Staying Alive

Reading about the Bush administrations terms to the Automakers and unions, he is forcing a reduction in union wages. From the first view, this might seem unfair - after all, the union negotiated wages in for these workers.

But what the unions don't seem to really get is that they are forcing non-competative condidtions on GM and subsequently, that product will cost too much to compete. 

The union releaseed statements saying that Bush is allowing foriegn companies to set the cost of American labor, but what he is really doiing is letting the market set it. 

Don't get me wrong - I'm at odds with Bush policy almost all of the time, but when I'm loaning the Auto industry money, I'm loaning it to the workers as well. Plenty of Americans work for Nissan and Toyota and make a good living doing it.

Some say this is a move by the administration to render the union irellevant. In truth, they already were, because they are dictating an unworkable situation. The union needs to let their workers work - recovery will mean sacrifices for everyone. The american taxpayer sacrifices by risking their money. The industry will have to radically reshape itself and the workers will need to work for market rates.

What is being offered is not starvation. It is possibly the same pay and in sme cases lower pay. What the incoming administration needs to do is to help those effected by the change in living conditions by making credit laws fare - allow the restructuring of personal debt, set caps on interest rates that are charged in unfair circumstance and offer consumer consolidation loans at low interest rates.

Unions want gauranteed pay and employment and need to realize their leverage is not good at this point - in order for them to have clout, the business needs to be strong - and it is not. They can best serve their members by making sure that work conditions continue to be safe and that wages do not drop below market norms. otherwise, they will find themselves standing outside, while their workers decide to leave them behind altogether.

To the victor belong the spoils

As we all likely realize, the current financial situation what it is, the world economy in decline, the winner of the presidential race also inherits the problems. It was mentioned that the recent meeting of world leaders on economic situations was reminiscent of the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. This is not without reason - the great depression of the 1930's left the world with substantial issues to deal with. What happened (for those who can't recall)?

• Business overvalued itself
• Markets crashed
• Banks failed
• Unemployment was driven to all time highs
• GNP fell
  

What was done at that time to lift the nation out of poverty was FDR's "New Deal". The nation lifted itself out of the situation. This was not accomplished by government or business alone - work was created to pull the national infrastructure into shape. TVA. WPA. Many others. These programs pushed us forward for decades - the power plant building, the building of roads and highways in the 40's and 50's.

We are at the same basic crossroads again. We need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps - and by the way, need to fix our aging infrastructure, much of which has not had a good upgrade since the last time this happened!

Republican plans to "spur" business with tax cuts are laughable. There is still no focus on the middle class or poor. No focus on the needs of people. They have lost their way, catering only to single issue voters and the rich. And just a reminder - our great country was founded on individual freedoms - freedom of religion and freedom of choice, which these single issue voters consistently wish to take away from the rest of the population, based on religious bias.

Obama's plan gets us farther and does it without bias. It does not punish business, but asks it to carry it's share. It helps people who cannot afford food and healthcare, gets those necessities.

If one asks oneself "Am I my brothers keeper" the short answer is "Yes." We need to take care of those who cannot or those who's circumstance has left them with nothing. I'm not talking just the traditional poor or welfare roles, but the retiree who's benefits are reduced or abandoned. The formerly employed bank employee who is now looking for work. The single mothers who are working multiple jobs and cannot afford daycare.

Tax credits can only help those who pay taxes. We need programs for those who cannot and we need programs to help those who do, stay afloat. It is time to concentrate on the country and reward businesses that help, by providing credits to them for job creation.

There is so much at stake on Tuesday. So much. We cannot go down the same road we have and expect different results. It's a definition of insanity.

Please vote for Obama!

The Slander Express

So much for straight talk. John McCain and Sarah Palin make Richard Nixon look like an honest man. The slander and bile they are spouting about Obama are trying to prey on peoples fears. What horsecrap.

For once, let's hear a candidate talk more about their plan than their opponent. Nothing that John McCain can tell me about Obama (or vice versa) means anything. Policy. Leadership.

I propose that in on 2011-2012 neither candidate is allowed more than one televised speech and are not allowed to mention each other or the other party. They can only talk about what they can do. A violation forfiets candidacy.

Obama won - but...

Both candidates said the same things they've been saying. Not one of them detailed their plans (and understandably, because until they're in office, they don't know what really can work and what congress will support) but they did not answer questions - especially when a lady asked if Health Care should be considered a commodity. It was useless watching them spew rhetoric without any new message or even twinkling of an indication of additional thought about the issues. Let's get this over with already.

Saving the leg, losing the patient.

I've found that man cannot survive on analysis alone. Analysis is necessary and helps us solve by deconstruction and isolation. Big picture problem solving needs to work differently. Aids, global warming and world hunger cannot be solved by analysis alone. The Macro picture must be understood by some, in order to coordinate analytic efforts and match them with planning, action and measurement.

