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When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's works is all I can permit myself to contemplate.
-- John Steinbeck
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The President's President |
I'm sure I've been dense, but it just occurred to me why Obama thinks he can tell companies how to run their business, whether they took government money or not. He's thinks that being president of the United States makes him the president of the president of any company. He's the boss' boss, in his mind. That's key. Your company's org chart is incomplete, as drawn today. If you own the company or if you are CEO, you report to Barack Obama. You have to justify your stewardship of the company to him, from operations to salary. In short, all companies are already nationalized in his mind. It's just that the legal paperwork hasn't been completed yet. |
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My favorite artist is Charles Sovek. Love his work. As I've evolved as an artist, his work with color and how he sees things has had an impact on me.  This is one of my very favorite of his paintings, one he did of his living room. Charles worked hard to see not objects, but patches of color. He painted what he saw, and he did it with so much vibrancy of color. In a colorless world, where the individual and achievement are threatened, this painting moves me greatly. In fact, it's the background on my phone. Art is a good thing... beauty is important. |
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"The ship's hull is intact for now, sir. But about that iceberg directly in front of us..." So reports Sen. Judd Gregg, Obama's previous choice for Commerce Secretary, in his discussion on CNN's State of the Union. Reports the AP: The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee says the Obama administration is on the right course to save the nation's financial system.But Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also says President Barack Obama's massive budget proposal will bankrupt the country. Gregg says he has no regrets in withdrawing his nomination to become commerce secretary. He pulled out after deciding he could not fully back the administration's economic policies. The senator said Obama's spending plan in the midst of a prolonged recession would leave the next generation with a country too expensive to live in. Lefty NY Times columnist Frank Rich calls this Obama's "Katrina moment." Fellow lefty NY Times columnist Paul Krugman also dumps on Obama, saying, "it's just horrifying that Obama - and yes, the buck stops there - has decided to base his financial plan on the fantasy that a bit of financial hocus-pocus will turn the clock back to 2006."That iceberg is all the spending Obama plans to do. Do you love children? |
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The location for the April 15th Des Moines Tea Party has changed to the Capitol Building! Des Moines is having a Tea Party Protest on April 15, between 11 AM and 2 PM at the west side of Capitol Hill. Bring numbers... |
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Since We're Feeling All Governmenty |
Over at HotAir.com, in a thread of comments, a fella named Theophile makes a suggestion: 1. From this point forward, the annual budget of the Federal Government cannot exceed 10% of the Gross Domestic Product for the previous calendar year. This includes all spending. 2. The government cannot tax at a rate of higher than 15% of the Gross Domestic Product. Once the government has used the excess of collected taxes to pay off the debt and set aside no more than three years worth of budget as an emergency fund, then the tax rate must drop to 10%. Should an excess of taxes be charged any particular year, then the excess should be returned to each taxpayer para pursuant to the taxes that they paid. I like that. It's smart and responsible. Which means it won't happen any time soon, but it's a good idea, and worth pushing toward. |
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Drudge has this headline at the moment: Obama will call for increased oversight of 'executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies' as part of sweeping plan to 'overhaul financial regulation', NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... REGULATE! It is none of this president's business what private companies pay their people. None.Many banks wanted nothing to do with the money forced their way last fall, but now that the government forced them to take the money - OR ELSE - Obama wants to use this to regulate pay. And not just at financial companies. We get "possibly other companies" as well. Isn't this America, where the only limit to the ceiling on my income is me? But it's not America any more. It's a leftist canvas, on which they can paint the rules as they see fit. I call bullshit on that. I went to a town hall this morning, and people never before involved in the process of politics are pissed and they are getting involved. At one point, I asked an elected representative if there is a chart of expenditures - to easily see where all this money is going. Long answer short, no, not really. It's convoluted, I was told. He'd wanted to get the same information when he started, but it's a mess. Another person suggested that we might have to wait until next year before we can get the transparency we seek. Screw that. The data's public. I'll get it and