One way to help reduce unemployment

I work in the information technology field. The IT field employs a large number of foreign H1B visa workers. Most of them come from India. They work for low salaries, and send most of their money back to India. This keeps local Americans out of these jobs, and it sends the money to India which is not good for the deficit, and lastly, the money sent to India could be put to better use right here.

How about we terminate all the work visas for a while and try to get some of our own citizens off of unemployment. We might find that it boosts the economy at the same time.

And maybe someone can do something about all the offshore remote IT work too. Hefty Tariffs might shift some of that work back to our shores.

Do we even live in the same country as Thomas Jefferson?

I think it was Glenn Beck that I heard preaching about getting back to the simpler basic values we had when Thomas Jefferson and friends forged this nation.

Let's get real. It not only won't work, in some ways, our political systems are failing because they still cling to some of the notions that worked back then.

Their ideas and goals weren't at fault, but they had to implement them using the tools of the times. The house of representatives was, and still is, supposed to represent us. "No taxation without representation" wasn't just a catchy slogan. When the house was formed, there was no need for full time professional politicians. What was needed, was some way to take the needs of the people and represent them to the lawmakers. Communications was on horseback, and the population wasn't as educated as today.

Today we don't know who are candidates are because all they ever do is take out contradicting tv and radio spots. Who knows what to believe? Two hundred years ago, we didn't know who the candidates were because WE DIDN'T KNOW WHO THE CANDIDATES WERE! We had never seen them, maybe we heard of one or two. The party system gave us a way to know something about them, and it gave them a way to get the word to us.

I'm through with this partisan crap. I don't think we need the parties to pick our candidates for us. We have plenty of sports models with playoffs and championships that offer alternatives so we can all vote on all the candidates. We don't need a party chairman telling one candidate to back off or lose their support.

The information age has changed everything. Now, what we really need, is some way to filter out all the mis-information.

Feel free to delete this...

Could Capitalism Morph Into Communism?

I'm not an economist. I'm just a guy. Carl-Henric Svanberg would probably consider me one of the small people. [Side note: I don't have a problem with Mr. Svanberg's semantics, I think the people in an uproar are truly the small people, the small minded people.]

Whatever happened to the entrepreneur? It used to be, if you had an idea, you could build a company around it. Henry Ford did it. Preston Tucker tried to do the very same thing in 1948, but he was squashed by the big auto makers. (If you haven't already, you should see the Francis Ford Coppola film staring Jeff Bridges.) Microsoft started out as a guy selling programming languages on paper tape. Apple was born in a garage. But today, it's getting real tough to start something new without big bucks behind you, and after the dot-com disaster, the big bucks aren't flowing as freely.

The real concern, as I see it, is the growing multi-company corporations. How many big companies have folded in this economy? If it were simply survival of the fittest, I wouldn't have a problem, but it's survival of the strongest. The strongest have grown big enough to force bad things to happen to their competitors. What percentage of advertising purely sells their own product without bad-mouthing someone else's?

What are we going to do if all the companies keep merging until there is only one left? Instead of comrade chairman, it will be comrade chairman of the board.

Our National Debt and the value of Gold

Two rants for the price of one!!!

That's my contribution to the shrinking dollar.

One thing that really bugs me is misleading advertising. Most of us have lost something in this economy. My house is not only upside down, but it's also at the bottom of an economic sink hole. So when I hear the radio host blabbering on about the value of gold actually rising, I want to lash out irrationally. I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure gold isn't doing anything special, it's the dollar that has dropped. The more money they print, the more dollars an ounce of gold is worth. If the alchemists every learn to print gold, it's value will be able to keep pace with the dollar.

The same radio program (it's the only talk station my car gets) also had a segment about the national debt currently being around 13 trillion dollars, or $42,000 per person, and that it could rise to 20 trillion by 2015, which would be $65,000 per person. (They said $66,000, but I'm adjusting for the rising population).

