I would like to see every school replace the pledge with morning and evening Colors (the ceremony in which we raise and lower the national flag daily). Play the anthem at 0800, make everyone stand at attention, salute (as appropriate, based on attire: hats off, hand over heart, or a proper hand salute if uniformed)).
Do the same at sunset, although there'll be fewer people there. Put signs on the road: All traffic must stop during Colors.
Teach our children to respect the anthem and the flag as symbols of the best of our nation, then let them work out their own ideology as they mature.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Comment policy
I don't want to stifle exchanges unduly, but if I think your post is just a drive-by ad hominem attack or uses too many f-bombs, I may delete or censor it. Certain slurs are just too offensive to leave up. Others may be offensive, but not so egregiously that I will just pull them. The n-word is banished, "redneck hick" is not, unless the rest of the post is too malicious for me to accept.The sole exception is direct quotation that serves a purpose. Posting the opening of Gone With The Wind as a joke isn't good enough. Saying "Mr. X said this about [them]" can be allowed, if you can show where it's recorded. But if you're making it up, that's actionable as libel.I don't intend to be the one to take the heat for that.
"OMG, U R teh anti-christ" will not stay up. "What the frellin' frack, man? I freakin' can't fraggin' believe you farking icehole" goes, too. An occasional cuss word is ok; I'm a sailor, and we are quite fluent in "french". I try to have a thick skin. But let's try not to go past a PG or PG-13 here. I don't want to have to mark this as "adult content".
So feel free to engage in 'vigorous debate', just don't get nasty.
"OMG, U R teh anti-christ" will not stay up. "What the frellin' frack, man? I freakin' can't fraggin' believe you farking icehole" goes, too. An occasional cuss word is ok; I'm a sailor, and we are quite fluent in "french". I try to have a thick skin. But let's try not to go past a PG or PG-13 here. I don't want to have to mark this as "adult content".
So feel free to engage in 'vigorous debate', just don't get nasty.
Why 'Darkwing'?
Over 20 years ago, my favorite show was Darkwing Duck. I didn't set out to emulate him, however. My friends tagged me with that name.
After my then-girlfriend broke up with me, I decided to use my middle name instead of my first name, as part of re-inventing myself. When my friends came over for a game that night, I told them. We then watched the latest episode of my favorite show before starting the game.
A few minutes after the game started, one of the players had a question for me, and half a heartbeat after he asked it, he add "DW". Nobody had thought to put my initials together until then, and everybody broke up. I was "Darkwing" thereafter.
So no, I'm not obsessed with a certain animated avian. I had a friend nicknamed 'Indy', and didn't want to accept other friends naming me 'Junior' after The Last Crusade just because I have a similar chin scar. That'd be disrespectful of 'Indy'. Other nicknames over the years haven't stuck as long. So "DW" is my handle.
It could be worse: friends have been nicknamed "Mushroom" (ok, that one was my fault), "Klingon", "Tellarite", "Shrek/Ogre", "Donkey", and "Bruce Almighty/Robert the Bruce". What's your nickname and the story behind it?
After my then-girlfriend broke up with me, I decided to use my middle name instead of my first name, as part of re-inventing myself. When my friends came over for a game that night, I told them. We then watched the latest episode of my favorite show before starting the game.
A few minutes after the game started, one of the players had a question for me, and half a heartbeat after he asked it, he add "DW". Nobody had thought to put my initials together until then, and everybody broke up. I was "Darkwing" thereafter.
So no, I'm not obsessed with a certain animated avian. I had a friend nicknamed 'Indy', and didn't want to accept other friends naming me 'Junior' after The Last Crusade just because I have a similar chin scar. That'd be disrespectful of 'Indy'. Other nicknames over the years haven't stuck as long. So "DW" is my handle.
It could be worse: friends have been nicknamed "Mushroom" (ok, that one was my fault), "Klingon", "Tellarite", "Shrek/Ogre", "Donkey", and "Bruce Almighty/Robert the Bruce". What's your nickname and the story behind it?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Dead Reckoning, or the purpose of this blog.
From Bowditch, The American Practical Navigator:
Dead reckoning is the process of determining one’s present position by projecting course(s) and speed(s) from a known past position, and predicting a future position by projecting course(s) and speed(s) from a known present position. The DR position is only an approximate position because it does not allow for the effect of leeway, current, helmsman error, or compass error.
