Politics

Quite a title for this article, but it really makes sense.  Trust me.

I was listening to the soundtrack for the Broadway show “Wicked.”  It is based on the premise that the Wicked Witch of the West was really not evil, just a  misunderstood soul.   Wow.  They are taking one of the iconic evil figures from literature and giving her a second look, an alternate-universe history that makes her, well, nice¹.   And that’s not right.

Taking this alarming trend to its pinnacle, could it be far behind for Hitler to make a comeback?? 

(NOTE: the following are satirical comments.  Do not mistake them for reality; they are just an artifice to make a point.  That is how satire works.) 

After all, Hitler was really nice to his dogs. And he did put all of the German people back to work on that really cool roadway, the Autobahn.  Did I mention that he created the Volkswagen?? That picture of Hitler and his gang of killers parading around on a convertible Wolkswagen has got to be the coolest, most disturbing image of the war. ²  So except for the 6 million people he killed, Hitler was a really nice guy.  Really. 

(NOTE: the satire has now ended.  Back to reality.)

But we all know that the winners of a war write the history books, so they can adjust the facts to suit themselves.  There are many instances of Allied atrocities in WW2 that should have been tried as war crimes.  I am thinking of the conventional bombing of the German city of Dresden, or the firebombing of Japanese cities.  The latter killed a whole lot more people than the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (better left for some other article).  But a lot of terrible things happen during a war; it’s just distasteful to try to justify them as being necessary for a greater good.  It’s so much more honest to say what is really inside: the enemy is inhuman and we’re  scared sh*tless; we need to kill as many of them as possible before the war ends.  Afterwards,  we have to go back to being human beings and play nice again.  Or whatever passes for “nice” between bellicose nations.

So back to the Wicked Witch of the West.  The play does a good job turning the Oz universe on its head.  As with many revisionist works, there are problems with it, since it changes a couple of  really key points that clash with the world that Frank L. Baum created.  Similar to those Star Wars prequels that cannot exist in the same universe as the original Star Wars movies.  But these are nits, and you can still enjoy the Wicked concept if you ignore them.  Just don’t expect me to change my worldview: The witch is still evil. (Don’t forget, she did try to kill Dorothy.  And her little dog, too.)

1. What is next?? Darth Vader used to be a nice guy that made some  wrong choices?? [↩]
2. Except for that other disturbing photo, showing thousands of his dead victims from the concentration camps. [↩]

Time to set the record straight:  whatever, whichever politician said that gas prices are not coming down was right.  Offshore drilling is a good idea, but it will not bring gas prices down.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for drilling for oil in our own backyards.  When I first moved out to California, I was enchanted by all of those oil derricks pumping, pumping away in the beautiful hills of Huntington Beach, down along the beach paths and even on the beach dunes themselves.  It made California look like the golden El Dorado that I had always imagined: golden roads lined with cool-looking cars and all of the oil we needed right under our feet.  And yes, I was also expecting bikini-clad girls to pump my gas and sell me my milk from those roadside milk stands (I saw pictures of this put out by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce).  I’m sure the girls and the pumping action of the derricks was some sort of Freudian juxtaposition that made me drive out to California all the faster.

So why don’t I support the drilling now?? Because once the oil is out of the ground, it is immediately put out on the international market where China can bid on it, along with every other gas-thirsty country that is finally making its way out of the Third World.  We would be competing with them for our own gas.  And make no mistake about it: it’s our gas.  It is coming out on nationally-owned areas (offshore or the ANWR in Alaska)  and the oil companies are getting a low-risk, fantastic return on investment.  If that is the case, they can afford to lose a little bit of profit by selling that gas DOMESTICALLY, ONLY.  Does that sound socialistic, the first hints of nationalized gas production?? You bet your sweet light-crude that it does!!  But if you’re going to drill in my backyard, and I own the land and mineral rights, you have better pay me off by at least selling me the oil at a domestically-competitive price.

