Civil War

I don’t know if I’ve discussed this before or not … If I have, well figure out which one’s written better and ignore the other one, if I haven’t then we’re good.

As some of you know I’ve recently been playing EVE Online, a sci-fi MMO in which the human race, after being cut off from earth and one another by a dark age, have re-developed space flight and made contact with one another. I mention this, not because I plan on writing a full long piece about EVE and the depth of the game, size of the universe, or differences or similarities of the various ‘races’ in the game to modern earth philosophies or governments, but rather because it got me thinking about the American Civil War.

No … I haven’t gone off the deep-end, and in all honesty it was a conversation in the game that got me started thinking, but elements of the backstory of two of the ‘races’ in the game that kept me going. People often look for those ‘turning points’ in history … those points where the directions of things change. And it is by studying those points that we can get an understanding of where we are and where we’re potentially headed.

So … what does this have to do with the civil war … or a sci-fi computer game for that matter?

In short, nothing and everything.

The civil war (yes, I know it’s incorrectly titled, but I’m going to be typing it a lot and ‘civil war’ is shorter and easier than ‘the war between the states’ … and at this point I think that certain battles are already lost and the term civil war is one of them ….) was one such turning point for the United States. So the question is, was it a turn for the better or for the worse?

Before I answer I want you to read the WHOLE answer before flipping your lid and calling me a bunch of nasty names.

As you can probably guess by the preceding sentence, my answer is that, in many ways, it was a turn for the worse in this country. Those of you yelling and screaming and calling me names can now leave the page and I’ll ask you not to return until you can learn to follow directions.

Why the worse? Well to understand that we need to examine a few things … the first of which is why the civil war was fought. No, it wasn’t slavery, it really wasn’t even about ‘preserving a way of life’ which you’ll also hear (since this usually refers to slavery) … that was an issue focused on and used to vilify the south, not the reason for the war.

The civil war was fought over the issue of State Rights …. That is the right of the state to govern itself and its citizens as opposed to being governed by the federal government. The original concept of this country was government on a local level where the further removed from the people the government was, the less power it held directly over those people. Cities towns and villages governed themselves; if a dispute came up between people from different cities then it went to the county or state level, if an issue came up between states then it went to a federal level.

The federal government, however, was starting to encroach on that system on several issues, of which slavery was one, seeking to pass laws that had a greater effect on individuals within the States than was technically within the granted powers of the federal government; with the northern states, which held a population majority, having the balance of power and, thus, effecting the rights of the southern states who didn’t have the political power to oppose them.

So a contingent of southern states withdrew from the union, at first it was a couple of states, and then as the debate increased more withdrew as the federal government said ‘you don’t have the RIGHT to leave, you must abide by our rules.’

Our forefathers must have spun in their graves … had people already forgotten? Did they no longer remember that the war for independence had been fought for the very right for people to govern themselves?

The war itself was, realistically, inevitable … The US Federal government was not going to remove it’s troops from the Confederate States, the Confederate States weren’t going to just roll back over and return to a government that was essentially telling them ‘you’ll do it our way and like it’. In that powder keg of a situation it was only a matter of time before someone blew the top off ….

States rights, however, died before the first shot was ever fired … sure they’ve sputtered up here and there, but ultimately it had already been decided … the states have no rights and, in turn, neither do the citizens of those states. Because, you see, the federal government has set the precedent … you don’t have the right to leave the union unless they let you.

Would things have been different had the war ended differently? Certainly different … better or worse no one can really say. So why did I say better earlier? Look again … I said that the war was a turning point for the worse, not that we would be better off had the outcome been different. The turning point was not the war, but rather the decision to place the power of the federal government above the rights of the States, and to enforce that power through force against an unwilling citizenry.

Since then the federal government has grown ever more powerful taking on more and more of the duties of the state and local governments … directly affecting the lives and liberties of people of whom they have no knowledge nor direct answerability. [Yes, your Senators and Representative are marginally answerable to you, but that’s 2 (of 100) Senators and 1 Representative (of about 430) …. Heck even the voting power of a single State realistically holds minimal pull within the view of the Federal machine.]

This has become considerably longer than I had intended, so I will tie this back into EVE in order to complete the train of thought and bring the discussion full circle. We had been discussing the civil war in Corporate chat one day when it struck me how similar the beginning of the civil war was to the break away of the Caldari State from the Gallante Federation … The Caldari, unhappy with the Federation rule sought the right to govern themselves and when confronted by the Federation declared their independence. A long and bloody war followed with the Federation only withdrawing because of an encounter with another race that threatened to divide their forces. Now the Caldari live, ruled by their mega-corporations with each of the controlling corporations (states) independent of the others but with an equal say in the governing of the whole.

Could it be that the programmers of CCP in Iceland have a better understanding of the American War Between the States than most Americans?

Just a note

Actually don’t really have anything to rant about, but I’ve got some time while this project is rendering to drop some notes here about what’s new.

In all honesty, not much really. H and I are going to attempt another ‘Novel in a Month’ next month so I sense much sleep deprivation and hectic weekends in the near future. But I’m sure that I’ll enjoy it as much as I have the last ones. (This will technically be our 4th run and hopefully my 3rd successful finish.) I’m not sure what I’m going to write about this time, but as usual it’s not because I don’t have any ideas, but rather that I have several ideas and I just haven’t settled on any specific one to load in the barrel.

On top of that, H and I have recently started returning to our artwork, some of which can be seen on our Deviant Art (DA) page Grimscale Studios right now we are still in the early stages of setting things up and getting some material out there. Eventually we plan to offer prints of some of our work and using DA as well as our own website (as yet undesigned) for selling prints, painted models, photographs, and possibly a webcomic of our own. The creative process is something that we both enjoy and hopefully some people can enjoy the fruits of our efforts.

And … if that wasn’t enough … I have recently been bit by the urge to learn to play guitar … bass guitar specifically, but I plan on learning a bit of 6 string as well. I’m taking it slow … I’m not going to be a master bass player in a month so I’m taking my time and trying to get good solid basics down before I move on. I think H was a bit surprised … not that I wanted to start learning since we were playing Guitar Hero on the PS2 when it came up and learning to play was a natural impulse, but that I’ve stuck with it and play (even if I’m just playing around and not practicing) a couple times a day. (My new axe: Ibanez GSR 200 4 String Bass)

I have found, however, that music … specifically playing music … is a relaxation that I’ve been missing for years. I look back now, at how much I’m enjoying learning guitar (and part of it is because I’m learning something new and that’s always stimulating), and wish that I had the patience to stick it out and get back into band after we moved to Miami. While I don’t think that I’d have gone for a career in music, maybe at least I’d have kept playing as a hobby and I wouldn’t need remedial sheet music reading classes.

Things have also been very busy at work lately … learning new applications, designing new rooms, installing new gear and going through all the growing pains of adapting to new technology. The general manager of the company complains constantly about all of the problems … but then again we’re using the systems and doing things that very few other places in the country are doing (in fact some of the ‘big’ houses in New York say that what we’re doing ‘can’t be done’ and anyone that says that they are doing it is lying … but I can assure people that we are not lying … and when you’re on the cutting edge … you’re going to bleed.

Now … if we could just get some rain to keep my yard from dying….

Why DO we?

“Why do they always send the poor?”

Song lyrics from System of a Down’s ‘B.Y.O.B’ …. And a sentiment that I’ve seen in various forms in documentaries and blogs for a while as well as at ‘peace rallies’ and war protests … a certain segment of the population would like to have you believe that there is a conspiracy in this country to send the poor … oh, sorry … the ‘less fortunate’ (see my December 2004 entry ‘It’s the holiday season’ if you want my opinion of that particular term) … off to fight and die.

