Can We Just Fast Forward to November 4? Please?

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I had lunch on Tuesday with a friend who shall remain anonymous to protect his identity.  He urged me to blog more about big issues like the war, our country’s moronic leadership and all the illegal immigrants flooding our border from Canada.  Said I have an informed opinion and, besides, it’d do great things for my traffic.  Of course all my friends and family have told me it bores them silly when I write about such things and I think it’s because they know I don’t know squat about spit.  But since ignorance has never stopped me before I guess I’ll give it a whirl.  Here goes.

Can we please, please, please just skip forward to November 4, 2008 and then just go right to inauguration day 2009?  At this point we’ve whittled our prospects for a new president down to four people who can’t possibly be any worse than what we’ve got and the differences between the four are essentially the same as the difference between a Honda Accord and a Toyota Camry.  Slightly different body, pretty close to the same price and about as exciting as oatmeal.

Personally I’d least like to see Huckabee ascend to the throne that King George II is abdicating if only because I’m sick and tired of hearing Onward Christian Soldiers.  Yes, yes, yes we’re fighting a war but for God’s sake it’s not the Crusades no matter what the Bible-thumping nimrods like Cal Thomas think.  Honestly I almost don’t care what else Huckabee thinks, I just don’t want to spend even one more day with a President who thinks he’s there due to divine intervention. Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s what his website says: "My faith is my life – it defines me. My faith doesn’t influence my
decisions, it drives them."  I think we’ve had about enough of that.

I’d have to put Clinton as my next-to-last pick.  Why?   I think she’s just as obstinate as King George II and maybe even less likely to say the words, "Sorry I was mistaken."  We’ve had plenty of stiff-lipped resoluteness over the last seven years and look where it’s gotten us. 

That leaves me with Obama and McCain.  Eh.

We have all kinds of big issues facing us (crappy economy, crappy health care system, crappy foreign policy, etc.) but I find myself thinking that really all I want is for our next president to restore our good name and start to rebuild our honor.  I find it disturbingly ironic that when King George II was elected it was seen as a way to lift the Presidency out of the moral gutter that Clinton had dragged us in.  Maybe without 9/11 we’d have simply had four or eight years of a president who really didn’t do much of consequence but ran really well organized meetings.  Maybe God would have merely been invoked in King George II’s great campaign to further redistribute our booty to his silver spoon cohorts rather than in his campaign to smite the infidels sitting on top of his oil fields thumbing their noses at his daddy.  We’ll never know since fate conspired to punish us for our hanging chads.  Did you ever think we’d get to the point where someone could look at Clinton’s, uh, indiscretions and say things like "At least all he did was diddle the intern, it’s not like he blew up the Middle East or anything?"

Since there’s no use crying over spilled milk I guess the best we can do is hope that we get through this year without the King doing too much more harm before our next "president" can come in to start reminding the world that we aren’t all a bunch of torturing, incompetent bureaucrats who leave their own people to die and fester in swamped cities while we do a fly-by.   We need someone to remind the world of all the good that we’ve done and that we continue to do.

So can we just fast forward 10 months and be done with it?  Whether it’s Senator McCain, former Arkansas Governor Huckabee, Senator Obama or Senator Clinton…oh man we’re screwed.

links for 2008-02-07

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Rules of Thumb

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I’ve always loved rules of thumb, but if you pressed me to define what they are I’d just flubber out something obtuse.  That’s why I was very pleased to find this on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools:

(Tom) Parker has refined his explanation of what rules of thumb are, and why they are cool tools. He writes:
"A rule of thumb is a homemade recipe for making a guess. It is an
easy-to-remember guide that falls somewhere between a mathematical
formula and a shot in the dark. Rules of thumb are a kind of tool. They
help you appraise a problem or situation. They make it easier to
consider the subtleties of the topic at hand; they give you a feel for
a subject. A rule of thumb is not a joke or a ditty. It is not a
Murphy’s Law. Murphy says that things will take longer than we think; a
rule of thumb says how much longer. While a proverb says that a stitch
in time saves nine, a rule of thumb says to allow one inch of yarn for every stitch on a knitting needle."

