Monthly Archive for October, 2006

What a tool

Published
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Meta
on October 31, 2006
in Home Projects and Projects
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I mean that literally.

After the progress of preparing things for laying the floors this weekend, I completely neglected the fact that the wood needs to sit inside and acclimate to the indoor humidity for 3 days or so before I can actually start nailing it down. I brought in 6 boxes last night, which is about 126 sq ft. That should be enough to get started… on Thursday at the earliest.

So, that gives me a couple days to work on some other things.

But, I did accomplish something today. I made a trip to Lowe’s and picked up a roll of 15 lb felt (tar paper) for the underlayment, some new drill bits, a Japanese Pull Saw (for cutting out the door jambs) and… a Bostitch 6 gal, 2 hp air compressor combo package which comes with a brad nailer, a finishing nailer and a stapler. The finishing nailer and stapler will actually come in very handy for this project… and an air compressor is always a good investment.

I love power tools.

Being a homeowner is great!

Published
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Meta
on October 31, 2006
in Home Projects and Projects
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First, Happy Halloween.

Yesterday was quite a day. Several weeks ago, I had a note posted to my door from the water company saying I had a steady leak somewhere between my house and the meter. Hence, it was my responsibility to fix it. I didn’t think much about it, despite having noticed a wet spot in the yard a few weeks before, until I got my bill. Yikes!

So I had an excavator come out, dig up the yard and repair the leak. It’s a muddy mess.

The good news, I guess, is that while I was home, I had time to finish up the ‘prep-work’ on the living room floor. Tonight I’ll pick up some new drill bits and get the first row or two installed (since I can’t use the pneumatic floor nailer there anyway).

On “Wedge Issues”…

Published
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Meta
on October 29, 2006
in Current Events
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Tonight I came across this Newsweek article on “wedge issues”. Officially, the “wedge issues” are:

  • Stem-Cell research (the morality/immorality thereof)
  • Gay Marriage
  • The Right to Die
  • Abortion

First one should note that these are all “social” issues.

Second, for a definition of “wedge issues”, we turn to our friend Wikipedia, which says:

Wedge issue is a social or political issue, often of a divisive or otherwise controversial nature, which is used by one political group to split apart or create a “wedge” in the support base of an opposing political group, with a view to enticing voters to give their support to the first group.

So back to the issues all being “social issues”. I believe it is common thought among most Americans, and is a misconception encouraged by the Administration, those who want to be elected and the Main Stream Media (MSM), that there are only 2 ways to think. You’re either Right-wing/Conservative/Republican or Left-Wing/Liberal/Democrat. This type of thought makes arguments such as “You are either with us or you are against us in the fight against terror.” sound somewhat rational. In logic, we call this a false dichotomy.

The fact is, people don’t fit into the tidy lines that politicians want to draw for them. People need to educate themselves in all the issues, determine what is most important to them, where they are willing to compromise and unfortunately, choose the lesser of two evils at the ballot box.

On the Minimum Wage…

Published
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Meta
on October 26, 2006
in Current Events
. 1 Comment

Again, another brainstorming session with no idea where I’ll end up.

With mid-term elections coming up, a lot of people are worried or are hopeful about the Democrats taking over Congress. One of the Democratic Party’s primary concerns, and one they expect to address in the first few days of office, is to increase the Federal Minimum Wage.

At first glance, it doesn’t sound too bad. I mean… people at the bottom of the corporate food chain will be paid more and thereby increase their standard of living, right? So, let’s say you’re a full-time employee somewhere making minimum wage of $5.15/hr. Multiply $5.15 by 40 (normal work-hours in a week) yields $206/week. Multiply $5.15 by 2080 (normal work-hours in a year, excluding unpaid holidays and unpaid sick days) gives an annual salary of $10,712. Yikes! The Dem’s want to raise the minimum wage to about $7.25/hr. By the same formulas, that’s $290/week (an $84 increase) and $15,142/yr (a $4430 increase).

Percentage-wise, going from $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr is a $2.10/hr increase, or 40%. Since 1997 (the last time the minimum wage was increased), how many of you are now being paid 40% more than you were then?

On the other hand, relative to President Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of the nation, according to this site, only 1.4% of U.S. workers (in 2004) earned the minimum wage.

In my reading, it’s mostly about supply and demand. If I have a business producing a product or service that I can perform at C cost and be profitable, I will hire X employees at the cheapest rate possible such that I can produce/provide more and increase my profit up to the point the market demands my product/service. But if the minimum wage is increased, C (the cost of producing that product or service) goes up.

One option for me is to accept the reduction in my profit margins and simply take less profit. Or, if I have a low profit margin to begin with, I can just close my doors.

