of weapons - and likely any WMDs. That is just my opinion. Today the consensus seems to be that, when we got close enough to check - finally! - there weren't any, so we call Bush a liar and claim we now know that there never (?) were any WMD in Iraq. And we know he made it up.

And we feel smug, as we ignore the year delay that the weapons could have been moved or destroyed, and we ignore the problem of being certain, at the time, whether or not there were WMD in Iraq - or whether other factors justified our actions. Smug. Smug and guilt free. Isn't it good to have Democrats to wave their hands and solve our problems?

Except we have this little problem. Americans are using drugs. Mexicans are supplying a lot of the drugs. And the Mexicans are armed. Heavily armed. With US-made automatic weapons, heavy battlefield type weapons and grenades.

And we now have, demonstrably, two presidents, our secretary of state (Hilary sure learned a lot about lying from her husband Bill! - or did she teach him?), and others in the government. The Brady Group is all over this story - American guns are being used by Mexicans to kill each other and Americans! Horrors!

Which brings me to the Mexican Canard. Hat/tip to the Armed School Teacher for coigning the phrase Mexican Gun Canard. A canard is a false rumor.

And that is what is going on. Hilary and the Brady Group want to renew the assault weapon ban (it didn't affect shootings or murders, only infringed rights of citizens and increased the cost of government) and House Speaker Pelosi wants to register all guns. As if the government hasn't managed to misuse every database they every had, and breached every confidential piece of data. Remember our Secretary of State with the felony mishandling of FBI files - that she let the statute of limitations run out before turning the files back in, with her fingerprints on them and no explanation? So we have to take this posturing seriously.

Even when the stand Obama and others take is based on a lie.

The American arms that the Mexican drug cartels are uniformly heavy, battlefield weapons - none of which are available to gun-owning civilians in the US.

These are Department of Defense weapons, retired, and provided to Mexico to arm their army and police. When said army and police people desert, as many do, they manage to take the automatic weapons, grenades, etc. with them. And sell them to the drug cartels.

Obama is deliberately floating this canard, this false rumor, for his own purposes. And the main stream media keeps pretending Obama is a young President, not the product of Chicago inner city and corrupt politics.

Besides, all Obama would have to do to stop arming the drug cartels - would be to end drug abuse in the US - no market, no sellers, no one buying Mexico's deserter-market weapons. Change, indeed. Instead we have to watch for truckloads of guns sold to drug cartels at gun shows. Hint: Gun shows are well regulated, and don't have access to the type of weapons the drug cartels want and use. Nor do licensed gun dealers.

I ask myself - why does the President of the United States want to take away guns that the Constitution protects, and not the drugs that violate the law? I haven't figured that out, yet, but I imagine it has to do with campaign contributions (few gun owners contribute to Obama, I don't know about drug dealers) and other money streams.

And Obama cried, "It is not a conspiracy - it is my plan!"

2009-04-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

Vincent Gioia's Blog focuses on the threats to America from President Barack Hussein Obama. A retired lawyer, he defends the constitution and identifies specific acts of Congress and the President that clearly violate the Constitution.

But I think Vincent overlooked how all of the most egregious abuses of office and the American people tie together to form a single, horrible whole.

During the campaign,
when he said in his Colorado Springs speech he wanted to create a “civilian national security force which, candidate Obama said "would be just as powerful and well-funded as the U.S. military.”

This would be
HR 1388: The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, otherwise known as the "GIVE Act,"
.

Contact Congressman Alan Grayson’s office, 202-225-2176 to express concern. Hat/tip to TSLRF.

Legislation to regulate all compensations - pay, bonuses, etc. - of everyone employed by companies that received government funds. Ever. The expectation is that includes all companies and employers and employees - as President Barack Hussein Obama agreed to, as part of the recent formation of the G20 group FSB. The FSB is established to internationally regulate all significant funds, banks, and financial institutions - and salaries and wages and compensations.

My thought? Obama intends, with HR1388, to draft every public school, from middle school through college, into uniformed service - posted at corps facilities for living quarters and base of operations, with 4-year training academies for "social officers".

And he wants to destroy commerce and industry's ability to distract people from serving - with allegiance pledged to the President.

This is getting scary.

Congress is collaborating with the President with legislation that violates the Constitution. Possibly the Supreme Court will rake the muck back into the gutter, but it remains to be seen whether President Barack Hussein Obama will honor his oath there, either.