These big picture issues are slow moving threats. Unlike disasters, like hurricanes, they occur over a long period of time. Our analysis solves some core problems, but cannot solve the over all unless brought into harmony with the other portions of the problem that need solving.

This concept applies even to your own person. An individual has diabetes, so he goes to an endocrinologies, who starts insulin therapy and monitors weight. The individual gets depressed because the insulin causes weight gain and also due to blood sugar drops and perhaps other unknown issues. The person goes to a Psychologist. For foot trouble, a podiatrist. The individual gets attention from 8 different doctors, who are not working in concert. Each issue is attended to and yet the individual is not healthy - in fact, they feel tired all of the time and suddenly run into kidney trouble. The individual needs to go on dialysis, which eventually causes an infection around the catheter in the shoulder. Still, nobody notices except nurses, that there is an infection, but since there is no single attending, when the issue is mentioned, the specialists leave it alone - until it is brought to the families attention - who realize there is no central doctor and try to involve one - but too late. The patients membrane around the brain is infected and the individual dies. Nobody's fault. Everyone was specializing - was analyzing in their small area. No generalist to coordinate, to holistically attend to the patient - to cure the whole individual. This is how my Dad died.

I bring it up as an example, not to engender sympathy, but to show that we need to have those generalists, those high level thinkers, who can coordinate and think about the bigger picture. It is part of what is wrong with many things. Medicine - per the example, sure. Special interests in government - absolutely.

Systems are not built to service the whole - only the most observable parts - the squeaky wheel as it were. Because we are human, we sometimes fall back and see these things inadvertently. We fix some of the larger issues sometimes. But it's still unfamiliar territory for us. We respond to 911, spending billions of dollars when individual risk is statistically infinitesimal and at the same time, spend only millions on Aids, which has killed over 45 million people. Global warming threatens the whole earth and we collectively still act like the addicted smoker and choose to turn our head away.

Analysis is a very needed skill. It needs to be balance with the ability to step back and understand when we need to think the other way as well.

Macworld this month tells me that I should be "protecting my Macintosh" with a virus checker - not because there are any viable Macintosh viruses around, but because I am otherwise potentially passing on PC viruses to other PC users.

In response, although I don't doubt they are right, I have this to say:

Active virus software, which scans i/o for your computer, does so by inserting itself in the hardware/driver space and slowing ALL red/write operations by scanning.  This can cut the speed of a computer by up to 50%. Why in the world would I do that?

I scan my computer with the excellent (and free) CLAMvx (a Mac version of the PC program) in order to ensure I have not done anything that will impact my fellow users. This is adequate given the potentional risk and does not denegrate the I/O of my machine. Secondly, it does not pay into the money machine that is the virus industry. I call it an industry because I am positive (my paranoia may be showing) that there are funded virus factories, building new viruses to drive the virus industry (and subsequently continue the need for the AV manufacturers.

If they really wanted to stop viruses, they would include it in server hardware and network hardware, where the analysis could be done without the overhead of software processing - perhaps using an onboard processor for the virus checker, with the code in flash memory allowing easy updating. This could help eliminate the problem at distribution points rather than at the individual computer.

But that would kill the market for AV at the much larger consumer endpoint and lord knows, we wouldn't want to do that. :)

Well Joe Biden it is then. 

Of course, the McCain camp immediatley attacked, indicating that Biden had dennounced Obama previously.

Let's not pretend that us voters are not aware that politicians play politics. These guys don't love each other. They are not best friends. That's why partners are veted. If they already loved each other, there would be a faster situation.

Let's also not pretend that that McCain will have any different a situation.

Biden was picked for foriegn policy, because McCain is supposedly experienced in foriegn policy. I'll give him that - he has experience. That does not mean he is good at it. If he were, he wouldn't have declared last year that "we won the cold war". What??!!

Even if we think we won, because the Russian people chose democracy (which by the way, looks an awful lot like the same Oligarchy that was in control before), an experienced statesman that was thinking soundly would not announce that. I'm sure if that statement was posed to Putin, he wouldn't be in agreement.

The cold war, like every war since WWII, was senseless. There were no winners. There were losers. The people of the Soviet Union and the people of the United States lost money and worry about each other. They lost a relationship. They lost because these politicians and warmongers could not come to the realization that progress can be defined on how we work together - or sometimes peaceful competition - but not through hate. Although hate driven work will seem like progress to some in the end - the more advanced missles we build, the more advanced we will need to build again. Let's not do that again (a not so subtle warning that we're crossing the line in our relationship with Russia once again).

