Hap's Dustbin

A Tip for Independent Contractors

2010-08-10T23:53:00.000-05:00

Whatever your local customs may be, you DO NOT tell a potential employer it is lunch time during an interview. I understand you want to go eat with your buddies and might go hungry for a few hours, but was what you ate worth potentially losing several thousand dollars of income? If so, I'll have some of what you're having.

Blackberry Development Knowledge Dump

2010-08-08T22:55:00.000-05:00

While I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I'm far from the dullest. Recognizing my middle of the road capacity for thought, I'm assuming a portion of Internet readers will experience some of the same frustration with Blackberry development that I have experienced. Most notably, what information is current? So, here's a quick dump of some basic Blackberry nuggets of wisdom.

Should you use Eclipse or the Blackberry Java Development Environment (JDE)?

While some may argue that you shouldn't use either (yes, Blackberry development is possible on NetBeans, IdeaJ, etc.), I think most new projects are being done in Eclipse with the Blackberry JDE plug-in.

What version of the JDE should I use?

Notice how I just said not to use the JDE but then referenced the JDE? Get used to it...Blackberry loves ambiguous crap.

Anyway, it appears as though 4.2.1 is recommended for traditional devices, and 4.7 is recommended for the newer touch-screen devices.

How do I build separate cod files for each target platform?

What? You haven't heard of a cod file? Tough...this is Blackberry development. There will be no hand-holding....nor straightforward and complete documentation.

I'm guessing you ditch Eclipse and the JDE for the command line, but who knows. I don't have that kind of time on my hands. Rumor has it this may be easier in other IDE's, but I'm fairly sure there are some Blackberry Ant tools out there waiting for you.

What is a cod file?

Oh, glad you asked. It's your Blackberry application executable. It's analogous to a zip file with other zip and/or jar files inside it, but platforms work better if they ignore simple, established standards?

What are code signing keys?

They're a security measure implemented by Blackberry so evil developers don't do bad things like get the display width and height. Seriously, I'm sure there's some logical reason. Turning off the backlight 255 seconds at a time would definitely run down a battery. Code signing keys to the rescue.

Also, they're a great way to receive a lot of pointless e-mail and require an Internet connection for you to get your work done.

What are the various device resolutions?

Who really knows for certain? The most common are 320x240, 480x360, and 360x480, but you also have 240x260 and 240x320. Good luck writing a useful interface to support all of those devices.

What is compatibility mode?

It's Blackberry's sad attempt at backward compatibility on their touch-screen devices. Apps built for the traditional 320x240 screen will run inside a blue border with a virtual keyboard. What's really fun is you can get your app stuck in this mode even when you're trying to write a touch screen app. The best way I've found to get out of it is to install a new Simulator. What? You accidentally got into compatibility mode on your development device? Well...good luck with that. I'm sure there's a toggle switch somewhere.

What's all this preprocessor stuff?

It's a C/C++ developer's wet dream of how Java development should be. Don't get me wrong...I like a good precompiler macro just like the next guy, but when you have to comment it out to make it work? No, that's just stupid.

Nevertheless, if you want to support multiple builds from one source tree, you will probably need to use precompiler macros. Every file has to have a //#preprocess directive, and you can then use //#ifdef, etc. Of course, the fun part is that Eclipse doesn't recognize the directives and treats them as warnings and ignores that they exist.

My app was running fine a minute ago and now won't do anything now...what gives?

Blackberry has some arbitrary size limit on cod files. If you hit that limit, it's game over. Do not pass go. Do not receive an error message. Do not receive a warning. Experience silent, pointless failures and go directly to jail.

Of course, I'm sure there are other reasons.

The Blackberry 9000 simulator is giving me access denied 0x00000004 error messages...how do I fix it?

You don't. Get a different simulator. Actually, why don't you figure it out and let me know? Okay, thanks, goodbye now.

I have a short audio file that is not working on the device but works in the Simulator...what's wrong?

Welcome to Blackberry. Work around it.

If I remember some more cherished nuggets of Blackberry wisdom, I'll be sure to update this wonderfully informative article.

Adventures in Mobile Development

2010-08-08T01:15:00.000-05:00

In my time away from this blog, I became heavily involved in mobile application development. I participated in Apple's SDK BETA program and released my first application shortly after its official launch in June 2008. It's been a bumpy road, and while I'm no fan of Objective-C, I can say that other than a few early bugs, the tools and api tend to work and work well.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I'm now dealing with a Blackberry application. Keep in mind of course that Research in Motion is a much more mature mobile computing platform than iPhone. They've had the chance to make and learn from their mistakes. The crazy thing is...Blackberry application development is a disaster. Don't believe me? Go spend some time on the developer forums and see if you can make heads or tails of it.

If I'm using XCode, I can build my application, run it in the simulator, switch to the device, run, debug...do basically whatever I want without things having to restart or me having to start the application manually. Under Eclipse, I'm constantly restarting the simulator or crossing my fingers and tossing salt over my shoulder hoping on-device debugging actually works, usually after a full system restart.

My favorite feature of the development environment is its stubborn refusal to run an application that crosses some magical size, a rather paltry size by today's standards. And, it does this silently as a gift to all overworked developers in serious need of sleep.

I could go on and on about my frustrations with the bugs, the lack of usable documentation on the website, the constantly shifting functionality in the Eclipse plug-in, but you would just get bored. Suffice it to say, Blackberry can't die fast enough for this developer.

Before I sign off tonight, let me just add that Android should be prepared to take its lumps. It's not as bad as Blackberry, but for a company the likes of Google, I expected more. The development experience doesn't even hold a candle to iPhone.

TSA Agent -- A Pedophile's Dream Job?

2010-08-05T16:37:00.001-05:00

On a recent trip, I had my first encounter with the infamous body scanning devices making their way into security checkpoints across the United States. As my family approached the machines, I seriously considered asking for the alternative as the whole exercise seemed rather creepy and invasive. Once at the front of the line, though, I noticed that the old metal detectors were roped off meaning a full-body pat-down was the only alternative.

While I stood there holding my 5 year old daughter's hand and watching my wife and 7 year old son load their stuff into the bins, I realized I had only two rather absurd choices. I could let the government take naked pictures of my children, or I could let a strange adult put his/her hands all over them. I opted for the pictures.

For some reason, it never occurred to me how disturbing it would be to see my kids go through the process until we were waiting in line. And, it made me wonder...is this a pedophile's dream job?

My daughter had a blast skipping into the machine and following the agent's instructions, dutifully putting her hands up by her head as instructed. She thought it was fun.

Thankfully, it's "our" government, and I seriously doubt anything inappropriate is going on...

CNET News: Feds Admit Storing Checkpoint Body Scan Images

Really? Is this How Pathetic our News Media has Become?

2008-07-09T18:38:00.002-05:00

Jackson says sorry to Obama for crude remark

So we have a story about a crude remark made by Jackson against Obama, but if you read the story...NO CRUDE REMARK. They won't even tell us what he said. They'll only tell us how he apologized. Pathetic...

Stewart Slams Dobson Hypocrisy

2008-07-08T17:05:00.003-05:00

This happens far too often in religion, and it's nice to see Stewart call Dobson on it with such irrefutable evidence.

McCain's Health Care Plan

2008-04-30T15:03:00.003-05:00

Normally, I give a fairly detailed opinion on points raised as part of a candidate's health care plan. Now that we finally have one from a Republican, I thought I would do the same. Having just read it, the problem confronting me is that there is no plan. It's nothing but a bunch of marketing mumbo-jumbo that amounts to little more than a new tax credit.

The main problem I experience with health care is availability of insurance. What does McCain want to do? He wants to "...Work With Governors To Find The Solutions Necessary To Ensure Those With Pre-Existing Conditions Are Able To Easily Access Care." Let me translate for you. He wants to throw you into what states call their High Risk Pool, a cumbersome bureaucratically run process with ridiculous qualification procedures, high premiums, and massive deductibles.

My family went down that road. We paid some $400/month for my wife's CORBA coverage for 18 months to qualify for the High Risk Pool. If we had continued, she would have paid $350/month for a $500k lifetime limit (most policies are at least $1 million) with a $7500 deductible. The really amusing thing about that is a $7500 deductible would disqualify us for an HSA. We'd have to reach for an even higher premium to get a qualifying deductible.

maverick (n): Someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action.

Raise your hands if you think McCain's nickname should be changed. What a joke. It took his staff the entire primary season to come up with the same junk Bush said 4 years ago??? Pathetic.

F*ck the FDA

2008-04-29T16:41:00.003-05:00

I realize my blog is typically free from profanity, but I think once you read this, you'll agree it's warranted.

Any long-term reader knows that I've put a little effort into researching the drug Lovenox, but it's not often I talk about Heparin, its cheap, unreliable cousin. Where Lovenox provides reliable anti-coagulation at 2 doses a day, Heparin provides unreliable anti-coagulation anywhere from 2 doses a day up to continuous delivery via IV. Heparin's reliability (or lack thereof) can be complicated by various blood conditions, one of which affects my wife. Consequently, the drug is of little importance to me.

Nevertheless, Heparin serves a significant role in almost any hospital medical procedure by helping Doctors and Nurses keep IVs clear of clots. This hits particularly close to home as it was only a couple months ago my daughter had surgery, and I watched them administer Heparin to keep her IV clear. You might also remember what happened to actor Dennis Quaid's twins when the hospital confused two different concentrations of Heparin.

So what am I so upset about, you ask?

Heparin Contamination May Have Been Deliberate

There's been a story circulating about contaminated Heparin coming out of China under the Baxter International brand. Now it seems the FDA has investigated, inspected the factory, and decided that someone was intentionally doing this to increase profits.

So why do I say, "F*ck the FDA?" Glad you asked...BECAUSE THE STUPID, CORRUPT, HYPOCRITICAL, WORTHLESS, MONEY GRUBBING, PIECES OF SHIT said that I couldn't import the same Lovenox from Canada that I buy here at 3x the cost. WHY? Because it could be CONTAMINATED. Well, guess what? The Heparin they stamped with their seal of approval was CONTAMINATED. What's worse is our tax dollars pay for what appears to be a worthless bureaucracy which serves little apparent purpose beyond running up the cost of medications in the U.S.

Is the purpose of the FDA to protect U.S. citizens, or is its purpose to protect pharmaceutical company profits? Read the linked article, and I think the answer will reveal itself.

The O'Reilly Fiction

2008-03-20T22:05:00.003-05:00

When I first saw Bill O'Reilly's show several years ago, I thought he was a pompous ass, but I respected the fact that he aired negative feedback from his viewers. That was about all I knew of the guy. Of course, once I watched enough episodes, I found his personality abrasive enough to be disinterested whether I agreed with him or not.

Since then, I've gone on to lose interest in Fox News completely because of both bias (keep in mind, I'm conservative to an extreme) and incompetence. However, with the Obama/Wright issue recently, I started watching again because other networks were sanitizing the debate by playing less offensive videos.

One show I caught was an O'Reilly Factor episode where one of the other topics was The Huffington Post and offensive comments O'Reilly staff had found there. O'Reilly distorted the issue by noting Arianna Huffington as the editor and hence responsible for all text on the site. In this case, he was referring to the anonymous comments found in discussion of articles on the site.

Tonight, he's at it again. He sent one of his paparazzi-like camera crews after Huffington to interview (harass) her over the issue. Huffington responded here in far too respectful a manner.

What bothers me about this is that O'Reilly is deliberately misleading his viewers. He knows comments sections are open forums, not articles, editorials, or even letters to the editor. This isn't content sanctioned by Huffington. It's content created by users interested in discussing the issues raised in the article. And, the Internet is a tough place sometimes. People exercise their free speech rights there more than anywhere, and I would think sites should celebrate that speech in our country, not hide it like Huffington is doing and O'Reilly expects all of us to do. Let people speak their mind. If they say something offensive, they can deal with the fallout. Leave the site owners alone.

So who's less American...really?

The Wright Video to Show

2008-03-14T13:18:00.002-05:00

Last night while watching the Daily Show, I saw a clip of The Trinity United Church of Christ preacher Jeremiah Wright saying something I thought I had misunderstood. It turns out I hadn't misunderstood it and found a more complete clip:

Let's write out what he actually said in case you don't want to watch or the video disappears:

...The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a 3 strikes law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America? No, no, no. Not God Bless America. God Damn America. That's in the Bible. They're killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human...

The thing you have to remember is this guy is part of Obama's spiritual advisory committee, and Obama has referred to him as "a crazy uncle who sometimes says things he disagrees with." Huh? That's it? He later goes on to use the following phrase in another clip in the same video:

U.S. of KKK A.

As much as I think Obama appears to be a decent fellow from what I've seen of him, are we going to take a chance and elect someone to the presidency who was brought to religion by, married by, and studied under a man who is obviously bigoted and anti-American? All we have are a few recent statements by Obama saying he disagrees with Wright on some issues weighed against some 20 years of membership in Wright's church.

What are we to believe? If we've all learned anything this past week, we should have learned to keep a healthy dose of cynicism about all politicians regardless of what they may be leading us to believe, right?

Incompetent Developers - Thanks a Whole Lot

2008-03-14T10:26:00.006-05:00

Today, I get to dig in and update my SMTP server software. This is not an update like the rest of the world does. No, I have to go into my C++ source and change my positive completion replies of 251 to 250 because some lazy ass, incompetent corporate programmer couldn't read a damn RFC. If you have any idea how much of a complicated, jumbled mess that source is, you'd understand why I'm angry. I've avoided touching it for some 2-3 years for this very reason.

Am I happy I'm still running my home-grown SMTP server in 2008? No, but no other product does out of the box what mine does, and it's now really hard to unwind from it because there are custom applications taking advantage of its features.