The fact of the matter is … it is based on a false premise to start with … the United States boasts the largest all volunteer military in the world. The key word there being ‘volunteer’ … there is no draft … no one is forced into the service … they are there because they chose to be there.

Now … can it be said that a majority of the troops come from the ranks of the ‘less fortunate’? Yes, but lets think about why that is…..

First … let’s look at the motivation. The young adult from a family that is scraping by with two parents working minimum wage jobs … To many of these the military represents their best hope of earning a good wage, learning a trade, and coming out with a student loan option that is one of, if not THE, best available to anyone. This is the type of person that has a very large motivation to join the military; it’s likely their only shot at college (unless their grades are exceptional or their sports ability in the top percentage) and even without that the skills learned in the service will likely give them a good advantage in the job market … or they can go career military which also has it’s benefits. Starting pay is likely better than what their parents are making and the benefits are really good.

Now … let’s look at a middle income household. College is more likely option without the military help, though the GI bill is still a consideration. Pay scale is likely less attractive, however, and benefits, while still good, are more likely to be considered ‘average’. There is still some motivation for joining the military, but unless they are from a military family that ‘pull’ is likely to be less than the pull of college and ‘professional’ life.

Now … someone from upper middle or upper income family … college (assuming they have the grades for admission) is almost definitely a ‘given’ without the military assistance, starting pay is unattractive; and benefits are likely to be considered ‘sub-par’ in their experience. There is likely to be very little motivation to join the military; the incentive just isn’t there.

Now … this isn’t scientific by any means … just observational data … but it would make sense to me that the lower the income of the family situation to start with the higher the incentive to join the armed forces … meaning, that a volunteer military is almost certainly to be made primarily of those coming from lower income households with middle income households having the next best showing and upper income households to be virtually absent.

Adding more incentive to the middle and upper income brackets is going to add even more incentive to the low/no income households and therefore likely maintain the relationship between the three brackets.

The only way that you are, realistically, going to get a military that is an even representation is to instate mandatory service; at which point it has ceased to be a volunteer military and become enforced servitude.

Now … let’s look at this from a different angle … let’s assume, for a moment that there is some conspiracy out there to send our ‘poor’ off to war ….

I’m going to be called a cold heartless monster for this, but what’s the problem? Should we take our ‘producers’ and put them on the field of battle? The poor represent the greatest drain on social resources while providing the least benefit to said society. Yes, some of them are hard working and just can’t manage to get ahead, some are truly victims of circumstances beyond their control. Certainly some of the young individuals from these poor households will rise up and become the producers of tomorrow … most of these, however, will distinguish themselves in other ways; either in school or early in their military career (should they volunteer).

Now … I don’t advocate rounding all the poor up and shipping them off to Iraq … that’s not my point. My point is simply that, the military is generally made up primarily of lower and lower middle income families because they are the most likely to see service as a substantial benefit. We are not ‘luring them into service’ we are offering an incentive to serve … anyone has the opportunity to do so and many do. I do not believe that there is now, or ever has been, a president that would wantonly put those that serve in our military into harms way … regardless of the backgrounds of those servicemen. And I would like to think that ‘we the people’ would have enough sense to not put someone into power that would, but maybe I’m too optimistic about the aptitude of the voting public…..

The people questioning the ‘exploitation’ of the poor by the military need to take a step back from their political agenda, stop thinking with their hearts, and use the grey matter between their ears for a change. Do they want a no exemption draft, or maybe 4 years of mandatory service for every high school graduate? No … they don’t want that nor would it be a good idea to fill our military with people that don’t want to be there … it is, however, technically what they are arguing for every time they point out the fact that the military is largely filled with young adults from lower income households….

Okay … I think I’m done rambling on this issue … it’s odd what a song on a radio station will start….

Tax Day

Well it's tax day ... hopefully everyone has their taxes done and filed already. If not, well you'd better hurry it has to be postmarked today. I am assuming that, as usual, the post office will be accepting filings until around mid-night and postmarking them with today's date.

So ... how much did you pay this year?

What is sad is the number of people that will answer that question as 'nothing, I got money back'. Yes, yes, that's nice ... I got a refund too ... but how much did you pay?

People are frikkin clueless. It's like no one pays any attention to it anymore wake up and smell the coffee people, you're being fleeced. You are falling into exactly what the government wants ... they rely on the fact that once you get used to your Net Income that you'll forget about the Gross Income that you actually EARN.

They aren't giving you a refund ... it's not a rebate ... it's your flippin CHANGE. You had a bill (a tax bill but a bill) you over paid they're giving you the remainder of your money ... it's change it may be $10,000 but it's still your change from the bill.

Now ... let me ask you ... if you go to a store and buy a new portable radio (I guess these day's it would be an iPod) that costs $250 and you give the clerk $300 and they give you $50 and someone asks you how much you paid for the radio do you reply 'nothing! I got money back!'? If you do ... you're a moron and need to stop reading now ... you're beyond help.

The problem, of course, is that taxes aren't collected like that .... frankly if they were to do away with withholdings you would have a riot in this country as people realized exactly how much of their money the federal government was confiscating every year.

You see ... even most people that do their own taxes don't pay much attention to that 'Tax Due' amount that is looked up on the tax tables once you jump through all the hoops to figure out what your taxible income is ... all they look at is the total at the bottom of the page telling them if they owe or if they are getting a 'refund' (change). If they're getting a refund they don't care how much was taken ... those that owe may actually shake their heads and bemoan the fact that they have to shell out some of their actual earnings to pay the government ... but still they generally only pay attention to that final number ... not the total tax due.

Yes, I got a refund, no I can't tell you off the top of my head what I paid (nor would I post it here if I could) but I can tell you that it was right around 20% of my earnings for the year (which by definition means that they withheld more than 20% of my income for the year since I got change) ... 1/5th of my income to the government ... and that was after substantial deductions to my income.

What's my incentive to do better and earn more? The only result is that it's going to move me up into a higher tax bracket, meaning that harder work earns me the right to give a larger % of my income to the government..... In fact it's possible for a small increase in income to actually cause you to owe MORE than the actual increase in your income if you were to go from the top of one bracket to the bottom of the next ....

As many of you know ... I support tax reform in the form of the Fair Tax bill (more info at Americans for Fair Taxation). Recently they have been heading up a campaign to send faxes from 100,000 fair tax supporters to thier congressmen by Tax Day ... I am pleased that as of last Wednesday they had sent faxes from 105,000 fair tax supporters to their respective Senators and Represenatives. I am hopeful at least that some represenitives will see that there is serious support for this issue and that as a result that maybe it will get the attention that it deserves.

On top of that the Fair Tax bill in both the House of Represenitives and in the Senate has the greatest support that it has had to date ... including represenitives from both major political parties. The more people that hear about this, the more support that it has gained in the population and the harder it has become for the politicians to ignore.

That said, however, I don't see the bill passing this year ... or likely next year either. This is not an issue that I believe this congress is going to let go through because I feel that there are those elements within both the House and Senate that will bury any meaningful reform in either the tax or social security systems of this country in order to prevent the credit for those reforms being attributed to G.W. Bush or likely any republican president.

In watching the political atmosphere in DC I don't think that much that isn't involved in laying out a timeline for our surrender ... er ... sorry ... I mean withdraw from Iraq (a move that would be a virtual death warrent for the new Iraqi government), further increasing the income tax burden on the 'wealthy' (despite the fact that a majority of people in this country fall into the current definition of 'wealthy' ... and many of them are the first ones to shake their fist and yell 'yeah, tax the rich!' and then wonder why their tax bill went up.), or is otherwise directly harmful to the president or someone in his cabinet is going to see the light of day on the congressional floor until after the 2008 election.

