Boating on Shore

Alcohol involved? Now let's see, Teddy Kennedy fled the scene with a dead girl in his car and didn't show up until the next AM, and he is VERY rich and VERY well known. I wonder if the community will be disposed to be as forgiving of this guy?

clipped from www.twincities.com Police look for owner of yacht crashed along St. Croix River Police today are looking for the owner of a 41-foot yacht that was run 60 feet aground on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix River late Friday.

The Old Al Gore

Powerline has a link to Gore in '92 on CSPAN Here. One doesn't really need comedians when there are Democrats around.

Did Republicans think differently of Saddam when he was attacking Iran? Sure. I think Americans liked the USSR a bit more when they were fighting with Germany as well. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" isn't very new.

But Gore didn't think Bush Sr was tough enough on Saddam AFTER the Gulf War! Saddam supported terrorists, attacks on US citizens and warships. Saddam had a nuclear program, Saddam used and intended to use again WMDs--Gore sounds like quite a hawk. He still sounded like a Hawk when he was VP and he strongly supported bombing Saddam for all the same problems.

It isn't so much that minds can change. Information, political expediency, age, learning and a whole set of other things can change minds. The wild thing is that if there is a "D" after your name, the MSM never points out the sins of your past (even the videotaped ones), and you are NEVER asked to give an account of "what changed your mind".

George Will on the Stealth Economy

The stock market has been breaking records, unemployment is at 4.5%, we have had steady economic growth for 65 months, uh .. "the economy is bad". Or at least that is what folks that are polled believe--it is a "fact" that contributes to the low Bush poll numbers.

George Will does a good job of covering the facts, the Democrats response, and discusses the strange idea of "equal outcome" in a world where God has certainly chosen to not distribute ability or motivation equally. What he doesn't discuss is the right turn of the French. Apparently, even the French have realized that economic growth has some reality-based components. Will the Democrats ever come to that realization?

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com Democrats' Prosperity Problem Early in George W. Bush's presidency, liberal critics said: The economy is not growing. Which was true. He inherited the debris of the 1990s' irrational exuberances. A brief (eight months) and mild (the mildest since World War II) recession began in March 2001, before any of his policies were implemented. It ended in November 2001. In 2002, when his tax cuts kicked in and the economy began 65 months -- so far -- of uninterrupted growth, critics said: But it is a "jobless recovery." When the unemployment rate steadily declined -- today it is 4.5 percent; time was, 6 percent was considered full employment -- critics said: Well, all right, the economy is growing and creating jobs and wealth, but the wealth is not being distributed in accordance with the laws of God or Nature or liberalism or something.

Ed Koch On NYT Bush Derangement Syndrome

Ed Koch is a former DEMOCRAT Mayor of NY, but apparently he has been able to avoid the loss of sanity experienced by most Democrats as their Bush hatred and rage causes loss of sanity. The whole column is well worth the read. On the subjects of Gitmo, Libby and selection of important news, it is obvious to all but the enraged that the NYT has slipped the surly bonds of reality and fallen into the abyss of bias.

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com New York Times: How the Mighty Have Fallen By When I read the Times editorial page on June 6th, I was deeply disappointed. Why? Because on one day, in the same issue, three of the four Times editorials struck me as mean-spirited, lacking balance and just plain dumb. Pray tell, what is wrong with Congress and the President making that distinction when it comes to trials? Further, hasn't the military commission proved its fairness by the very fact that it dismissed the cases of the first two defendants brought before it, finding they were not "unlawful enemy combatants." Instead of assaulting the military tribunal as it did, shouldn't The Times have praised its fairness? Of course, but The Times is so blinded by its fury on the Iraq war and its hatred of President Bush that its editorial board can't think straight on these issues.

Ah, The Weekend! LDoS

I've often noticed that the joy of time off seems proportional in some sense to the difficulty of the work that preceeded it. The last day of schooling with finals over, a difficult task at work completed successfully, or some speech, paper, or distasteful home task well done and now comes "Miller Time". Marketing people are actually quite good at distilling some of our basic natures to their purposes and those old Miller beer commercials catch the feeling pretty well.

So the rough week at work was ncompleted, and the year at school for our 15 year old completed as well. If the "last day of school" (LDoS) could be bottled, it would be a product very easy to market. It seems that is one of those feelings that is "age and condition of life specific" that would be impossible to fully reach again in adulthood, but the weekend has been a hint of that. The level of youth, health, optimism, lack of experience in the ills of life, still feeling generally free of responsibility for themselves and others; linked with the wonderful completion of "that year is completely behind me and next year I begin again with a fresh slate" makes LDoS one of those life experiences to be savored.