Dead reckoning helps in determining sunrise and sunset; in predicting landfall, sighting lights and predicting arrival times; and in evaluating the accuracy of electronic positioning information. It also helps in predicting which celestial bodies will be available for
future observation.
But its most important use is in projecting the position of the ship into the immediate future and avoiding hazards to navigation.
The navigator should carefully tend his DR plot, update it when required, use it to evaluate external forces acting on his ship, and consult it to avoid potential navigation hazards. A fix taken at each DR position will reveal the effects of current, wind, and steering error, and allow the navigator to stay on track by correcting for them.
That’s my intent with this blog: projecting our current course and speed to see where we, as a nation, are going, and suggesting course corrections. I’m an active-duty Quartermaster in the US Navy, which is to say an enlisted navigation specialist – armies started misusing the word centuries later. Bowditch is our bible.
Since I am on active duty, I have to include a disclaimer that any opinions here are my own, and any mention of my experience or service affiliation does not constitute endorsement of said opinion by the US Navy.
Fear does not justify relinquishing our rights.
I guess I've been complacent. Gun control hadn't been much of an issue recently, but Tucson changed that. First, I do not condone what this assassin did, but I also do not agree that it should spark any new attempts on our rights. As Franklin said, those who trade essential rights for temporary safety deserve neither.
Nor do I agree that the 'incendiary rhetoric' of the right is to blame - go read some of the minutes of Congress from the 19th century - the rhetoric was often more malicious, and occasionally erupted into violence, including canings, duels or threats of lynching.
The Constitution provides the 2nd amendment for several reasons:
1. Defense against our own government – I know what you’re thinking. Another far-right revolutionary. No. Just acknowledge that the founders had revolted against their lawful king, and wanted to preserve the right to do it again, if they felt it necessary.
Of course, they also didn't want a standing military, which they were forced to accept a few years later - idealism didn't pay the bills to re-establish a military every time there was a war. That standing army made a successful armed revolt impossible, as demonstrated by the Civil War. I don’t count the Whiskey Rebellion, because they were a small force, and Andy Jackson intimidated the proponents of Nullification enough to preempt it.
Nor do I agree that the 'incendiary rhetoric' of the right is to blame - go read some of the minutes of Congress from the 19th century - the rhetoric was often more malicious, and occasionally erupted into violence, including canings, duels or threats of lynching.
The Constitution provides the 2nd amendment for several reasons:
1. Defense against our own government – I know what you’re thinking. Another far-right revolutionary. No. Just acknowledge that the founders had revolted against their lawful king, and wanted to preserve the right to do it again, if they felt it necessary.
Of course, they also didn't want a standing military, which they were forced to accept a few years later - idealism didn't pay the bills to re-establish a military every time there was a war. That standing army made a successful armed revolt impossible, as demonstrated by the Civil War. I don’t count the Whiskey Rebellion, because they were a small force, and Andy Jackson intimidated the proponents of Nullification enough to preempt it.
2. Defense of our government against foreign encroachment. As stated above, the founders envisioned a militia, wherein the government stored the major implements of war (cannon, arsenals, etc - never mind the maintenance such gear requires), and each militiaman (every male from 18 on up) would, in time of war, show up with his own gun. This would have, in theory, saved the government the cost of outfitting troops
It wasn't a bad idea, just naive, because a military costs to build and to maintain. If you don't maintain what you have built, you pay a lot more to rebuild it from scratch each time. However, because of this, the 2nd Amendment clearly intends for the militiamen to be able to own and carry weapons equivalent to or superior to the contemporary military small arms.
3. Defense of self or other against crime, animals, etc. This is usually cited as a home invasion scenario, and yes, such things do occur. On the other hand, if anyone besides the assassin had been armed at the gathering in Tucson, he might not have killed or injured nearly as many victims. Colin Goddard, despite your comments, this has and will happen again, and ordinary, armed citizens will again stop armed criminals. It's not a video game scenario, it's reality. Sorry about your experience, but you are wrong.