Look at Vincent's blog. He makes a cogent argument that the Constitution makes provision for one huge question remaining about the Obama Presidency - whether or not Barack Hussein Obama was born a natural American citizen. The Constitution of the United States clearly states that if Obama was not a "natural born citizen", he is not President - and cannot be made President, unless and until the Constitution is amended. Yes, the Obamanites have pooh-poohed the story, yet the question of his father's non-American citizenship makes his mother's age critical in meeting the full definition of being a natural born citizen. The Constitution provides a remedy - the VP (Joe Biden) assumes the duties of the President until the President can remedy his ineligibility. Since this would invalidate all the President's actions, law signings, and appointments, the sooner this question is resolved, the less debris to clean up.

About Hollywood and the recording industry, and piracy.

2009-04-08T23:50:00.000-05:00

OK. Wired.com points to an article showing Hollywood scare campaigns. "Hollywood: Piracy Fosters Child Porn, Slavery"

What I want to know is - where is Hollywood doing it's part in the Patent/Copyright cycle? The US Government registers and enforces patents and copyrights for the benefit of the public. The intent is to protect a publication or an idea for the author/inventor for a fixed period of time. This is intended to encourage the creation of more ideas and more written works.

So - where are the recordings and documents that have aged out of copyright - and into the public domain?

Who is the slippery slime-type person that wants to prevent the works from benefiting the people and government that established that initial protection time?

I say, if patent holders and copyright holders don't begin, right now, to formally release any and all materials, and stop trying to re-copyright previously copyrighted materials - stop protecting them in the first place.

Take a band. Say, the Beatles. Record a music session, edit into a merchandisable recording form. Duplicate that form.

You could say that each duplicated record, tape, CD, or MP3 or other format track, is a copy of that initial editing of that initial music session. So.. The Beatles recorded their music before 1969. 40 years ago. Who in their right mind thinks that a 34 year copyright didn't expire 6 or more years ago (it was 17 years at the time). Why is any of that material considered copyrighted today?

I would be more concerned about piracy against movies and music companies - if they were honest in turning their older products over to the public as the law intended.

Gun-free zones - an invitation to a shooting?

2009-04-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter points out that all the recent shootings have guns in common - along with crack cocaine, and dysfunctional people, broken dreams and misfits.

.. I guess Mixon also raped that 12-year-old girl in "self-defense." Clearly, the pimping industry has lost a good man. I wish I'd known him. I tip my green velvet fedora with the dollar signs all over it to him. Why do the good ones always die young? Pimps, I mean.

Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

What public, mass shootings have in common, is they usually continue until someone brings another gun into use. There is a *reason* shooters pick shopping malls, college campuses, and private, non-gun-owner residences for their shootings. They want an easy target, and no interruptions.

-- Richard Poplawski, 23, product of a broken family, expelled from high school and dishonorably discharged from the Marines, who killed three policemen in Pittsburgh.

Poplawski was doing something other dysfunctional, distraught people have done - commit "suicide by police guns". He told an acquaintance on the phone, as the police arrived, that he was about to die. Why he actually shot at police, wore a bullet-proof vest - maybe it was hubris, maybe he was trying for the Guinness Book of World Records. Who knows. I don't care.

Three things are needed to end these shooting sprees.

Stop publishing them. They are local interest stories, of import to those injured, killed, and relatives and friends of those involved. Spreading the story any further - invites copycat slayings.
Enforce the laws on the books. Accept that you cannot legislate morality (Barry Goldwater). Rallying, using an incident to further your own political or news-team goals violates the first step, and invites copycat slayings.
Accept that making training and shooting opportunities once again a common and public facet of American public life results in less crime. Communities that have required every head of household to possess a firearm - have lower crime rates.

When a person uses a gun to commit a crime, from suicide to robbery to rape to murder, blame the person. Crimes are against the law - the weapons or technique are mere details. Making guns more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain *arms* and *invites* the criminal that doesn't use legal means to obtain their weapon anyway.

Look at the Mexican Canard^tm. Mexico complained about the automatic weapons from the US that their drug cartels use. Right. Those automatic weapons were provided by the US Department of Defense to arm their police and army. Deserters from the Mexican army and police take those weapons, and sell them to the drug cartels. These are not weapons available in gun shops to law abiding US Citizens.