But I’m also realistic.  Using oil to power our cars is a technological dead-end.  With all of the Chinese, Indian, Polish, Russian, etc. etc.  economies finally coming out of the Dark Ages and increasing the number of privately owned cars, we are going to be running out of oil soon (peak oil production).   So where’s my nuclear-powered car??  If all of those Disney documentaries in the 1950’s promised plenty of energy in the future, how come I have to use my bicycle to go to the library and to the store??

The anwer of course is that we can’t trust the average person to drive a quarter of critical mass around in their engines, waiting for some terrorist to figure out that (4) times (1/4)  equals (1).  Boom.   And I can hardly imagine the bad traffic created when the radioactive cleanup team cleans up the pieces from your average 4 accidents per freeway per day. 

We need to use nuclear power to generate the electricity to provide the hydrogen to run the cars.  Simple enough, please give me my new-model 2010 hydrogen-fueled SUV.  In Earth-Friendly Green,  of course.  And feel free to stick as many oil-sucking straws in the California Offshore until then. 

It would be fair for you to assume that I am going to be supporting the desire of these camel huggers to become martyrs, but no, I am instead sending you to the good book to see what Jebus has to say.

We finally have 2 dorks to choose between.  How do you choose which one represents you best?  Simple really, just follow these steps and you will hardly even have to think or pay attention for the next 5 months. Start by making a list of the candidates you are considering voting for.  It should have 2 names, Barack and John.  If you have more and are considering a write in vote or third party candidate, good for you, that will show them (as well as waste your vote on a loser, which I am trying to help you avoid).  If you are a brainless drone voting the way your family or friends tells you, you are not really voting, but rather demonstrating your similarities with a sheep or lemming, so please just go read something else.  Oh, and if you are voting based on skin color, please find some moderately slow way to kill yourself, that balances pain and agony with adequate expedience to get yourself out of the gene pool before election day. 

So, how to vote?  My suggested method is as follows, after the break:  Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Graham, brilliant software developer turned venture capitalist, has written a rather cogent defense of capitalism (albeit without ever using the word capitalism). While he writes plainly, some of his wording might come across as condescending if you believe in redistributing wealth. But even when my eyebrows were raised, I could find no fault with his logic or facts. He supports his arguments with examples from history, using them to explain why some people today have problems with others gathering wealth. It’s quite an interesting read.

Turns out that Brick, NJ, hometown to several Crack Team agents, is the safest city in America. Mission Viejo, CA, not far from my current residence, is also in the top 5. While neither city is particularly exciting, the country’s most dangerous city, St. Louis, MO, is no fun factory, either. Compton is also on the most dangerous list, but at least it has better weather.

So last Monday, there was supposed to be a huge walkout/boycott. If you supported immigration, you didn’t go to work, and you didn’t buy anything. Most people understood the point of the boycott was to show the positive economic impact immigrants have. Newscasters warned you’d see major disruptions to your daily routine. Well, I’m in Orange County, which has many immigrants, legal and illegal, and I noticed no changes. For my friends who live in LA County and work in Orange, or vice versa, they did notice one drastic change they generally described thusly:

OMG did you see the traffic today? It was awesome! My commute was so short!!!

When they started to think about what it would be like without immigrants, it was a bit more positive than before. And one of my friends is an immigrant (legal, of course). He just hates his commute.

Now, there may be some confusion about the root cause. By the end of the week, people started observing a few other things:

I know that somewhere there is a formula, perhaps some min/max calculus problem, that determines the range of low-wage illegals that benefit us. Having over a certain number will be a burden, but so will having less than a certain number. It probably needs to take into account population density, unemployment, inflation, the trade deficit, and a few other factors. But I have yet to see any scientific analysis of this problem, and I’d really like to.

Michael Crichton has an excellent op-ed piece in the NY Times about medical patents that can restrict research to fight diseases - patents that border on thought police. Very interesting how this will play out. It’s a double edged sword, of course, because the potential for revenue from patents motivates much medical research. And medical research costs a lot of money, because it’s done by doctors. So we could end up removing some financial barriers to medical research, and in doing so remove the financial incentives for that same research.

