Two Guys from Quantico

Thoughts on Forgiveness

2011-11-01T10:01:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and this post will discuss it in some depth, so if you haven't read it but want to without spoilers, feel free to do so now.

I've read quite a few POW books and quite a few World War II books, and it seemed like Unbroken would be the same kind of story...average joe (well, usually they are more than average - they had some sort of popularity before the war) who is thrust into atrocious circumstances and survives despite the odds. For the first while, that's how it was. Louie Zamperini was a world class runner who ended up crashing in the ocean. After spending some 40 days on a raft going 2000 miles across the Pacific (see below), he
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was captured by the Japanese on Kwajalein Atoll and then sent to Ofuna camp (Kamakura area), followed by 2 tours (one at Omori - in Tokyo Bay, just north of Haneda airport and one at Naoetsu, on the Sea of Japan) under one of the most sadistic camp guards in the Japanese system - Mutsuhiro Watanabe, aka The Bird. He was so bad that he ended up being a Class A war criminal, right up there with Tojo. He was irrepressibly brutal to the POWs, beating them on a daily basis, debasing them, and doing everything he could to make life miserable. Life in the camps wasn't exactly like staying in a Hilton, it wasn't even as good as life in the Hanoi Hilton. After the defeat of the Japanese empire, Zamperini went home, but couldn't bring himself to forgive his captors.
This inability to forgive didn't help Louie get over the war. Instead, night after night, he had nightmares where The Bird was trying to kill him and he was trying to kill The Bird. As Hillenbrand said, Louie was the captive of The Bird even after he returned from the war. This spilled over into his personal life, ruining relationships and driving him ever deeper into alcoholism. Finally, as his wife was about to leave him, he found religion and forgave his captors.
How do we apply this to us? The first thing that struck me was how the principle of forgiveness has been misunderstood. We assume that it's for the other person - the one who has wronged us. We get wrapped up in whether they deserve forgiveness or not. Instead, it's not about them - it's about us. We are required to forgive everybody because ultimately it hurts us if we don't. The Bird went about his life and made millions, never knowing or caring whether Louie forgave him or not. Louie couldn't move on until he had forgiven The Bird.
I know that there are people who have done horrific things to others in this life, should they be forgiven? I think this is a bit of where the problem comes in. If they do something to me, I should forgive them...whether they should be forgiven or not for their sins is up to God and God alone. However, as long as we continue to harbor ill feelings towards them, we are in their power whether they know it or not. As we decide to forgive and forget, we are set free from the prison of hatred and despair that keeps us bound to the past and can move on with our lives, free with the knowledge that God is just and that He will return good for good and evil for evil. He is a perfect judge and will do what is best for everyone. Stephen Covey says "it isn't the poisonous snake bite that does the harm. It's chasing the snake that drives the venom to the heart," and that's what not forgiving someone does - it eats at us day by day until we finally stop and rest from our obsession and allow the cleansing power of the atonement into our lives, and with it, the peace that forgiveness and letting go can give us.
One of the big things that I've been learning is the power of letting go. We can't control everything and if we try, I think it slowly drives us crazy. Not in the institutional sense, but stress wise it pulls us tighter and tighter as we try to balance everything in our lives. As we get pulled tighter, little things that may otherwise not be an issue can cause us to snap. By letting go of some of these things, we can acknowledge the reality that we can't do everything ourselves and let grace take a role in our lives. It's an eternal paradox that by giving up control of some things, we gain control of all things.

