I learn Something New Every Day

Did you know that Porsche and VW are not the same company? I sure didn’t. I had always assumed that when the original Mr. Porsche invented the car that would become the Beetle that hence forth the two company’s were imprints under the same corporate structure, similar to the the relationship of the various brands under GM.

However it seems I am dead wrong. It would appear that though the two companies are linked in that the Porsche family has been trying to hostilely increase its control of VW, but they are in fact two different companies. All that stands in their way is an obscure German law from 1960 that is very anti-open market.

It is no secret that VW has been in decline for some time. Yes the return of the Beetle has helped stall the decent but thats it. Mean while Porsche is a very well run company that is a consistent money maker. I do hope the Porsche wins out and they are able to revive the brand, especially here in the States.

So, Comcast is the Police Now?

In a recent cnet article the prospect that Comcast is actively seeking to kill Bit Torrent connections is explored. Apparently they think they are the cops and to that end are allowed to limit an advertised “unlimited” connection without stipulating in their terms of service that they do so.

I’m not even going to try to defend torrents as its a common belief that their primary use is to share pirated media. It should be noted though that there are several legitimate uses for them as well. That said it does seem that Comcast’s approach is ethically and possibly legally wrong.

By advertising an unlimited connection and then killing p2p connections defeats the purpose of having a high speed connection. Comcast charges more for the higher connections and really those speeds are not necessary for everyday use, which says the people in that higher pricing plan are power users. Power users need that band width to design and collaborate, which often requires large file transfers.

The main argument in favor of Comcast’s move is that they are trying to ward off law suits from the film and music industry by aiding people pirate media. This claim is totally ridiculous. First due to the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Comcast is shielded from any such suits, but that aside it is totally illogical to think the media companies would go after Comcast.

If it were possible to sue Comcast or other isp’s for what happens over their raw connection its not much of a jump to say the phone company could be sued for damages for crimes planned over the phone. See how quick we make the jump to full blown China style censorship? To protect the first amendment Comcast must put its band width limitation in its terms of service so its part of a at will contract. You don’t like it go to another provider, and many would…which is why Comcast is keeping this under their hat.

Lastly the media company’s are not going to go after an isp in the manner argued. At most they would seek a warrant for their customer list with associated ip addresses. This is simply because the media companies work with isp’s like Comcast everyday to provide streaming content,website hits and advertisement, and of course media sales. They are vested in each other, if one sued the other they both would be hurt.

The bottom line is that consumers need accurate information about the services they pay for so they can seek the service that best fits their needs.

As an American i Love it When the Big Boys Get a Thumb in the Eye

For years I have been concerned about consumer and corporate debt. It just seems like the banks dont care and will give anyone or any business credit if they think they can squeeze them for a few more bucks. Modern Credit Banks are nothing more then vampires that are slowly poisoning our economy.

Today Bank of America saw a loss of 32%, and im glad. For too long our banking industry has allowed greed and profits to beat out ethics. It used to be that the bank was the consumer and business owners consensus keeping them from taking unsafe risks. they kept our economy steadily growing at a respectable conservative rate too. Now its based on bubbles and bursts, and i know it keeps my consumer confidence extremely low.

whats in your wallet? cash i hope.

Why Does Good Food Taste So Bad? A Review

Today i was at my local co-op buying groceries and came across a soup on sale, it was called Healthy Valley. Normally i buy Fantastic brand soups but i figured “what the heck” and decided to try something new. After all this soup was 100% organic, no GMO, and was packed with whole grains like barley and vitamin rich lentils (not in the same soup, i tried more then one)

Frankly it was a decision i now regret. This soup was literally the most tasteless stuff ive ever had…i actually had to add salt which is something i hardly ever do. Ive had the same salt shaker for like 3 years.

Anyway i just cant seem to figure out how i can cook with organic and whole ingredients with good results and that anytime i try to buy something pre-made with similar ingredients it turns out to be something id rather put down the garbage disposal. Haven’t these nature loving companies discovered herbs? I buy pre-packaged stuff so if i wake up late i can grab and go…but often i find with the amount of time i spend at work trying to doctor things to make them edible i may as well have been late and packed something i made.

