Personal Spring Stuff

I've been remiss in saying very much about what is personally going on this spring. Some pictures from various events can be found here -- from time to time I'll be posting photos to that site.

• I had a fantastic fishing trip to Mille Lacs with a couple friends. We limited out the first night up, had a big fish dinner, and the action was just about as hot all day Friday. Personally I picked up three walleye 21", two 22", a 23" and a 24". Nobody broke 25", but the totals in the 20-25" range for the other two guys were similar. Cold front went though Friday night and they shut down for Saturday, but no complaints. Kind of fishing that just can't be beat!
• We have been very much enjoying the firepit that we added off the end of our deck. There have been a number of evenings out there with friends and we had a nice party Memorial Day weekend.
  
• Oldest son has completed Freshman year at UWL with excellent grades, and is working part time at the physics lab and taking a couple summer classes. He has been coming home most weekends, so that has been fun.
  
• Youngest son has completed Freshman year of HS with a 4.0 and is doing excellent in band and will be an officer for Key Club next year. Mom and Dad have been very proud to see him receive recognition at two awards banquets this spring and listen to him play in a great band concert. The band kids really seem to have a good time, and it is fun for a couple with "engineer wiring" to be able to tag along by virtue of his abilities.
  
• Have been enjoying getting out on the bicycles quite frequently.
  

The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy at work, and then I HOPE that there is a slight bit of a slow-down so that more reading / blogging can be done. I've behind in my book-reports again with a few that have been read but not blogged on.

The Innovators Solution

An excellent business book by Clayton Christenson and Michael Raynor is an excellent business book on innovation in business and the forces that drive companies to take certain business actions that nearly insure their demise unless they constantly innovate. The book covers both the issues and the methods to combat the problems.

The book opens with some remedial coverage of "The Innovators Dilemma". As companies become successful, the natural drive is to move "up market" where profits are better. They focus on the high end, really listen to and provide for those customers, and eventually lose the lower end of the market as their products are "too good" (expensive, complicated, large, etc) for the bulk of the market, and they are focused only on their most profitable customers.

The business becomes expert at "sustaining innovation"--better performance, added features, new hardware, more options, different models, etc. all of which hone the product, and are generally very predictable. The business forgets completely about messy "disruptive innovation", that DOESN'T bring better products to customers in known markets, but rather attempts to provide products that are not as good as existing products, but provide advantages in cost, ease of use, scale, targeting, or other areas that will enable the product to compete against non-consumption (completely new customers), or less demanding customers. PC, Linux, etc. A nice case history of integrated mills vs mini mills is presented.

There was a discussion about people and companies having "jobs" that need to get done and they are looking for a product or service that they can "hire" to do that job. The item for the market researcher to go after is the CIRCUMSTANCE, not the CUSTOMER. "Innovations that make it easier for customers to do what they weren't trying to do before must compete against customers' priorities. This is very hard to do."

"Managers often segment markets along the lines for which the data are available, rather than in ways that reflect the things that customers are trying to get done." (think of the drunk that lost his billfold in a field looking for it under a street-lamp because the light is better there!) Rather than doing that, look at four keys to new market disruption (competition against non-consumption):

1. Target customers are trying to do a job but they lack money or skill.
2. The customer will compare your product against having no solution.
3. You can deploy a solution that is simple, convenient and foolproof (relative to what they have)
   
4. The product creates a whole new value network. (new consumers purchase the product through new channels)

There is an interesting discussion of modular vs interdependent architectures. As technologists, this makes pretty easy sense--a "fully custom solution" that has a lot of dependencies can be faster, BUT, it is much less flexible, and requires more to be done in a single organization. A modular approach is more one size fits all, and not as heavily optimized. Companies that build specialized integrated things will "overshoot", and their products will become "too good" for the mass market. One will hear employees cursing customers with: "Why can't they see that our product is better than the competition? They are treating it like a commodity!" IBM's PC experience is used as an example of a big company getting burned on dealing with modular vs interdependent architecture.