Oddly enough, however, if they continue in this vein I think it runs a good chance of costing them in the 2008 elections because I think the people are paying more attention to these issues than some of the politicians realize.....

Wow and bleargh!

I really can't believe that this is my first post to the Path in 2007 .... Heck ... since mid-December 2006 .... man have I been lax.

A lot has happened since last I walked the path ... most of it a blur. I swear that every year the days drag slower, but the months go faster.... Time really is an interesting filter of perception.

There are many many reasons for my silence ... not the least of which is that I'm as lazy as ever and I swear that in the last couple of months what little time management that I had managed to hold over from NaNo has not only evaporated but took with it some of the time management that I had BEFORE NaNo 2006.

Work is as it always is ... somehow managing to have absolutely nothing on the schedule, but still managing to have more work to be done than can be finished today .... so it always looks like you can catch up tomorrow and maybe cash in some comp-time only to have that snatched away by a boatload of unsceduled work that manages to overflow into tomorrow.....

I've been pushed into the 3pm-11pm shift for the week so I can be here to help with any issues in our new DI suite as it has its maiden voyage so to speak. I'm hoping that means that I can maybe get some other writing done. ............

.....

I had written about 6 or 7 more paragraphs dealing with the Fair Tax, democrats, republicans and a bunch of other stuff ... but it seems that I wasn't paying attention and the editor here decided that I hadn't actually written any of that stuff .... or put any formating into the page at all and so it is gone forever into the void of the internet ... never to be seen. Maybe it was just a glitch .... or maybe blogger has brought a censor on board .... let the conspiracy theories begin....

Various Rambling

Well it's been a bit since I stopped writting NaNoWriMo ... No, the story isn't finished but I have worked on it a little (maybe 1000 words) just to keep things in my mind. Frankly I haven't felt like doing anything lately ... Part of it I think is coming off the intense presure of NaNo and back into 'normal' life (like my life is 'normal' to anyone but me....), part of it is the time of year, part of it is my current work schedule, and part of it is my overwhelming laziness.

[Ed. Note - I place most of the blame on the last item of that list.]

I had planned to do a few full blow rants over the last week or so ... but while I can get fired up, I can't seem to make myself actually TYPE words.... So here are some 'mini' rants that I've been steamed over lately ....

The Peace Wreath

Short story shorter (in case any of you missed it in the news, and no I don't have links ... feel free to post links to the story in comments; remember, I'm lazy) - Woman puts a holiday wreath in the shape of a peace symbol on her house. Homeowners association (I think you can see where this is going) demands that she take it down (after the head of the association FIRES 5 board members who vote to 'leave her alone') or pay $25/day in violation penalties stating that the symbol is offensive and that some have complained that it's satanic.

Okay ... Get your rules off my yard. The only reason people agree to these stupid Homeowners associations is that they have some whacked belief that someone sensible is going to be in charge. Unfortunately there seems to be an increasing LACK of sensible people in the world lately. She said that it's not an anti-war statement and that she supports the war and that she didn't want to offend anyone, but she wasn't going to take it down. GOOD ... even if it was an anti-war statement, while I may disagree with the sentiment it's HER yard, she's free to make such a statement. If it doesn't violate a city/state/federal law then it stays . As for the people saying that it was Satanic or demonic ... they're idiots or worse. [I'll leave you to descide what 'worse' is.]

The Homeowners Assoc. eventually withdrew the demand and appologised for the missunderstanding. Guess they decided that getting into a big conflict over a peace symbol was a tad too ironic.

Undocumented Workers and thier 'rights'

First I really really have to say how much I HATE political correct terminology. Yes, they may be 'undocumented workers' ... but that's a second law that they are breaking in addition to being in the country illegally. That's right ... their very act of being in, and staying in the country is a violation of immigration laws ... they broke these laws when they entered the country and they break them for every day that they remain here. They are Illegal Aliens (Illegal Immigrants if you prefer); I suppose that someone that shoplifts should be an 'undocumented purchaser' ... no they are a THIEF ... let's call a spade a spade.

Rights? Sure they have the inalienable human rights ... which means they should be treated fairly and humanely as they are arested and deported back to their country of origin. They aren't citizens so they can't get drivers licenses which means they don't have the right to drive, they don't have the right to work in this country, they don't have any right to housing (technically they don't have any 'right' to stay in this country), free speech ... I'll give them that, but that doesn't protect them from deportation.

So what 'right' is being violated when a county passes an ordinance that fines landlords that rent to illegal immigrants? They are here illegally ... anyone that helps them stay here is technically guilty of breaking the law as well and therefore subject to potential punishment. So, how are 'immigrant rights' being trampled on?

I guess they're saying that for fear of renting to illegals that landlords may discriminate against legal immigrants .. and that is a valid concern, but if they are, in fact, legal immigrants then there is already laws and procedures by which they can address that issue. It means that a landlord is likely to require proof that you are in the country legally before they will let you sign the lease; if you don't HAVE that proof then you aren't in the country legally and realistically not only should they not rent to you ... they should report you to INS.

[note - in those cases that an immigrant looses their paperwork, left it at home, etc, it should be easy enough for INS to verify, or for the immigrant to retreve or allow authorities to retreve the paperwork. Keep in mind that being in Mexico or most other foreign countries without the required paperwork ON you can get you into serious serious trouble. Besides most of the time signing a lease isn't something you do 'on the spot' ... at least all the rentals I did you were given a list of things to bring to the lease signing including the deposit check, etc.]

The other ordinance they passed made "English" the official language of the county government (meaning that the county would no longer pay to print government paperwork in english and spanish). Again the statement that it tramples on immigrant rights. What?! No ... I'm sorry ... just no. Legal immigrants that are pursuing citizenship to this country, last I knew, were required to learn english ... and most of those that came here legally WANT to learn english (if they don't already know it). If they are here on a temporary visa then, again I'm sorry, but I don't believe that we need to cater to them. This is America ... we speak English. Don't like it? There's the border. Want to stay here? Learn English.

Trust me folks ... if you're going to move to Italy you are going to be required to learn Italian, if you move to France you'll have to learn French. So if you want to move to the US ... L E A R N E N G L I S H.

Okay ... I'm done for now ....

Finished!

Well ... in the sense that November is over anyway. I finished NaNoWriMo officially with 50,077 words at around 18:30 eastern on 11/30/06 ... technically I could have written more (the story is not complete by any stretch of the imagination) but after a massive push to reach the finish line I was burned out and tired and opted to relax a bit before work instead.

The 50,077 word count does make me an official winner, however, and that makes me very happy. Sunday night I didn't think I'd make it ... but my wife and co-workers kept on me to keep me writing. Really I wouldn't have made it without the help of my family and friends keeping after me all along the way; thank you to all of you.

I had a lot of trouble due to work early in the month that really put me behind in my word count and that greatly discouraged me because I never managed to dig myself out of that hole until the last day. Part of that was just work in general ... changing me schedule around the day before the starting gun sounded really put a crimp in my plans ... killing both my time and energy ... of couse I added to my own problems by not focusing as much as I should have on weekends and particularly on the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Looking back over the month there were definately several things that I'll try to do different next year (and yes, I fully intend to go through this madness again next November) but, to me at least, that's a large part of what this is all about; exploring the creative process and finding ways to refine the way that I approach things and work.

As for the story ... how did it go? Pretty well ... I was able to keep tighter focus than I did in January, and I think that it helped over all since I had a better idea of where I was going. I was happy with my writing flow most of the time and, while I can unashamedly say that there are passages of utter garbage in it, I think that the general flow of the story feels better. On the other hand, I'm only maybe halfway through my planned story arc and that (to me) smudges my win to a degree (not that it will keep me from using my 'winner' icon ... it just gives me a little more room for improvement), whereas my 'unplanned' story in Janurary I managed to complete both the arc and wordcount in 31 days.

