Congress Fattens Up Emergency Supplemental

If there is any case for presidential line-item veto power it would be this bill--U.S. Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act. This bill is supposed to be about funding the brave soldiers fighting the war on terror but it has become more than that with all the riders that Congress has added to it. I would list all the riders it has but it contains eighteen riders on it! Not including the minimum wage law. None of which has anything to do about the Iraq war or the war on terror. Can you say got pork? The drive-by-cloned-media will do little reporting on this bill. All the media cares about is why President Bush fired eight attorneys (President Clinton fired a lot more than that--not a word from the press)--one of which was quitting anyway to return to the private sector. But I digress. Here are some of the pork that the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) lists (my comments are in parenthesis):

• $500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose.
• $400 million for rural schools. (Why just rural schools? Throwing money at schools does not solve their problems if the schools spend the money foolishly. Besides, shouldn't this be local school districts and state responsibility?)
• $283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract program. (I did not know there was a milk crises. Don't you just love that title!)
• $100 million for citrus assistance.
• $74 million for peanut storage costs.
• $25 million for spinach growers.

Add it up. Just what I listed adds up to $2,213. The total pork sum is (drum roll please): $9.9 billion! President Bush only asked for $103 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. The reader can go to the CAGW web site to read the complete list if you want.

Here is the catch-22. Imagine you are a fiscally responsibility Congress-person (yea I know that sounds like an oxymoron) that does not like pork but wants to monetarly support the military in the battlefield. What do you do? If you are that Congress-person and vote against the bill then it will appear you don't support the troops. You know that your opponents will use that against you. The end result--you vote for the bill. As Glenn Beck says (hat tip to him for bringing this issue to my attention on his TV show) the troops are for sale. That is really sad.

If people are really concerned with deficit spending and fiscal responsibility in government then you either need line-item veto for the president or law that says you cannot add riders to bills if you are against the line-item veto. Those are the two solutions. If you do the latter solution then the bill should be easily stated in one sentence. For example this bill could state: Funding for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan only. I got this idea from my college years. When you write a procedure for a program it should have only one function. That way it is easier to debug and test. I think line-item veto is the easier solution to implement though.

Basically, pork happens for two reasons. Politicians offer money to their constituents. The constituents take the money. Supply and demand. The politicians have no self-control to stop the supply and the constituents enable the politicians by demanding more money. If constituents did not take the money then the vicious cycle would diminish eventually.

Woman Trusts Sat Nav Too Much

A woman in England put too much trust in her satellite navigation of her car. She followed the directions it gave her and drove into a river! Evidently, the satnav did not tell the woman to slam the breaks on or to go around the swollen river. She survived but her Mercedes SL500 did not.

The issue with sat navs is you have to keep them updated especially if you are going on a trip. Even in this case I don't know if it would have mattered. The sat navs cannot direct you around fallen logs in the road, tornadoes that happen to form in your path, or even in this case flooding rivers. Maps only represent the landscape. Electronic maps are no different. You still have to be alert and use those cells between the ears when driving.

By the way, the article does not say if the woman was blonde or not (yea, I know I am terrible, but I could not resist!)

Global Warming Heretics

It appears that global warming is now a religion or at least a strong ideology that cannot be questioned (that does not sound like science to me). You got that global warming fascist (Heidi Cullen) on the weather channel that wants to take away the AMS certification from any meteorologist who would dare question global warming. Isn't that nice. Then there are the global warming chicken-littles scaring everyone telling them if the world (mainly America it seems) does not stop global warming the world is coming to an end (sounds like one of those end-of-the-world cults to me) with floods, drowning polar bears, etc. Never mind those Islamic terrorists who wants to make the whole world one Islamic state--we'll just forget about them when global warming is around the corner waiting to get us. I don't know but trying to stop global warming is like trying to prevent tornadoes, blizzards or hurricanes from forming. Isn't that weather control? Good luck on that one. Leading this religion is of course the prophet Al Gore who declares that global warming is immoral on the Academy Awards. Great, we are all going to hell for something that may or may not be our fault.