A lot of fanfare in the TV news about President Bush signing a law that forces analog broadcasters to halt transmission on 2/17/2009. It will all be digital then, and there is money to subsidize the purchase of a digital to analog (D/A) converter box for those with analog sets. Everyone on both sides are breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back. Digital enthusiasts should be very disappointed, however. Why?

Because previous legislation required this to happen in December of THIS year.

I just want to call attention to the fact that this is not progress, it’s a big step backwards. They are weasel-wording it by saying we are moving to a hard deadline. Did the previous law have a soft deadline? Yes. It said we’re to go digital by 12/2006, or when 85% of households contained a DTV - whichever came first. So it also had a hard deadline. That law was passed in 1997, giving broadcasters 9 years to prepare, and a lot more than that when you consider this started 43 years ago in Japan.

Kudos to this article at madison.com for not being afraid to include a little history.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I borrowed Futureman’s time spinner and took it out for a walk……
The Traveler.

I had been walking since early this morning. It’s tough to get around when you don’t have a car; I could have tried to rent one but it would have started people asking too many questions to which I didn’t really have answers. None that they would have understood, anyway.

Instead, I kept on the backroads mostly, trying not to draw too much attention. My shoes weren’t made for walking on this semi-dirt road that I was using, and I would have stood out like a sore thumb if I’d shuffled down the main highway just a few yards away. The dirt and dust had started working their way into my socks, and it really sucked.

The heat of the day was starting to get to me, and the comical hat I’d made out of discarded newspaper was not helping too much. Funny how people stopped using hats; you see them everywhere in the old films and newsreels. People even wore them to the baseball game. Strange. It would have been easier if I had been traveling up North in the Empire or Garden States. But I was now making my way down some God-forsaken road in the Peach State. Georgia was definitely in my mind. And inside of my dusty shoes and sweaty socks.

Up ahead I spied salvation in the form of a diner. I couldn’t miss the gorgeous curves of the roof or the efficient use of space in that old trailer that was now serving as a diner. It looked like it had just driven up the road and broken down at this spot in the woods. And now it was serving burgers and leaking all sorts of delicious smells into the air. I trudged up to the door and went inside.

The air was cool and the smells warm and inviting. This old wreck must have some primitive air conditioning unit chugging smoke out in back and I hoped that it wouldn’t break down until after I’d had some lunch. Some old coot was greasing down the grill and talking to himself. He looked like your typical movie cook and I half-expected to see an anchor tattooed on his arm. Maybe I should have called out “Cookie” to see if he turned my way. I was afraid to make him move; the ash on the cigarette dangling from his lips was pretty long and I certainly did not want it spicing up my food.

The booths were all empty as were the barstools. The old coot and this old heap of a diner should have broken down nearer to the main highway; he would have more customers that way. In any case, I sidled up to the counter, put down my backpack and started checking out the eats and drinks. First thing I noticed at once was the clean smell of PineSol; it really got my appetite going. There was a nice fresh-made apple pie under glass right in front of me, and I just knew there were ice-cold Cokes (in glass bottles!) cooling their heels in a hidden icebox, somewhere. Just waiting for me to finish that tasty burger, of course.

And then the old coot spoke.

“Hey boy, you can’t eat here.” The words were mechanical and I took a couple of seconds to parse them out. He was probably too tired to continue talking, so he half-heartedly pointed to a grungy sign on the wall: “Whites only.” I had seen pictures of this sign, and they all looked as dirty as this particular sign now in front of me. The historian in me was fascinated by this whole scenario playing out right NOW in real time in a forgotten part of the world. The good man in my should have been outraged at this injustice. The hungry man in me just wanted a piece of that pie and a cold Coke.

It must have been 30 seconds before I started thinking again. An Eternity staring at the old coot. Now I noticed that his eyes were tired and that he looked a lot like a grandfather I once had. His voice was firm but his eyes were weak and he seemed exhausted by the whole charade. I think if we’d had a chance to switch places, he would have taken that opportunity and walked out of that place. But he had his place and apparently, I had mine. I just shrugged, picked up my backpack and walked out the door.