The second option is to pass the production cost increase onto the consumer by raising the price. But the increase in price will likely reduce the demand. I won’t sell as much and demand will continue to decline until I have to close my doors.

The third, and really only rational option is to investigate ways to improve efficiency in processes such that I can produce the same product/service at the same cost (ie, with fewer employees). In this way, I maintain my profit margins, maintain my company’s viability and can adequately fill the market’s demand for whatever product or service I’m offering.

The downside for the country is that I ended up laying off 10-40% of my workforce in favor of automation and outsourcing, increasing the nation’s unemployment rate and feeding the dependency on welfare.

In a nutshell, if you consider the employer the consumer (consumer of minimum wage workers), increasing the “price” reduces demand for minimum wage workers. The more expensive is a minimum wage worker, the less they are needed/desired by businesses.

So after this thought experiment, my conclusion is that while increasing the minimum wage might seem like it helps the poorest, it only does so for a short time. Some percentage of the poorest 1.4% in the U.S., those making minimum wage, will become even poorer when they become unemployed. And for the rest of us, taxes will go up to meet the increased demand for welfare services, decreasing our ability to spend on goods and services and thereby stagnating the overall economy. As consumers have less to spend on goods and services, companies will be forced to lower prices to meet the reduced demand… eliminating even more minimum wage jobs. And the cycle continues.

Addictive

Published
by
Meta
on October 26, 2006
in Personal
. 0 Comments

I found this total time waster that is totally addictive. My best is about 19.2 seconds.

Update: New Personal best: 27.732 seconds
Update (11/2): New Personal best: 32.068 seconds

Note to self…

Published
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Meta
on October 25, 2006
in Personal
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Today at my client’s office they held a Chili Cook-off as part of their employee-driven, week-long United Way fundraiser campaign. I didn’t choose to cook, but was compelled to partake. A single bowl was only $1.

While I only got to sample one employee’s contribution, it was really good. It was soupier than I usually prefer, but full of meat and beans, chunks of tomatoes and onions. It was a bit spicy, but also sweet, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. Yum.

But about an hour later, well, my need was mostly due to all the coffee I drank… I had to go to the bathroom. I visited the nearest to find it was full. Not only was it full… it smelled like chili. Chili-farts, I mean.

The two stalls and two urinals were occupied by men conversing with three others, including myself, about how good the chili was. At times it was hard to hear given the fart-chorus in the background.

In the future, if I’m ever asked for my opinion, I think I would not recommend a chili cook-off for lunch at work. It tends to lead to getting to know people a little better than you really want to.

Glad I don’t watch TV

Published
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Meta
on October 23, 2006
in Current Events
. 0 Comments

Yowzers!

I just caught this, from Keith Olbermann.

Is anyone really surprised that the Republicans would use imagery of nuclear attacks on the U.S. to instill fear among the People in hopes of winning a few votes?

To quote Olbermann:

The dictionary definition of the word “terrorize” is simple and not open to misinterpretation:

“To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”

Note please, that the words “violence” and “death” are missing from that definition.

The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act—but the fear of the act.

I think I’d have to agree. No single group tries as hard to terrorize and instigate fear in Americans-at-large as the Bush Administration.

Who’s the bigger threat to our way of life? Who are the real terrorists?

On Freedom and Liberty

Published
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Meta
on October 23, 2006
in Personal
. 1 Comment

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this. It just seems like a good venue for getting some thoughts down for the sake of self-clarity.

I’ve often heard “freedom” described as the “ability to do what you want”. In some discussions of “free will”, having it means “having the ability to choose to do otherwise.” I think the latter is a bit more accurate, because I suppose one could choose to do something other than what one wants… perhaps for some greater good or avoidance of some lesser evil, and possibly altrustic and resulting in harm or death to one’s self.

A Utilitarian model of freedom and ethics, very simply put, says that one is free to choose and act on that choice, so long as that act does not interfere with another’s ability to exercise that same freedom.

I have a couple of friends in Germany who, when they visit the U.S., often make jokes about seatbelt laws, restrictions on where one can smoke, etc, sarcastically asking, “What? But isn’t this the land of the free?” or “Isn’t this a ‘free country’?”

It’s kind of interesting, and worthy of more investigation, that at Dictionary.com, the definitions for freedom and liberty, while similar, are not necessarily synonomous.

So how do freedom and liberty relate to “rights”?

We should, at this point, draw a distinction between ‘negative rights’ and ‘positive rights’. A negative right is that you have from the time you’re born and no one has to do anything in order for you to express that right. They simply have to refrain from infringing upon it. The typical freedoms of speech, religious practice, bearing arms and freedom from violent crime are such negative rights.

