As The Election Rolls To A Close...

While we are waiting for the results from the only poll that matters to be finalized, I've got a few words of wisdom.  At least, I like them....

To my friends in the GOP:

You understand fiscal sanity.  You understand national defense.  But your "social war" is a losing proposition.  Recognizing that everyone has rights...God given rights according to some...is not a bad thing.  Strengthening the right of women and minorities to vote and work and live as they choose has strengthened our country.

Gay marriage and abortion are not dragging our country down.  They are distractions that cause your candidates to say goofy...dark...things.  See Missouri and Indiana for examples.

More pointedly on abortion, while I might agree with some of your positions, the basic problem is that this is not an issue that you solve after pregnancy occurs.  It is one that is solved years before the two people responsible got busy making the two-backed beast.  And it doesn't require government to solve it.

We already know that GOP leaning areas give more to charity than Democrat leaning areas.  So perhaps it is time to step up your charitable game some more.

Our country was founded upon the idea of individual liberty.  Not the collective.  And certainly not "corporate liberty".  Yet the individual has few champions in federal office these days.  Corporations and other organizations (i.e. unions) pretty much get what they want at our expense.  Perhaps the GOP ought to become advocates for individual liberty.

You can begin some "training wheels" legislation.  I call it "The Individual Right To Privacy".  It requires companies, non-profits, and political candidates to assume that the individual does not want their mailbox, fax machine, email inbox, and telephone jammed with the associated forms of spam.  If they want to advertise via these messages, then they must first obtain confirmed permission.  If they don't have permission, then it is trespassing; a crime that puts the CEO or the candidate in jail.  Call me and we can do lunch to discuss the details.

If you can manage this one, then you might be ready for bigger challenges.

To my friends in the Democrat Party:

Stay classy.  I read of far too many incidents of intimidation yesterday.  The victims were decidedly not voting for Mr. Obama.  This sort of thing is a dark shadow on your reputation.  As above, see Missouri and Indiana for examples of what happens when that dark shadow gets too big.

The single biggest problem we have today is spending.  Government does too much of it.  Our long rate of federal revenue is in the 18-20% range.  We cannot continue spending 25% of GDP while only having 18-20% of GDP revenue.

Where are you willing to compromise?  We can probably fiddle with taxes on "the rich" a little, but not enough to solve that 25% gap.  It ain't even close.  Do the math.

We have education programs spread across close to a dozen different federal agencies.  Why?  Couldn't we save some money by combining them under one agency?  Might we prevent people from double dipping and save money that way as well?  How can we apply that principle elsewhere?

For a brief moment in January of this year, Mr. Obama's press office was touting his intent to eliminate wasteful spending.  It lasted about one news cycle.  I was encouraged.  Then the next news cycle came.

While there is certainly some waste in the DoD, Defense spending has been steadily declining as a percentage of GDP for the last 50 years.  Defense spending is not the source of our problem.  Social spending is.

Are you prepared to identify programs that don't work so they can be ended?  Can we reduce civilian federal employment?

Can we make our economy more competitive?  Are you prepared to eliminate the corporate income tax in exchange for raising taxes on individual investment income?  How about making all income taxable at the same rate?  Wouldn't this allow companies to bring their profits (and the jobs that go with them) home from tax havens like Ireland, and various countries in the Caribbean?

A free market economy is the best option.  Bar none.  How do you plan to make it better?

And to my Libertarian friends:

I know that the GOP and Dems and their media myrmidons won't talk about our issues.  We have to keep trying.  The best quote I saw this week was regarding the third party debate that so few people watched:

"Six questions were posed to the nominees, and answers ranged from all in agreement to all four sharply disagreeing with one another. However, there was none of the pandering, gutless nonsense that pervaded the mainstream "debates." Virgil Goode, the Constitution Party candidate, even stated, "If you want to end the drug war, then you should vote for a different candidate," as he expressed his support for federal legislation against narcotics. While one may disagree with him, his honesty and integrity should be appreciated by anyone, especially considering how different that is from the nonsense we've seen up until this point."

Don't give up.  History isn't over.