So, for those of you writing corporate or open-source mail servers, pull your collective heads out of your asses and read the damn RFC's before you write your code.

Sensible Defaults

2008-03-06T02:11:00.000-06:00

As a developer, I'm very familiar with the idea of pickings sensible defaults when I write software. In the web-based database application world (i.e. snooze-fest), that usually means setting up an invalid default that will trigger an error if the user doesn't select anything. In other settings, though, you want to make sure the user doesn't take an action inadvertently by providing a bad default.

Such was my experience in signing up for Flixster at Simone's invitation. The sign-up process felt a little like a GoDaddy domain name registration with repeated screens asking for information I didn't want to provide. In most cases, I could bypass them by hitting continue. On the last screen, that wasn't the case. The system fired off "friend" invitations to something like 5 people by default when I hit continue on that last page.

Nice job Flixster developers.

Obama on the Firing Line

2008-02-16T23:47:00.003-06:00

Shots like this one from Captain's Quarters at Obama show just how insanely desperate the GOP is right now. Keep in mind, I've typically called myself Republican, but this kind of attack is just embarrassing. They took a speech by Obama's wife, dissected, and twisted it to try to make undermine Obama's campaign. The problem is...what she said is basically true albeit not 100% accurate. Instead of dissecting her inaccuracies, maybe they should address her general theme which is basically a good one (and I'm not talking about our "souls").

Brief Hiatus

2008-01-13T00:32:00.000-06:00

It's an ironic post title, isn't it? As if I haven't already been on a hiatus from my blog...

Anyway, I thought this might be a good place to notify those who know me as Hap that I'll be out of pocket and mostly offline for the better part of 4 weeks. We'll be in China for a few weeks finalizing the adoption of our daughter so we can bring her home. If you've seen me mention life being a little crazy, now you know what's behind it.

Wave Power

2007-12-18T20:51:00.000-06:00

How much refuse has been dumped in the ocean with the defense of "infinite dilution"? The coral reefs now prove the fallacy of that defense yet we now forge ahead with the same ignorance and arrogance that brought us where we are today:

Wave Power to go Commercial from ZDNet

Here's the question: How much do these devices have to affect ocean currents before it causes a problem? Has anyone really considered it, or do they simply assume that they are so small as to have no effect?

iPhone Crashed With Latest Update

2007-11-26T13:32:00.000-06:00

So it's been quite the week for my uberphone. I went on a quickly family vacation to celebrate my Grandfather's 90th birthday, and I found myself unable to perform the system administration tasks needed. Why?

No Service: I guess the iPhone's reception isn't up to normal cell phone standards as others were still getting service. Even when I had a signal, data speed was too slow to be useful.

Safari Crashes: It seems when the iPhone doesn't like a site, it just dumps you back to the main icon view. WebShell, which I've been using for emergency system administration, used to work with my phone. Now? Entering my password dumps me out of Safari.

So, the plan was to upgrade to 1.1.2 and see if it fixed the problem. After a few minutes of waiting, all I was left with was a pretty icon for iTunes sitting above an iPhone USB cable. It didn't matter whether I power cycled, disconnected, or reconnected, iTunes would no longer see it, and I couldn't get rid of the screen.

After a few searches, I discovered that a reboot of the iPhone with a restart of iTunes might do the trick. Sure enough, iTunes came up and said my iPhone was fubar (or something like that) and asked whether I wanted to restore it. Do I have a choice? About an hour later, my iPhone was once again functional.

With Android on the horizon, I hope Apple gets its act together and delivers 3G, a more stable Safari, and a reliable update process. If not, experiences like mine for those less technically inclined are going to pile up and damage Apple's reputation. The keyboard is a big enough headache on its own. They don't need to pile on at this point.

Tim Ferriss on Language Learning

2007-11-07T10:34:00.000-06:00

Even before reading "The 4 Hour Work Week", I had been keeping up with Tim Ferriss' blog. One topic he touches on from time-to-time that truly interests me is language learning. Today, he explains how to learn (but not master) any language in one hour. At the core, this article is really about how to choose a good target language so that reaching fluency is easier. However, the way he instructs you to break down a language is simple and highly relevant regardless of your suitability for the target language.

So, what does he recommend? He has a series of sentences that he asks a translator to translate for him. They expose important language differences like whether or not verbs are conjugated, how gender is handled, possessive forms, and others. Having learned quite a bit of French and a little bit of Mandarin, I can tell you from my own experience that remembering the basic rules of a language is much easier than learning it through immersion like an infant. So, if you're going to use an immersion product like Rosetta Stone, for example, use Tim's sentences or other resources to figure out the basic rules and save yourself some headaches.

FDA Rejects Generic Lovenox

2007-11-06T10:27:00.000-06:00

As usual, the FDA has protected big pharma over its generic competitors. This time, the FDA denied an application from Momenta Pharmaceuticals for a generic version of Lovenox. Lovenox is a particularly personal medication for my family. At $30/day (our cost, insurance paid $70/day) for 2 years while we were having our first child, the pain of fraudulent patents and FDA protection of big pharma hit all too close to home. Now, maybe...MAYBE...there really was something wrong with the drug, but then again, isn't there ALWAYS something wrong with drugs even if they're approved by the FDA? Pondemin, Vioxx, Celebrex...the list goes on and on. Are they protecting us, or are they protecting corporations?

Forever Geek Says Technology is Destroying Society

2007-11-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

How Technology is Destroying Society via Forever Geek

In his article, Dave at Forever Geek identifies several ways in which he feels technology is destroying society. They include:

Time
Friends
Communication
Health

The details he provides are, for the most part, irrefutable, but let's look at some ways in which those technologies he villainized might actually be benefiting society or maybe even save it?

Time

Prior to the Internet, working a 40 hour per week job carried tremendous limits in how much outside, personal contact was allowed on a typical day. Before there were even cell phones, many employees had no method to contact friends or family during work. Now, most desk jobs include Internet access and allow some level of electronic communication for personal reasons.

Friends

In my case, it's a little odd to comment on friends because I'm definitely not the best in the world at making and keeping friends. However, technology helps me cope with my antisocial behavior. I rarely, if ever, pick up the phone to call a friend, but it's not unusual for me to send an e-mail or respond to an e-mail.

To take it a step further, I've even made friends online through work-related contacts and social networking sites. And, those friends span the globe...something that wasn't even possible when I was a kid. Back then, you had elementary school teachers trying to arrange for kids to have pen-pals in foreign countries where it could take weeks to exchange letters. Now, I can jump on Skype and video-chat for free just about anywhere in the world.

Communication

Dave seems concerned about what we're losing by communicating in text. While his household may sit at one extreme end, I don't think mine is losing much. Many of the messages we exchange by e-mail or text message wouldn't have been exchanged otherwise. I'm also much better at addressing difficult subjects over e-mail because it affords me the opportunity to closely examine the meaning and intent of my words, and in some cases, I say things that I wouldn't say in person...things that needed to be said.

As far as losing language, as much as we might not like it, languages evolve. When I look back at the Constitution or Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, I marvel at how far we've fallen. The focus when I went through school was less on eloquence and more on communicating (subject - action verb - object). Having said that, I tend to find Shakespeare a bit ridiculous (to which I'm sure many will object). Some of our new acronyms and slang from the text messaging world will be discarded, and some will be kept. That's just the nature of the beast, and if it wasn't text messaging or Twitter (what the heck is Twitter?), it would be something else.

Health

On this point, I have to concede that being out of the sun as much as I am working at computers (that glare from the windows causes headaches, you know?) certainly doesn't help my health. Add on the sedentary nature of the job along with the bacterial/viral playground that is the keyboard, and you have a nice combination of increased risk factors for taking ill.

On the other hand, being online allows me to research health issues that I wouldn't have had a clue about otherwise. It allowed me to check into Vitamin K injections and their risks when my wife was having a bleeding event due to anti-clotting medication. I also found Dr. Eades who has dispelled several diet myths for me (fasting, fiber, protein, cholesterol) helping me to drop from 215 lbs to 184 lbs and maintain it for over a year. If I were left to mainstream media's whims, I'd probably be thinking eating a vegan diet, high in fiber, and low in fat and protein were the best options for my health all the while watching my cholesterol sky-rocket. So yes, the Internet and my computer industry job have hurt my health in some ways, but they're helping it in others.

Conclusion

Getting back to the subject of friends, I think it's important to point out that I communicate on a daily basis with people from the UK, India, and Russia. On a less frequent basis, I communicate with people from China and France. During the Cold War, how many Americans could say they new someone from Russia personally? How would that have affected attitudes of the citizens towards aggressive actions by their governments? My point is, the more technology shrinks the world and increases multi-cultural communication, the less we have to worry about governments going to war over invisible lines or other equally vacuous reasons.

Movie Review -- Gone Baby Gone

2007-10-22T23:05:00.000-05:00

"Gone Baby Gone" is the news story that makes you ask, "Why do I watch the news?" It's the 60 Minutes feature on sex tourism. It's the home invasion on a sunny, weekday afternoon. It's the store owner who kills two intruders after enduring 20 robberies in the previous 6 months. "Gone Baby Gone" shows you the things you didn't want to see, asks you the questions you didn't want to be asked, and forces you to reconsider your basic understanding of right and wrong.

What can you say about the cast and crew for this film? In my opinion, this movie should capture Best Director, Best Lead Actor, and Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris) without blinking. Whether or not the winds in Hollywood will blow that way, who knows. Regardless, if you see this movie, you'll see a promising new director, an up and coming actor at the top of his game, and a seasoned veteran delivering another stunning performance.

Directed by Ben Affleck and starring his brother Casey Affleck, "Gone Baby Gone" is the story of the kidnapping of a 4 year old girl, her family, the police, and the private investigators hired to find her. Casey Affleck plays Patrick Kenzie, a PI with connections in the neighborhood where the abduction took place. He and his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) are hired by the kidnapped girl's Aunt to help in the investigation. From there, the movie takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride following the search for the little girl.

With enough f-words to make Ozzy blush, it was hard not to count each expletive in expectation of the movie setting a new record. Whether I adjusted to the pace or it slowed down, I don't know, but I became so engrossed in the movie and its characters that I soon forgot about the cursing altogether. Had I left like the man in front of me, I would have missed out on an interesting experience.

Interesting experience...that's about the best way I can sum up "Gone Baby Gone". During the movie, I felt uncomfortable, angry, sad, disgusted, and confused. I can only think of one movie I've seen that had a similar impact, "Million Dollar Baby". Though unrelated in terms of plot, both movies leave you wishing a moral compass was more than just a clever literary device.

The Gold Standard

2007-10-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul's campaign put out a blog post today where they mentioned an interview with Alan Greenspan on Fox Business where he was asked about the role of the Federal Reserve and Gold-backed currency. I just so happen to have tracked down that interview:

Everywhere I look, I see people calling Paul a loon or worse for advocating a commodity-backed currency and the elimination of the Federal Reserve. I would imagine a lot of those same people hold Alan Greenspan in high regard. Listen to his answers in this video. I think you'll be surprised.

Update: The embedded video doesn't seem to work for me. Here's a link if you need it.

Researching the Obvious

2007-10-16T21:41:00.000-05:00

Spray cleaning products and Asthma don't mix...go figure.

Forbe's Article

England's National Health Service Proving Republicans Right?

2007-10-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

This article from Yahoo News details problems in England's National Health Service in delivering dental care. Some of the interesting numbers from the article include:

45% of dentists surveyed no longer accept NHS patients.

6% of citizens surveyed have practiced self care (pulling their own teeth, attaching caps with superglue, etc.).

20% skipped dental work due to cost.

The most telling quote of the article:

"It appears many are being forced to go private because they don't want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can't find a local NHS dentist."

Does this mean Republicans are right about socialized medicine, and if so, what do we do with families like mine who are uninsurable in the private market?

Senator Clinton's Health Care Plan

2007-10-10T16:53:00.001-05:00

As I'm sure anyone following the candidates knows, Senator Clinton recently released her full-blown health care proposal. In this case, I'm not going to go through the package point by point, but I do want to focus on what seems to be a basic premise...competition.

Senator Clinton has proposed 3 types of coverage:

Private / Group Policies as we have now.

Government Insurance as Congress has now.

Medicare-style Insurance similar to what the elderly or impoverished have now.

In brief, she is saying if we like our existing coverage, keep it. If we don't like our coverage or don't have coverage, use a government variant. I don't really know how I feel about her specific prescription for competition, but I do think the basic idea is an interesting one.

What would happen if we put private, group, and government health insurance all into the market to compete with each other? Let's then adjust the tax code to keep those in the private and group pools from paying for anything in the government pool. Which plan wins? Wouldn't that be the ultimate test of a free market in health care, government competing on a level playing field with private industry?

As to Senator Clinton's specific plan, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Many of the provisions are very good for my family, but I don't know that they're good for the nation as a whole. My real concern with her plan honestly has nothing to do with the plan itself. It's her recent comments about $5,000 trust per child born in America or $1,000 per person for a 401k plan. These are the kinds of proposals that just confound me when it comes to Democrats. Why collect taxes from citizens, reduce the money by bureaucracy, and then turn around and give that money back in whatever way politicians see fit? Isn't this a role that personal responsibility and charity can play in a free market? Those of us who can, save. Those who can't, we try to help.

Every time she speaks, I feel like Senator Clinton is plotting some new way to confiscate and redistribute my income or savings. So, my real problem with her health care policy is her attitude toward taxing and spending, not the policy itself. I guess in that way my attitude toward her is much like my attitude toward Romney and Giuliani on other issues...I just don't trust her.