What most writers forget, though, is defense against animals. When in rural settings, snakes, mountain
lions, bears, wolves, coyotes, and the like can be threats as well. Unlike human antagonists, it's not necessarily clear when an animal considers a human interloper to be trespassing - no signs are posted. Animals don't always react like humans, and can't speak, so it's a bit hard to tell an angry rattler "sorry, didn't mean to intrude. I'm leaving". And yes, I have run into rattlesnakes in urban environments - our cities continue to grow into animal's habitats.
4. Practice - if you don't use a skill, it atrophies. You also need to develop the judgment to use it appropriately.
5. Hunting - a lot smaller portion of today's society NEEDS to hunt to feed their family today than in the 18th century, but it's still a legitimate choice. I feel that trophy hunters should use a camera instead, but it’s still their free choice. It’s not for me to deny them that right.
6. Recreational shooting - it's fun and teaches safety and responsibility.
A large number of people have taken a dislike to guns in modern times, but they fail to understand that the Constitution does not allow them to waive the rights of others, nor do they grasp that it's the wrong approach.
Remember Carry Nation? She didn't like 'demon rum', and decided that nobody else should be allowed to partake either. She and her ilk ram-rodded an ill-conceived amendment to ban alcohol. It didn't work.
Instead, it caused all manner of trouble - speakeasies, bootleggers, bathtub gin, and gangland warfare. The answer was not to ban it, but to punish individuals for irresponsible behavior. Drive drunk, get slammed. Drink responsibly, and be left alone.
Instead of all these proposed 'controls', I suggest the following: In junior high/middle school, teach a full semester course on gun laws/ethics/safety. Just as we don't allow parents to opt out of sex ed course, so we don't allow them to pull their kids from this course - it's not a course in hunter's safety, there's no range time, no shooting.
Instead, whether you like guns or hate them, you will learn safety. If a gun control activist found a pistol in the woods, would they know how to be certain the weapon was safe without destroying any potential evidence in case it had been used in a crime? If you see someone holding a weapon, how should you react? That depends on how they’re holding it. For example, I brought an air pistol to a friend's house once to show it off. I pointed it at the ceiling, with the breech open, to show it was safe, yet another person there saw only a threat and jumped on me to wrestle it out of my hands, which was exactly the wrong reaction. Had it been real and loaded, he could have CAUSED an incident. He never even looked at my body language or looked closely enough to see the open breech. On the other hand, he had had no objections the week before when I showed off a tai chi sword.
If you don't like the current laws, do you really know what they are before crusading for 'stricter laws' or ‘greater freedoms’?
This course is just exposure to the knowledge - this way, kids whose only information comes from movies and TV will see when the celluloid 'heroes' are unsafe, stupid, or abuse their rights. The school course will not be graded, and is purely for informational purposes and to stimulate thinking.
Once a person is an adult, and wishes to purchase a firearm, we then require them to pass a graded version of the course and a hunter's safety course, complete with range time. They can have their background check done while in the course. They can't buy the gun or apply for a concealed carry permit until after they pass with at least a 90%.
Instructors will be taught to listen for inappropriate cues among their students, and steer them towards help if they think there's a problem. This course should focus even more heavily on the ethics of gun use than the school-age course did. Is it right to shoot in the air to stop a fight, as a recent episode of Desperate Housewives showed? Why or why not? Is it okay to bring beer to the tree stand?
Basically, every right should also be treated as a responsibility. To that end, I'd also suggest that gun ownership should automatically enroll the owner in the militia - if you are a gun owner, and not a police officer, EMT, active or reserve military, then in times of disaster, you can be called up and placed under command of National Guard officers to help with humanitarian relief or other peacekeeping.
You'll have to take a 1-2 week course prior to purchase that'll be an abbreviated boot camp, with a 3-5 day refresher every few years, just so you remember what a captain or major is, what different commands mean, etc.
Such militia-men would not deploy, would be instead like really-far back tier Guardsmen. If the Guard and Reserve can't muster enough folks to deal with the disaster - say 9/11, Katrina, or the like, then gun-owning militia get called. Make them take on a new responsibility, albeit one that would have been a part of it 200 years ago. We should never have gotten away from the citizen-soldier having to do his duty to his country and fellow citizens as part of the price of his freedom and rights.
