Agreeing with the original post, I add the following observation:

Senstor Obama went to see the troops in their domain, then proceeded withou fanfare or hesitation, to show them that he is wiling to put "it" on the line in full view of everyone.

Shooting three-pointers is completely unrelated to presidential qualification.

Putting yourself out there with the troops, with the whole world watching, and *delivering the goods* shows the sort of guts that is one important part of the stuff I am looking for in a leader.

Posted at July 20, 2008 10:03 AM in response to Nothing But Net

The GOP is looking at a Democratic Congress and president in 2008 and the potential political wilderness for a generation.

I disagree, believing that the Republicans have placed this society in a state of disrepair that will take generations to mitigate, assuming that it's possible to recover at all. It is not merely a financial problem (though the economy is probably in deep trouble); it is the fact that the Republicans have taught us that the law is merely a set of agreements that are subject to easy interpretation and easily broken. It's the "make me" society: If you don't like what I am doing, go ahead and try to "make me" stop.

The damage is so deep and severe that short of a miracle, recovery cannot occur within a politically viable timeframe. I expect Republicans to be back in the saddle again in no greater than 6 years, possibly as soon as two.

Posted at July 15, 2008 11:34 PM in response to The Long Hard Slog

@FB,

The question is: Should government legislate the terms of CEO contracts, or, for that matter, athletes' contracts? My answer: No.

FB

Assuming for arguments' sake that "the government" should not legislate CEO contracts, then who defines the rules under which such contracts would be structured? At present, those of us who have our life savings tied up in exactly the companies whose management teams are failing so spectacularly have *no* influence over such things. (CEO contracts voted in shareholder proxy elections? HAH! Never!)

An underperforming athlete can cause losses of a few games, but is benched long before individually bring the whole team to complete financial failure. Athlete contracts are not a valid analog here.

So... What is the "locus" of establishment and enforcement of rules defining personal responsibility for behavior and rules regarding relationships among the members of a society? ... Thinking...
...It's coming, remembering from an ancient civics class...

Government.

Which in our society, ostensibly involves all of the enfranchised people and acting for all the people enfranchised or not. You and everyone else commenting here already know this, but I see no attempt by you and others to suggest structures, be they governmental, informal or any other way, to get the job done competently. Until I see such suggestions, my opinion is that your actual goal is to prevent the establishment of rules which might limit your flexibility in how wealth is managed in this society.

NCD,

I don't think I indicated in any way that failed CEO's should reap rewards for their failures.

FB

While saying nothing about how to accomplish the task.

Posted at July 13, 2008 11:27 AM in response to Rescuing Fannie and Freddie: Let's Draw Blood

By the time I hit 80; will it be customary for the old and infirm to go out and expose themselves to the winter to die because they can no longer hunt for the tribe?

Yes.

Shortly after life-savings has been devalued by inflation.

Posted at July 10, 2008 9:40 AM in response to Why Isn't this News?

@F.B.

Yes sir, I absolutely do know that the real power is wielded by the council of mullahs. I also find it difficult to believe that they all work from only one perspective, religious or otherwise.

I stand by my earlier comment that such people, religious or not, have a strong tendency to behave like bullies: Strong with words, weak with deeds. Strong with other peoples' lives, weak with their own.

I never thought Ahmadinejad had enough influence to simply command a self-destructive attack outside Iran's borders. And the probability that a self-destructive attack would be started by the council of mullahs is reduced due to the fact that the council consists of multiple people, and that some sort of consensus or majority would be needed to launch such an attack.

Disclaimer: This hypothesis depends on the premise that Iran doesn't experience a substantial attack by a known enemy. If Israel or the U.S. does something colossally stupid, then all bets are off. In which case, things are likely to go seriously to hell and we might as well party like it's 1999....

Posted at July 7, 2008 5:14 PM in response to Ha'aretz Columnist: An Israeli Attack on Iran Would Be Suicidal

Any nation ruled by religious fanatics, regardless of the specific religion, is not a nation that the world should be comfortable with possessing nuclear weapons, period.

Call me optimistic in that I believe that the current regime in Iran is no more religious than was the regime in the USSR during the cold war.

A (formerly Iranian) co-worker and I discussed his experiences in Iran before and during the takeover in 1979/1980 and his reaction was that they were thieves.

This little anecdote supports my hypothesis that when mixed with great power, religion has nothing to do with personal belief and much more to do with how religious rules can be used to manipulate the masses, regardless of the particular sect the tyrants/thieves/powermongers claim to represent. In my informal reading of history, I see very very few "religious leaders" who apply consistent rules of honor to their shee^H^H^H^H people and themselves. They want to be alive to run the caliphate or whatever they believe their goals to be, and lacking that power, remain alive and influential in their nations. The Iranian leadership knows that an attempt to attack outside their borders (other than accepting the U.S. invitation to help with Iraq) would be met by very very serious force.