Monster Cable vs. Pear Anjou

2007-10-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

This Slashdot post talks about a challenge over quality by Monster Cable against some obnoxiously expensive cables by Pear Anjou. The hilarious thing about this is that audiophiles have been saying the same thing about Monster Cables for years while deceitful salesmen happily tell hapless customers that they have to buy Monster Cable. What comes around goes around, eh Monster?

iPhone Thoughts

2007-10-02T16:20:00.001-05:00

Well, I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. In extreme frustration over a system failure while I was out running work errands a couple weeks ago, I headed straight for the AT&T Wireless store. Of course, I had a couple of false starts because I tried the nearby AT&T stores only to find out that only "corporate" stores carry the iPhone? Huh? Why do you have the stupid AT&T banners hanging over the signs then? Anyway, the purchase was mind-numbingly simple as was the activation process on my Mac.

With all of the posts I've read, there's been little other than glowing praise of the uber-device du jour. And you know what, they're right on most counts. All in all, this is a great little computer. Nevertheless, here's some of what I haven't heard elsewhere:

The mail program forces you to delete messages one at a time. There's no "delete all" mechanism which is important given how I want to use the phone.

The keyboard is a pain in the ass. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't. Aside from hitting the wrong key frequently because my fingers are too big, I'm also constantly jumping back to symbols/numbers to type periods when I'm doing system administration. Why can't we have a choice of which keyboard to use? I'd always pick the URL version of the keyboard for normal work. I type ".com" often enough to need it.

Dialing without looking at the phone is impossible, but you already knew that.

The display or cpu seems to get behind when you're scrolling Safari, and I haven't found a way to jump to the top or bottom of a page without scrolling.

When I just want to see information on a missed or recent call, I often end up dialing the number.

The speakers used for speaker-phone, iPod playback, and ring-tones are pathetic. If you have much background noise at all, you won't hear them.

Wifi reception is spotty, at best, even though the transparency of the Wifi support is beautifully done.

After my purchase, I decided not to install a terminal and SSH client on my iPhone. My original intent was to have a device with an SSH shell, but I've had devices like the Zaurus where 3rd party code had caused me nothing but headaches. Instead, I turned to WebShell and Webmin to help me with my system administration tasks. Don't get me wrong, WebShell is slow and aggravating, but it works in a pinch. I've had better luck with setting up custom commands on Webmin to do some of my normal administration duties. Eventually, I hope to have Nagios running and doing some of the recovery work automatically, but that's for another day.

It turns out not installing 3rd party apps was a good decision as it seems Apple decided to declare war on the 3rd party app installers and SIM unlockers. Bricking phones because someone wants to do system administration? Not my idea of a consumer-oriented company, but then again, I've never been a true Apple fanboy. The only reason I'm on Mac is because it gives me a half-way decent, stable Unix. The only reason I have an iPhone is it gives me a small, mobile computer from which I can do system administration in an emergency. While I love their attention to detail on their hardware, I've always been leery of their attitude toward consumers and developers.

Anyone who thinks an Apple monopoly would be better than a Microsoft monopoly must have checked their critical thinking skills at the door. Let's hope they don't bankrupt themselves learning how to behave as a responsible corporate citizen.

$#!$# Comedy Central

2007-10-02T16:12:00.000-05:00

In an old post, I used Comedy Central's own system to embed a Daily Show clip on the site. Free advertising, right? Well, as you can see, they've pulled the clip and replaced it with "Video no longer available, but I heard your mother is." Nice. I don't run a clean, puritanical blog or anything, but it still pisses me off that I found that on my blog today. I'm trying to resist the four-letter word impulse and stick to Looney Tunes, but it's tough. Maybe next time I'll just use a Youtube clip and spare them the free marketing, however small it might be. Guess I'll hit "Publish" and move on to something else.

Earmark Watch

2007-09-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Through a post at Captain's Quarters, Mr Morrissey points us to Earmark Watch, a site who's sole purpose is to help citizens research the wasteful spending of our representatives in Washington, D.C. Take a look and see what sort of games your representatives are playing. After reviewing my own, I'm left wondering if we're running our an experiment with Communism in this country. Why do all of these military technology businesses need government grants? Isn't the basic idea that you develop a product and try to sell it to the armed services, not the other way around?

Look Ma, No Critical Thinking Skills

2007-09-13T09:48:00.001-05:00

It's almost amusing how stupid supposedly smart people can be. I'm not even going to bother refuting this "research" point by point. Just go read Dr. Eades' Blog for a while and discover how woefully inept this "research" is.

Captain's Quarters Outs the Porkers

2007-09-13T09:35:00.001-05:00

I don't always agree with Captain's Quarters, but when it comes to earmarks/pork, he's right on target. Take a look at his evaluation of pork in the transportation bill.

SC4Huckabee

2007-09-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

After a comment left on my site, I started reading SC4Huckabee's blog. At times, the posts have been interesting and informative, dare I say more so than most of the official blogs of other candidates on both sides of the aisle. Nevertheless, SC4Huckabee managed to lose my respect with this paragraph in a post about Huckabee and Paul's exchange in the Fox debate:

As we all know this debate will stick out because of brief moments when Congressman Paul and Governor Huckabee had a passionate debate on Iraq, and I am going to say it like it should be said Ron Paul is wrong America NEVER brought upon itself the attacks on 9-11 and I am tired of hearing negatives like that from those who want to be our next president. For those of you that do not know Governor Huckabee, I think he was very disturbed by Ron Pauls comments because this is not the first debate he has alluded to these same comments.In Columbia, SC during the third debate, he did the same thing and I am grateful that Governor Huckabee took a jab back at Ron Paul and put him in his spot on Wednesday. Governor Huckabee responded because he cares about this country and wants the best for all Americans.

As you'll recall, I blogged about my disappointment in part of Ron Paul's response. I'll even take it a step further. I agree with Huckabee's "you break it, you bought it" metaphor. Unfortunately, that doesn't change anything in the Daily Show's skewering of U.S. foreign policy, and to suggest otherwise is either ignorance or deception.

Actions come with consequences. Trying to suggest otherwise is absurd. Giuliani attempted it in an earlier debate, and SC4Huckabee has decided to try it now. In so doing, I think SC4Huckabee, well intentioned though he may be, does his candidate of choice a disservice.

Oh the Irony

2007-09-10T16:36:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how I stumbled onto it, but I found an amusing bit of irony in this article. The article is about introverts and society's supposed lack of understanding of them. Toward the end, the author hits us with this little nugget of wisdom:

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts.

Nah, no arrogance from our introverted author...none whatsoever...

Disappointed by Ron Paul

2007-09-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

SC4Huckabee posted a clip from last night's GOP debate where Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee went toe-to-toe on Iraq. What disappointed me most is not what you might expect. It's the fact that Paul used the Republicans' election woes as a reason for leaving Iraq. I don't want my President to do what's popular. Senator Clinton would do a fine job of that for me. What I want is a President who will do what he/she thinks is right.

Work Frustrations

2007-09-04T18:01:00.000-05:00

As a software developer, you're really in an unusual position. On the one hand, you have to know computers, computer languages, developing tools, protocols, etc. On the other hand, you have to know your client's job, or in most cases, learn the client's job.

The computer stuff is simple. Yes, I said simple. Computers are logical, dare I say predictable. With them, the surprises are of your own making. You live and die by your competence or lack thereof.

Client's are the exact opposite, and sometimes clients are trying to solve a problem that they themselves have little experience in. Learning their needs can be challenging even with the most prepared client.

Today, I had a response from a client on the project that has cost me so much time the past few weeks. About 8 hours of that time was spent on a specific interface, a shipping tracking interface. The client modeled a single shipment per order requirement for us, but the whole of the project calls for a lot of large quantity, business to business orders. As a result, a more complex shipping model is required, and that's what I delivered.

The client's response to seeing the implementation? "Should I ignore the shipping section for now?" Wow...guess that 8 hours trying to save the client from a change order 6-9 months down the line was well spent on my part.

Money and Happiness

2007-09-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard of Tim Ferriss, you probably will. He's the blogger making some waves with his book "The Four Hour Work Week". Whether you think his ideas are practical or absurd, they at least make you sit down and think for a minute. Today, I found this argument against money = happiness on his site. Coming off a week where I put in 120 hours on just one project, this post hits home like a ton of bricks. What the hell am I doing putting myself in a position where I have to work 120 hours a week?

If you don't know, I'm a computer programmer. I work in a small business where I'm often the only technical person on staff. Our primary business isn't software or hosting or anything like that so I develop and host systems to support our work and our clients' work. Unfortunately, I'm overextended and underspecialized (if that's a word) leading to a continual state of chaos in my day-to-day work. Extended periods of apathy and low productivity driven by task overload eventually lead to long hours of work where, ignoring all other tasks, I focus in on one deadline.

In either case, I suffer, my wife suffers, my son suffers...everyone around me suffers for my stupid job. One of these days, it will change, but then again, I say that everytime I go through a week like last week. Maybe having it in writing will make it real.

It's Funny, But I Wish It Wasn't So True

2007-08-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

John Stewart skewers American foreign policy in the Middle East in this clip from the Daily Show:

While he was playing a bit to Barack Obama's crowd with these jokes, I think these clips do a better job of highlighting the logic in Ron Paul's arguments on foreign policy, especially as it pertains to the Middle East.

IF Update

2007-08-15T00:10:00.001-05:00

I was glancing over site traffic statistics for Hap's Dustbin, and even though they are pathetic as expected, I did notice traffic continues to come here from Dr. Eades' intermittent fasting blog post. As such, I thought it would be good to update folks on where I am today with IF. My last couple of posts weren't so positive, and I thought I should set the record straight.

I do continue to fast albeit much more randomly and usually only in response to digestive or allergy problems. The odd thing about not fasting on a schedule is that, for me, it's much harder than the MWF schedule I was keeping last winter. For reasons I cannot explain, the hunger makes me a bit crazy if I'm not on a schedule. On a schedule, the fast is simple.

As to my back problems, it was probably a combination of factors, but the central problem turned out to be our bed. I'm on a Tempurpedic mattress now and very rarely experience back problems. My tennis elbow is still there, unfortunately, but it's much better. The likely culprits were computer mousing, lifting my 4 year old son with one arm, and getting my laptop bag in and out of the car. Once I changed those behaviors, it began to improve.

One thing I learned doing IF is that you don't have to eat on a schedule. It's amazing to me how hard it is to deprogram your body from 3 meals a day. I still relapse occasionally and eat out of habit, but I'm often quite happy to eat breakfast followed by little to no lunch.

The main reason I'm not on a scheduled fast today is strength training. I could not seem to build strength or muscle on a regular IF schedule, but I was able to maintain muscle. As such, I hope to return to IF once I reach my fitness goals so I can feel better overall.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. I've created a Topics section to the right so my IF posts can be accessed more easily if you're just wondering how it worked in my case. I'll also be doing some new posts on what I've done since IF to extend my fat loss.

Thougth I've been as low as 183, my weight is currently around 186 with 10.8% bodyfat fully hydrated on my Tanita BIA scale. Even though some of my recent improvement did not happen under consistent IF, I still attribute my success to IF. Without IF, I wouldn't have learned to control my eating.

Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

2007-08-14T08:35:00.000-05:00

For the 3rd straight time, the Bourne franchise brought a nauseating ride on the shakey cam train. Why the director chooses to do this is beyond me, and it brings a truly great movie down to average status. Not only are the fights shakey in this one, but the director seems so obsessed with the hurl inducing effect that he even gives it to us on standard fare like sitting at a table talking.

In this episode, we catch up with Bourne digging further into Treadstone accompanied by some of the usual suspects along with a few new faces. Pamela Landy returns to inject some sanity into the chase, and Nicky Parsons manages to get tangled up in the story as usual. Ezra Kramer and Noah Vosen assume the mantle as Bourne's foils, and a new crop of agents work under their direction in this new pursuit.

Except for the shakey cam, this is a great movie, far better than the 2nd movie and equal to the first. Through a clever series of events, the movie manages to make you believe every character is fair game when the bullets are flying. It even throws some surprise twists and turns and ultimately brings the franchise to a satisfying conclusion. My only caution is that you should sit as far from the screen as possible.

Is it iPhone Time?

2007-08-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

This site claims an ssh client on the iPhone. I'll give it a few more weeks to see if Apple tries to attack the 3rd party applications, but things are looking up for mobile admin duties. Now if only the keyboard weren't so darn tiny...

Consistency in Accountability

2007-08-06T10:58:00.000-05:00

The AP through Yahoo News brings the story of a 5 year old boy killed by a stray bullet from a police officer. The police officer was helping a nearby resident get rid of a snake in a tree, and apparently decided to kill it by shooting it. Nearby, a boy and his grandfather were fishing on a lake when the second of two shots struck the boy in the head. Recognizing this was a careless accident, the boy's grandfather makes this observation:

"I'm not saying the cop shot him on purpose," he said. "But let me tell you — if I had a kid and put him in this car and didn't put him in a car seat and he got killed on the way to town, they'd charge me with murder ... and what this cop did is a lot worse than that."

Let that sink in for a bit.

Java Generic Question

2007-08-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

Being a C++ programmer, I naturally gravitated quickly toward Java 1.5 for generics. I've never been very good at remembering exact syntax and potential compiler errors so maybe I'm missing something, but given this scenario:

interface A

class B implements A
class C implements A

interface D

class E implements D

Now, why can't I cast E< B > or E< C > to D< A >? Is there a massive bug hiding in that cast that I'm not noticing, or does the compiler jut not want to figure out that it's legal? Or, have I missed some sort of special casting method in Java?

Hypocrite Series: Giuliani's (Lack of A) Health Care Plan

2007-07-31T16:55:00.001-05:00

Today was the big day. Giuliani made the rounds announcing sweeping health care reforms he would implement as President washing away all of the problems without even breaking a sweat. That's right folks. Giuliani treated us to some real moments of genius today as he REITERATED THE SAME GARBAGE HE'S BEEN SAYING IN THE DEBATES. It's a lot like reading Obama's plan. It's the try-not-to-offend-the-base-but-act-like-I-am-actually-doing-something plan.