Monkeying Around

Robb Allen makes a most apt analogy.

His basic point is one I try to make frequently;  that whatever authority you grant one party to do things for you, the other party will eventually be in power and use that same power to do things against you.  One of my greatest fears in the War on Terror is that successive exchanges of majority positions will expand government authority, diminish individual liberty, and leave us less safe.  That has been the cycle with respect to the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty.

I see little reason to expect to be disappointed this time around.

Take a look at Robb's post.  It's worth the five minutes it will take.

Not...Quite...Like...That...

So the corporate home office sends a notice.  They are asking for the model, serial number, and barcode number for your company supplied laptop.

What should you send them?

The model, serial number, and barcode?

2012 Elections - Presidential Edition

My absentee ballot is already in.

I voted for Mitt Romney.  I voted that way for a few good reasons.

I really would have preferred to vote for Gary Johnson.  But due to vagaries in Michigan's election laws, Mr. Johnson's appearance on the Michigan GOP primary ballot made him ineligible to run in the general election as anything other than a write-in candidate.  So the value of voting for Mr. Johnson went way down.

The three issues that matter most to me are fiscal responsibility, the U.S. Supreme Court, and national defense; specifically winning the War on Terror against Al Qa'ida, Ansar al Islam, and their fellow travelers.  While Mr. Romney is not perfect on either of these issues, he is better than the alternatives.

Gary Johnson wants to bring the troops home before the war is won.  That's called surrendering.  It is the wrong course of action.

While I was surprisingly pleased with Mr. Obama's continuing prosecution of the War on Terror during his first couple of years in office, he has continued to demonstrate that he really does not believe that we are in a war.  Either that or, he doesn't believe that winning this war matters.

Mr. Obama's response to the recent, planned terrorist attack against our facilities in Benghazi, Libya seem to represent his distilled perspective.  When he could have responded, he didn't.  Instead, is swallowed the terrorists' propaganda and regurgitated it for American consumption.

That is not the sort of leadership that I can support.

On the economic front, it is crystal clear to me that Mr. Obama does not know how anything about real world economics.  He knows how he wishes economics works, but he knows nothing about how economics actually work.  His continuing threats to increase income taxes have needlessly slowed our recovery.  While some of his stimulus spending was worthwhile, a lot of it was not.  Finally, the significant tax increases that are coming next year due to the ACA will put a further damper on the economy.

I would add that Mr. Obama has been a pretty good "friend" of Wall Street.  He elevated "corporatism" or "corporate-capitalism" far beyond anything Mr. Bush did.

That doesn't make Mr. Bush "good"... just not as bad in that category.  "Too big to fail" is a problem.  We need to stop using privatizing profits while we leave losses to the public budget.

Mr. Obama had an opportunity to do something about the structural problems with our federal budget.  Specifically, Medicare and Social Security (along with other social spending) are crippling the federal government.  They need to be reformed.  Fixing our spending problem would have gone a long way towards creating a strong recovery.

Instead, he created even larger structural problems for the federal budget.

The final issue is the Supreme Court.  As above, I don't think Mr. Romney is going to nominate great Supreme Court justices.  I think Mr. Obama has and will continue to nominate lousy ones.

I believe that the U.S. Constitution is our "social contract".  It empowers the federal government to undertake certain actions.  It leaves any other powers with the states or with the people.  It also guarantees individual liberty.  The entire purpose behind the words in the Constitution was to place limits on the size and scope of the federal government.

As I was reading on a legal blog last week, conservative justices and judges have continually given a comfort and counsel to libertarian leaning law students.  They accept those students as clerks, thereby giving them invaluable experiences.  And while they have not ruled in favor of the Constitution over "precedent", they are not hostile to the concept.

Left wing justices and judges have been continually hostile to libertarian leading law students.  They never accept them as clerks.  They rarely listen to their thoughts.  Left wing justices and judges have a history of ignoring the plain language of our Constitution and instead seeking extra-Constitutional "guidance" when writing their rulings.