"Whenever commoditization is at work somewhere in the value chain, a reciprocal process of de-commoditization is at work somewhere else in the value chain." When your product is commoditized, you lose the ability to differentiate, and thus revenue--the company has to follow Gretzky and "develop the intuition for skating not to where the money presently is in the value chain, but to where the money will be.". The six steps of commoditization are:

1. Company creates a product with a proprietary architecture that is a hit.
2. Company overshoots the lower tier customers in market.
3. Basis of competition changes to "good enough"
4. Modular architecture solutions arise that better meet needs
5. The industry DIS-integrates (meaning products made up of modular commodities)
   
6. No longer possible to differentiate products on other than price.

De-Commoditization:

1. Low-cost commodity producers drive out high-cost incumbents -- moving ever up-market.
2. Because key performance defining subsystems become the constraint, they become important non-commodities
   • EG PC OS for MS, Processor for Intel, Graphics cards for ATI, vs "Computer" for IBM
3. Specialization / differentiation moves to the module level (graphics card)
4. Leading sub-system providers now differentiated
5. This sets up the next round of commoditization.

"Companies that are positioned at a spot in the value chain where performance is not yet good enough will capture the profit." ..."To the extent that an integrated company such as IBM can flexibly couple and de-couple it's operations, rather than irrevocably sell off operations, it has a greater potential to thrive profitably for an extended period than does a non-integrated firm such as Compaq."

"Core competence, as it is used by many managers, is a dangerously inward looking notion. Competitiveness is far more about doing what customers value than dong what you think you are good at. Staying competitive necessarily requires a willingness to learn new things rather than clinging hopefully to the sources of past glory. The challenge for incumbent companies is to rebuild their ships at while at sea, rather than dismantling themselves plank by plank while someone else builds a new, faster boat with what they cast overboard as detritus."

"We don't even question who makes the dresses in Talbot's, the sweaters for Abercrombie&Fitch, or the jeans at Gap and Old Navy. Much of the apparel sold in these channels carries the brand of the channel, the the manufacturer."

The RPV Framework:

• Resources - The people that can successfully lead sustaining innovation are almost certainly the wrong people to lead disruptive innovation. The issue isn't so much "success" as the history of willingness to wrestle with nasty problems and learn the right answers.
• Processes - "How an organization transforms inputs into things of greater value". "If that organization has not repeatedly formulated plans for competing in markets that do not yet exist, it is safe to assume that no processes for making such plans exist."
• Values - "An organizations values are the standards by which employees make prioritization decisions". "values often define constraints--they define what the organization cannot do.". The key value is overhead/financial model. Money is the fuel of business just like gas is the fuel of your car. So much of it is required for the business to operate as it currently does, and THIS business can't operate in a cost structure that won't support that (but one with a different cost structure CAN, and even be very profitable. Think Wal-Mart vs local hardware store)
  

"The requirements of an innovation need to fit with the host organizations processes and values or the innovation will not succeed." It is a bit like "transplant rejection" in medicine. "Organizations cannot disrupt themselves." A sobering thought for business organizations, since disruption is inevitable, they MUST break off units with different financial models if they seek to survive.

"Be patient for growth, not for profit.". Big companies with the wrong cost structure tend to do the reverse with disruptive business. It CAN work (Amazon is the counter example), but in general it is the model to be profitable that is what needs to be arrived at, not just "growth". It is too easy for the people to kid themselves by "losing a bit on each unit and assuming they will make it up in volume."

A principal refrain of this book is that blindly copying the best practices of successful companies without the guidance of circumstance-contingent theory is akin to fabricating feathered wings and flapping hard. Replicating their success is not about duplicating their attributes; it's about understanding how to generate lift (profit)."

This is a top tier business book--not a lot of filler, pretty concrete and easy to understand. Good way to get some insight into some of the core issues that build and destroy huge corporations.

The Case For Conservatism

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053002026.html

George Will is a bit wordy here, but generally right on with the legitimate differences between a conservative and a liberal outlook. One would like to think that these kinds of thoughts would be uppermost in the minds of voters in a democracy.

A sample ... 