Gender and the Priesthood

2011-10-04T23:10:00.002-06:00

On Times and Seasons today, they had an interesting post that hypothesizes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints puts out a declaration that mandates leaders come from minorities because too many Caucasians have leadership roles. In the end, it was to talk about women getting leadership roles in the church. Right now in the LDS Church, just as in most churches, the Priesthood leadership is made up of men. Is there a possibility in the future that this could change? Sure. If it does, I will certainly support it. At this time though, I don’t believe that it would happen, nor do I think it’s wise. Why is that? Read on for my top 2 reasons:

The Proclamation on the Family. The church has pushed the importance of traditional family roles, with the father being a provider and the mother at the center of the family. What if women were suddenly available to be Bishops, Stake Presidents, or General Authorities? The church is now taking them out of their traditional roles and putting the father there. While I think I do a great job with my kids, I can’t imagine putting me in that role instead of my wife. She is absolutely incredible with the kids and I’m so grateful that she’s able to stay home with them. To take her away from that for extended periods of time would be absolutely incompatible with established church doctrine, not to mention harmful to the most important group in the church: the family.
The blending of the genders. This is something that I’m really not a fan of. I know it runs counter to the past 40 years, but there are some fundamental differences between men and women. For starters, there are the obvious physical differences, but there are also other differences too. Men and women mature differently. They have different types of brains. I’m not just making this up, there’s a whole host of scientific data to back it up. I hate to break it to people, but there is a big difference between your typical man and your typical woman. I certainly think there are areas where it can blend, and gender equality is important, but so are having specific roles. Women tend to be better multitaskers, they tend to be more maternal, and they tend to be more empathetic. Men tend to be better at cutting through a single task, they tend to be more aggressive, and they tend to be more aloof from a situation. What is it that children need? I would argue that while they need both, if they had to have one or the other, I’d choose the female traits. It’s not to say that either is better than the other overall, but I would absolutely argue that in the most important area of life - raising the next generation - women are better than men. As such, I think that commoditizing women and their role by tossing them together with men eliminates the things that make them special in the first place.

Playing Chicken with the Debt Ceiling

2011-07-05T21:13:00.000-06:00

Right now there's a big debate in Washington about whether we should increase the debt ceiling or not. To hear each side of the argument, I believe the world will end if they don't get their way. What actually would happen if August 2 rolls around and there isn't a deal in place to push the debt ceiling up? Right now the government will only be able to afford 44% of its obligations in August if a deal is not reached. Here's my projection about what would happen. There's a lot out there, and some people like to say it's the Mainstream Media scaremongering us into acquiescence, but the fact is that there are very serious repercussions of hitting our limit and running out of money, so to speak. Our choices would be as follows: pay the social obligations (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security). Pay interest on the debt, some government, and the troops. Pay some of each. Here's what would be most likely, just based on common sense. Of course, common sense says to stop the showdown and make a deal, so here we are.

Scenario 1
August 2: All non-essential government personnel are furloughed. The Departments of Education, Energy, Interior, Transportation, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture are shuttered because there is no need for them to stay open as they will not be processing any outgoing funds. National Parks are closed. Airlines and airports are forced to pick up the tab for TSA or else cancel flights. They do in hopes that things will resolve soon. Interest rates on US debt (and thus on credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and any other loans originating in the US) begin their long climb higher. The US loses it's AAA credit rating.

August 3: Social Security checks are withheld. This is the only possible option. To do anything else would be even more catastrophic. This means that millions of seniors who are living hand-to-mouth run out of money. 15% of seniors depend wholly on their Social Security to survive. They would be forced to food kitchens or other options out of necessity. Additionally, to make things worse for them, the government stops Medicare checks to providers. This includes hospitals, nursing homes, hospice, home health care, and every other segment of our health system. Because these companies cannot shoulder the burden for long, every senior getting health care is on borrowed time. By the end of the month, thousands of health care workers are let go and millions of seniors no longer get health care.

August 15: Interest rates on the 10 year T-Bill (currently at 3.125%) are at 15%. With no end in sight, the Treasury department tries to roll over $500 billion in maturing debt. Existing bondholders, concerned that they will take on too much risk by participating are lured in by higher interest rates. A spike in rates to 20% costs the government trillions and leads to a massive selloff in stocks. The Dow drops from 9,000 to 7,500 in just a few minutes, wiping trillions of dollars of value out of the market. The dollar drops to an all time low against the Euro, hitting $1.75/euro. It likewise falls against every major currency in the world. Meanwhile, the housing, auto, and lending markets lock up as consumers are unwilling to pay the interest rates. This causes a massive selloff in financial stocks, leading to the collapse of Bank of America. Because the government is unable to use any funds to pay FDIC insurance or drive BofA into another bank's arms, millions had their life savings wiped out in the blink of an eye. The US credit rating descends to Junk status, below that of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland.