So while conservative judges are unlikely to support the plain language of the Ninth Amendment regarding gay marriage, they are equally unlikely to support the next power grab that comes out of Congress and/or the administration when it comes to further nationalizing parts of our economy.

So I voted for Mitt.  Not because he is a great candidate.  Just because he will do less harm than the other options.  Had Gary Johnson been on the Michigan ballot, I might very well have voted for him as he would have been correct on two out of the three issues that I care most about.

Not exactly one of the great electoral moments in my life.

2012 Election - Michigan Ballot Edition

I'm done voting this year.  I think absentee voting will be a big part of my future as the hassle is a whole lot less.

For those not interested in Michigan politics, have a nice day and move on to something pleasant.  'Cause this is gonna get thick.

We have six proposals on the ballot this year.  Most of them seek to amend the Michigan Constitution.  The proposals, and my thoughts follow.

A Scary Future

I'm not certain which is worse.  The fact that robots are quickly developing problem solving skills, or that this laboratory work is ahead to the technology used in this novel that I have rolling around in my head.  When you can't out dream scientists, you have a problem.

Apologia

Surprisingly, I did not bother to watch any of the Presidential debates.  Quite frankly, I won't be voting for Mr. Obama and my political junkie genes must be fading.  Add to that the fact that none of my issues will be seriously debated and the candidates that I want to hear, Gary Johnson chief among them, were excluded from the event.

One example of a personal issue that will be safely ignored is the global implications of America's "War on Drugs".  While the US deals with an array of mafiosi, gang bangers, and other reprobates, nations throughout Central and South America deal with the private armies of drug dealers that undermine the ability of those nations to foster civilization and progress.  Decades of failed drug policies have funded drug dealer backed dictatorships in response to America's demand for drugs and motivated other dictatorships that rise in response to America's demand for drug policy compliance.  This problem is compounded when you remember that the Taliban uses money raised from the sale of heroin products to fund their efforts to oppress or re-oppress vast swaths of the Middle East.

Money fuels these tragedies.  Drugs have such a high "street value" precisely because their are illegal.  Legalizing, regulating (and taxing) currently illegal substances would be the best way to foster civilization and progress among our friends and allies within the western hemisphere and to de-fund our Jihadist enemies.

But of course, Central and South America barely got the briefest of mentions.  The foreign policy implications of our failed War on Drugs were simply never on the table for discussion.

The flotsam and jetsam that follows from these debates can be entertaining.  The most recent bit to float my way has to do with whether or not Mr. Obama ever apologized on behalf of the US during his post election tour of the world.

The fact is that he never used the words "apology" or "apologized".

The other fact is that those are about the only words of atonement and humility he didn't use.  Those that followed the tour at the time widely noted his various pronouncements that were aimed at effectively saying "we in the US should learn our place".  Jennifer Rubin has linky article on the subject.  Follow her links for more.

This is an issue where I significantly differ from Mr. Obama.

The blood and treasure of the United States liberated over 15 million Afghanis from the oppressive imposition of Sharia law by the Taliban.  We gave them a chance to step out of the stone age and take a few steps forward.  Should we apologize?

The blood and treasure of the United States liberated roughly 30 million Iraqis from the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.  We not only gave them a chance at have an Iraqi version of democracy, they accepted the opportunity and still hold competitive elections to this day.  How long they are able to hold their democracy may be a function of meddling by the mullahs in Iran, but Iraq has an opportunity at democracy and freedom while it lasts.  Should we apologize?

We were able to effectively bully Syria out of Lebanon a few years back.  Primarily because they saw that we were unafraid to spend our blood and treasure in defense of human rights and individual liberty.  The best way to keep U.S. Marines out of your cities is to not meddle in your neighbor's affairs.  Should we apologize to the Lebanese?

We spent some treasure and little blood helping the Libyans turn out Muammar Gaddafi's oppressive regime.  While I do have questions about our use (or non-use) of force in that conflict, I generally support our efforts....led by Mr. Obama....to foster individual liberty and democracy in that country.  It is my understanding that while the Libyans would have appreciated more support from us, they are grateful for the assistance that we did provide.  The recent terrorist attack on our Libyan consulate was not representative of Libyan sentiments.  Should we apologize to them for our recent assistance?

