Libya is done

I remember as a kid seeing Libya get bombed and wondering if they really deserved it. Looking back now, I think it was the right choice at the time. It's the pacificst in me, not liking violence ever being the right choice. If you forget, it was in retaliation for a terrorist attack by a crazy madman. As crazy as Saddam in Iraq was, he never did attack innocent Americans.

It's long overdue that Gadhafi goes. I guess it should be no surprise that after being a leader with delusions of grandeur for 40 years, it's hard to shake that stuff. Two thoughts on this. One it's incredible the speed at which the world is changing. Two fallen governments in northern Africa in the first month of the year and one more sure to come. He's just delaying the inevitable at this point. Two. This is what most revolutions would be expected to look like. Not that Egypt or Tunisia are now the most stable places in the world, but so far, the bloodshed has been controlled and those people deserved to be commended for that.

I remember Reagan getting a lot of credit for bringing an end to the cold war. The argument was that he stood tough and he spend a lot of money which made the USSR spend a lot of money. Eventually, the USSR ran out of money and that's what lead to the change in government. I think this storyline pretty much missed what was going on with the people of the Soviet Union themselves. Really this change came from them. I wonder if someday people are going to argue that Obama did something to create a wave of democracy throughout the middle east. Again, I think that would miss the point. Though I do think this does have to be Obama's number one priority at the moment.

Holding it Together

Here's my crazy thought of the day. I saw a posting on Yahoo about Glee and the 10 biggest dropped story lines. I sometimes get really annoyed at dropped storylines. I really liked Friday Night Lights, but these had some things going on that they just dropped with no resolution, that made no logical sense that just drove me crazy. Some characters just seemed to disappear not only from the story, but somehow from everyone's collective memory as well. I get it. TV. You need to "suspend" your brain a bit to believe. And I like a good story as much as anybody. I'm willing to do that. But is it too much to ask a story universe to hold together a little?

But here's where my thought is really going. There's been some talk these days about cognitive dissonance. Essentially, when a person holds conflicting ideas, they have a strong motivation to reduce the dissonance. So politically speaking, a right wing nut will dismiss actual provable fact because it doesn't jive with their world view.

I'm wondering whether the flash of too much media with little attention to logic actually contributes to cognitive dissonance. We watch TV where storylines don't make sense, thereby when crazy politicians make no sense, no one bats an eye. Our ability to suspend belief has become too great.

Just making a small observation and wondering if it makes any sense.

Craziness back in Madison

In the state of Wisconsin the public unions are under their greatest threat ever. Essentially, the governor has put their backs to the wall and if they lose this battle, they really don't have a reason to exist. The governor's stated purpose is the budget issue. He needs to cut expenses on public employees, but he's reaching beyond the cost issue to essentially neuter the unions. He's trying to make it harder for them to collect dues, annually decisde whether or not they can continue to exist and limit them to only negotiating wages in line with inflation. He's characterizing it as all about the budget, but it clearly isn't. I'm not sure what his angle is other than potentially, higher career ambitions and making a name for himself.

Unions have waned. Once a big deal, but not so much any more. I've got mixed views on unions. On the one hand, they have been a great boon to the American worker and increased the standard of living for untold people. Studies have shown that unions have raised the standard of living for all kinds of people in a community, not just unior members.

On the other hand, unions negotiate for the lowest common denominator. Their role is not to protect the best employees. They protect the schmucks and morons who can't do anything right. Like the NRA, they take a somewhat rational position and make it legalistic and beyond the logical extreme.

Unions can suppress innovation by restricting hour and roles. Somebody might want to finish something they are working on or improve their product, but the union would tell them to go home after 8 hours or that hurts everyone. They care more about time served than ability or effort. I guess, I don't think unions have caught up to new economic realities. Their legalistic approach now looks like one of the causes of America's decline.

Overall I still think unions are a good thing. I think companies like Walmart and McDonalds should be ashamed of how hard they have worked to keep people from unionizing. But unions need to figure out how to look beyond the small number of people they are protecting and consider how to beome partners with business, or that small number of union people will just keep shrinking.

Born in the USA

A couple states and a couple really conservative type congressional types are offering bills to keep some people born in the US from being citizens. The argument for this new slew of legislative posturing is that if a person is the child of illegal immigrants they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US. Therefore, they are not US citizens and entitled to all that allows.

For the most part these people are hypocrites. I say this, and I acknowledge that I'm generalizing here, most of these people are conservative right wing types. Most have argued against judicial activism and a more literal interpretation of the Constitution. The 14th Amendment is pretty clear on this one. So really, what these people are saying is that judicial activitist are really just people who don't agree with us.

An extension of this argument is that the legislative history of the 14th amendment shows the 14th Amendment was really only meant to apply to former slaves. It ignores that this is really a concept we got from English law a couple centuries before the 14th and an 1890s case where the Supreme Court definitively ruled on this already. Some Chinese guy born here when back to China. He wasn't allowed back under the argument that he was a subject of the Emperor of China. The Supreme Court said the 14th Amendment applied.

So these people are clearly pushing an unconstitutional agenda. Really, if they want to make the argument they need to push for a constitutional amendment. Otherwise, they're going nowhere. They are just going to waste a lot of people's money and time.

But maybe this is the way of these movements now. Civil Rights for gays has really started with small state challenges. I hope this one gets squelched hard and fast so we can move on to an intelligent discussion about immigration reform.

Next kid crises

So I'm still just getting over the fact that I need to select my kids elementary school when the next challenge comes along. Apparently, even though it's only February, we're already late and would be lucky to get on the waitlist for the more exclusive summer camps in the area. I understand that juggling summer camp is an annual rite of passage for the working parents. Each place has a different program, a different schedule, and we'll probably have to adjust from week to week. That I sort of expected. What I didn't realize is that we're already late getting signed up for this stuff.

Where does all this craziness come from? Who's got time to stay on top of all this parent stuff?

A turning point?

Honestly, I should be asleep right now. Little S needed some testing this morning. As part of this test, they asked us to keep her awake for the six hours prior to testing. This would guarantee that she fall asleep during testing. So I've been up since way too early this morning. Wifey got up too. And as I drove up to the city for the testing, she was in the backseat trying every possible distraction to keep our kid from zonking out in her cozy car seat. So sleep would be good.

I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell, I was in the hinterlands of China, on a hot slow train ride. An interesting experience. Not something I would recommend. Maybe they should have something like that on the amazing race. A slow slow travel segment, where they make everybody walk 15 miles. Sorry for the digression.

Anyhow, eventually we showed up in Hong Kong to find out that during our week long new blackout the world around us had significantly changed. I sort of think we might be going through a similar moment now, Tunisia has flipped government and America's most important Arab ally looks like it's about to flip. Is this just the beginning of a change throughout the Muslim world? Egypt is not one of the fundamentalist countries, but those countries are watching too. I think we may look back at this as a huge turning point for the century. But right now it's still too early to see which way this goes. Let's just hope that it goes well.

The speed at which these things can happen is amazing. Twitter, social media, this stuff is changing the world. Hopefully, that's a good thing as well.

I'm no expert in any of these areas, but this is just what I'm observing so far.