Anyway ... I'm at work so I'm going to cut this short. I'll have more to say here in the next few days so stay tuned (I know ... I've said THAT before... )

Feel free to pop over to my NaNoWriMo Profile and see my daily wordcount or read through the excerpt I posted there. Just click the winner icon below.

Welcome back

.... to the Path of Bones. I'm still your host, Klikhizz Grimscale.

Er ... sorry about that. Feeling a tad on the silly side at the moment as I'm making myself stay up all night in order to try to switch my sleeping schedule around.

As most of you already know I work in video/film post-production ... and with that sometimes comes whacked out hours (both odd working hours and long days ... sometimes combined in the same schedule.) ... Starting Monday we're beginning dailies work for several episodes of a new TV series called October Road, which means that I get to switch from a 10a - 6p work schedule last week to a 10p - 6a work schedule that may last the duration of the shoot (38 work days). After getting home from work Friday night I'm forcing myself to stay up all night in an attempt to exhaust myself so that I can get into a schedule of sleeping in the afternoons.

The result of which is that I'm not necessarily all here at the moment ... so I can't guarantee that the ramblings that follow (or, for that matter precede) this will have any coherency what-so-ever.

In any case … I was sitting here and remembered something that I heard on the way in to work Friday. I was listening to talk radio and they were talking about the up-coming elections. The host in question was, in particular, speaking to the portion of voters who have become fed up with the Republican administration’s increased spending and lack of significant progress on various issues from the borders to tax reform to social security reform, and who are considering voting Democrat in the upcoming elections to ‘teach them a lesson.’

His stance was ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, because if you do you just end up with an empty tub and have to start over with a new baby.’ … and that voting Democrat may send a message, but it may not really be the message that you want to send.

The problem is, our system tends to encourage throwing out the baby with the bath water. If you have an elected official … particularly on the national level … that you don’t feel is representing you then you need to vote them out of office …. To accomplish that you generally have to vote the opponent into office … and since there is (usually) only one candidate from each party in the final election then that usually ends up meaning that … to effect a change you have to vote the opposing party into the office….

… so what do you do when you aren’t being properly represented but ‘the other guy’ doesn’t represent your beliefs either?

Yes, you could vote them out during the primary … but if they’re not opposed by someone in their party then what? Run yourself?

I’ve heard a lot of people saying lately that they wish that there was a viable third party in this country … (many times I would argue that to have a third party we’d actually have to have a second party rather than two faces of the same party) … well, for one, there could be if people would actually support one rather than being afraid of ‘wasting’ their vote. I’ll almost guarantee that most of the people that say they wish there was a viable third party in the country will go to the ballot and vote for either the Democrats or the Republicans and most of them will do it because they don’t want to waste their vote and have the other major party get the seat. Thus making the ‘third’ party get a small percentage of the vote and continue to appear ‘unviable’.

Now … swinging back around (weee isn’t stream of semi-consciousness fun!) to voting for the Democrats to send a ‘message’ to the Republicans …. The question here becomes by voting for a Democrat, what message are you really sending to the Republicans? Yes, you’re telling them that you won’t support them if you’re not happy with them … but you’re also telling them that you agree with the ideals of the Democratic party (or at the least the ideals of the candidates that you vote for) … and the result may be that the Republicans move more toward that set of ideals in order to try and win more votes in the next election … make sure you know what message that you’re sending when you cast that ballot.

I’m certainly not saying to just go in there and vote Republican … though personally I don’t really want to see the Ds get the keys to the car either and I certainly don’t want the Rs to get the idea that I support the agenda largely supported by the Ds (withdraw from Iraq, repeal the tax cuts, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and weaker pursuit of terrorists.)

So, what’s my point? Heh … I’m not sure I had one … I’m just rambling to keep my mind working in an attempt to stay conscious a bit longer. When Election Day comes around who you vote for is your choice (obviously) … just make sure that if you’re trying to send a message, that you know what message you’re sending. You may want to check to see if there are any independents or 3rd party candidates maybe their views will better match you ideals, and who knows maybe an above average 3rd party presence in the election will make both the Ds and the Rs sit up and take notice ….

Or maybe I’ve just passed out and I’m really dreaming…..

Plot? What plot?

Well I know I haven't kept at this every day, but part of the reason has been that I'm lazy (but you all knew that already) and I've been working on various aspects of preperation for next month's novel writing frenzy.

So I thought I'd take a break from that today and give you all a little insight into next month's project by giving you a kind of profile of the plot and a couple of the characters that will be featured in the story.

Novel Title: Mark of the Pendragon
Estimated length: 50k+
Your writing experience: bits and pieces of various projects that were started and never finished but are still in the ‘active’ folder including 1 goth/supernatural story, 1 sci-fi trilogy, 1 fantasy epic, …. Um … let’s just say it’s a long list. And a personal NoWriMo challenge from Jan 2006 “Last Voyage of the Strange Twist” (won 50,546 words)

Your genre: Sci-fi/Superhero
New genre? Or old favorite?: Yes
Other genres of your novel: There tends to be a bit of fantasy in all I write
Gonna publish?: TBD
Cliches/archetypes you're including (not necessarily a bad thing!): Mega-Corporate control of government, Oppressive crime cartels and corrupt officials, Crime-fighting ‘superheros’.
Cliches/archetypes you're avoiding: Can’t think of any that I’m officially avoiding….

Main character(s): Jack Anderson
Secondary characters: Sara, Mike, Sentinel, Mr. Black, Eyes, Merl and his cat T.H.
Protagonist(s): Jack
Antagonist(s): Mr. Black
What does your protagonist(s) or main character(s) want most in the world? Justice
Setting: Big city sprawl and all the grime and inhumanity it entails.
Is the setting static or does it shift: Largely static
Based on a place/culture/real-world environment?: Not really
Is a place/culture/real-world environment? (Which): No.

Main Conflict: Organized crime
Sub Conflicts: Various personal issues Jack has
Obstacles in the journey: Apathetic citizens, corrupt government officials, and goons … lots and lots of goons.
Expected resolution(s): What makes you think it gets resolved? ;-)

Summary of plot: The city is big … the lights are bright. People flock to the city like moths to the flame … and generally with the same result. The city is not a shining jewel, but an over crowded, over taxed, under policed nightmare where the worst elements of human society prey on those too poor or weak to protect themselves. The government, seeing things getting out of hand has established a special enforcement squad to focus on rooting out some of the more glaring problems of illegal weapons shipments and narcotics. When the unit gets wiped out in a raid, however, the government decides to cut its losses and pulls the police back to the central core. In the resulting ‘no-man’s land’ one man tries to make a difference … and finds he’s not alone.

Tagline: “Some marks are eternal”

So there you go ... that's the plan anyway ... we'll see if we can keep the characters on task this time and not have them go off on adventures of their own that I didn't plan. *Glares at Destin from 'Last Voyage of the Strange Twist'*

Now let's introduce you to a couple of the characters that I've jotted down some notes for:

Main Character - Officer Jack Anderson

Physical – 5’11”, Muscular/Athletic, Black hair, neat short, clean shaven, blue eyes

Age - 28

Info – City Police officer in the ‘special enforcement’ division. Eldest son of Richard and Sandy Anderson. His mother died in an automotive accident when Jack and his brother were still quite young, his father is still alive and lives in a nice apartment in the city core. Jack’s younger brother, William, is the head of the Research and Development branch of Obsidian Securities, the nation’s leading security corporation and main supplier of both the city and national security forces (both training personnel and equipment). Jack is currently engaged to Sara Ashford, 27, a research scientist. Jack’s occupation as a city police officer, however, is a cover for his work in the new ‘special enforcement’ division that Obsidian has contracted to provide the city. Special Enforcement is a high tech undercover squad that targets organized crime … specifically weapons and drug shipments … specially outfitted Tac Suits provide armor protection, short range sensors, and secure communications during operations.