"So Hap, what's this amazing plan," you ask. To sum it up, it's Bush's plan from his first run for President:

$15,000 tax credit for health insurance

Technology this, FDA that

Malpractice Reform this, HSA that

Happy Happy Joy...the market fixes everything

"But Hap," you say, "you like market solutions, tax system equity, malpractice reform, HSAs, and all of the rolly, polly goodness of the Rudy plan."

Alas, tis true, I do like those, but none of it matters if I can't get any ###$#@#$#@$ insurance in the first place. How ridiculous is it that my family's best option in the current health care climate outside of working at a big business with a group health plan is to move to Massachusetts and partake of plan Romney?????

By the way, did anyone notice the little attack on state's rights in Rudy's plan? I certainly did...

Diet Soda Bad For You?

2007-07-23T23:50:00.000-05:00

So says a recent study:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070723/us_nm/heart_softdrinks_dc

Note to self...finally follow through on quitting soda, diet or real, for good.

If you want to be disgusted by politicians yet again...

2007-07-18T10:53:00.001-05:00

...read this.

Hypocrite Series: Calling Out Giuliani on Health Care

2007-07-13T13:48:00.001-05:00

On his blog, Giuliani gives this "Bad Medicine" FUD-fest about Moore's Sicko and Clinton's health care plan. Whether this diatribe is true or not doesn't matter much to me. What matters is that Giuliani and others Republicans (save President Bush, oddly enough) refuse to say anything substantive about how they would fix the problems with our health care system. Now that Giuliani has fired a couple of shots across the socialism bow, I think we deserve more than free market this and competition that. Get specific...how are you going to deal with pre-existing conditions in the private health care market? How can small businesses compete to hire workers if they can't offer health benefits? How are you going to handle pharmaceutical companies abusing patents to keep drugs like Lovenox at $50/dose?

Answer some of these questions or shut the hell up about health care.

Heath Care: Reading Policies for Fun

2007-07-11T17:15:00.001-05:00

Reading insurance policies never ceases to amaze me. In a quick scan of the private insurance landscape, I decided to peruse a Humana policy as I had heard some good things about them. Here's the last item on their exclusion list:

Charges incurred for a hospital stay beginning on a Friday or Saturday unless due to emergency care or surgery is performed on the day admitted.

You've just gotta love 'em, right? In other words, we know they probably won't let you out over the weekend so we're just not going to pay for it. Go home and die instead, please.

Health Care: Untie Insurers' Hands

2007-07-11T16:38:00.000-05:00

To date in the 2008 campaign, we have yet to see any candidate recommend eliminating the insurance companies from the health care equation. Everyone seems to remember what happened to Senator Clinton's plan during President Clinton's tenure, and they're unwilling to go out on a limb. So if insurers are to remain a part of the system, let's cut them loose from regulations that are doing little to protect consumers and more to hurt them. In my own insurer's FAQ, I found this little gem:

Are the underwriting guidelines the same for all states?

No. Every state has certain guidelines that we must follow. Some states will allow us to exclude, rate-up or decline. Certain states only allow us to accept or reject with rate-ups and others are just accept or reject. Finally, there are states that we cannot decline or issue with exclusions or rate-ups.

Though I haven't researched it, I'm guessing my state is one of the "accept or reject" states as nobody would even discuss exclusions with me when I pursued private insurance. The reason states like mine did this was likely an attempt to protect their citizens, but in the end, all they did was make it impossible for those of us affected to get any coverage, much less bad coverage.

So...to the states. Stop regulating so damn much.

HealthCareSoundOff.com

2007-07-11T16:15:00.000-05:00

I just found HealthCareSoundOff.com via a post at Crooks and Liars, and it has some truly useful information on it related to the health care status quo.

Benedict's Thoughts on Non-Catholics Believers

2007-07-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

From the AP via Yahoo, Pope: Other Christians Not True Churches

What's that quote our parents always use at a time like this? Something about not having anything nice to say...

Upgrade to Firefox 2...It's Worth It

2007-07-03T12:24:00.000-05:00

On my pathetic little Powerbook G4, web browsing has become almost painful. Some of my favorite sites like Filmstalker bring my machine grinding to a halt. To make matters worse, I recently became a Google Reader fan, and my computer can't really keep up. I end up missing articles as the background Javascript server calls bog the processor down.

Not so with Firefox 2. Google Reader no longer bogs down to the point of doing big scroll jumps. I'm not sure what they've done, but they've breathed a bit more life into my aging G4.

Health Care: Reform the Patent System

2007-06-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read my blog since its inception (that means you, honey) that I have issues with the patent system. Being a software developer, I've marveled at the absurdity of patents granted to the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. Whether it's the GIF image format or Amazon's one-click idiocy or even the RSA's holding web security hostage, patents do more to undermine invention and progress in the software world than support it.

The same can be said of patents with regard to health care. In a previous post, I detailed how Aventis' games with Lovenox patents had a very direct effect on my family financially. Shortly thereafter, the FDA's treatment of Mylan Laboratories over a drug patent demonstrated an anti-consumer, pro-big-pharma, pro-patent attitude within the FDA, the gatekeeper for U.S. health care.

So, how would I fix it?

Shorten Patent Duration: During the life of the patent system, we've gone from 14 years to 20 years while at the same time improving the technology required to create inventions. There's no reason to grant a 20 year monopoly on anything. I would argue that 7-10 years is a more appropriate duration in this day and age.

Prohibit Patent Abuse by Pharmaceutical Companies: As I detailed in my Lovenox post, pharmaceutical companies frequently patent a compound upon initial discovery often times without any target condition. Once they create a drug and push through FDA approval, they then patent the final form of the drug, effectively extending the original patent by 20 years. They then use both patents to prevent generic competition. No matter how good they are at smoke and mirrors games, companies should only get one patent on an invention.

Any Trace of Government Funding in an Invention Precludes Granting a Patent: Think about this one for a minute. Our government throws money at anything and everything through their earmark grants, especially health care. If someone develops an invention using our tax dollars, they should have no right to a patent on the invention. In fact, the work should be in the public domain. It's the only logical outcome of public funding yet it's the exact opposite of what we do.

No Patent Without a Prototype: I know this might hurt some small inventors, but I don't believe patents should be granted unless a physical product exists. If you want to patent a flying car, fly the damn thing to the U.S.P.T.O. and let them take a look.

Expire Patents Owned by Holding Companies: While the grandfather clause protects existing IP holding companies, we can change future patents to expire upon purchase by a company who is little more than a team of submarine patent lawyers. If there's no physical product, there's no reason for the patent to exist.

Time Limits for Patent Lawsuits: If a product is on the market for at least 24 months without any objection from a company holding a patent on the underlying technology, that company cannot sue. Too many companies are using patents for leverage after their product failed in the market. Eliminate that option, but give them enough time to discover offenders.

Health Care: What Would I Do?

2007-06-28T13:18:00.000-05:00

In all of my writing about health care including criticism of Republican candidates' failure to put forth any real plans, it occurred to me that I've never put forward any reform plans myself. While my posts have hinted at things I like and don't like, I've never stated exactly what steps I would take to improve U.S. health care. This article will start a series of articles on how I would change our health care system.

Interesting Blog Posts

2007-06-21T16:29:00.001-05:00

Just a few interesting postst that came across some blogs I keep up with:

Alien and Sedition talks about The GOP's Idea Drought

Captain's Quarters looks into the Democrats trying to end secret ballots for union elections.

CQ also takes a few shots at Giuliani.

Alright, CQ had some interesting stuff yesterday. Check out Uncle Chuck's Suck-up Strategy

YouTube on iPhone and Apple TV

2007-06-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

Someone please tell me why this is news. Who cares? Does anyone care about having YouTube on TV or on a Phone? I certainly don't, but maybe I'm daft.

Hypocrite Series: Democrats on Bush's Stem Cell Research FUNDING Veto

2007-06-20T13:23:00.001-05:00

Obama and Clinton both posted strong rebukes of Bush for today's veto. The only difference is that one candidate was honest, one was not. The Democrats have long played a dishonest game with stem cell research claiming Republicans were banning it. The truth is that a majority of Republicans have opposed government funding of embryonic stem cell research, not stem cell research in general. And, where is it written the government should fund any research?

Before I get on a rant, let's get back to the point. Obama's quote from a blog post:

By vetoing funding for stem cell research once again, the President is deferring the hopes of millions of Americans who do not have the time to keep waiting for the cure that may save or extend their lives.

Nicely done...Obama was honest about it. Let's see what Clinton had to say in her blog's post:

So let me be very clear: When I am president, I will lift the ban on stem cell research.

Oops...looks like she's playing the political game of turning a ban on funding into a ban on research.

Why do I bring this up? I think it's important we find someone honest to go into the presidency regardless of their policy positions.

Reading Speed

2007-06-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Through a post on Jason P. DeFillippo's blog, I stumbled onto The Low Information Diet which I should have already seen as I've been reading Timothy Ferriss' site for a few weeks now. Mr. Ferriss presents some unusual ideas, but the one that most interested me was his recommendation on improving how fast you read.

Quoting the document:

Reading speed increases to the extent that you reduce the number and duration of fixations per line. That is the verifiable science of speed reading in one sentence.

The process is simple. First, draw a vertical line down the center of five text pages, then draw two additional vertical lines 2” to either side of each center line. Practice fixating only at the points where these vertical lines intersect the horizontal lines of text, then progress to unmarked pages of text. By training peripheral vision and consolidating eye movement, you will be reading at least three-times faster than before.

Before I get into this, let me state unequivocally that I don't consider myself a speed reader and have never had any formal training in speed reading. I didn't even sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night so I'm probably way off base. Having said that, I think most who know me would agree I work with text a little faster than the normal person. Let it be known that I don't work with text for enjoyment. If you want to enjoy your reading, go elsewhere. I've always hated reading and only use concepts to increase speed and comprehension, not enjoyment or appreciation of eloquence.

Ironic that I can't shutup when I write, isn't it?

I do agree with Mr. Ferriss that eye movement plays an important role in how fast you can read, but I'm going to bet that a lot of people aren't in the position where eye movement matters much. Additionally, I think there are better ways to consolidate eye movement *if* you can control the format of the printed text.

The first breakthrough you can make in your reading speed is to discover useless words. In general, useless words are words that you wouldn't capitalize if you were formally typing the title of a book in a bibliography. Words like "is", "are", "a", "the", "that", "which", etc. make great candidates with one notable exception, "not". You must pay attention to negation, or it will take you longer to read a block of text using this method. Even worse, you might completely misunderstand what you read if you don't catch yourself skipping a negation.

Reading without the connector words can be a little jarring, but they're only there to make things flow better in speech. They impart very little meaning on a normal sentence. Occasionally, you need to slow down and pick up verb tense, but other than that, they're largely useless.

The second breakthrough comes in discovering that how you were taught to read is slow. This has become more clear as I've been working with my 4 year old on reading. He reads the letters of a word, and I tell him what the word is. Letters make up words, words make up sentences, and sentences make up paragraphs. We build from smaller to larger. When he was just 2, though, he figured out the word "Pizza" without knowing anything about letters. How? He memorized the symbol after we told him what it was. The point is that reading letters is slow, but reading words as symbols is fast.

Let me give you another example. I'm a fairly fast typist today, but a few years ago, I could easily hit 90+ wpm speeds with peaks in the 110-120 range. The difference between 40 wpm and 90 wpm is how you think about what you type. Do you type l-e-t-t-e-r-s, or do you type words. Words I use frequently just flow out of my hands. I don't think about the letters I'm typing at all. It's only in a word I don't use frequently that I slow down to think about the letters. And you know what I realize at that point? I really don't consciously know where all the letters are on a QWERTY keyboard. I used to know, but I don't now.

Reading is the same. The more you can divorce your brain from the process of converting letters to words, words to sentences, and sentences to paragraphs, the faster you will read. Treat each important word as a symbol. Try not to think about the letters, and never pronounce it in your head. Just look at the word and know what it is similar to how you look at a company's logo and instinctively know the company. This takes practice and isn't 100%, but it can be done.

Once you master treating words as symbols, you can move onto phrases. If the text you read is somewhat uniform, you may be able to abstract collections of words into a given meaning like you've done with individual words. For instance, I work in the computer programming field. I can look at phrases like "object oriented programming" and spend less time on it than I would a simple word like "speed".

At this point, it may be time to tackle eye movement. When your eyes move across a long line of text, it's easy to lose your place. I've never tried Mr. Ferriss' method so I can't comment on it. What I have tried is using small columns of text. Reading top to bottom is a whole lot easier than reading left to right, top to bottom.

I noticed this the most reading the Bible, of all things. Even as difficult as the Bible is to read using my techniques, I still found myself reading through it fairly fast. Why? The columns are only 4-5 words wide, and you never have to move your eyes left to right if you concentrate. Imagine yourself taking a picture of each line, discarding the unncessary words (not so easy with the Bible), and reading the important words as symbols out of what remains.

This is similar to what Mr. Ferris recommends, but it negates some of the training needed with his method. Having said that, a lot of text you encounter won't be in nice, thin columns like the Bible. If it's an online text, I'd say reformat it if at all possible. Shrink your browser width. Shrink your mail reader width. Do what you need to do to get a column width you can read without moving your eyes. If it's printed material, you might have to fall back on another method to minimize eye movement.

And last but not least, you have to practice. You aren't going to read all that fast if you don't read a lot. My job forces me to read a lot, especially if I want to keep up with all of the blogs I like and get some real work done. Just like typing, you won't improve much if you don't do it, and dare I say, you could even slow down much like my typing has over the years.