Like i said i love the line of products produced by Fantastic, but really its the only shining light. Has anyone had better luck than i?

We Need Stop Letting Others Tell Us We Are the Greatest Nation

More often then not when I hear about how the U.S. is not living up to international obligations i shake my head and think: “how can a government meet obligations on an international basis when it can’t meet the obligation delegated to it by its own people?”. In order to be a source of international legitimacy a country has to be legitimate to its own people first.

Case and point, our horribly decaying infrastructure. Katrina perfectly illustrated how little the government is really doing to insure our own growth and success. Roads are in decay, the energy crisis in the west, boarders are unprotected and so on.

Now there is a major water crisis in the south east, Atlanta and other cities literally have less then a 100 days of viable water. Yet we are so focused on the war, Darfur, global warming, and the election thats a year away that no one notices. This is a problem that needs attention now, with a major organized effort.

where is the outrage and where is the media… why aren’t they all over this? Why isnt my RSS feed lit up with reports? its a said day when Business week is breaking major stories, but i do thank them for doing something the rest of the media has forgotten to do…report the news.

Al Gore Saves the World and Brings World Peace Wherever He Goes.

Al Gore is the greatest man that ever lived. He has single handily solved hunger, disease, crime, social strife,stomped out hate, inspired a generation or two, and of course saved the environment from certain death by our sad excuse for a government. Yep hes a great guy and im so happy he was finally recognized by winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he has legitimacy that no one unless they are totally delusional can dispute. Now he can take his message of goodness to an even higher level to inspire others to write, speak out, or produce movies. Yep, thanks to Al Gore Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future in Star Trek is just around the corner. Who knew a little small screen movie, a concert, and a global campaign on one issue would bring about peaceful co-existence! Im so glad im around to see it.

and….the bubble pops!

This may be my logical mind at work but isnt “the Nobel Peace Prize” supposed to go to someone that promotes…well…PEACE?

I mean if they gave him the “Nobel Envirmentalist Prize” or “The Nobel Small Screen movie of the Year Prize” i probably wouldnt be so synical but i just cant see how Al Gore deserves an award with the designation of Peace Prize.

When i think of Nobel i think of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and FDR…does Al Gore come even close to figures like that? I dont think so. Is working for peace so unpopular that they had to give the award out to individuals that have had nothing to do with peace? If so its a really sad day and im moving to Iceland, a nice peaceful stable country that i have great respect for.

or maybe Nobel is getting back to its roots of ludicrous irony? You know they fact that its named after the guy that invented dynamite and with it a whole new age of warfare….Ya, im like and elephant and dont forget little tid bits like that.

Bottom line: the Nobel Peace Prize holds about as much water as Al Gore (not to be confused with hot air…though that analogy works too). Its sad though, the Nobel Prize had a good amount of legtimacy for some time..like when it recognized people that deserved recognition…and for the reason the award was designated for.

Health Care Needs an Uniquely American Solution Not Socialization

The following is my take on health care as a social problem:

A lot of talk has hovered around the notion of health care being a right, which I totally agree with. However, my view point is drastically different than those spinning around right now. People should have a universal right to ACCESS affordable health care, that said just because people have the right it doesn’t make it an entitlement nor does it mean that the individual has no responsibility to the health care system.

Specific Reforms

Having access to affordable health care is simple, tell the government to stop messing with it. I put forth the notion that we repeal ALL of the government red tape to health care (including those that created the horrid HMO’s in the first place) and instead replace it with a clear cut patient bill of rights that all health care agents must adhere to. Instead of trying to control every aspect of the industry we should simply try to dictate what everyone should have access to at a minimum and protect civil liberties.

