And failure - is always an orphan...

 

 

"Success has many fathers and failure is always an orphan...

 

 

Oh my. How the mighty continue to fall. As most know by now, last night the results were disclosed of the run-off election down in Louisiana. It did not bode well for the incumbent, Mary Landrieu. It seems the good people of Louisiana have had a belly full of the lies, half-truths and out and out failures of ObamaCare. And in 2009, poor Mary had "ObamaCare" tattooed on her back, and she could not remove it.

 

And who beat her? Who could have possibly unseated a sitting congresswoman who comes from a very well connected political family? A doctor. Not a career politician, a doctor. Someone who really understands this mess called ObamaCare, and was able to articulate its shortcomings to the masses. Mary on the other hand, was stuck trying to defend the un-defendable. By now,the people in the great state of Louisiana had with the architect of this law (POTUS), and their senator who happily (at first) supported it.

 

Not only did Mary vote for it and support it, she also propagated the bevy of lies that went along with it. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." And the whopper, "Your medical insurance costs should go down $2,500 a year." When the people of Mary's campaign team realized she was backing a sinking ship, an immediate change of course was ordered. Too late - the Titanic had already hit the iceberg. Mary was about ready to go down with the ship.

 

Starting next month, the Republicans will have a huge majority in the House and 54 members in the Senate. The world will be their oyster. Will they show the American people they can govern? Will they be able to pass common sense legislation that the President can either sign or veto? Will they be able to keep the President in check without bringing the country to a grinding halt? Will they grasp this opportunity, so that the 2016 election is even better for them? Or will they be a "one hit wonder" like they have done in the past.

 

As for success having many fathers, yes - right now the Republicans feel that way. They are basking in the glory of this new found success. However failure is just around the corner, waiting. Going forward, the Speaker and the Leader must be smart and nimble. To not do so with mean their days of driving the car will be short, and soon they will again be sitting in the back seat.

 

 

It really is a mad, mad, mad world...

 

"Hands up, don't shoot is a great narrative except for one thing - it is a fable..."

Shortly after I first met my wife, I met her family. They were a bunch of hard working folks with strong union ties. Her grandpa, uncle and cousin were all plumbers. Her dad, an electrician. Of all the relatives I met, the one who was the most daunting was not her dad, it was her grandfather. He was huge. His voice boomed. And he had hands the size of Texas. My wife informed me her grandfather was a former boxer. Since his hands could be deadly, he had to have them registered as weapons.

I tell this story for one reason - Mike Brown, whose death is the center of all this mayhem in St. Louis (and beyond), was also a very big man. He may not have been armed, but he used his size and his hands to assault a police office. He punched Officer Wilson in the face. During the Grand Jury testimony, Officer Wilson stated he feared anymore punches from Mike Brown could knock him out. And if he was unconscious, his gun was there for the taking.

Somehow on the road to truth, a fable emerged. Keep in mind the Grand Jury heard all kinds of testimony and saw forensic evidence concerning the shooting. There was not one shred of evidence that Mike Brown was trying to surrender with his hands up. Zip, zero, nada. Nor was there any forensic proof that Mike Brown was shot in the back. The witness testimony (given mostly by African Americans) and the forensic evidence all supported Officer Wilson's testimony.

Now, this is a different incident than the Eric Garner death in New York. That may not be as clear as the Ferguson shooting. Both were tragedies. Both changed many lives. Rudy Giuliani said it best however - both of these men would be alive today if they had only complied with police instructions. Most of us are taught at a very early age that when you resist arrest, only bad things can result.

For many today, they are not going to let facts and truth get in the way of the story. The fable is just too good. We will continue to have marches, freeway shutdowns, and other demonstrations to inconvenience innocent people. And what about our Federal Government? The Congressional Black Caucus it seems also believes the fable is just too good to let go. They addressed the Well of the House with their hands up saying, "Hand up, don't shoot." They also want to invite the parents of Mike Brown to be guests at the State of the Union address next month. Good grief. 

Where do we go from here? Good question. My biggest fear is the police will start to avoid crime areas as the risk is not worth it. Even if the police are right, public opinion will judge them to be wrong. Why take the chance? I know police are not perfect - they are human. But they are pretty darn good at what they do. I have always backed our men and women in blue, and always will.