It Pays to do a Little Research

2007-06-19T13:26:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I didn't have a parent who taught me anything about cars or how they work. Schools were no use either. You got on either a college or vocational education track, and you stay there. Since I was on the college track, little practical knowledge was imparted in my schooling. It wasn't until just a few short years ago that I started learning a little about how cars work and, more importantly, how to fix them.

My current vehicle is a 1995 Dodge RAM with a little over 100,000 miles on it. Sadly for me, mileage is not the only determining factor in mechanical wear and tear. Time in and of itself seems to cause its own problems, and I've had my share of them the past year. Last July, I had to have the transmission on my truck rebuilt. Let me rephrase...I let the transmission shop I happened to breakdown near tell me it had to be rebuilt. Upon further research, I discovered that using the wrong transmission fluid in a Mopar transmission is bad news, and mine had been changed a couple years prior. It's possible changing the fluid would have brought it back, but it's even more probable that verifying the right fluid went into it 2 years ago would have saved it for several thousand miles.

Nevertheless, it's too late to revisit that flight of ignorance. My truck's new trick was to quit blowing cold air. On my previous truck, the same thing happened, and I just said to hell with it and drove without cold air. Of course, now I have a 4 year old son, and going without air conditioning is a little more than an inconvenience to me. So, I dutifully set about to call around and see what sort of cost I might be confronting knowing full well it would be bad.

The answer? $1200 to install a new A/C compressor. Ouch!

At that point, I decided to do some research. Replacing the A/C compressor turned out to be not such a big deal except for government requirements to have a certified shop do the refrigerant draining even though my truck was already on R134a instead of the dreaded R12. When reviewing the process, though, I discovered it's very common for the A/C compressor clutch to go out before the compressor. Considering my time was short, I decided to let a shop evaluate it and find out which it was.

At the shop, the mechanic dutifully told me that the compressor would have to be replaced. Upon further discussion, he admitted that it was just a problem with the clutch but that nobody would sell a clutch by itself. If I could get the clutch, he could have it up and running for $75. That's right, less than 10% of the initial estimate.

So, off I went in search of a clutch, and you won't believe what I found out. Nobody will sell a clutch by itself. BUT...and this is a big but...salvage yards will sell old compressors for less than $100. I lined up one to buy at a local salvage yard, but upon picking it up, I discovered that it was 33% of the way to the same condition as my clutch. The shop was extremely helpful and located another compressor for me, but while we killed time, I asked what they were doing with the broken unit. They said they'd trash the clutch and keep the compressor core.

At that point, I decided to buy the broken part by itself. I didn't need the whole clutch, just the clutch plate. It was broken, but it was still working and might tell me if my A/C compressor seizing up might have caused the clutch problem. After forcing the salvage yard to take $5 for it, I went home to try my hand at the install. It should have required a special tool according to my book, but I improvised. Within 20 minutes, I had the new clutch plate installed, fired up the truck, and, believe it or not, it worked.

Hopefully it will last the summer. I'm planning to pick up one of the other compressors the salvage yard located to keep as a backup.

The lesson here is not to take a mechanic's estimate at face value. Even if he/she is honest, it might be overestimated because of the circumstances. Assuming my A/C compressor had been bad, the mechanic would have bought one from Dodge for $450-500. The price for an aftermarket part from AutoZone would have cost $280-350 depending on the brand, and any mechanic worth his salt will install a part that you bought. If you were really brave, you could grab a compressor from salvage for less than $100 and roll the dice. In my case, I spent $5 plus 3-4 hours of my time as opposed to $1200 and most likely the same 3-4 hours of my time messing with drop-off and pick-up of the vehicle.

I only wish I had done my due diligence on my transmission last year...

Prosecutors Have Too Much Power

2007-06-14T14:36:00.001-05:00

So, a 15 year old girl gives a 17 year old boy oral sex. The 17 year old boy, who apparently has no history of legal trouble, gets a 10 year jail sentence. Huh? This apparently happened due to a poorly worded law on the books in Georgia which has since been corrected. This past week, a judge reversed the conviction calling it cruel and unusual punishment. So here we sit, 2 years later, and the kid can finally get out of jail, right? Wrong...the prosecutor plans to appeal the judge's decision. More from Yahoo News:

Teen Sex Case

What's truly ridiculous is that Wilson should never have been charged with anything in the first place. The system has likely ruined a promising athletic career, and the prosecutor decides to what...have a pissing contest with the judge? Pathetic...but even more disturbing is the intimidation tactic reported in the Yahoo article. If the prosecutor can send Wilson up the river for statutory rape when he was only 2 years older than the "victim", what could he do to the mother of the "victim" if she didn't cooperate?

DIY Auto Repair Cautionary Tale

2007-06-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, I got really tired of the Firestone's of the world charing $300 for plugs and wires. The same job on my driveway costs about $80 plus an hour of my time, and that's how it is with a lot of auto repair jobs. With a Hayne's repair manual and your helpful AutoZone employee's advice, you can do a lot of jobs that might have cost a lot more at a repair shop. However, every once in a while, lack of knowledge can bite you.

I've replaced the serpentine belt on my truck twice in its 10 year life. Both times, I struggled a bit with it mainly because I have only two arms. This time, though, I lost an epic, 2 hour battle. Sadly, I'm not clueful enough to question until I've completely lost my patience. After doing a little research, I discovered that the part numbers on the belts include their size. The one on my truck? 97.6" My new belt from AutoZone? 97.0" That may not seem like much, but for me it was 90 minutes, cuts, bruises, and all manner of unsavory behavior from a lost temper.

Come to find out, the problem was AutoZone's computer system. 3-4 years ago, I bought my 97.6" belt from the same store, but it doesn't appear that belt is made anymore. Apparently whenever they stopped making that belt or when AutoZone changed its computer system (not sure which), it went into the system wrong. It should have gone in as 97.5".

So anyway, if something's not working on your DIY auto repair, step back for a minute and verify that you have the right part. The computers aren't always right.

Bush's Enemy Combatant Policy

2007-06-12T10:13:00.000-05:00

Over at the Right Wing Nuthouse, the blogger there rails against the decision of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to hold an American citizen indefinitely without bringing charges in this post. What bothers me about this is the guy calls himself "right wing". Since when do conservatives support an unchecked expansion of executive powers? If he's a true conservative, he should be fighting tooth and nail against this policy. Unless we're in a civil war, the President MUST honor the rights of any American citizen no matter how objectionable their conduct. The court was undeniably right in its decision, and it's disappointing to see conservatives dissect the decision as a liberal coup.

Of Alec, Lindsay, Britney, Paris, and the Hoff

2007-06-08T13:19:00.001-05:00

Here we are in the midst of an election cycle with our military in Iraq and Afghanistan, Putin and Bush in a war of words, a G8 summit, Iran possibly going nuclear...the list goes on and on. What do I see when I turn on the TV at lunch today? Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are all showing clips of Paris Hilton going to court, and it's not even just a 5 minute blurb about it. They're covering it as if it's real news.

So let's get this straight. I don't watch the news to find out about Alec Baldwin calling his daughter a pig. That's none of anyone's business. Who cares if Hasselhoff is a drunk? Britney? Shave your head all you want...I don't care. Lindsay? Paris? NOT NEWS!

Hopefully the Internet will soon send 24 hour cable news the way of the newspaper.

Hypocrite Series: Giuliani's Ignorance of the State of Private Health Insurance

2007-06-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

A Wall Street Journal article discusses the direction Giuliani is going in preparing his own health care proposal. In it, they claim Giuliani will encourage everyone, including those insured with employers, to move to the private health insurance market. Apparently the guy's never had to get private insurance. If he had, he'd realize that they don't want to sell their product to anyone who's ever been to a Doctor. He might win the Republican nomination with this nonsense, but he'll lose the general election in a big way if this is all he can come up with.

Substitute Teacher Convicted of Child Endangerment for Popups Gets a New Trial

2007-06-06T17:16:00.001-05:00

Goods news for Julie Amero and...well...pretty much everyone in the country. Read more about the judge's decision to order a new trial. You can also read my previous post on the subject.

Hypocrite Series: Giuliani on Health Care Video Clip

2007-06-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

Giuliani's site just put out a video clip of his health care answer:

Giuliani on Health Care

What surprises me in watching this clip again is that Giuliani wants his $15,000 tax deduction to be applied no matter what you pay for health insurance. That means if you pay $8,000, you still get to deduct the full $15,000. That's an interesting idea that will never make it through Congress, and I don't see where you really need a deduction that isn't for the actual amount of the expense.

Anyway, Giuliani goes on to compare his idea of health insurance to homeowner's and car insurance. If you've read my blog, you would probably think I would agree. If so, you're partially right. I agree with the idea, not the analogy.

Homeowner's and car insurance in America is so controlled by government and insurance companies that you have a limited set of choices for deductible. If I have a $130,000 home, I'm unlikely to find an insurer willing to give me a deductible over $1200. They might blame the bank financing my home, but even if I owned it outright, I guarantee you they wouldn't give me a $5,000 or $10,000 deductible.

Car insurance is the same way. Raise your hand if you dropped comp/collision when you paid off your car. Now raise your hand if your deductible is over $500. Okay, I can see my wife's hand, and my hand is up. Anybody else? Nope? Point made.

Like I've been saying, health insurance right now is more like a warranty. It pays for everything with small deductibles or co-pays. Giuliani skirted the better analogy when mentioning oil changes. You don't buy a $2,000 warranty that includes $5 oil changes. You change it yourself for $15-20 (or more if you use the good stuff...Mobile One) or find someone else to do it within your budget. Instead, you use the warranty for a transmission rebuild or engine rebuild like it was intended.

If Americans can't come to terms with the purpose of insurance, then we should resign ourselves to socialized medicine and the expansion of the nanny-state.

I best stop this post before I draw too close a parallel between oil changes and medical tests...that might get ugly and R-rated. :)

Hypocrite Series: Huckabee on Health Care

2007-06-05T22:22:00.000-05:00

It's amazing all of the different places candidates leave their breadcrumb trails of positions on the issues. It seems Huckabee is doing a lot on Youtube with short videos on the issues. Here's his take on health care:

Well, as quickly as I gained respect in my previous post, I have now lost it. Talk about the non-answer of all time. There isn't really anything to discuss here. He pays lip-service to the Republican ideal of less government, but that's about it. Give me something concrete, and then we can talk.

Note: As critical as I've been of Romney, let me add that at least he has a proven record of addressing the issue. Arguably, no other candidate on the Republican side can say the same.

Hypocrite Series: Mike Huckabee

2007-06-05T22:10:00.000-05:00

How can you not like this guy? His explanation tonight of his answer to the South Carolina debate Evolution question was extremely well done. Evolution is no more than theory, and it takes the same kind of leap of faith to believe in Evolution as it does to believe in the Bible. If you assert Evolution as fact, then you're anti-science much like you would accuse Christians of being anti-science for pressing Creationism.

Regardless, we're still being distracted from the primary issues. A Huckabee presidency won't remove Evolution from school curriculum so let's drop that garbage and find out where he stands on health care and Iraq.

Hypocrite Series: Giuliani on Gun Control

2007-06-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

In looking for a clip of Giuliani's debate comments tonight on Youtube, I happened to find this older footage about New York filing suit against gun manufacturers:

Giuliani makes it very clear in this clip that he is anti-2nd Amendment. Giuliani does not want me to own a gun, and he's willing to pursue all means including filing a lawsuit against manufacturers to make that happen. On his site, he talks about what works in New York not necessarily working in Montana. Guess what Mayor? This is America. You don't get to pick and choose. We have a right to bear arms, and it's not up to you where and when to allow citizens to exercise it.

Hypocrite Series: Immigration

2007-06-05T21:24:00.001-05:00

The fact that we're addressing immigration so centrally to this election cycle is just absurd. Like one of the John Edwards' bloggers said last week, it's a distraction. Now I'm not saying there's not a problem. Of course there's an illegal immigration problem. What I am saying is that it's rather convenient that it has become such a major issue for the Bush administration at this point in time. As such, it really feels like a distraction from larger issues like domestic spying, the Iraq War, health insurance, the weakening dollar, deficit spending, etc.

In my opinion, there are two important issues in this election:

Foreign Relations: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Russia, etc.

Health Care

The more time we spend allowing politicians, news media, and the candidates distract us from those issues, the less likely we are to elect the right person for the job.

Hypocrite Series: Giuliani on Health Care

2007-06-05T21:15:00.000-05:00

I know little of Giuliani's record so he could have been just as dishonest as Romney on this issue of health care tonight. Nevertheless, he did put forward some of the ideas I've advocated over the years. Everyone should have access to tax free insurance premiums if we're going to give that to large employers. Everyone should have access to an HSA if large employers can give employees cafeteria plans. The tax system needs some equity built into it.

While I agree with him about letting the free market solve the remaining problems, I doubt he's willing to go to the extent required to really let the free market loose. It means unwinding state and federal laws to an unprecedented extent, and I really believe Giuliani is about more government and more control, not less.

Critiquing the Debate Formats

2007-06-05T21:07:00.001-05:00

How can anyone call what we've seen at CNN a debate? Not only do the reporters and audience members toss soft-balls up to help candidates avoid gaffes on tough questions, but not even all of the candidates get a chance to respond to them. Possibly the second most important issue facing the U.S. (health care) got what...4 responses? How does that make sense? Are you really going to tell me the don't-ask-don't-tell policy of the military is more important than health care? Wolf Blitzer apparently thought so as everyone had a chance to respond to it. Absurd...

Hypocrite Series: Romney Lies Again

2007-06-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

Even John Edwards' plan is no more socialized than the Massachusetts plan, and I think everyone would agree he's the most liberal of the Democrats.