Even if we count the illegal immigrants, that would only drop the per person debt by $1000 to $3000 (depending on whose census you believe).

Life as a Road Block

It's a three day weekend. Planned a few chores, some time around the pool and the barbecue. Then things took a different turn. First, my computer decides it's time to really crap out on me. It's been getting gradually worse for a while. I thought maybe the power supply was dying on me, and may still be, but the symptoms were a gradual loss of extra devices. The USB ports became very sensitive of which devices were plugged in and which port they were in. System boots would sometimes freeze up (three or four times even) before loading the desktop. Finally, this morning, the USB devices just disappeared. This was especially disturbing because it includes the keyboard and mouse. Moving devices around didn't help, it simply did not see the USB hardware. Looking at the system devices showed that there was no USB hardware at all, which was more disturbing because there was no failed hardware, just a big empty nothing.

This was way too much distress for a holiday weekend. So my wife and I decided to go out and see a movie. In the process, my car now has decided to display an engine check light.

Oh well, at least I have a job. It may pay only half of what I used to make, and it may not pay for holidays, but, at least it's better than unemployment benefits.

When idiots and morons design things...

I'm sure everybody has their complaints and pet peeves about the way other people drive. It doesn't help any when law enforcement chooses to concentrate on a few easy to document money makers instead of making our roads safer.

One of the basic freedoms of this country is our right to rely on our own judgement to decide right from wrong. Some, whether from religion or other moral ethics, will have a more restricted code of conduct than the laws allow, which is perfectly permissible as long as it falls within the regulations. It's when our judgement starts to cross the established laws, and especially when it crosses safety boundaries that we should be concerned.

There's very little etiquette on the road these days. People might stop at a four-way stop and observe the rules defining the right of way, or they might not. More and more, I see people rolling through stop signs like they were exempt. I could be wrong, but it also seems to me like the bigger the car (meaning SUV's and large pickup trucks) the greater the chance they'll fly through a stop.

I noticed something the other day, and it got me thinking about this. There are several corners around my neighborhood with stop signs and white lines painted so you know where to stop. The problem is, that if you stop behind the white line, you can't see traffic because there are walls lining the road and the stop sign is too far back. So, naturally, everyone has to cross the line about fifteen feet to see when it's safe to go.

How are people supposed to obey the rules of the road when they are constantly bombarded with this kind of lunacy? The city planners probably have rules defining how far back a stop sign must be, and where the white line goes in relation to the sign, but must we hire morons, unable to think for themselves, to install them?

I'm sure there will always be bad drivers, but we don't need to condition people into becoming bad drivers.

Gifts for Grads

Here's a gift idea for all the graduates who think the world has waited long enough for their arrival: a desk calendar that teaches them a new word every day, and every day has the same word.

Hum-ble

–adjective
1. not proud or arrogant; modest: to be humble although successful.
2. having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.: In the presence of so many world-famous writers I felt very humble.
3. low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly: of humble origin; a humble home.
4. courteously respectful: In my humble opinion you are wrong.
5. low in height, level, etc.; small in size: a humble member of the galaxy.\

–verb (used with object)
6. to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.
7. to destroy the independence, power, or will of.
8. to make meek: to humble one's heart.

DWTS (Duncing With The Sponsors)

So, what in the world is going on with Dancing With The Stars? If you watch the program, you know that the scoring format is a joke. The judges are there to score the contestants on dance quality, and anybody with a phone or Internet account gets to vote on who they think is most popular. This has made for some very unusual outcomes on results night, from very talented performers being voted off the show, to very bad contestants allowed to continue. I've never been a fan of the scoring, but if you look past it, you can usually see some of the stars efforts to improve and make a legitimate attempt to learn ballroom dancing.