August 20: Hundreds of thousands of protesters gather in Washington DC demanding an increase in the debt ceiling. These protests start out peacefully, though anything could turn it into a powder keg. The state of Texas announces its plan to float its own currency. It is in negotiations with several other states on how to bond together to protect their citizens

August 25: The Dow is at 6,000. Major corporations announce their withdrawal from the US market. Due to unrest and uncertainty, over 1 million illegal immigrants have left the country. This leads to a lack of labor for the upcoming harvest. By the end of fall, millions of pounds of food will have rotted in fields. The dollar went below $2.00/euro. Gold is over $2500/oz and silver has skyrocketed to $60/oz. Oil prices have skyrocketed due to the currency fluctuations and currently stand north of $200/barrel. This has led to gasoline prices over $7.00/gallon in some places. People have abandoned their cars in many places because they can't afford to fill their gas tanks. The combination of people out of work and no credit has impacted every aspect of American life. American Airlines went out of business. The combination of record high oil prices and having to pay for airport security was too much for the venerable company. Delta, United, Southwest, and US Airways have drastically cut schedules as they cannot afford to fly and neither can the public. What started as a peaceful protest in Washington has descended into something more akin to anarchy. On the third day some protesters got violent with Capitol Police. The police struck back in self defense, but that incident led to the National Guard being called into service. Because of the situation in the country, they were only able to get half as many troops called up as they anticipated. President Obama will address the nation tonight from an undisclosed location and declare Martial Law will be in effect, along with suspension of habeas corpus until things have calmed down. Congress is said to be within hours of finally brokering a compromise package that has become dramatically bigger than was previously necessary due to interest rates compounding the debt crisis. This package includes drastic cuts in government spending and large tax increases on the wealthy. It is estimated to save $4 trillion over 10 years. Meanwhile, the budget deficit is projected to increase from $14 trillion to $28 trillion due to increased borrowing costs during that time.

August 31 - President Obama signs into law a debt ceiling increase of $4 trillion dollars. The markets have stabilized on the news with the Dow at 5000, the S&P at 500, and the dollar bottoming out at $2.10. Meanwhile, yields on T bills are slowly dropping back to earth. They will slowly drop from their peak at 35% and end up at around 15% over the mid term due to the increased instability that our new credit rating implies. We have our agreement, and it only took erasing $10 trillion in assets to do it.

Scenario 2

August 2 - President Obama, invoking the 14th Amendment, declares the US debt limit has been raised to $18 trillion. Congress immediately sues. As the case winds through the courts, credit markets are soothed. The case makes its way to the Supreme Court, where President Obama declares that he will follow FDR's path - if the Supreme Court doesn't see things his way, he will immediately appoint 6 new justices to the court. Chief Justice Roberts sides with President Obama's interpretation. His leadership will get him reelected in 2012 by a landslide. Meanwhile, Congress passes back into Democrat hands as the tea party members of the Republican party are defeated in an historic fashion.

Scenario 3

July 22 - With hours to spare, the two sides make a deal that involves spending cuts and some tax reform. The economy is spared and life goes on as normal.

I know that some of this may seem outlandish, but something to remember is that when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, we plunged into the Great Recession. That was an investment bank. This is the largest economy on Earth. It's a matter of scale, and this is not at all out of the question. It may be a more worse case scenario, but it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Unless the two sides realize that they need to broker something so both sides can win, one way or another, everybody loses.

