PhoneBoy Says

In September, 1796 George Washington, with a quill feather pen while sitting in his study, wrote a farewell address to the American people. A draft of the letter was initially started in 1792 after the end of his first term in office, but as the newly formed republic began fragmenting and dividing into Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties, President Washington was coaxed into serving another term (and he ran unopposed) in the hopes that he could hold this union together.

The address was later revised in 1796 with the help of Alexander Hamilton. It warned of the grave dangers associated with a representative government being divided into a partisan political process. This is what the only president who was never identified by a party wrote about partisan politics:

"It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration….agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one….against another….it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption…thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

I don't know about you, but reading that sends chills up my spine.

via zeropartypolitics.com

Sounds like the current state of affairs alright. And it sounds like the "perfect union" was doomed right from the start, unfortunately.

There is no equality," [Rush] Limbaugh said on his [nationally syndicated] radio show. "You cannot guarantee that any two people will end up the same. And you can't legislate it, and you can't make it happen. You can try, under the guise of fairness and so forth, but some people are self-starters, and some people are born lazy. Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be slaves.

via rawstory.com

I'm sure this is going to generate some controversy, especially given who this and what he said. The comments on this post were particularly vicious. That said, I think I can explain what he was trying to say in non-offensive terms.

Life is like a soccer game. Some people are really good at it, either through natural talent or because of years of hard work to improve their game. Some people play ok. Others can't play (due to physical condition). Others, even if they could play, don't like soccer and will never play. Some just like to watch. Others prefer a different sport entirely. Some don't like sports at all.

Trying to legislate equality in life is about as ridiculous as the idea that everyone can play soccer well, or even wants to for that matter. Not everyone is playing the same game or looking for the same result. Legislating that kind of equality is doomed to fail. See the USSR or Greece for recent examples of this.

With Indiana unemployment rate at 10.1% one might think that jobs that pay more than double the minimum wage would be in demand. Actually, such jobs are in demand, but ironically not from some of those who have them.

via globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Here's the economics of this one: GM wants to shut down a stamping plant in Indianapolis sometime next year unless they can sell it to someone. In this case, there was buyer who would have purchased the plant on the condition that the workers would accept a lower salary--in some cases up to a 47% decrease.

So let me get this straight: in an economy where there are 5 unemployed people for every unfilled job, instead of voting to guarantee yourself a job (albeit at a lower salary), you vote to shut it down. Smart, UAW members, real smart.

Labor unions had their time and place. Now is not it.

I actually started in Seattle today (or rather yesterday) but they didn't have the cool map on a screen in front of me like they did on the Tel Aviv flight.

Sign found in the hotel restroom.

AIS on flight to PHL. Where's the smile on my airplane, US Air?

via SimplyTweet

For those who don't know, US Air bought the airline that used to paint huge smiles on the front of their planes: PSA. Too bad they don't do that anymore.

As for the causes of long-term unemployment, there's the obvious answer: there simply aren't enough jobs. Before the Great Recession, there were 1.5 workers in the U.S. for every job slot; today, that ratio is 4.8 to one. Put another way, with normal growth instead of a recession, we'd have 10 million more jobs than we currently do. Closing that gap would require adding 300,000 jobs every month for the next five years. In August 2010, the economy shed 54,000 jobs. You do the math.

via tomdispatch.com

If you have a good paying job right now, be very thankful. 5 people for every open job does not sound like particularly good odds.

I think I like this better than the Virgin America safety information video…

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent ofman's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided byman's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source ofknowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others.He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others norsacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interestand of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is asystem where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor asmasters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutualbenefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others byresorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical forceagainst others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man'srights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those whoinitiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of fullcapitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a completeseparation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons asthe separation of state and church.

via aynrandlexicon.com

via oldcomputers.net

I remember my dad buying me one of these along with the 16k expansion module and the printer (which printed on thermal paper in 32 columns!). I would borrow the Basic Computer Games book from the library and type away, hand-entering the programs and tweaking them. I saved programs on a Cassette player so I could play them later.

Ah, those were the days. Before the Internet.