Steadily enlarging dependence on government accords with liberalism's ethic of common provision, and with the liberal party's interest in pleasing its most powerful faction -- public employees and their unions. Conservatism's rejoinder should be that the argument about whether there ought to be a welfare state is over. Today's proper debate is about the modalities by which entitlements are delivered. Modalities matter, because some encourage and others discourage attributes and attitudes -- a future orientation, self-reliance, individual responsibility for healthy living -- that are essential for dignified living in an economically vibrant society that a welfare state, ravenous for revenue in an aging society, requires.

The Internal Conservative Debate and Left Agreement

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?47355-The-American-right-is-a-cauldron-of-debate-the-left-isn-t

The guys off Powerline thought this was "long and hard to read". I know I'm average though, so I'd say they are wrong --concise and easy!

I think the guy has a good analysis of "the simplicity of the left", and since I've read two out of 3 of the books he mentions and loved them, I'll have to read the other one. One of them "Conservative Mind" was post blogging, so is discussed here, and here.

Where Did Kyoto Go?

I find the Kyoto treaty to be one of those small wonders of press bias and selective liberal concern. On July 25, 1997, the Senate passed a sense of the Senate vote 95-0 against the US taking part in the treaty. That is as close as it has come to being actually considered in this country. The Clinton administration never pushed it and we were led to believe by the press that the Republicans had it bottled up. When Bush took office, it became "Bush's fault" that the US was not a Kyoto signer, even though it had never been Clinton's fault.

Oddly though, I believe the Democrats took over both houses of Congress in '07 did they not? Where is Kyoto? Suddenly, it is nowhere to be seen. One could think it could easily be at least brought to a vote now, or the Republicans could be forced to filibuster to prevent it. Right? Certainly the fate of the planet is more important that some minor functionary in the justice department talking about 8 guys being fired? I mean wasn't "needless investigation" one of the horrors of the Republican Congress during the '90s? They were focused "on the wrong things", and the MSM pointed a lot of fingers at "time and money being wasted". Do I detect a small change in attitude?

Why is that? Bill Moyers seems to think that the press wasn't critical enough of WMD before the war. This is somewhat like the press not being in FAVOR of the idea that the USSR and communism could be defeated when Reagan stated it in the early '80s. Even though the MSM turned out to be wrong and Reagan turned out to be right, I don't call that "bias'--it was common knowledge that the USSR was going to be with us forever. Even secretary-killer Teddy said on the subject of WMD: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sept. 27, 2002. Normally I only trust Teddy on issues relating to liquor selection, but the media seems quite fond of him, so I mention him here.

If there are no usual suspects to quote on the "other side", then it is tough for them to NOT be "biased". They are "biased against" a flat earth, for the US having landed men on the moon, and "biased for" many other things that are common knowledge. They were biased for the belief that there was global cooling in the early '70s, that we were out of oil in the late '70s, and that starvation was going to be the leading world problem at the end of the 20th century for a very long time. Prior to 2003, the poll numbers that assumed that Saddam DID NOT have WMD approximated flat earthers and moon landing hoaxers (but were well behind those that believe in UFOs). I'd call that a "bias to common knowledge"--a completely different form of bias that is quite different from an idealogical bias.

Explaining a "bias" for common knowledge is pretty easy--in fact the usual definition of a bias AGAINST it is somewhere between "iconoclast", "crumungeon", or "insane". Even making the claim that a bias for common knowledge is somehow "idealogical" shows how really far out there a Moyers and those that pay attention to him really are. Why the MSM would find Kyoto to be a huge issue with one party in Congress but no issue at all with another is a completely different type of bias, which I argue is best explained by ideology.

A Democrat to Admire

There are precious few of these around today, this article is clearly from one (Lieberman is another). The article is WELL worth reading, it points out Mr Kerrey's understanding that the vast majority of the current Democrats have no sense of consistency or idea of the cost of defeat for America and the world.

clipped from www.opinionjournal.com The Left's Iraq Muddle Yes, it is central to the fight against Islamic radicalism. BY BOB KERREY Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically "yes." This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified--though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.