Don't blame the tool, don't blame the person exercising their rights (regardless of the right - no I don't have to have nothing to fear in order to refuse an unwarranted search, nor do I need to believe in Islam to accept a mosque near the site of the twin towers).
Just hold people responsible for their choices.
Tuning Our Economic Engine
A nation’s economy is an engine of wealth. Creating and distributing wealth is the purpose of the economy, and what makes things possible. I cannot afford to build an apartment complex, but a developer, using funds from investors can. That, in turn, provides another investor to buy the building and rent to me, thus distributing the results of their wealth. My rent payment redistributes to them, contributing to the cycle.
You work at your job, making money for your employer, in return for a slice of that pie. Production (and some jobs and investments) creates new wealth; services jobs and other investments distribute that wealth. In recent years, we’ve complained about jobs going overseas, but didn’t really complain about the production that moved earlier – most of us bought the fairytale that a service-based economy would replace the production shipped away.
Unfortunately, we no longer make many of the things we used to, so someone else is taking our money for their goods. This wouldn’t matter if the economy were more global, but when the money flows into their pockets, it stops there, rather than cycling back around to purchase our services. This is good for them, but not for us – instead of a rising tide that lifts all boats, they rise at our expense.
We can’t blame them for it, because we did it to ourselves. We encouraged businesses to relocate elsewhere for cheaper labor. We drove them away with red tape and stiff regulation that they didn’t face elsewhere.
So how do we get out if this situation? We rebuild our production, changing laws to favor businesses who make goods here. A Toyota made in America is a better deal than a Ford made in another country. We don’t close down outside business, we just provide preference for materials and goods made here, creating jobs here.
I don’t mean “Always Buy American”, or “Buy Local”. The consumers should be free to choose in their best interest. If a Korean-made car is the right deal for the buyer, that’s what s/he should buy. But Uncle Sam should not be the travel agent for companies relocating. Unions should stop being greedy. The minimum wage should be scaled.
When we only buy locally, the money changes hands far fewer times, doing less work. The wider the area an economy covers, the more work money does, so long as no-one short-stops it.
Look at a river – eddies can create large, relatively still areas where the water does not flow, whereas rapids move a lot of water quickly.
When the only producers of a commodity don’t continue the cycle, they enrich themselves at their customers’ expense. When they are part of the cycle, everyone wins. A closed system with a drain is a losing game. That’s entropy. An open system, where the circuit is complete, but new materiel is injected regularly, expands. That’s the rising tide we hear about. This is why we need to buy into increasing our share of the market in MAKING goods, not just providing services.
We also need to reduce drag on our economy. Unions strike for increased wages just because they feel they can. Don’t tell me otherwise; my father had to join the union because of his job, and I saw it. Most of the strikes that were called were not due to injustice, insufficient wages, or dangerous job practices, but merely because the union negotiators felt that they could win, and to justify their jobs. They also lobbied government on a wide range of subjects having nothing to do with labor issues, and frequently with a slant diametrically opposed to that of most of their members.
Unions are necessary to an extent – they watch employers encroaching on employee’s rights and provide protection for those rights. But the days when the union was run by the members are over; now the union has employees of their own, who don’t have anything in common with their members. That needs to be reduced, and unions should be prohibited from lobbying on any issue not directly connected to their member’s jobs. An airline union should not be lobbying for or against the death penalty.
More finely, I wouldn’t let them lobby on an issue to permit individuals to privately invest a portion of their Social Security, but would let them do so if the issue were to allow the government to do so regardless of the taxpayer’s choices.
The Minimum Wage drives prices up, yet we also hear how people are unable to support families on it. Well, that’s true, but why do we then make fast food places pay teenagers a living wage? Restaurants and bars can pay below minimum wage because their employees receive tips, which reduces costs for the employer, so small businesses can stay in business.
But other businesses have the choice of paying kids looking for pocket money just as much as an adult with a family to feed , despite a lack of experience, or hire an adult for the job in the first place. So let’s change the law so that it has three scales: Tipped, Student (for high school and college students not supporting themselves), and Adult wage.
Lastly, let’s DEVELOP space. We have no more room to grow down here. An expanding economy or an expanding society is a healthy one, but we haven’t got the room down here.
I don’t care about planting a flag on Mars, or probing Saturn’s rings. We can do that when we get there. But just as the New World gave the Old a new source of goods and materials and a new market, so can space do for us today.