Governor Bill Richardson

2007-06-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

Am I the only person who keeps thinking they're watching an SNL skit starring Horatio Sanz everytime this guy speaks? It's not even just the look...he even seems to have the same mannerisms and cadence. Actually...come to think of it. Has anyone ever seen the two of them in a room together?

Hypocrite Series: Best Line of the Debate

2007-06-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

Senator Clinton on Bush's diplomacy:

NBA: Chauncey Billups

2007-06-02T23:15:00.000-05:00

After the game tonight, all of the commentators seem to be calling Billups to the carpet on his performance during the entire series. I'm not sure what series they were watching, but every 4th quarter and overtime I saw except for tonight, Billups came to play. In game 5, the guy calmly drills a 3 after James seemingly won the game. At the end of of the 4th, he rims out an off-balance 3 against one of the best point defenders in the game. Off the top of my head, I don't recall the plays in the 1st overtime, but Billups' shot in the second overtime was going in to tie the game if not for the miracle tip by Verajau. Just watch the slow-motion replay, and you can see it. The tip sends it about a couple inches long.

Did the Cavs seem to disrupt his normal game? Sure, but that happens to everyone from time to time. The fact of the matter is that even when he had bad games like game 4, he still hit big shots in the 4th quarter. I'm not sure at his age he needs a max contract like they've been discussing, but he's far from washed up.

Internet Explorer Goofiness

2007-06-01T12:47:00.001-05:00

My wife tells me the new site design is goofy in Internet Explorer. I'll be looking into it, but rest assured. Even though my design skills suck, I'm not quite that bad at it.

NBA: Why Are the Pistons Struggling?

2007-05-31T23:49:00.000-05:00

While you can point a lot of fingers in the Cleveland-Detroit series for why Detroit is losing games, I think you really have to look at coaching. Lebron drives time and time again down the lane with token resistance. You can see the frustration on Billups and Prince's faces when the double-team comes late or not at all after they've funneled him left like they want. Saunders talks about trapping James to get the ball out of his hands, but that only worked a couple of times before Cleveland adjusted to it. Aside from that, if trapping was the solution, why were they not doing more of it, earlier in game 5 or even game 4.

The real problem is Wallace is the only guy in the rotation capable of challenging James at the rim, but for whatever reason, he's not in the game much. McDyess usually does a decent job in reserve and brings a lot of offense and rebounding, but he was out tonight due to a ridiculous flagrant II foul call. As much as I've enjoyed watching Webber over the years, he's far too slow at this stage in his career to defend adequately against James. And Maxiell? He just misses the defensive rotations.

With McDyess out tonight, though, Saunders' incompetence was exposed. He has Dale Davis sitting on that bench night after night and doesn't use him? Give me a break. On defense and rebounding, this guy is one of the best 4's to play the game. He may be old, but he's always been in phenomenal shape and still seems to have some spring in his step.

When he came into the game, what happened? Lebron began struggling at the rim. And his reward for playing well on defense? Saunders plays him 8 minutes and Maxiell 30 minutes. How many times did Maxiell fail to rotate in the 4th quarter and overtime? How often did Webber let James slip past too easily on the pick and roll? If Davis is in the game in either overtime, Lebron at the very least has to earn his points at the line. At best, he forces Lebron into a tough shot or blocks the shot.

So Flip...here's some advice. Sit Maxiell's rotation-missing butt on the bench during crunch time and put in the wiley, old veteran who looked anything but old tonight.

Bush Administration Doesn't Want a Safe Food Supply????

2007-05-31T15:42:00.000-05:00

In a million years, I didn't think I'd regurgitate something from the John Edwards Blog, but this article demonstrates just how far the Republican Party and, more specifically, the Bush Administration have come from the ideal of small government.

In short, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef planned to test *ALL* of their cattle for Mad Cow disease. What did the Bush Administration do? They took Creekstone to court in an attempt to prevent them from performing the tests. The reason? Brace yourselves...a possible false positive. The real reason? Probably big meat companies not wanting to pay for tests to remain competitive. The Bush Administration lost in court, but they decided to...wait for it...appeal. Go figure...

Seeking Alpha Pits Apple against Microsoft's Surface Computing

2007-05-31T10:07:00.000-05:00

While my head is still spinning a bit from being impressed with a Microsoft product demo, Carl Howe at Seeking Alpha prefers to play Apple fanboy. Now, as I said, I've played OS/2 fanboy in my life so I know how the cult can work, but it's better to judge technology on its merits than waste effort pushing an emotional preference.

In his article How Apple Will Trump Microsoft, Howe first argues that consumer excitement about the iPhone is due to multi-touch. I hate to burst his bubble, but the excitement is about merging two devices into one, the phone and iPod.

Multi-touch is actually the huge question mark around the iPhone. Let me explain. I have a bit of a DIY home entertainment system consisting of Linux machines running MythTV. Because infrared remotes are a bit of a pain, I wrote a little Java Servlet to process commands from a browser, connect to MythTV or Xine, and execute the commands. My "remote" is a Sharp Zaurus. You know what I discovered after I wrote this interface? Using an interface where you can't learn the buttons by touch is really inconvenient.

How many of us look at our tv remotes to change channels? Now imagine if your remote could reorganize its buttons for each different function you used? Obviously, we'd get a lot more functionlity, but would it be at the cost of usability? In my experience, the answer is yes. Multi-touch is the iPhone's achilles heel. Its strengths are Apple design, iPod/phone convergence, and a decent Internet interface.

To end the article, Mr. Howe asks the question, "Apple isn't doing anything with multi-touch for computers, is it?" His answer? "Wait a few weeks." This is the kind of thing I would expect from Microsoft, not Apple. Of course, it's not from Apple. It's from some random, Apple stock owner writing for a blog.

The LA Times Lets Edwards Have It

2007-05-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

Oddly enough, Edwards' own blog gave me this link.

John Edwards' poor scam

Microsoft's Home Run

2007-05-30T12:33:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how vocal I've been about it on this blog, but I'm a long-time Microsoft detractor. For years, I was an OS/2 user and even enjoyed playing around in comp.os.os2.advocacy from time to time. In fact, to this day, I prefer OS/2 as a client platform to OS X (my day-to-day work platform), Linux (pick a desktop, they're all pathetic), and Windows. It was maybe 4 years ago that they finally pried OS/2 away from me.

Anyway, back to the point. Microsoft...bad, bad, evil, derivative, unoriginal...sorry, wrong post.

Microsoft has come out with a product that you have to see to believe. Digg links us to Gizmodo for this morning's Today Show demonstration. If you don't watch the demo, you'll be saying they have touch-screen interfaces at every restaurant chain in America. At least, that's what I was saying. After watching the video, all I can think about is buying stock. It's as if Bill Gates watched Minority Report and told his R&D department to get as close as they could.

Head over to Microsoft's Surface site to check it out. The site doesn't work worth a flip in Firefox, but oh well. Them's the breaks with Microsoft. I lost my moral authority to gripe about product tie-ins when I joined the Apple camp.

Pardon the Mess

2007-05-30T09:57:00.001-05:00

I'm going to be installing a new design today. Of course, given that it's my own design, it will still be a mess once I'm done, but oh well. What can I say? I was built for math, not art.

Hypocrite Series: Barack on Darfur

2007-05-29T15:38:00.001-05:00

In a blog post, blogger Sam Graham-Felsen quotes Barack's response to President Bush's announcement of sanctions on the Sudanese government. In his response, Obama recommends a UN force, no-fly zone, and oil industry sanctions. Isn't this same interventionist foreign policy that got us into Iraq? And, unless I'm wrong, Barack doesn't much like being in Iraq...

Hypocrite Series: Senator Clinton's "Plan for Stengthening the Middle Class"

2007-05-29T14:01:00.001-05:00

Let me start by saying I appreciate Senator Clinton's willingness to give specifics as to the policies she would like to see implemented. With the exception of John Edwards, the rest of the field could learn from her. Quit with the soundbites and give us some real information.

Anyway, let's look at Hillary's Plan for Strengthening the Middle Class.

1. Leveling the playing field and reducing special breaks for big corporations. That means scaling back oil and gas subsidies; allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices with big drug companies; and requiring big oil companies to either invest in alternative energy or pay into the Strategic Energy Fund to spur clean energy research and development.

I think it's the understatement of the century that there should be no oil and gas subsidies. Those guys seem to be doing just fine on their own. I'm not sure why government needs to be involved at all. It's really silly when you think about it. The government subsidizes oil and gas to reduce the cost and turns right back around and taxes it. I know one's federal and the other state, but you get the idea.

An argument can be made that development of alternative energy impacts national security so even though I would normally be against government getting involved, I can see where it might play a role. However, adding further regulations to big oil companies seems a bad approach to take. Let's get the government out of the mix, watch gas prices skyrocket, and then alternative energy will develop on its own.

We've already covered Senator Clinton's Medicare plan so I won't address it again here.

2. Eliminating incentives for American companies to ship jobs and profits overseas. Specifically, the tax code rewards companies for offshoring jobs by enabling them to defer paying American taxes for as long as they hold the money abroad. The current policy puts companies that create jobs in America at a competitive disadvantage. We must pursue tax policies that reward the decision to create jobs in America, rather than abroad.

It's hard for me to argue with that logic. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I know enough to weigh in much more on the issue, but I certainly don't like seeing companies ship their headquarters overseas in an effort to reduce their U.S. tax exposure. Maybe if we had a better tax system, say a national retail sales tax, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

3. Reforming the governance of corporations and the financial sector. It is inconsistent with our values to allow CEO pay to skyrocket while workers’ wages and benefits are under threat. There needs to be greater public scrutiny of CEO pay, and more independence of Boards of Directors.

Why meddle with CEO salaries? Let the shareholders and employees deal with it internally. It's none of my business how much Lou Gerstner made at IBM because I neither work there nor own stock. If it bothers me, I won't buy their products. Simple as that...no need for government involvement whatsoever.

4. Restoring fiscal responsibility to government. That means balancing the budget; saving Social Security; reducing our dependence on foreign creditors (e.g.China); returning high-income tax rates to the 1990s levels; reforming the AMT; and ensuring that corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

This is really a mixed bag. Balancing the budget? You betcha. Saving Social Security? Throw the idiotic, unconstitutional mess out with the bathwater. Reducing dependence on foreign creditors? Sure, why not? Increase taxes? No thanks. Reforming the AMT? How about we, oh...let me think...eliminate income tax in favor of a national retail sales tax? Ensure corporations pay their fair share of taxes? Well...if them's the laws, corporations should follow them.

5. Give every young person an opportunity to attend college, and ensure that education starts early in life and continues into adulthood. College should be made more affordable so that students of all backgrounds can attend. Also, every child should have ready access to high quality pre-K.

Ah, the feel-good goal. Don't you feel all warm inside taking care of the children?

6. More support for community colleges and alternative schools.We should expand regional skills alliances to ensure workers have the valuable skills they need.

Oops, we weren't done with touchy-feely goodness yet.

7. Help working people earn enough to support their families and help them save for the future. That means simplifying and expanding the EITC; overhauling the unemployment insurance system; and making it easier for workers to join unions.

Alright, it's go time.

Expanding the EITC? EITC stands for Earned Income Tax Credit, and it is basically a form of welfare. When you qualify, the government often ends up paying you at tax time, not the other way around. As I've said, I don't support the current tax system, but the EITC is just wrong. Raise minimum wages if you want, but don't pull this slight of hand garbage.

As to unions, all they do in this day and age is drive up prices and encourage companies to ship jobs overseas. Employees should be able to form unions if they want, but the government shouldn't be getting in and mixing the pot. I'm sure this is an attempt to take a shot at Wal-Mart who has been and will likely always be anti-union. If you want to have some fun, try sitting Wal-Mart and a union at the same table during a completely unrelated event and watch what happens when they discover each other.

Back to the point...I've had the opportunity of working with both unionized and non-unionized workers. I was always an independent 3rd party either at a hotel or convention center so I wasn't biased either way. In a unionized city, we were forced to:

Pay unionized bell staff to move boxes.

Pay unionized convention center staff to flip light switches on and off.

Hire unionized convention center staff to work spotlights, sound systems, etc. for our event EVEN IF WE HAD OUR OWN STAFF FOR THE TASK.

On top of that, the fees weren't cheap. We could have a guy sitting around for a 2 hour rehersal being paid some $75/hour just to turn the light switch on and off a couple times. Is this the purpose of a union? No. The purpose of a union is to improve worker conditions, not to protect them from competition or protect them for incompetence.

8. Ensure that every American has quality, affordable health care.It is intolerable that 45 million Americans are without health insurance, particularly considering that we are spending nearly $500 billion on the war in Iraq.

It's the ol' bait and switch. Quality, affordable health care does not necessarily equate to health insurance. Nevertheless, I see the point and agree with it...just don't care much for the inference of the justification.

9. Make investments necessary for creating new jobs. New job sources are needed to preserve and expand the middle class. Investments in alternative energy can create new jobs for the 21st century; expanded access to broadband will bring opportunities to underserved/disadvantaged communities; the manufacturing base can be re-energized through creative partnerships; and innovation—with increased government support for R&D—will help us find and develop the jobs of tomorrow.

This has to be the biggest, steaming pile of excrement I've read in a while.

How does alternative energy create new jobs? We want to move away from pollution producing energy like oil and coal, don't we? If we do, what are those people going to do? You guessed it...take jobs in alternative energy. There's no net gain here.

How does broadband bring new opportunities to communities? There's no inherent job creation implied there. Re-energized manufacturing base through creative partnerships? I said excrement above, didn't I? Good...let's move on.

