Nails on a chalkboard...

I was just listening to a rehash of Governor Palin’s keynote address at the Nashville Tea Party Convention and was struck absolutely dumb by one of her applause lines… that the United States needs “a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.” I’ve got a degree in political science and have watched candidates and elected officials since well before I could vote for any of them… and I have no idea what phrase actually means. I’m not sure anyone does. But to my horror the audience went wildly anyway.

As an aside, the sitting president, by definition, is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States (see Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution for reference purposes). In Article 2, Section 3, the Constitution also provides that the president will “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” For those of us who aren’t professors of law, that means that the president is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, among his other duties as assigned.

My point is simply this… Maybe knowing something about the law isn’t a bad thing if you want to be in charge of carrying them out. Having an education, whether it’s from Harvard, Frostburg, or Berkeley shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of or try to hide by dumbing down your vocabulary. What I basically heard a former governor say on television was that you shouldn’t be allowed to hold office if you’re too smart because you can’t understand the “common” man and woman. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m not comfortable with Joe Sixpack or Jane Hamburgerhelper setting foreign policy.

I think the thing that I find most troublesome about politics is the tendency of the masses to blame whoever happens to be in office for everything that happens. The reality is that the world we have today was built on a million small decisions by elected (and unelected) leaders who were Republicans and Democrats, Federalists, Whigs, Jeffersonian-Republicans, and others who had no party. The world is too complex to be effectively distilled into a 5 second sound bite. It’s nuanced and complicated… and it’s going to take more than “common sense” to correct the issues we face nationally and abroad.

If you want to disagree on issues, that’s a great and good thing. If you want to see change in government policy, that’s fine too. But don’t insult my intelligence by saying that because someone bothered to get an education they’re not qualified to lead. Pick a real argument, present it logically and appeal to my reason… Then maybe I can get behind it… until you do, it’s all just nails on a chalkboard.

A fading Constellation...

When his fleet reached Mexico in 1519, Cortes disembarked and promptly burned the ships under his command to the waterline, thus cementing his position in the New World and ensuring that his men had the proper motivation – no available avenue for retreat. That’s a profound statement of confidence… if you don’t get yourself killed in the process. Of course if you fail, you do it brazenly and become just another crackpot who sailed “off the edge of the world” so to speak.

I worry that the Administration’s de-funding of the Constellation Program today effectively burns our collective ships; perhaps before we’ve managed to unload the supplies we’ll need for the next step in exploration. Rather than a great enterprise of exploration (say, something like taking over a continent or putting American astronauts back on the moon), our modern Captain-General is casting his men to the wind and expecting each to find their own way. Shutting down Constellation ensures that the critical mass of intuitional knowledge left at NASA will dissipate across dozens of companies and that none of them will have the capability to replicate what Constellation could have been.

I’ve been a champion of the free market my entire adult life and there’s no doubt that the private sector can “do” space flight. NASA is well stocked now with contractors working for United Space Alliance in the twilight of the shuttle program, but government has always been the driver of space exploration, with its massive contracts and goals of shooting the moon. Outsourcing exploration is abdicating the role that governments have filled since men sailed wooden ships to the undiscovered coast of the New World on behalf of the Old World’s royal houses. Such exploration was subsidized by governments until there was a viable economic reason for the private sector to take over – reasons like Virginia tobacco, South American gold, and Caribbean sugar.

I don’t see how we’re there yet. Apollo gave us the first glimpse of how computing power would change the world. Three generations of rockets and the shuttle have given us communications satellites that tie the world together and telescopes that can see nearly to the moment of creation. Until the private sector has a profit motive in space exploration other than government largess, I worry that today could be the real end of the age of exploration.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Three and change...

Between this pay period and last, my salary hasn’t increased and my deferred deductions haven’t decreased and yet somehow my federal taxes went up $3.53. Of course three dollars and change isn’t really something to get worked up over, but it’s the principal of the thing, damn it. Over the course of the next year, that’s the better part of a hundred dollars… Not huge money by any stretch, but still better in my pocket than in Uncle’s.

I seem to remember hearing a promise that those of us making under $250,000 wouldn’t see their taxes increased in an Obama administration. Unless I’ve gotten a hell of a pay raise, I’m nowhere close to that mark… and yet that $3.53 difference is there right enough on my pay stub… mocking me. Oh, I’m sure it’s some kind of fee, or service charge, or anything other than a “tax”… But ultimately an increased tax is precisely what it is.