The punditry will bat this issue back and forth quibbling over whether the use of some variation of "apology" is required to make Mr. Obama's apology tour an "Apology Tour".  For my money, he sought to denigrate our past efforts and leadership on the world stage under the theory that reducing our leadership role would somehow transmute our enemies into friends.

As our ambassador to Libya briefly learned a couple months ago, that theory is misguided.  To put it politely.

Your Neighborhood Quilter

Alright, y'all.  I need a little help figuring out how to assemble a quilt.  The options are below.  Let me know what you think in the comments.

This is the basic block.  It is roughly 21" x 21".

Option 1 - Everything pointed the same way.

Option 2 - Inboard pointed in, Outboard pointed out.

Option 3 - 4 Pack in/out

Option 4 - 4 Pack windmill

Option 5 - Small windmills

I will have the full story after the quilt is assembled and it the recipient has it.

Around World - A Round World

A small curiosity that I found on Columbus Day.  Most people of Columbus' day did not believe the world was flat.

Historians say there is no doubt that the educated in Columbus’s day knew quite well that the Earth was not flat but round. In fact, this was known many centuries earlier.

As early as the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras — and later Aristotle and Euclid — wrote about the Earth as a sphere. Ptolemy wrote “Geography” at the height of the Roman Empire, 1,300 years before Columbus sailed, and considered the idea of a round planet as fact.

“Geography” became a standard reference, and Columbus himself owned a copy. For him, the big question was not the shape of the Earth but the size of the ocean he wanted to cross.

Which is quite different from the rhetorical cudgel that gets used these days when one dissents from a majority point of view.

Skateboarder vs. Deer?

About 30 years ago, I would have been very interested in this sport.  Although I would have worn elbow and knee pads.

I also would have glued deer horns on my helmet to reduce the chances of this happening. And yes, I read the article.  I don't care what it says.  Every time I've had deer horns installed, the deer have frozen in place until I passed.

Other things happen when the horns are not installed.

Oh....The Humanity

I had a chat with a friend of mine the other day.  Folks that know me, either know him or have heard of him.  Such is the high esteem in which I hold him.

He is a veteran of Desert Storm.  His uniform contains some serious fruit salad. 

A decade or so after that conflict, he entered the healthcare field as a paramedic.  There are lots of stories to tell there.

But the comment that made us pause was the moment self realization that he had begun to care about people...again.

The irony here is that while he wore our nation's uniform, he was charged with being a living implement of mayhem, destruction, and death among our enemies.  Yet during that time, he possessed a significant sense of caring and compassion for other humans.

Years later, that sense of compassion was severely undermined by his near decade long experience as a paramedic.  When most people would have assumed that he would have cared the most for others, he found that sense of compassion slipping away.

Spend a little time reading The Most Interesting Ambulance Crew In The World on Facebook.  Paramedics and EMTs spend waayyy too much time servicing people that could either drive to a hospital, wait to see their doctor in the morning (and yes they have doctor's), or just need a little better sense of perspective.

My friend tells stories....lots of stories...that are just as bad and many that are worse.  The one that comes first to mind is the run to a home where a teenage girl was undergoing a severe emotional crisis...because of a bad haircut.  And her parents called EMS.

Double, Double, Boil, And Bubble

For those that have been following the news, we had the dot-com bubble, then the housing bubble, and now we have the education bubble.  The education bubble is the government subsidized debt that students (and their parents) acquire in pursuit of a college/university degree.  The primary problem is that we have too many former students carrying more debt than their incomes can support.

While there are a lot of issues in the education bubble to unpack and explore, one big issue is the type of degrees that colleges and universities are selling.  Altruistic issues aside, colleges and universities are businesses that get paid up front based on the theoretic economic benefits that their products can create throughout a person's life.

Unfortunately, some people graduate from college and still cannot get a job that is worth having.  One list of collegiate majors suggests ten careers where borrowing money to fund the necessary educations is foolish.

