Another kids movie, this one also reminded me of old Disney movies like, "Escape to Witch Mountain." In this movie, a pre-adolescent boy meets a like-aged girl who has just moved in next door. They both don't fit at school and develop a friendship. She has two writers for parents and evidently therefrom, a vivid imagination. Sufficiently vivid that, in the movie, it becomes real, though the movie does not expect you to believe that what you are seeing is real.
Both my 5 year old and 7 year old liked the movie. It has some sad moments that might take some explaining, but, as with Mimsy, no blood or gore, no sex and no foul language that I remember with the possible exception of what might have occurred in some school scenes. The boy comes from the poorest of poor families which is a plot point and so that might take some explaining, as well in this age of abundance.
The movie was not what I expected. The fantasy world was clearly the product of the kid's imagination and not especially well explored. I expected more time in that world walking into the movie. The special effects were not garish or over-done and suited the movie. I have not read the book. I tend to like good children's novels (A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down, The Hobbit, etc.) The movie makes me think I might like this one.
I'm not sorry I took the kids, nor am I sorry I saw this in the Theater. I still would like to see the movie that I thought I was going to see, though.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
March 31 - The Last Mimzy
I took the kids to see The Last Mimzy, today. My 5 year old was restless and my 7 year old was attentive. There are no monsters, no blood or gore, no sex and no foul language that I remember in the movie.
The movie was somewhat reminiscent of various Disney movies of my youth. The story was somewhat new but not too involved. There was an eco-social political message behind the plot, but it was not too terribly overt.
The story goes that mankind at some time and place in the future has poisoned itself to the point where it is about to become extinct, the exact nature of the poison is not revealed. The only way to fix this is to send things to the past to collect what is necessary. Several times they've tried and several times they've failed. This movie is the story about the last attempt to collect what they need by sending the last mimzy to the past.
The story tells the tale of a brother and sister who find the last mimzy and start discovering it's powers and ultimately learn they have to do something with it.
There are no complex twists or turns in the story. Aside from the kids, the characters are not particularly well developed. The special effects were quite nice and fitting for the story at hand.
The movie takes it's name from Lewis Carroll's Poem, Jabberwockey, that begins:
Twas brillig and the slithy toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The little girl finds a stuffed bunny inside the Mimzy. She names the bunny Mimzy (or the bunny tells her its name is Mimzy.) Aside from the title, the sole link to Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" in which the poem is found, is the picture of Alice holding a stuffed rabbit that looks the one the girl in this movie finds.
The movie was worthwhile for taking the kids. I recommend waiting for rental otherwise and then only if you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy.
Oh yeah, Intel has some crass commercialism show up in an all-too-impossible to miss cameo intrinsic to the story, ugh.
The movie was somewhat reminiscent of various Disney movies of my youth. The story was somewhat new but not too involved. There was an eco-social political message behind the plot, but it was not too terribly overt.
The story goes that mankind at some time and place in the future has poisoned itself to the point where it is about to become extinct, the exact nature of the poison is not revealed. The only way to fix this is to send things to the past to collect what is necessary. Several times they've tried and several times they've failed. This movie is the story about the last attempt to collect what they need by sending the last mimzy to the past.
The story tells the tale of a brother and sister who find the last mimzy and start discovering it's powers and ultimately learn they have to do something with it.
There are no complex twists or turns in the story. Aside from the kids, the characters are not particularly well developed. The special effects were quite nice and fitting for the story at hand.
The movie takes it's name from Lewis Carroll's Poem, Jabberwockey, that begins:
Twas brillig and the slithy toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The little girl finds a stuffed bunny inside the Mimzy. She names the bunny Mimzy (or the bunny tells her its name is Mimzy.) Aside from the title, the sole link to Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" in which the poem is found, is the picture of Alice holding a stuffed rabbit that looks the one the girl in this movie finds.
The movie was worthwhile for taking the kids. I recommend waiting for rental otherwise and then only if you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy.
Oh yeah, Intel has some crass commercialism show up in an all-too-impossible to miss cameo intrinsic to the story, ugh.
Friday, March 30, 2007
March 30 - Commons sense
Here's a thought. What if the Brother's Grimm had a copyright to their works? Where would Disney be then? It's not my thought, but one posed by Lawrence Lessig.
Anyway, our rights are not simply being trodden on in the civil liberty realm, they are also being drastically eroded in the intellectual property realm. There is this really neat correlation between copyright law and Mickey Mouse. It seems, every time Mickey Mouse is going to go out of copyright, Congress passes an extension to the duration of copyrights to keep that from happening.
There are two points, here. One is that, at present, no living person can expect to be able to freely make derivative works from any copyrighted material they enjoy today. The second is that this extension is made retroactive to copyrights already granted. The first part is a problem, the second smacks of downright theft.
See, in order for any copyrighted work to have merit, it must, in turn, be derivative. If, in fact someone made art that had no cultural reference whatsoever that we recognize, it would, in turn, likely have no acknowledged artistic merit and no commercial value. In order to have value, art must be recognizable. It must draw on the experience of the user. This is, in itself, derivative. In order to reward the industriousness of the artist, the work is protected from certain types of derivation and almost all types of re-distribution for a period. In the past, though, people could expect that, eventually, art would enter the public domain and repay the commons (thats us) for drawing on the familiar.
Not any longer.
It is terribly hypocritical that exactly the thing that Disney relied upon to make his companies fortune, plagiarizing past works, his company now unreasonably denies to the commons. Not just denies, takes away. People alive today lived with the expectation that they could make derivate works from Disney's material. These people have been stolen from.
In fact, they have stolen from us all. As stated above, all artistic works are derivative to a point. By extending copyright, the law is basically creating an environment in which art will largely stagnate because freely derivative works are not allowed. Today, intellectual property law largely protects large corporations, not inventors and artists. It does not encourage creation as originally intended, but now tends to stifle it.
It is time that intellectual property law was re-examined to again ensure that it is doing the greatest good for this great society. It is time to recognize the rights of the commons.
Anyway, our rights are not simply being trodden on in the civil liberty realm, they are also being drastically eroded in the intellectual property realm. There is this really neat correlation between copyright law and Mickey Mouse. It seems, every time Mickey Mouse is going to go out of copyright, Congress passes an extension to the duration of copyrights to keep that from happening.
There are two points, here. One is that, at present, no living person can expect to be able to freely make derivative works from any copyrighted material they enjoy today. The second is that this extension is made retroactive to copyrights already granted. The first part is a problem, the second smacks of downright theft.
See, in order for any copyrighted work to have merit, it must, in turn, be derivative. If, in fact someone made art that had no cultural reference whatsoever that we recognize, it would, in turn, likely have no acknowledged artistic merit and no commercial value. In order to have value, art must be recognizable. It must draw on the experience of the user. This is, in itself, derivative. In order to reward the industriousness of the artist, the work is protected from certain types of derivation and almost all types of re-distribution for a period. In the past, though, people could expect that, eventually, art would enter the public domain and repay the commons (thats us) for drawing on the familiar.
Not any longer.
It is terribly hypocritical that exactly the thing that Disney relied upon to make his companies fortune, plagiarizing past works, his company now unreasonably denies to the commons. Not just denies, takes away. People alive today lived with the expectation that they could make derivate works from Disney's material. These people have been stolen from.
In fact, they have stolen from us all. As stated above, all artistic works are derivative to a point. By extending copyright, the law is basically creating an environment in which art will largely stagnate because freely derivative works are not allowed. Today, intellectual property law largely protects large corporations, not inventors and artists. It does not encourage creation as originally intended, but now tends to stifle it.
It is time that intellectual property law was re-examined to again ensure that it is doing the greatest good for this great society. It is time to recognize the rights of the commons.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
March 29 - John Doe
A few days ago, I wrote about eroding civil liberties in order to increase security. As I wrote, then, that scares me. However, what really irritates me is when I have to pay for something of little or no value. For instance, advocates of global warming propose joining the Kyoto treaty, an act that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and will have almost no effect on CO2 levels. Similarly, after 9/11 we had a large number of changes to the process of air travel... with little or no value.
What was the cost? Inconvenience, for one. Inconvenience is largely a petty cost, a few minutes here, a few dollars there. Actually, it was more like a few hundred dollars here, a few hours there, as security lines blossomed, the security forces were nationalized and air travel prices increased. Regardless, spread that out over the millions of passengers and in short order, you are talking about real money. Ask anyone in the semiconductor industry what is the value of removing a penny from the manufacturing cost of a single chip. When you multiple that penny by millions of chips, well, you get the picture.
And what were we getting for our money? Nail clippers confiscated by obviously un-reasoning personnel. Our loved ones could no longer accompany us into the waiting area or meet us at the gate, sharing time precious to those of us who travel. Random searches applied to wheelchair bound grannies and children as much as Muslims in robes. Not that they were really random. In the first year after 9/11, I was searched 7 out of 8 flights. The only thing I can attribute that to is that I wear a full face beard. Later on, the rules were upgraded to make it so we couldn't carry on trivial amounts of liquids. Amounts too small to be of any practical purpose in taking control of a plane. There were so many ridiculous acts by self-important officials blindly following poorly though out rules that I could not begin to list them all in a reasonable amount of time. None of this made me feel safer. In fact, the demonstration of ignorance made me feel less safe.
These are not just the irritated grumblings of a frequent flyer, either. In my travels I had the opportunity to sit next to many different people. On one international flight, in particular, I had the opportunity to sit next to a security and ethics agent from the FBI on his way to teach a foreign police force. We had quite a long conversation in which we discussed these very issues. He shared that it was well understood in the bureau that these measures were primarily to instill a "feeling" of security in the population and that they had little to no real effect.
This is not to say that my feelings of security in air travel lessened after 9/11. They increased, but in no way due to the costly and misdirected efforts of the TSA. They increased due to my understanding of the events that unfolded on Flight 93. I knew that, from that day forward, Americans would never sit by and allow hijackers to take a plane. Many incidents since then have confirmed that opinion for me.
Yesterday, Michelle Malkin penned a manifesto that captures the primary reason why I feel more safe since 9/11. I share the link to it here. Enjoy.
What was the cost? Inconvenience, for one. Inconvenience is largely a petty cost, a few minutes here, a few dollars there. Actually, it was more like a few hundred dollars here, a few hours there, as security lines blossomed, the security forces were nationalized and air travel prices increased. Regardless, spread that out over the millions of passengers and in short order, you are talking about real money. Ask anyone in the semiconductor industry what is the value of removing a penny from the manufacturing cost of a single chip. When you multiple that penny by millions of chips, well, you get the picture.
And what were we getting for our money? Nail clippers confiscated by obviously un-reasoning personnel. Our loved ones could no longer accompany us into the waiting area or meet us at the gate, sharing time precious to those of us who travel. Random searches applied to wheelchair bound grannies and children as much as Muslims in robes. Not that they were really random. In the first year after 9/11, I was searched 7 out of 8 flights. The only thing I can attribute that to is that I wear a full face beard. Later on, the rules were upgraded to make it so we couldn't carry on trivial amounts of liquids. Amounts too small to be of any practical purpose in taking control of a plane. There were so many ridiculous acts by self-important officials blindly following poorly though out rules that I could not begin to list them all in a reasonable amount of time. None of this made me feel safer. In fact, the demonstration of ignorance made me feel less safe.
These are not just the irritated grumblings of a frequent flyer, either. In my travels I had the opportunity to sit next to many different people. On one international flight, in particular, I had the opportunity to sit next to a security and ethics agent from the FBI on his way to teach a foreign police force. We had quite a long conversation in which we discussed these very issues. He shared that it was well understood in the bureau that these measures were primarily to instill a "feeling" of security in the population and that they had little to no real effect.
This is not to say that my feelings of security in air travel lessened after 9/11. They increased, but in no way due to the costly and misdirected efforts of the TSA. They increased due to my understanding of the events that unfolded on Flight 93. I knew that, from that day forward, Americans would never sit by and allow hijackers to take a plane. Many incidents since then have confirmed that opinion for me.
Yesterday, Michelle Malkin penned a manifesto that captures the primary reason why I feel more safe since 9/11. I share the link to it here. Enjoy.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
March 28 - The Other White Meat
When did it become common to put unrelated items into a bill? I could sort of understand this if, as a matter of expedience a lot of administrative items that everyone agreed upon got stuffed into a bill so it could be all be voted on at once. On the other hand, I wonder when it became ethical to tie, say, subsidies for peanut farmers to funding a war effort?
Wasn't this one of the things that Democrats were up in arms about? What was all that talk about earmarks? Just in case you didn't know, the current Senate emergency war funding bill, AKA cut and run by March '08 bill, also has something like 19 billion with a B dollars. How convenient that the Democrats have not yet ratified the earmark transparency provisions prior to this bill.
I wonder how many votes Nancy Pelosi had to buy with the $19 billion of pork that is also in the House bill. It's something less than 218. However, at $19 billion, even if she had to buy every one, that is still about $87 million dollars per vote. Wow. Just, wow.
More justification to provide the president with the line item veto.