The sun was still out but now I felt cold. It poured down on my head and neck and burned the exposed black skin on my hands. Time to go back home, if I could find a way.

The Crack Team network is so vast and embedded that no one man can know the identities of all agents. However, I feel pretty confident that John Stossel is one of them. He’s written a fascinating article on the failures of the union supported government monopoly that we call our public school system. It’s geared toward comparing us with the international community, with which we are increasingly competing due to offshoring.
     I am a product of the New Jersey public school system, and I’ve done ok, but I’ve been out of the loop there. In California, at my day job at a large aerospace company, all but one of my coworkers send their kids to private school. The one who didn’t picked up and moved to an area with an acclaimed school system. It’s nice they can afford to do that, but it would be nicer if the government allowed more parents to (as Agent Renegade woud say) “vote with their feet”.

All California voters have the option to use the paper ballots over the electronic voting machines. However, some counties are telling poll workers to not inform the voters. This includes Orange County! If you - like me - don’t trust the machines, you have to specifically ask for the paper ballot. You can read more in this EFF press release.

Sean Penn, who was thoroughly skewered in Team America (along with a lot of other actors), wrote an angry letter to Matt and Trey. However, it wasn’t about his portrayal in the movie.
     Apparently, he takes issue with Matt and Trey taking issue with “Sean” Piddy Comb’s “Vote or Die” campaign. They think if you’re not informed, there’s no shame in not voting.

What’s wrong with that?

Hell, in my younger, more arrogant days (Yes, even more arrogant than now. Perhaps way more.), I was all for a meritocratic democracy. In other words, a sign at the voting booth would say “You must be this intelligent to vote.” It’d weed out those too dumb to make a smart choice.
     So I’ve backed off on that a bit. Frankly, there’s more than enough info to make an informed decision, even if you’re an idiot. Just think of what’s important to you, and go to one of the 3 bajillion web sites that talk about how the candidates feel about it. For me, it’s pretty easy. I care about my career. My career is currently in the Aerospace and Defense industries. Is it not obvious to even the most casual of observers who will spend more money in that area? It isn’t? Oh. Well, Kerry wants to shut down missile defense, and Bush wants to put a man on the moon. (And if that doesn’t explain it, please pay heed to the sign.) My other hope is to quit work and start a small business, and Bush looks to be the right guy for that, too. Everyone seems to be asking Kerry what he’ll do for small businesses, while leaving Bush alone on that one (his plan is to cut welfare and social security to give small businesses a 3% tax break - hurray!). I’ll take that as a sign.
     If you’re gay, and you want to get married (which I think you should have every right to do), you don’t want the guy who wants to amend the Constitution (?!?) to stop you. Heck, I don’t really want him either, but my choices are limited.

So, if you didn’t already know, The DeBeers Company pretty much controls both supply and demand of diamonds to artificially inflate prices. And, they have nothing to do with beer. An article from The Straight Dope clears things up. Also, the next big threat is artificial diamonds, which are pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing, except they’re a little too perfect. Wired has a big article about that.
     So, if you’re trying to get out of spending a fortune for a diamond ring, you have a lot of evidence that supporting the diamond industry is akin to supporting African poverty and blood feuds. And if that fails, you should soon be able to by a cheap, flawless diamond. Spend the rest on something the whole family can use, like gambling.

Bill Cosby made a speech for the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. The Board of Education (Brown won). It was focused on the 50% dropout rate for inner city black males. Somehow, the media got a hold of it and tried to portray it as classist, which is just ridiculous. The speech itself is inspirational, funny in parts, and makes a ton of sense. There’s a lot about personal responsibility. You can find a transcript of it here.

On the 3rd anniversary of September 11th, HBO just happens to show Executive Decision. If you can’t recall what it’s about, I’ll remind you. Kurt Russell and a special forces team sneak onto a Boeing passenger jet to stop Islamic terrorist hijackers from taking it to Washington to blow it up and release nerve gas into the city. The executive decision is whether the president should allow fighters jets to shoot it down. How appropriate! How sensitive!

“Happy 9/11 from all of us at HBO!”