With every religion you have herectics--global warming is no different. Let's start with University of Ottawa science professor Jan Veizer. He says high-energy rays from distant parts of space smashing into atmosphere could cause global warming. Isn't that interesting. Then there is Professor Ian Clark, an expert in palaeoclimatology from the University of Ottawa. He claims that claims that warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in carbon dioxide levels. After the Second World War, there was a huge surge in carbon dioxide emissions, yet global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940. Rush Limbaugh interviewed Dr. Roy Spencer on his talk show. Dr. Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville and served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. He made a comment that weather actually cools the planet by "short-circuit[ing] 60% of the greenhouse effect warming that the greenhouse effect is trying to make on the surface of the Earth. If it weren't for the cooling effects of weather, the average surface temperature over the whole Earth would be about 140 degrees Fahrenheit." Ponder that for a while next time you are stuck in the rain. The names I've given here are not the only heretics. There is at least ten more I've found.

Group Thinking Clouds Clear Decision-Making

I believe this study is essentially true. If you think about most revolutionary inventions and scientific ideas come not from groups but from individuals. From Albert Einstein's theory of relativity to the invention of the light bulb to the airplane (okay, here there were two people--but that is still not a group)--all came from individual people. There are not many committees that come up with cutting-edge ideas.

The article did not go into why groups cannot come up with alternative solutions but I have a theory about that. I think the reason why is because people in groups are afraid of their ideas being criticized or ridiculed. You have to be a brave person to go against the grain. By the way there is nothing wrong in criticizing an idea or theory--as long as you don't attack the person himself. That is what makes democracy great--each person expressing his/her opinion. Groups have a hard time coming up with creative ideas if there is no-one in the group that is not a leader or at least a catalyst.

Congress' Symbolic Non-Binding Resolution

Glenn Beck on his television show has a brilliant comment about supporting the troops but not the mission. As he put it "hating the game, but not the players." When the troops are killing in your name you cannot say you don't support the mission when that is part of the mission. He said that you are either in full support of the war and the mission or your not and you have to withdrawal the troops from Iraq if you are not. You cannot have it both ways. Try to win the war or cut-and-run. That's the two options you have.

This Congressional symbolic non-binding resolution is really stupid and does not help the troops over in Iraq at all. All it does is bolster the spirits of the enemy. They see America's rulers not agreeing about winning the war. How does cutting funding of the war help the troops? It does not help. This action is the equivalent of taking their ammunition away from them. Leave them in Iraq and give them the military and moral support they need or completely withdraw them from Iraq. Period. You don't play stupid games with our military when their lives are in danger.

All this symbolic resolution is political pure and simple. If Iraq stabilizes that puts President Bush in a positive light. The Democrats in Congress cannot have that when there is a presidential election coming up. That increases Republicans chances of winning the Presidential race the Dems think. But the Democrats are not realizing (or maybe do not care) that if Iraq stabilizes then not only does that help President Bush but America and the whole region over there. As Bill O'Reilly would say the people behind this non-binding resolution are not looking out for America. So, why doesn't the Democrats want America to win in Iraq? One, they think they got elected by anti-war voters. Possibly. But there is another possibility. It could be that they got elected because the American public wanted to win the war and did not think the Republicans that got voted out were not doing a good job of running the war. Two, is the Dems are trying to appease the far-left anti-war cook groups. But these groups want the troops out of Iraq period. They are not going to settle for anything less. Those are the two basic reasons why the Democrats are trying to straddle the middle of the line. They don't want to appear against the troops while they want to appear against the war. Like I said make a choice. At least during the Vietnam war the Dems back then were against the war and the troops (who by the way were drafted). They were at least consistent.

I should say that criticizing the execution of the mission is not being unpatriotic. You can make the argument that President Bush should have put more troops in early, etc. But if you don't want America and her allies to win in Iraq then you are unpatriotic and border-line treasonous. That is almost like a fan not rooting for his hometown to win in a sport. It does not make any sense. Maybe every presidential candidate should be asked "do you want America to win in Iraq?" Hopefully a reporter will ask that question and the candidate will have the guts to answer the question. If the answer is no or the candidate dodges the question--do not vote for him/her.

Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month I would like to share the non-fiction books I've read by black authors.

         Thomas Sowell:
            The Vision of The Anointed. (1996)
            Basic Economics. (2003)
            Applied Economics. (2003)
            Black Rednecks and White Liberals. (2006)

        The Ten Things You Can't Say in America by Larry Elder (2000)

        They Think You're Stupid by Herman Cain (2005)

        White Guilt by Shelby Steele (2006)

        Time Traveler by Dr. Ronald L. Mallett (2006)

I've probably read more books by black authors but these are the ones I remember. Then again, I only pay attention to the content of the book not the race of the author.

