Remember... And Be Worthy

Today is Memorial Day and what more fitting quote than that of General George S. Patton:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died, rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Yet how many of us really do thank God that such men (and women) lived, those who as Lincoln said "gave the last full measure of devotion"? And just as importantly, are we making ourselves worthy of the their sacrifice? Have you ever stopped and thought about what it really is that we ask of the young men and women in our armed services? In today's editorial section of the San Diego Union Tribune we are reminded:

The soldiers and Marines who are casualties in this war didn't make the policy. They went where their country sent them and did what it asked them to do against murderous enemies

I hope you realize that we cannot abstract this request as "the Government" told them to do this, it wasn't me. Oh, but it was you, and me, who did it, we cast our ballots, we get lazy and think in a sloppy manner and go through mental acrobatics to absolve ourselves of responsiblity, but we don't hold our "leaders" accountable in any meaningful way. The left is a shrill whose hatred of George Bush the Republican and public evangelical *gasp* makes them a parody of what political opposition should be, while the right takes the tax cuts and cares about nothing else. SHAME ON YOU BOTH! Saying "We hate all Republicans and everything they stand for" (thanks Mr. Dean for the great soundbite) or "I'm a loyal Republican" is not part of argument any sane person would make. This is your government, whether you voted for the man or not. If I cannot convince you of this, perhaps Lincoln can:

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Now go, whether you support the war or not, make yourselves worthy of these people who gave their life and limb for our country... no, for you.

I Suspected Draco... But Harry Too?

My friend Angelique passed the first link on to me today and I found the second on on my own. Depending on how sacrosanct you hold Harry Potter, you may not like them but I found them hilarious. Enjoy!

Harry Meets South Park?
Which Hogwarts Boy Is...

Problems With Statistics

If you were to look at the unemployment statistics for San Diego you would think that we were living in boom times. According to the San Diego Workforce Partnership unemployment for April 2006 was 3.7% (4.5% for the United States which, in the thinking of economics students across the country, means we are at full employment). We are constantly told that San Diego is a haven of job security. Why, if you lose your job for whatever reason you should have no problem at all finding another one. Given the numbers, that may be true, but before you decide to take out that loan against your house's equity perhaps you should look a little closer at those jobs. Our political and civic "leaders" want to tell us that we are a big draw for high paying jobs such as biotech and technology. After having lived here for seven years I am still looking for all of those high-paying high tech companies. True, we do have Qualcomm, and Intuit does have a pretty big presence here, but except for those two and Sony what we have at best are small "mom and pop" shops. While they are doing some interesting work, the salaries I have been quoted by various agencies are not all that promising. I get the same feedback from my friends working in similar technical positions. Salaries for the most part have been stagnant and new offerings at the same level of experience has been a little lower than existing positions. Not good considering the ever increasing cost of living in southern California. And as for biotech, the vast majority of companies here employ less than 100 people. While the benefits are pretty good, again the pay for most positions has stagnated or slightly declined. Now, we are losing jobs in what many have been saying is our strongest area (biotech). In today's San Diego Union Tribune business section there appeared an article titled Diagnostics plant will close; toll is 150 jobs. The parent company of Applied Biotech, a Massachusetts company by the name of Inverness Medical Innovations, is closing its plant here and moving the jobs to China. What I found stunning was the admission in the article that

... while there are no reliable figures on how many U. S. life science jobs have been lost to the practice [offshoring] the toll is beginning to be felt in San Diego.

The article discusses what happened to another San Diego biotechnology company, Discovery Partners International, that let go half of its workforce when it lost a contract with Pfizer to "a rival overseas firm". Discovery is now trying to sell most of its remaining operations with the fate of its remaining employees unclear.

Oh well, given the strength of the San Diego employment market, if I lose my high-tech job I suppose I could always be a bartender (hospitality had the highest increase in jobs created for the category "non-farm and salaried jobs). I couldn't afford my rent, my car payment, or my utilities, but our "leaders" would be happy to know that I was still employed and helping to keep that unemployment figure down.

Marcel For Today

My reading program this year includes the works of the French philosopher and playwrite Gabriel Marcel. I have found some very interesting insights from this "Christian existentialist" that, though written more than 60 years ago, are very applicable today. Consider this passage from Man Against Mass Society (it is a bit long, but please bear with me):

... this sinister ambiguity in the popular argument for equality - that those who demand the greatest equality claim to be thinking of the nation's economic strength, when in fact they may be secretly encouraging its weakness - has not really been cleared away; and that levelling down, that is to say the basest and easiest way of seeking social equality, is the principle which seems to underly most of the legal arrangements which in France weigh so heavily on our day-to-day existence.

