Afghanistan - no comic at all?

[Kilum]

Lol, Kraegar

[Kwee]

I live in California - was born and raised here.  I went to school - even college - here.  I've worked in the Bay Area, and Silicon Valley.  I've visited Southern California and known people in the aero-space industry and at least watched the movie industry get popular here.

There is something happening here that really p***es me off.  The California legislature is not only driving business away with high taxes and a social and political environment that demonizes business.  The legislature is forcing taxpayers to make the environment worse in the name of making it better while pandering to special interests.

As you probably know, California has an entire bureaucracy devoted to clean-air emissions from cars.  California cars must have catalytic converters and must pass a smog check (paid for by the consumer at licensed sites) every two years.  Ok.  Keep your car tuned up and lower the bad emissions.  That's fair, right?

Yes, it costs around $50-$90 every two years to do the test, plus the $20 "fee"  (That's a hidden tax, by the way.)  But we're California, and looking out for smog in LA while we subsidize all those licensed testing stations.  But here's the silly unintended consequence:

Every year, THOUSANDS of cars fail the test.  No problem, right?  The owners paid the $50-$90 bribe to the licensed stations, plus the $20 fee (tax) but they FAIL the test, so now what?  Here's where it gets Byzantine and why I hate the California legislature.

They must go to a DIFFERENT licensed (by the California legislature) garage and get their car fixed and retested.  Of COURSE there are rules and regulations about what the garages can and cannot do, but, basically, the law mandates that every two years, every car has to pass a STATE TEST and, if it fails, get fixed in a STATE licensed garage and retake the test.  And of course the garages have to pass along to the consumer those costs that the garage incurs in reporting to the state.

So far, so bad.  But it gets horribly worse.

To "protect" the consumer, garages are not allowed to charge more than $750 to bring the car up to emissions standards.  Guess how much most charges are to "bring the car up to emissions standards?"

But wait, there's more!  What if, after you spend the $750 and your car can STILL not be brought up to the emissions standard?  And remember, that's $750 trying to fix it AFTER you've already spent the $50-90 smog-check fee, etc.

This is where the California legislature deserves to be . . . done something bad to.

In the law, there is a provision to get a bypass for an old vehicle.  But nobody - and I mean NOBODY - knows how to get that.  So what happens?  EVERY person who spent the extra $750 to make their car pass the test and failed is then told. . . JUNK YOUR CAR.

That's right.  After spending about $1000 at "licensed" garages to pass a state test, if you fail - and most do - you MUST junk your car.

Never mind that these can be (as of 2008) 1999, 2000, or even 2004 cars that get good gas mileage.  If they failed a STATE TEST, then they failed a (state approved) garage's appreciation that $750 wouldn't fix it, THAT CAR MUST BE JUNKED.  Of course, most garages WILL do near $750 worth of "work" before they tell you it can't be fixed.

Now, the final horror.

The state of California will give you $1000 to junk your car that fails all these tests that you paid about $1000 to get.  But only if you file some pretty obscure paperwork and keep a LOT of that paperwork as you were going through these labyrinthine procedures.  But what if your car was still getting good mileage?  What if it was worth well over $1000?  What if, God Forbid, some jerk in Sacramento doesn't know or care that this is your only car and you CAN'T replace it for $1000?

But even worse.  Every year, this law mandates that we junk hundreds of thousands of cars - that is, tons of iron, glass, etc.  Is THAT waste and junk any worse than the environmental impact of what some of those cars were doing by their emissions, even after we paid $1000 + to fix them?

Who are these idiots?  First, they tell us we HAVE to take our cars to certain places to get a STATE mandated certificate.  That's NOT free choice and it IS NOT market economics, i.e., WE can't choose who does the best job.  THEN they tell us we have to go to ANOTHER STATE_MANDATED place where they can charge up to $750 to tell us our cars don't fit the bill.  AND THEY PRETEND THAT THIS IS PROTECTING US FROM GETTING CHARGED MORE?  WHO MADE US GO THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Finally, they take taxpayers' money and give it to the few people who dive through hoops to get $1000 for a car that may be worth 2 or 3 TIMES that to them.

And the worst: Is the environment better served by those tons of decent-running automobiles sitting junked than they were providing transportation?  Admit it.  Wasn't this just a scam to FORCE people to buy new cars?