Wasn't this one of the things that Democrats were up in arms about? What was all that talk about earmarks? Just in case you didn't know, the current Senate emergency war funding bill, AKA cut and run by March '08 bill, also has something like 19 billion with a B dollars. How convenient that the Democrats have not yet ratified the earmark transparency provisions prior to this bill.
I wonder how many votes Nancy Pelosi had to buy with the $19 billion of pork that is also in the House bill. It's something less than 218. However, at $19 billion, even if she had to buy every one, that is still about $87 million dollars per vote. Wow. Just, wow.
More justification to provide the president with the line item veto.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
March 27 - All for the low, low price... not anymore.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that would permit manufacturers to set a minimum price that retailers may charge for an item. This is previously settled case law for nearly a hundred years.
This leaves me befuddled as to what is the capitalist approach. On the one hand, a retailer and a manufacturer may have a contract that they have freely entered into and that may include such prices floors. On the other there is an issue of natural rights of ownership that says the retailer ought to be able to do whatever they see fit with their property to do business. From the consumer point of view price floors seem anticompetitive.
The rub comes in when the product fails to sell at the floor price. Is the retailer required to store the product forever? They can't throw or give it away because that would constitute selling it for a lower price. No more Filene's Basement type sales.
If the SCOTUS overturns this one, there are going to be some people caught in some very painful contracts in the coming years.
This leaves me befuddled as to what is the capitalist approach. On the one hand, a retailer and a manufacturer may have a contract that they have freely entered into and that may include such prices floors. On the other there is an issue of natural rights of ownership that says the retailer ought to be able to do whatever they see fit with their property to do business. From the consumer point of view price floors seem anticompetitive.
The rub comes in when the product fails to sell at the floor price. Is the retailer required to store the product forever? They can't throw or give it away because that would constitute selling it for a lower price. No more Filene's Basement type sales.
If the SCOTUS overturns this one, there are going to be some people caught in some very painful contracts in the coming years.
Monday, March 26, 2007
March 26 - Voter fraud?
A friend wrote to point out apparent big meanies in the GOP saying they are trying to prevent voter fraud when they secretly are trying to keep minorities away from the polls and asks where my outrage is. He sends links: link1 link2
Lets try this. I'm not a great fan of the 24th amendment to the constitution so I don't much care. I truly believe that a person can be expected to fulfill a minimum responsibility in order to vote. Obtaining a state issued ID doesn't seem all that tough to me. I'd be happy with requiring that a person be contributing to the public wealth as opposed to taking from it as well. This would tend to reduce the "bread and circuses" problem. I guess I wouldn't require that a person pay taxes so long as they are not on the dole. If you want to "live off the grid" you still get to vote. If you expect me to pay for your life, then you don't.
This is an ethical position that has nothing to do with race. However, I do recognize that this does tend to affect certain races more than others as the current demographics of this country stands. You may know, I believe that the debt that resulted in the current demographic has long since been paid (and perhaps squandered) and that, moving forward, this country should treat all men as equals, holding them all to the same standards, rather than explicitly practicing racial prejudice.
Lets try this. I'm not a great fan of the 24th amendment to the constitution so I don't much care. I truly believe that a person can be expected to fulfill a minimum responsibility in order to vote. Obtaining a state issued ID doesn't seem all that tough to me. I'd be happy with requiring that a person be contributing to the public wealth as opposed to taking from it as well. This would tend to reduce the "bread and circuses" problem. I guess I wouldn't require that a person pay taxes so long as they are not on the dole. If you want to "live off the grid" you still get to vote. If you expect me to pay for your life, then you don't.
This is an ethical position that has nothing to do with race. However, I do recognize that this does tend to affect certain races more than others as the current demographics of this country stands. You may know, I believe that the debt that resulted in the current demographic has long since been paid (and perhaps squandered) and that, moving forward, this country should treat all men as equals, holding them all to the same standards, rather than explicitly practicing racial prejudice.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
March 25 - Birthday Parties
When I was a kid, I went to maybe as many as two or three birthday parties a year. When I had a birthday, it was an event for a few friends and family. At school, on birthdays, we'd celebrate in class with cupcakes and juice if it was grade school.
When did this change? My kids are invited to a party for every birthday for every child in their class. What a pain! This is no pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey affair at the kids home, either. Parents rent out a party spot like Pump-it-Up or Raddi-Jazz or some such and let the kids go nuts with cake and pizza and inflatable bounce castle things for several hours.
It seems like every other week one of our Saturdays gets decimated by this new fashion. And now, we are obligated by the other families and by the expectations of our kids to supply a similar party. Or, we could explain to our kids why they, alone amongst all their peers, are not going to these parties and are not having such parties. Yeah, right, Grinch of the year, right here. Not.
When did this change? My kids are invited to a party for every birthday for every child in their class. What a pain! This is no pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey affair at the kids home, either. Parents rent out a party spot like Pump-it-Up or Raddi-Jazz or some such and let the kids go nuts with cake and pizza and inflatable bounce castle things for several hours.
It seems like every other week one of our Saturdays gets decimated by this new fashion. And now, we are obligated by the other families and by the expectations of our kids to supply a similar party. Or, we could explain to our kids why they, alone amongst all their peers, are not going to these parties and are not having such parties. Yeah, right, Grinch of the year, right here. Not.
Friday, March 23, 2007
March 23 (& 24) - Quote(s) of the Day(s)
Sorry about the delay. This post took a lot of thought and I am still not sure it consistently, unambiguously or completely expresses my thoughts. It is about things that have been concerning me for nearly six years, now.
232 years ago, Patrick Henry gave a speech that, I sincerely hope, most Americans remember. In speaking about the impending revolution, trying to encourage Virginia to join, he famously (again I hope) said "give me liberty, or give me death."
Another notable of the era, Benjamin Franklin wrote a very related quotation, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
When I've evoked these ideals in discussion against many of the legislative, executive and judicial events that have occurred since 9/11, with people who I know to be conservative, small government, personal responsibility types defend the events as necessary. These same have even used the same sorts of arguments that I've listened to liberal types use in favor of gun control for the last 20 years. The most common are that the founders never could have conceived the environment we live in today, history has never seen a condition like we face, today, but there are others.
By now, most of these folks, if they are reading, would be screaming "what events?" And when I would reply something like "The Patriot Act" or the suspension of Habeas Corpus, they'd mostly disrespect that answer as the usual un-reasoned argument of the left. But I am not a left-wing thinker. The Patriot Act has many disturbing qualities. For instance, its language is constructed as to make the new powers it contains for the purposes of preventing terrorist acts broadly applicable on the basis of premise without documentation. In fact, it is darn near impossible to see if the Patriot Act is being mis-applied because it is rife with gag orders that prevent knowing what is done under it, even after the fact.
The Patriot Act II is even more far-reaching. If it becomes law, it has in it the means to strip away the right of citizenship from naturalized and natural born citizens. The quick answer is that this would only happen to terrorists. Actually, the law is broader than that, it could happen to those suspected of aiding terrorists, even unknowingly. Give money to your favorite charity which then funds something you know nothing about and you could be in violation of the law as written. Never mind that that is a violation of the 14th amendment to the constitution. Where are the arguments for constitutional amendments in this debate? I hear them all the time in the Gay Marriage argument.
Jose Padilla seems to be a bad person, no doubt. Few people would disagree that a serious injustice is done to him by detaining him. However, when he is detained without charge or bail, when he is denied his rights as a citizen of the U.S. to representation, when these things happen within the borders of the country on an un-clear legal premise, then the greater injustice is done to us, the inhabitants of the country. One has to ask if there is any event that justifies the suspension of habeas corpus. Evidently there is, but, constitutionally, that right is reserved to the Congress, not the President.
Here's another quote, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely,"
- Lord Acton.
I am not especially concerned with the actions of the present administration, nor the actions of the next, Republican or Democrat. Nor do I think this administration is acting much differently than others in this regard. Shoot, the last administration fought a whole war without congressional approval. How's that for a power grab? Historically, nearly every congress has tried to extend the power of the federal government and nearly every president has tried to transfer power from the legislature to the executive. It is the responsibility of the citizenry to check this.
I am very concerned with is greater amounts of power being put into the hands of the government in general and the tendency that will have to make it more corrupt. I see no evidence that the people this country elects to office are becoming any less self-absorbed. No particular congress or president will make a concerted effort to develop absolute corrupt power, but we will creep closer and closer to that condition. A death of a thousand cuts, so to speak, nearly completely un-coordinated unless you are a conspiracy theory nut. If you doubt this, just look at the way the federal government in the last century abused the interstate-commerce clause of the constitution to vastly extend its power.
Here is one example of one of these cuts that we can already see growing organically. I am quite concerned with what it means in the long term that our governments have put up surveillance cameras at nearly every major intersection in every major metro area. What, you didn't notice?
At the time they were erected, they were described as being for traffic monitoring and that is probably so, not even a cut unless you take the long view which I am about to describe. Once the cameras are in place the natural tendency is to wonder what else they can be used for. Quite recently, technology has been released that enables cameras such as these to record every license plate that passes by and compares it to a database of stolen cars, suspect's cars, Amber alerts, etc. This has already been deployed for use in police car cameras. If it hasn't already, it will be in the cameras you see above every stop light before long. Now they are being used for surveillance, but not of you, right?
How long after that before the computers behind these cameras are used to analyze patterns of motion to look for suspicious behavior? What will constitute suspicious? What if completely reasonable patterns of movement looks suspicious to the hard coded filter used to rank and rate the data? How hard will it be to clear yourself of a mistaken charge. Legal defense costs money and time, after all. Here's a short story by David Brin about two such imaginary cities. Which one do you think we will live in ten years from now?
More steps are taken with examining communication that we probably should be able to consider private. Phones, long ago, were considered an extension of your living room and so extensive legal procedures were required to tap them. I believe the internet shares the same characteristic and should be treated the same way. This has not been the case. Recently, the federal government tried to get major search engines to turn over search data in order to research legislation. Some companies rolled over on this one, but Google fought it and ultimately won. The reason is, though the search data is anonymous, it was still tagged to unidentified users and Google thought that this provides way too much information about a person even if anonymous.
You might think that since it is anonymized there is no issue, but in between the subpoena and winning the suit, another search firm lent it's similar anonymized data to a research group at a university. That group did some minimal analysis and was easily able to match true identities with anonymized users, contacting some of them. At the very least, this should make you wary of using search engines. At the most, you should be able to see how much information can be learned about you from your searches. How much of that might be mis-interpreted. Suppose a parent did research on cannabis to figure out how to make or keep their child drug free and it was flagged? The parent was just trying to protect their child and be a good parent. In so doing they may have gotten their self in a defensive legal situation or even ratted out their child who they were trying to help.
These sorts of capabilities are all in our present and near future and, in general, we will accept them as necessary "in this day" for security. This isn't idle conspiracy theory. This requires no conspiracy to happen. It simply requires a natural progression. A lot of small steps until, one day, we realize that the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution no longer mean anything at all. It is possible that, someday, your lifestyle choices will be considered illegal. Perhaps someday I will find myself in that group for writing this article. Fortunately, not today.
If you think it won't happen (to you), here is another quote, poem, actually:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
- Martin Niemoeller
You may be familiar with it and you may think it doesn't apply. I truly hope you are correct.
232 years ago, Patrick Henry gave a speech that, I sincerely hope, most Americans remember. In speaking about the impending revolution, trying to encourage Virginia to join, he famously (again I hope) said "give me liberty, or give me death."
Another notable of the era, Benjamin Franklin wrote a very related quotation, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
When I've evoked these ideals in discussion against many of the legislative, executive and judicial events that have occurred since 9/11, with people who I know to be conservative, small government, personal responsibility types defend the events as necessary. These same have even used the same sorts of arguments that I've listened to liberal types use in favor of gun control for the last 20 years. The most common are that the founders never could have conceived the environment we live in today, history has never seen a condition like we face, today, but there are others.
By now, most of these folks, if they are reading, would be screaming "what events?" And when I would reply something like "The Patriot Act" or the suspension of Habeas Corpus, they'd mostly disrespect that answer as the usual un-reasoned argument of the left. But I am not a left-wing thinker. The Patriot Act has many disturbing qualities. For instance, its language is constructed as to make the new powers it contains for the purposes of preventing terrorist acts broadly applicable on the basis of premise without documentation. In fact, it is darn near impossible to see if the Patriot Act is being mis-applied because it is rife with gag orders that prevent knowing what is done under it, even after the fact.
The Patriot Act II is even more far-reaching. If it becomes law, it has in it the means to strip away the right of citizenship from naturalized and natural born citizens. The quick answer is that this would only happen to terrorists. Actually, the law is broader than that, it could happen to those suspected of aiding terrorists, even unknowingly. Give money to your favorite charity which then funds something you know nothing about and you could be in violation of the law as written. Never mind that that is a violation of the 14th amendment to the constitution. Where are the arguments for constitutional amendments in this debate? I hear them all the time in the Gay Marriage argument.