• Anthropology
• Fine Arts
• Film and Photography
• Philosophy and Religious Studies
• Graphic Design
• Studio Arts
• Liberal Arts
• Drama and Theater Arts
• Sociology
• English

I'm not sure of the best way to resolve the impending economic crash due to education related debt.  I do think that colleges are behaving in precisely the same manner as more traditional businesses; particularly businesses that specialize in investing such as Goldman Sachs or Countrywide.  They are most certainly not advising students about the logical conclusions of accumulating large amounts of debt while not simultaneously acquiring a degree that will enable the repayment of that debt.

Were we talking about any other industry, the howls of outrage would be deafening.

Now I can hear other howls right now.  I am not being "anti-education".  People should still go to college.

But they should be aware of their choices.  If you have a college fund and can afford to spend $200,000+ on an Ivy League BA in sociology, then have a great time!  But if you are borrowing money to get the same degree, then perhaps you ought to consider a local community college for the first two years before transferring to a more affordable four year school.

The flip side of that coin is that colleges and universities should be providing the sort of detailed counseling that will give accurate information to prospective students.  As of a few years ago, the standard collegiate sales technique was to say that possessing a level of education (associates, bachelors, masters, doctorate) was worth "X" amount of additional income over a person's lifetime...on average.  What they did not do was to break down the different fields of study so that the prospective student knew that the average BA in fine arts was using the phrase "would you like fries with that, sir" in their current employment while the average BS in engineering was earning three to four times (or more) what burger flippers earn.

I have felt less slimy after talking to certain used car salesmen.

This is not a problem that is solely limited to the "squishy" fields of study.  The Blogfather continues chronicle our nation's over-production of lawyers.  Law schools continue to heavily solicit students for their programs while knowing full well that a significant portion of those students will not be able to find jobs in their career field.

Again, the less slimy feeling and used car salesmen come into play.

Fixing the problem seems pretty straightforward.  Colleges and universities should be required to publish detailed and accurate average earnings information for their graduates broken down by field of study.  An accurate description of the jobs held by those graduates should be included.

And loans given to students should be conditional upon the college or university rebating a portion of the tuition received if a graduating student does not find work that pays enough for them to repay those loans.  Institutions of higher learning need to have "some skin in the game".

Is This Tough Enough

How would you like to run 10 miles?  And work your way through 75 obstacles?  In a gas mask just to up the challenge?

Todd Love did that.

But hold on.  There's more.

He had a hard time running.  He left his legs in Afghanistan.  And climbing is a bit of a pain as his left hand is still there as well.

At Dallas Park, Love even joked about his injury. He said: 'I was up front with the minesweepers searching for explosives and I found them. I guess that’s the easiest way to put it.

Sort of puts life in a little better perspective.

Book Recomendation - Pyongyang

One of the positive aspects of shopping a local store is the ability to see all the things you do not plan on buying.  And then sometimes you do anyways.

We have a great comic book shop in town; Nostalgia, Ink.  They sell comic books, graphic novels, and all sorts of gaming essentials.

On one visit, I happened across "Pyongyang - A Journey in North Korea" by Guy Delisle.  This book tells the story of Mr. Delisle's time in North Korea working as an animator.  I think it is more correct to suggest that he was an animation supervisor as he made sure that the grunts that were doing all the real animation work produced art that was marketable in the west.

Just about every page contains a political or cultural anachronism.  One random example would be when his North Korean minder told him he would have to turn down his jazz as it could have a bad influence on "the others".  Mr. Delisle was working alone in a room with the door shut.

Another passage talks about the curious lack of any handicapped people walking on the city streets.  His minder and his driver cheerfully accept this as appropriate without questioning why how that condition could come to exist.

Mr. Delisle spent a fair portion of his non-working time trying to purposefully be non-subversive.

He also passed a copy of George Orwell's infamous "1984" to his minder.  Apparently, he didn't like science fiction.

As regular readers know, I have a mild interest in politics.  I've read a fair number criticisms of American Presidents that suggest that each in turn is some sort of "Dear Leader"; someone to be followed unquestioningly.  I believe I will find those assertions to be politically tone deaf...if not totally stone deaf...in the future. 