It’s just the kind of small detail and minor annoyance that seems to dig in and fester with me. It’s going to have me aggravated for days. I’m sure there are people out there who are savvy enough with the tax code to tell me what happened, but all I see is a few fewer dollars at the end of the month and regardless of the reason, that seems like a bad deal to me.

I want my bloody three dollars back.

Cold (Hearted)...

The City of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County has decided that it is too cold this week for people who have had the power turned off for non-payment… So the local governments and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water are turning their meters back on… and “worrying about getting the bills paid” after the cold passes. Of course that sounds brilliant in theory… everyone in Memphis will be warm and cozy while the temperature takes a dip. And those of us who are paying a power and gas bill and who pay the ridiculously high combination of city and county taxes are the ones who are going to foot the bill for the City’s “generosity” in the end.

I know some whiny liberal is going to tell me that we need to take care of each other, but what I really need to do is take care of me and mine, keep my own nose clean, and my own bills paid. I know it’s the same song and dance I pull out every time government takes another step in the direction of being everything to everybody, but at what point does the average taxpayer reach their carrying capacity? When does enough become too much? Or does it all march on until we are nurtured from cradle to grave in the warm embrace of bureaucracy? I live every day in the belly of that beast… and it’s not something I want controlling the other 16 hours of my day… and that’s the perspective from inside a department that’s actually pretty good at carrying out it’s core missions.

By now I’m probably sounding pretty heartless, but after bailouts, home loan modifications, debt forgiveness, and now making sure all of the City has its lights burning I can say well and truly that I’m tired of paying for other people’s poor decisions. I make enough of my own mistakes to keep me and my checkbook occupied without help. I just wish others would do the same. That’s my pipedream for tonight.

Overpriced...

Most Saturday mornings I end up watching, or at least listening to the business/financial news on Fox (think of them as cartoons for adults). This week, though, I was caught a bit cold by the strident and almost universal opinion of the assembled group of talking heads that federal employees were the most over paid and under worked employees in the country (actually, I think most of the argument was that there were too many feds making over $100,000 a year). To be sure there are those out there that go out of their way to avoid doing much of anything and those people need to go. But for the most part, feds tend to be very highly educated bunch at the senior levels… Masters degrees are the bare minimum in most leadership positions and PhD’s and advanced technical degrees are not uncommon. Add in that the majority of feds have been on the job for more than 15 years and there should be even less surprise that people are climbing towards the top of the pay scale.

Of course one of the things that no one ever thinks about when they make the argument that the workforce is overpaid compared to other large organizations is that over the last 20 years, the feds have contracted out nearly all of the basic labor functions that happen on other organizations. Janitorial, building management, electricians, plumbers, mailrooms, and other functions are performed under contract and don’t lower Uncle Sam’s average salary the same way they do to private sector companies. So, when you’re accounting for only professional, management, technical, and scientific positions within a large organization, I would be interested in seeing how other large organizations stack up. Of course they never talk about that comparison because it’s not interesting.

Don’t get me wrong here, no one likes to bitch and complain about federal waste more than I do, but I don’t need to fudge the numbers to make my argument… I’ll give you examples from real life. I have no problem cutting waste, but I know what I bring home at the end of the week and I’m pretty confident in saying that I’m nowhere near overpaid for what I do. I don’t see anyone from the private sector knocking down the doors to come take my job, so until I do I’m afraid Fox’s big brains and I are going to have to part company on this issue.

Use-or-Lose...

It’s that time of year again when the pace of things at the federal government grinds to a halt and nearly everyone with more that four or five years on the job has visions of the next two weeks off dancing in their heads. It’s use-or-lose leave season in the federal government and that means for all practical purposes, the bureaucracy ceases to function in any meaningful way. The burning of excess leave is one of the great traditions of government employees and I’m happy to be partaking once again this holiday season.

Occasionally, though, you run into a problem during this time of year; an issue that someone thinks just can’t wait until after the start of the new year. That’s when the endless round of phone tag and a steady stream of email interrupts what you were sure was going to be two weeks of rest and relaxation. There’s really not a tactful way to tell people to bugger off, but I’m going to try my best to do it for two weeks starting tomorrow afternoon around 3:30.