Technically I'm still working on ole Jack there ... but then again I'll likely still be working on him well into November and (likely beyond). His parents, for example, have been both dead, both alive, mother dead, father corperate CEO, mother dead, father dies at the beginning of the book, both dead but father died shortly before Jack finished his degree, and finally where we are now ... mother died early, father alive and retired. We shall see where it all ends up on November 30 though.....

Supporting Character - Merl

Physical - Elderly man, grey hair, neatly trimmed goatee, grey green eyes, walks with a cane.

Age - 70s

Info - Known mainly as the old man who's 'always been there' Merl is often seen in the company of his long haired white cat, T.H. He lives in a penthouse on the outer edge of the city core that is a virtual museum of historical artifacts over the ages. Tends to wear dark business suits with a red tie and white rose in the lapel. His manor is friendly and easy going, and people generally feel comfortable around him. Many of the local small businesses owe their start to him and many others seek his advise on business matters believing him a successful retired old businessman who is, perhaps, a tad eccentric.

Not sure how much of a place Merl here's going to end up with in the book ... or what his role is going to be over all ... but he just sort of walked into the plot and won't get out of my head so I decided to give him a place in the story ... it was that or kill him, and I can still do that. *evil grin*

So there you go ... an idea of what I'm going to be trying to wring out of my head over the next month. Hopefully at the end of November I can post here saying that I finished and then maybe you'll get a chance to read the work and decide for yourself if I hit the mark or got drug off into a completely different story than what I set out to write.....

Ramblings

Children –

Okay, I’m not a parent … maybe I’d see things differently if I was (I doubt it, but many things are possible). I do understand the need to protect children in certain situations. Sometimes I think that people take it too far and it becomes harmful … particularly when parents turn to the government to not only protect their kid, but everyone’s children.

Recently I heard tell of a school system banning the game dodgeball because it was ‘dangerous’

Okay … I’ll admit that children playing dodgeball occasionally get injured. I can recall bloody noses, scraped knees and hands, and sprained ankles and wrists. Not exactly life threatening injuries to be sure … and certainly nothing I’d consider ‘dangerous’ … unless of course they’re using steel balls or shot-puts or something.

So … what’s the ‘danger’ that we’re trying to protect these kids from? I don’t have the story in front of me, and I’m just going on gut feelings here, but I’d guess that we’re protecting them from competition, rejection, humiliation, and failure. And that’s what’s dangerous….

In adult life they will have to deal with all of those things … and they need to learn to deal with them early. You can’t protect them from failure … doing so stifles learning by limiting the things that they can learn from.

Now, of course, dodgeball is not the only source of these lessons and I’m not saying that eliminating dodgeball is going to turn kids into fat little pansies that can’t cope with adult life … but the more you protect them from these aspects of growing up the more likely you are to have an adult that can’t cope with them on their own.

Then again … these types of people keep the government happy because once they can’t turn to mommy and daddy anymore they start turning to the government to take care of them … to make sure that they have health care … to make sure that they can get a job paying more than the job is worth through minimum wage laws, etc.

Economy –

I listened to a political candidate today bash their conservative opponent saying ‘what about the economy?’

Yeah? What about it? The DOW today broke the 12,000 mark for the first time ever and though it closed under the 12,000 mark it is still making records regularly. The amount of people invested in the stock markets (and thus benefiting from this bull market) is higher than ever. New home starts (a measure of economic stability and individual prosperity) are up in many areas. Retail prices are down, while average household income is up. Manufacturing indexes are up … in short the economy is looking good. Interest rates are up which isn’t so good if you’re trying to borrow money (though it’s great if you’re earning interest on money), but then again interest rates are always lowest when the economy is the worst.

Now, I’m speaking in general … it’s possible that the area in question has some economic issues that aren’t reflected in the above indexes and indicators … several areas around the country are having housing busts at the moment because builders have ‘over built’ the growth, and/or prices have inflated too quickly over the last few years and the market is regulating (meaning people that bought at the high point in the bubble are probably going to have to wait it out to get their money back out of their houses.) … these are all normal cycles in most areas and it’s unlikely that government intervention is needed or desirable in most of these cases.

The fact of the matter is that over the last several years the economy in this country has been growing and improving … but certain political candidates not only refuse to see it, but continue to try and paint the economy as failing … playing on the fact that the average voter doesn’t know enough about economics to understand what’s really going on.

Soggy Rainy Days

Yup that’s what I’ve got today … soggy rainy weather with a touch of wind. Not really cold, per say, but just gray miserable weather. You know … the kind of days that just sap the energy out of you … great for sleeping, not really good for getting anything productive done. Or maybe curling up in a comfy recliner in front of a small fire and reading a good book with a cup of coffee or cocoa.

I, however, am doing none of the above … rather I’m sitting at the office banging my head on my desk trying to figure out what the problem is with certain pieces of equipment that have suddenly started acting up today. In short … it’s a day of chasing problems and not really getting anything done. And to make it more fun … the problems are intermittent so it can take some time to figure out if something ‘fixed’ it or if it’s just behaving for the moment.

As for prep work on my Novel in a Month for November I’m slowly starting to put together my writing soundtrack. My plan for ‘writing time’ this time is to drop in lengthy playlist from my music library, put headphones on, and write … not paying attention to time or reality for hours on end. Just me, my music, and the words in my head … or at least the words that are hopefully in my head.

To this end I’m going through my music libraries and sifting through to find not only the tunes that I like, but also the tunes that I think will enhance the ‘mood’ of various parts of the novel that I intend to write … kind of like setting the soundtrack for a movie that’s not written yet of course, but to a certain degree I’m hoping that the music will maybe help me keep the plot on the course that I want it to take rather than winding all over the place like my plot in January did.

I know, I know … with 15 days to go till the starting gun on Nov 1st you are all going to get tired of hearing the day to day prep work I’m doing on my novel …

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go sifting through the news and see if I can find some story or rant worth writing ….

Ramblings

Monday-

Well just some quick rambling while I wrap up my day at work today. I’ve been sifting through the NaNoWriMo forums looking over various plot ideas, questions, answers, and just general forum discussion as part of my prep for November 1st. I already know the general story that I plan on writing as it’s one that I’ve technically summarized before and now I’m just fleshing it out to a full length novel, but it’s always a good idea to look around at other peoples story ideas and questions since you never know what might inspire you or give you something that you can use as a lifeline if you find the word count dropping.

I don’t claim that anything I’m coming up with is earth shattering or original … it’s the not very distant future in a cyber-punkish setting (sprawling city, high crime rate, high tech comfort colliding with low tech poverty, and big corporations holding most of the power) … into which we throw a mixture of super-natural, super-hero, and magic. Hopefully what I’ll end up with will be interesting and compelling.

My main characters are fairly well already developed, but there are still certain elements of the setting that I need to flesh out a little more: Name of the city, certain details regarding the main character and his relation to the rest of his family, means of income, etc. And … well … some antagonist would probably be a good idea.

Then again half the fun of NaNoWriMo is the excitement/horror of coming up with these things on the fly as you’re flinging yourself toward the 50,000 word finish line.

The other thing that I need is a title … NaNoWriMo November 2006 – Working Title just doesn’t capture the sprit of action and adventure, or even the dark setting that I want the novel to contain … I just really feel that it needs and deserves something …. more. More what I’m not sure … just more….