Substitute American for France and we have a pretty accurage picture of those who scream "Equality" the loudest. Rather than really trying to help raise people up, hold them to certain standards, the current point of view is to lower the bar.

This is all part of a broader "degradation" that Marcel addresses in this marvelous work that seems to speak across the decades to me. As I read more I promise to share them with you, if for no other reason to show you that not all Frenchmen are bad.

Immigration This Time Around

Over and over again we are told by President Bush that "America is a nation of immigrants". While this statement is true as far as it goes, we must understand that this time it's a bit different. If we only stop and think about the various waves of immigration prior to the current time of debate we can easily see the following important differences that the supposed defenders of our American ideals and American way of life, for what ever reason, seem to miss (greed is my bet, what's yours?):

• Virtually all previous waves of immigration have been from distant shores. The original settlers of the late 17th century were mainly northern Europeans. The second wave of immigrants coming in the late 19th century and early 20th century were mainly southern Europeans, the Irish, the Poles, and the Asians. Coming here meant separation from your "mother country" to begin a new life. You really had to try to assimilate, and since the migration here was largely controlled (there are only so many steamers crossing the Atlantic and Pacific) it was, for the most part, successful. This is not the case with the current immigration problem with Mexico. Not only is it continuous, but with the United States sharing a border, there is no real reason to separate yourself from your place of origin. Let's face it, with our porous border illegal aliens can move back and forth pretty much as they wish. I would bet that if there was a large body of water separating the two countries rather than what currently exists (almost nothing), the assimilation issue would go away within a couple of generations. But what we have is a continuous influx of new Mexican arrivals which diminishes the need for assimilation into the culture. And let's face it, in their greed American businesses are not helping. As Victor Davis Hanson so bluntly puts it in his book Mexifornia

A Pole once accepted that she would perpetually stumble through the Cleveland phone book if she kept speaking Polish; a Mexican accepts as a given that Pacific Bell will double the size of its directory assistance just to accommodate her Spanish.


• According to various polls (such as this Zogby poll) and the expressed thoughts of organizations in this country such as The National Council of La Raza and Mecha, the majority Mexican citizens believe that the American Southwest "rightfully belongs to Mexico". Their attitude is, "This place is ours, not yours, so we have every right to come here when we want regardless of whatever laws you pass." Where in the other mass movements to the United States have we see this attitude so prevalent?



• The proximity of the United States plus the attitude of the majority of Mexicans give the Mexican government a great incentive to keep this up. After all, if the poorest people keep leaving the country then the government will have little incentive to deal with the problems of their countrymen (and lets not forget all the money that is sent back... that sum is supposedly the second largest source of revenue for Mexico). It's interesting that we have Latinos protesting here when our own government makes the slightest whisper of any inclination towards a desire of doing anything about the issue of illegal immigration, yet there seems to be no protests by Latinos in Mexico against how that government treats its poor. To see just how important it is to the Mexican government to keep this social pressure valve open you need only consider the recent rumblings within the Mexican government about using any means to prevent the United States from reinforcing its border protection. What we do on our side of the border is really none of their business, but they make it their business because of the benefits they gain.

So if I can figure this out without the aid of thousands of analysts and millions of dollars in strategic studies about the issue why can't Washington?

Real Republicans

I am starting to think that nearly all Republicans in Washington are RINOs (Republican In Name Only). After the disaster with immigration, we now get the following report about Congress and the budget. In case you hadn't heard, Congress passed a 2.7 TRILLION DOLLAR "budget" in which Congress itself estimates will have a 348 BILLION DOLLAR deficit! And to make matters worse, it will probably be more because they allocated half of the current amount going to efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

First, the lie:

House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, addressed conservatives' concerns about deficits saying, "With revenues rising and holding the line on spending we can in fact balance the budget in the next four or five years."

Tell me Mr Boehner, how is having a 348 BILLION DOLLAR deficit "holding the line" when you did unrealistic allocations for things you know will cost more? Please, don't lie to me. I would respect you more if you simply admitted you and your kind (both Democrats and the supposed Republican politicians) are addicted to money and the power of the office.