Illegal Immigration, The LDS Church, You, and I

2011-06-15T16:03:00.001-06:00

Last Friday the LDS church again made mention of its specific immigration policy. Again, there was heated debate over why the church would do something like this. Does it mean that we don't believe in the Thirteen Articles of Faith? Does it mean that the church PR department is off the rails? Does it mean that they're just wrongheaded and don't know what they're talking about. All these are issues that I'll comment on, however, this is just one guy's opinion. I want to preface this with that. Just because my opinion is different than yours doesn't mean that either one of us is "right." Neither does it mean that either one of us is good or bad. They're just opinions. Hopefully I can add to the discussion.

Why does the LDS church support HB116 when it clearly is a violation of the law?

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. Because I'm not a representative of the church, it's hard for me to say what they are, however, they did articulate some of them in their statement. First, by pushing just enforcement, it kills compassion towards illegal immigrants. Rather than giving them a helping hand, it kicks them to the ground. It drives them into the arms of criminals and others who can protect them, rather than allowing them to be open, fruitful members of society.
I'm going to use an example from literature here. Imagine you are Jean Valjean. You steal a loaf of bread and suddenly you are in prison. Then, you get out of prison, you get the work card that says you are a prisoner and it's difficult to get honest work because of that yellow ticket. What does he do? He turns to crime again. What stops him? A priest who shows him a better way...which again, involves breaking the law. That's what we're doing to illegal immigrants. They come here looking for a better life for their families, but soon find that it's a lot harder than they think. In order to make it work, they turn from honest, law abiding activities to things like identity theft so they can get the identification to get to work. That is a very real side effect of our illegal immigrant hunts. You have to steal a SSN to survive, and that kills somebody's credit.
By turning these people who are, by and large, honest people who are stealing a proverbial loaf of bread into yellow ticket carrying criminals, we make an extraordinarily large segment of the population (at 12-30 million, that's 5-10% of people in this country) into proverbial Jean Valjeans as we play Javert. Who watched Les Miserables (or read the book) and thought "I'd like to be more like Javert?" Instead, we should not condone what they did, but rather, give them an opportunity to atone for it through being productive dues paying members of society. While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, HB 116 comes closer to that than anything else we have.
Second, it changes the focus of the debate. Too often it is so emotionally charged that the rhetoric turns into "you hate Mexicans" and "no, you're an Anarchist." I think that the Church feels that is damaging for society as a whole, so let's try to move beyond that and focus on a compassionate way to treat everybody like people who are trying to do best instead of chattel to be used as pawns in a battle against the Federal Government.

Isn't giving these people who broke the law any form of amnesty condoning their behavior and thus subjecting us to more illegal immigration in the future?

It certainly would seem this way. It's basic Broken Windows theory (i.e. if you leave a window on a building broken instead of fixing it, you invite people to break more, to vandalize, and otherwise despoil your property), which I am a big believer in. If you offer amnesty, you open the door to an additional 12 million illegals who will want to take their chance on the next opportunity. The difference between this and classic Broken Windows is that with our immigration system as it is, we're already offering incentives to break those windows. People aren't coming over our borders hoping for amnesty, they're coming over because they don't want to wait in the world's longest line. It's like when Apple releases a new product concurrently on the internet and in stores. I could go wait in a line for hours, or I could order it online and have it shipped to my house. Sure, I may not get it as quickly as when I wait in line, but at the same time, I can get on with life. Of course, there are differences of scale. Waiting in line for a green card is a Kafkaesque nightmare, while you risk your life crossing the border. Both are bad choices, but expediency trumps waiting every time. The bottom line, and I think the Church sees this, is that we will not be able to stop illegal immigration without the federal government's help. When states take it upon themselves to enforce federal laws, it opens up a world of problems. 1. We don't have a fence around the state. Indeed, we can't. 2. We don't have border guards watching for people coming across state lines. It's the same issue.
I know that Rep. Chris Herrod has a statistic that since Arizona has implemented its enforcement law, they have had an outflow of 500,000. While I'm sure the law had something to do with it, the drop in illegal immigrants nationwide shows that there's more to it than their law. Indeed, in the US between 2007-2011, illegal immigrants went from 12 million down to 11 million. Arizona accounts for a good portion of that, but so do other states. The common thread here is the US economy. If it picks up again, I would bank on an increase. If it stays moribund, we're going to stay in a holding pattern. Where there are jobs, people will go - especially if they are relatively good jobs, relative to their current one, that is.