I havent died

I promise! Seriously though … I just haven’t been able to get really good and worked up about anything recently … when I do get a little hot over something I’m usually: “but I wrote about that already, no one wants to read the same rants over again!”

There is, however, something on the horizon that will get me writing here again, though it may or may not be the political ranting and raving that you’re used to. My wife and I have ‘officially’ gone crazy. (Okay Ssark, Kiaris, all of you just hush. =P) Some of you have probably guessed it, and yes, you’re right, we’ve officially signed up for November’s NaNoWriMo event. (NaNoWriMo.Org)

Yeah I hear you saying ‘didn’t you just do that in January?’ … yes we did … BUT it wasn’t the official worldwide event, just our own personal challenge. This time we’re doing it as part of the Official NaNoWriMo: Klikhizz and Hiirazz.

So why is that going to get me writing more here?

Warm up exercises. I’m going to try and get back into writing and posting here regularly … be it rants or just journal material or even stream of consciousness; anything to try and get me back into pulling words out of my head in some sort of meaningful order. I may even write up character information, background info, or various other bits of the prep work for the plot/story I’ve got planed. (and to answer your question before you ask it Kiaris, no it is not going to be Blood and Ashes, though if I can get myself back into writing I may seriously sit down and knock that one out at some point in the near future.)

So, what IS it going to be? Well I’m not 100% positive of course, because my last one (The Last Voyage of the Strange Twist) spun so far away from my original intended plot that I don’t trust myself to keep this one nailed down any better, but we’re going for a Science Fiction/Superhero genre plot line using some characters that I’ve had for a while (in fact at one time was considering trying to publish a comic book) but taking them in a slightly different direction than before.

In any case I learned a few things from my challenge in January (and the miserable failure of a challenge that I tried in July) that I plan to put to use in this official undertaking so I’m hoping to pull it off again. Once November kicks around my posts here may drop off again a bit, but I will try and get something up to let you all know how things are progressing …. And of course you can always drop by NaNoWriMo and check on my profile to keep up with my progress.

A pet peeve

Okay … many of you that read the ramblings here already know me and know that I work in a film/video post-production facility doing audio sync work on films, videos, and commercials. You also know that this means that during a political year (which seems to be all of them lately) that means I work on a lot of political commercials for various candidates of both major parties from around the country.

The result of this is two fold …. Firstly, it tends to make me very cynical and jaded in terms of politics … I really HAVE heard it all. Secondly, it tends to make me fairly politically aware as I hear various issues from various angles. (When they bother to talk about the issues that is….)

I have, over the years I’ve been doing this (this November will make 11 …. Man I’m getting old), developed a few pet peeves in regards to political commercials. (These are quite aside from the generic peeve of ‘mud slinging’ and the spin off ‘mud shielding’ (the act of making a commercial that boils down to nothing more than complaining that the opponent is slinging mud … ))

Several of these center around using vapid catch phrases that have broad appeal but no real substance, but none of which irritate me more than ‘We need a <insert political office> that knows how to create good paying jobs.’

Sounds great doesn’t it? I mean everyone wants more good paying jobs out there don’t they? Of course they do … obviously no one could object to that stance, and better yet the opponent can’t counter it.

Of course, what they’re really saying is ‘we need a politician that knows how to manipulate the tax code in order to attract big business by soaking the tax payer.’

You see … the government, local, state, or federal, doesn’t create jobs unless it expands an existing social program and/or starts new ones … and those aren’t the jobs the candidates are talking about. They’re talking about private enterprise hiring more people for more money … and the ONLY way that’s going to happen is if said private enterprises make more money. And the only ways the government can get those companies to make more money are tax breaks, or other incentives (such as building the company a new building, acquiring the land for the companies to expand on via eminent domain, to name a few that are generally used) … in other words spend the money collected from the taxpayers.

Now I’ll admit that there are worse things that the government spends tax payer money on … but this is NOT the job of the government. But it’s a job that the government WANTS to do … and can you guess why? It’s simple really … in fact most of what politicians do can be traced back to this motive eventually.

They want power and tax money = power. Why are they willing to give X Corp a huge tax break to move in? Because X Corp will hire Y employees at a higher pay than these people are getting now … which means the government will collect more taxes from the taxpayers. (And since X Corp would only be passing the cost of their taxes on to the consumers anyway, the government is just cutting out the middle man in the process…..)

The fact of the matter is that the candidate in question probably isn’t thinking that far down the road really … they’re just throwing out a line to get you to nod your head and go ‘yeah, that’s what we need’ because they’re relying on the fact that it’s a non-controversial stance and that the average voter isn’t going to take the time to engage their brain long enough to realize that the government doesn’t create jobs!

I’d tell you not to vote for any candidate that so blatantly plays on the stupidity of the voting public, but that would just mean that the informed and intelligent voters wouldn’t vote for anyone and we’d get whoever swayed the most idiots to vote for them …

... Of course it could be argued that this is already the state of politics in America.

To the candidates: Don’t feed me a line of crap … tell me your plans to improve the economy. I know it’s a 30 second spot so put it up on the web and give me the web address. Oh … wait … I forgot … you don’t actually HAVE a plan, and the last thing you want is actual educated and informed voters…. Those types of voters actually THINK about things ….

Death of a Terrorist

I heard the news this morning that an US Air Force strike had killed al-Qaida’s Iraq leader Al-Zarqawi and I was glad to hear that he had finally met his end. But the more I listened to various news outlets the more saddened I became.

They were not praising the success, but condemning the attack and the civilian casualties, small though they were.

I am not a ghoul or hard hearted person that doesn’t care about the fates of civilians, no. I do, however, recognize the tactics that Al-Zarqawi and others like him have used for centuries.

They rely on the fact that America (and its allies) go above and beyond in our attempts to minimize or eliminate civilian casualties … they understand that we do not like to kill innocent civilians and unarmed people … they know this and they use it to their advantage, as a weapon against our troops and as a shield against retaliation.

I would be willing to bet that our casualties in Iraq would probably be about half of what they are now if we were less concerned about minimizing civilian casualties. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try and minimize the loss of civilian life … that is something we should continue to do … rather I’m saying that no one will ever recognize that effort. We could go for a full year without so much as injuring a civilian and then 1 stray bullet hits a mother walking her child to the new school we built and America will be dragged through the streets in the press for ‘killing innocent civilians.’

Al-Zarqawi and his like purposefully surround themselves with civilians for that reason … knowingly using the people as a shield to make them harder to get at because ‘civilians might get hurt.’

The result is that sometimes you’ve got to take the shot, no mater that innocents might be harmed. You just try and take the best shot you can.

Al-Zarqawi was in a pretty well populated neighborhood surrounded by civilians in the hopes that we would be too concerned with civilian losses to strike at him … he was wrong.

We could have carpet bombed the neighborhood and wiped it flat in order to make sure that he didn’t escape … we did not … we dropped 2 500lb bombs directly into the house that he was known to be in. I am sorry that some civilians were injured and/or killed in the attack … but I put their blood firmly on the hands of Al-Zarqawi who chose to hide among them like a coward placing them in the line of fire to try and stem US retaliation against him.

Are we safer now? I would say that in the long term, yes the strike against Al-Zarqawi has made us safer. In the short term, on the other hand, I’d suggest we be very very alert.

That may seem backward to some … after all didn’t we just kill one of their top leaders? Shouldn’t that cause them to crumble to dust and blow away? No, Terrorists don’t work like that … A strike like that is more likely to cause them to become very active and visible … lots of attacks and the bigger the better to show that they are not out of the fight. Both to try and keep their own resolve up and to try and throw US public opinion back home further into the ‘we need to pull out now’ column ….