A positive right, on the other hand, is a right to something provided by someone else, or by an entity or organization (such as the government). For example, rights claimed toward receiving an education, healthcare, welfare and social security are positive rights.

Amendment VI grants alleged criminals a right to a speedy, public trial by their peers. That seems to me a positive right, in that it requires there be peers, a court and judges to execute such a public trial.

My reading of all the rest is that they are effectively negative rights.

The important one, though, is Amendment X which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

I think the gist of the Founding Fathers’ message is that the Constitution of the United States is not about telling people what they can do, but instead tells the Federal Government what they cannot do.

So, back to freedom and liberty…

… specifically in the United States, the Constitution guarantees that the Federal Government cannot infringe upon certain rights, and therefore the people experience freedom with regard to those negative rights.

My conclusion is that there was never any intention by the Founding Fathers to posit such positive rights that many claim, such as the “right” to education, to welfare, to social security, to healthcare, to social/financial equality, to subsidies, to tariffs on foreign imports, etc. These issues are not ‘new’ issues. Those who drafted the Constitution had to deal with these too. It is evident that there was much thought put into the documents. Certain things made it, and certain things were left out. I think these positive rights were left out not because they were overlooked, but purposefully, as they did not see the Federal Government as having a responsibility to provide them.

So, if that was the intention, why are we today forced to pay income taxes to the Federal Government to support the claimed “positive rights” of others? And where did our freedom go?

Reaping what you sow

Published
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Meta
on October 22, 2006
in Current Events
. 1 Comment

A while back, I proposed the idea that the terrorists and enemies of the United States are likely much less concerned with killing Americans as they are seeing us live in fear. When we start giving in and allowing the government to take away essential liberties in the name of security, the terrorists are winning.

Why doesn’t the Bush Administration see it this way? Without getting deep into the conspiracy theories, I think they do see it, and this is what they’ve wanted all along. Ever since 9/11, whether complicit or not, the attack has served PNAC’s purposes, allowing the United States Government to force itself on the rest of the world and hushing criticism.

On Oct 17, another major step in this direction was taken with the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding exactly what this implies in terms of unchecked authority given to the President. Here are some links:

I need to read more, but I think some (like Olbermann) are perhaps blowing it out of proportion and are making claims about the Act that I, so far, cannot find. It seems pretty clear that the Act does not apply to American citizens or lawful residents otherwise protected by the Constitution. It just makes it clear that the U.S. Government is not obligated to grant Constitutional rights to non-Americans.

Let’s hope I’m right in that interpretation.

On the other hand, given this is our new, collective point-of-view, should we reasonably expect other nations to treat us any differently than we do them? What if I blog something negative about the French government? If they have the same law on their books, could they not define me as an “enemy combatant” and, on my next trip to Paris, arrest and lock me up forever with no trial? And what if I didn’t blog anything, but they simply thought I did or confused me with someone else?

I’m generally not one to quote the Bible, but “As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.” Job 4:8.

The Minority Report… RE: Iraq

Published
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Meta
on October 21, 2006
in Current Events
. 1 Comment

… or is it the Majority Report?

I guess at this point it doesn’t matter. I’m a bit late reporting on the Lancet Study regarding the “extra” deaths in Iraq caused by the U.S. invasion/occupation.

This article is interesting.

Despite his lack of mastery of the English language despite being a ‘native speaker’, President George W. Bush is, in some circles, apparently considered an expert in statistics.  In response to a direct question regarding the validity of the study, the President said, “No, I don’t consider it a credible report, neither does General Casey and neither do Iraqi officials.”  As for the “Iraqi officials”… they don’t quite count as recent history has demonstrated the Bush Adminstration mantra, “if you’re not with us, you are against us.”  Hence, the Iraqi officials’ opinions, those of a puppet regime, should not be considered relevant nor influential whatsoever.

Regarding General Casey’s views on the report… to be fair, I need to do some research on his qualifications in statistical analysis and theory.  I’m just going to guess that George W’s  education and experience, for what that’s worth, are far above Casey’s.

I dunno… I think the President has 1 of 2 options:

1. Say “I’m an idiot and don’t know what you’re talking about, but I will pretend to and cite sources outside the relevant field to substantiate my claims… and regardless I’m right and you are wrong” (the going trend) or

2. Say “I acknowledge that I am not familiar with the details in this field of research and delegate such to experts acknowledged by their peers via peer-reviewed journals and acceptance of proven models.”

Unfortunately, Bush’s answer is more toward the former, and leans more toward “God told me I’m right, so I’m right, whether it’s good for you or the Nation or anyone else… I’m right.. and I’ll still be rich long after I’m President. So sorry for the rest of you.”