The FDA should be simplified as much as possible, and have very narrow responsibilities. It’s only major responsibility should be to find if a treatment is safe (i.e. will not cause harm to most patents) beyond that it should be left to the researchers and doctors to decide what is good for individual patents. I also believe that the FDA should be in parody with other 1st world nations; that is if a treatment is widely used in say England than it is automatically ok for our markets. This will allow for the widest amount of treatments available. Of course this includes herbal, and other “alternative” forms of treatment as well.

When it comes to health care the industry needs to be shifted away from monopolization of services and profit mongering and be redirected toward competition based on innovation. The best way to do this is patent reform. Right now companies can patent life saving treatments and monopolize them for more than a decade and in some cases and even longer. More over, they delay in releasing updated treatments until the older ones have been milked totally for every dollar. Medical patents are not light bulbs, and should not be treated as such. Medical patents should be good for no more than 2 or 3 years to allow for R&D to be recouped, after that generics can be widely made. Further more, “non-life saving drugs and treatments” (think Viagra) should not be patented at all. This will make them less profitable which will shift the R&D focus back to saving lives instead of getting off. Lastly treatments developed at any intuition of higher education (Like Carnegie Melon) must exist in the public domain. The whole point of higher education is promote enlightenment beyond the institution’s walls through its research and graduates not sold to the highest bidder or taken to a private lab if it is deemed profitable. It’s fine for colleges to have partnerships with private health care firms and hospitals but that doesn’t make the college an extension of the firm.

One of the major problems we face is a lack of medical professionals. Community, Technical, and State schools need to reach out to the people to enter the medical field. As a country we need a new focus in primary education on the sciences. Interest free loans, and tax breaks need to be offered to those who choose to get their advanced education in health care. But most of all, the artificial glass ceiling on doctorate degrees needs to be lifted. The number of advanced degrees in health care needs to be doubled at a minimum. Also we need to work harder to be sure that doctors and professionals that choose to come here from other countries can continue to participate in our system once here.

Drug corporations should not be allowed to direct market. Drugs are drugs whether it be nicotine or Valtrex. Only health professionals have the ability to diagnose and treat illness. If a patient has already decided what their treatment course should be based on a 30 second commercial or an ad in Playboy it only serves to make the medical practitioners job of isolating what is actually wrong with the patient much harder. Issue ads are great, but not marketing.
A shift from treatment to preventive care is a must. The best way to stop illness is to not get sick in the first place. The health care industry, society, and the government must recognize this and take steps to reinforce it.

It’s not Just About Corporate or Government Responsibility:

As I said before just because something is a right does not make it a free entitlement. Americans have a responsibility to be healthy, and to take their own wellbeing seriously. If you are over weight, a smoker, drug addict, take unnecessary risks, or are just plain irresponsible why on earth should you have access to the same health care for free or for even the same price as others? You shouldn’t, you should pay more. People are allowed to make choices in this country with great freedom, but to think they won’t have a price down the line is down right delusional.

Yes education is poor in this country and there fore people make uneducated decisions and I do feel sorry for these people, but that doesn’t make it ok nor should it be reinforced. In our society we constantly get the message “this is not ok,…but if you do it you wont be punished for it” this is a terrible message and it should be replaced with “you are free to do whatever you wish after all this is your life, but you have to live with the sum of your actions.”. We expect this of convicts, why do we have to wait for a crime to be committed to take this attitude?

At some point people DO lose control of their actions like for say drug addiction. When that happens the community must step up to help people back to the strait and narrow (provided they want help) but for the most part people have total control of their health. You chose to start smoking, to eat at McDonalds, and to not exercise there fore you must take responsibility for you actions rather than blaming where you get you poison pill from. I feel that most of the lawsuits that site anything other than gross misinterpretation of the facts in regards to suing for health reasons as totally illogical. It’s not McDonald’s fault that your fat or the cigarette company’s if you get cancer, its your fault for not educating yourself and you should pay for it; not them. Baring gross misinterpretation of the facts suits should not be allowed to be brought against companies. So if you were dumb enough to believe smoking was good for you back the 50’s and 60’s because the TV told you so you might have a case, today you don’t because of general awareness.

