And what about our fellow humans?

Pretend for a minute that you have no political affiliation - not a Republican, not a Democrat - are just a human being.

Then ask yourself "What is the right thing to do? If a person is sick, should they be able to get medical attention? If they are pregnant?" - if your answer is "Yes", then you owe it to yourself to look at what the president is trying to accomplish.

If you don't agree with how it is proposed then look to change it - but not to stop it!

Taking care of one's fellow man is not Communist or Socialist or Nazi. As the only wealthy Democracy that doesn't do this, we are in a shameful place. As the wealthiest democracy in the world, we need to look at ourselves and know that we cannot ignore the problem anymore. We need to look beyond our own needs. People who are yelling about taxes being too high are only thinking of themselves. And it is not wrong to think of oneself, unless it is to the exclusion of others - which is what we are, in essence, nationally doing.

Having recently been hospitalized as a precaution (I had some chest pain which turned out to be muscular), I'm seeing how ridiculous the cost is: $11,000 for 16 hours in a hospital room, 1 xray and a stress test. That doesn't include doctors fees. Would I pay it for the assurance that I'm ok - yes - my cost is 10% and whatever overage the doctors will charge. If I didn't have insurance, I would either not get the treatment or pay this out of pocket. That is more than half of what poverty level workers make in a year.

The same people that are spreading fear about death boards who sentence Grandma to non-treatment are essentially actually sentencing a few million Grandma's to exactly that - if the effort fails, they will not be able to afford medical care. And yes - hospitals cannot turn people in crisis away, but if their life is not immediately in danger, they can be turned away. As we all know, emergency health care and health care are not the same - both are needed to keep a reasonable quality of life. It is not just for children (it is important that they are covered, but that's not the point. Everyone needs to be able to be covered).

Yes, the devil is in the details. We need to be involved. This cannot be a "let my congressman worry about it". But it also must be done. But for the grace of god, there go I. We owe it to our children and our parents, to our neighbors and our friends and to complete strangers alike. It is not entitlement - it is respect for human existence on a base level.

Write your Congressperson. Write your Senators. Ignore the rubbish that is coming out of the extreme media. Find the truth and spread it.

It seems to me that politics is no longer a game of representation. It has come down to a fight between two teams, to the death, to gain the upper hand, so the special interest money flows to the winner. Cynical? Yes. It is in this Arena that Mr. Obama finds himself fighting. He's not just fighting politicians, but big money. He is "Old Fashioned" - he is doing the right thing. It is important that we let our congresspersons and senators know that we know about their game - and if they don't reform insurance, don't reform healthcare - that we will need to replace them with someone who has the same old fashioned values - in the representation of the voting public. 

Live free or die...

Iran's Theocracy is working hard to blame the west for the protests, for the questioning of the vote. What I'd like to know is - why would we care? Do I want to see their Democratic process truly work - Yes! Do I care who is elected - no. I just care that they were elected fairly. But what I do care about is human rights and Iran's leadership is not showing the world what a charitable religion Islam can be. Instead, these dictators who are hiding under the shroud of democracy are forcing their will - like so many before, in every country on the planet. This is in the hands of the people of Iraq. The leaders need to understand that they lead, only because the public allows it. And they will either own up to it, or eventually see another revolution - not spurred by the west. Spurred by the right of every individual to live and think as the wish, as long as it doesn't harm others.

Today I read a short article that discusses how drug manufacturer Merck created their own medical journal to publish articles favorable to their products. FOX news routinely reports politically biased reports and conveys opinion as fact. If there is one danger with the internet and current media, it is this; That spin will be seen as fact due to exposure and frequency.

So how do wqe counteract this? Does creating more noise solve it? Perhaps, to some extent, getting fact out helps and using media that is willing to expose the lie, yes. But really, what needs to be done is harder than that. Americans need to be taught to understand how to research - how to get tot he facts, through the noise and they need to be motivated to do it. The people responsibile for this kind of deception largely count on a lazy and uncritical public.

It needs to start with our children and teach them how to discern. I've done this with my daughter, but it requires diligence and work and needs to be refreshed.

Hitler and the Nazi movement were masters of misinformation. They are an ultimate example of what can happen when we take biased material and present it as fact. Each bit of misinformation damages the truth, by making it seem like just another arguement in a sea of agruements. This is how evil gets it's way.

We will see in the coming months, attacks on facts regarding healthcare, business, fuel and other items related to the presidents agenda. We need to all do our part in educating our children, neighbors and friends regarding the myths. Businesses and political interests will pour millions into misinformation, to avoid losing the billions they currently recieve from the governement or in many cases, the lack of governement action. They will fight to defend the status quo. Change represents loss of revenue or loss of political advantage. We need to make sure that the truth is heard above their distraction and agenda's like healthcare for everyone be passed into law.

Time

Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, Email, Phone, IM - I have never had more ways to keep in contact - but face the same issues as we all do - time. I love to keep up with friends, but find it challenging timewise sometimes. 