MAYBE not.  But the California legislature is a bunch of idiots and this is just one example why no business in it's right mind stays here.  These clowns treat business and consumers as the enemy and still expect to get taxes to dole out to their constituents to buy votes.

[Bearmug]

This is worse than 'Silly law' search on Google.

[Kwee]

Well, heck.  Maybe I'm wrong yet again.  Last week, I checked out a bunch of books from the Pinole library and one of them was Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.  This guy is a conservative black economist, but all that aside, I've read his articles and even THAT book before and been really impressed by his clarity and point of view.

So the next morning after posting the above diatribe against California's byzantine laws about what a consumer does with his/her car when it's old and doesn't pass its smog check, I read Thomas Sowell pointing out - rather specifically - that in an economy like that of the United States at this time, it makes economic sense that cars are junked or sold off to other countries after ten years or so.

Now, a part of me doesn't want to give California legislators credit for thinking that well.  And I still believe that the cars that are actually junked may be nearly as much of an environmental problem as the emissions they would have produced.

But one of the things Sowell's writings force you to consider is this: economics is the study of scarce resources that could be used for alternate purposes.  I'm paraphrasing and being way too brief.  But in the long view for a society, prices and markets determine how resources - human and natural - should best be used even if it means relocations and setbacks for members of that society.

It's hard to believe in free-market economics if you are the one losing your job, or if you see government interfering in some other sector and giving benefits to others that your family isn't getting.  Or if it's my car that has to be junked.    But history has shown time and again that politicians or interest groups who try to mitigate real market forces with programs that pander to groups of voters or personal interests just make things worse.

I know you're busy, but if you once in awhile check out non-fiction books from the library, try reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics.  It's 330 in the Dewey Decimal System.  This isn't a rant or me trying to convince anyone of a particular morality.  The book does - I think - a darn good job of explaining what economics is and how it works even as politicians, moralists and others try to manipulate it.

[Redwohc]

Sowell rocks!  Love his stuff.

Let's see how Congress meddling in the futures markets for votes goes.  I have a very bad feeling that this will not end well. 

I actually heard our wonderfull (sarcasm!) Senator from MN, Amy Klobouchar, telling everyone on national television last night what the price of a barrel of oil "should be".  I guess she skipped Economics in high school and college because if she hadn't she realize that in the Capitalist system something is worth whatever someone else wants to pay for it.  She then went on to talk about how some people are using more than "their share" of gas.  Ugh!  How can she be so dim?  Those are the people running our country, folks.  Our best and brightest.

Redwohc

[Kwee]

Congress is now trying to say that "speculators" are to blame for the high price of gasoline.

Let's visit the truth:  People in a free-market economy pay for things they want based on the idea that scarce resources that have alternative uses could be used any way that those millions of people would want.  So, if speculators bid up the price of anything beyond what it was worth to millions of people, those people wouldn't buy it and the speculators would lose.

But there's more.

Congress is trying to portray the commodities markets as a bunch of gamblers.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Gambling is creating a risk - as when you put one bullet in a 6-shooter and then point it at someone's head.  You have CREATED a risk.

When a farmer spends all summer growing wheat or some other crop, he is not CREATING a risk.  He is TAKING the risk that the price per ton of his crop will repay him for his time, work and input.  WORLDWIDE.  What a commodity trader does, is offer the farmer a price for his effort beforehand.  He's saying, "You might get more in the fall, but I'll offer you a little less, but I'll guarantee you a profit."  The farmer gets a sure profit and is left to concentrate on what he does best - growing the crop.  And the speculator does what he does best - find the best market and price for that crop.

From time immemorial, there have been other attempts to govern how people are fed, farmers get paid and governments work.  NONE of them have ever worked as well as this fairly simple idea: farmers grow crops, "speculators" pay a price that they believe they can cover - based on moving the crops to where they are needed - and people that need the food, buy the food.

It's that simple.  People produce what they can, and someone uses that production.  IN BETWEEN, there are banks, "speculators," capitalists, middlemen, money-lenders, Jews, Chinese or a myriad of things to allow production to meet the needs of those who want the benefits of that production.

For our Congress to now castigate free markets and capitalism as being a bunch of "speculators" is the height of hypocrisy.  Markets are nothing more than people offering value for value.  It is only governments that can FORCE people to accept something that they don't value as much.  "Speculators" cannot force prices higher.  All they can do is buy from producers and try to sell to consumers at a price that consumers are willing to pay.  Supply and demand works, no matter what a politician or environmentalist wants to have happen.