Carter Flip Flops on Worst?

clipped from www.cnn.com Carter: Anti-Bush remarks 'careless or misinterpreted' ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday his remarks were "careless or misinterpreted" when he said the Bush administration has been the "worst in history" for its impact around the world.

Pawlenty and Willie Sutton

Reading what liberals say is an endless source of humor--a great example, the following from an otherwise completely standard lefty diatribe in the Strib about how the taxes on the "wealthy" are too low.

To be the kind of state Minnesota aims to be, it needs a tax policy that heeds the famous advice of bank robber Willie Sutton: "Go where the money is." Right now, Tim Pawlenty is standing in the way.

Is there sort of a "Pinocchio Principle" that the lefties are somehow occasionally forced by the order of things to actually tell the truth even though it is against their nature? In order for MN to be the kind of state they feel it needs to be, the state needs to be more like a BANK ROBBER, and right now that awful Republican Governor is standing in the way of those bank robbers! Imaging that! Oh, the injustice, keeping the robbers out of the pockets of those evil rich!

Oh, if it were only true. This crazy idea that the rich pay "less of a percentage" has the same sort of truthfulness as most lefty "facts". The "rich" pay "less of a percentage" for toilet paper, beer, gas, and everything, because they can only consume so much of most things and their incomes are higher, so DUH ... they pay a "lower percentage". SO ... gas taxes, property taxes, FICA taxes (over $100K income), sales taxes (they save more than most "not rich" people), etc. **IF** you CAREFULLY pick just the right way of selectively looking at STATE TAXES, the rich pay "less of a percentage". Again, not really as a general rule, but you can find SOME CASES that are especially low on gas, property, sales, etc and say a lot of their income is from municipal bonds that are not taxed (which of course is a benefit to the state, since they ALSO pay lower interest to offset the tax advantage), etc.

What they don't say, is to the tiny extent that is true, it is true because Democrats continue to raise exactly the kind of taxes that will add to that situation-the current example being gas taxes. They have NEVER met ANY tax that they don't like to raise, so they don't JUST rob "banks", they are perfectly willing to go WELL beyond the Willie Sutton model and take their money from Widows, Orphans, and little kiddies piggy banks. Once you have established the morality that robbing is OK (in fact, LAUDABLE!), selectivity of targets just isn't a major consideraton.

10 Thousand Dead In Kansas

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed," Barack Obama said in a speech at a Richmond art studio.

WOW, that is a lot of dead Kansans ... especially from a town of 1800 people!!!

Of course, we know, he just "made a mistake", so only a story for the right wing nuts, no national story at all. As I've said before, I tend to agree with this ... we know that something like misspelling potato would never be a national story that would damage a candidate. Oh, oops, I mean damage a DEMOCRAT. It would never harm a DEMOCRAT!

Seriously, I do tend to think that the general treatment of Democrats in the press is "closer to correct" on this kind of story. I think it is "a bit weak" in cases like William Jefferson, the sitting Democrat Congressman caught with $90K of cold cash in his freezer when his party runs on "rooting out corruption", but I guess that just shows that I foolishly think the press is biased.

On the other hand. I've been known to get mixed up on Giga vs Mega when it comes to storage measures, but to be off by THREE orders of magnitude on LIVES? Isn't that just a BIT odd? I mean if you say "10 THOUSAND" dead when the real number is TWELVE, that seems to be very much "out of touch with reality", doesn't it? 9-11 was 3K dead, yes, the Democrats fabricated a 10K death toll for New Orleans, but the Boston Globe and AP listed that total at 964. So if you are saying "10K dead", doesn't SOMETHING go through your mind that says "gee, that doesn't sound right"?

Leadership needs some common sense--you can't know everything, so you better be able to keep track of the big picture. I'd argue that minor spelling mistakes fall in the category of "don't care". I'd even argue that an actual speech impediment would be OK as long as the leader can communicate--how much is made by Bush's verbal gaffes that are just obvious word mixing with no problems on actual meaning? Quite a lot.

