death is a death is a death

It almost seems that a death of a soldier hits home in a worse way than a death of a worker. Death is a death is a death, but somehow we hear all the time about those prematurely taking out military personnel, but almost never of those striking men and women who make the stuff and provide services we use.

According to a federal government report, there were 5,071 industrial deaths in 2008 (down from 5,657 the year before).

According to a Congressional Research Service report, there were 1,441 military fatalities in 2008 (down from 1,953 the previous year).

Does this nation value more those who fight, albeit in the name of defending the nation, than those who make things for us to use, thus building the nation? What would you conclude, if anything?

The audacity of what?

This whole Obamania thing started with the "Audacity of hope" and now we have "The Audacity of Winninig." As Ariana Huffington says it nicely,

"How did the candidate who got into the race because he'd decided that "the core leadership had turned rotten" and that "the people were getting hosed" become the president who has decided that the American people can only have as much change as Olympia Snowe will allow?"

Well, no politicians that I know have the cajones to really put up the fight, to really stand up for what they believe. They all calculate, strategize, and eventually succumb to what seems to be doable, rather than what is desirable. Why would Pres Obama be any different. Those who thought he would be, suffered from delusions. So did I, regretfully for my old age.

Karzai

It's perplexing! This thing where Karzai is declared the winner of the so-called election in Afghanistan.

Some time ago, the UN said that up to one third of the votes cast for Karzai were fraudulent. Then they set up the run-off to appease the brewing unrest. Finally, Karzai's opponent withdrew.

What a smokescreen! I mean, are we supposed to be totally stupid. I certainly do not know all the facts, or even most of the facts, but this whole Karzai thing really smacks of PR game.

And, on top of that, all the major players immediately congratulated Karzai. What a farce! But it is not surprising.

Obama and Nobel

Well, it's been now a few days since that announcement one early morning last week. The frisky and sometimes vitriolic debate is by no means subsiding. And that is both from the left and from the right and all the places in between. Ideological accusations, summary condemnations, demeaning belittling, and all sorts of similarly colored declarations fly all over the public spectrum.

I am sitting back and thinking of one simple thing. Folks are asking "what has he done?" as if the president is supposed to take a hammer in his hands and actually physically create something or lock up folks in a basement and make them love each other. We forget that the president is a politicians, he is a manager. And what do those folks do? Well, they offer a vision and facilitate creation of an environment in which folks would want to make that vision a reality. Their power is their vision expressed in their words.

If we can accept that, then let's see what President Obama has done.

• Has he offered a vision for the country and for the world? Judge for yourself.
  
• Has he intrigued and mobilized masses of people in this country and around the world and created an atmosphere in which multitudes can adopt his vision, however it may be modified through a personal prism, and work on its realization? Judge for yourself.
  

Has he created enemies? or at least made them come out of the woodwork? Sure he has.

Another way to look at the "controversy" is to see what Nobel Peace Prize Committee offered as their reasoning behind awarding the prize to President Obama. They said that they awarded President Obama the prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Only two questions are relevant:

• is that a good reason to reward a person with a prize and
  
• is that a true characterization of President Obama's work
  

Anything else is superfluous and serves as self-aggrandizing, self-righteous posturing.

If your answer to the first question is no, so be it! It is an opinion one way or another which can not be scientifically supported by facts. It is a judgment call, which is why the prize is awarded by a committee of people, not by some computer program. Once you have your own committee for your own prize to be awarded out, you can set your own, presumably better, rules.

As for the answer to the second question, that too can not be scientifically proven or disputed - ergo a committee to pass judgment. Yours may be different and so "once you have ..... "

So feel free to feel one way or another, but, please focus on the right questions.

Homosexual acts and same sex marriage

It just occurred to me that in the same-sex debate I hear frequently people stating how such-and-such religion prohibits homosexual acts and therefore same-sex marriage is prohibited by extension, which got me a bit confused, frankly.

First, I do not find those same people defining homosexual acts, but it may be safe to assume that by homosexual act, people mean sex in all of its forms with a person of the same sex/gender. Okay, fine.

(I hope we do not ever have a law somewhere defining sexual acts.)

But then, what has that got to do with marriage? Marriage is not about sex, is it? It may be about sex, in addition to many other things, but not necessarily.

So, I wonder about the following scenario. Say two persons of the same sex want to marry and they commit not to engage in any "homosexual acts" with each other, however they, the homosexual acts, may be defined. Would that be okay? I mean, there is no requirement of the married couple to have sex with each other, no?

(I hope we do not ever have a law somewhere defining those acts married couple must do with each other in order to maintain the married status.)

Executive bonuses

Mr. Hall (from Citigroup) is in the news. Should receive his 100 million dollar bonus for good performance. Difficult question these days. In today's climate, this might be a problem. Mr. Hall seems to think so. He is currently looking for an alternative job, probably at a company who did not receive bailout money.