Now the scare:

With U.S. government debt rapidly escalating, the budget authorizes a $653 billion increase in borrowing authority next year to total $9.62 trillion.

I am at a loss as how to comment on this one. Although I studied mathematics through the Ph.D. I have no real concept of 9.62 trillion dollars.

And finally, to the man I voted for twice:

Earlier in the day, President George W. Bush signed into law a $70-billion tax-cut bill...

Mr. President, with all due respect, you cannot cut taxes like a Libertarian and allow spending like a Democrat. It just simply will not work.

Where are the real Republicans? My father's family has been Republican for generations. The way I understood the Republican approach to government was to make it small, efficient and as non-intrusive as possible into the lives of the individual, with an emphasis not on leveling downby creating a false sense of equality but removing roadblocks to allow individuals the freedom necessary to live their lives in a way meaningful to them. Lately this isn't what I see coming from Washington.

Please Say It Ain't So

Holy cow. As if my faith in the rational powers of people these days isn't low enough, out comes this story about the results of a poll stating

People are now twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children after reading the Dan Brown blockbuster and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.

In an poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), 60% of people who read Mr. Brown's book believe that Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene (of course, it is almost as frightening that they reported 30% of those who hadn't read the book believe it as well). It stuns me that solid historical evidence to the contrary can be overthrown by a novel (and to be honest, aside from the bad history, philosophy and theology, a not very well written novel). Are people really so intellectually lazy and so yearning for titillating scandal that they will believe this rubbish? Mr. Brown, you must be so proud. When are you starting your own religion? Once Tom Cruise is "clear" of those pesky alien spirits he may be shopping around for another one.

Why Bush Is Wrong On Immigration

One way to judge someone's comments is to look at those who agree and those who disagree with them. In an AP story today we are given the following quote of support for President Bush's "proposal" provided to us in last night's speech:

"The president gets it," added Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

For some chilling news about what our legislators in the upper house have proposed, check out this report from the Heritage Foundation.

How Low In The Poll Can He Go?

Well, I just listened to President Bush's speech on immigration and the question that immediately came to mind was "Is it possible to drop to a single digit approval rating?" If you missed the audio version you can read the text here. It's amazing that you can be all over the map and yet find a way to tick off everyone.

In his speech the President listed five points to show where he stood on the issue of illegal immigration:

First, the United States must secure its borders. Okay, sounds good, but how? Well, he wants to increase the number of Border Patrol agents by 6,000 (from the current 12,000 to 18,000) by 2008. That's not bad, but the numbers I have heard batted around by immigration experts says we need closer to 25,000 border agents, so the President's number is too small (I wonder if he is getting his intel from Rumsfeld?). In the interim, he plans on sending 6,000 National Guard men and women to "assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems analyzing intelligence installing fences and vehicle barriers building patrol roads and providing training. Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities..." But were many of these activities being done by the Border Patrol? If not, if it really doesn't free up those agents to chase down illegals, how will it really help close up the holes in the border? In limited ways, but not directly.

Second, the President says we "must create a temporary worker program". His reasons are that illegal aliens will do anything to get here, that we need them for our economy, and "it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their families while respecting the law." I read this, reread the text in the speech and still cannot see why we "must" do this. Immigrants here illegally are not honest immigrants, they broke the law in coming here, they obvious do not repect the law. As for our economy needing them, I simply ask "why?" I have yet to hear a solid reason for this and President Bush doesn't provide one.

Third, we need to hold employers responsible for the people they hire. At least President Bush admits it is against the law to hire illegal aliens, but he softens it a bit and says that the reason is because verification is difficult and he proposes that the solution is a secure identification card. But this is just plain silly. He says "Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud." Really? Every job I have had since graduating college involved a background check including my having to prove that I was eligible to work in the U.S. So if the problem is so bad, why have I had to do that? If documentation is so difficult why stop at immigrants, why not provide them for citizens (whoever they are... if it is so tough to check then we all are suspect... well, at least you are, I know I am a citizen *grin*).

Fourth, we are given a lesson in social dynamics and told that we have to accept the fact that there are illegal immigrants already here. Here is what he says:

They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

But what he proposes is just that, to make those who are here unlawfully and magically make them lawful. So if they are no longer here unlawfully the hurdle to citizenship that President Bush raised is dropped. And while I cam sympathetic to those the president says have "deep roots" here, that does not negate the fact that they are here illegally!

The fifth point, while a nice sentiment, doesn't say much except that the president acknowledges that in America we speak English:

The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.