To say, "We can't drill our way out of the oil crisis," is the same as saying, "We can't provide any expertise or raw materials or production from our own resources."  That is, we are denying our own wherewithal.  Granted, we can work for alternative sources, but we DO have resources and capacity that we can use right now.

But let's be clear: for Congress to suddenly start blaming "speculators" for this "crisis" is for politicians to start blaming successful capitalism for a shortcoming that Congress has been causing for decades.  We could have been drilling off-shore since the '70s.  We could have been using nuclear.  We could have lowered the interest rates on the MEGA-MILLIONS it costs to find and develop oil fields.

This isn't democrat versus republican.  England, France, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Russia, Indonesia, Norway and etc., etc., have all pondered energy and decided to drill for what they can, or produce nuclear energy.  (I leave out Brazil, for now.  It's not working, so far.)  But the United States Congress decides to investigate "speculators."

I really don't know what to say.  I don't want to instigate violence, but what can you say when a body of people are so inept, so imperial and so estranged from reality that they blame the very society and framework that empowers them for the ills that befall them when it is so patently obvious that they brought it on themselves?

I'm not a rabble-rouser.  All I'm saying is that, apparently, our own Congress doesn't understand free-market economies and the role of commodities trading and basic economics.  And if they're that ignorant, then what do I owe them?

[Kwee]

I've finally realized one thing in this age of Texas Hold-em and sound-bite politics and poor education: You can win lots of 20 or 30 or even 80 dollar hands, but if you bet big and lose that one hand you really believed in, you're screwed.

Gamblers know that, and I accept that gamblers should be allowed to do what they do.  But look at all our fairy tales and life lessons:  GO FOR IT!  Don't be afraid to fail.

I'm old now, so unless I'm listening to the music I grew up with and getting loose on burgundy, I not only keep my cards close to my vest, I just won't play them.  Why should I?  There's somebody out there that will trick me, and courts, laws and politicians won't stop them.

We tell our children to try, achieve, hope, dream - because anything is possible.  I guess I believe anything is possible, but usually, you fail, even after 2, 3, or 4 successes.  And that one failure marks you for life.  That's what business, media and politics wipe under the rug.  We're supposed to try and risk failure, but if we have ONE failure, business, media and politics will trumpet that to the high heavens rather than take the time to analyze any process and see failure in context.

I still am not convinced we need CO2 caps on businesses, but let a scientist or economist point out the failing of this policy and WHAM!  Instant calumny and derision.  Now, let an economist argue against government controls on the private sector?  WHAM!  Historical arguments are not considered; facts are nor presented in a logical manner; ANY and EVERY thing that can be presented against the guy WILL be.  And no, I don't mean liberals of conservatives are guilty of this.  We ALL are.  We're so busy trying to "prove" our point that we'll use specious and actually silly arguments to win.  "He had sex with a woman who was not his wife, so his science must be wrong!"  "She was kinda dykish, so is radiation really real?"  "He was wrong 2 times, look at his grant proposals, so how can he be right now?"

My simple point is that, "failure is not an option."  MY company told me it was.  They said they wanted us to innovate and be creative and try new things and not be afraid of failure.  But I don't believe it.  People will say you failed because you aren't only wrong, you suck.  Or, you're somehow dirty.  And the console-playing, 3'rd World Studies, Feminist Sciences, "free speech" crowd have done far more to limit "free-speech" (free-thinking and failure), than anything I would have thought possible in my teens, in the late '60s.

As they say, "You're mileage will certainly vary."  But I've lived through this and I see it.  We aren't less free because a FISA bill allows phone companies to report possible terrorists to a government (though, ideally, that's bad.)  We're less free because there is almost no free speech on campuses unless it's leftest speech.  There is no "tolerance" unless it's diversified, amoral pap.  And that's the point: Of COURSE I've sinned!  But does that mean we all abrogate any morality?

The "lesson" or point I'm hearing from many is, "Jesus said, 'Let him without sin cast the first stone.' You've sinned, so shut the heck up."  I agree, I've sinned, so I won't throw a stone, but, son of a BITC*!  Does that mean that gangs should take over my kid's schools, or neighborhoods?  Does it mean I should roll over and play brain-dead when people advocate diversity over morals and shared values for a nation?