Like all human experience, that LDoS is of course significantly illusionary. You certainly CAN die when you are in your teens. You certainly can create all manner of problems that may dog you for the rest of your days--habits, addictions, attitudes, damaging relationships, teenage pregnancy and other guilt / fallout from the victory of hormones over morality, injuries, crimes--the list is endless of course. In the way of nature however, when you are in your teens those downsides are quite far from the mind. You tend to feel invincible, your future is long with potentials unbounded, and the very fact of not really grasping the potential for "life changing ill" makes the experience what it is.

Socrates said "An unexamined life is not worth living". Interestingly, the result of that examination is often significantly that one becomes "consciously incompetent". You begin to know what you don't know. The more one learns, the more one realizes that the process of learning is always begining with "unconscious incompetence" (not being aware of what you don't know); to "conscious incompetence"; followed by "unconscious competence" where for some task or piece of life you "do the right thing", but may no longer be aware of how it was learned or why you do it.

Rosseau, and I suspect many liberals would arge that the LDoS feeling becomes inaccessable with examination, and the person is no longer "authentic". What Socrates and a conservative would see as "not worth living", the Rosseau and the liberal see as "not really life". The categorization, the judgment, the realization of inadequacy, the realizations of impermanence--all conspire in their minds to destroy "the human experience".

Knowledge and experience certainly change us, but while it is impossible to capture the "same exact experience" of the LDoS we experienced in youth, it has seemed this weekend that there are aspects that are even better. Having completed over 50 years of "life schooling" with at some level of decent grades in matters of earthy importance, weekends like this and the prospects for some other experiences of "Miller Time" in the coming weeks of summer has made this weekend so very enjoyable.

The examined life is VERY much worth living!

Democrats go to War

The Dems seemed to have picked the summer season to go to war with their favorite enemy; the evil rich. It is hard for them to find a terrorist or dictator not to their liking, but the thrifty, productive, and successful bring out their battle flags.

As per usual, they have a bit of trouble figuring out their exact quarry ... $500K, $200K, even $75K the Democrats are far better with nearly anyone's money than the people themselves, so they feel it is a huge benefit to all if they can just get it away from those nasty folks that have managed to make it.

Subsidize what you want more of -- retirement of productive people, more ineffective union educators, scads of government union employees. Tax what you want less of -- business, productivity, income. Soon some Democrat will tell us that "the best years of the US are behind us" ... no doubt it will be Bush's fault!

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Democrats Seek Formula To Blunt AMT House Democrats looking to spare millions of middle-class families from the expensive bite of the alternative minimum tax are considering adding a surcharge of 4 percent or more to the tax bills of the nation's wealthiest households. Neal has yet to release details of the plan, however, and others inside and outside the committee say major pieces of it are still in flux. Some Democrats say Neal's plan stretches the definition of the middle class too far, providing AMT relief to too many wealthy households. They argue that the cutoff for families to be spared from the AMT should be lower, at $200,000, $150,000 or even $75,000.

2 Down 2 2 Go

Bit of the old "week from hell"syndrome at work this week with a ton of customer meetings plus a number of other challenges besides. I came to the conclusion long ago that one of the wrong paths in personal, organizational or national thinking is the idea that "it ought to be easier", or "it used to be easier", or "this is too hard, somebody else must be at fault". So it's a hard week with all-day meetings, customer dinners / schmoozing in the evening, and a hard time even getting a short workout in.

It could be a lot worse ... for example a guy that I know that is recovering from stage 4 throat cancer showed up at the customer meeting late this PM for the first time I've seen him at work in at least 3 months. That whole ordeal sounds just a "bit tougher" than anything I've got to complain about, and he looked VERY happy to be back in the saddle for at least a couple of hours. NOBODY ever promised us "it ought to be easy"!

So I need to get back into a whole bunch of stuff that I'm behind on, but I'm sitting out on the deck with the firepit really enjoying the beautiful evening while I mostly work, but waste a little time on the Blog as well.

I shot a few pictures. The first one is looking back at the deck where the steps go to the upstairs kitchen.

The next is just to the left of that view showing the stairs down away from the firepit and a view of the back yard.


The third shows an angle yet further to my left looking to the NW toward our property line


There are much worse places to sit with a laptop and get some charts ready for a meeting in the AM and handle the small drift of e-mail that piled up today. Just 8am-6 meetings tomorrow followed by 8-9PM combination meetings on Thursday and it will be "basically over" for the summer session!

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.