Jose Padilla seems to be a bad person, no doubt. Few people would disagree that a serious injustice is done to him by detaining him. However, when he is detained without charge or bail, when he is denied his rights as a citizen of the U.S. to representation, when these things happen within the borders of the country on an un-clear legal premise, then the greater injustice is done to us, the inhabitants of the country. One has to ask if there is any event that justifies the suspension of habeas corpus. Evidently there is, but, constitutionally, that right is reserved to the Congress, not the President.
Here's another quote, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely,"
- Lord Acton.
I am not especially concerned with the actions of the present administration, nor the actions of the next, Republican or Democrat. Nor do I think this administration is acting much differently than others in this regard. Shoot, the last administration fought a whole war without congressional approval. How's that for a power grab? Historically, nearly every congress has tried to extend the power of the federal government and nearly every president has tried to transfer power from the legislature to the executive. It is the responsibility of the citizenry to check this.
I am very concerned with is greater amounts of power being put into the hands of the government in general and the tendency that will have to make it more corrupt. I see no evidence that the people this country elects to office are becoming any less self-absorbed. No particular congress or president will make a concerted effort to develop absolute corrupt power, but we will creep closer and closer to that condition. A death of a thousand cuts, so to speak, nearly completely un-coordinated unless you are a conspiracy theory nut. If you doubt this, just look at the way the federal government in the last century abused the interstate-commerce clause of the constitution to vastly extend its power.
Here is one example of one of these cuts that we can already see growing organically. I am quite concerned with what it means in the long term that our governments have put up surveillance cameras at nearly every major intersection in every major metro area. What, you didn't notice?
At the time they were erected, they were described as being for traffic monitoring and that is probably so, not even a cut unless you take the long view which I am about to describe. Once the cameras are in place the natural tendency is to wonder what else they can be used for. Quite recently, technology has been released that enables cameras such as these to record every license plate that passes by and compares it to a database of stolen cars, suspect's cars, Amber alerts, etc. This has already been deployed for use in police car cameras. If it hasn't already, it will be in the cameras you see above every stop light before long. Now they are being used for surveillance, but not of you, right?
How long after that before the computers behind these cameras are used to analyze patterns of motion to look for suspicious behavior? What will constitute suspicious? What if completely reasonable patterns of movement looks suspicious to the hard coded filter used to rank and rate the data? How hard will it be to clear yourself of a mistaken charge. Legal defense costs money and time, after all. Here's a short story by David Brin about two such imaginary cities. Which one do you think we will live in ten years from now?
More steps are taken with examining communication that we probably should be able to consider private. Phones, long ago, were considered an extension of your living room and so extensive legal procedures were required to tap them. I believe the internet shares the same characteristic and should be treated the same way. This has not been the case. Recently, the federal government tried to get major search engines to turn over search data in order to research legislation. Some companies rolled over on this one, but Google fought it and ultimately won. The reason is, though the search data is anonymous, it was still tagged to unidentified users and Google thought that this provides way too much information about a person even if anonymous.
You might think that since it is anonymized there is no issue, but in between the subpoena and winning the suit, another search firm lent it's similar anonymized data to a research group at a university. That group did some minimal analysis and was easily able to match true identities with anonymized users, contacting some of them. At the very least, this should make you wary of using search engines. At the most, you should be able to see how much information can be learned about you from your searches. How much of that might be mis-interpreted. Suppose a parent did research on cannabis to figure out how to make or keep their child drug free and it was flagged? The parent was just trying to protect their child and be a good parent. In so doing they may have gotten their self in a defensive legal situation or even ratted out their child who they were trying to help.
These sorts of capabilities are all in our present and near future and, in general, we will accept them as necessary "in this day" for security. This isn't idle conspiracy theory. This requires no conspiracy to happen. It simply requires a natural progression. A lot of small steps until, one day, we realize that the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution no longer mean anything at all. It is possible that, someday, your lifestyle choices will be considered illegal. Perhaps someday I will find myself in that group for writing this article. Fortunately, not today.
If you think it won't happen (to you), here is another quote, poem, actually:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
- Martin Niemoeller
You may be familiar with it and you may think it doesn't apply. I truly hope you are correct.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
March 22 - Thank You
I've been asked by a few people who know I have this blog how much time it takes. Usually, these posts take about 1/2 hour. This one will probably be shorter. It depends. If I am writing about a topic that I have researched in the past and have a reasonably well formed opinion, already, then it is just a matter of getting it down and spending a short time verifying my facts.
In other cases, like the early post on the Barbary Coast Pirates, I had little pre-existing knowledge, so it took a fair bit of reading, probably a couple of hours, before writing anything. That topic still intrigues me. I find it interesting that there is so little published about the Barbary Wars.
Tomorrow's subject is already selected for me. Patrick Henry is the inspiration and tomorrow is the anniversary date of his famous speech. By the time I am done, I will have a fair bit of research behind me to get down everything I want to on that subject.
This has been an enriching experience for me, both for the opportunity to practice and try to improve my writing skills and to broaden my mind a bit. Your comments have been a good test for me to see how well formed my opinions are. They have also helped me understand where my writing has failed to convey my point. With hope, I can do better in future posts.
Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting and I hope you keep doing so.
Best regards,
YourHumbleHost
In other cases, like the early post on the Barbary Coast Pirates, I had little pre-existing knowledge, so it took a fair bit of reading, probably a couple of hours, before writing anything. That topic still intrigues me. I find it interesting that there is so little published about the Barbary Wars.
Tomorrow's subject is already selected for me. Patrick Henry is the inspiration and tomorrow is the anniversary date of his famous speech. By the time I am done, I will have a fair bit of research behind me to get down everything I want to on that subject.
This has been an enriching experience for me, both for the opportunity to practice and try to improve my writing skills and to broaden my mind a bit. Your comments have been a good test for me to see how well formed my opinions are. They have also helped me understand where my writing has failed to convey my point. With hope, I can do better in future posts.
Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting and I hope you keep doing so.
Best regards,
YourHumbleHost
March 21 - Wellness
According to a Discovery channel show, doctors now think that picking you nose and, ewwwwww, eating it may actually be good for you. Apparently the more heavily bacteria and virus laden crusty stuff being carried to the large intestine serves as a sort of inoculation. How's that for an, er, nugget of wisdom?
This is somewhat reminiscent of current thinking on allergies. Many doctors now believe that it is our overly clean and sterile environments growing up that lead to increased sensitivity later in life. Lack of exposure to pollens, animal dander and such keep us from developing a resistance to their power to irritate. These same doctors endorse families with young children having cats and dogs to introduce allergens into the home and thereby immunize them. I think these guys just had spouses that wouldn't let them get dogs.
Allergies are curious things, no doubt, but I can't help wonder why so many researchers try to deny a genetic link. My Grandfather had allergies, my Dad did and I do too. All relatively severe, mostly upper respiratory type allergies, no asthma. All allergic to more or less the same things. My son appears to suffer from them, similarly. From a statistical sampling of one, I conclude that allergies are clearly hereditary. Nevertheless, I've been told by many doctors that I didn't get my allergies from my parents.
Allergies are hard to detect, too. Especially food allergies. It took 30 years for me to figure out that I am allergic to milk. I am slowly realizing that I have an intolerance to nut products too. Looking back, the signs are clear that I had a milk allergy presenting itself as early as age 4 or 5. Because the results are quite painful I remember quite clearly events that, with better knowledge, clearly correlate with increased milk consumption.
When I was around 10 years old, for a few years, we would take a family vacation to Hawaii. During those trips, at some time, I would suffer from severe abdominal cramps. We would always chalk that up to unfamiliar food. In retrospect, I know that it was because of a small change to my diet. On these trips, we'd still eat at McDonald's for lunch like we often did back then. As a treat because we were on vacation I'd have a milk shake, something I'd never do back home. Boom. A milk shake today, untreated, would most likely leave me writhing on the floor in agony.
Discovering food allergies is primarily the process of correlating these sorts of events. Unless you do controlled experiments with your food intake, it is very hard to pinpoint what is causing you problems. event hen it is hard because the foods people are most often allergic to are so prevalent in the foods we eat. Two of the worst are milk and gluten which are in just about every processed food product. Further, your allergic sensitivity may vary over time.
If your child has recurrent, undiagnosed ailments, try to see if you can correlate them with some consistent exposure. You might save them years of pain if you are successful.
This is somewhat reminiscent of current thinking on allergies. Many doctors now believe that it is our overly clean and sterile environments growing up that lead to increased sensitivity later in life. Lack of exposure to pollens, animal dander and such keep us from developing a resistance to their power to irritate. These same doctors endorse families with young children having cats and dogs to introduce allergens into the home and thereby immunize them. I think these guys just had spouses that wouldn't let them get dogs.
Allergies are curious things, no doubt, but I can't help wonder why so many researchers try to deny a genetic link. My Grandfather had allergies, my Dad did and I do too. All relatively severe, mostly upper respiratory type allergies, no asthma. All allergic to more or less the same things. My son appears to suffer from them, similarly. From a statistical sampling of one, I conclude that allergies are clearly hereditary. Nevertheless, I've been told by many doctors that I didn't get my allergies from my parents.
Allergies are hard to detect, too. Especially food allergies. It took 30 years for me to figure out that I am allergic to milk. I am slowly realizing that I have an intolerance to nut products too. Looking back, the signs are clear that I had a milk allergy presenting itself as early as age 4 or 5. Because the results are quite painful I remember quite clearly events that, with better knowledge, clearly correlate with increased milk consumption.
When I was around 10 years old, for a few years, we would take a family vacation to Hawaii. During those trips, at some time, I would suffer from severe abdominal cramps. We would always chalk that up to unfamiliar food. In retrospect, I know that it was because of a small change to my diet. On these trips, we'd still eat at McDonald's for lunch like we often did back then. As a treat because we were on vacation I'd have a milk shake, something I'd never do back home. Boom. A milk shake today, untreated, would most likely leave me writhing on the floor in agony.
Discovering food allergies is primarily the process of correlating these sorts of events. Unless you do controlled experiments with your food intake, it is very hard to pinpoint what is causing you problems. event hen it is hard because the foods people are most often allergic to are so prevalent in the foods we eat. Two of the worst are milk and gluten which are in just about every processed food product. Further, your allergic sensitivity may vary over time.
If your child has recurrent, undiagnosed ailments, try to see if you can correlate them with some consistent exposure. You might save them years of pain if you are successful.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
March 20 - The Solutions to Problems
Problems largely get solved in two ways, by command or by consensus. The command method is the one most are probably familiar with. The traditional story, here, is that somebody sees a problem, sees a solution to the problem and sets about implementing the solution. Some of us might see Thomas Edison in this role, but almost all of us practice this type of problem solving all day long. A peculiar characteristic of this method is that the problem gets solved primarily for the solver and mainly by happenstance for other people. Some people may not see the solution as a solution at all, it is so bad. In a normal market, you may get several such solutions in competition. This is generally seen as inefficient (but maybe more efficient than the alternative.)
Solutions such as this are all around you. You may wonder why Verizon phones can not roam on Cingular networks. It is because they are both the product of command solutions and are competing against each other. The different floor-plans of houses represent this method. Any one type of restaurant could satisfy the nutritional requirements of a human, but there many different types of restaurants all competing. Inefficiency sure isn't all bad.
Consensus problem solving is very different. Consensus problem solving attempts to solve a problem for everybody. In this case, seeing a solution is not good enough, you have to see a solution that satisfies all people who have the problem. Potentially, you have to solve the problem for people who don't have it yet and therefore have a different set of requirements than anyone existing. Does this sound tough? Good it is. In the end you wind up with, not an excellent, but an adequate solution for everybody given a job well done.
Examples of this are all around you, too. Your electrical outlets are one such. The timber in your house another. Look at the sockets and bayonets of your light bulbs. Do they screw together? Why? They are all made by different companies who would gladly lock out their competitors with a proprietary and superior solution. It is because the adequate solution is actually superior and actually fosters more fair competition. When the consensus approach works, it works well.
This is not, by any means to say that he consensus approach is better. However, when a solution is likely to become commoditized. That is to say, when, in the long term, the solution will likely not compete on the basis of differentiation, the consensus approach is probably a better approach because it reduces monopolistic behavior and reduces the cost of implementing the solution.
I am involved in forming consensus solutions in my industry. I belong to a standards body seeking to describe a solution to a particular problem. Each of us in the committee has an idea of the problem and and idea of a solution and all of them are command type solutions. We are working to reconcile their incompatibilities and make the solution encompass all of our requirements. We are working to envision the requirements of our industry 10 years down the road so our work has continuing value. This is not easy.
I was asked the other day by a potential user of this standard why it is taking so long. We have been at it for a year and a half and, to others, it appears we have nothing to show. We can not even say we have made any decisions that people can work from. It was his assertion that a solution is "so simple." Moreover, he's right. "A" solution is "so simple". The command approach solves the problem in a matter of months, move on. But that would not satisfy all, or even most of the consumers of the standard.
I was stymied by his "taking so long" opinion. Having been on other standards bodies, I think we are rocketing along. It takes time to consider the scope of what is known and to consider what you can predict about what is unknown. It takes time to open your thoughts beyond your own command-based solution to the problem. It takes time to reconcile the differing opinions in a body of people. Even when you think you are done, you have to test your ideas against a larger body to see if they agree and then go back to the drawing board to address their issues or explain them away.