And finally, should I give up the idea of a nation, just because that nation made a mistake?  You all know this nation's mistakes.  Slavery, Indian-persecution, etc.  That's the point.  We ALL make mistakes.  African nations, Europe and Asia were transporting slaves and persecuting minorities long after the United States was.  Does that make us right?  No.  Does that make us wrong?  Assuredly not!  We're just TRYING.

Nations weren't created to screw others - unless you believe some comic book idea of good and evil.  They were created out of common interests and to protect those interests and the lives of the people who belonged to them.

I guess I'm a day or two late, but THIS nation was created for what *I* believe were good reasons.  YES WE MADE A MISTAKE.  But we got the nation created.  Now, all you liberals who want everything perfect, with no blemishes?  You point out to me one UN resolution, one Russian resolution, one Chinese resolution, one Venezuelan resolution, one Cuban resolution, one North Korean resolution, one GOD-DA**ED United States State Department resolution that EVER made ANYONE's lives any better.  I'm serious, quote the resolution and back it up with statistical data.

[Thales]

Kwee,

I'm not sure I totally grasp your thesis, but you bring many thoughts to mind.  You seem like someone who really, really thinks. 

First, I think you should watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY   The speaker's basic point is that our education system kills creativity by inculcating a deep fear of being wrong.  There is nothing worse a student can do in a typical math class than give the wrong answer.  So, when it comes time to be creative, which involves some risk of being "wrong", adults who have been through our education system have such a hard time.  I think there's truth to this argument.

And that brings me to my second point, which is that I think that courage is among the most important of virtues.  You will make mistakes in life.  Your government will make mistakes.  Our species will make mistakes.  But we can't be paralyzed by them.  We have to have the courage to keep going.  If you have courage and the willingness to keep going, almost anything can go wrong and you will be able to face it, deal with it, and move on.  You just have to resolve to do so.  Not only is failure an option, it is inevitable.  Just keep going after it happens. 

Your main concern seems to be the current state of your country.  You know what?  It sucks, but it will pass.  The United States has a history marked by great feats of courage.  It picks up and moves on, as do its people.  But where the historical US exemplified courage, I think the present US exemplifies bravado, which is a different beast entirely.  That's okay.  In fact, it's also probably inevitable, given the tremendous power you possess.  I think it will change soon.  I think you will elect Barack Obama as your next president and, whether you like the man and his politics or not, I think he will point the US in a new and better direction.

Let me tell you something about my country, Canada.  As you may have noticed, things have been going pretty well here for a long time now.  We are consistently ranked as one of the very best places to live in the whole wide world.  You know what I think the secret is?  Charismatic French leaders.  Seriously.  How did things go under Trudeau and Chretien, compared to under Mulroney, Martin, and Harper?  Okay, it's probably just a coincidence, but gosh have we had some fun times with Trudeau and Chretien as our prime ministers.  Your historically culturally most significant minority isn't French people, it's black people.  So elect a charismatic black guy.  Surprise people.  Surprise yourselves.  Love your leader for a while.  He will teach you to like yourselves again, I think, and then things will get back on track.  Given time, you can repeal all of the frightening laws that have eroded your freedoms (and whose effects are now seeping across the border, eroding our freedoms in Canada).  You're still a democracy and you can still get rid of bad laws democratically. 

I really hope that at least some of what I have said has been helpful.  It makes me sad to see you suffering, to see you nearly overcome by cynicism.  Just be bold and courageous.  And keep talking.  You're really interesting. 

Thales

P. S. I think you are right on the money when you say that "diversity" and "tolerance" should never trump good old morality.  Don't be afraid to be moral.  If you are moral, you will be appropriately tolerant.  And I say that as a firmly leftist kind of guy. 

[Kwee]

Thanks for the comments, Thales.

[Heilig]

Brasse, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment a few replies back that one of our biggest problems is that schools don't teach critical thinking (what we used to call logic).  In my field, I get to talk to a lot of young people fresh out of school, and it's amazing how many extremely intelligent, very knowledgable people are totally irrational.