The last point is particularly troublesome. Why should government increase support for R&D? In fact, increasing means that the government already does support R&D. Why? That's beyond the scope of what our government was built to do. As citizens, we can support R&D by investing in companies. We don't need the government to take our money and do what they think is right.

So, all in all, this really isn't too bad for a Democrat. We have some big government initiatives, but Senator Clinton sounds better than President Bush by a mile simply for mentioning a balanced budget. I know President Bush pays it lip service, but his actions speak volumes.

Sad Realization

2007-05-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

Thomas Jefferson said:

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

In a recent city utility bill, the government included a notice about a new ambulance program where utility customers automatically have $4 added to their bill each month to cover emergency transports. If you've read much of my blog, you know that I don't believe the government should be providing such a program, but it is the type of thing I will accept as the will of the majority. Nevertheless, this program is...are you ready for this...OPT-OUT. That's right, you have to opt-out, not opt-in or enroll. To add insult to injury, you can only opt-out during June. After June, you're enrolled for 12 months. If you do opt-out, you have to continue to opt-out every year in June.

I'm not going to go over all of the problems I have with the city's scheme. Suffice it to say, I found it ill-conceived and deceptive. As such, I began writing a letter to the Mayor this evening to voice my concerns. Toward the end of the letter, I started wondering how the letter might affect my family and my business. Who would the mayor share it with? How might they react? Might someone decide to make our lives difficult?

I decided to delete the letter instead of sending it, and it suddenly occurred to me. I'm afraid of my own government...

On CNN This Morning: Secret Spending of Tax Money

2007-05-25T13:04:00.000-05:00

This video has to be seen to be believed:

Secret Spending of Tax Money

Is this really a representative government if our congressional representatives wield this kind of power? My appreciation to Senator Coburn for condemning the status quo and calling out a couple of Democrats for their hypocrisy.

Hypocrite Series: Clinton on Health Care Reform

2007-05-24T17:14:00.000-05:00

As we all know, Senator Clinton has a checkered past with the U.S. Health Care system. I honestly have no idea what she proposed during President Clinton's term in office. I just know that everyone, Democrats included, seemed to dislike it. Whatever the case may have been, a blog post this morning promotes her new agenda for lowering health care costs:

Hillary Clinton Announces Agenda to Lower Health Care Costs and Improve Value for All Americans (PDF)

Where John Edwards gave us some big and, dare I say, sensible changes to the Health Care system as it stands now, Senator Clinton seems more inclined to nibble at the edges and play it safe. It's a 7-step strategy:

Create a Groundbreaking National Prevention Initiative to Reduce the Incidence of Such Diseases as Diabetes and Cancer that Impose Huge Human and Financial Costs

Institute a New “Paperless” Health Information Technology System

Transform Care of Today’s Chronically Ill Population to Improve Outcomes and Decrease Costs

End Insurance Discrimination to Help Reduce Administrative Costs

Create an Independent "Best Practices Institute to Empower Consumers, Providers and Health Plans to Make the Right Care Choices

Implement Smart Purchasing Initiatives to Constrain Excess Prescription Drug and Managed Care Expenditures

Put in Place Common-Sense Medical Malpractice Reforms

As you can see just reading the overview, this is really a mixed bag of political mumbo-jumbo and actual changes. A groundbreaking what? When you have to tag market-speak onto your initiative, it probably means there's not much to it. Best Practices Institute? Is this Marketing Ed 101 or what? Smart purchasing initiatives? Thanks for clarifying they wouldn't be dumb. Of course, in her defense on the last one, most government purchasing initiatives are pretty dumb, aren't they? Strike that one...good clarification there.

Anyway, let's move on a discuss some of the good and bad points we have here. Senator Clinton seems most interested in addressing cost. In step 1, she wants to reduce the incidence of diseases like diabetes and cancer. This groundbreaking initiative is implemented in two ways.

All insurers must participate in federal prevention programs which would include eliminating copays on high-priority prevention services.

Spend money through some stupid beauracracy...I'm paraphrasing here.

Focusing on prevention really isn't a bad idea for reigning in costs, but what do her proposals really accomplish? Just because my insurer offers a free Colonoscopy doesn't mean I'm going to take it. And, if my Doctor doesn't tell me I need a physical, I'm not going to volunteer just because it's free. As far as spending money, do we really believe a few million more through Department of Waste My Hard Earned Money is going to accomplish anything? Pushing money through an agency is just a feel-good way for politicians to pretend like they accomplished something. What's more, all of these arguments ignore the fact that the federal government is not meant to act as my damn caregiver.

Moving on...let's talk about Senator Clinton's paperless IT system. Everyone seems to be on this bandwagon which surprises me since they probably aren't in the trenches handling any health care paperwork. Needless to say, though, the system is ridiculously antiquated and overly burdensome to operate. The problem is that you have to walk the right-to-privacy vs. efficiency lines.

What I want to see, though, is a Doctor's office who can tell me how much I owe when I leave my appointment. I shouldn't have to wait 2 months to find out how much the Doctor discounted for the insurance company or how much the insurance company covered. I should be able to plop down my money at the end of the appointment and neither the Doctor nor I worry about invoicing and payment down the line. I'm not sure if Senator Clinton's proposal wants to go this far, but whatever the approach, we need more and better IT behind health care to reduce costs and reduce headaches for all involved.

Senator Clinton's chronic care initiative sounds like market-speak even in the details section. There's very little substance to it, and it's probably put there just to win some Senior votes.

Step-4 would end insurance discrimination to help reduce administrative costs. Now, I do like what this would accomplish as my wife would be insurable, and we would have more options for how to live our lives. However, I really don't like the fact that she said the purpose was to "reduce administrative costs". Maybe they're trying to win over the insurers with this (I doubt it), but I want it to say "end insurance discrimination because it's stupid" or something along those lines.

Okay, so now we're at blah-blah-Best Practices-blah-blah. Not even worth my time to read...

In step-6, Senator Clinton wants to constrain prescription drug expenses. It would be nice if this section included some sort of patent system reform, but unfortunately, it doesn't. It does, however, hint at some possible patent reform in attempting to remove barriers to generic competition by removing loopholes exploited by prescription drug companies to prevent generic competition. Since prescription drug companies typically abuse the patent system to keep out competition, I'm going to assume Senator Clinton wants to fix that but just doesn't want to say that's how she's fixing it. Sneaky...

The rest of this section is just marketing b.s. with the exception of letting Medicare negotiate prices. This must only be an issue due to campaign contributions, bribes, lobbying, and who knows what other underhanded dealings between politicians and the drug industrty. Medicare constrains costs on everything except prescription drugs. It's high time the government constrain prescription drug costs.

And last but not least, Senator Clinton wants to put in place malpractice reform. Of course, she doesn't want to admit Republicans were right about this in the previous election, but I'm sure she's studied health care enough to know malpractice insurance is a major burden for Doctors. Reforming the system would be a good thing for Doctors, but I'm not sure her "National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act" will work. Regardless, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and call it an okay idea.

That about sums it up. It's not great, but it's not terrible either. It's a far cry from the kind of socialized health care system a lot of us expected, and it does solve a couple of very basic problems in the system as it exists now. Compared to Edwards' plan, I think it's a loser, but picking between Clinton's and maintaining the status quo, I'll choose Senator Clinton's plan.

Now, as to the rest of the candidates save Ron Paul (who I'm sure would want to eliminate federal involvement in health care), let's hear some real proposals instead of campaign speak. Clinton and Edwards have given us details so put up or shut up.

Hypocrite Series: John Edwards' Health Care Plan

2007-05-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

In browsing the blogs today, I came across this post about John Edwards' Health Care Plan. Written in the usual inane drivel fashion, I figured there would be no concrete plan to backup the blogger's assertions. Damn was I ever wrong, and here's the link:

John Edwards' Health Care Plan (PDF)

Now in my ideal world, Health Insurance would return to being just that...insurance. Insurance today isn't really insurance. It's more like a warranty where the two parties are in a contest to see who comes out ahead at the end of the warranty term. The difference is that the warranty provider in this case has a limited amount of knowledge about the warrantied device upon which to make a decision on the cost of the warranty. In some cases, they just won't sell the warranty to someone. In other cases, they raise the cost of the warranty to cover the worst case scenario so that they're always ahead at the end of the term.

Insurance, on the other hand, takes care of you when something catastrophic happens. We've lost track of that in this country, and we need to figure it out in all areas of insurance, not just health insurance. You don't use insurance to fix the crease you made in your bumper backing into a light post. You don't use insurance to replace a mailbox destroyed by the neighborhood houligans. And you certainly don't use insurance to pay for routine Doctor's visits, prescriptions, and tests. You use insurance when it's something big....a 2 week hospital stay, a stolen car, or a house destroyed by a tornado.

However, let's be realistic. Neither consumers nor insurers want to dramatically change the system we have today. It makes people happy to walk in, pay their $10 co-pay, see the Doctor, and walk out, and insurers love raking in the dough. If that's the kind of system the country wants, then let's evaluate Edwards' proposal in that context.

Edwards' proposal doesn't depart too far from what we have now, but it makes two dramatic changes. First, it establishes tax credits for health insurance. One of the great inequities of working in America right now is the fact that if you work for a large employer, you have access to pre-tax health insurance and what are called cafeteria plans. Effectively, you can pay almost all of your health expenses pre-tax. For those seeking private insurance (often small business employees), the situation isn't quite so rosey. There's a 7.5% floor below which you can't deduct any health expenses (unless, of course, you're self-employed). That means if you make $100,000 per year gross, you have to spend $7,500 after-tax before you can deduct. Needless to say, I agree 100% with Edwards' plan to provide equity in the tax system for health expenses.

The second major item in Edwards' plan is the establishment of Health Markets. Health Markets sound very much like what MediShare attempts to do for Christians except it does it on a much larger scale with the blessing and participation of the government. The great thing about this is that it allows small businesses to compete with big businesses for employees. Right now, my company can't hire anyone because it can't offer health insurance. We have just a handful of employees, and the owners have had health problems and have coverage through a separate group plan. Monthly premiums could easily top $1,000/month per employee so it's impractical. With Health Markets, businesses can establish their own coverage, establish coverage through a Health Market, or simply pay a portion of their employees' premiums. And, the most important part, is that the health market has to accept you regardless of pre-existing conditions. If we're going to do a warranty system, we need Health Markets or something like them to make it work.

Like I said, I disagree with the approach of extending health insurance as the American version of socialized medicine. It fails to let the market function as it should. If the consumer doesn't pay, they have no motivation to seek better prices or better service. Nevertheless, there are arguments on both sides, and I'm resigned to accept some level of socialism in health care as a result. If it's Edwards' plan or the current system, I'll take Edwards' plan.

Hypocrite Series: John Edwards Wants Mandatory Military Service

2007-05-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

From Digg via the Washington Post, we get this quote:

One of the things we ought to be thinking about is some level of mandatory service to our country, so that everybody in America _ not just the poor kids who get sent to war _ are serving this country.

How do you address such ignorance and arrogance? If he's so committed to national service, has he served? Will he sign his kids up in the armed forces when they're eligible, or will he find an exemption? Regardless, it's not just the poor who go to war. Our army is a volunteer army, and whomever volunteers goes to war. And, isn't that the way it should be in a free country? In fact, I'm pretty sure the founders thought a standing army was a bad idea anyway so how do we get from there to mandatory service in the armed forces?

Pat Buchanan on Paul vs. Giuliani

2007-05-21T21:41:00.000-05:00

Read Buchanan's take on the Paul vs. Giuliani moment in the SC debate.

Hypocrite Series: Paul's Response to Giuliani in CNN Interview

2007-05-16T20:05:00.000-05:00

He's slowly winning me over...

Hypocrite Series: Rudy Giuliani vs. Ron Paul in the South Carolina Debate

2007-05-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons I'm so disillusioned with American politics is because nobody seems to care what they say so long as it gets them either money or votes. Originally, I liked the idea of Giuliani winning the Republican nomination because I thought he might have a chance to win the general election. Given that I'm a smaller government style conservative, I wrongly thought Giuliani would be better than a larger government Democrat. Last night proved just how wrong I was, and I now ardently oppose Giuliani more than any candidate I've researched short of John Edwards. Let's look a little more at what happened last night.

Ron Paul was asked the following by one of the moderators:

Moderator: Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on stage who opposes the War in Iraq and would bring the troops home almost immediately sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?

In his answer, Paul explains how his position is traditional Republican and follows the will of the founders. Toward the end of that answer, he says this:

Paul: We shouldn't go to war so carelessly. When we do, the wars don't end.

Referring to interventionist policies, the moderator asks:

Moderator: And you don't think that changed after 9/11?

Paul answers:

Paul: No, non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if someone else did it to us.

Twisting Paul's words, the moderator follows up:

Moderator: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attacks, sir?

Paul responds and clarifies:

Paul: I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, "I'm glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier." They've already now since that time killed over 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary.

You'll notice Paul never said we invited the attack, but Giuliani jumps on the wording of the moderator:

Giuliani: That's an extraordinary statement. As someone who lived through the attack of September 11th that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. And I would ask the Congressman to withdrawl that comment and tell us that he didn't mean that.

Most importantly, Giuliani lied to us right there. Immediately following the debate, he said the Saudi Royal Family (going from memory because I haven't found a clip or transcript...might have been someone else but whomever it was, they were from Saudi Arabia) said the same sort of thing. So, yes, he lied so he could grandstand. In fact, that comment to Hannity on the post-debate interview reinforces everything Paul said.

Paul responded this way:

Paul: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they talk and teach about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the Shaw. Yes, there was blowback. The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and free. They attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if other foreign countries were doing that to us.