This time expenditure is a limitation. Even if we ratified one command solution over the others and went through the process of documenting and releasing it, years will pass. Progress due to the passage of time tends to reduce or even eliminate the value of a command solution. This is why people working on consensus solutions must take a long, broad view and be prepared to work for years. Moving too fast will result in a lesser product. To put it another, more traditional way, it isn't soup yet.
Solutions such as this are all around you. You may wonder why Verizon phones can not roam on Cingular networks. It is because they are both the product of command solutions and are competing against each other. The different floor-plans of houses represent this method. Any one type of restaurant could satisfy the nutritional requirements of a human, but there many different types of restaurants all competing. Inefficiency sure isn't all bad.
Consensus problem solving is very different. Consensus problem solving attempts to solve a problem for everybody. In this case, seeing a solution is not good enough, you have to see a solution that satisfies all people who have the problem. Potentially, you have to solve the problem for people who don't have it yet and therefore have a different set of requirements than anyone existing. Does this sound tough? Good it is. In the end you wind up with, not an excellent, but an adequate solution for everybody given a job well done.
Examples of this are all around you, too. Your electrical outlets are one such. The timber in your house another. Look at the sockets and bayonets of your light bulbs. Do they screw together? Why? They are all made by different companies who would gladly lock out their competitors with a proprietary and superior solution. It is because the adequate solution is actually superior and actually fosters more fair competition. When the consensus approach works, it works well.
This is not, by any means to say that he consensus approach is better. However, when a solution is likely to become commoditized. That is to say, when, in the long term, the solution will likely not compete on the basis of differentiation, the consensus approach is probably a better approach because it reduces monopolistic behavior and reduces the cost of implementing the solution.
I am involved in forming consensus solutions in my industry. I belong to a standards body seeking to describe a solution to a particular problem. Each of us in the committee has an idea of the problem and and idea of a solution and all of them are command type solutions. We are working to reconcile their incompatibilities and make the solution encompass all of our requirements. We are working to envision the requirements of our industry 10 years down the road so our work has continuing value. This is not easy.
I was asked the other day by a potential user of this standard why it is taking so long. We have been at it for a year and a half and, to others, it appears we have nothing to show. We can not even say we have made any decisions that people can work from. It was his assertion that a solution is "so simple." Moreover, he's right. "A" solution is "so simple". The command approach solves the problem in a matter of months, move on. But that would not satisfy all, or even most of the consumers of the standard.
I was stymied by his "taking so long" opinion. Having been on other standards bodies, I think we are rocketing along. It takes time to consider the scope of what is known and to consider what you can predict about what is unknown. It takes time to open your thoughts beyond your own command-based solution to the problem. It takes time to reconcile the differing opinions in a body of people. Even when you think you are done, you have to test your ideas against a larger body to see if they agree and then go back to the drawing board to address their issues or explain them away.
This time expenditure is a limitation. Even if we ratified one command solution over the others and went through the process of documenting and releasing it, years will pass. Progress due to the passage of time tends to reduce or even eliminate the value of a command solution. This is why people working on consensus solutions must take a long, broad view and be prepared to work for years. Moving too fast will result in a lesser product. To put it another, more traditional way, it isn't soup yet.
Monday, March 19, 2007
March 19 - Gasp, a Missed Day
Every so often it is important to update your opinions. Yesterday, I began to write a post about how Human evolution was very near to non-existent when I realized how wrong I was. I developed that opinion a long time ago when I realized that humans had pretty much cut out one of the most important components of evolution, natural selection. Human technology has ensured than most of us live to pass on our genes.
As I was writing that article I realized that that opinion was formed years ago and since then I've learned a lot more about the processes of evolution. So when I got all fired up to write after a reading an article where scientists expressed their "discovery" that human brains were evolving very slowly, I set off down the wrong path. Quite recently some scientist or other announced how we were actively in the process of bifurcating the human family tree into beautiful people and troglodytes. This is occurring through preferential selection. That is to say, beautiful people seek other beautiful people to be their mates and the rest are, well, the rest. This is similar to what happens when populations become split by geography and what was one becomes two over time.
That was just for completeness. The real story, here, is that there were two complete and contradictory opinions sitting in my little brain and only through happenstance did I discover that on my own. In other situations, I'd always have to have someone else point out how wrong I was. So the question I have now, is, how many more of these examples of cognitive dissonance lie undiscovered. It would be so nice to be able to press a button and automatically have all your opinions updated to reflect the best knowledge you have or, at least, flag your opinions for review.
I set about re-writing the post, but I ran out of time and the original premise turned out to be not so interesting after I figured out it was wrong. So I missed a day.
As I was writing that article I realized that that opinion was formed years ago and since then I've learned a lot more about the processes of evolution. So when I got all fired up to write after a reading an article where scientists expressed their "discovery" that human brains were evolving very slowly, I set off down the wrong path. Quite recently some scientist or other announced how we were actively in the process of bifurcating the human family tree into beautiful people and troglodytes. This is occurring through preferential selection. That is to say, beautiful people seek other beautiful people to be their mates and the rest are, well, the rest. This is similar to what happens when populations become split by geography and what was one becomes two over time.
That was just for completeness. The real story, here, is that there were two complete and contradictory opinions sitting in my little brain and only through happenstance did I discover that on my own. In other situations, I'd always have to have someone else point out how wrong I was. So the question I have now, is, how many more of these examples of cognitive dissonance lie undiscovered. It would be so nice to be able to press a button and automatically have all your opinions updated to reflect the best knowledge you have or, at least, flag your opinions for review.
I set about re-writing the post, but I ran out of time and the original premise turned out to be not so interesting after I figured out it was wrong. So I missed a day.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
March 17 - A Choice
Neal Boortz is one of my favorite talk show hosts. A self proclaimed libertarian, he aligns with my beliefs 90% of the time. Sometimes, 10% if you are any good at math :-), though he really blows it. Most recently he ranted on how gay people have no choice, they are born that way.
This whole source of gay-ness argument is just the nature vs. nurture debate all over again. In one corner you have people, generally on the left side of the political spectrum, who say homosexuals were born that way and can do less about it than they can do about the color of their hair. In the other corner, you have people, generally God-fearing conservative folk, who say that you are born with a choice and that to choose to be gay is sin. For both groups, everything is black and white, you are or you are not and that's that.
My suspicion is that both groups are right, to some degree. We are all products of both our genetic heritage and our up-bringing. Our genetic heritage is an influence in the decision we make. For instance, being hefty and of average height, I am pretty unlikely to play basketball. It isn't just a choice, my genetic pre-disposition made it unlikely that I was every going to play basketball. Further, I develop nausea at the sight blood and traumatic injury. This makes it largely unlikely that I ever would become a doctor no matter what I chose. Could I overcome these deficiencies? Certainly, but I would have to do that first just to get on even footing with other, more genetically gifted individuals.
Evidence shows that some people are, in fact, born gay. They grow up in "normal" households and still feel different and have different drives and desires. Like height, this sort of thing would pretty much have to follow a distribution, with some people feeling more this way and some people feeling less. Since most of us have a strongly heterosexual up-bringing, any that might have less than compelling drives and desires in this way would likely learn to innately suppress these at a relatively early age. We wouldn't even know they were there because they would be over-ridden with the fear,disgust,disdain,whatever that we learned. For some, though this would not prove to be enough.
Even so, someone who still feels strongly compelled to be gay has a choice. They can still choose to suppress their desires and lead a heterosexual lifestyle... and probably be very unhappy. This evidently happens regularly. Or they can choose to give in to their desires and lead a homosexual life... and probably still be unhappy because they have to overcome the fear,digust,disdain,whatever that they learned growing up.
For some they are driven less by nature and more by nurture, to homosexuality. In these cases they way they were raised, whether in a very hedonistic household or one so terribly strict or abusive they rebelled or whatever the case may be, combined with their social environment contributes to their choice. Fashion combined with lack of inhibition and probably curiosity compels some to "try" homosexuality.
And you have shades in-between. The point is everybody has a choice to try to overcome their God given limitations. All of us have limitations that prove too great for us to overcome so we do not become basketball players, Olympic swimmers, rocket scientists, great philanthropists, or whatever. And don't tell me you couldn't do it, Earl Boykins plays pro ball for the Denver Nuggets at 5'5". He chose to overcome his limitations. Most of us don't have it in us to be able to overcome such limitations and be the best we can be. Just look at the obesity epidemic in this country to see that most of us can not always choose to do what we know is right, even as we are continually taught what that is.
So when Boortz went off on his rant, trivializing the "choice" position by saying "what, do you think a person walks along, tra la la, and says 'I know, I think I'm going to be gay.'", he made himself look a fool. On the other hand, when folks on the right say that "it is a choice" they generally trivialize how hard that choice can be to make and make themselves look ignorant.
How this should inform public policy, I don't yet know. I know that honest and abidable public policy can not be made until both sides leave their corners on the nature vs. nurture issue.
This whole source of gay-ness argument is just the nature vs. nurture debate all over again. In one corner you have people, generally on the left side of the political spectrum, who say homosexuals were born that way and can do less about it than they can do about the color of their hair. In the other corner, you have people, generally God-fearing conservative folk, who say that you are born with a choice and that to choose to be gay is sin. For both groups, everything is black and white, you are or you are not and that's that.
My suspicion is that both groups are right, to some degree. We are all products of both our genetic heritage and our up-bringing. Our genetic heritage is an influence in the decision we make. For instance, being hefty and of average height, I am pretty unlikely to play basketball. It isn't just a choice, my genetic pre-disposition made it unlikely that I was every going to play basketball. Further, I develop nausea at the sight blood and traumatic injury. This makes it largely unlikely that I ever would become a doctor no matter what I chose. Could I overcome these deficiencies? Certainly, but I would have to do that first just to get on even footing with other, more genetically gifted individuals.
Evidence shows that some people are, in fact, born gay. They grow up in "normal" households and still feel different and have different drives and desires. Like height, this sort of thing would pretty much have to follow a distribution, with some people feeling more this way and some people feeling less. Since most of us have a strongly heterosexual up-bringing, any that might have less than compelling drives and desires in this way would likely learn to innately suppress these at a relatively early age. We wouldn't even know they were there because they would be over-ridden with the fear,disgust,disdain,whatever that we learned. For some, though this would not prove to be enough.
Even so, someone who still feels strongly compelled to be gay has a choice. They can still choose to suppress their desires and lead a heterosexual lifestyle... and probably be very unhappy. This evidently happens regularly. Or they can choose to give in to their desires and lead a homosexual life... and probably still be unhappy because they have to overcome the fear,digust,disdain,whatever that they learned growing up.
For some they are driven less by nature and more by nurture, to homosexuality. In these cases they way they were raised, whether in a very hedonistic household or one so terribly strict or abusive they rebelled or whatever the case may be, combined with their social environment contributes to their choice. Fashion combined with lack of inhibition and probably curiosity compels some to "try" homosexuality.
And you have shades in-between. The point is everybody has a choice to try to overcome their God given limitations. All of us have limitations that prove too great for us to overcome so we do not become basketball players, Olympic swimmers, rocket scientists, great philanthropists, or whatever. And don't tell me you couldn't do it, Earl Boykins plays pro ball for the Denver Nuggets at 5'5". He chose to overcome his limitations. Most of us don't have it in us to be able to overcome such limitations and be the best we can be. Just look at the obesity epidemic in this country to see that most of us can not always choose to do what we know is right, even as we are continually taught what that is.
So when Boortz went off on his rant, trivializing the "choice" position by saying "what, do you think a person walks along, tra la la, and says 'I know, I think I'm going to be gay.'", he made himself look a fool. On the other hand, when folks on the right say that "it is a choice" they generally trivialize how hard that choice can be to make and make themselves look ignorant.
How this should inform public policy, I don't yet know. I know that honest and abidable public policy can not be made until both sides leave their corners on the nature vs. nurture issue.
Friday, March 16, 2007
March 16 - Breakfast
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. As such, one just shouldn't mess with it. I'm perfectly willing to be experimental at dinner, less so at lunch and pretty much completely unwilling to have anything non-traditional at breakfast. I've eaten fresh un-cooked squid sliced off the still moving animal in front of me for dinner, but ask me to east a piece of broiled salmon for breakfast and it just is not going to happen.
This has been a bit of a challenge in the past when traveling internationally. Other cultures do not properly share my narrow view as to what constitutes appropriate breakfast fare. Finding scrambled eggs and toast in France or Italy was not merely a challenge, it was impossible. Forget a stack of pancakes. I settled for coffee and a danish which probably isn't actually Danish. In Japan, they generally provide international restaurants at the hotels which is a good thing because what passes for breakfast in Japan isn't much different than what passes for dinner.
That said, even the familiar can be unfamiliar. The Japanese have a penchant for under-cooking things. I've eaten sushi for 30 years, but was still floored to learn that they serve chicken sushi in Japan. Chicken sushi. What North-American doesn't have a salmonella fueled gut-wrenching fear of chicken just a little pink in the center let alone completely raw? As a result, expect that, no matter how hard you try to communicate that you want your scrambled eggs done well, that they will be runny.