Yes, people are entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts.  I might think that spaghetti is better than ravioli, but I'm on thin ice if I think that strychnine is non-toxic at high doses.  The former is opinion and cannot be tested easily; the latter is fact and can easily be tested objectively.  Yet so many arguments you see on the Gibberishnet are parallel.

Here's another example.  I hear people complain about how much profit oil companies are making on gasoline.  I think it's fueled a lot by stories in the media that make the news rather than report the news.  Why?  Because you'll almost never see a news report that provides any information that people can use to judge for themselves.  When I hear people complaining about oil profits, I ask them how much they think a fair profit would be.  This usually brings a blank stare.  They have no idea and they've never thought about it  Think about it.  If you ran an oil company that refined crude oil into gasoline, how much profit would you need to make on gallon of gas to make it worth your while?  It's going to cost you a lot of investment money to drill the wells or buy the oil from other countries, plus you have to build refineries to convert it to gasoline.  Instead, you could take that money and invest it securely and make about 5 or 10 percent interest a year.  So, how much profit would you want to make on a $4 gallon of gas?  Most people say they'd want to make between 50 cents and a dollar to make it worth their while.  Yet oil companies make about 30 cents profit on a gallon of gas, or about 8%, much less than the taxes on that gallon.  That's in line with general industrial profit margins in the US.  Who's making the most money for the least investment?  Government!!

I'm a firm believer in a free market economy, or as free as possible.  Why?  Because it's self-correcting.  If profits really were huge, new startup companies would spring up.  They'd sell their gas a little bit cheaper than the older companies to try to expand their market.  Pretty soon the older companies would be forced to lower their prices to remain competitive.  Therefore, any imbalance in profits would be only temporary.  If people think that oil profits are so huge, what's their logical response?  Well, since oil company stock is publicly traded, the logical response would be to buy oil stock and get some of those huge proifts.  Either that, or start your own company.

[Redwohc]

Sardonica, you are my new hero

I agree with what you say about the economy and people making up their own facts.  You hit th enail on the head.  Personally I am tired of the lead story on the evening news being 5 minutes of uninformed people b*tching about the high price of gas.  They have no idea what it costs in capital to produce it or the historically low prices we have paid for it in the U.S. versus most other places in the world.  It's even funnier to me to hear someone complain about he price of gas while drinking bottled water.  The irony of it is just delicious.  Bottled water is one of the biggest wastes of resources mankind ever created.  Very little of it is any different from tapwater which is FREE.  But people will still pay $1.50 for 12 ounces of it and throw the plastic in the garbage.  Plastic.  You know, the stuff that never goes away.

I can't speak for other countries, but in the U.S. people have a hard time with the difference between "rights" and luxuries.  You have a right to free speech.  Say what you want as long as it doesn't physically harm anyone.  You don't have the "right" to not be offended.  If someone says something to you that you don't like and find offensive, tough luck.  You don't have a right to affordable health care.  If you can pay for it you can have it.  It is s luxury.  It would be nice if everyone could have it for free.  I'd like a pony, too.  But I'm out of luck.  Wait, I could have a pony if I like.  I can pay for one.  It just makes no sense to have one so I don't. 

You don't have a right to free education.  The government has provided for a certain level of education for everyone and you can have all of that that you want.  For free.  If someone else who is not as smart as you can pay for a better one then good for them.  You don't the right to have the same things that other people have if you can't pay for them.  If that lesser student has more economic means then that's just too bad.  There are fantastic colleges that give out free education all the time.  Maybe not as much as everyone would like.  But they see some reward in giving the best and brightest and most driven something very valuable for almost nothing.  Want that free education?  Work harder than the other guy.

You do not have the right to a 40-50 hour work week.  If you want to work less than others don't be envious of how hard they are willing to work or how much farther they will push themselves for the money.  Maybe you don't want to give up that time with family or friends.  Maybe you just don't want to sacrifice that much.  That's fine.  You made that choice.

You do not have the right to success.  Afraid to fail?  Then stand on the sidelines and play it safe.  Don't risk anything.  You won't ever lose.  You won't ever win either.  What angers me more than anything else is the way we penalize success in this country.  If you take everythign you have, build a business or two through hard work and sacrifice there is no shortage of people waiting for their piece of the cargo when your ship comes in.  They weren't there to help you build it.  They weren't there to help it succeed.  But they sure as hell are going to get their piece of it when it's successful.  It's their right, you know.  Oh, and if you fail cataclysmically and owe your creditors those other people are never around to help pay for that either.  Everyone thinks they shold have what everyone else does without the risk or the effort.  It's offensive to those who put in the time and the money. 