Again, he probably did just actually make some sort of "brain drop out mistake", but, aren't 3 orders of magnitude on LIVES an odd thing? Dollars, bytes, days ... lots of other things I can see being "way off on", but it just seems that the idea of 10K dead in Kansas from a storm would tell you that you have the wrong story.

I guess the message is the same as always ... "Be a Democrat, and you too can say whatever you want, have sex at the office, be filthy rich and still OK and just generally be popular".

Bush Lied?

I've been over it so many times, it is like a broken record, but on the other hand, the MSM record is just as broken The lefties in the world believe that if you say something enough that makes it true. For the record, these quotes are ALL prior to Bush taking office, so if someone was being "misled", it certainly wasn't by BUSH! I just happened to see them linked by another web site, and couldn't resist having easy personal access to the information.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.


These and more are collected out on a Web Site that does a great job of debunking "Urban Legends", or "Internet Legends" ... from ALL sides. They are a fine example of non-partisan reporting. Something that I would MUCH rather see more of than "Rush Limbaugh vs Public Radio". (http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp)

If Saddam really didn't have any WMD, then he misled the world. If did have them, he successfully hid them. Which is true? Does it make any difference? EVERYONE with any sort of brain cells believed he had them. Reasonable people act based on the best information that they have. Fire departments treat every call as if it is real, even though a significant number are false. Something like 98% of people in the US were pretty darned certain that Saddam had WMD. Many of the anti-war people felt the potential of him using WMD on our troops was a reason not to go to war.

So any lefty that says "Bush lied" is only showing their own willingness to lie (not that we usually need any extra evidence). There are 100's of quotes like that above from "Sainted Democrats" ... the kind of folks like Bill and Hillary that the MSM trusts completely. When Billy attacked Iraq in '98 at a time that "seemed oddly related to impeachment proceedings", but he told us that he HAD to attack Saddam due to WMD and subsequently Secretary of Defense William S Cohen and Gen. Henry H Shelton (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced the action had been successful in "degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein's ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."

On 23 September 2002, former Vice-President Al Gore addressed the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on the subject of Iraq and the war on terrorism. Among the comments he offered there were the following:

Moreover, if we quickly succeed in a war against the weakened and depleted fourth rate military of Iraq and then quickly abandon that nation as President Bush has abandoned Afghanistan after quickly defeating a fifth rate military there, the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

Gore MUST "know" (to the extent that anyone can) at this point that Saddam has WMD. He was VP while his own administration attacked Saddam with WMD being a major support for that attack. If he DIDN'T "know", then we have to assume that Clinton and Gore were lying to us and ... what? The '98 attacks really were a "wag the dog conspiracy" for public opinion modification at the time of impeachment?

It is at points like this that "consistency not being an issue" comes to the aid and comfort of the lefty brain. It is OK for them to "selectively forget / ignore", and move forward with the world fitting the model that they now like, and simply forget what that would mean to a reality based on historical fact.

Retreat vs Attack

clipped from powerlineblog.com May 10, 2007 What's News? Yesterday, Scott wrote about the Appeal for Courage which was presented to Congress yesterday afternoon. You can read about the Appeal here. The Appeal was signed by more than 2,700 active duty servicemen and women. It says: As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack. CNN did report on this, though: "Retired generals, Iraq veterans launch anti-war ads": Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign Wednesday, saying the politicians can't support President Bush's policies in Iraq and still expect to win re-election.

Let's see, soldiers asking for support from their country? NOT news. Attack ads against Republicans? NEWS! Note that this IS NOT "Swiftboating", because it is against Republicans. Do you think those retired generals paid for those ads out of their own pockets? Pretty doubtful, yet nobody is out trying to point out which "known left-wing group with connections to some Democrat" is "responsible". Nope, this is just "good clean politics", as opposed to the dirty kind those Republicans always do!

Perfect Ride

Temp was about 80 with very slight breeze, everything completely green except for all the lilacs that are blooming, crab apples, and every other kind of flowering tree. Jumped on the bikes and put on 15 miles up and back on the trail, it couldn't be any nicer. We tend to ride up to an old railroad bridge that runs across one of the many branches of the Root River and then head back.