Across all the cultures I've had the privilege to visit, about the only constant is coffee. Before I started traveling for business, I never drank coffee. At the first conference I attended they did not have my beloved cold Diet Coke as my preferred source of wakey-wakey. They had coffee in those giant brass containers with spigots. It didn't appear to be killing any of the other attendees and I really needed caffeine that morning so I had poured a cup and had a sip. Then I added four packets of sugar.
Unlike Diet Coke in the morning, Coffee is universally available, thank goodness, though some is better than others. With beer and coffee, I always wonder what it is about the bitterness that people seem to like. I've had varieties of both that avoid the bitterness and like that much better. Fortunately for me, sweetener is always available, though occasionally disdained, for coffee to take the bitter edge off. Because of this, I learned to like Italian coffee the best. Italians feel no shame as they drop a tablespoon of sugar into about two tablespoons of coffee. And then scrape out the sugar granules and eat them when the liquid is gone.
The upshot is that, while I still won't experiment with breakfast, much, I had to adopt completely unfamiliar fare to constitute my minimal get-started requirements. So now I drink coffee (almost) like a normal person.
This has been a bit of a challenge in the past when traveling internationally. Other cultures do not properly share my narrow view as to what constitutes appropriate breakfast fare. Finding scrambled eggs and toast in France or Italy was not merely a challenge, it was impossible. Forget a stack of pancakes. I settled for coffee and a danish which probably isn't actually Danish. In Japan, they generally provide international restaurants at the hotels which is a good thing because what passes for breakfast in Japan isn't much different than what passes for dinner.
That said, even the familiar can be unfamiliar. The Japanese have a penchant for under-cooking things. I've eaten sushi for 30 years, but was still floored to learn that they serve chicken sushi in Japan. Chicken sushi. What North-American doesn't have a salmonella fueled gut-wrenching fear of chicken just a little pink in the center let alone completely raw? As a result, expect that, no matter how hard you try to communicate that you want your scrambled eggs done well, that they will be runny.
Across all the cultures I've had the privilege to visit, about the only constant is coffee. Before I started traveling for business, I never drank coffee. At the first conference I attended they did not have my beloved cold Diet Coke as my preferred source of wakey-wakey. They had coffee in those giant brass containers with spigots. It didn't appear to be killing any of the other attendees and I really needed caffeine that morning so I had poured a cup and had a sip. Then I added four packets of sugar.
Unlike Diet Coke in the morning, Coffee is universally available, thank goodness, though some is better than others. With beer and coffee, I always wonder what it is about the bitterness that people seem to like. I've had varieties of both that avoid the bitterness and like that much better. Fortunately for me, sweetener is always available, though occasionally disdained, for coffee to take the bitter edge off. Because of this, I learned to like Italian coffee the best. Italians feel no shame as they drop a tablespoon of sugar into about two tablespoons of coffee. And then scrape out the sugar granules and eat them when the liquid is gone.
The upshot is that, while I still won't experiment with breakfast, much, I had to adopt completely unfamiliar fare to constitute my minimal get-started requirements. So now I drink coffee (almost) like a normal person.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
March 15 - Sea World
That's where I was all day. Me, my wife and kids. My main thought was, as Shamu splashed us so thoroughly that I sit here at the end of the day still damp, that to say Shamu pees like a racehorse is probably an extreme understatement.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
March 14 - Gay Marriage
It funny how people get so hung up on words that they lose sight of their goals. When asked, gay couples cite all kinds of reason why they should be granted the privilege of marriage. Almost all of these are very practical and have benefits beyond the realm of gay unions. For instance, naming someone as your guardian to make decisions for you when you are incapacitated. Yes, you can do this legally, but in the moments when it is needed, taking the time to provide the documents that prove it may cost a life. One could make similar arguments for inheritance and child custody that are totally separate from the moral issues of homosexuality.
These are the practical goals of the Gay lobby. Then there is the impractical one. They want to change the definition of the word, "marriage." This is the sticking point. Heterosexual people do not typically want to be confused with homosexual people. For this reason, they do not want their unions to be confused with homosexual unions. In large part, this is the dominant reason why the population, with a very large majority (around 2/3), is not tolerant of laws that permit gay marriage.
It is not simply a change to the law. It is a change in the definition of the word. The word has always meant a union between a man and a woman. People are just not tolerant of having this word co-opted to represent an idea that they tolerate but do not embrace.
That large majority pretty much is inverted in most polls when you change only the law and not the word. When the idea is presented as permitting civil unions, support is at around 2/3. A civil union provides all the practical benefits of marriage, most of the rights and privileges, except the use of the word. Unfortunately for them, the gay lobby is not backing down on this point.
The result is that the mobilized majority is more than willing to fight over the word and rather broad state law has been drafted and passed that prevents not only marriage but civil unions as well (in some cases they even accidentally outlaw heterosexual marriage.) Insisting on using the word is the epitome of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face, putting style before substance. Or maybe not. Maybe what the gay lobby is fighting for is for the rest of us to embrace more than tolerate their lifestyle. Now is not the when that that will happen.
Not even in France
These are the practical goals of the Gay lobby. Then there is the impractical one. They want to change the definition of the word, "marriage." This is the sticking point. Heterosexual people do not typically want to be confused with homosexual people. For this reason, they do not want their unions to be confused with homosexual unions. In large part, this is the dominant reason why the population, with a very large majority (around 2/3), is not tolerant of laws that permit gay marriage.
It is not simply a change to the law. It is a change in the definition of the word. The word has always meant a union between a man and a woman. People are just not tolerant of having this word co-opted to represent an idea that they tolerate but do not embrace.
That large majority pretty much is inverted in most polls when you change only the law and not the word. When the idea is presented as permitting civil unions, support is at around 2/3. A civil union provides all the practical benefits of marriage, most of the rights and privileges, except the use of the word. Unfortunately for them, the gay lobby is not backing down on this point.
The result is that the mobilized majority is more than willing to fight over the word and rather broad state law has been drafted and passed that prevents not only marriage but civil unions as well (in some cases they even accidentally outlaw heterosexual marriage.) Insisting on using the word is the epitome of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face, putting style before substance. Or maybe not. Maybe what the gay lobby is fighting for is for the rest of us to embrace more than tolerate their lifestyle. Now is not the when that that will happen.
Not even in France
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
March 13 - 300
No one expects a marauding Persian horde.
I have precisely two things to say about 300:
1) It has no moral ambiguity whatsoever.
2) Go see it (but, don't take your wife, probably.)
3) Its sole negative is the cinematography, but maybe you'd like it. I prefer attempts at pseudo-realism such as in the Lord of the Rings to the grainy, artsy images in 300.
O.K. Three things.
4) The plot is pretty good, and the battle scenes are very well choreographed and dramatic.
Four. Four things.
5) The movie has an element of the fantastic to it in that creatures that don't exactly exist show up.
Fine, five things. There. Done. Bring out the comfy chair, I've got a movie to watch.
I have precisely two things to say about 300:
1) It has no moral ambiguity whatsoever.
2) Go see it (but, don't take your wife, probably.)
3) Its sole negative is the cinematography, but maybe you'd like it. I prefer attempts at pseudo-realism such as in the Lord of the Rings to the grainy, artsy images in 300.
O.K. Three things.
4) The plot is pretty good, and the battle scenes are very well choreographed and dramatic.
Four. Four things.
5) The movie has an element of the fantastic to it in that creatures that don't exactly exist show up.
Fine, five things. There. Done. Bring out the comfy chair, I've got a movie to watch.
Monday, March 12, 2007
March 12 - A New Immigration Problem
A couple of days ago marks one full month of a post per day. I honestly didn't think I'd stay with it, this long. Please pardon this brief moment of self-congratulatory hubris. There. Done.
Immigration always is a balance between cost and benefits. The benefits are usually financial. For instance, the illegal Mexican immigrants provide an apparently much needed work-force while the cost is increased social services and lawlessness. In the ideal case this cost/benefit is balanced. In some cases, such as accepting refugees, it is not, but the hope is that in the long-term it becomes balanced. The benefit we see in such cases is that refugees will adopt our way of life and, at least, become productive members of society or, at most, someday help to spread our way of life back to where they came from.
"Our way of life." Integration is at the heart of many social ills in this and other countries all over the world. This country is better than most at integration. This is because it is so young and was, from the beginning, multicultural. This country has a very high degree of tolerance for cultural differences so long as you believe in freedom, "Our way of life." Take this in comparison to say, the U.K., where up until quite recently, people still died over the difference between Catholic and Protestant. The U.S. is very tolerant with the simple cost that you be a law abiding citizen and respect bounds established by the constitution, "Our way of life."
Where the U.S generates social ills for itself is when it relaxes that restriction. More rights for criminals, lesser sentences, liberal interpretation of the law and, in some cases, sanctioned complete disregard for the law all contribute to un-rest. Where is really falls down on the integration matter, though, is with inequitable application of the law across different cultural groups. Some cultures are encouraged to express their culture while others are repressed. Whatever side you fall on any of the many debates in this area, there are anecdotes supporting both sides.
Emphasizing the differences between Americans has the tendency to create multiple social groups. When these social groups identify with each other more strongly than they identify with the country they live in, it weakens the country. When a leader steps up to speak to the people, that leader should say something like "We are all Americans, striving for freedom and prosperity, yada, yada" instead of the usual "We are all Americans, whether black, white, rich, poor, Christian or Muslim, yada, yada." The candidates who see "two Americas" fundamentally don't get this.
The 1990's in Yugoslavia illustrated what happens when the solidarity of a nation breaks down and is replaced with multiple cultural units. People have a strong need to be nationalistic. A couple of genocides, failed war crimes tribunals and a multi-year war later and finally folks have sorted themselves out and retreated to their corners. Multiple corners. You do not see the various culture living in harmony, there, as you largely do in the U.S. Nope. They each have to have their own country.
In Europe, for the last, I'd guess 30 years or so, North African Muslims have been coming to live. I remember first getting an understanding of this about seven years ago. On that tragic day, the Concorde hit a small piece of shrapnel on the runway at takeoff from Charles DeGaule International airport. Shortly thereafter, the airplane hit a hotel described at the time as residence for Algerian Muslims most probably on state assistance.
The only notable thing that occurred to me at the time was that France had a similar situation to what the U.S. has with Mexican immigration. More recently, the ramifications of this have become more apparent. Possibly to us all. For all of Europe's liberal policies, Europeans are still very culturally conservative. Ask a German about an Italian, an Italian about the Swiss, anyone about the French, or a Dane about anyone at all and you will often get vitriol you might expect from a redneck with a confederate flag in the rear window of his truck when asked about Black Americans, 30 years ago. To an American, hearing it for the first time, this would be shocking.
As a result, as these immigrants have poured in from North Africa, they have been the subject of unequal treatment and have tended gather into communities. These immigrants have very strong cultural bonds, both racial and religious. They have not been encouraged to assimilate the culture of their new country. The result is an astounding problem. Europe is developing nations within their nations. Last year, the youth riots in France over labor laws, if you dug a very little deeper, were easily discovered to be Muslim riots. In countries all over Europe, in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, non-Muslims are having to adopt Muslim practices to avoid abuse (such as head-scarves for women.) Even today, news comes out of Europe where communities are asking for Sharia law to be legitimately recognized inside of Muslim communities.
The natural extension of this is when the Muslim populations get large enough, they will ask for Sharia to become the law of the nation. And, yes, the populations will get large enough. Europeans have a very low birth-rate, so immigration is the dominant source of population replacement and growth. Further, immigrants tend to have a higher birth-rate than natural born citizens. A sign that this progression is occurring will be when, I predict within the next 10 years, we start seeing an increase in immigration from Europe to the U.S.
Lets hope that when this happens, The U.S. is smart enough make sure these immigrants share our values and are encouraged to integrate.
Immigration always is a balance between cost and benefits. The benefits are usually financial. For instance, the illegal Mexican immigrants provide an apparently much needed work-force while the cost is increased social services and lawlessness. In the ideal case this cost/benefit is balanced. In some cases, such as accepting refugees, it is not, but the hope is that in the long-term it becomes balanced. The benefit we see in such cases is that refugees will adopt our way of life and, at least, become productive members of society or, at most, someday help to spread our way of life back to where they came from.
"Our way of life." Integration is at the heart of many social ills in this and other countries all over the world. This country is better than most at integration. This is because it is so young and was, from the beginning, multicultural. This country has a very high degree of tolerance for cultural differences so long as you believe in freedom, "Our way of life." Take this in comparison to say, the U.K., where up until quite recently, people still died over the difference between Catholic and Protestant. The U.S. is very tolerant with the simple cost that you be a law abiding citizen and respect bounds established by the constitution, "Our way of life."
Where the U.S generates social ills for itself is when it relaxes that restriction. More rights for criminals, lesser sentences, liberal interpretation of the law and, in some cases, sanctioned complete disregard for the law all contribute to un-rest. Where is really falls down on the integration matter, though, is with inequitable application of the law across different cultural groups. Some cultures are encouraged to express their culture while others are repressed. Whatever side you fall on any of the many debates in this area, there are anecdotes supporting both sides.