Nice sentiment... why doesn't he push through something declaring English as the official language of the United States? Symbolic, yes, but at least it is more than just words in a speech that are tied to nothing.

So there ya go. Does it make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me. If anything it shows me just how out of touch the guy I voted for really is on this issue.

Lowering The Bar in California Education

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman suspended the California high school exit exam stating "There is evidence in the record that shows that students in economically challenged communities have not had an equal opportunity to learn the materials tested." (here) I was shocked, stunned... students who after 12 years of elementary and secondary education had not had the opportunity to learn the material tested? Why, this must be some intense, demanding test covering the minutia of all aspects of knowledge that had the most remote possiblity of being presented to such students! I decided to do what I bet most people arguing the issue have not done, I read what the California Department of Education (CADEd) Website said about the exit exam.

The purpose of the exam, as stated on the CADEd Website:

The primary purpose of the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) is to significantly improve pupil achievement in public high schools and to ensure that pupils who graduate from public high schools can demonstrate grade level competency in reading, writing, and mathematics... The CAHSEE has two parts: English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics.

Okay, not so bad. They want to improve achievement and ensure that high school graduates can actually work at "grade level" in the "3 Rs". But what stunned me is the bar they placed for the acceptable "grade level competency". According to the site, The ELA part addresses state content standards through grade ten... The mathematics part of the CAHSEE addresses state standards in grades six and seven and Algebra I. Tenth grade language arts and eighth grade math is the "grade level competency" expected for a California high school graduate? That is appalling! Of course, in California the fact that people pass the exam in hearlded as outstanding news. According to California Superintendent of Public Schools Jack O'Connell "Nearly 90 percent of this year’s seniors have passed the California High School Exit Exam. This shows that students are acquiring the necessary knowledge and our high schools are focused on making sure students who graduate have the essential mathematics and English-language skills they will need to survive in the workplace or college."

So what does this really say about the beliefs of Judge Freedman and the plaintiff's attorney Arturo Gonzalez? If you have been following the case, quite a bit. For starters:

Feelings trump achievement.

Race and economic status trump hard work and endurance.

Being a credentialed teacher trumps being a competent teacher.

Throwing money at a problem always fixes it.

Standards are discriminatory (the bugaboo of the times).

And who loses?

The students (both those who have taken it... tough, as well as those who now do not have to because you now know that these people don't care about you).

The teachers (those of you who put in long hours and work hard to try to help children learn, you can stop now, it apparently isn't a value people like Freedman and Arturo deem a worthy goal).

The parents (at least you can now stop nagging your children to do better in school, they are guaranteed to graduate by simply showing up).

Anyone with a California high school diploma (oh well, at least you have spare toilet paper).

The California taxpayer (NICE investment in the future isn't it... say, since we aren't going teach these people, can we fire the teachers and at least fix the darned roads?).

Ah, what a way to start the week... let's see if President Bush's speech tonight tops this.

Didn't I just Say This?

Perhaps I can sue for some cash. The business section of the 10-May-2006 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune lead with an article by Kevin Hall that looks like a business writer's version of my previous post. The article, titled For many, outlook not so rosy shows two sets of graphs constrasting how The Economy Is Stronger...Yet Many Americans Don't Feel It. Okay, so I didn't provide charts in my posting. The analysis is boils down to the same concepts of how while experts all agree that U.S. economic growth is above norms, American's aren't celebrating. Jared Bernsstein of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington puts it quite well: "The gap between the economy from 40,000 feet and on the ground level just seems to get wider with every report." But I already told you that didn't I. You can find the article here.