Makes it a two workout day. One at noon at the health club, and a nice ride in the evening. Do a bit more of that and maybe I can get my weight going down again. Hope to light a fire in the pit and spend some time out there enjoying the evening before bedtime.

I ride down the old railroad bed trail on blacktop on the Trek 24-speed with the digital speedo reading 14-17 and think about how nice it all is. I do remember the old Schwinn Collegiate 5-speed that I got in Jr High and riding that on the gravel drive. It was pretty cool to get, but it was something like getting my first Honda CB-500-T motorcycle and discovering that wind and vibration were pretty big factors in a motorcycle. Gravel, a heavy frame, a narrow seat, and 5-speeds were just not how a bicycle was "supposed to be".

I remember the night I drove my new Honda CX-500 with the full Vetter fairing back from the dealer down the interstate and said "wow, this is motorcycling". I suspect if I had ever driven a big Gold-Wing or BMW touring bike I would have had even more of an "ah-ha".

Some folks look back that the old days and seem to think them better. I suspect that lots of it is personality, and some of it may be the issue of if life unfolded in anything like the way that you envisioned. In by far the most ways, life has exceeded my expectations. Somehow, enjoying the changes and the advancements just seems like a better idea in any case. We are a ways away from the time machine, and if one constantly finds the old days to be better, it seems unlikely that they will enjoy the future.

Congress Backed in Veto Battle

According to a CNN Poll, most back Congress in the Veto battle.

When a D President (Clinton) vetoed a bill it was the fault of the R Congress that sent up a bad bill, and they were punished in the press(Shutdown of '95). When an R President vetoed a bill sent up by a D congress (Bush 1, '92), then it is was the fault of the R President and he was punished in the press.

The algorithm is pretty easy here ... D wins, R loses. So we know the media position, but gee, doesn't a "poll" mean that it is REALLY just the position of Americans? Well, maybe not. They actually let you LOOK at the poll they used if you are willing to dig.



Hmm, they failed to even ask if anyone favored Congress sending up a clean bill with no timetables or benchmarks and the most favored position was the most favorable for Bush that they asked. Benchmarks only was favored over benchmarks and timetables.




Even stranger, they "somehow" fail to mention at all that right now the public says it is CONGRESS that is most responsible for the problem 44-34%. Even worse, only 41% of the people have gotten the message that the war is lost like Harry Reid thinks. 55% say No, the war is not lost. Somehow those numbers aren't mentioned and the only message the headline readers get is "Most Back Congress Over Bush In War Funding Fight".

This is what is called "creating the news". Anytime a poll is used, it should be suspect because the person using the poll is able to manipulate what kind of results they get in many ways. In this case, they take it a step farther and selectively ask and report exactly what they want to get the slant that they want. The majority of the sheep have no principles and want to be "on the winning side". The MSM knows this well, so keeps hammering away to move public opinion to where they want it.

Here we see where the "seasoned observer" can tell that the war actually IS lost even though most Americans are more hopeful than that. Most Americans don't realize that our enemies are primarily fighting against public opinion, and that is primarily controlled by the MSM. We have slipped as a nation far enough that VERY few understand that ideas have consequences, but unfortunately, far less than a majority even believe that ACTIONS have consequences.

They answer a poll that "the war is not lost", which is true in the "technical sense", that of course if America had the will, Iraq would eventually be stabilized and not end up as "Taliban 2". However; since a majority now say "they don't support the war", even though they don't think of what it actually mean to LOSE, the war is lost.

We will eventually take the consequences of that action, to which even though 80% supported the original action, the response will be "it was the fault of Bush". How many will die in future 9-11 like attacks before people rise up and say "I don't really care who was at fault, we have to do something about these attacks"? I'm guessing 100's of thousands, but I may be an optimist.

Well, at least the headline is true. Congress IS "backed", they are backed by the MSM, and that is what is going to count for the foreeable future.

The W Stock Market Boom

Remember during the Clinton Impeachment proceedings how were told that there was no way we could impeach the perjurer-in-chief because it would cause the market to go down? The "Clinton Economy" was the talk of the town in the late '90s; happy days were here again.

