Monthly Archives: November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving (Yes, Late, but Still…)

Posted on November 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

Yes, it’s Black Friday now (what a horrible sounding name for a day), and not Thanksgiving, so what am I doing posting this? I wasn’t going to. I can’t imagine many people read this blog as of yet, as I haven’t started to really advertise it. Any attempt to find newly discovered meaning in this holiday will likely fall flat on it’s face: almost all has been said. Still, sometimes one can find something special, especially in this networked age. I found a column on NRO, written by Bill Whittle, one of the great essayists of our time. Read it — it only takes a few minutes. I’ll wait.

Back? Good. It’s at the same time sad, and elating, I think. For those that lied and didn’t follow through, here’s a paragraph that really struck me. Bill Whittle has always been very good at showing to the reader how amazing the world is in which we live.

My office is located just a few blocks from LAX. Driving in to work today, I watched a Qantas 747 rotate, climb into a clear blue sky, and head on out to sea. I’ve been on that flight… twelve and a half hours at 85 percent of the speed of sound, and nothing but water after the first mile. We watch movies and eat dinner, perhaps sleep for a while, eight miles above the earth, flying through the sub-zero air with the speed of a musket ball.

And if you think about it, yeah. Wow. Thanks to my family and friends, God and country. Don’t spend too much this weekend, and get those lights up!

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Dean Kamen: New Hampshire Super Geek

Posted on November 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

Esquire has a great piece on Dean Kamen (Segway millionaire inventor) and his current projects. His latest potentially world changing invention is a machine that purifies water for drinking — even outright sewage — powered on cow patties. The problem is that he can’t get anyone to put it into mass production. This is the section that stood out for me:

Back in his office, Kamen fires out explanations for why the Slingshot hasn’t taken off yet. It starts with the day Deka finished the first prototype and realized — shades of the Segway — there was no real market for it. The poor people who needed it couldn’t even begin to afford it, so no big corporation wanted to invest $50 million or $100 million or more to tool up a factory and take it to market. “So now you’ve got these things, and you go, ‘Wow, the kinds of companies that we do business with have to make their return. They’re not going to do this.’ A few of them said, ‘Dean you’re –’ “

He stops himself before he says the word. But he knows these big corporate guys, and they’re good guys, this is just an example where the great power of capitalism fails. So where do you take an idea that’s not right for big companies? How about the United Nations? The World Bank? This was something he had never thought about before. What does the World Bank do? Does the World Bank loan money to poor people? Does the World Health Organization flood the Third World with doctors? Does the United Nations unite nations?

“I absolutely thought you could go to the United Nations or the World Bank or the World Health Organization or USAID or any of these organizations that have moral imperative and even a legal obligation to find the best solution to a given problem. You’d think they would be obligated to look at this. But they’d say, ‘Great, Dean, as soon as you have these in production, call me, I’m here to buy them.’ “

There’s a very interesting problem that peaks out from there: a fundamental failure of the world’s particular implementation of capitalism. Capitalism is a system in which supply and demand set distribution of goods and services. That’s the simplistic, perfect version, at least. Here’s a case, though, where it’s broken down completely. Hundreds of millions of people do not have access to clean water. Here’s a product that makes clean water. It’s not being made and distributed to them. It’s not a lack of supply (we can make them easily) or a lack of demand. It’s a lack of what — purchasing power? Yes, but why is THAT? A break down of capitalism — human capital that isn’t being utilized in a productive manner that rewards the workers and allows them to meet their own requirements.

This is turning into a stream of consciousness piece, but seriously, this is a looking glass view into a fundamental issue with the world economic system. What’s the solution? I tend to believe that more state control would only harm matters, and that the root of the issue is too much hampering of natural capitalistic forces.

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Posted in Economy

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Bretton Woods III?

Posted on November 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

The New Republic has an intesting background on the current financial crisis: how we got where we are, the gravity of the situation, and perhaps some ideas going forward. It posits that we’re currently facing a need to change the fundamental rules of the global financial system that has been running for, depending on how you count, either since the 1940′s or the 1980′s. It’s an educational read.

I’m not an economist, but then again, when Real Live Economists attempt to predict the future of complicated chaotic systems like the global or national economy very far into the future, they’re wrong a heck of a lot more often then they’re right. They’re just too many things that can affect matters. My feeling is, though, that we’re in for something akin — at least — to the recession of the early 90′s, and perhaps worse, like the stagflation of the 1970′s. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what’s going on. Could the financial system really break down in a fundamental way like it did in the 1930′s? Or are we just looking at a another readjustment?

In the end, my guess is that it’s the later. Technological breakthroughs and refinements bring both increases in productivity, as well as new market opportunities. This runs on an increasing, exponential rate, and has for, well, effectively ever. It’s these advances that ultimately force economies to trudge onward and upward. Remember that capitalism isn’t a zero sum game. It’s just a matter of when the log jam breaks free, and what kind of pain we feel while all this growth is bottled up. That’s the question that no one knows the answer to.

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Posted in Economy

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The One Hasn’t Converted Al Qaeda YET?

Posted on November 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

This is interesting, and not surprising. Interesting because it shows how fast Al Qaeda wanted to tell the West that they really could care less if it’s a Democrat or Republican that’s in the White House, and not surprising because it shows again what utter slime they are. Here’s some context: much of today’s slavery is in Muslim countries, such as North and West Africa and Wahhabi dominated areas of the Middle East.