One way to encourage health care in this country is to limit lawsuits, however this can’t be done with tort reform alone. Bush’s tort reform only served to limit peoples rights and provided no way for citizens to protect themselves from gross malpractice. The tort reforms need to be tightened more, but also coupled with the introduction of non-death related life insurance. This type of insurance would help people with lost wages, bills, counseling, long term care, and other expenses associated with under going a procedure which has an on foreseen outcome. Likewise accountably needs to be increased on physicians, bad doctors should not be allowed to practice medicine.

The Truth, Some More Reform, and a Quick Q&A

The “500 dollar toilet seat” is real. Every time government begins to regulate an industry government funds (your tax dollars) and tax loop holes for the businesses in an industry follow. If we strip away the regulation and with it the funding, the tax breaks connected to it, hold health care providers to their tax bills, and enforce a patients bill of rights there is only one place these companies can turn to in order to remain successful: patients. They will have to offer coverage that is progressive, affordable, and competitive with other providers. With less regulation tax breaks for the average American will be possible, couple these tax breaks with patent reform and an “employer insurance fee” we have the makings of a truly robust American health care system based on innovation, individuals responsibility, self empowerment, competition, and varying coverage for varying needs.

Wait Mr. Rambler! What the heck is a “ employer insurance fee”?! It is my belief that with these changes prices would deflate quickly across the board in health care, which means the reasons for employers to not help with health care costs would shrink. Instead of employers going through the daunting task of offering health care they should simply give employees a stipend to help with cost and let them go select the health care that best fits there NEEDS. This fee can be negotiated as part of salary when hired or when salary changes, during union negotiations, or through an office co-op (an unorganized union). It would eliminate the high costs of maintaining a health care package, and allow employees to actually use more of the money the firms spends on health care on health care.

Wait, if we just give the people the money to buy their health care directly what happens if they don’t use the money for health care? It is true this system puts the responsibility on the individual but it is in societies best interest to insure that its being used for what its intended. Part of the law requiring employers to pay the fee to employees would also include a provision that all Americans MUST purchase health coverage, if they don’t they could incur fines or possible be charged with crimes like endangering a minor if children are in the equation.

Closing Thoughts

This is part one of two since Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid also feed our problems. Those topics are for future posts though. The bottom line is much can be done just within the private insurance industry to repair our insurance woes without even jumping into the public system.

I Agree With…gulp…Pat Buchanan…

After seeing the RNC debates I only have one thing to say: Come hell or high water Rudy Giuliani must go down. He must not be allowed to gain the Republican nomination, never mind win the election. I haven’t had such negative feelings of a candidate since our current president ran in 2000 (yes I realized unlike most of America how much of a moron he was BEFORE he proved it to us).

I have half thought this for awhile, but after seeing his shameful performance this opinion has now become a cemented truth in my mind.

My reasoning is as follows:

1. He is NOT a Republican. He is at best a bad Democrat, but not a Republican. His social viewpoint is so unRepublican its laughable, never mind is economic standing. I’m not even a Republican and I can see that!

2. He has no real experience. For Pete’s sack! he was an embattled, scandal pron mayor.

3. He is shamelessly using 9/11 for his own gain. Just this alone should discredit him.
4. His attack on Ron Paul was way below the belt and was totally illogical.  After the debate in which Rudy attacked Ron Paul in regards to him pointing to our previous actions and general foreign policy in the middle east as a possible cause for the 9/11 attacks (really? there is a shocker) Pat Buchanan wrote this article in defense of Dr. Paul’s stance. 

On a personal note I have often dismissed Buchanan on the whole, but after reading this article I think I may take a more serious look at his work. I still wouldn’t vote for him, but maybe 08 is shaping up to be the year where American politics turns on its head.

The First Amendment Isn’t Optional

One of the cornerstones of my belief system is a strong belief in the First Amendment. Furthermore, I believe it to be an absolute. You can’t possibly identify and isolate problems if you don’t know where they are. I don’t like Nazis, KKK, Flag Burning, and pretty much anyone that tries to suppress the freedoms of others… but I believe them to be necessary. I also believe that hate and intolerance are part of the human condition, you may be able to suppress them for a time but it will always bubble to the surface in one form or another.

