Things not to do…

I’m going to have to go on the record here and add “Shouting and waiving my finger at the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress” to my list of things do avoid doing to embarrass myself in public. Seriously, you have to wonder at what point a United States Congressman decided that that was going to be a good move for his career. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that was a classless move and the guy deserves every nasty think that’s been said about him all day. Is it any wonder the Republican Party has a hard time selling itself to moderates when this tool is their news story for the week?

Insurance-Salesman-in-Chief

The Senate has accepted that a public healthcare option is unreachable. Polling has increasingly shown that it’s not popular among the majority of respondents. And a president is at risk of demolishing his entire term and burying the possibility of reelection for daring to press on against the rising tide of opposition. Some of my friends on the extreme left would call that heroic. I call it just plain dumb. Politics, they say, is the art of the possible. It’s about constantly seeking out a coalition of 50% of the population plus one person. It’s a simple matter of math and right now, Mr. President, you don’t have the votes. You don’t have the popular support. And you don’t have the political good-will left to twist arms in Congress.

With that said, the president does have an opportunity, here. He has the opportunity to get the 70 or 80% solution. He has the opportunity to do what really great politicians have made their careers doing – Compromise. Insisting that reform must be all one thing or all the other is a sure recipe for failure. Follow the example of Speaker O’Neill and President Reagan on taxes in the early 80s. If the study of politics teaches us anything it’s that nothing good lies down the road of absolutism. Right now, both parties have the ability to walk away with something approximating a win. Wait too long and the moment passes… And then a pox on both your houses.

Another reason why they think we’re all crazy…

OK, the duly elected and sworn President of the United States wants to give a short speech to students about the value of education and hard work; controversial topics, to be sure. I’m not sure I’m feeling the outrage, though. Whether you love him, hate him, or are totally indifferent towards him, the guy is the president. I don’t see the impending harm of allowing students to watch and listen to the leader of the free world talking about issues that will impact them. Has the fabric of our civic discourse become so brittle that even hearing a view that differs from our own risks destroying our individual political beliefs? Are we so incapable of building a rational argument to support our point of view that the highest form of argument we’re capable of is throwing a five-year old’s tantrum and whining, “I’m not listening?”

For those who are keeping their kids at home that day, think about the message you are sending to your children. You’re saying that your own views are so weakly held that they won’t stand up to scrutiny or discussion. You’re saying that it’s better to tune out altogether than to engage in the discussion at all. If you truly believe that a 30-minute speech by a politician will undo the 16 or 17 years of influence you have had on your kids, then honestly, I feel bad for you. Living with that kind of insecurity must be tough. If you want to do right by your kids, encourage them to join the fray, to discuss, to develop and refine their own opinions, to ask the hard questions and seek the difficult truths. If you’re afraid of doing that, then lord, I don’t even want to know you.

It’s all about the numbers…

I’m all for people showing initiative during these economically challenging times. However, taping an “official” looking offer to paint my house number on the curb to the mailbox may have not been your most savvy business decision (Although it’s hard not to take you too seriously when you lead off your title with extra exclamation points!!!!! That way I know what you’re selling must be really, really important). I particularly like the effort you took to let me know how crucial these numbers were when one of the emergency services was looking for my house. Trying to edge nervous people towards paying you the $20 “fee” was definitely a smart move. Of course recommending that I just leave $20 taped to my front door was a pure stroke of genius. And it was nice knowing that you offered a discount if I ordered “multiples.” I can only assume that means if I wanted you to paint multiple numbers on my curb… in front of this one house. The head of your marketing department must have a MBA. I can usually tell, you know.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to take advantage of your service at this time. Best of luck with the curb painting, or hubcap stealing, or whatever it is you happen to be doing tomorrow. In fact, I should probably leave you a tip for your efforts. After tomorrow afternoon, I’ll know which of my neighbors are truly dumb as stumps. I guess I’ll just consider that an extra perk of your service.

Stealing the interwebs...

It probably says something about me as a human being that I didn't have many issues with the Patriot Act, but the prospect of the government being able to seize control of "critical" networks during what remains an Ill-defined future "cyber-emergency" makes me nervous beyond belief. One of the first steps in any well-developed plan is to take control of or destroy enemy lines of communication. In the olden days that meant a would-be revolutionary needed to control the airwaves either by blocking transmissions, occupying the local TV and radio stations, or simply destroying them. In the 21st century, controlling communications basically means taking down the Internet and cellular capability.

Ponder it for a moment; no email, no cell phone, no VOIP, no SMS, no Blogger or Facebook. Now, how do you communicate beyond the people who happen to live next door? Yeah, I'm scratching my head on that one too. Now take into account the other everyday things you do online - like banking, ordering prescription refills from the pharmacy warehouse somewhere in Iowa, or looking at porn. How do you do those things in a world after a declared cyber-emergency?

Are you worried yet? You should be. Take away the Internet and all the other elements covered under the proposed cyber security bill and we're basically only seperated from 1957 by the lack of tailfins and chrome. In a world built on the rapid transfer of data from one place to another, steal the Internet and you're well on your way to launching your own revolution... Or at least keeping the masses uninformed until you've gone too far for them to do anything about it.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

You know what causes that, right?

I’ve been trolling around the internet for the last few minutes and was struck by an article stating that the global population will reach 7 billion in about two years. That’s seven billion, with a “B.” It seems to me that the general consensus is that, really, the planet was basically full two or so billion people ago. If you really want to do something to save the planet, slow down with the procreating. Seriously, you know what causes that, right? I’m looking at you here third world. Yeah. I’m telling you to lay off the scrumping until you have the infrastructure and food to manage more people wandering around your countries looking for work or food or magic beans or whatever it is people look for in your country.

And just in case you think this is only going to be a rant about the poor developing nations, let me put my right wing friends on notice too: I’m not letting you off the hook for this. If you want foreign aid that might help some of these countries that are being overwhelmed by poverty and disease and generally being the ones most responsible for adding to the world’s population, tell your member of Congress that you’re in favor of packing up a few pallets of condoms and sending them overseas. In terms that we understand best, the bottom line is that there are a finite number of resources to go around. The more people there are on the planet, the smaller the sliver of the pie will be for all of us… So lets do our patriotic duty and get on board with some social engineering!

Come on, surely I’m not the only one out of slightly less than 7 billion who thinks exponentially larger populations are a bad idea.

Side effects...

Let's pause for a moment and forget that this weekend I spent more money for five days worth of doggy antibiotics than I spend on a months worth of the drug that keep my stomach from exploding... Let's also pretend that I know nothing about medicine (less of a stretch there) and for purposes of argument, we will assume that i have the mental capacity of an over-ripe eggplant. Now, I was reading the little print out that came with the antibiotics... Which is strange, as I don't even read that crap about the medicines that I actually take myself. The very first side effect was "may cause diarrah"... Which gave me horrible flashbacks to earlier this spring when the steam cleaner came to live in my garge. That isn't an unusual side effect of course. However, the last side effect listed was "may cause constipation." OK, now you've got my attention... The all night vet has given me a miracle drug that either causes explosive pooping or no pooping at all. Isn't that something that a fancy big city doctor could maybe narrow down a bit? Look, I understand all drugs have side effects, but in this case could we at least come to a consensus on whether it's going to stop things up or blow them wide open? It's just nice to know what enemy you're going to be up against for the next few days, that's all.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, at the end of 24 hours, the answer is neither. Go figure.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]