So let's sum up. Paul says our behavior around the world can come back and bite us in the ass. Giuliani sees a chance for a sound-bite and twists Paul's words to make it sound like Paul was saying we deserved it. Paul then reinforces his point with Iran as an example showing how American interventionist policy results in problems for America around the world quite frequently.

Here are the facts:

We attempted to install our handpicked leader and government in Iran because of oil. They changed their government and took Americans hostage.

We financed and armed the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the USSR of whom bin Laden was a member, and we supported the Taliban's rise to power.

We supplied and supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq to counter the problem we created in Iran.

How can any reasonable person not believe our actions in the Middle East contributed to the hatred of America we see today? That doesn't mean the Americans killed on 9/11 deserved what they got. It just means that we (our government, the CIA, etc.) contributed to the climate necessary for 9/11 to happen. Giuliani's inability or unwillingness to grasp that simple concept concerns me, and I can't in good conscience support him as a candidate.

I have two problems with Paul's position in this area:

We can't fix what we've done simply by pulling out of the Middle East. They will still hate us, and they will still want to kill us.

His own statements demonstrate the success in Iraq. The terrorists like having a closer target, and as much as I don't like seeing soldiers die, I believe it's better for America if our military confronts the terrorists than if more buildings explode.

Regardless, though, I think returning to a position of non-intervention makes sense. Then if we feel we must intervene, we simply declare war, win the war, and move on.

Hypocrite Series: Adding Dr. Ron Paul to my Feeds

2007-05-09T14:44:00.000-05:00

I have a way of latching onto unelectable candidates. Alan Keyes has been a favorite in the past except for his penchant to legislate morality. After reading some of the Republican debate and catching Dr. Paul's answers, I have to say I'm impressed. I'm not entirely sure I agree whole-heartedly with his foreign policy stance because the hands-off approach has failed us in the past (Hitler), but other than that, I can't find any answer of his to which I would object.

Dr. Ron Paul's Site

Hypocrite Series: Romney on Health Care

2007-05-09T13:57:00.000-05:00

I know it seems like I've been picking on Democrats in this series of articles, but the real reason for that is that the Republicans seem unwilling to say anything of any substance. Well, Romney finally stepped in it in the Republican debate. I didn't watch it on television so I've been catching up to it in clips on the Internet. Here's Romney's answer on Health Care:

Asked about the Massachusetts health care reform he signed into law and helped author, Romney said this:

I love it. It's a fabulous program.

He goes on to say:

But I helped write it and I knew it well, and this is a country that can get all of our people insured with not a government takeover, without Hillary care, without socialized medicine. Instead, get the market to do its job. Let people have health care that they can afford. Get the market to do its job. Let people have the opportunity to choose policies in the private sector.

And to add a little weight to the argument:

We didn't expand government programs. We didn't raise taxes. There was no government takeover. The market can work to solve our health care needs, and that's the great, exciting news.

Just to sum up, Romney said the market can solve our health care needs and that the Massachusetts universal coverage law is great. Okay, let's look a little at reports about that law. From the Washington Post (story link):

The Massachusetts legislature approved a bill Tuesday that would require all residents to purchase health insurance or face legal penalties...

Okay, so we fix health care by turning the uninsured into criminals. Interesting...but let's dig deeper:

Their choices would be expanded to include a range of new and inexpensive policies -- ranging from about $250 per month to nearly free -- from private insurers subsidized by the state.

Did you miss it? Should I post that quote again? I'm pretty sure they just said "private insurers subsidized by the state." Now, what was it that Romney said in the debate? Hmmm...oh, that's right. I just posted it above...something about letting the market decide, not raising taxes, and not letting the government take over.

Mitt Romney, the label Hypocrite I was applying to myself in this series is now yours as well. From here on out, I will refer to Governor Romney as Hypocrite Governor Romney (HGR) until he clarifies this issue (which will never happen).

So HGR, what's wrong with your Massachusetts approach?

You're criminalizing someone paying for health care with their own money. Paying for your own health care without insurance is THE DEFINITION OF LETTING THE MARKET DECIDE.

Insurance is a safety-net, not a free pass. Until we start treating insurance in this country as a safety-net to keep us out of bankruptcy, we'll continue to have problems with health care, car insurance, home owner's insurance, etc. Insurance companies must make a profit. They are businesses, not charities or non-profits. As such, they will either look at each customer individually, customers as groups, or all customers as a whole and make sure income exceeds expenses. If they're paying for your $4 monthly generic prescription at Wal-mart each and every month, that $4 is going to be in your monthly insurance cost one way (direct) or another (tax).

Plans like Hillary-care, as HGR demeans it (I didn't like it either...I just think it's a cheap shot), at least show themselves for what they are...Socialized Medicine. This half-breed, bastardization HGR built will only lead to higher taxes, doctors and hospitals acting as law enforcement, and who knows what other unforseen consequences.

HGR does some impressive double-talk. He can post "Free Market Health Care" as the title of his debate answer on his site all he wants, but his answer speaks for itself.

John Edwards' Blog

2007-05-08T22:33:00.000-05:00

Alright, this guy has to get rid of his bloggers. No matter what you think of the guy, posts like this one about prescription drugs just turn the candidate into a joke. It basically goes like this:

1. Prescription Drug Prices Bad
2. John Edwards Good
3. Bush/Cheney/Republicans Crooked
4. Elect John Edwards and fix Prescription Drugs

The poster lays out no plan for fixing the problem and seems to think invoking Bush/Cheney corruption (for which he offers no proof, just conjecture) and John Edwards touchy-feely-goodness will sway voters.

Have I mentioned most of the 2008 presidential candidate blog posts are pointless wastes of time?

Hypocrite Series: Obama on Fuel Efficiency

2007-05-08T21:54:00.000-05:00

In this article, Obama writes:

Fuel Economy Standards: Despite tremendous technological innovation in the auto industry, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars have been held hostage to ideological battles in Washington for 20 years. Barack Obama introduced a bold new plan, bringing together long-time opponents to gradually increase fuel economy standards while protecting the financial future of domestic automakers. Obama’s plan would establish a target of four percent increase each year - unless the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proves the increase is technologically unachievable, hurts safety, or is not cost-effective. If the target is met for ten years, Obama’s plan will save 1.3 million barrels of oil per day and 20 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

Why do we continue to legislate situations that capitalism is designed to correct on its own? As I drove by the corner gas station today, I noticed prices hopped up to $3.00/gallon. Because I drive a 12 year old Dodge Truck, that means my gas bill is huge running around $60 for approximately 250 miles of driving. That's about 12 miles/gallon or maybe more informatively expressed as $240/month.

What if I could get 50 miles/gallon with a Honda Civic? If my math is right (and it rarely is), I would reduce my monthly gas bill by $180. So is $180/month enough to pay for a Civic? Depending on how you do it, yes it is.

This has been my line of thinking since a few months prior to Hurricane Katrina. So far, the potential savings have not been enough to offset my need for a truck or the upfront cost of buying a new car, but eventually that will change. My truck will likely be parked unless needed with me driving a more fuel efficient car for routine daily activities.

Do I think Obama's proposal is bad? Not really, but I think there are better ways to use our time if a problem will solve itself.

My larger object to Obama's proposals for fuel efficiency is here:

Help for Manufacturers: U.S. automakers are facing retiree health costs that add $1,500 to the cost of every GM car. They are struggling to afford investments in hybrid technology. Obama would encourage automakers to make fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles by helping the companies shoulder the health care costs of their retirees. Domestic automakers will get health care assistance in exchange for investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. In addition, Obama would provide automakers with generous tax incentives for retooling assembly plants.

When millions of us can't even get health insurance, Obama is going to pay health costs for people who already have some of the best? Aside from that, how can you make the leap of logic that retiree health care costs are what prevent U.S. automakers from investing in fuel-efficient technology? Isn't that a textbook example of a non-sequitur? Using the same logic, couldn't I come to the conclusion that inflated salaries negotiated by labor unions prevent investment in new technology? Shouldn't we deal with health care costs themselves as opposed to playing games that make me want to check Obama's campaign contributions for links back to GM?

Let's let capitalism work both in fuel efficiency standards and health care. Undermining capitalism simply brings us to situations like health care where, quite honestly, I'd almost rather it be fully socialized than sit in this half-assed quagmire it's in now.

Hypocrite Series: Clinton on Retirement Security

2007-05-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

In the first of a 3 part series of town-hall style question/answer sessions, Senator Clinton says this in response to a question about retirement:

This is a huge issue because pension security, retirement security is something that is really part of the basic bargain that I believe we should have between our government and our people.

What many don't know is that Social Security is a relatively new concept in America. Signed into law in 1935 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Social Security provides benefits to Americans around 65 years old (it varies depending on year of birth and includes other provisions as well). At the time, Roosevelt was in a fight with the courts over the constitutionality of several components of what is called the "New Deal". To annoy colleges worldwide, I'll quote Wikipedia:

During the 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the midst of promoting the passage of a large number of social welfare programs under the New Deal and the High Court struck down many of those programs (such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Recovery Act) as unconstitutional. After having a significant portion of his enactments struck down by the Supreme Court, Roosevelt proposed legislation that would have expanded the Supreme Court to fifteen members. This would have allowed him to nominate six additional members (under certain conditions) which would be more likely to uphold his enactments with his members in place. Having had its autonomy and independence significantly threatened by FDR's ploy, the Supreme Court's tone seemed to change significantly. The Court allowed many New Deal programs very similar to ones they had previously struck down to go through, including Social Security.

As a side note, can you even imagine living in a time where a President attacked an entire branch of our government? What's more interesting is that in all of my History classes, this little tidbit was left out. Revisionist history? Liberals at work in our schools? Roosevelt was treated as a saint even in the fairly conservative part of the country I live in. You be the judge...but back to the topic at hand...

Anyway, as you'll notice, Roosevelt likely wouldn't have been able to put through a Social Security plan without the threat to the Supreme Court. The rest, as they say, is history. Now, we're saddled with employers dutifully reporting our wages to the government and pulling out FICA taxes before we can even object. Just like Edwards' Form 1 plan, it's another out-of-sight-out-of-mind trick by our government. The self-employed who get nailed with it on quarterly estimates and/or for their yearly income taxes are the only ones who really notice.

The attitude Senator Clinton takes above is a common one, and I can't hold it against her. Nevertheless, I disagree. Retirement issues should be left to personal responsibility, family, Church, and community in that order with emphasis on personal responsibility. In a free country, the government should not rob its citizens on payday and claim it's for their own good.

Hypocrite Series: John Edwards Proposes Form 1

2007-04-30T18:44:00.000-05:00

In a podcast on his site, John Edwards talks about his Form 1 proposal. Form 1 effectively replaces the 1040 EZ filled out by a large number of tax payers. Instead, Edwards would have the IRS use information already in its possession to prepare Form 1 and send it to taxpayers for review, signature, and payment/refund. In this way, he alleviates what he calls 7 hours of work preparing the form.

On its face, this really doesn't seem like that bad an idea. I found myself listening to him and thinking it made quite a bit of sense, but the leap you have to take is believing that the taxes themselves are good. If you do, this is a great plan for those who qualify to use the 1040 EZ.

By focusing on the forms and process, Edwards has implied he approves of the current tax system. I happen to believe the current tax system goes against the ideals of the founders of our country and should be abolished. Nevertheless, the government needs money to operate, and a more acceptable scheme in my opinion is a national sales tax.

This proposal also makes me wonder if Edwards would like taxes out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. With most of those who qualify for the 1040 EZ, exposure to taxes is pretty minimal except for filling out the form once a year. If the IRS fills out the form, and all they have to do is sign to get their big refund check, it's unlikely that demographic will object to tax increases.

That would seem to play into Democrats' hands who believe they know better how to spend our money than we do. Ah, who am I kidding...the Republicans want to spend all of our money, too.

Hypocrite Series: Useless Blogs

2007-04-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

In a mere two days, I've discovered that blogs for the 2008 Presidential Campaign are largely worthless for doing the kind of in depth issue analysis I was hoping to do. Their only benefit seems to be judging the candidates by the attitudes of their hired guns. A while back, Edwards ran into some problems with a couple of his bloggers, and judging by what I read today, he has replaced them with at least one equally extreme nutjob. Oh well, I'd rather not see him become President so it's fine with me if he shoots himself in the foot.

Anyway, back to the point. I'm now digging around the campaign sites and looking for news articles and interviews as an alternative to the blogs. That digging is producing a little more material but probably not as much as I would like. It's amazing how little is said in so many words by so many candidates, but I'll try make the best of it.

Bravo Utah

2007-04-27T23:53:00.001-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_re_us/campus_guns

I'm a Hypocrite

2007-04-27T17:41:00.000-05:00

I'm sure most of us could make that statement about something in our lives. To the point of this article, though, I'm talking about United States politics. You see, I tend to follow politics and elections and harbor strong feelings about policies and outcomes. Yet, when it comes right down to it, I've only voted during an election once in my life. In fact, I haven't even been registered to vote in the last 15 years. The truth of the matter is that I'm so cynical toward the players and the process that I see no reason to vote. Going further, I've never seen a candidate remotely close to me on enough issues to be worth voting for, and in my estimation, so many are crooks and liars that voting for the "best person" means picking the lesser of all evils.

There's an old movie starring Richard Pryor called Brewster's Millions in which Brewster, played by Pryor, runs a campaign to vote None of the Above. It seemed preposterous when the movie was released, but is it really preposterous today? Is that perhaps what others like me are doing when they consciously choose not to vote?

To delve a little into my somewhat divergent political opinions, I'm going to write a series of articles related to posts I find on major presidential candidate blogs. Those will include Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. If he enters the field, it will be expanded to include Fred Thompson and any other lesser candidate who gains momentum against the current front-runners. It will be a longer running series in which readers will hopefully see why someone like me tends to vote None of the Above.