I have a simple solution. Capitalism, which I support, should support companies paying bonuses in proportion to the money earned. However, the percentage of profit should be moderate. Mr. Hall generated 5 billion in profits for Citigroup in the past 5 years. 100 million is 2 percent of this total. This seems reasonable, *if* the profit is for work done in the past 5 years.

However, what if he loses money for the company one year? In that case, I believe the salary should be decreased by the same percentage, or he should owe money accordingly. Thus, if he lost 5 billion for the company one year, he would have to return 100 million dollars. In that way, it is the employee who pay the company for failure. This kind of rule would give the manager incentive to take less risk. Less gain, but also less loss. On the other hand, it would not prevent some managers from taking continued risk: the managers who truly believe they are good.

Health care overhaul

In principle, I am against government-run health care because the government has a poor record of running programs efficiently and on budget. On the other hand, I fully understand that health services in this country are out of control, are rising at a yearly rate much higher than inflation, shut out many people from reasonable health care. Of course, one could ask: why should we live beyond 70 years old? Some people stay healthy longer. Of course. So why must we keep people on life support or keep treating people who are terminally ill once they can no longer take care or themselves? What is the point. Ok, so we do not like euthanasia. So let us work within the current system.

There is too much partisanship. Our congressmen (of both parties), make decisions based on electability rather than on what is good for the country. How do I know? Because if they were given a quiz on the health care bill, I would wager good money that they could not answer questions as to content.

Before any statements are made as to our current system (whether by the president, or by our representatives), and before I decide what is best, let us get the answer to the following questions:

1) How much do all the insured pay per year to health care insurance providers (total, per insured inhabitant, and per inhabitant, whether insured or not)

2) How much of health care insurance is disbursed to court proceedings to handle suits (frivolous or not), pay lawyers, give rewards, etc.

3) How much of health care is actually given for doctor salaries

4) How much of health care pays hospital procedures

5) How much of health care pays for senior centers, long term care facilities, etc.

6) More breakdown that I have not considered

Only once we know the answers to the above questions, can we answer objectively:

1) why is health care increasing much more than insurance?

2) why should people on government insurance have access to the latest technology that people with expensive health care packages have access to?

3) what are the projected rise in costs over the next 20 years

(I doubt that projected cost increases take into account suing for example)

Given that these questions are not asked or answered shows me how non-serious everybody is about health care reform, and I include the president in this group.

President's stupid comment

I did not hear President's news conference Wed night, but reading the news reports I must say that he made a very stupid comment when asked to comment on the events surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor, in his home Monday, Mr Obama reportedly said:

"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."

What makes your remark stupid, Mr. president, is that you did acknowledge not knowing all the facts surrounding the arrest of Mr Gates, yet you issued your judgment about the work of those particular law enforcement officers involved in the incident. Very, very bad and shamefully stupid remark, Mr. President, regardless of anything else involved. You should know better than that!

Buying vaporware

So, there is all this hoopla about unfair banking practices, customers lured into contracts attractive at first, but with unsustainable conditions later on causing people to default, etc., etc. And the vendors are usually blamed for greed, conning, etc.

But, what about our individual responsibility to make informed buying decisions? I can understand if the language is really obscure. But sometimes language is right there starring us in the face and yet, we still go for it.

For example, I just today purchased an item on line and dutifully signed away any vendor's responsibility for the product by agreeing to the following language:

Because each application is unique, XXXXXX makes no warranty as to the merchantability or suitability of any product for a particular use, nor will we be liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential damages that may arise from the use or sale of our product.

If things go wrong, I deserve no sympathy for my unwise buying decision.

How many times did you agree to such conditions or signed a long tightly typed document without reading it?

A whole lotta B.S.

After being gone for three weeks and two weeks back in the country, I watched the Sunday talking heads series on ABC/CBS/NBC. Various government officials are being questioned mostly about the on-going economic/financial crisis. And, did I learn anything new? No! I heard just a whole lot of hot air, excuses, insinuations, pretense, politicking. Well, what did I expect?

One thing that sticks out in my mind is this issue of the so-called bonuses paid out to various financial institutions executives. My government dished a whole lotta dough in our name to these institutions and we are getting a whole lotta B.S. back.

We ask how come execs are personally getting millions from our money for running those businesses into the ground. We are told, you know, it's all these contracts and such which need to be honored; we honor contracts in this country; we are a country of laws.

Well, that may be so, but let me see. A bonus, in my book, is what you get for something you did well! A so-called bonus is not a bonus if it is contractually guaranteed and not being performance related, no?

What am I missing in this picture? For example, I am told that my government owns 80% of AIG on my behalf and is not empowered to force it to behave! Something is really, really rotten in this historic scam.