The leadership of Iran are still dangerous, they are still a force to contend with, and there is still plenty to be concerned about their intent. But while religious people may be willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater glory of God or Allah, thieves and power-mad tyrants have no such "nobility".

So I believe, perhaps optimistically, that Iranian leadership has a basic sense of self-preservation that would prevent the ultimate insanity.

Posted at July 7, 2008 9:29 AM in response to Ha'aretz Columnist: An Israeli Attack on Iran Would Be Suicidal

Won't admit to "being there" as I was six years old at the time.

I remember that in that timeframe, all of the children in our community were issued dogtags. We lived in Pittsburgh, which was a first-strike target for its steel production. I can remember riding on a local road, going past a line of blast furnaces.

To this day, when our county runs its weekly test of the severe weather alert sirens, I get a shot of adrenaline.

Posted at July 7, 2008 8:49 AM in response to Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis

What to do about it is an unsolved problem. Usually guys like you are quite generous in contributing the resources of others, much less so in contributing your own.

Until very recently, I was in exactly that position and was perfectly happy paying people what their work was worth.

You are a liar, both to yourself and to those around you.

In general, what people here and elsewhere suggest is a simple deal:

1) Be paid what one's work is worth

2) Be able to survive on it.

It does not include

3) Being paid multiple times what one's work is worth, merely because their IQ is higher and they have learned to manipulate the system to their benefit.

The current huge disparity between particular classes of work is a perfect example of idea number (3) above.

Posted at July 3, 2008 3:18 PM in response to Class Warfare and the New Gilded Age

Life is a team sport...

Inasmuch as there are often people who are standout performers and clearly earn greater influence, better access to personal resources, their best capacity for earning is supported by their teammates. Always, 100.00 percent of the time.

My point oh obtuse one, is that it takes the entire team to achieve the strategic goal, and that the other teammates are unlikely to be motivated to move forward when they are starving.

To repeat:

Keep the goose alive by feeding it, rather than starving it and wondering why it stops delivering. Stop flogging the emaciated and hungry goose, demanding the golden eggs that you know it could deliver if only it were properly motivated.

And to bring this back to the point: Educated students not overburdened by debt are far more likely to focus on the task at hand than those who are scrimping and stressing over how to pay rent, school loans, food and transport, all in the context of wondering how they will avoid being ripped off because they cannot afford to live in a safe neighborhood.

Posted at July 3, 2008 2:14 PM in response to Class Warfare and the New Gilded Age

@Offensive:

Meanwhile you don't have a word to say about all the tech billionaires who've given the world so much, or the Hollywood and sports stars, or the thousands of successful inventors and small-business entrepreneurs, or even the Walmart owners.

You are not paying attention, speaking from a position of (apparent) willful ignorance.

The greatest mass of technical work, and its contribution to the economy's performance, is not built personally by the few tech billionaires. The majority of the stuff that makes it happen come from a large number of truly brilliant, creative people who work every day. These people usually make a reasonable middle class income, but essentially none of them reap the "billions" of which you speak.

Much is made of the value of the few who really made tons of money: The Googles, the Microsofts, the H-P's, and by creative use of technology to control inventory turns etc, the Waltons.

Such people had good ideas, and the wherewithal to guide the overall form of their implementation. But in EVERY SINGLE CASE, the implementation was done by many many people, applying their own creativity and muscle to the processes that made these companies so rich.

To finish, I wonder whether you have a clue about the thousands of brilliantly creative people who contributed their ideas and work openly, for the world to use without seeking big bucks for it. I'm thinking not, since those people violate your most precious principles by failing to transform their brilliance directly into massive personal wealth.

Here are just a few of their projects, in no particular order (merely the list that comes immediately to mind):

Gnu Compiler Collection
Linux kernel
OpenBSD kernel
Apache web server
Mozilla browser (after Microsoft destroyed Netscape)
MySql relational database
Postgres relational database
Koffice
Gnome desktop environment
KDE deskto environment
hundreds of system utilities
Network management systems

People who work in the Microsoft ecosystem don't usually see the huge ferment of engineering that supports the world's communication infrastructure. A substantial fraction of that infrastructure is produced in an openly collaborative (though *extremely* competitive) development environment.

The point of this story is simple enough even for an Offensivetoyou: Life is a team sport, and it's about time people behaved accordingly.

Posted at July 3, 2008 12:25 PM in response to Class Warfare and the New Gilded Age