Emphasizing the differences between Americans has the tendency to create multiple social groups. When these social groups identify with each other more strongly than they identify with the country they live in, it weakens the country. When a leader steps up to speak to the people, that leader should say something like "We are all Americans, striving for freedom and prosperity, yada, yada" instead of the usual "We are all Americans, whether black, white, rich, poor, Christian or Muslim, yada, yada." The candidates who see "two Americas" fundamentally don't get this.
The 1990's in Yugoslavia illustrated what happens when the solidarity of a nation breaks down and is replaced with multiple cultural units. People have a strong need to be nationalistic. A couple of genocides, failed war crimes tribunals and a multi-year war later and finally folks have sorted themselves out and retreated to their corners. Multiple corners. You do not see the various culture living in harmony, there, as you largely do in the U.S. Nope. They each have to have their own country.
In Europe, for the last, I'd guess 30 years or so, North African Muslims have been coming to live. I remember first getting an understanding of this about seven years ago. On that tragic day, the Concorde hit a small piece of shrapnel on the runway at takeoff from Charles DeGaule International airport. Shortly thereafter, the airplane hit a hotel described at the time as residence for Algerian Muslims most probably on state assistance.
The only notable thing that occurred to me at the time was that France had a similar situation to what the U.S. has with Mexican immigration. More recently, the ramifications of this have become more apparent. Possibly to us all. For all of Europe's liberal policies, Europeans are still very culturally conservative. Ask a German about an Italian, an Italian about the Swiss, anyone about the French, or a Dane about anyone at all and you will often get vitriol you might expect from a redneck with a confederate flag in the rear window of his truck when asked about Black Americans, 30 years ago. To an American, hearing it for the first time, this would be shocking.
As a result, as these immigrants have poured in from North Africa, they have been the subject of unequal treatment and have tended gather into communities. These immigrants have very strong cultural bonds, both racial and religious. They have not been encouraged to assimilate the culture of their new country. The result is an astounding problem. Europe is developing nations within their nations. Last year, the youth riots in France over labor laws, if you dug a very little deeper, were easily discovered to be Muslim riots. In countries all over Europe, in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, non-Muslims are having to adopt Muslim practices to avoid abuse (such as head-scarves for women.) Even today, news comes out of Europe where communities are asking for Sharia law to be legitimately recognized inside of Muslim communities.
The natural extension of this is when the Muslim populations get large enough, they will ask for Sharia to become the law of the nation. And, yes, the populations will get large enough. Europeans have a very low birth-rate, so immigration is the dominant source of population replacement and growth. Further, immigrants tend to have a higher birth-rate than natural born citizens. A sign that this progression is occurring will be when, I predict within the next 10 years, we start seeing an increase in immigration from Europe to the U.S.
Lets hope that when this happens, The U.S. is smart enough make sure these immigrants share our values and are encouraged to integrate.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
March 11 - A Little Crazy
About ten or twelve years ago I found conspiracy theories to be very interesting. It was the era of Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians. People saw black helicopters everywhere. Over time, I came to see that politicians are too fractious and, well, apparently incompetent to be so well organized. However, there is always that old saying about paranoia, "Just because you are paranoid does not mean they aren't really out to get you." The fact is there are large and very secretive organizations where the world's policy makers meet and what they decide or discuss at these meetings is not transparent to the rest of us.
Old habits die hard. I saw a black helicopter yesterday. Not really, that's just a metaphor. What I saw was a Chase Bank advertisement on TV and something just clicked. In the ad the sides of their squarish logo rotate and as they come together I was very strongly reminded of a swastika. How odd. Why, I thought, would a company intentionally use a logo that reminds a person of a swastika? We are not so over our collective guilt for what the Nazis did in W.W. II that this symbol does not evoke very strong emotions.
I was so strongly reminded that I decide to see if I was not alone. I did what anyone would do today, Google! I searched on "Chase swastika" and immediately got a hit with a fairly straightforward link. Chase, the claim is, is run by the Rockefellers. For those that remember their pre-W.W. II history, the Rockefellers were like many families that made their fortune during the industrial age, they were Nazi sympathizers. Like Ford. Like Hearst. Like Mellon. Like DuPont. Many of these folks believed in eugenics and utopia and saw the Nazis as an organization striving for those ideals.
So today you have this Rockefeller controlled bank displaying a swastika embedded in it's logo? This is clearly a subversive plot to get us all to think like Nazis, right? Because that is what smart people do, right? Advertise their subversive intentions? Maybe not.
Ten years ago, Motorola proudly introduced a new ad campaign with the tag line "Motorola gives you wings." The T.V. ad had this beautiful dove winging it's way through a city with a voice over and, I think, the Rolling Stones tune "You Can't Always Get What You Want" playing. At the end the dove morphed into the Motorola logo which is known as the bat-wing.
Those of us who were treated to an early view of this ad sat stunned. It was so completely clueless on three main points. 1) feminine products were being marketed at that time as having "wings". This might not be a positive association. 2) bats are not usually considered a good thing by the general public. Morphing a dove into a bat, less so. 3) The Rolling Stones never thought they'd get a single penny in ad revenue for that song. The point is that the management of a large company can be so disconnected from general society that they may and probably will miss something like a swastika embedded in a logo if you look at it the right way.
The most probable reason I saw a swastika is because the mind is an incredible pattern matching machine and the swastika is a powerful symbol with strong emotional content imprinted in us. Much like we see a face on the moon, or Virgin Marys in, well, just about everything. Most likely the folks who created and vetted the ad didn't form the same connection. In the immortal words of Jack, "You are so fired."
Old habits die hard. I saw a black helicopter yesterday. Not really, that's just a metaphor. What I saw was a Chase Bank advertisement on TV and something just clicked. In the ad the sides of their squarish logo rotate and as they come together I was very strongly reminded of a swastika. How odd. Why, I thought, would a company intentionally use a logo that reminds a person of a swastika? We are not so over our collective guilt for what the Nazis did in W.W. II that this symbol does not evoke very strong emotions.
I was so strongly reminded that I decide to see if I was not alone. I did what anyone would do today, Google! I searched on "Chase swastika" and immediately got a hit with a fairly straightforward link. Chase, the claim is, is run by the Rockefellers. For those that remember their pre-W.W. II history, the Rockefellers were like many families that made their fortune during the industrial age, they were Nazi sympathizers. Like Ford. Like Hearst. Like Mellon. Like DuPont. Many of these folks believed in eugenics and utopia and saw the Nazis as an organization striving for those ideals.
So today you have this Rockefeller controlled bank displaying a swastika embedded in it's logo? This is clearly a subversive plot to get us all to think like Nazis, right? Because that is what smart people do, right? Advertise their subversive intentions? Maybe not.
Ten years ago, Motorola proudly introduced a new ad campaign with the tag line "Motorola gives you wings." The T.V. ad had this beautiful dove winging it's way through a city with a voice over and, I think, the Rolling Stones tune "You Can't Always Get What You Want" playing. At the end the dove morphed into the Motorola logo which is known as the bat-wing.
Those of us who were treated to an early view of this ad sat stunned. It was so completely clueless on three main points. 1) feminine products were being marketed at that time as having "wings". This might not be a positive association. 2) bats are not usually considered a good thing by the general public. Morphing a dove into a bat, less so. 3) The Rolling Stones never thought they'd get a single penny in ad revenue for that song. The point is that the management of a large company can be so disconnected from general society that they may and probably will miss something like a swastika embedded in a logo if you look at it the right way.
The most probable reason I saw a swastika is because the mind is an incredible pattern matching machine and the swastika is a powerful symbol with strong emotional content imprinted in us. Much like we see a face on the moon, or Virgin Marys in, well, just about everything. Most likely the folks who created and vetted the ad didn't form the same connection. In the immortal words of Jack, "You are so fired."
Friday, March 9, 2007
March 10 - 2nd Amendment Victory
A case has been in review for a while in D.C. This case is important for two reasons. One is that it is reviewing the rights of an individual to keep and bear arms. The other is that this review is being held in a Federal Court of Appeals. Why this is important is because the decision, depending on which way it goes, will set the course for gun ownership rights for a long time to come. This is one of the first serious challenges to the second amendment to come along in several years. It is made serious by virtue of the fact that the challenge comes in a federal jurisdiction, bypassing all the state level challenges that don't mean so much.
The four year old case is challenging D.C.'s law that prohibits personal ownership and possession of pistols in ones own home. Most federal courts hold the opinion that the second amendment pertains to the right of states to have an armed militia, not that the individual has a right to own a firearm. The Supreme Court has not ruled on this matter in since the 1930's. If the decision were to come down in favor of the law, it would establish an opinion by a federal court that would be unlikely to survive further challenge and severely weaken gun ownership rights in this country.
Today, it was announced that the appeals court had the good sense to overturn D.C.'s law. Washington city leadership has vowed to appeal which all but assures that this matter will come before the supreme court. Given the present makeup of the SCOTUS, there is an excellent chance that the country will return to a condition where the second amendment has a more similar meaning to that intended by the country's founders.
D.C.'s leaders all say that their intent is to reduce gun violence. It is odd that their position is at odds with the verified findings of the last ten years that improving access to firearms tends to curb violent crime while increasing property crime. It seems that when you make owning a firearm a crime, the law abiding turn in their guns but those who don't abide by the law keep theirs. All over the country, where states have enacted concealed carry laws there has been a corresponding and correlated reduction in violent crime.
Maybe with this ruling, D.C.'s leaders will get the reduced violence they want. I wonder which they want more?
The four year old case is challenging D.C.'s law that prohibits personal ownership and possession of pistols in ones own home. Most federal courts hold the opinion that the second amendment pertains to the right of states to have an armed militia, not that the individual has a right to own a firearm. The Supreme Court has not ruled on this matter in since the 1930's. If the decision were to come down in favor of the law, it would establish an opinion by a federal court that would be unlikely to survive further challenge and severely weaken gun ownership rights in this country.
Today, it was announced that the appeals court had the good sense to overturn D.C.'s law. Washington city leadership has vowed to appeal which all but assures that this matter will come before the supreme court. Given the present makeup of the SCOTUS, there is an excellent chance that the country will return to a condition where the second amendment has a more similar meaning to that intended by the country's founders.
D.C.'s leaders all say that their intent is to reduce gun violence. It is odd that their position is at odds with the verified findings of the last ten years that improving access to firearms tends to curb violent crime while increasing property crime. It seems that when you make owning a firearm a crime, the law abiding turn in their guns but those who don't abide by the law keep theirs. All over the country, where states have enacted concealed carry laws there has been a corresponding and correlated reduction in violent crime.
Maybe with this ruling, D.C.'s leaders will get the reduced violence they want. I wonder which they want more?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
March 9 - What a Moron
I guess we now know why Newt has not been all that hot to hop on the presidential race-horse. Turns out that even as his Congress was teaching former President Clinton a thing or two about the meaning of the word "is", Newt was getting a little something on the side. News Story Here
What is it with these people? Maybe I'm the strange one. I just don't see the attraction of extra marital affairs. I'm sure the risk is exciting and all and that new relationship smell just can't be beat, but those new sports cars just cost so darned much. Besides that, unless you pay it off, you still have to make the payments on the old car. The only sensible thing to do in those situations, if you really can not live with your old, er, car, is to properly trade in the old one before buying a new one. And don't bother with test drives. What was I writing about again? Oh yeah...
It's a shame, because I think Newt would generally make a good President, but his personal flaws are likely to make him un-electable.
P.S. I plan to drive my present car until the wheels fall off and then I'll just sit there and listen to the radio so don't anyone go getting the wrong ideas.
What is it with these people? Maybe I'm the strange one. I just don't see the attraction of extra marital affairs. I'm sure the risk is exciting and all and that new relationship smell just can't be beat, but those new sports cars just cost so darned much. Besides that, unless you pay it off, you still have to make the payments on the old car. The only sensible thing to do in those situations, if you really can not live with your old, er, car, is to properly trade in the old one before buying a new one. And don't bother with test drives. What was I writing about again? Oh yeah...
It's a shame, because I think Newt would generally make a good President, but his personal flaws are likely to make him un-electable.
P.S. I plan to drive my present car until the wheels fall off and then I'll just sit there and listen to the radio so don't anyone go getting the wrong ideas.
March 8 - Are Unions Still Relevant Part I - History
Right now, in congress, a bill is being discussed known as the "Employee Free Choice Act" which will greatly increase the power of Unions in their ability to "unionize" a company. This begs for analysis, but before the relative goodness of this bill is considered, a review of labor unions, their purposes and the effects of their existence is called for. Today we'll have a brief review of the history of modern labor unions and we'll see if their historical relevance persists today.
Labor Unions have a long history (over 300 years) but in the U.S. they only became popular a little more than a hundred years ago. As the industrial revolution took hold in the western world and concepts of labor progressed beyond the artisan stage, it seemed clear that, unfettered, business was abusing employees. Most of us are vaguely familiar with the concepts of labor at the time: low wages, long hours, dangerous environments, abusive management. Business treated labor as slaves, more or less. Labor had to be compensated, yes, but in comparison, most slave owners understood that they had to keep their slaves healthy. The free labor market had no such restriction, freely replacing one unhealthy unskilled laborer with another. This is the environment that industrialization combined with mass collusion between employers permitted.