The reader might want to check out the Black Inventor Online Museum, and Black Enterpreneurship Hall of Fame.

By the way Barack Obama is not the first black presidential candidate. Ever heard of Alan Keyes?

Self-Erasing Paper

Xerox is developing cool technology. What they are doing is inventing self-erasing paper that erases itself within 24 hours. That is really neat.

I hope when this comes out in the market place that Xerox distinguishes this paper from normal paper. Otherwise you might have someone write something down on this self-erasing paper accidently that (s)he wants to keep permanently. Oops!

Congress Capping CEO Salaries

The Congress is thinking about putting caps on CEO salaries. They think that CEOs do not earn what they are worth. That might be true. But what right does Congress have to determine what maximum anyone earns? The free market should determine this. In this case the salary of CEOs is a agreement between the board of the corporation and the CEO. Indirectly the stockholders of the company influence CEO pay electing the board members. So, what if the CEO is not earning his/her pay. If the business is not making profits then that only affects the stockholders and employees. No-one else. I don't think Congress is earning their pay either but their cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) keeps going up annually automatically unless the Congress votes not to accept the COLA (like they would do that). Know any businesses where the salary keeps going up automatically? I don't think so. But I digress.

To get a perspective of CEO salaries let's look at other people's salaries from Forbes.com.

Steven Spielberg	$ 332.00 mil.
Capital One CEO Richard D. Fairbank	$ 249.42 mil. total compensation
Yahoo! Ceo Terry S. Semel	$ 230.55 mil.
Oprah Winfrey	$ 225.00 mil.
Tiger Woods	$ 90.00 mil.
Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray R Irani	$ 80.73 mil.
Tom Cruise	$ 67.00 mil
Bruce Springsteen	$ 55.00 mil
50 Cent	$ 41.00 mil
David Letterman	$ 40.00 mil
Genzyme CEO Henri A. Termeer	$ 36.38 mil. (A pharmaceutical company).
Kobe Bryant	$ 31.00 mil
Walmart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr.	$ 10.46 mil
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer	$ 1.03 mil.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt	$ 0.03 mil.

If you look at the list above you will see that director/producer Steven Spielberg yearly salary is more than the top CEO. Do you think Congress is going to put a cap on his salary? I doubt it. Oprah Winfrey makes more than Occidental Petroleum's CEO and Walmart's CEO put together. Is Congress going to put a cap on her salary? Again, I doubt it. And I would not want Congress to put a cap on their salaries either. Let them make as much money as they want. As long as their are making it legally and not giving money to terrorist organizations, it is not of Congress or anyone else's concern. I read some of the lyrics of 50 cents. I think they are stupid and even insulting. I personally don't think he is worth 41 million dollars, but his fans do. They keep buying his music. Would it be right for me to tell him he can't make anymore money? Evidently, Congress thinks it has a right to do that on certain segment of the population.

Everyone's salary is dependent on their talent and skills on the job. Not just CEOs. That is why I included non-CEOs in the list.

What this really is just another example of punishing the successful. Or as liberals call it "economic justice." That is another name for socialism. Liberals in the Congress want the poor to believe if they cap the salaries of CEOs that this will somehow make the poor feel satisfied or happy in someway. Getting some kind of revenge on the rich. But that revenge feeling is a false feeling and does not last. It definitely does not help the poor. Being wealthy is not of itself evil. Just as being intelligent does not make one self necessarily good. It is what you do with those powers that determines your moral worth.

Talking about Congress here is their salaries:

Speaker of the House	$212,100
Congressional Leadership of the House or Senate	$183,500
Congressman	$165,200

Do you think they are worth that much money? Do you think they would ever consider capping their own salaries?