Read the book to find out why.

Shameless

As part of the fallout from the 9/11/2012 terrorist attacks, we had yet another example of the utter fecklessness of Mr. Obama's administration with respect to its sworn duty to protect and defend individual liberty.  In specific, the freedom of speech; including the right to make confrontational, offensive, and what some might consider blasphemous statements about any religion.

The Blogfather has the core of the issue precisely right.

“Just after midnight Saturday morning, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Muslim world.”

When taking office, the President does not swear to create jobs. He does not swear to “grow the economy.” He does not swear to institute “fairness.” The only oath the President takes is this one:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.

Where are the voices concerned with civil liberties?  Where are the people that reject any limits on speech that criticizes religious abuses?  Where are the people that bristle at any suggestion that they moderate their tone in the service of civility?

A few years back such folks could readily be found having a case of the vapors over the suggestion of by a Whitehouse₍₁₎ press secretary that people ought to carefully consider the words they use.

But now that real live police have yanked a real live film maker out of his home, these folks are strangely quiet.

The phrase "Have you no sense of decency" has been sadly used, abused, folded, spindled, and mutilated to the point where it has lost any power it might once have possessed to call attention to uniquely offensive actions by government officials.  We are a shameless nation.  And we are poorer for it.

₍₁₎ I had yet to use the word "Whitehouse" on this computer.  The spell-checker suggested other options.  The last one was "whorehouse".  Amusing.

And just in case, it would have been amusing if this had happened 5 years ago, or 5 months₍₂₎ from now when someone not named Barack Obama was in the Oval Office.

₍₂₎ A guy can hope, can't he?

An Endless World?

XKCD had a great comic a couple days ago.  I'm not sure that it will link up well here, so just go there and check it out.

In Flight

I traveled to Greenville, SC last week on business.  Air travel being what it is these days, I did not take one of my more capable cameras along.  However I did have one on my cell phone.

The airport in Greenville is home to a couple interesting scultures.

"Boy Aviator" by Dennis Smith, Photo by Dann Todd

  "Snow Geese" by Jim Dolan, photo by Dann Todd

  "Snow Geese" by Jim Dolan, photo by Dann Todd

The camera on my cell phone obviously did a poor job with the back lighting, but you can still get an impression of the total installation.

Leaving...On A Jet Plane

Marines...that is.

Johnny Depp Is Coming Home

Apparently, he is ill inclined to pay his fair share of taxes...in France.  Now that France is governed by Socialists that really mean it, tax rates on their 1% are climbing.

The natural result?  The predictable result?  The rich are looking for other places to live.

One illustrative example would be Johnny Depp.  He is apparently headed back to the U.S. in order to avoid paying higher taxes in France.

The more pedestrian sorts of top earners (captains of industry and finance) are also looking for the exits for similar reasons.

Attempting to punish success causes successful people to leave?  Who knew!

What Qualifications?

What are the qualifications for serving in the United States Congress?  50% of the vote plus 1.

Shouldn't they be a little higher?  Case in point, US Representative Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) who believes that Dutch slaverholders existed in Brooklyn in 1898

That would be Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.

Add to that, Steven Colbert posed the theoretic question about using a time machine to go back in time to 1898 and what would Ms. Clarke have to say to the people of Brooklyn. Apparently, Ms. Clarke is not a big fan of science fiction as she was unclear on the concept of taking modern knowledge into the past and applying it for some benefit.

Once the whole concept of time travel was mostly cleared up, and the Dutch slave holding menace of 1898 had been hashed through, she was given another shot at suggesting a message that she would carry to the people of Brooklyn in 1898.

Her best shot?  Brooklyn is a great place.

The Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918?  She didn't see any reason to warn people about it.

The crash on Wall Street of 1929?  She thinks history should take its course unimpeded.

The sinking of the Titanic?  Let it happen.

Adolf Hitler?  Nope....well on second thought, there might be a reason to let folks know what is in their future.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

It seems like every party has more than their fair share of under-qualified candidates.  And they get elected!