Kelly also links to Parker’s new website dedicated to rules of thumb which I think might be one of the most interesting sites I’ve ever come across.  What makes it REALLY cool is that he solicits rules of thumb from readers and then asks other readers to rate the rules so he’s probably going to amass an even greater treasure trove of wisdom in the near future.  Here’s a couple of my favorite rules from just a five minute perusal of the site:

  • If you can’t adequately and clearly explain a concept to a neophyte, you don’t understand it clearly enough yourself. —
    Adam, CIO, Perth     
     
  • For fatty foods, leave 40 percent of the grill exposed to avoid flareups. —
    Gerri Willis, USA     
     
  •   When you’re playing blackjack, assume that any unseen card is an 8.
  •   For marketing purposes, elderly consumers think they are 15 years younger than they actually are. —
      Tracy Lux Frances,  Bradenton,  Florida     
     
  •   Advertising costs should not drop below 10 percent of sales until a business has been around 20 years. —
      Captain Haggerty,  animal trainer, actor, author, and philosopher,  New York,  New York     
     
  •   The year you start growing dark hair on your chest is the year that the loss rate of your head hair exceeds its growth rate. (I must be the exception that proves the rule, because if this was true I’d be bald twice over by now; Jon). —
      Mark Ryan,  Dallas,  Texas     
     
  • You are middle aged when your high school and college days are featured
    as nostalgia on TV. You are at old age when your wedding presents are
    sold as antiques. —
      Margaret M. Day,  Locke,  New York     
     
  • When forced to estimate an adult woman’s age in her presence, take the
    figure you think she is, divide by two and add 15 (add 20 for a woman
    presumed over 50) —
      Jim Veihdeffer, PR pundit, Phoenix, AZ, US
  •   If you can touch the ceiling of your house with the palm of your hand, your ceiling is too low.  — Bob Horton,  consultant and writer,  Largo,  Florida
  • If friends ask you to help them move, remember that the work will begin
    an hour after you get there, you’ll finish an hour later than expected,
    the pizza will be colder than the beer, and the beer will be in lesser
    quantities than promised. —Tom Sacco,  West Des Moines,  Iowa
  •   It takes as much time to paint the trim in a room as it does to paint the walls and ceiling. — R. A. Heindl,  design engineer,  Euclid,  Ohio 
     

Bubba’s Folly

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Gwotspendinggraph_2
The GAO released a report on the dollars we (we being Americans) have spent from on the Global War on Terrorism.  The GAO reports that from 2001-2007 Congress provided the Department of Defense with $542.9 billion for its GWOT efforts.  And it’s not like the spending is slowing down.  Take a look at the graph to the left (click on it to enlarge) from the report and you can see that the pattern definitely trends up and if DOD gets what they want for 2008 it will continue to climb.  They’ve asked for $189.3 billion in 2008 after getting $161.8 billion in 2007, or an increase of roughly 17%.

Gwotspendingbyoperation
What’s interesting to me is that the growth in spending is due to Operation Iraqi Freedom, which I tend to think of as "Bubba’s Folly".  I think most American’s equate the GWOT with the War in Iraq, but the reality is that Operation Iraqi Freedom is but one of three large operations in the GWOT.  The chart to the left shows a comparison of spending in all three operations and you can clearly see that the Iraq operations are responsible for the vast majority of the spending.  From the report:

DOD’s reported obligations through fiscal year 2007 include about $378.1 billion for operations in and around Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and about $86.2 billion for operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. It also includes about $27.9 billion for operations in defense of the homeland as part of Operation Noble Eagle.

Reported obligations associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom continue to be far higher than those for other GWOT operations in fiscal year 2007. As figure 2 shows, from fiscal years 2003 through 2007, DOD’s reported obligations for Operation Iraqi Freedom consistently increased each fiscal year. In contrast, DOD’s reported obligations for Operation Noble Eagle have consistently decreased since fiscal year 2003, while those for Operation Enduring Freedom have remained within a range of $10.3 billion to $20.1 billion each fiscal year.

The GAO also takes the DOD to task for crappy accounting practices and writes that they aren’t sure how reliable DOD’s reporting is as a result.  In other words the GAO can say for sure how much money Congress gave to the GWOT effort, but they aren’t confident in DOD’s reporting on how the money’s been spent. 