So when it comes to the fundemental question of foriegn policy, the question is once again reduced to non ideal choices - not a question so much of who will do more - what is needed is cleary visible, but who will do less - to hurt the presently tentative situation in the world. We cannot afford another bumbling, incompetent leader, like we have in Bush. We cannot afford a war monger. We cannot afford someone who cannot reconcile themseves to that fact that nobody wins in war.

John “you lost me at Falwell” McCain, declares he is the candidate for the religious right once again and that life begins at conception. It appears that he is looking to use the old right-to-life, obviously-my-opponent-is-for-death ploy.




Never mind that Pro-Choicers are not anti-life. Abortion is not an argument that has two diametrically, 180 degree opposed sides. It’s not an all or nothing situation. Pro-Choice individuals are just that - they believe it is the Mother’s right to choose - and many even work very hard to help provide all of the options available, including adoption, surrogating and other options.




Never mind that he voted for a war that is killing people and ruining lives both in our country and in the middle east, not to mention, leaving a legacy of blood that will come back to haunt us for hundreds of years (doubt that? You can trace WWI back to Charlemagne - 1100 years).




But John McCain, who has been shamelessly kissing up to the right  - people he had fought with throughout his professional career until he needed their money and their votes - has left his fair campaigning to run a negative campaign. His campaign is more about his opponent than it is about him. Too bad. I once thought he was a man of integrity. I was wrong and I’m glad - better he show what he is capable of now than in the Whitehouse.




To parahrase the words of a political cartoon originally run about Eisenhower - “Beware the man on the white horse... better vote for Stevenson”,    “Beware the man on the (far) right horse... better vote for Barack.” - cause even if he isn’t, he sure is acting like he is.

I'm increasingly aware of the opportunity that has been pervasive in this country - always called the "Land of Opportunity" I hadn't appreciated it until more recent years. Hindesight being what it is - a clear view, shows me that I owe much to the fact that I live here. That's not to say we don't have a share of problems - talk to anyone here living under the poverty line and just like anywhere, their options are very limited - but even that is subject to opportunity, since there are more situations where a person could work themselves out of poverty than there are in the rest of the world.

As we see our own economy level with the rest of the world, we need to remind ourselves of the good situation we have had - and still have.  We also need to remember that it is not a us or them situation - presperity need not be only for one people. There are many situations that can be mutually beneficial and we need to look for opportunities where we  can benefit each other - no winners and losers. 

We must look out for our fellow beings, human and otherwise. This si social responsibility - it moves us to make our success the sucess of others as well - like "pay it forward" - that's a debt one pays to society, for the betterment of society. It's a good concept and a good waY for us to help others enjoy the prosperity and the priviledge we have.

Boumediene v. Bush

I find it interesting that the ACLU and Amnesty International both claim this victory (or come close) and are looking for donations based on the suit. Mayer-Brown took the case Pro Bono - and that's not to say that this is a victory for all  of us and that includes Amnesty and the ACLU, but the press for donation makes my question, at the end of the day, if self preservation doesn't weigh so hard that organizations like this won't identify the fact that they weren't funding  the work. Both organizations target admiirable goals, but I recieve so many printed requests and phone calls that I start to question the spending of funds and how much $$ actually to the aid of victims.

GITMO

The supereme court restored my faith in the system for now  "The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision Thursday asserting that foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo have an inherent constitutional right to challenge their detention in American courts marks an historic rebalancing of powers between the executive, Congress and the judiciary — one that many critics believe is a long overdue correction after years of executive overreach by the Bush administration." - Time Magazine Online, June 12

Not that I have an opinion about the guilt or innocence of these individuals. Just that our country is founded on certain inalienable rights (ring a constitutional bell?) and that nobody we deal with as a country, should be denied the right to a trial. Yes, the system can be manipulated. We need to be diligent. But we also need to understand the Paradox that Bush subscribes to - that liberty can be had by denying other liberty - is unconstitutional and the start down the slippery slope of oppression for "protection of the people". So it goes in dictatorships, but not in the country of Jefferson, my friends. 

Go home Mr. Bush and take your policy with you.

There's no time, no time! Saw a good production of the original "Odd Couple" at the Pittsburgh Public Theater - good show. Go see it if your near! Running for the next couple of weeks!

Just getting bi-focals one learns that "sight" is relative (in this case, to where one's nose is pointed).

It's going to take a bit of getting used to.

Privacy

It's hard to believe that Republicans are trying to make wiretapping laws permenant. There is nothing wrong with law enforcement having to get judicial approval to place a wiretap. In fact, I  have a hard time believing we would even allow it as a temporary measure.

If the law cannot prove to a judge the necessity of placing a tap, what possible reason can they have for placing it? Without a check in place, this power could devestate personal freedoms. Terrorism can come in the form of government invasion of privacy...