Gee, the market is breaking all-time high after all-time high. Our expansion is into 6 years and pushing to be longer than the Clinton expansion. Why isn't the "Bush Economy" or "Bush Market" on the tip of every tongue?

This really ought not take explanation, but to review. A "D" means that good things are due to you and bad things are due to something that some "R" did--either in the past, or currently if the public was foolish enough to give any political power to any "Rs". If something good happens with an "R" in power, it had nothing to do with them, or it happened in spite of them--however if it happens with a "D" in power, they are DIRECTLY responsible no matter what kind of "negative R stuff" might have been done in the past or concurrently.

Reaganomics was a failure and the USSR folded on its own. Bill Clinton kept us peaceful and secure, did a great job with the economy, and balanced the budget (the Republican Congress had no budget authority during the Clinton administration). While he was at it, he even found time to make oral sex with employees a good thing for the office and extend the definition of "is" by a bunch. The only decent President we have had since Carter.

That is the world of the left wing, and they are determined that is REALITY!

Demographics Is Destiny

Readers of this Blog will recognize Michael Barone as one of my favorite geniuses. He is fun to watch on TV as he quotes demographics from counties and districts across the nation from memory. That kind of genius is somewhat "savantish", but what makes him unique is that he combines that kind of statistical horsepower with concise and insightful writing. A RARE combination that I would love to emulate more. The whole article is here. He points out some detail of how Americans are moving around and immigrants are moving in:

This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they're moving out of our largest metro areas. They're fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they're moving out. The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations--these are driving many Americans elsewhere. 

The result is that these Coastal Megalopolises are increasingly a two-tiered society, with large affluent populations happily contemplating (at least until recently) their rapidly rising housing values, and a large, mostly immigrant working class working at low wages and struggling to move up the economic ladder. The economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting to look like the economic divide in Mexico City and São Paulo.

The bottom line for Republicans is that as long as freedom still exists, people will generally move to where they can have what THEY see as the best life. The wealthy want to live in a class society with low income immigrants doing their menial work, and very few middle class families going to church and trying to provide them with family values. They have already achieved financial security, they want to limit the number of others that can achieve it, and live their lives with no moral rules applied to them. The limousine liberals -- Kerry, Edwards, Kennedy, Pelosi, etc. are examples.

The task will be to try to preserve as much freedom as possible against the coming onslaught. There are always many more well people than sick people, so national health seems like a great idea. It is much better when you don't have to use it! It may even help reduce the retirement problem since once all competition is removed from the medical system, the government will be free to go to lowest common denominator medicine. Early deaths aren't that bad a thing for reducing Social Security payments.

Today it is clear that we live in a land of opportunity, look at the immigration problem that we have. We didn't see that level of problem until we got into the 80's and the economic boom. Not so many folks want to migrate to a country where it is time to put on a sweater, turn off the Christmas lights and hunker down for a cold future of decline with Jimmuh Carter!

The nice thing about being a lefty is that opportunity isn't all that hard to get rid of. Raise the tax rates, add some tariffs, make it harder for workers to be laid off (like in Europe and Japan, that is one of the big reasons their economies are in trouble) and before you know it, opportunity gone, immigration problem gone! Who says Democrats can't solve problems, there are two down without even thinking hard. Dead old folks don't collect payments, and nobody wants to immigrate if there aren't any jobs!

I suspect that Michael is right in the long term, but I'm guessing that we will do a slide to at least "Carter Depth", and unfortunately probably lower before we have a chance to pull out this time. We lucked out after Vietnam and only a few million Cambodians and Vietnamese had to pay with their tortured lives for our lack of national resolve. As we see in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda and of course the holocaust, Americans can be pretty sanguine about the loss of "other folks" ... we wring our hands well after the fact, but stopping Saddam from killing 100's of thousands just isn't worth single digit thousands of US lives ... even with the supposed big "oil pay-off". I still enjoy the low oil prices that blood for oil as bought us. I gotta hand it to the left that they had it pegged there!