As a rule, I do my damndest to avoid contacting people when they are on leave, If I drop them an email, it’s for something they’ll need to know when they get back to the office, not something they should be working on when they are burning vacation time. I’ll never object to answering a few emails here and there or even returning an occasional phone call while I’m gone… But I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m going to spend any more than the barest minimum amount of time thinking about or doing work while I’m gone. So, if you want the cheap and easy answer to your questions, ask me sometime in the next 16 days… or if you want the well-developed and articulated answer, give me a call on January 4^th and I’ll give it something close to my full attention.

Until then, I encourage those calling on official business to please leave a message and I’ll return your call in the order in which it was received… eventually.

Watching the world wake up...

Tell most people younger than me that there were once two Germanys and two Berlins and they'll look at you like you've suddenly sprouted a third arm in the center of your chest. They don't remember a world where a great city was divided by concrete barricades and when all of Europe was divided by an iron curtain; or when two superpowers stood toe-to-toe and tried to spend one another into oblivion through proxy wars and an arms race. And then we watched that world that we had all grown up with dissolve before our eyes on cable television.

If a man is extraordinarily lucky, he gets to live through that kind of change once in his lifetime. In twenty years there's been nothing to compare those days against. A hundred years from now when the first relatively objective histories of the last half of the 20th century are being written, they will tell the story of leaders like Walesa, Thatcher, Reagan, John Paul II and Gorbachev. They'll tell stories of round the clock airlifts to ensure the freedom of a city cut off from the rest of the world. They'll tell stories of every day heroics by those who sought freedom on both sides of the wall. And finally they'll tell stories about the day that wall was torn down.

Twenty years ago today, all the world watched and wondered as the unthinkable happened, as history suddenly shifted on its axis, as the rising tide of freedom washed over the concrete battlements of an empire in retreat. I can’t imagine when I’d rather be than right here, right now.

Getting healthy...

It’s hard to imagine that the trillion dollar healthcare plan passed by the House last night will do much of anything good for the vast majority of Americans. I’ll admit that I haven’t been following the issue as closely as others, but a cursory look seems to indicate that the federal government will be getting into head-to-head competition with private insurers. As a rule, I tend to believe competition in the marketplace is a good thing for consumers as it encourages development of new and innovative solutions and helps to control costs or dive them down. In order to do this, though, competition must take place on a level playing field. Private sector companies must look to their bottom line and compete using limited resources. The federal government recognizes no such resource limitations, making head-to-head competition with the private sector an inherently unfair proposition.

I don’t think Met Life or Blue Cross Blue Shield will go out of business tomorrow, but I do think the direct competition between the federal government and the private sector as defined by the House is going to be bad for all of us… Or at least all of us who are happy with our current insurance plan. Until someone can tell me how this program can be sustained over time without contributing to an increasingly unsustainable operating deficit or dramatically higher taxes, I remain opposed.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Good enough for government work...

At least by one assertion the phrase “good enough for government work,” was coined at an ammunition plant and signified that the product met or exceeded all technical specifications and was suitable for delivery to the federal government for issue to the Army. Then again, that was the 40s and at the time government set standards were generally in excess of those commonly in use by industry. Now, of course, Good Enough defines the Dilbert-esq incompetence and indifference that the federal government labors under.

For the record, being Good Enough defines my entire goal for the rest of this week. On Friday morning, Good Enough gets the certificate as the honor graduate. So, here’s the deal: I’ll sit here quietly and not cause too many problems and you’ll give me that piece of paper at the end of the week… Then we’re going to go our separate ways and pretend that none of this actually happened. Good enough?

Forming, Storming… and that’s about as far as we’re going to get…

OK, “Team” Four, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you here. We’re not a team. We’re barely even a group. Maybe the most generous description is that we are a bunch of people sitting in the same room chatting from time to time and occasionally tinkering with a few PowerPoint slides.

Realistically, I’m not at all sure that giving a few sentences of explanation, four hours, and a group completely unwilling to trust the actual technical expert in their midst is the best way to ensure that we develop a well researched, articulate, fully-justified, and detailed analysis of an issue. Of course deciding to change direction completely at 4:30 on Friday afternoon is not necessarily a constructive use of time, either.

With that said, I want to let you know that I’m done with the unpaid overtime racking up while we sit with our thumbs up our collective 4^th points of contact. So in general, I need you to stop being jerkoffs and get your expectations a little more aligned with reality. Otherwise, I’m pretty much finished with the lot of you.