Hillary Clinton's 2003 Speech

In 2003, Senator Hillary Clinton gave a speech to an anti-war group called Code Pink. In this speech she talked about the soon-to-be Iraq War and how she supported it. Why would anyone try to convince a group that is militant against any kind of war to support a war beats me. I'm thinking they thought she would have done a different speech and that's why she was invited to speak. I'm guessing. If you do not want to watch the eight minute video of the speech you can read her speech below:

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something that I have followed for more than a decade. If he is serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information and intelligence that I had available, talking to people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision. I would love to agree with you, but I can't based on my own understanding and assessment of the situation. With respect to whose responsibility it is to disarm Saddam Hussein, I just do not believe that, given the attitudes of many people in the world community today, that there would be a willingness to take on very difficult problems were it not the United States leadership, and I'm talking specifically about what had to be done in Bosnia and Kosovo, where my husband could not get a Security Council resolution to save the Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing, and we did it alone as the United States, and we had to do it alone. And so I see it somewhat differently. So forgive me for my experience and perspective.

I wonder if the drive-by-cloned-media is going to show this speech? Naw. Now of course Hillary is against the war. Then again in 2003 she was not running for president. Notice what I highlighted in bold. She said she "carefully reviewed the information..." about going to war. That's interesting because now she is blaming President Bush for tricking her about the war. That begs the question. How can a so-called simpleton like Bush trick the world's smartest woman? Hmmm. And Hillary Clinton wants to be president?

The Reversing Universe

Physicist Peter Lynds has come up with a new cosmological theory of the universe. His theory says instead of the universe collapsing to a singularity in a big crunch then expanding into another big bang, the universe will reverse itself before it reaches its singularity. Lynds says the universe has to reverse so the laws of thermodynamics are upheld.

For you wanna-be-time travelers, the article mentions time traveling is not possible according to this theory. Sorry.

Ethanol Economics

I don't think it is a necessary good idea that we use food like corn as a fuel source. When you use corn (moonshine, er I mean ethanol) as a fuel source that will raise the price of corn. Grain farmers who usually do crop rotation will now do less crop rotation and plant more corn especially when the demand for it rises. Take for instance, the island of Jamaica. Partly because of ethanol the price of chickens in Jamaica is going to increase. Why? Because chickens eat corn. When corn prices go up because of ethanol demand then eventually chicken prices will go up because chicken farmers will shift the cost of the corn to the consumer. Any product that uses corn will see an increase in price. That is hardly ever discussed in the ethanol debate. Another point about crop rotation to think about. If a farmer does less crop rotation and plants more corn instead of wheat or barley then there might be a shortage in those crops that he decides not to plant.

I think it is better if we are going to use ethanol as a fuel source we use a non-food source. For instance, trash. Researchers are developing a new system for converting trash into ethanol and methanol could help reduce the amount of waste piling up in landfills. Or how about switchgrass and wood chips? A company called Abengoa Bioenergy in Chesterfield, Missouri has developed a process that converts switchgrass into ethanol and methanol.

Interestingly enough some guy has a make-it-yourself ethanol web site. He even shows a diagram of his still. He mentions if you do this you have to get permission from the ATF though.

One final thought on this issue. I believe that government should not endorse any specific alternative fuel source. There might be a better fuel source better than ethanol in the future that we don't know of. Let the free market decide what the best fuel source would be.

A Test for Ghost Whisperers

I have a good test for ghost whisperers (gw)--ie people who talk to spirits that have not "crossed over" to the other side--to see if they can actually talk to spirits or not. What you do is this: Take a card from a full shuffled deck of playing cards and have them have the spirit tell the gw what the suit and value of the card is. Now, obviously the spirit should be able to see the front of the selected card and the gw should not be able to see the front of the card. If the gw is able to name the card this a real good indication that the person can talk to spirits. The probability of the gw just guessing the card is 1/52 or 1.92%. Of course, you can do this test more than once and see if the person can tell you the card to rule out chance. And of course this test can be done by different testers with the same gw.

It is probably a good idea for the experimenter not to see the front of card until the gw tells him what the card is. This is called a double-blind test. That way the gw cannot see the reflection of the card in the persons eyes or glasses. I suppose though that the experimenter could wear dark shades to eliminate that possibility.

My way is a good way to test the gw because it does not rely on having the spirit relay personal information to the gw about the experimenters life. If the gw tells a researcher that (s)he is acrophobic from the spirit who knows the researcher and (s)he is acrophobic that could just be a good guess. After all acrophobia (the fear of heights) is one of the most common fears of all. Plus you don't know if the gw had previous knowledge about the experimenters life or not to give answers about his/her life. The deck of cards method is independent of any knowledge about the experimenter.