What I need is a twitter device, hooked directly to my brain, where I could send and recive updates and do other stuff :) Ah well, to keep up with friends I will need to be single-tasking me and suck it up!

Social Responsibility

OK - so I’m going to bring it up again, because the president is about to take on healthcare. There are going to be special interests with huge media campaigns fighting him. But I urge everyone to consider why these interests feel so threatened - they will tell you that the government will decide your medical fate - that a politician will decide what doctors you see and who gets health care.

They will tell Doctors that they will lose income. They will warn you that your healthcare will be nationalized and subsequently suck - that it will be the worlds largest bureaucracy. They will tell you he is destroying the American dream, that hard work will no longer be able to allow one to “get ahead”. They will tell you that the system works and try to make every American think that the tax on big business is a tax on the everyday American. They will tell you the deficit will grow to a level that will drown our children. They will tell you it is socialism and communism. But it’s not. In fact, it is capitalism in it’s best light - working for the people.

The special interests? Banks. Insurance Companies. Big Oil. And the congress members that support them. Why? Because the president is planning on taking away the corporate windfall wealth that has been substituted for the care for the well being of the American people.

The truth? The deficit will go up, but it will be paid down. Insurance companies will have to compete for government business. It means that banks and student lenders would lose their taxpayer subsidies and require competition with each other to lend. Oil companies will lose their tax breaks. Competition for a tight dollar will keep costs reasonable. Competition is a basic principle of capitalism. These businesses know it will make them work harder. Conservative congressional Representatives and Senators see themselves losing corporate funding. Conservative state representatives, vested in the insurance industry see themselves losing revenue.

We must question true motives. The president doesn’t wish to spend money for the sake of it. His agenda is to improve our medicare system, to make insurance affordable (for both people and the businesses they work for), to increase revenues to pay for research into alternative energy and to make higher education more affordable and reachable.

These will strengthen the American dream, not undermine it. Because the dream is for all of us, not just a select few, not just the upper class, not just the middle class, but everyone. America is not a special interest. It is a diverse population, with many different ideas. Everyone needs to thrive for us to take advantage of it.

If everyone can eat, have a roof over their head, stay healthy and get an education, we can bring ourselves back into a relevant and competitive place in the world. Not only will our businesses thrive, but our people will too. Many other nations that are smaller, but more progressive, have already done this. It is time that we join them. This is how we sustain Democracy - through socially responsible capitalism - not through greed and special interest.

Party politics need to be put aside.

Congress - start thinking about the American people. Disagreements about what works? OK. then get experts together and have them work out the solution and then listen to them.

This has to be done without protectionism. My employer asks me to do my job in a way that plainly documents what I do. This allows anyone to eventually compete for my job. I keep my job because I perform well. You need to live by the same standard - and right now, congress (yes all of you) are not performing well.

It's not just money - programs that are there to help people need to genuinely do it. We need your work to be measured by the customer (that's constituent, not the lawmakers, not Federal or State executives). Because in the end, if the mortgage program does not keep people sheltered, if unemployment insurance does not get to the unemployed, if food or medical attention does not get to those that need it, in the proper time, then the programs are not doing what they need to do.

Stop screwing around. People are getting hurt. People are losing homes. People are starving.

Martin Luther King

I saw a newspaper article today asking if Martin Luther King’s vision had been achieved. They polled different ethnicities and 2/3 of African Americans felt it had and a smaller percentage of whites felt it had. But I think we need to face it – Martin Luther Kings vision was not just for black people. It was for all people.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."…

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" – MLK, 8/28/1963

We’re getting there. We have traveled very far since 1963 and we are better for it. We have achieved milestones along the way, including the election of Barak Obama. But when we need to ask “are we there?” we have to know we are not – when we get there, we will not be asking ourselves have we made it. We won’t recall that it is an issue we need to deal with. Our interaction with each other will be free of discrimination.

There is discrimination in many facets of our society – between classes, in politics, in ideology, in religion. Until our society can stop celebrating difference as a way to exclude, we cannot be there.

• We saw it recently in the form of discrimination against those who felt the war in Iraq was unjust.
• We see it in the saving of the middle class as a cause worth pursuing, but continue in ignorance or apathy in regard to of the plight of our own poor.
• We see discrimination in vilification of the wealthy as well.
• Some discriminate based on skin color still.
• Some discriminate on Religion (or a choice to forgo it – just look at Liz Dole’s attack against her political opponent, calling her an Atheist. )

In 2009, race is much less of an issue for us. Hallelujah! That deserves recognition. Let’s keep going. Let’s learn how we can unify through the idea of not only tolerance, but acceptance that others are different. Let’s celebrate difference as everyman’s privilege to be unique, to choose, to eat, with the understanding and caveat that personal belief should not be forced on others and shared only when invited.

I have a dream…
http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html

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!