Years ago when the Hippies and Yippies called police "Pigs", a bumper sticker started to appear. It read, "If you don't like police, the next them you are in trouble call a Hippie". All I can say today is true that, and amen!

Minnesota's Alternate Universe

 

 

 

"How are you doing? That depends - which 'me' are you talking too?"

If you ever wanted to dive deep into the weeds and learn about something which is so "out there" it will make your head spin, try reading up on quantum physics, "sting theories" and the multiverse. Simply said, we are not alone in the cosmos. Not by aliens so to speak, but other "us". Yes there are infinite numbers of "us" floating around in the cosmos, living in parallel universes that looks (but may not act) just like this one. Okay, I have a headache now.

Let us pretend for a minute this theory is true. In one alternate universe, Mark Dayton is still the Governor of Minnesota. Only in this one, he is more normal and a Republican. It was recently announced the State of Minnesota has a billion dollar surplus. In this universe, the surplus is caused by allowing state businesses to maximize productivity by not having the boot of heavy regulation on their neck. It is certainly NOT from people being overtaxed!

The "other" Mark Dayton has a big decision to make - should he cut taxes (again) and give the surplus back to the people, or should he continue to build more roads in Minnesota to further ease congestion. Both are winners with the people. This explains why the "other" Mark Dayton has a popularity index in the high 80 percentile.

Back to reality as we live in a universe and not a multiverse. We have only one Mark Dayton. He looks at tax cuts the same way a vampire looks at a cross. In our universe, we do have a billion dollar surplus. It is not by letting state businesses "go to town by reducing regulations" - we have a surplus due to people being over taxed.

Let us pretend for a moment the billion dollars was a deficit rather than a surplus. Do you think for a minute Mark Dayton or the DFL would want programs cut to balance the budget? That is a big "heck no!" We would need to raise taxes, and do it now! And while we are at it, what about our antiquated gas tax? We need to raise that tax also, as more bike trails are needed in the metro area as well as the north woods.

No the REALITY is simply this - we have a big surplus and I don't think the taxpayers will ever see a dime of it. We will get all day Pre-K, and a bunch of non-sense programs like that. As far as our crumbling roads are concerned, forget about it. We are all in for Thrive 2040, so we need to get everyone out of their cars and into choo-choo trains and bikes anyway. Cars and roads? They are soooo yesterday!

To quote one of our area's finest radio personalities, "Thanks a lot Mark Dayton! Thanks for nothing!"

Numbers that matter...

 

 

"We are doing great! We are, right?"

I don't believe I am about to say this. I am thinking Dr. Gruber might have been right about one thing. Many American voters are not too bright. They are either ignorant, stupid or apathetic. Every day we are barraged with a ton of information coming in from all forms of media. Much of that information comes in the form of numbers, lots and lots of numbers. The truth of the matter is simply this - many of those numbers don't matter a wit.

ObamaCare - Some high level Democrats are starting to put miles of distance between themselves and this ticking time bomb. It seems the NUMBERS that were used to sell this thing are starting not to add up. Yes indeed! There were many of us "nay sayers" who have said that since the "get-go". Today, MNSure announced they were going to miss a key sign-up figure by a full 1/3! This was necessary to keep this house of cards from falling down. Now MNSure is starting the shell game to keep the ship floating. Keep your eye on the real numbers that will be released in early 2015. It will not be a good way to start the new year.

Debt - One of my very wise high school chums continues to advise me to look at the real number in our debt. And that number is not $18T. Oh, that number is scary enough mind you. However, the real time bomb remains the subject which is more taboo than sex - our entitlements. If you add our Social Security liability, prescription drug liability, and Medicare liability together, you come up with a whopping $115T. And that number grows daily. Then if you take every asset this country has and add them all up, you come with $113T. More debt than assets? Sounds like Greece to me.