What can we do to change things? This is ridiculous!

I have to agree there. It's ridiculous that people have to wait in a neverending line to get into the United States. It's ridiculous that the border is as porous as it is. It's ridiculous that the immigration debate gets heated so quickly and turns into nastiness. It's ridiculous that nobody can fix it.

I might as well live in Mexico - look at all the Spanish around me!

This is a tough one. There is a lot of Hispanic centered marketing around, and it can be hard to communicate. It can also be hard to talk to my computer rep in Bangalore. It's one of the downsides of our world economy, unfortunately. There is a silver lining to this cloud though: it's happened before. It happened with the Poles and Chicago. With the Germans and Milwaukee. The Chinese and San Francisco. The Italians and Boston. Everyone and New York. When an immigrant wave comes, the first generation needs the support that is exemplified by all the signage and marketing in a foreign language. However, the subsequent generations quickly become Americanized and soon speak just as well as anybody else. They aspire to learn English, to fit in. They move from their localized areas and meld with the rest of society. What's better is that the second generation of Hispanic immigrants are doing this at a pace that leaves every other group in the dust. They have become and are becoming Americanized far more rapidly than anybody else in our nation's history.

They're bankrupting the nation!

They're also paying into our nation. I know an illegal who had a social so she could have a job. Her employer found out, and she was let go. However, all of the money she earned was taxed. She didn't get anything from it, and never will. That's money that goes into the system. It's free money. This happens with everyone who gets a fake SSN to be employed. That's not saying they make it up, but I would think we're pretty close to a wash.

Here would be my simple (though probably not politically simple) plan:
1. Stop demonizing the other side. Those against illegal immigration aren't bigots. Those who favor keeping illegals here aren't buffoons who just don't get it. Likewise, not every illegal is a criminal, just as not every speeder is a criminal.
2. Control the borders. I'm not talking about a giant fence straight out of Berlin. I'm talking about better patrolling, spot checks, and the use of satellites and other technology to make sure we're secure. I don't care about the migrant worker coming across. I am concerned about the drug cartels and terrorist organizations who can move across willy-nillily.
3. Liberalize immigration. Quotas of people who can come from certain countries or for certain visas is an archaic notion that smacks of institutional racism. It did in the 1900s and it does now. Let people in if they pass a simple background check. We don't want criminals, but we don't want to penalize entire nations with ridiculous restrictions. We want the best and the brightest. We want those who want a better life. We want people who will contribute to society so that we won't sink under the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time - Social Security and Medicare. Without immigrants, that's impossible. Let's make it easier for them and for the rest of us at the same time.

Why I Can't (At Present) Support Jason Chaffetz

2011-06-03T22:40:00.000-06:00

Rep. Chaffetz/Sen. Hatch. from Fox News

A lot of the hullabaloo in Utah right now is about Jason Chaffetz running against Orrin Hatch for his Senate seat in 2012. I hope he either chooses not to run or is defeated. This doesn't come down to policy reasons, but to a couple of practicalities:

1. Rep. Chaffetz' staff in Washington are not helpful. I go to Washington every year to lobby for my industry and company. I have been greeted and treated warmly by the staff and offices of the following individuals: Rep. Cannon, Rep. Matheson, Rep. Bishop, Sen. Hatch, Sen. Bennett, and Sen. Lee. Some have been okay, some have been good, and some have been great. Sen. Hatch's staff fall in the latter category. I would put Sen. Lee's staff above them, in large part to his amazing Chief of Staff, Spencer Stokes. They really were incredible for us this past year. You'll notice that I didn't put Rep. Chaffetz' staff in this list. The reason for that is because, while they have been kind enough to meet with us, the niceties ended there. We were herded in like cattle, asked what the bill number was that we wanted him to support, told he doesn't sign letters, and then, when we asked his office to make a call to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on our behalf to stop a rule that was almost universally called ridiculous, told that they were too busy for such trivialities. I know that calling hearings about the latest TSA insanity or talking about how illegals are ruining the country are great kabuki, but when it actually gets down to what he should be doing - representing his constituents and their concerns, he's fallen short.
One thing I would like to make clear is that this is not a blanket condemnation of everybody who's worked with him. I know great people who have been a part of his campaign and/or regional offices, but where it really matters, in representing my concerns on my behalf to the Federal Government, he's so far behind Senator Hatch that I could never make the switch without a complete 180 on their behalf.

2. Seniority. Senator Hatch beats this drum, and it's a legitimate claim. Assuming the Republicans gain control of the Senate (a very real possibility) he'd be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, while Senator Chaffetz would be a junior Senator and member of some randomly picked committee. You know who would be chair of the Senate Finance Committee if he was defeated? Olympia Snowe. You may feel that Sen. Hatch is too liberal, but you don't know the meaning of the word if you think he'd be worse there than Sen. Snowe. Not that she's a bad person, just that if you care about the makeup of the people who hold the pursestrings to the nation, you may want to reconsider who you're supporting.

A Change in Focus

2011-06-02T21:01:00.000-06:00

So I'm changing this up. For starters, a blog post here and there. Secondly, it's not going to be, as my brother so fondly puts things, "The Diary of a Mad Black Woman." I've done a little of that in my time doing this blog, perhaps more than I should have. Instead, it's going to be long form thoughts that are too much to put in a Twitter feed or in a Facebook post. Sure, I'll link from there, but that's what it is, long posts that I would like to chat a little about. I think that I, like many others, fell prey to what I'll call "Ender's Syndrome." For those who don't remember or haven't read it, it's from the book Ender's Game, where Ender's sister Valentine and his brother Peter anonymously blog (for lack of a better term) to the betterment of humanity, or so they believe. That "anonymous individual bettering humanity" angle is why I think a lot of people blog and blog about what they blog about. Yes, I used blog 3 times in less than 10 words. At any rate, this is now a forum for me to fully flesh out ideas that can't be described as pithily as other formats require. Hopefully it is a fruitful transition!
Oh, one other thing. As much as possible, I'm avoiding negativity on here. There will be times when I have to talk about why I'm not in favor of something, but hopefully I can keep it positive. Feel free to comment here or on Facebook or Twitter. I'll be happy to respond!

The Utah State Republican Convention

2010-05-08T09:43:00.011-06:00

I was going to do something using Cover It Live for the convention, but because the iPad doesn't do multitasking like computers do, I decided against it. I'll do this instead, updating as I go.

9:45 am. The convention is about to convene and if I were a betting man, I'd say Bob Bennett is a dead man walking. I like him a lot and think he's a good man, but he's fighting against a lot today.

10:15 am. We had the prayer and pledge, and I love how interesting it is to hear prayers from other religions.

10:20 am. I'll post a picture later, but the Cherilyn Eager shirt is the nail in the coffin for me. The tag says "made in the USA because it matters." Ugh.

10:25 am. And here comes the annual delegate challenge from people who don't like what we do and how we do it. When will they stop? Fact is the party is fine with it and so are the delegates.

10:27 am. Chairman Dave Hansen just shut down the annual debater on automatic delegates in a way that was just stupendous. Thanks so much for doing it how you did. I've never seen it handled so well.

10:35 am. I have to say that I am again impressed by Chairman Hansen. He has done the best job of running a convention of anybody I've ever seen. He just diffused the usual acrimony and booing that would happen after the mudslinging fiesta we've had in this Senate race.