Wankers.

Apparently, I’m a Republican. I don’t remember signing up, but I am a huge supporter of Schwarzenegger, and I took an online test that pointed me in that direction. I guess I acted on it, because today I received a census form from the RNC.
    The letter explained that it wanted my opinions, and they would count for my entire voting district. Wow! I was excited. I like having my opinions counted, mainly because they’re better than most people’s. Finally, I’d get to tell the RNC what really matters to smart Republicans:

• Personal investing over Social Security
• Alternative fuel research
• School choice
• Eliminating censorship
• Flat tax
• Higher education
• Space and defense (i.e., my paycheck)
• Eliminating the deficit
• Allowing gay marriages, as banning them violates separation of church and state, and is a real dick move to boot.

I really wanted to sound off on these issues. Tell them to be more like Arnold and less like George. Maybe they’d even have a write-in section! I was prepared to fix the party.

Alas, this was not to be the case.

All of the questions had yes/no/undecided answers, and worded so they’d be hard to say “no” to. Examples:

Do you support President Bush’s initiatives to promote the safety and security of all Americans?
Should the Inheritance or “Death Tax” be permanently repealed?
Do you support President Bush’s pro-growth policies to create more jobs and improve the economy?
Should small business be encouraged to grow and hire more workers?

Even controversial issues were worded carefully:

Do you support President Bush’s initiative to allow private religious and charitable groups to do more to help those in need?

Huh. I’m not sure about special breaks for religious groups, even though I’m a Christian. I mean, why didn’t we always do this? Was there a good reason? Was it being taken advantage of, perhaps by unscrupulous people forming religious groups to live off taxpayers. I don’t know. But I’m definitely for helping those in need, so “Yes”.

It went on like this. I could only give a definitive no to one question:

Do you support the President’s efforts to save Social Security and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare?

See, I know Social Security needs to be fixed, not just band-aided over, and probably won’t exist by the time I retire. And the Medicare bill Congress passed is going to cost us a fortune that we don’t have. So, ok, that’s definitely a bad idea, even though it sounds like I hate old people and want them to die penniless and sick.
    I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that they didn’t care about my opinions at all, and were just looking for a *gasp* donation. I don’t know, I’m probably reading into things. Why don’t you read the final question, and tell me if I’m wrong:

Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?
o Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing my most generous contribution of:
o $500   o $250   o $50   o $25   o Other $_________
o Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $11 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey.
o No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.

All questions were copied directly from the survey. At no point did I embellish the questions or answers.

So Monster.com is publishing articles about how having a clearance can give you a big leg up in your tech job search. Searching their own ads, though, I’m not seeing it. At least not for software engineers in Southern California, and I’ve no plans to move or switch jobs. My most recent search yielded just 31 jobs for developers with any of these skills: Java, Perl, JSP, Servlets, J2EE, or ColdFusion. I tried other software technologies, too. Almost nothing. I know, if I search a 50 mile radius of DC, I’ll find a hundreds. But most who live here don’t want to move, well, anywhere.

On several other news sites (bear with me, this is related), I’ve just read about Kerry’s defense plans: expand the troops by 40,000, without increasing the budget. How will he do that? He says he’ll scrap missile defense. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad idea, we could probably use more troops than missile defenders right now. However, all the manpower of this $9 billion project will quickly be on the market, and they, too, will have (pretty darn high) clearances. And I’m guessing they’ve got a ton of software developers, as anyone who’s played Missile Command knows this requires some tricky programming.

These developers will be facing an already crowded market, which is still recovering from the Internet bust, and is now facing the offshoring boom. Their only hope (and ours) is that they live in the DC area, and don’t want to leave.

Or Bush gets re-elected. I’m just saying…

I’ve recently been made aware of the concept of “peak oil”, which says that since there is a finite amount of oil on earth, we’re eventually going to reach the top of the bell-shaped production curve. After that, prices increase dramatically, and since so much of what we need to exist is tied to oil, we return to pre-oil population levels. In other words, about 4 billion of us die off.
Read the rest of this entry »