In the long term, however, we have showed those that might consider replacing Al-Zarqawi that we WILL find you and we WILL kill you and we will not stop until we do ….

And that IS a message that they understand.

OMG High Gas Prices

OMG gas prices are high and big oil companies are making huge profits! Panic, scream, run around with your hands in the air yelling that the sky is falling.

Folks … if you haven’t seen this coming in the last 20 years you are BLIND. I’m not going to say a whole lot on this as I don’t have nearly the time it would take to fully write a rant about the misrepresentation of this situation. I will, however, point out a few facts. Please feel free to look up more information on the matter though most of the media is not giving the full picture.

US oil production has dropped something along the lines of 40% in the last 35 years, no new refineries have been built in the US in the last 30 years and we are still down roughly 5% of our refining capacity due to last years hurricane season. The refineries that we do have (many of which are outdated) are operating at or near 100% capacity.

Add to that the fact that in the last 30 years or so the price of a barrel of crude oil has increased over 400%, while gas prices at the pump have increased less than 175% in that same time frame. This means that ‘big oil’ is actually making less profit per gallon than they were 30 years ago … a lot less.

So how are they posting ‘record profits’? … come now … is it THAT hard to figure out? They are selling a LOT more gas and oil. US consumption is up by a huge amount over the last 20-30 years, as is consumption from countries around the world.

Surely that means that they could lower their prices, right?

Not necessarily. Oil companies generally make their money through volume … meaning they operate on a small profit margin. Meaning that if you take their profit margin out of the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump … chances are pretty good that it wouldn’t be a significant change in the cost of a gallon.

High Gas Prices No Mystery (Bug Me Not)
'Green' Politicians Add to Gas Price Woes
Oily politicians: Part II

Rocem Socem Congresswoman

Okay … I’m sick and tired of Rep. Cynthia McKinney and her antics. Oh … I don’t just mean over the issue that’s had her face in the news for the last couple of weeks … I mean in general.

On the one hand I am amazingly grateful that I don’t live in the area of Georgia that she represents, and therefore am not represented by McKinney. Not that any of the people that actually DO live in her district are actually receiving any representation anyway … but they were the ones that foolishly sent her BACK to capital hill (she lost her seat to a fellow democrat in a previous election, but the person that beat her decided to run for senate and lost in a senate race that she never had a hope in Hades of winning). McKinney is viewed in congress as loose cannon and a loon … she’s not taken seriously and as such has no political pull. All of the other Georgia representatives have said that they have NEVER once had a substantive discussion with McKinney over ANY issue.

On the other hand, it means that I can’t vote to get her out of office.

For many in the country this is their first exposure to ‘the cutest little Jihadist in congress’ (a nickname by local talkshow host Neal Boortz based on the fact that a large percentage of her campaign funds in the election that she lost came from Middle Eastern contributors.) but it is not the first time McKinney has caused waves. I’m not going in to her history here though … a good write up can be found on Town Hall Congresswoman Cynthia "Zsa Zsa" McKinney's greatest hits.

The fact of the matter is simple … she struck a police officer that was just doing his job. He did not over step his authority; a woman that he did not recognize was bypassing a security checkpoint. He called out to her three times before reaching out and grabbing her to prevent her from continuing. She turned and struck him in the chest.

Okay … if she really felt she was being ‘profiled’ then file a complaint, hold a press conference (she IS a congresswoman she has the power of the bully pulpit), call the NAACP. No, she can’t do any of that she has to hit him. With the plethora of appropriate responses she goes straight for the inappropriate one.

She could have stemmed the tide early on with an apology, but her first press conference wasn’t to say that ‘she was sorry’ or that she made a mistake … no … it was to ‘regret that the incident occurred’ and to tell the media that the officers there are ‘required’ to know the members of congress on sight. (she latter changed that statement to ‘expected’ rather than ‘required’.)

And she couldn’t leave it there … rather she had to reach for her tried and trusty trump card and made it an issue of race.

So know this terrorists and criminals alike! If you are black (or Hispanic) security guards are not allowed to stop you if you try to bypass a security checkpoint! Due to your minority status you get a free pass in that area. If they don’t recognize you then they should either assume that, since you’re trying to bypass the checkpoint, you’re supposed to be there, or they should quake in fear at the fact that you MIGHT accuse them of *gasp* profiling!

McKinney (and many of the black ‘leaders’ in this country) need to realize that the more they through the ‘race’ card around the less weight it carries. They are hurting the issue more than they’re helping.

McKinney is a disgrace. She needs to be charged with felony assault and pay the price of her actions.

When in doubt

Well it’s been a while since I put fingers to keyboard and disturbed the ether in order to express my opinions … mostly because I was lazy and just didn’t do it, but partly due to not being able to figure out what to write about. Not that there was any lack of things to talk about but rather because I couldn’t figure out what, of all the options, I WANTED to talk about.

I still don’t know where this one is going, there are a few things bouncing around in my head, but we’ll just dive in and type and see where we end up.

There was a news report a while back … I don’t remember exactly when … that President Bush had been warned that there could be a problem with the levies in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina hit. This became a huge news story because President Bush had said after the Hurricane that ‘no one could have predicted that the levies would fail.’ So … according to the media at least … the President had lied again.

Well … not exactly. In the conference call one of his advisors told President Bush that ‘I don’t think anyone can say that the levies won’t overflow.’ The problems in New Orleans, however, were not caused by the levies overflowing … they were caused by catastrophic failure in the levies … they broke in the middle and at the bottom …. Had they just ‘overflowed’ the problem wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as it was.

If the advisor had meant that no one could say that the levies would hold, or that no one could say that the levies wouldn’t fail THEN you could make the case that the President had been warned that the levies might fail.

Of course … had the city and state properly maintained the levies and/or if the various environmental groups had let the Army Corp of Engineers rebuild the levies as they had been trying to for the last 50 years or so then maybe the levies would have just overflowed … maybe that wouldn’t have even been an issue.

But by all means let’s blame Bush! And don’t forget to say that he did it because only the poor or blacks would be affected. We all know that Bush only cares about rich white Americans.

Americans in general like to blame Bush. And there are areas that President Bush deserves some blame, or that he could have handled better to be sure … the problem is that many of the people that like to blame Bush for things like to throw out things that just aren’t accurate….

‘The Economy is horrible … it’s Bush’s fault’ – well first off the President has a very limited effect on the economy … certainly an administrations economic policies do have an effect, but there are so many factors in the economy that even that is limited. Secondly … I’m not sure that anyone has really made the case that the economy is horrible. Unemployment is at a 10 year low (keeping in mind that Bush has only been in office 5 years) … and is approaching minimum unemployment (the point where unemployment is so low that it can start having a negative economic impact due to not enough available workers to allow for growth) … home ownership is at an all time high (more people are reaching economic independence of owning rather than renting) … the stock markets are still raising and have recently passed their pre-9/11 highs … investment is up, manufacturing is up, retail is up, growth and the gross domestic product are up.

In short … there’s nothing wrong with the economy so there is nothing to blame Bush with there …

If you REALLY want to blame Bush with something … you CAN blame him with the fact that in addition to all of the economic numbers being up, so is government spending. To date Bush has yet to wield the VETO stamp … not once … if congress will pass it, Bush will sign it … if that means spending more of OUR money so be it … it’s no concern of his.

That swings me around to how the government is funded. Yes, taxes. Okay, we need a government … there are certain things that need to be done for which the government has to spend money. To finance those things the government needs to collect money … it does this in the form of taxes (presently this is primarily the Income Tax). What the government (and Bush as the present head of said beast) seems to have forgotten is that WE pay THEM …

The money they collect is taken out of the money that we have worked for and earned. We have traded our work and effort to others in exchange for our income … in essence we have sold time out of our lives (which we can never replace) in exchange for cash … and the government is taking a portion of that cash (and therefore a portion of our lives) to spend on their programs …

Too often those in the government seem to feel that all of the money in America belongs to the government and that the government gives that money to the people that deserve or need it. Taking from each according to their ability and giving to each according to their need.