What does it prove if the gw passes the test? Obviously it proves that the gw is authentic and there might be more like the testee. More than that it proves there is life after physical death. Of course to religious people (like myself--although I think it would be good to know if there are authentic gws) you don't need this test. Atheists might discredit the test. Agnostics might pause and even be persuaded. It's hard to say.

And if the gw fails the test? Well, it is a lot harder to prove a negative result. The gw could be fake. This does not prove however life after physical death does not exist. It only proves the gw claim is false that (s)he is a gw or for some reason that the spirit is not cooperating with the gw, but there is no way for a non-gw experimenter to know that.

Detecting a Suicide Bomber

A Virginia-based company is creating a system that detects suicide-bomber suspects from a safe distance. The CounterBomber system shoots low-power radar beams at a suspect bomber. It is even able to track the suspect as he walks. Future versions of the system will have "gait recognition" software. This software will be able to analyze anomalies in a person's gait to see if he is carrying a heavy object or putting something on the ground.

Invisible 'Radio' Tattoos

LiveScience.com reports that a company called Somark Innovations is making RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) ink for cattle. The tattoos can be colored or invisible.

What's cool is this technology in the future could be used on troops to keep track of them on the battle field. For instance, it could be used to rescue soldiers and prevent friendly fire.

What a rich high-profile person could do is when they have a child that is born is to put this on the child. That way if the child is kidnaped the police would be able to locate the child easier. This technology could be put on prisoners just in case they escape but if a person can wash the ink off (the article does not say) that would not be of much help.

The Iraq War & Other American Wars

It is interesting to compare the Iraq War to other American wars. I am not going to do all American wars just a good representative sample. All the deaths are American military deaths and the deaths per year are rounded.

The Iraq War which has lasted so far three years have killed 3,017 deaths. This comes out to be 1006 deaths per year.

The American revolutionary war caused 8000 deaths and lasted for eight years. The deaths per year for this war was 1000 deaths per year. Pretty close to deaths in Iraq. Historians say one-third was for American independence, one-third was against the war (Tories were probably thinking those Brits weren't that bad why do we have to fight them?), and one-third did not care either way.

The Civil War lasted four years. In those four years there were 204,070 deaths. That's a big chunk of the population. The deaths per year were 51,018. A much bigger rate than the Iraq War. Even this war had it's detractors. Some of the population thought President Lincoln should have let the south succeed--succeeding was in their constitutions.

Then there is World War I. That war which lasted two years was a cost of 116,708 American deaths. And the death rate per year? 58,354. Trade unions and pacifists were against this war. Trade unions were initially against this war because they thought it could only mean workers getting killed in the interest of their bosses.

Then there is World War II. The rate of death for that war is 135,767 per year (407,300 deaths / 3 years). The isolationists like Charles Lindbergh thought that war was none of our business. Hitler was not bothering us. That changed when Hirohito bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on America.

As you can see The Iraq War has the lowest rate of death. For those of you who think it is a waste of time because it costs money well all wars cost money. After all it is because of the Civil War Americans have to pay a national income tax. That is how Lincoln paid for the war.

If this "civil" war was just between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis then we might get away with cut-and-running like we did in Vietnam and Somalia. Or we could get away with moving the troops away from the fighting but leaving them in the country to guard the border and infrastructure. But there is third element that the drive-by-cloned-media does not mention a lot and that is Al Qaeda. This is not a pure civil war like the American Civil War. Al Qaeda is involved in it. Iran have sent their terrorists in it to. If we withdraw too soon, Saudi Arabia said they would send their Sunnis into the country. The whole thing would be more of a mess than it is now. It is not so much about making Iraq our friend, but to make it a buffer against terrorism. American national security is the issue and will always be the issue (it is too bad President Bush does not mention that enough when he gives his TV speeches. He needs to remind the American public that over and over again.) As Clinton might have said during his campaign: It's National Security stupid! Here is something to consider about the enemy (the Islamofascists) are not afraid to die, are patient, don't care about polls, and thrive when countries are unstable like Iraq (remember Afghanistan? It was unstable before we got rid of the terrorists. And they still are trying to cause trouble.) I wish the United Nations would help out in the war on terror but they won't until it is too late like it was almost too late when Hitler was conquering nations.