You think the oil companies are making record profits?  Maybe there are.  But they spent the money to get there.  They deserve the reward.  And let's not ignore the fact that over 40% of the 401Ks and investment funds in the country have oil companies and their like in them.  So when they make money a lot of other people make it, too.  People at the pump tend to ignore that little fact.  But they sure are happy when their fund jumps 20%.  Many of them have no idea why but they're happy.  Until they fill their car.  The dirty little secret is that $4/gallon gas is probably a good thing.  It puts the market where it probably should be and gives oil companies enough money (and reasons) to research other fuels.  That's good for everyone.

We have grown incredibly lazy and ignorant in this country.  We want the benefit of other people's effort and we want our "facts" spoon fed to us.  We don't want to actually look it up and see if it's true.  We rarely say "Is that even true?".  We agree with it.  it sounds good and most importantly it's exactly what we wanted to hear.  So we don't try to reseoarch much of anything.  That would be a waste of our time.  We need that for xbox and PS3.  Wait, those are too expensive.  Someone else should buy them for us.  Hey, that guy said he'll fix everything and that sounds good to me.  Besides, that other guy is old/black/stupid/cocky and he's a Democrat/Republican.  I won't vote for him.

Politicians will not solve our problems.  They will take the credit for the people who do.  But they won't solve anything.  No, they prefer that you sit on your couch in your information cocoon and just do what they tell you.  That makes them happy.  And they promise to return the favor.  They understand they have no history of doing that, but this time it will be different.

After all, they promised.

Redwohc

[Gordion]

In an article titled Jounalist Bites Reality!, Skeptic magazine points out how the media focus overly much on relatively insignificant problems or things that are unlikely to affect most people.

The end of the article includes these examples of alternative but non-newsworthy ways to discussing popular topics.
--The current employment rate is 95%.
--Out of 300 million Americans, roughly 299.999954 million were not murdered today.
--Day after day, some 35,000 commercial flights traverse our skies without incident.
--The vast majority of college students who got drunk last weekend did not rape anyone, or kill themselves or anyone else in a DUI or hazing incident. On Monday, they got up and went to class, bleary-eyed but otherwise okay.

I'm another big Thomas Sowell fan.  He's great at using facts to show how often our common wisdom is misguided or downright incorrect.

[Bearmug]

You can see that type of mentality a lot on mmo forums around actually:
(In WoW terms)
- people getting to 70 in greens and looking for t6 raid guild while noone actually wants to MAKE a new guild and progress thru tiers
- people doing PvP for easy gear and wanting to enter (again) t6 raid guilds without a clue what to do, how their class works or why pvp gear is bad for pve
- people whining why does someone else have purples/tons of gold/special mount and they can't get it, ignoring the fact that the person played 8 hours per day while they played 1

[Kwee]

EDIT: Please skip this.  It's political.  But if you DO read it, please read it twice before responding.  I took quite a while writing it and it is NOT as one-sided as your first-impression may have you believe.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thales, to answer you more properly, yes, you're right that I'm somewhat cynical in this thread.  Sardonica and Redwohc probably echo my sentiments in a more positive way.  But part of the reason for this thread is so that I can keep posting random comments in a manner reminiscent of Andy Rooney without deleting them when I wake up an hour or two later.  Most people can choose to just ignore this thread altogether.

To be fair to my own self, mostly I just drink cheap red wine and then want to write.  There are plenty of examples of my writing extant on the web where the combination of Burgundy, fatigue and my CDs of YES, Frank Sinatra or myriad others result in sickeningly sweet and positive rants about the possibilities of networks, friendships, people and technology.

To be honest, I have to say that your Youtube example, and your suggestion that America elects a black president both fall into that second category.  That is, there is a positive emotion there, and heartfelt hope, but it's not backed up by much experience of the way the real world works.  (And I'm saying this more about my own posts than what you wrote.)