Habitats and factories in orbit can replace polluting industries down here, helping the environment. Mining asteroids can replace mines down here, bringing new sources of ore to our economy and further reducing environmental damage down here.
Every dollar invested in space has been returned many times over, and only the communications, weather, and GPS satellites contribute to the economy by their function. Everything else has been for exploration, scientific knowledge, or international posturing. If we replace scientific exploration and political expeditions for actual development in the next couple of decades, we could realize an even larger and more direct return for our investment.
There’s more to do than just my prescription above, but these are just some of the things we NEED to do, in my opinion, if we are to become a dynamic economy again
You work at your job, making money for your employer, in return for a slice of that pie. Production (and some jobs and investments) creates new wealth; services jobs and other investments distribute that wealth. In recent years, we’ve complained about jobs going overseas, but didn’t really complain about the production that moved earlier – most of us bought the fairytale that a service-based economy would replace the production shipped away.
Unfortunately, we no longer make many of the things we used to, so someone else is taking our money for their goods. This wouldn’t matter if the economy were more global, but when the money flows into their pockets, it stops there, rather than cycling back around to purchase our services. This is good for them, but not for us – instead of a rising tide that lifts all boats, they rise at our expense.
We can’t blame them for it, because we did it to ourselves. We encouraged businesses to relocate elsewhere for cheaper labor. We drove them away with red tape and stiff regulation that they didn’t face elsewhere.
So how do we get out if this situation? We rebuild our production, changing laws to favor businesses who make goods here. A Toyota made in America is a better deal than a Ford made in another country. We don’t close down outside business, we just provide preference for materials and goods made here, creating jobs here.
I don’t mean “Always Buy American”, or “Buy Local”. The consumers should be free to choose in their best interest. If a Korean-made car is the right deal for the buyer, that’s what s/he should buy. But Uncle Sam should not be the travel agent for companies relocating. Unions should stop being greedy. The minimum wage should be scaled.
When we only buy locally, the money changes hands far fewer times, doing less work. The wider the area an economy covers, the more work money does, so long as no-one short-stops it.
Look at a river – eddies can create large, relatively still areas where the water does not flow, whereas rapids move a lot of water quickly.
When the only producers of a commodity don’t continue the cycle, they enrich themselves at their customers’ expense. When they are part of the cycle, everyone wins. A closed system with a drain is a losing game. That’s entropy. An open system, where the circuit is complete, but new materiel is injected regularly, expands. That’s the rising tide we hear about. This is why we need to buy into increasing our share of the market in MAKING goods, not just providing services.
We also need to reduce drag on our economy. Unions strike for increased wages just because they feel they can. Don’t tell me otherwise; my father had to join the union because of his job, and I saw it. Most of the strikes that were called were not due to injustice, insufficient wages, or dangerous job practices, but merely because the union negotiators felt that they could win, and to justify their jobs. They also lobbied government on a wide range of subjects having nothing to do with labor issues, and frequently with a slant diametrically opposed to that of most of their members.
Unions are necessary to an extent – they watch employers encroaching on employee’s rights and provide protection for those rights. But the days when the union was run by the members are over; now the union has employees of their own, who don’t have anything in common with their members. That needs to be reduced, and unions should be prohibited from lobbying on any issue not directly connected to their member’s jobs. An airline union should not be lobbying for or against the death penalty.
More finely, I wouldn’t let them lobby on an issue to permit individuals to privately invest a portion of their Social Security, but would let them do so if the issue were to allow the government to do so regardless of the taxpayer’s choices.
The Minimum Wage drives prices up, yet we also hear how people are unable to support families on it. Well, that’s true, but why do we then make fast food places pay teenagers a living wage? Restaurants and bars can pay below minimum wage because their employees receive tips, which reduces costs for the employer, so small businesses can stay in business.
But other businesses have the choice of paying kids looking for pocket money just as much as an adult with a family to feed , despite a lack of experience, or hire an adult for the job in the first place. So let’s change the law so that it has three scales: Tipped, Student (for high school and college students not supporting themselves), and Adult wage.
Lastly, let’s DEVELOP space. We have no more room to grow down here. An expanding economy or an expanding society is a healthy one, but we haven’t got the room down here.