Humans Virtually Inhabit Robot

In Germany, university researches have created a robot where a user can virtually inhabit. The robot allows the operator to tactilely sense via gloves what the robot senses when it touches something. Also, the operator can control the movements of the robot. The operator can also see with goggles what the robot sees and hears what the robot hears. The article did not mention this but this is telepresence technology. Telepresence is where a person experiences a location via a robot without him/herself actually being there. The person actually thinks and feels (s)he is somewhere else. Sound like daydreaming doesn't it? Telepresence is a close cousin to virtual reality.

Actually, what the German researchers did is quite an accomplishment. Next to simulating smell, the tactile sense is tricky to simulate. Think what your skin can sense. It can sense touch, pressure, temperature change, and pain. Pain I don't think really needs to be simulated by a robot glove. I don't see a use for that for telepresence. Temperature change sense does not need to be simulated either. You can have a thermometer on the robot to check for instance the temperature on a distant planet but the operator does not need to feel the temperature. Like wise for firemen using telepresence when rescuing people from a burning building. They know that the building that is on fire would be hot so a robot telling them how hot the building is would be redundant. On the other hand simulating touch and pressure is important because the operator does not want to crush anything fragile that the robot hand picks up. In this case, the operator needs feedback from the robot in picking up objects.

Now, if the researchers can now only simulate smell that would be nice but that is going to be much harder.

Senate Bill 1 (Section 220)

The Senate is planning to pass a bill that will discourage grassroots lobbying groups from forming. The bill will fine any grassroots group that does not report issues, employees, contractors and dollars spent in what is called "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying." The fine is up to $100,000. To me this bill is close to violating the freedom to assemble right.

It seems to and others that it sounds like the Senate does not want to be bothered with their constituents have to say. They don't want to be bothered with phone calls, emails, etc. That smacks of elitism. I can understand eliminating bribes from lobbyists--which is what I believe what the voters really want in lobbying reform--but not discouraging voters from communicating with them. When the legislative branch does not want to listen to what the voters have to say then you have the legislative branch potentially out-of-control.

For the reader who does not belong to a lobbying group you may think this bill is not important. But what if you wanted to join a special interest group or even start your own? What if you got your friends, family and neighbors together to email a Senator about a particular issue? This bill might discourage you from doing that. There is nothing wrong with lobbying groups as long as they don't bribe a Senator. A Senator might ignore one email about an issue, but it is hard to ignore 50 or 100 emails from different people about the same issue.

I should say this bill is sponsored by Harry Reid (D-NV). And it has so far 13 Democrats co-sponsoring it and four Republicans co-sponsors. It's funny that the Democrats say President Bush does not listen to the American people about the Iraq War when the people sponsoring this bill do not want to listen to the American people. I hope the President vetoes this bill if it reaches his desk.

Teams in the Fine Arts

In computer science there is a concept called team programming. This is where more than one programmer program on a large complex system (a program) because it would take one programmer a lot longer to do it himself. Also, it makes sense. Why handle a complex problem in its entirely when you can break it up into smaller easier to digest (mentally, ie) parts and have each programmer only worry about his part. This is in a nutshell is the team programming concept. Could this concept be applied to the fine arts? Let's explore that notion.

Painting. I think it could be applied here. In landscape painting, you have several elements that could be done by several painters (probably not at the same time). One painter could be responsible for the sky, another could be responsible for the mountain(s), another painter could paint the ground, and yet another one doing the trees. For every element in the painting, a corresponding painter could paint. The same for portraits. Break up the face into eyes, ears, mouth, etc.

Literature. Here again this can be broken up. One writer is responsible for dialogue, another one could write the details of the setting, and maybe another one who is responsible for the plot.

Music. Music has already been doing this in a way. Where you have one who is the lyricist and the other one who is responsible for the melody. Technically, this is not a team, but a dual. A team is composed of at least three players. Musicians other than soloists sort of apply the team concept. One person sings, one plays the percussion instruments, one plays the keyboards, one plays lead guitar, etc. as in a rock or country band.

How realistic are these scenarios? Not very realistic. Artists tend to be individualists and their creations are a part of them.They have a hard time detaching themselves from their creations. (Actually, I believe that anyone who creates has this emotional reaction.) Also, the fine arts is about communicating emotion especially in music and painting. It is not about solving problems like computer science is. This maybe why you don't see team painters for instance.