Existential Economics

Pundants, pollsters, and economists appear confused. Why, they ask, don't people feel better about their current economic situation? Why according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment is at a new low (4.7%), payroll employment is up, productivity is up, and we are told in financial news that the market [well, really the Dow] is at a six year high. Why, everyone should be giddly! But you know something, we're not, and it's not just the problem with Iraq and Iran (or for me, the soon to be outlawed fois gras *sob*), there really is something about the economy that is bothering people and it bewilders the big brains for politico-economic think tanks. Well, I am here to shed some light on it for those overeducated folks. You see, what happened is, you followed the path of philosophy... your methods became too far removed from reality to be of any use. Back around the time of Socrates there was an idea that the mind, body, and soul moved in concert. Becaue of this, Socrates thought that people should development their thinking and since thinking (philosophy?) affected the other two areas of man's existence it would help determine how best to live. But somewhere along the way philosophy seems to have gotten off track and began to become detatched from how the "average" person lives. Saddly, there appeared no gadfly to help bring it back down from its lofty heights into the realm of the living, no thinker who was invited to parties by the social and academic elite who after hearing a boring and irrelevant speech would simply say "So what?" This was one of the major points of the existentialist movement (if you can really call it that). We are individuals, leading individual lives, forming relationships with other individuals... somehow mainstream academic philosophy forget that. This same shift from thinking about a person to thinking about people to thinking about thinking in philosophy's case shows the path to irrelevance taken by economics. You see, to tell me that I should feel good that the national unemployment rate is a low 4.7% is an attempt to deindividualize me (is there such a word?). Yet it doesn't make sense to tell me that I should feel economically secure because surgeons, college professors, fry cooks, and even other IT people in aggregate are well employed. You are trying to lump me, Mike, into some amorphous body and try say that I am just like everyone else. Shoot, even if my own company is doing well that is no guarantee that I will be able to report to work tomorrow. Perhaps some low-evel executive somewhere will come up the insane notion that we need one less person doing what I do and by making everyone else in my group work harder the company can save money. The same goes for other macro numbers such as the rise of the Dow. For me, and I would guess for the majority of the people out there, my livelihood does not closely track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, for if it did my pay would be about 70% higher than it was back in 2000. What matters to me isn't that shares of Intel are trading higher, but whether or not my income is sufficient to cover my bills, whether or not I am saving enough for retirement or vacation, whether or not I can cover a sudden economic shock like needing a new set of tires or having to pay $4.00 per gallon for gas over an extended period of time. You see, people in college are taught two braod brances of economics: macroeconomics (say, national or sector level) and microeconomics (say, factory level), but they are not taught what matters to most people, personal economics. So, I propose that we create a new branch for the academics, existential economics, the economics of me (*well, okay, perhaps not me, how about the individual. Unless something like this occurrs, our political leaders, who looks to pollsters and think tanks for advice, will drift only farther away from reality as experienced by the majority of America.

My Day Without A... Huh?

It started out as "Day Without An Illegal Alien", then "Day Without An Undocumented Immigrant", then "Day Without An Immigrant", and finally, thanks for our wonderful California Assembly it became "Great American Boycott". Supposedly it was to show us the "economic might" of the (illegal) immigrants but expanded to show support for (illegal) immigrants. I listened to reports all day long and I learned the following:

• Supporters of the march know virtually nothing about history.
  
• Supporters of the march know virtually nothing about logic.
  
• Supporters of the march, on the whole, know nothing about the current political climate in Washington.
  
• Supporters of the march, on the whole, know nothing about economics.
  
• School age supporters, on the whole, were there simply to skip school and party.
  
• The greatest negative economic impact was in the heavily hispanic populated areas.
  

In thinking about my "Day Without An (Illegal Alien/)Immigrant - Great American Boycott", the only impact I experienced was positive... my normal morning and evening commute was about 30% shorter than normal (shaved off about 10 minutes normal commute time each way). Let's see... I got up at 5:30AM to go to my gym (which was open and full), stopped in at my grocer (open, busy, and fully stocked), bought my morning paper at "my" 7-11 (open, stocked, full of customers), listened to my morning programs on the radio (normal programming) as I ate breakfast and got ready for work, drove to work (roads about 70% normal capacity, wonderful traffic flow), arrived at work (parking lot nearly full), worked the morning, had lunch with my friend Andrew at our regular watering hole (normal capacity, fully staffed), went back to work, drove home (again, nice traffic flow), had dinner with Pookie, watched a DVD, did a little homework, went to sleep. Impact... NONE.

As I said before, I am shifting in my thoughts about mankind. As I listened to the reports coming in from the mainstream press and listening to the speeches of the activists I kept sputtering "But... but... non sequitur... hasty generalization... invalid form... strawman arugment...", but alas, it didn't matter. People don't want to reason through things. In our French class there is an older man who is the same way. I had to leave while he polluted the air with biased, unfounded opinion about Christianity. Aleks apparently tried to engage him after he attacked one of our classmates (this happened while I was venting outside), but Aleks said he wouldn't listen, he had absolutely no intention of engaging in conversation, just like the people I heard on the radio. Two more examples of why Aristotle's definition of man was off base. *sigh*