There is a feature-length film that is aired on the Sundance Channel about the TED conference.  YAY!  Wonderful technology.  Great hope for the future.  Silly politics (IMHO).  Daphne Zuniga.  Ok.  Let's take your Youtube example in particular.  The guy is charming and persuasive, but he does what presidents now do in their State of the Union addresses: he takes particular episodes and extrapolates them to lend credence to a whole.  He mentions how a couple of students are particularly creative and uses that to show how educators need to be creative as well.  Missing is the entire idea that educators need to teach reading, writing and arithmetic.  Implicit is that educators are supposed to inculcate students with a worldview that this speaker agrees with.

As for making Obama president?  I've spent several months in Canada - Montreal and Vancouver mostly, to be precise - and I agree, it's a wonderful country.  But Canada now has courts arguing that Sharia law should perhaps trump civil law in some communities and is currently prosecuting Christians for quoting the Bible in public, accusing them of hate crimes.  (I grant you that similar odd cases are underway in the U.S.)  You may be correct that if America had a black president, we might become a more tolerant society.  By the same token, if we had a woman president, a gay president, a PETA president, a global-warming president or a Scientology president, we'd become "more tolerant."

You are correct.  Canada is wonderful, in part because it doesn't F*** people like America does, and I wish we didn't.  By the same token, left-wing whackos and right-wing evangelists keep voting for these "extremists" in America.  Despite all the talk of diversity and "reaching across the aisle" that happens during American political campaigns, we've got people that are really trying to stack courts and push forward an agenda of what they (mistakenly or otherwise) believe.

As for electing Francophones or others, so we'll learn diversity, remember, during the October Crisis, Chrétien told Trudeau to "act now, explain later", when Trudeau was hesitant to invoke the War Measures Act.  Your heroes are political animals, be they French, black, Islamist, liberal or conservative.


America is a political country, even when our voters have become dumbed-down little automatons following the latest sound-bite.  Maybe when we've been nuked by terrorists a few times and realize nuking Mecca doesn't work, or maybe when we live for a few generations in the shadow of the U.N., as Canada has lived in the shadow of Great Britain, we'll get enough humility to stop trying to be "right."

Maybe then we'll "get along."  I'm still enough of a jerk that I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

I'm serious.  I think Canadians are wonderful people.  But they have America between them and Mexico, and they have England between them and the rest of the world.   (By the way, THAT is cynical.)

And Bhinder, don't get me started on health care or immigration.  We all suck and, as rampant as the stories are in the U.S., there are plenty of incidents in Canada as well.  And no, I'm not proud.

[Kwee]

On the eve of Orkfest '08, I've decided to put on Steve Miller's greatest hits and, for the sake of forum diversity, see if I can't make a heart-felt positive post to balance things out a little.

Plus, the free Disney site for Pirates of the Caribbean is closed for maintenance. 

Although the Simpson's have used Steve Miller's "The Joker" a couple of times, it was never one of my favorites.  It's distinctive, yeah, but I just didn't get it.  I really liked "Serenade," though.  And when I was changing from vinyl to CD and bought "Greatest Hits," I found I really liked "Give it Up," "Keeps Me Wondering Why," "Heart Like a Wheel," "Wide Love" and "Cry Cry Cry."  Not because they are great examples of songwriting or harmonies or musicianship, but they are "yeoman" examples of all three.  Steve Miller doesn't have a great voice, but using electronics and taking studio time, he gets good vocals and harmonies.  He's not Eric Clapton on his Strat, but he makes it work in a simple and direct way.  Apparently, he didn't write most of his own songs, but, like Elton John, he had a friend he was close to who understood his style and wrote most of them.

Decided to listen to him cause he's not too much one or another.  Just fairly simple rock and roll, though he IS from the area where Orkfest '08 will be held.  And back in my senior year in high-school, when my mom's divorce, her remarriage, my weird step-brother, my acne and failure with girls reduced me to a nobody, the Steve Miller Blues Band recording of "Train Rolling Down the Highway," sort of got to me.

So.  These days, people don't need movies or any other media lending them credence for liking a sound and bopping to it in a club or in their room late at night.  It's hard to believe, but in the late '50s and early '60s, if you heard something castigated on the radio or in the news - or by your parents - it was a pretty powerful message.  For myself, I've always had to hear something at least twice to get a feel for the message or groove of a piece of music, whether is was "Satisfaction" or Beethoven's 5th.  (I'm serious, the first time I heard Beethoven's 5th I was SO worried by those few measures between the 3rd and 4th movements I thought he was just gonna screw it all up, even though I felt like what had come before was more boffo than anything I'd heard til then.)

