The Weekly Notes 2007 |
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Notes 2007 Archives 170 Billion: That’s what it cost us for one year in Gerald Ford: Everyone who cares already knows he died on Ford ended the insanity by granting a full pardon. It was a good move. Ford was a good man. He took the helm in the middle of a monstrous storm and steered the ship of state to calm waters. He was the dean of the Republicrumb party. Though never actually elected to the office he turned out to be one of the best presidents we have ever had. We have had two presidents who did not seek the office. They were George Washington and Gerald Ford. Both turned out to be first class. We have not had enough first class men in that office. Damn the Dumbocrats and the Republicrumbs. Music: We watched the Kennedy Honors deal on television. They honored a number of musical artists of all types. Laura Bush seemed to enjoy it. George acted like he was visiting his dentist. I thought he would at least enjoy the Country and Western parts, but he grimaced through the whole thing. Go figure. I have concluded that music truly is the international language. Muslims and some American politicians seem to have never learned that language. Sigh! Scholarships: She is stealing the grant money from the tobacco settlement funds. That suit was settled with the understanding that the money would be used to educate kid away from tobacco. That’s all! Any other use is a betrayal of trust! Of course, Granholm is a politician. Betrayal of trust is normal to that species. So long as she can make herself look good for the photo-ops, it’s a win for her! Steinman’s Law: I think it is time for us to face the fact that our air
traffic system does not work. That was never demonstrated more clearly than
it was the week before Christmas 2006. Not hundreds, but thousands of
travelers were stranded because of a snow squall in This is another example of my “SLODE” law. Townsend in his book, “Up the Organization,” defined a special case of this law. I can paraphrase what he said. You may come to a place to solve a problem, but if you are still there some years later, you are the problem. My generalized statement of this law is, ‘a system that once solved a problem will cease to work and become a problem when the environment changes.’ Call that Steinman’s law of dynamic environments (SLODE). Our problem is in not recognizing this law when it manifests. Instead of trying to find new solutions, we struggle to make the obsolete solutions continue to work in the new environment. We end up with a hodgepodge of patches on patches that require more and more energy to maintain. This air traffic problem is a classic example of the law in action. We have too much traffic with portals too small for that traffic. The system worked well when there were just a few air travelers. Now we have tens of thousands. Increasing the portal size will not help because they are already too big to manage and traverse. Even on a good day, most travelers will spend more time in the airport than they will spend in the air. That’s crazy! Strange Weather: Winter has yet to appear in The Mad King: He is going to go along with the muscle-mongers. He is
going to increase the troop level in The point is, our generals in the field have been overruled and strong-armed by an insane administration. It’s disgraceful. Some of the folks on the Stephanopoulos round table think the Shiites may do some ethnic cleansing while we are dinking around with troop surges. We may not have to wait long for that to happen.
Hussein’s appeal was rejected. Iraqi law required that he be hanged
within 30 days. They did not waste much time. He was hanged on A Christian might, A Muslim might, and a Jew might take pleasure in the death of a human being. No truly spiritual person would find any pleasure or satisfaction in that, regardless of justification. In this case, there was no justification. Life in prison would have served as well. Hussein’s execution was not about justice, it was about revenge. Ban Ki-Moon: He is no relation to the crazy religious Moon who preys on
dumb people. He is the incoming Secretary General of the UN from The Republic
of Korea. Stephanopoulos interviewed him. He is very polite, very articulate,
and very evasive. He is clearly a practiced bureaucrat with 37 years in
so-called pubic service. |