I don’t care about planting a flag on Mars, or probing Saturn’s rings. We can do that when we get there. But just as the New World gave the Old a new source of goods and materials and a new market, so can space do for us today.
Habitats and factories in orbit can replace polluting industries down here, helping the environment. Mining asteroids can replace mines down here, bringing new sources of ore to our economy and further reducing environmental damage down here.
Every dollar invested in space has been returned many times over, and only the communications, weather, and GPS satellites contribute to the economy by their function. Everything else has been for exploration, scientific knowledge, or international posturing. If we replace scientific exploration and political expeditions for actual development in the next couple of decades, we could realize an even larger and more direct return for our investment.
There’s more to do than just my prescription above, but these are just some of the things we NEED to do, in my opinion, if we are to become a dynamic economy again
You want to cut the budget? Get rid of bureaucrats.
House conservatives want to reduce federal employees by attrition - that's too little, too slow. It's not a bad idea, and they should do it. But that doesn't go far enough.
The problem is, it means waiting on people to retire, quit, or be fired, which is difficult for federal positions. It also means that the very bureaucrats who cost the most to retain are the least likely to attrite out. Sure some of these top-earning civil servants will want to retire, but I seriously doubt enough of them will do so to make a difference.
I think that Congress needs to push a federal retirement buy-out. After the committees figure out how many employees have more than 20, 25, or 30 years, they should choose a gate (all employees over 28 years, for example) to offer the initial round of buy-outs to, and authorize a number of follow-on rounds to reduced gates if that doesn't reach the desired number of retirements.
The bottom line would be how much money we'd save on payroll. If the target amount requires retiring X number of employees over 28 years, and only 70% take them up on it, then how many employees with 26 years should be offered the chance? Keep it up till the target is reached.
But that's not all they can do. When AT&T did this back in the 80's, they rated their installers from 1-5, with 5 being the highest and most experienced. They bought out most of their level 5 installers, reworked the pay-scale, and advanced everyone a pay-grade. So everyone got a pay raise, but not as big as it would have been before the change. In fact, the level 1 installers now started at minimum wage.
We could save a significant amount not only now, but in the future that way. No-one is hurt, but it resets the pay-scale downward, reducing payroll costs for years to come as well.
Finally, we re-evaluate the pay-grade requirements for every job. If a job description calls for a GS-14, is there a valid reason it can't be done by a GS-12 or even a GS-10? Any GS-14 doing the job stays in his pay-grade (it wouldn't be fair to demote him or her), but new personnel in that position start at the newly reduced grade.
So, tell me what's wrong with this scheme if you can.
The problem is, it means waiting on people to retire, quit, or be fired, which is difficult for federal positions. It also means that the very bureaucrats who cost the most to retain are the least likely to attrite out. Sure some of these top-earning civil servants will want to retire, but I seriously doubt enough of them will do so to make a difference.
I think that Congress needs to push a federal retirement buy-out. After the committees figure out how many employees have more than 20, 25, or 30 years, they should choose a gate (all employees over 28 years, for example) to offer the initial round of buy-outs to, and authorize a number of follow-on rounds to reduced gates if that doesn't reach the desired number of retirements.
The bottom line would be how much money we'd save on payroll. If the target amount requires retiring X number of employees over 28 years, and only 70% take them up on it, then how many employees with 26 years should be offered the chance? Keep it up till the target is reached.
But that's not all they can do. When AT&T did this back in the 80's, they rated their installers from 1-5, with 5 being the highest and most experienced. They bought out most of their level 5 installers, reworked the pay-scale, and advanced everyone a pay-grade. So everyone got a pay raise, but not as big as it would have been before the change. In fact, the level 1 installers now started at minimum wage.
We could save a significant amount not only now, but in the future that way. No-one is hurt, but it resets the pay-scale downward, reducing payroll costs for years to come as well.
Finally, we re-evaluate the pay-grade requirements for every job. If a job description calls for a GS-14, is there a valid reason it can't be done by a GS-12 or even a GS-10? Any GS-14 doing the job stays in his pay-grade (it wouldn't be fair to demote him or her), but new personnel in that position start at the newly reduced grade.
So, tell me what's wrong with this scheme if you can.
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