There’s a name for that system of government … and it’s not one generally associated with economic freedom or comfortable standards of living … but there are those in this country that believe that is the system we should be using rather than the system that the founding fathers of this country set us up with originally … they would give up their freedom in exchange for the ease and security of governmental control.

But let me ask you … given the glaring inefficiency in governmental programs, and lackluster customer service of the average government employee … do you REALLY want the government to be the ones deciding your economic future? Giving you what they feel that you need and nothing more, taking from you all your work and effort in exchange for what they feel that you need (not what you want … what you NEED … there’s a difference people … and in the eyes of these people anyone that has more than they NEED is evil because they have more than other people do.)

What we NEED to do in this country is force those politicians in Washington DC to stop spending our lives away on programs that the federal government was never intended to fund … we need to put the control of that money (as it was intended) back into the hands of the people that worked and earned it … if we don’t, as a people, start doing something to cut government spending then we will shortly find ourselves past the point of no return watching our economic freedom disappearing before our eyes and the government taking from each according to their ability ….

What we've got here

I’m going back now to the riots and burning buildings over political cartoon depictions of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. Thousands of Muslims were ‘outraged’ over the cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper and rioted in various countries burning buildings, injuring (and in some cases causing the death of) people, and generally causing problems in several countries waving signs with such catchy slogans as ‘Freedom go to Hell’ and ‘Decapitate the Infidels’.

I am glad that Islam is such a tolerant and peace loving religion or things might have really gotten ugly….

Seriously though … I do understand that we are dealing with an extremist element within the Muslim religion … it just happens to be a very large group … and I also understand that there are extremist elements in other religions as well that do crazy and inhumane things in the name of their beliefs (Christians bombing abortion clinics for example) these people are just as much terrorists as the Muslims that flew planes into the twin towers in NYC on September the 11th.

But this goes beyond religious outrage … this is manipulation for political purposes and it is NOT helping the Muslim cause.

First off, Muslims claim that they are upset at being portrayed as crazy terrorists … so what do they do to express their outrage … riot, burn flags and buildings, and hurt and kill people … calling for decapitations and damaging property and lives. Yeah … good way to dispel the stereotype….

Thankfully some of the more mainstream and moderate Muslim clerics are starting to catch on to the problem … you see … it’s true of all stereotypes … they come from SOMEWHERE … people don’t just make them up … the ARE stereotypes because in MANY cases they are true. The goal is to show that you aren’t PART of that stereotype and that requires the work of a lot of people working in ways outside of that stereotype … but that isn’t what certain groups in the Muslim community wanted.

Why? Because the leaders of those groups ARE ‘crazy terrorists’ trying to impose Islamic law on the rest of the world.

Also, these cartoons are OLD news. This ‘outrage’ isn’t over cartoons printed in late January or early February …. They were RE-printed in an Egyptian newspaper in October of 2005 (Arab paper published cartoons 4 months ago). October is the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and yet that isn’t when the Muslims became ‘outraged’ and took to the streets with their signs calling for the decapitation of the artists and editors.

"The Egyptian paper criticized the bad taste of the cartoons but it did not incite hatred protests,"

In other words they did pretty much what most people with any sense would do … there may have been some that were upset at the caricatures or offended by the cartoons, but they didn’t run out into the streets and burn the embassy or wave signs calling for the murder of the artists.

But that didn’t suit the purposes of certain factions … Did they sit on it waiting for the right opportunity, or did they just miss it initially? Who knows. But ultimately it doesn’t matter … they wanted riots and by golly they got riots …. And it may be working ….

“European vice-commissioner Franco Frattini has said media should sign up to a voluntary code of conduct on reporting on Islam and other religions…” (Danish cartoon row renews EU push for media code)

Whoa now … I’ll grant that people need to be careful about their freedom of expression to a degree … but not to avoid offending people. The media should not incite riots it should not encourage violence … rather it should remain neutral (something it’s generally NOT good at) … certain people in authority should be mindful of what they say and its implications and effects in a global media as well …

However … these were printed as EDITORIAL cartoons … the editorial page of a newspaper or other such publication is an opinion piece … so is the EU suggesting that newspapers and other media should not express views or opinions that might upset people (particularly Muslims as they were the group specifically named in the quote, everyone else being relegated to ‘other religions’)?

Is Europe … which many consider to be the gold standard of tolerance … getting to the point where they are going to let the intolerant dictate what views and opinions can be publicly expressed for FEAR of OFFENDING someone?

And if Europe caves on this issue … what message does that send to the Muslims (and other groups)? Simple really … riot and burn buildings and you’ll get the more restrictive laws that you want. (Okay … the proposal is for a voluntary code, but that just opens up the newspaper that either doesn’t volunteer or who decides to publish something outside the guidelines to greater criticism and possibly other issues as well depending on the wording or restrictions within the ‘code’ … ‘I’m sorry, we can’t allow you to renew your press papers because you didn’t sign the code … you might offend someone.’ Or ‘no, I’m not talking to you, you write for the Non Code Times my quote could be next to something that Muslims find offensive!’)

Let’s face it … that’s ultimately the goal of this ‘outrage’ I might say that it was an actual reaction to the cartoons if the reaction had started in Egypt during the month of Ramadan … I can understand Muslims being upset at the cartoons, and I would expect a MORE extreme reaction in the middle of a holy month (I still would not agree that the cartoons warranted this reaction, but I could understand some protests and political uproar demanding apologies) so had it happened then I might believe that it was genuine outrage. Several months after the fact, on the other hand, seems more calculated than outraged ….

Funeral of a Queen

[note – though I reference the funeral in the title it is only because listening to part of the funeral for Coretta Scott King is what started this particular ramble … my condolences go out to the King family and this is not about the funeral.]

I want to start by saying that I do not mean any disrespect to Mrs. King, her late husband Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or their family. I won’t say that I have always agreed with their views on the role of government in social affairs, but I do have a great deal of respect for Dr. King and his wife for what they went through and what they achieved.

Dr. King shared an inspiring vision of this country and the world in which people shared freedom and opportunity regardless of race or religion. It was a vision that in many ways we have made great strides toward achieving. In other ways though, we are as far as ever from making it a reality.

Interestingly enough though, the reason that we are as far from that dream now as we are is in most ways because of those that picked up the mantle and took over in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination. In any such transition there is always a corresponding change to the vision … for the new leaders dreamed a slightly different dream. In my perception the change swung away from the goal of equality for everyone to entitlement to the minority.

“Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainly that class's own worst enemy.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of US (1858 - 1919)

I want to see us move closer to true and lasting freedom and equality for all and away from the entitlement mentality that pervades this country now; away from decks stacked in favor of ANY group and back toward a ‘fair deal’.

The problem is … most people only consider the deal ‘fair’ if they win….

“When I say I believe in a square deal I do not mean ... to give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is his affair. All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the dealing.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of US (1858 - 1919)

The idea of the ‘fair deal’, as President Roosevelt said, is not that everyone wins, rather that everyone has the opportunity to win or loose on their OWN merit.

Yes, it does mean that someone coming up from a poor family has to work harder … but they are also the ones that have the most to gain in the process, and therefore have the most incentive to work hard to get it. What we shouldn’t do is ruin that incentive by handing them everything …. There is a place for charity, but that place is not in the hands of government.

[Related rants Who’s holding who down and bring back the stigma]