“It’s not a tumor..." (said in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Well friends, now that we have government run banks, government run car makers, and are dangling on the brink of government run health care, the next logical step for the United States Senate is to determine if cell phones cause cancer. Wait… Maybe this is one of the Sesame Street tests where one of the things is not like the others. But seriously, the venerable Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is promising to “probe deeply” at the bottom of the issue. Are you serious Senator Harkin? The nation is in the midst of two wars, the economy is a shadow of its former self, the treasury is beyond bankrupt, and you want to turn loose the investigative weight of the United States Senate to find out of my iPhone is going to give me a tumor?

Here’s the list of things now “known” to cause cancer: cetaldehyde, acrylamide, acrylonitril, abortion, agent orange, alar, alcohol, air pollution, aldrin, alfatoxin, arsenic, arsine, asbestos, asphalt fumes, atrazine, AZT, baby food, barbequed meat, benzene, benzidine, benzopyrene, beryllium, beta-carotene, betel nuts, birth control pills, bottled water, bracken, bread, breasts, brooms, bus stations, calcium channel blockers, cadmium, candles, captan, carbon black, carbon tetrachloride, careers for women, casual sex, car fumes, celery, charred foods, cooked foods, chewing gum, Chinese food, Chinese herbal supplements, chips, chloramphenicol, chlordane, chlorinated camphene, chlorinated water, chlorodiphenyl, chloroform, cholesterol, low cholesterol, chromium, coal tar, coffee, coke ovens, crackers, creosote, cyclamates, dairy products, deodorants, depleted uranium, depression, dichloryacetylene, DDT, dieldrin, diesel exhaust, diet soda, dimethyl sulphate, dinitrotouluene, dioxin, dioxane, epichlorhydrin, ethyle acrilate, ethylene, ethilene dibromide, ethnic beliefs,ethylene dichloride, Ex-Lax, fat, fluoridation, flying, formaldehyde, free radicals, french fries, fruit, gasoline, genes, gingerbread, global warming, gluteraldehyde, granite, grilled meat, Gulf war, hair dyes, hamburgers, heliobacter pylori, hepatitis B virus, hexachlorbutadiene, hexachlorethane, high bone mass, hot tea, HPMA, HRT, hydrazine, hydrogen peroxide, incense, infertility, jewellery, Kepone, kissing, lack of exercise, laxatives, lead, left handedness, Lindane, Listerine, low fibre diet, magnetic fields, malonaldehyde, mammograms, manganese, marijuana, methyl bromide, methylene chloride, menopause, microwave ovens, milk hormones, mixed spices, mobile phones, MTBE, nickel, night lighting, night shifts, nitrates, not breast feeding, not having a twin, nuclear power plants, Nutrasweet, obesity, oestrogen, olestra, olive oil, orange juice, oxygenated gasoline, oyster sauce, ozone, ozone depletion, passive smoking, PCBs, peanuts, pesticides, pet birds, plastic IV bags, polio vaccine, potato crisps (chips), power lines, proteins, Prozac, PVC, radio masts, radon, railway sleepers, red meat, Roundup, saccharin, salt, sausage, selenium, semiconductor plants, shellfish, sick buildings, soy sauce, stress, strontium, styrene, sulphuric acid, sun beds, sunlight, sunscreen, talc, tetrachloroethylene, testosterone, tight bras, toast, toasters, tobacco, tooth fillings, toothpaste (with fluoride or bleach), train stations, trichloroethylene, under-arm shaving, unvented stoves, uranium, UV radiation, vegetables, vinyl bromide, vinyl chloride, vinyl fluoride, vinyl toys, vitamins, vitreous fibres, wallpaper, weedkiller (2-4 D), welding fumes, well water, weight gain, winter, wood dust, work, x-rays (thank you, http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cancer%20list.htm).

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, Senator, but the fact is that from the time sperm meets egg, our bodies are already conspiring against us. Cells divide, mistakes are made, and those mistakes themselves are replicated. One of the only common threads among all people throughout time is that we all die. The endgame is the same for all of us; rich, poor, healthy, or unhealthy. It’s not that I’m taking cancer lightly or trying to make a joke at the suffering the disease causes. I am, however, making a joke at the expense of the Senate. Surely with these steady hands upon the rudder of the ship of state, what could possibly go wrong?

God help us.