This was still a time when class differences were extremely obvious and the desire to maintain separation between the classes bred a lot of callous attitudes. I think this is difficult to comprehend, today, when most of us try to make the world a fair place. I mean, we abstractly understand the idea of a slave-owner not seeing his slave as a fellow human but most of us can not imagine what it means to have such a belief. Similarly, the employing class saw themselves as distinctly superior to the employed and many saw no wrong in the way the employed were treated. In fact, many saw the treatment as deserved for imagined cheating on the part of the worker. If you have any doubt, I will, again, refer you to “A Message To Garcia” by Elbert Hubbard. Take a moment to read it. It won’t take too long. While the positive message of that essay has merit, the negative message carries an all too unfortunately accurate representation of attitudes at the time.
In this environment, unions were formed to right some clear wrongs. At first the economic strength of the businesses was turned on the employees in the form of lost wages, lost jobs and application of violence and sometimes death. Just to be clear, police were called upon by employers to beat workers who refused to work (and they did.) In time, though, the strength of unions grew to the point where, by soon after WWI, they had sufficient bargaining power to 1) improve working conditions and 2) effectively lobby for changes to federal law that protected the workers. Though the means the various unions used to accomplish this, most notably the Teamsters, was often just as dirty as the tactics of the employers, up until around the end of the new deal, when the federal government became one of the largest employers in the country, it seems un-arguable that unions served a valid purpose.
Do any of these sorts of conditions exist in this country today? If so, do they exist in the industries where the Teamsters, Longshoremen, AFL/CIO, UAW and other major unions are active? At least with that qualification, I think the answer is a resounding no. Complaints of workers seeking to form unions today mostly center around wages. A big difference in the wage equation, today, is that collusion between employers to set wages is explicitly illegal and most employers have learned that there is a value in maintaining a skilled workforce. Industry has long since discovered that the completely mindless jobs created at the dawn of the industrial age did not result in high productivity. Once this is established, the bargaining power of the individual becomes much more similar to their real value as an employee.
This is not to say that abuses do not still exist. This is to say that today the magnitude of the abuses is not even a pale shadow of what employees suffered in the first half of the last century. Today, an abusive boss is one who is perpetually derogatory or verbally abusive, not one who physically applies a number nine boot to one’s backside or has the local constable give you a caning for delinquency. The wrongs of the early 1900’s have been righted. In this respect, unions are no longer relevant.
Labor Unions have a long history (over 300 years) but in the U.S. they only became popular a little more than a hundred years ago. As the industrial revolution took hold in the western world and concepts of labor progressed beyond the artisan stage, it seemed clear that, unfettered, business was abusing employees. Most of us are vaguely familiar with the concepts of labor at the time: low wages, long hours, dangerous environments, abusive management. Business treated labor as slaves, more or less. Labor had to be compensated, yes, but in comparison, most slave owners understood that they had to keep their slaves healthy. The free labor market had no such restriction, freely replacing one unhealthy unskilled laborer with another. This is the environment that industrialization combined with mass collusion between employers permitted.
This was still a time when class differences were extremely obvious and the desire to maintain separation between the classes bred a lot of callous attitudes. I think this is difficult to comprehend, today, when most of us try to make the world a fair place. I mean, we abstractly understand the idea of a slave-owner not seeing his slave as a fellow human but most of us can not imagine what it means to have such a belief. Similarly, the employing class saw themselves as distinctly superior to the employed and many saw no wrong in the way the employed were treated. In fact, many saw the treatment as deserved for imagined cheating on the part of the worker. If you have any doubt, I will, again, refer you to “A Message To Garcia” by Elbert Hubbard. Take a moment to read it. It won’t take too long. While the positive message of that essay has merit, the negative message carries an all too unfortunately accurate representation of attitudes at the time.
In this environment, unions were formed to right some clear wrongs. At first the economic strength of the businesses was turned on the employees in the form of lost wages, lost jobs and application of violence and sometimes death. Just to be clear, police were called upon by employers to beat workers who refused to work (and they did.) In time, though, the strength of unions grew to the point where, by soon after WWI, they had sufficient bargaining power to 1) improve working conditions and 2) effectively lobby for changes to federal law that protected the workers. Though the means the various unions used to accomplish this, most notably the Teamsters, was often just as dirty as the tactics of the employers, up until around the end of the new deal, when the federal government became one of the largest employers in the country, it seems un-arguable that unions served a valid purpose.
Do any of these sorts of conditions exist in this country today? If so, do they exist in the industries where the Teamsters, Longshoremen, AFL/CIO, UAW and other major unions are active? At least with that qualification, I think the answer is a resounding no. Complaints of workers seeking to form unions today mostly center around wages. A big difference in the wage equation, today, is that collusion between employers to set wages is explicitly illegal and most employers have learned that there is a value in maintaining a skilled workforce. Industry has long since discovered that the completely mindless jobs created at the dawn of the industrial age did not result in high productivity. Once this is established, the bargaining power of the individual becomes much more similar to their real value as an employee.
This is not to say that abuses do not still exist. This is to say that today the magnitude of the abuses is not even a pale shadow of what employees suffered in the first half of the last century. Today, an abusive boss is one who is perpetually derogatory or verbally abusive, not one who physically applies a number nine boot to one’s backside or has the local constable give you a caning for delinquency. The wrongs of the early 1900’s have been righted. In this respect, unions are no longer relevant.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
March 7 - Arcane Practices of Selling to Large Businesses
Just about anyone who interacts with large corporations wonders at their strange policies and procedures. As a participant in a very small business who does business with very large businesses, I get to navigate this veritable minefield of “gotchas” from time to time when trying to sell my products and services. Normally you’d think that all you have to do to do business is convince someone with money that what you have to sell is worth the exchange, much like we experience when we go to the store and decide whether to buy Coke or Pepsi. Not so, selling to a large corporation.
After you convince someone that they want to buy your product, you then have to navigate an organization known as “purchasing” whose purpose is to perform the actual spending act that your customer had budget for. Now you have to convince the folks in this organization, too, and they have different qualifiers. They aren’t concerned with your product’s or service’s ability to solve problems for their co-worker. They are concerned with the question of are you worthy to do business with corporation XYZ.
Worthiness is composed of many things, almost wholly unrelated to what you do to make money. Are you ISO 9000 certified? Do you have corporate revenues of $50,000,000 per year? Do you carry liability insurance of $1,000,000 per incidence? Are you Sarbanes-Oxley compliant (even if you are not legally required to be, in which case, how would you know?) Have you executed a vendor approval legal agreement? Are your accounting systems compatible with their accounting systems? Have you implemented 6Sigma (a gamers quality system if there ever was one)? And, my personal favorite, have you negotiated the standard corporate discount (often before the price of the product has been set)? To someone anxious to make a sale, this list seems interminable and satisfaction of the terms insurmountable.
For those that work with professional salespeople in the technical world, know that knowledge of how to navigate this business process landmine is one of their most valuable contributions to the process. These folks often understand these processes better than the customers themselves. I’ve found it usual that salespeople know far more about corporate structure and practices than I do in most large companies I’ve worked for and they’ve certainly helped me get products into my customers and get money out.
Large providers who have already got themselves on the “preferred provider” list like things this way. They take advantage of it to keep small providers from competing with new ideas and products. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they also take advantage of this to keep small providers from competing on price. Large corporations are supposed to be enjoying “economies of scale”. In reality large providers also have all those purchasing in-efficiencies along with a lot of other bureaucratic overhead (a topic for another day) which more than eliminate the benefits of scale. Unfortunately, one of the greatest costs a small business has is cost of sales. The sales process represents a huge investment in resources (time, money, material, personnel) for something that does not have an assured product. By promoting this purchasing situation, large corporations vastly increase cost of sales for small companies while nearly completely bypassing these costs, themselves.
So what is a small company to do? Aside from actually satisfying the requirements, there are exactly three practices that I’ve seen work which may or may not be palatable or practical.
The first is to be acquired by a large company that already meets the requirements. If the sale is large, this may be just the exit strategy you need to profit from your small business. With the right acquisition deal, you may even still enjoy doing what you are passionate about, though under the umbrella of a new corporation.
The second is to find a large corporation willing to work as a proxy for yours. You’ll have to negotiate qualification with them, but it should be a much lower burden. These companies are often called distributors or aggregators, though any current provider to your customer will suffice. They have already become qualified vendors. In many cases this is the sole purpose for their existence. The disadvantage with this approach is the traditional cost of the middleman. They have to make money also, after all.
The third is a bit of a trick and takes some time and foresight. Identify a small company with a low barrier to sales that, and this part is key, is very likely to be acquired by the large company you want to do business with. Once the acquisition is complete, you are already on the approved vendor list. This takes time, but so does the standard approval process. The benefit is that you also get to sell to the acquiree in the meantime at zero additional sales effort.
This all highlights one of the major inanities of being an approved vendor. You only need to scale the barriers to get on the list, not to stay on the list. Once you are on the list, enjoy it and consider how you can use that to help other small companies and thereby find profit.
After you convince someone that they want to buy your product, you then have to navigate an organization known as “purchasing” whose purpose is to perform the actual spending act that your customer had budget for. Now you have to convince the folks in this organization, too, and they have different qualifiers. They aren’t concerned with your product’s or service’s ability to solve problems for their co-worker. They are concerned with the question of are you worthy to do business with corporation XYZ.
Worthiness is composed of many things, almost wholly unrelated to what you do to make money. Are you ISO 9000 certified? Do you have corporate revenues of $50,000,000 per year? Do you carry liability insurance of $1,000,000 per incidence? Are you Sarbanes-Oxley compliant (even if you are not legally required to be, in which case, how would you know?) Have you executed a vendor approval legal agreement? Are your accounting systems compatible with their accounting systems? Have you implemented 6Sigma (a gamers quality system if there ever was one)? And, my personal favorite, have you negotiated the standard corporate discount (often before the price of the product has been set)? To someone anxious to make a sale, this list seems interminable and satisfaction of the terms insurmountable.
For those that work with professional salespeople in the technical world, know that knowledge of how to navigate this business process landmine is one of their most valuable contributions to the process. These folks often understand these processes better than the customers themselves. I’ve found it usual that salespeople know far more about corporate structure and practices than I do in most large companies I’ve worked for and they’ve certainly helped me get products into my customers and get money out.
Large providers who have already got themselves on the “preferred provider” list like things this way. They take advantage of it to keep small providers from competing with new ideas and products. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they also take advantage of this to keep small providers from competing on price. Large corporations are supposed to be enjoying “economies of scale”. In reality large providers also have all those purchasing in-efficiencies along with a lot of other bureaucratic overhead (a topic for another day) which more than eliminate the benefits of scale. Unfortunately, one of the greatest costs a small business has is cost of sales. The sales process represents a huge investment in resources (time, money, material, personnel) for something that does not have an assured product. By promoting this purchasing situation, large corporations vastly increase cost of sales for small companies while nearly completely bypassing these costs, themselves.
So what is a small company to do? Aside from actually satisfying the requirements, there are exactly three practices that I’ve seen work which may or may not be palatable or practical.
The first is to be acquired by a large company that already meets the requirements. If the sale is large, this may be just the exit strategy you need to profit from your small business. With the right acquisition deal, you may even still enjoy doing what you are passionate about, though under the umbrella of a new corporation.
The second is to find a large corporation willing to work as a proxy for yours. You’ll have to negotiate qualification with them, but it should be a much lower burden. These companies are often called distributors or aggregators, though any current provider to your customer will suffice. They have already become qualified vendors. In many cases this is the sole purpose for their existence. The disadvantage with this approach is the traditional cost of the middleman. They have to make money also, after all.
The third is a bit of a trick and takes some time and foresight. Identify a small company with a low barrier to sales that, and this part is key, is very likely to be acquired by the large company you want to do business with. Once the acquisition is complete, you are already on the approved vendor list. This takes time, but so does the standard approval process. The benefit is that you also get to sell to the acquiree in the meantime at zero additional sales effort.
This all highlights one of the major inanities of being an approved vendor. You only need to scale the barriers to get on the list, not to stay on the list. Once you are on the list, enjoy it and consider how you can use that to help other small companies and thereby find profit.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
March 6 - Libby Found Guilty
After a little more than a week, the Libby trial ends with the jury finding Scooter guilty on 4 of, I think, 5 counts. Barring winning an appeal, or a subsequent presidential pardon, this could lead to as much as 25 years in jail. Greatest likelihood has him sentenced to less than 3 years, though.
There's not a lot to write, here, that hasn't been written before. I am reading a lot a praise and validation being laid on the jury. I find this out of line with the quality of the questions that were asked of the judge during deliberations.
I can not fathom why, when no crime was found, the investigation simply wasn't folded up and shelved. This smacked of a witch hunt before and still does now.