I also believe that if the First Amendment were treated like an absolute, we would have a more responsible society. Today we look to the government through bodies like the FCC to think for us. Rather than promoting a society that questions, explores, and makes up it’s own mind we look to others to do it for us. We don’t need to instill values in out children, look at things logically, question the motives of the media, or send a message to an industry by not buying their products…thats what we have the government for. It’s an unrealistic expectation of a government that can barely handle the powers delegated to it.

Free speech is vital to the continued growth of our nation, hate speech included. If we suppress things we don’t like several things happen, none of which are good…no matter how well meaning the original intent was.

1) We don’t know when to draw the line. What starts with “protecting the children” ends with the “Patriot” Act and Internment camps in Cuba.

2) Limiting the First Amendment through law or through social pressure is Censorship. If you feel censored and left out you become isolated. In isolation what might have been simply words that were reacted to with engagement leading to understanding before censorship become actions like school shootings after it.

3) Censorship leads to a false sense of evolution out of certain issues, because the symptoms of the diseases are not blatant anymore.

4) Censorship doesn’t encourage values, it takes their place. Rather than through socialization, personal searching, and an analysis of available materials culminating in a personal enlightenment…we are simply told things are wrong, are never right, and that you must conform to the censorship in order to be accepted. Conformity doesn’t have to be value driven, Respectful Individuality does.

5) Who decides what is acceptable or not? Does it create a double standard? Does it affect different people differently? Does it infringe on other rights?

free speech is of course not free, which many activist of free speech forget. Some points:

1) If mediums like TV and Radio continually promote hateful, and demeaning products people will be turned off by them. If this happens they lose money, which is counter productive to their business model.

2) If someone says something hateful they maybe targeted for some type of reprisal, including violence.

3) Ones irresponsible use of speech may affect interpersonal and employment related relationships.

Ignorant people don’t go away just because we suppress speech, we just can’t pick them out until its too late. We can’t change whats in peoples hearts and minds, but we can give them the tools and responsibility to learn right from wrong and what the consequences of their actions will be.

Taking a Break to Weigh in on Imus

I just love this country, and its ability to make absolutely no head way on important issues, but some how finds time to go after a “shock-jock” with guns blazing…..for doing basically what the term “shock-jock” implies.

In my view Imus made only one mistake, apologizing. Why is it that celebrities use the First Amendment, but don’t defend it? After reading several articles on the subject of Imus I find myself in TOTAL agreement with Imus’s arch rival Howard Stern on this one.

I don’t care that Imus is a nice guy that gives oodles of money to cancer and SID’s research, and I really wish people would stop making excuses for him EXERCISING HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. Hate speech and flag burning are protected by the First Amendment, like it or not. He knew what he was doing when he made his comment, it was intentional, and there fore he shouldn’t apologize for it. It doesn’t change what was said, nor does it change his outlook. He has, and always will be a hateful person; and you know what? Its his right to be that way and its the American Peoples right to hate him for it.

My question is that since Imus has a long history of hateful speech, why hasn’t everyone done what I did years ago….stop listening to him?! He has the right to say what he wants, but everyone else has the right to speak out against him and NOT GIVE HIS SHOWS RATINGS, which keeps him on the air.

Does getting a shock-jock fired end racism in the country? Does attacking the First Amendment end racism? No, it doesn’t, it just pushes it underground where it can fester and grow. As a matter of fact by pushing him underground may just make the situation “worse”.

The question everyone should be asking is “how has this guy remained so popular for 30+ years despite his frequent use of hate speech?”. As long as people seeking equality are reacting to the world instead of redefining it, no head way will be made. Imus may be gone, but rest assured its done NOTHING to stop hate speech on the radio. Howard Stern leaving traditional radio a few years back proves that.

Last point: If it wasn’t election season, and an otherwise stagnant news year….would this even be an issue?