Who’s surprised?

Hat tip to Lex for pointing to the report.

Understanding the Manchine

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Per my post about Media General’s reaction to bookofjoe’s habit of pasting their entire articles on his site with links and full attribution I’ve been having an interesting debate with Esbee in the comments.   One of the things that the debate highlights for me is the fact that old-media norms and rules are being challenged by new media tools and habits and the old-media owners are struggling with how to deal with it.  In particular I think many of us are having a hard time grasping the evolution of what some call the internet and what others call the web.  Just when most of us were beginning to get comfortable with how the web had changed information delivery and consumption the web was revamped and now readers have become cut-paste-sharers.  This evolution has been stamped by some as "Web 2.0" and it’s literally changing how people use information, but pity the person who tries to explain the "hows", "whats" and "whys" of Web 2.0.  That’s why I found the video below by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University so compelling (hat tip to Ed Cone for the link).  It’s the best explanation I’ve yet seen for what’s going on in new media, and I think it highlights the challenges that folks at old-media companies are facing.

Media General Not Getting It

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One of my favorite blogs over the last couple of years has been bookofjoe.com.  It’s a compendium of interesting items, not the least of which are articles that the blogs owner/author has read in the New York Times or other newspapers and has reproduced on his site with full links and attributions to the source.  The fact that he doesn’t excerpt but instead provides the article in full has caused some consternation with some of the ink-stained wretches lawyers.

Case in point is the Charlottesville Daily Progress‘s (Joe lives in Charlottesville, VA) lawyer Andrew Carington.  He sent a lengthly cease and desist letter to Joe who promptly posted it on his blog for all to see.  Joe points out that he’s pretty sure that the authors of the articles probably wouldn’t agree with the lawyer’s move since getting a placement on his site vastly expands their audience.  I’d have to agree, and I’d go so far as to say that Media General is making a business mistake by going after him (I’m not going to argue the legality of Joe’s practice since I’m no copyright expert).

Here’s my thinking.  The Daily Progress is a local paper owned by the same company that owns my hometown paper The Winston-Salem Journal.  I’d say it’s safe to assume that both newspapers get the majority of their traffic from folks within their region. On the other hand Joe gets a lot of his traffic from all over the internet tubes so by getting a link from his site the newspaper is getting exposure to a much broader audience than they do on their own.  And guess what?  We’re talking major traffic.

BookofjoevsdailyprogressI went to Compete.com and ran a quick comparison between bookofjoe.com and dailyprogress.com. If you look at the screenshot on the left (click on it to see it at full size) you’ll see that while the Daily Progress does have a bit more traffic than Joe it ain’t by much (63,341 visitors vs. 55,262) and you’ll also see that Joe’s traffic is trending up much more quickly than the Daily Progress.  You’d think they’d love the opportunity to get their name and a link to their site out there to such a growing audience.  Heck, Joe’s offering them free syndication.

But I’m sure the honchos at Media General are thinking that Joe’s getting rich off their work…oh wait, he doesn’t take advertising.  So maybe he’s not getting rich off of their work, so maybe it’s the principle of the thing. But I’m a cynic so I’m thinking they’re just ticked because one guy writing in his bathrobe in his condo is pulling almost as much traffic as their newspaper with dozens of employees and they think they can push him around.  Whatever their motivation it’s a dumb move.

Eelymosynary?

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Ed Cone channeled George Will in the comments on one of his own blog posts.  The post yesterday was about John Edwards withdrawing from the Democratic presidential campaign and it attracted Ed’s usual crowd of commentors, a few of whom began questioning Edwards’ championing of the poor (i.e. he’s a rich hypocrite) and others who defended him.  Anyway, here’s an excerpt from Ed’s comment that had me running to my dictionary (okay, looking it up on Dictionary.com):

Poverty itself demands structural approaches, beyond any eelymosynary remedies applied to individuals or small groups. (Emphasis mine)

I don’t know what John Edwards gives to charity. I don’t think he
has to give most of his money away, certainly at this point in his life
and his children’s lives, to be considered charitable or to show
genuine concern.