Hat tip to Instapundit, the man with no free time.

UPDATE: Still learning WordPress. This post has been in draft purgatory for the past day. Oops!

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Posted in Politics

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I Expected More

Posted on November 20, 2008 | 3 Comments

Today I read on Next Big Future about Obama’s recently announced clean energy goals. The key is his commitment to “catalyze private sector efforts to build a ‘clean energy future’” with 15 billion a year of federalm money. While this is nice, sure, it’s certainly a lot less than I expected. For an annual budget of almost 3 trillion a year, this breaks down to about a half of one percent of the total.  We spend almost 20 times that amount on the interest on the national debt alone. Forgive me if I don’t take this as a sign of Obama’s seriousness to renewable energy. We should be spending that much on fusion research alone (if not more), no matter solar, wind, geothermal, and other long shot renewables.

It’s early, of course, and he’s not even president yet. There may be a whole lot of inventive and smart things coming other than this to spur the “green energy revolution”. This, though, certainly isn’t it.

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Posted in Energy, Politics

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Now a Bailout of GM?

Posted on November 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’m not saying anything here that hasn’t been said much eloquently elsewhere, but it’s incredible to me that there will likely be a huge bailout of GM — and the Other Two — within the next few months, and perhaps much less if Congress gets their way. Let me say this for posterity: this is a bad, bad idea. It rewards bad business decisions, as in entering unsubstainable contracts with the UAW, as well as putting all your eggs in the truck and SUV basket. It pushes the problem down the road, as this issue will not go away just by throwing money at it. It gets close (or will, depending on the bailout package) to having a true, honest-to-God socialist government stake in a major manufacturing sector, reducing market responsiveness, reducing efficiency, and ensuring further degradation of the American-owned auto industry. In other words, it’s bad, all around.

And it’s almost certainly going to happen. Why? Because Democrats in change — including President-Elect Obama — are the same old politics. They are beholden to those interests that put them there, and in this case, one of those interests are the labor unions. A new kind of politics? Prove it. This is the incoming administration’s first test of that claim. As far as how toxic this is for America and it’s people, this is just as bad as being beholden to corporate interests. It’s putting a benefactor’s interest ahead of the country’s citizens.

This is going to come back and haunt is horribly in the future.

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Test Post with iPhone App

Posted on November 6, 2008 | Leave a comment

Well, this is pretty cool. I’m writing this from a free app for the iPhone. I wouldn’t want to write anything really long on this, but for short posts, it should actually save time. Very nice. Apple– why don’t you have something like this for iWeb?

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Posted in General

How Bad Is It?

Posted on November 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’ll now have to get used to saying President Obama. How unfortunate. How surprising. How depressing. 

Yes, I’m a conservative, and no, I’m not a happy person today, the day after the 2008 election. In the run up to yesterdays historic election, I learned much about Barack Obama, and nothing has changed my opinion that he’s extremely liberal, completely inexperienced for the job, and dangerously ignorant of the world in general. I believe he’s too slick. Too polished. I think that anyone who, when they speak, causes shivers to run up the leg of Chris Matthews is bound to be scary. 

So, the day after the election, where the American people have decided that I’m incorrect in my beliefs of the man, is it all that bad? Maybe, but given what I know about American history, probably not. While we now have Democrats controlling two out of three of the branches of government (and the third leans liberal), the same situation happened in 1992 and the Republic survived. I do believe that those in leadership positions now are more radicalized than those of 16 years ago, I believe in the moderating influence of the voter. If they attempt to overreach, they’ll get slapped hard, so that’ll help.

This isn’t to say that there won’t be damage. I think that the next four years will see some really bad mistakes, on par to the Carter Administration, both foreign and domestic. I do think there’s a lot of on the job learning that’s going to happen, and that increases the chance of mistakes being made. I hope I’m wrong, of course. I refuse to be one of those people, on either side of the fence, that hopes for problems just to point out, “I told you so!”. I do hope and pray that President-Elect Obama learns quickly, governs wisely, and inspires a nation. I’m just… very, very worried.

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Posted in Politics

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1st post, or 300th post?

Posted on November 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

First, a quick introduction. My name’s Jason, and I’ve been blogging since about 2003. It’s been very much an on or off thing, with periods of almost daily posting contrasted with other, more frequent periods when I can’t seem to find the time to write and post. This marks the fourth blogging service I’ve used. Blogger (didn’t like the look or feel), TypePad (loved it, but it cost a monthly fee), iWeb (I think it’s great for personal web sites, but not straight, text-oriented blogs), and now WordPress. I really, really hope this’ll last many years. If I keep this up for any real length of time, I’ll somehow link over to my other blogs and announce this one at the same time. We’ll see. 

So, what’s this blog about? I’m not really sure right now. I do know what it’ll not cover: my personal life. I have another web site for that (run on the aforementioned Apple iWeb software). Other than that, it’s up for grabs. I can tell you that what made me start this blog this morning was last night’s unfortunate nod to a Democrat president for the next four years. I’ll save my specific comments about that until the next post, though. So yes, it’ll be mostly political, I’d assume, but I’m sure I’ll wander.

One interesting recent development that might make a difference in my posting frequency is the Apple iPhone, of which I’m an owner of. If you’re not familiar with it, the key thing to know is that you can download and run applications on it, including one from WordPress. This may — no guarantees, of course — assist me in actually posting regularly. We’ll see. It’s definitely interesting, though.

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