Unemployment - This is one of my favorite subjects. We continue to worship the totally worthless U3 indicator like it really means something. It means absolutely nothing. What does matter is our workforce participation number and the U6 employment indicator. Those two numbers tell quite a different (and more accurate) story than the U3 number does. In addition, many times the jobs created compared to the jobs lost are comparing apples to oranges. Try taking a day off sometime in the middle of the week and notice all the young and middle age people just hanging around, not working. The economy is not yet fixed folks - not by a long shot.

Wall Street - The location in Manhattan everyone loves to hate has been cranking out BS numbers for most of this President's term. It is amazing what free money will do for you. The stock market is the only thing I have seen which is more precarious than ObamaCare. It is nothing but phony baloney. Not only has the Fed hurt the market, it also is killing our debt. How so? Once we get a Fed Chairman with stones who will allow the interest rates to true up, the cost of financing our national debt will be a back breaker. The debt issues, in and of themselves, should break the back of the market. But they do not, and the market continues to set record highs as we slide towards the abyss.

To prove Dr. Gruber wrong about us, we need to demand real numbers. We need to vet any and all number which is presented to us. We need to demand from our elected representatives we get real solutions to these problems, not smoke and mirrors. My New Year's resolution to myself is to be even more vigilant. To hold people in Washington even more accountable. Real numbers do matter - really.   

A National Discussion

 

 

"One day we will all wake up and wonder how we got into such a jam..."

Yesterday, when I arrived home from picking up a couple of grocery items for dinner, the garage door would not open. It has been like that for a while, and seems to get worse every month. After forcing the door open by hand and getting the car in the garage, I opened the service door into the house. The door almost came off in my hands. It is so rusty, the hinges are coming off. Once inside, I turned on the overhead light. It sparked. It has been doing that for over a year now, and I constantly worry about a fire. As I put the milk and eggs in the fridge, I noticed the thermometer in the fridge was still close to 50. Food does not last long in those temps.

I found my wife upstairs lying under a couple of blankets as these days the house is always cold. We have needed new windows for years. "We have to do something" I told her. "Everything is falling apart! This place is a mess!" She looked up and me and nodded her head. "You are right dear. Just tell me where the money coming from. We have squandered our savings on all kinds of nonsense, and our credit cards are maxed out. You tell me how we can afford to fix anything these days!"

The above story is of course, an analogy to what is currently happening to our country. Yesterday in Detroit, a large chunk of the city suffered a black out. It was a mess, and that part of the city ground to a halt.  Last year, Detroit was without water for a while. Our country is in desperate need of repair. People we have elected to serve us have ended up only serving themselves. Our tax dollars have been squandered, we borrow like drunken sailors, and our national debt has now crested $18T. Bottom line - we have mismanaged our country. Not by a little, but by quite a bit.

So what do we do? How do we spend our resources more wisely in this country? How do we fix out national debt before it fixes us? How do we upgrade our national power grid before something awful and catastrophic happens? How do we upgrade our water mains in our cities to keep sinkholes and breaks from happening? I could go on and on. But what do we need first? A national discussion on our spending and priorities.

This is not rocket science folks. I bet most of us do it at home. Plan things out, budgeting, savings - things like that. My wife and I have already started our discussions for 2015. How much (and to whom) we want to donate, what needs to be fixed or upgraded, and yes - fun and travel also. But my point is this - before one dime is budgeted or spent, we have a discussion. Affordability and priorities are always discussed in great detail.

Some say we need a national discussion on race relations in our country. That may be true. We also need a national discussion on the future of NASA, our purpose of our military, fixing our debt, and upgrading our infrastructure. We can't just go from year to year, spending and taxing like "Willy Nilly" is in charge.

Yes, we are in a mess right now. But we are all in this mess together. Let's talk about it. I am ready. Let the conversation begin now.

Code Wars

 

 

"Today, anything we hold close is the subject of hacking. Not only hacking for mischief, but worse..."

In the old days, wars were won or lost based on how secure a nation's communications were. I worked in the land of secure communications for many years while in the Navy. It was a constant chess game with other countries. Some historians believe a big reason for the Allies winning in the European theater was the breaking of the Enigma code by British cryptologists.