10:45 am. I don't think that Bridgewater's speech is doing him any favors. He's got some clap lines, but nothing that makes me think "this guy has to be my Senator."

10:47 am. You can always count on some big applause when you rail on the UN.

10:50 am. Wow, Bennett just pulled Mitt Romney out of his pocket. I think that has to help him. I think that right now he's got higher poll numbers here than most deities.

10:54 am. I still don't see any way that Bennett will make it out of the convention. He's got too many people who are done with him here. Also, AT&T has terrible service here at the Salt Palace. I've got full bars but no connection.

11:00 am. Jeremy Friedbaum seems like a nice guy, but he's got too many religious references. It has made things a bit uncomfortable.

11:05 am. Friedbaum wants a Congressional power grab from the Supreme Court. Whether his ideas are good or not, that's a bad idea. The last thing we need is more Congressional power.

11:15 am. Perennial candidate Merrill Cook is speaking and he's got to be the Don Quixote of Utah because he's going to go out on the first ballot. Nothing new here, move along. Although the interesting thing is he had somebody introduce him that nobody knew. Why was that guy up there?

11:20 am. David Chiu just compared Sarah Palin to Abraham. That is a huge dis on Abraham.

11:25 am. Mike Lee has the most interesting speaking cadence. He sounds like a storyteller a la Ken Burns, not a politician.

11:27 am. Based only on applause, I think that Mike Lee is going to win this thing in a walk. We will see what ballot it will be on. I don't think he's my first ballot candidate, but I think he is it for a majority of the people here.

11:32 am. Cherilyn Eager just told an amazingly pointless story about some kid with an unnatural desire to hold a globe.

11:33 am. And there's Eager's isolationist streak again. If it were up to here we would be back in the 30s with high tariffs and a useless League of Nations.

11:34 am. I might have misinterpreted this, but it seems like Eager just blamed Mexico for terrorism in the US. Near as I can tell there hasn't been a single terrorist attack perpetrated on our nation that has come from Mexico. She just sounds shrill to me.

12:09 pm. In other convention news, Bennett is beating Lee in the "best spread for the delegates." Lee was ahead this morning thanks to donuts and muffins, but the cookies, chips, and soda of Bennett's are putting him in the lead. He could win something today, even if it is something as ridiculous as the spread Sorro likes the most.

12:21 pm. Richard Martin is speaking and bringing up some good points, but nobody's really listening. I do feel bad for him in this regard. Being the first after balloting is a bad position to be in. I hear his criticisms, but he doesn't have any plan to fix it.

12:23 pm. "I've written 33 books" is not a good reason for me to vote for you for Governor.

12:24 pm. Neither is "Thomas Jefferson is my grandfather" or "my father was in World War II."

12:25 pm. Super Dell Schanze is up...this should be good

12:26 pm. Some other guy is speaking for him. I am seriously disappointed.

12:31 pm. Oh yeah, I remember this guy now. He's just repeated his promise from 2 years ago and said that Super Dell will also help us "4x" to "100x" our income.

12:33 pm. Back to serious candidates now. We've got Dan Oaks up.

12:37 pm. Oaks thinks that Utah being the best managed state in the US is not a good reason to keep Herbert in. I think that he knows he's in trouble.

12:40 pm. Governor Herbert is up and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he will win. The only way he won't is if he gets up and proceeds to go on a killing spree in front of the delegates.

12:54 pm. Rob Bishop is speaking and his speech is just rambling enough that you know he knows he's safe.

12:56 pm. Mike Ridgeway is up. As he is a perennial thorn in everyone's side, I'm curious to see what he says. For those who don't know, he is the kingpin behind the anti-automatic delegate movement.

12:59 pm. Ridgeway's original beef is with Rob Bishop. It seems like he has pulled that out to the entire party, saying that the corruption from the time when Bishop was chair is still here today and that we are under the thumb of a tyrannical group. Whether Bishop was a problem or not, I don't know. Nevertheless, it's interesting to hear his history.