Personally, there are a few exceptions.  I knew after a few measures of, "I'll Be Watching You," that it was a hit.  I mean, it's a fine song, wouldn't get me cheering at a concert, but I just KNEW it would sell a million.  Maybe longtime Sting fans understood the same thing, but, after the Beatles broke up and I went to Viet Nam I didn't really follow anyone very closely.  In fact, it wasn't until one of Wren's summer barbeques that I got a chance to listen closely to a Tom Petty album and catch the magic there.  (The track was "American Girl."  I was blown away by the energy.  When he later did "Free Falling" and some others, I knew he was a poet and songwriter that transcended excellence in one particular form.)

So, anyway, music.  Yeah.  <inhale>  Naw, no dope for me, anymore.  Just makes me paranoid since I got a regular job.  But in my  20s and very early 30s I did some stuff, and during that whole time I was buying stereo, then 4-track, 8-track and eventually 16-track recorders and writing and recording music.   And it sometimes amazed me to hear how a record seemed to be produced so it sounded darn good on the radio, but then was FREAKING AWESOME if you were drugged up. 

But a good song is a good song, and a good recording sounds good despite the venue.

Because I'm on my daughter's laptop with a weird keyboard, I've had to type this darn thing 3 times or more in some spots.  The cursor keeps jumping and erasing stuff.  But the point is the same as it was in the beginning.  What can I say that isn't cynical?

Music isn't cynical to me.  Ok, well, some is.    But to make a beat and a groove and say something you really feel, or at least to get a good lyric to match the sound and chords?  That's neat!

If we had the internet in 1789, we'd probably decimate the founding fathers.  After all, EVERY story about them makes apologies for not banning slavery.  I get cynical because there are people squinting and yelling about ANYTHING we do, anymore.  I have no doubt that FOX and MSNBC commentators could paint my life as one of indolence, decadence and maybe perversion.  Lincoln "freed the slaves," yet there are those who say it wasn't a moral choice, it was forced by the realities of the war.  Personally, I think FDR and his administration did terrible things that worsened the depression, but he was absolutely right to help Britain and recognize naziism for what it was.

The reason I'm cynical these days isn't because people will argue for their own self-interests.  That's always true.

I'm cynical because this country and it's Constitution were created by men who said from the very outset: 1) For this to work, people must be moral (and, whether you want to admit it or not, they meant believing in a Judeo-Christian ethic); 2) They must be knowledgeable; 3) They must never trust government more than the desires of free men.

This country was NOT created by the Statue of Liberty asking for poor and tired.  It was not created by a desire for diversity.  Granted, it was created with some biases and flames, but it was CREATED by men who believed that God made them free and granted them certain rights and they believed in that right to freedom and so they created a Constitution that they hoped would PREVENT a government that would, over time, erode and abrogate those rights.  The Constitution is actually very clear in proving that the current government is unconstitutional and immoral.   I'm cynical because so few of us see it that way.

You're welcome to the government you want.  I'm just saying that the government that first gave you that chance wasn't created to be this way.  I'm cynical because - even up til now - the only way I've ever seen to overthrow a government like this one, is bloodshed.  And I not only don't want bloodshed, I don't believe there are enough free-thinking, moral people to prevail over the darker proclivities of mankind - yes, even with the vaunted United Nations! - to form another enclave such as what the United States could have been.

It'll take a hundred years, there may be nuclear weapons scaring everyone, but the idea that people are FREE BY THEIR NATURE will be lost to a hegemony that will insist that the good of all overrides any personal ideal.  Heck, I could be wrong.  Maybe we should be subservient to a government, global or otherwise.  "Peace at any price!" has had its adherents throughout all-time.

I do not believe I exist for your good.  Heck, I suck.  Ayn Rand said it much better than I ever could.  I don't want you to hit me over the head with a stick, but I also don't want to suffer just because you decided to invest in pet rocks or make a home near a volcano.  I am not your keeper, nor are you mine.  I'm cynical because you will look for insurance from somebody that will hold people down to guarantee that you don't suffer for your choices.  We COULD have made a limited government that protected us from others and guaranteed contracts and kept the peace.  That's what the Constitution of the United States of America was supposed to be.

I'm REALLY cynical because this has already all been done before.

And we fu**** it up.