Well, in my humble opinion, the scoring format has been changed. If you've been watching this year's show, you may have seen the judges make some very hard and wholly well deserved criticisms of this years football star. Chad Ochocinco is at best slightly better than mediocre, but he appears to be trying, he just can't overcome some inherent gawkiness. In the first six weeks of the show, the judges comments showed in his facial expressions, but he kept returning. And to be fair, he is no where near the worst contestant they have had. I recall a basketball player who did little more than walk around the floor, yet fans kept voting him back (or at least, we all assume they were his fans).

Two weeks ago, something changed. The judges have become much more lenient with Chad, and their criticisms are suddenly dripping with honey to take off the sting, and he seems to be getting a couple free points on each of the paddles. I can only conclude that the sponsors have weighed in and told them to lighten up, they don't want to lose the viewership if he is voted off, and frankly, he's about two weeks past his time.

I don't recall seeing such a turnabout in the judges opinions in previous years, but I have to wonder if the sponsors have had their influence on the votes. Perhaps the viewers votes aren't really counted at all. The sponsors decide who sells the most product, and arrange to keep them on the show as long as possible. (They don't get too crazy, some contestants are way too talented to lose).

I'm not a dancing fan, but I do like watching these stars struggle to learn something new. I just wish they had a fair shake with a fair scoring system. The fans can vote for most congenial.

Failures of the Educational System

The educational system has been failing for a long time, and the statistics paint a rosier picture than the truth.

It's no secret that there have been problems, and educators have been trying to find ways to solve them, the government has stepped in to find ways to solve them (or maybe they just wanted to use our kids to get elected), and the result is, our kids are all part of an experiment, and have been for many decades.

The bean counters and statistic keepers probably count me as one of their success stories, but my education was in spite of the system.

The first experiment the tried on me was offering me advanced classes in english and math by sending me up to the next higher grade for those subjects. They claimed that skipping a grade would stunt my social advancement, like that wouldn't alienate me from my own class.

The next experiment I recall was phonics. In my college years, I met a friend's mother who was a teacher, and the subject of phonics came up. I made the mistake of speaking my mind. I hate phonics. It was a bore and a waste of time. She clearly felt differently and made it clear to me that thousands of children struggled with reading before phonics came along. In her opinion it was one of the best weapons in a teacher's arsenol. That's when it struck me. So many of the things I hated in school weren't inherently bad, they were just bad for me.

Then there's the bell curve. Let's motivate our kids to compete with each other for the best grades, and guarantee that some of them fail. It even sounds like a great idea (not).

Testing. They still don't get it. Some kids test well, others don't. How do you determine someone's knowledge if they don't test well? And how do you compare them with those that do? The answer is obvious: You create standardized tests; You teach them how to pass the test. This has got to be the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Now we have a bunch of kids going to college that think learning is easy. Woah, that question wasn't in our class, what's it doing on the test?

Who comes up with this crap? Whole word reading. My grand daughter was taught whole word reading. To this day, she see's the first few letters in a word and guesses the whole word, not always succesfully.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that it was my responsibility to learn my subjects more than it was my teachers responsibility to cram it in my head. This, of course, lead me to learning the stuff I liked and ignoring the rest. My teachers recognized that they didn't know how to motivate me. They weren't properly prepared either, they are all products of the same educational system.

So what do we have?

We have a bell curve that leaves children behind, and a no child left behind policy that teaches them how to cheat the test and advance anyway.

We have a system that tries to teach all children as if they were the same, instead of teaching them according to their abilites.

We have a system that is more interested in bussing children around based on their skin color or economic status than on their talents.

We have a system that is starving for money and is cutting out some of the classes that might actually motivate some students.

Worst of all, we have a system where children think it's uncool to be smart, and failure only comes from the attempting, so don't even try and you won't fail.

I think the solution is to allow the students to learn at their own speeds, but that would never be politically acceptable. I am willing to bet there are hundreds of people that think they have solutions of their own, unfortunately, most of those constitute experiments on the next crop of children to find what works, and what doesn't. Most don't.