But his message as a politician is more about addressing poverty and
its structural causes than proclaiming himself the charity champion.

I tried looking up eelymosynary but I think Ed misspelled it because Dictionary.com didn’t find it but did suggest eleemosynary, an adjective which is defined as "of or pertaining to alms, charity, or charitable donations; charitable."  I can’t hold this one against Ed though since I can’t pronounce the word, much less spell it.

Anyone who’s read George Will more than once will recognize the phenomenon of having to keep a dictionary handy in order to wade through the article/editorial.  I always felt this was a weakness of his since the point in his line of work (columnist) is to effectively argue an issue, not show off his vocabulary.  If you require your readers to consult a dictionary you aren’t really communicating are you?  In other words whenever I read the guy I feel like writing him and telling him "We all know you’re that kid who was always the smartest in the class, or at least sounded like the smartest kid in the class, so quit showing off and tell us what you think in terms that more than 2% of the population understands."

Anyway, Ed rarely whips out the Willian phrasing so he’s actually a very effective communicator.  This was a classic though.

My Nomination for Most Glass-Half-Full Person on Earth

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My Aunt Debbie recently started blogging and is again proving that compared to many in my family I write like a four year old.  Her latest post reaffirms something I’ve often suspected: she’s the most positive thinking person I’ve ever known.  Don’t believe me?  Anyone who kind find beauty in the Detroit airport is truly amazing:

in January of 1981 we moved to Detroit where, having arrived at the
airport in the midst of a history-making winter storm, I waited with
Adam while his Dad went out to find our rental car. After about 30
minutes I wearily created a playpen from our pile of suitcases and kept
watch for nearly three hours as my one-year-old son toddled, crawled
and rolled around on the nasty cement floor. Our car was out there
somewhere in a deathtrap called “extended stay parking.” Without the
aid of cellphones I had little choice but to wait it out; sitting on
the cement floor of our make-shift playpen and methodically handing out
the last bits of food I’d packed for the trip. Bored, tired, cold and
hungry, I was only slightly amused when I saw Diana Ross walk by
looking worse than I felt. Though our playpen was drafty I knew I
couldn’t change locations or we’d never be found, and I certainly
wasn’t going to risk a trip to the bathroom…

Everything seemed gray; the ceiling, floor, walls, people’s skin. Even
the air seemed pale and lifeless. Having learned the handy skill of
displacement and slightly warmed by the sleeping child in my lap, I
found a temporary respite in memories of better days. The gray colors
surrounding me were the sun-warmed rocks of Stone Mountain. I wore an
old t-shirt that said “RocknRoll HoochieKoo” and my favorite black and
white plaid keds. With hair tied back, scratched knees, and flushed
face, I moved along rock outcroppings…jagged gray leading to more
jagged gray. Many people don’t care for the challenge or starkness of
those kinds of hikes, but a rocky climb does offer its’ own rewards.
It’s not like a hike through a meadow or along a country lane.
Definitely not the same as a slow climb to find expansive views or a
fern covered path by gurgling creeks. Nope, climbing a rock face
requires a narrowly focused view and careful footing. Just what I
needed for my momentary escape from reality. But anyone who’s done this
kind of hike knows that eventually you are startled by a shocking bit
of color. Suddenly a blue or red flower appears in your path. You have
to smile because it’s such a surprise , and you have to gaze in awe at
this beautiful little thing that seems to be growing out of pure rock.
How can it do that??? Well, about this time in my reverie Adam began to
chatter and called my attention to the very present smile of a little
girl. She was too young to talk but Adam clearly understood that she
wanted to climb into our playpen. I looked at her Mom who was Russian,
I think, and crossed our language barrier almost as easily as our
children. Suddenly there were two tired Moms and two dirty kids in the
playpen. The little girl held out a bag of animal crackers. Adam
returned the favor, offering his beloved Cookie Monster. Kids…you gotta
love ‘em. The gray of the airport all but disappeared, melted away by
sweet, mostly wordless companionship. Isn’t it true that we are often
surrounded by loving gifts we can’t see because they’re mingled among
so many other beautiful things? Like the wildflower miraculously
growing on a rock with color stark in contrast to its’ surroundings; in
a cold airport, one little girl’s smile.