chart it myself. And then make it public. And I'll get the charted data into the hands of the legislators who want to stop this crazy train wreck of irresponsible, control-seeking spending. I wasn't alone. Others there were equally pissed and animated to do something. Passionate people change the world. We are tired of the incompetence - from the political top on down - and we are sick of the limits on freedom. I still believe in America, and I'll work to wrest it back from the lefty loonballs who think capitalism is just this horrible thing that is horribly unfair. Their thinking, like their work ethic, is lazy. If you're one of them, heads up. You don't have the right to tell me what I can do, what I can make, what I can keep, how much is enough, or what I should say or think. If politics is a free market where competition takes place, get ready for a whole bunch of that. Community organization? Bring it on... because I tend to think that most of America wants to earn its own way, expects individual responsibility, and doesn't actually expect that electing the right politician is a lottery ticket that purchases lazy welfare. And I think that the Achievers in life have had about enough of political corruption and theft. We crowned an incompetent man, who believes himself to be king. There's a whole bunch of us working toward his irrelevance, and toward the irrelevance of the other politicians who want to chair the central planning committee. Unfortunately, this is necessary for now because normally, government is just stupid bureaucracy and we could just ignore it all. Not no more. |
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   If you do, then don't vote for politicians who increase government debt. Guess who gets to pay for all that debt someday... |
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    Or, this could just as easily apply to Obama's message to Iran. Or, getting mad at AIG for the, er, bonus protections that Treasury Secretary Geithner and Sen. Dodd wrote into the bill signed by Obama himself. But Obama's got time to practice his bowling regularly! Just not his non-teleprompter schtick. |
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The Founding Fathers and God |
Go here for the whole thing, but this is the skippiest treatise I've read about the notion of these United States being a Christian nation in its origin. In sum, not so much: The myth that the United States is founded on the "Judeo-Christian Bible" persists and prospers despite readily available evidence. Contrary to popular belief, the Founding Fathers rejected the biblical model in favor of a secular model of government. The authors of the United States Constitution had first-hand experience with governments created and supported by God. Preaching at the coronation of King George III, the Archbishop of Canterbury argued that the new monarch ruled by "divine appointment" which required his subjects to submit entirely to his authority. The Archbishop saw the King's authority as an extension of God's sovereignty and George III in the role of Moses, Saul, David and Solomon. To lead successfully a revolution, the Founding Fathers had to reject the biblical model: God did not create and maintain governments. Rather, they endorsed a revolutionary view of government that has its origins outside of the Bible in English common law and the Enlightenment. Men, not God, created governments. The success or failure of the government rested with men, not God. God's role in human affairs was limited to bestowing liberty to individuals, and they were free to criticize their own creation and make their own decisions. It finishes solidly with this:"Faith in God and individual liberty flourishes when governments keeps their hands off religion. Faith in God and freedom diminish when politicians use God to limit an individual's conscience." Can a brother get an amen? |
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Earlier this week, I started work for a new client. Without going into revealing detail, they want a decision engine. They hired a firm to do the work, and the firm piddled around for two months, charged them thousands of dollars, and got nowhere. The reason they got nowhere with it is that instead of trying to understand what they were building, they looked solely at the current process. Said another way, if the client wanted a trail cut through the woods, rather than build a device that clears trails and can be reused again and again, the firm went to work chopping trees and clearing brush. And got five feet into the thicket. A decision engine, properly constructed, is really several things at once. It can be used to poll people, where each answer leads to another logical question, and the path can diverge based upon the answers you give. It can be used to help route people to the right solution, based on a series of narrowing questions. It can be used to quiz people and test their knowledge. But to see all of that, you have to climb on top and ask the question: what is this, really? The beauty of a decision engine is that it shouldn't follow a rigid path hard-wired into the system, but should let the client re-imagine and re-tool, as needed. It should allow them to manage and map and manipulate the myriad paths to arrive at what is best for their customers, who will eventually use this system. I'm having a great time with it. I love a good challenge! |
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