There's not a lot to write, here, that hasn't been written before. I am reading a lot a praise and validation being laid on the jury. I find this out of line with the quality of the questions that were asked of the judge during deliberations.
I can not fathom why, when no crime was found, the investigation simply wasn't folded up and shelved. This smacked of a witch hunt before and still does now.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
March 5 - Why?
The next few days are going to be quite busy for me so the posts will be light. For today, I leave you to ponder only... Why?
p.s. Follow the link.
.
.
.
Oh, shoot, I feel compelled to write something, anyway. It seems that this guy just could not help "sharpening the axe" much too much.
p.s. Follow the link.
.
.
.
Oh, shoot, I feel compelled to write something, anyway. It seems that this guy just could not help "sharpening the axe" much too much.
March 4 - Words we can't say.
Language changes. However much it may dismay us, this we pretty much have to accept unless we wish to emulate the French with their obsession over language purity. Words change meaning, new words come into use and old words disappear. The problems is, words are symbols, often with more meaning than their definition. Sometimes, such symbols are adopted for other meanings. For instance, just about all the words used to identify African Americans were, at one time, not offensive. Over time they became offensive, in addition to their non-offensive meaning.
Ann Coulter has found herself in a bit of hot water over the use of one such word. That word used to mean a bundle of sticks and the shortened form of the word is still used to reference a cigarette. She was unambiguous, however, having uttered it explicitly to invoke fury from those who find it offensive.
Sometimes words are only offensive in context. Both presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama claimed to have mis-spoken, recently, and wound up issuing public apologies over the use of the word, "Wasted". An interesting thing about words is that they can be used precisely the same way in pretty much the same context by two different people and still mean two different things. Such is the case, here, but both were called on to apologize and both did. The thing is, while McCains apology was probably sincere, it appeared to be pandering as a response to a call for apology from the DNC. Given his ability for elocution, I'm sure Obama's apology sounded sincere, but since we know his position on the war, I think we know that "Wasted" was precisely the word he meant to use and only regretted the backlash, not the insult.
Ann Althouse is a Democratic Blogger and respected New York Times Columnist. Despite being a Democrat, she is largely loathed by the left wing blogosphere because she will not engage in the cognitive dissonance that is so often seen over there. For instance, though that group preaches peace and passivity 24/7, when Dick Cheney was recently targeted by an assassination attempt, their only remorse was that Dick wasn't a casualty. She has been writing recently about and event that occured at the law school she graduated from. Apparently, a law professor uttered some remarks about the Hmong (an ethinc group from Southern China and Northern Indo-China, near as I can tell) community that students representative found to be offensive, or think they would have, had they been there.
The thing is, maybe especially in law schools, professors have to be able to speak about the offensive. In fact, anyone who wishes to talk about the offensive needs to be able to say the words without the words themselves being offensive. This professor was probably engaging in discourse regarding the subject and making a point, not being a racist. We don't actually know because he has not publicly disclosed his side of the story. He probably doesn't feel he should have to.
George Carlin had his seven words, but I hear or read most of them at least once per week if not once per day. So, we have this new set of words we can not say and ideas we can not describe. Words such as "faggot" and "niggardly" can not even be used in a correct, non-offensive context because the word itself has become offensive. We have taken protection of other's feeling so far as to expunge society of any evidence of an idea. Not the idea itself, mind you, just the evidence of it. Freedom of speech my A$$.
I take hope, however, from the generation now in our schools. For, like generations past, they too take words and make them their own. I've mentioned before that I play World of Warcraft. Like many online games, aside from game play, it also provides the ability to converse with your fellow players. To say the age range is diverse is an understatement. I know people over 50 and people less than 10 that play the game. However, there is a fair population of pre-teens and teens. That generation have, in their turn to mangle the English language, hi-jacked the word "gay". They use it as a generic term to mean "stupid" without connotations of homosexuality.
This has already cause homosexual groups to protest the changing usage. A student was recently disciplined for it's use. I think I'm going to join the rising generation and say, "How gay".
Ann Coulter has found herself in a bit of hot water over the use of one such word. That word used to mean a bundle of sticks and the shortened form of the word is still used to reference a cigarette. She was unambiguous, however, having uttered it explicitly to invoke fury from those who find it offensive.
Sometimes words are only offensive in context. Both presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama claimed to have mis-spoken, recently, and wound up issuing public apologies over the use of the word, "Wasted". An interesting thing about words is that they can be used precisely the same way in pretty much the same context by two different people and still mean two different things. Such is the case, here, but both were called on to apologize and both did. The thing is, while McCains apology was probably sincere, it appeared to be pandering as a response to a call for apology from the DNC. Given his ability for elocution, I'm sure Obama's apology sounded sincere, but since we know his position on the war, I think we know that "Wasted" was precisely the word he meant to use and only regretted the backlash, not the insult.
Ann Althouse is a Democratic Blogger and respected New York Times Columnist. Despite being a Democrat, she is largely loathed by the left wing blogosphere because she will not engage in the cognitive dissonance that is so often seen over there. For instance, though that group preaches peace and passivity 24/7, when Dick Cheney was recently targeted by an assassination attempt, their only remorse was that Dick wasn't a casualty. She has been writing recently about and event that occured at the law school she graduated from. Apparently, a law professor uttered some remarks about the Hmong (an ethinc group from Southern China and Northern Indo-China, near as I can tell) community that students representative found to be offensive, or think they would have, had they been there.
The thing is, maybe especially in law schools, professors have to be able to speak about the offensive. In fact, anyone who wishes to talk about the offensive needs to be able to say the words without the words themselves being offensive. This professor was probably engaging in discourse regarding the subject and making a point, not being a racist. We don't actually know because he has not publicly disclosed his side of the story. He probably doesn't feel he should have to.
George Carlin had his seven words, but I hear or read most of them at least once per week if not once per day. So, we have this new set of words we can not say and ideas we can not describe. Words such as "faggot" and "niggardly" can not even be used in a correct, non-offensive context because the word itself has become offensive. We have taken protection of other's feeling so far as to expunge society of any evidence of an idea. Not the idea itself, mind you, just the evidence of it. Freedom of speech my A$$.
I take hope, however, from the generation now in our schools. For, like generations past, they too take words and make them their own. I've mentioned before that I play World of Warcraft. Like many online games, aside from game play, it also provides the ability to converse with your fellow players. To say the age range is diverse is an understatement. I know people over 50 and people less than 10 that play the game. However, there is a fair population of pre-teens and teens. That generation have, in their turn to mangle the English language, hi-jacked the word "gay". They use it as a generic term to mean "stupid" without connotations of homosexuality.
This has already cause homosexual groups to protest the changing usage. A student was recently disciplined for it's use. I think I'm going to join the rising generation and say, "How gay".
Friday, March 2, 2007
March 3 - Obama on Iran and Spider man
Yesterday, Barack Obama said he regards Iran as a threat and that Iran can not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. His proposal is to engage Iran in dialog in much the same way that the U.S. did with the U.S.S.R. during the cold war.
Truly stunning. This man with his keen insight into geopolitics need only sit back, wait 22 months and take the oath of office. So astounding is his proposal, the electorate has to realize that they could do no better.
What better way to bring someone around to your way of thinking than flattery. Engaging the U.S.S.R. on nuclear arms reduction was an act between relative equals. By engaging Iran similarly, the U.S. would be suggesting that Iran is its equal in negotiation. AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, YET. Sorry for yelling. What a moron.
This can not be. Maybe the U.S. should talk to them. Maybe the U.S. should engage in negotiation. However, during the negotiation, the true disparity in power should always be evident, if not looming. Iran should be allowed to find the a rational way to give up their nuclear program, the sole repayment for which is keeping the U.S. from bringing it's power to bear at great loss to Iran, perhaps while simultaneously permitting Iran to save their dignity. That is the greatest extent to concession which any negotiation with Iran should have.
The U.S. has great power. As Spidey's uncle said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Spider Man puts his suit on every day and uses his power to fight crime even as J. Jonah calls him a criminal. To not use his power, to pretend it doesn't exist, would be to abrogate his responsibility. It turns out, there is a lot to be learned from comic books.
Truly stunning. This man with his keen insight into geopolitics need only sit back, wait 22 months and take the oath of office. So astounding is his proposal, the electorate has to realize that they could do no better.
What better way to bring someone around to your way of thinking than flattery. Engaging the U.S.S.R. on nuclear arms reduction was an act between relative equals. By engaging Iran similarly, the U.S. would be suggesting that Iran is its equal in negotiation. AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, YET. Sorry for yelling. What a moron.
This can not be. Maybe the U.S. should talk to them. Maybe the U.S. should engage in negotiation. However, during the negotiation, the true disparity in power should always be evident, if not looming. Iran should be allowed to find the a rational way to give up their nuclear program, the sole repayment for which is keeping the U.S. from bringing it's power to bear at great loss to Iran, perhaps while simultaneously permitting Iran to save their dignity. That is the greatest extent to concession which any negotiation with Iran should have.
The U.S. has great power. As Spidey's uncle said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Spider Man puts his suit on every day and uses his power to fight crime even as J. Jonah calls him a criminal. To not use his power, to pretend it doesn't exist, would be to abrogate his responsibility. It turns out, there is a lot to be learned from comic books.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
March 2 - More Boston Madness, More Global Warming and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEXAS!
To Boston,
In the immortal words of Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch, "Here, educate yourself."
Best regards,
DepthsOfIgnorance
Soon after the debacle of Bostonians mistaking electric signs of cartoon characters for weapons of mass distruction, Boston has now taken to blowing up traffic monitors (the little black boxes, not the people.) Story and video here. That's right, it seems the traffic dept. put out a monitor to count passing cars and the bomb squad naturally saw that as an opportunity to set off some fire-crackers. What a bunch of nut-jobs.
***
Happy Birthday Texas! March 2, 1836 is when the Republic of Texas announced it's independence from Mexico, starting a war that would last, well, less than two months, really. It began with the siege of the Alamo, and we all remember that, right? It ended in April when General Sam Houston acquitted himself nicely at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. This battle, which lasted less than 20 minutes, decimated Santa Anna's force while only costing a handful of Texan casualties. I'm afraid the boys were a might ruthless, though, being a bit riled from Santa Anna's take no prisoners approach at the Alamo. All the same, they only killed a little over 1/4 of the Mexicans and they let Santa Anna live. Mighty generous, all things considered.
***
A trend is beginning to show in the environmental debate. Along with the increasingly shrill voices seeking to stifle debate on the issue, more attention is being paid to the contrary view, of late. Most recently, National Geographic published an article on Global Warming from a Russian Scientist. He posits a theory that actually correlates well with the temperature record linking the Sun's activity temperature change. He is not some crazy lone wolf, either. A prominent Environmental Geologist from Canada promotes a very similar theory and has a boatload of geologic records to corroborate the theory.
Setting the contravening theory aside, this trend could be for one of two reasons (oh, there may be others, but two will do for now.) Either man generated Global Warming is, in fact, fact and it just makes sensational news to run contrary news pieces or, the holes in man generated Global Warming theory are tearing so wide that it is about to implode like a shredded balloon and folks are finally waking up to the valid contrary arguments. It seems like Global Warming is going the way of the Ice Age and Malthusian scares in the 70's.
In the immortal words of Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch, "Here, educate yourself."
Best regards,
DepthsOfIgnorance
Soon after the debacle of Bostonians mistaking electric signs of cartoon characters for weapons of mass distruction, Boston has now taken to blowing up traffic monitors (the little black boxes, not the people.) Story and video here. That's right, it seems the traffic dept. put out a monitor to count passing cars and the bomb squad naturally saw that as an opportunity to set off some fire-crackers. What a bunch of nut-jobs.
***
Happy Birthday Texas! March 2, 1836 is when the Republic of Texas announced it's independence from Mexico, starting a war that would last, well, less than two months, really. It began with the siege of the Alamo, and we all remember that, right? It ended in April when General Sam Houston acquitted himself nicely at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. This battle, which lasted less than 20 minutes, decimated Santa Anna's force while only costing a handful of Texan casualties. I'm afraid the boys were a might ruthless, though, being a bit riled from Santa Anna's take no prisoners approach at the Alamo. All the same, they only killed a little over 1/4 of the Mexicans and they let Santa Anna live. Mighty generous, all things considered.
***
A trend is beginning to show in the environmental debate. Along with the increasingly shrill voices seeking to stifle debate on the issue, more attention is being paid to the contrary view, of late. Most recently, National Geographic published an article on Global Warming from a Russian Scientist. He posits a theory that actually correlates well with the temperature record linking the Sun's activity temperature change. He is not some crazy lone wolf, either. A prominent Environmental Geologist from Canada promotes a very similar theory and has a boatload of geologic records to corroborate the theory.
Setting the contravening theory aside, this trend could be for one of two reasons (oh, there may be others, but two will do for now.) Either man generated Global Warming is, in fact, fact and it just makes sensational news to run contrary news pieces or, the holes in man generated Global Warming theory are tearing so wide that it is about to implode like a shredded balloon and folks are finally waking up to the valid contrary arguments. It seems like Global Warming is going the way of the Ice Age and Malthusian scares in the 70's.
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