Code wars continue to go on today. Only the venue has changed. Yes, our nation still has to ensure that anything which is transmitted on any medium needs to be secure. Nefarious nations, evil people, pranksters, crooks, you name it, are still trying to break our codes. However today, the battlefield has gone protecting critical information sent via electromagnetic radiation into the ionosphere, to the world of virtual reality.

I have said this many times. There should be a special place in Hades for people who develop computer viruses. A cottage industry has sprung up just to develop counter measures to the latest and greatest malware, Trojans, viruses, adware, or whatever. We have gone from a world of not needing passwords, to requiring simple passwords, to developing complicated passwords, to changing complicated passwords twice a month. I can't wait to see what is next. Trying to log in to anything these days is enough for me to pull what little hair I have left out of my head.

It is almost impossible these days not to read about a new intrusion in someone's private data base. Already this week we learned about the intrusion at Sony. This particular intrusion was not to steal, not to corrupt, it was to punish. Many experts believe this intrusion was done be the North Koreans to punish Sony. Seem the Norks got wind Sony is making a film (satire) about the Great Leader being assassinated. That does not sit well in Pyongyang.

I also recently read there is a new malware in the Ethernet which can infest a network and destroy all the code. It will overwrite existing code so thoroughly, the original code will be totally non-retrievable. Think what that malware could do to a financial institution if it broke through the firewalls and infested the redundant systems as well. Or if it got into our electrical grid? Or our nuclear plants? Some of these new intrusive code strains are almost undetectable.

There is more to tell on this subject, but I have work to do. I need to finish updating and changing my 21 passwords, and then run complete scans on all my computers. If there is any time left in the day after doing all that, I will help my wife celebrate her birthday.     

Hands up, shut up

 

 

"This is a football game, not a political event. These players should all be suspended..."

First, a couple bits of disclosure. I have never been arrested. I have not been perfect in my life, but I do try to follow the law. Next, I am a white guy. When black people tell me they have been profiled at some point in their lives, I believe them. I do think racism still exists, sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle.

That being said, here are my feelings on what happened in Ferguson and the aftermath thereto:

• The Shooting - Even though there was not a body cam on the officer, what evidence that existed, ranging from eye witness testimony to the wounds on the officer's face, point to a justified shooting. There was not a shred of evidence that Mike Brown was trying to surrender with his hands up saying "Don't shoot!"
• Mike Brown - There was video evidence of the crime which led up to the shooting. Call it what you want, Mike Brown was guilty of a "strong arm" robbery at a local merchant.
• The Fight - We will never know the total story of what happened in that police car between Mike Brown and the cop. However, I do know this. Some people who have a death wish, commit "suicide by cop". I am not saying Mike Brown did this, but if you want to get shot, punching a cop and maybe trying to grab his gun, and then charging him with intent to harm, is most times a fatal move.
• The Body - Leaving the body of Mike Brown laying in the street on a hot August afternoon for over 4 hours was inexcusable and unforgiveable. This was not the fault of the cop who shot him - it was the fault of the department. The Chief of Police should be held accountable for that and then fired.
• The Looting - Total anarchy. No excuse what-so-ever. To protest how Mike Brown's body was treated after the shooting is totally justified. To protest by walking with hands up saying, "Hands up, don't shoot", allows the protesters to fall into the race bating trap Al Sharpton and others have set. To obstruct traffic is wrong, and is a crime. To loot any store is wrong, and is a crime.
• Cops of Color - Nobody in their right mind wants to tolerate police misconduct in any city, in any neighborhood. Period - and I am one who would not tolerate it. That being said, to only have black cops patrolling black neighborhoods, Hispanic cops, patrolling Hispanic neighborhoods, and so on, goes counter to what our country is all about. We are America. We are supposed to be a melting pot. We are supposed to get along.

One final thing. Any football player who uses the tragedy to make a political statement based on a lie, should be suspended. It is a privilege to play professional football. These guys are all in the top 1% club for money. Shut up and play, or risk losing some of your astronomically high salary.

There will no winners in this tragedy, only losers. We must now heal, and embrace the truth. Yesterday our pastor asked us to imagine how Ferguson would look if everyone involved practiced righteousness. Much different, I would imagine. One thing is for certain though - the truth will, set us all free. It always does.