Unions and Secret Ballots

Unions are proposing "card-check" legislation that would eliminate secret balloting during representation elections. Where are you ACLU? I mean this to me would be a civil rights violation. Then again this fits the behavior of most unions--worker intimidation. One local chief a union confessed to the Wall Street Journal that "we don't do elections." Well, isn't that nice. With the democrats in charge now that legislation might happen to the detriment of the union members.

If you think this kind of intimidation is rare you would be wrong. In 1996, A West Virginia miner was shot dead for working during a strike. Want another example a little more recent? In 2004, a worker who opposed unionization has his house "put on the map" by flyers put in the plant that had the worker's address and phone number on it and this message "Jeff Ward lives here. Go tell him how you really feel about the union." Mr. Ward had the plant cancel its recognition of the union because the workers never had a chance to vote for or against the union. The two examples sound more like organized crime than organized labor. That's why I like right to work laws that make it illegal for unions to force or coerce someone to join a union.

I find it interesting that labor unions say they back the worker and yet call him a "scab" when he crosses the picket line. Unions should not endorse such behavior but they do and they probably even encourage it. I guess the unions only support workers if they go along with what unions want. Then again if workers don't join a specific union the union's leaders not only loses money from dues but also power.

I believe not only should people hold big government and big business accountable for their actions but also big labor.

The Death Penalty

I am for the death penalty for two reasons: One, when a country executes someone for murder you are sending a signal that for the ultimate crime you will get the ultimate punishment--death. After all serial rapists and other felonies can get a life-sentence. A country needs to differentiate between murder and other felonies. Two, dead murders cannot commit murder ever again. They can never be paroled. Murders with a life sentence have a possibility of being paroled. In all fairness to the death penalty opponents I will give some arguments why they oppose the death penalty.

One argument--and probably I think the best argument they have is--a country might execute an innocent person. True, this might happen but executing an innocent person has more to do with the actual criminal trial of the person than the punishment. After all an innocent person could go to jail too. Fault lies in the criminal trial itself. Justice is not so much about finding the truth about the crime than winning and losing. The prosecutor just wants to find the defendant guilty and the defense lawyer wants to find the defendant not guilty. Both parties use whatever legal means possible to win and meanwhile the truth gets lost. If you are going to execute someone the prosecutor has to have a lot of independent credible witnesses and/or incriminating hard physical evidence. You don't want an innocent person to be executed then reform the justice system. Besides a criminal does not get executed right away at least in America. There are always appeals. I would even let the execution delay a month so that the defense attorney or anyone else who thinks the person is innocent can investigate the case further. A month should be plenty of time to investigate. Along the same lines, if you let a murderer out of jail because of a technicality (for instance evidence that is obtained illegally) and he kills someone then an innocent person still gets killed. Either way an innocent person might be killed. In this case because the truth was ignored because evidence was obtained illegally probably not on purpose some else might die. Evidence is still evidence. I am not condoning police breaking the law, but if they obtained it illegally through an oversight of their own then it should still be allowed in a trial. It is the truth that should be the determining factor.

Another argument is the death penalty is state-sanctioned murder. In his book Think A Second Time Dennis Prager has a good reply to that argument. He says if the death penalty is state-sanctioned murder then putting someone in prison is state-sanctioned kidnaping.

A third argument is the death penalty does not deter murder. Well, does putting a criminal in prison deter any crime at all? If that was the case then the crime rate should be zero. I mean if you are to the point of committing a crime you are not thinking about getting caught. You are probably concentrating and planning the crime itself. Also, most criminals think they can outwit the police and not get caught until they get on America's Most Wanted show. The only thing that stops someone from committing murder is a healthy conscience.

Number four reason against the death penalty: Executing someone is revenge by the state. No, it is not. When a person is arrested for a crime (s)he is given a jury trial before being put in prison or executed. Revenge is usually done by someone without a cool head and the victim does not have a chance to defend himself.

Bill O'Reilly has a unique argument against the death penalty. He says that executing someone is too easy. He wants to punish the murderer by having him do hard labor. Okay. I have a compromise to his argument. We can have the convict do hard physical labor up until he is executed. That way it will keep his mind off of his execution and keep him busy.

Executing someone is never a happy event. The victim is still dead. The victim's friends and family will still miss and mourn the victim. The only consolence the victim's significant others has is justice and knowing that no-one else will be hurt.