1:15 pm. Nothing much to report from the second district candidates. Nevertheless, I just saw one of the most amazing beards I've ever seen.

1:29 pm. I know that Jason Chaffetz is the golden boy of the Utah Republican Party, but I'm still not a big fan.

1:34 pm. Chaffetz' standard sendoff just seems so trite and focus grouped.

1:35 pm. Mike Lee 28%. Bridgewater 26%. Bennett 25%. Eager 15%. Now we are going to see Eager's people switch to probably Bridgewater with maybe some Lee. I think that Bennett is done, but you never know.

1:53 pm. I think Mike Lee just committed political seppuku with his speech. He spent his time complaining about how he's been beat up, and he has. Unfortunately for him, he came off looking like a spoiled child. Bennett's been beat up the most and you haven't heard boo from him.

2:04 pm. Just hit 50% on my iPad battery. That's 5 hours of total bad connections and updates. Not bad Steve Jobs.

3:20 pm. Now I'm just waiting for results. Let's get this thing done so we don't run into the Jazz.

3:30 pm. Bridgewater 37%, Lee 36%, and Bennett with 26%. It is pandemonium here. I've never seen such a cheer rise up from the delegates. This is one discontented group!

The Twilight Phenomenon

2009-12-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

I know that the chicks dig all things Twilight, and here are a couple of amazing parodies that I love that give you a feel for if you want to go see it (again) or not:

Franz Kafka International

2009-12-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

After watching The Amazing Race on Sunday where the racers had to go through a Kafkaesque bureaucracy because they were in Prague, this made me laugh. It made me laugh even more when you realize it's somewhat similar to travel today anyway.

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Taxing the Little Man

2009-11-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Some Democrats have proposed taxing stock trading in order to help pay for all of the ridiculous spending plans that they have (health care, the original stimulus, another stimulus) and say that somehow individuals won't notice it because "...it’s very small, likely 0.25 percent of each trade." That warms the cockles of my heart...it's small, so I won't notice it!" While on my individual trades I may not notice, I will start seeing it when it hits the mutual funds in my 401(k) and when it hits the broader market and all my stocks go down as a result. Why is it a good idea for the government to get a piece of every transaction whether it's a gain or a loss on top of the extra 15% they take for every gain you have?

Football Hero

2009-10-27T07:31:00.000-06:00

When plastic guitars just aren't enough:

Another Reason Keith Olbermann Should Have Stuck with ESPN

2009-10-26T11:33:00.003-06:00

If there is another person out there who drives the discussion into the gutter more than Olbermann, I'd like to know who they are. Any time that you label someone who makes a comparison that may be slightly out of bounds (at least in your opinion) as "one of the worst people in the world" perhaps you should toss yourself up there on the screen as well. On top of that, it takes a certain amount of hubris to lecture a former Supreme Court candidate on law when you yourself are a former sportscaster and current full-time blowhard. How could this have been different if, instead of doing a drive by defaming, Olbermann actually asked Elder Oaks for an interview where he could have had a civil conversation? Oh, that's right. Oaks would have been seen as the rational one, which would have completely ruined Olbermann's point. Take a look at Elder Oaks' clarifying comments below the MSNBC video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ladies and Gentlemen, the LA Convention Center!

2009-10-19T09:34:00.000-06:00

I was in LA last week for a convention (no, not Adultcon - that was 2 weeks ago) and in my travels around the convention center, I came across some bathrooms that looked like I had walked through a portal to the third world. Take a look below - a stainless steel trough urinal. I couldn't believe it! Here's one more sign that California is bankrupt.

Also, just for Logan, here's the carpet:

Good Hilton, Good!

2009-10-02T10:13:00.000-06:00

Wow, that was fast! I sent that to TripAdvisor, faxed it to the hotel, and got a call 15 min later from them. They replaced some people in the management team and seem like they really care. The current manager on duty, Jef, apologized profusely, asked for some more detail, said he'd refund my stay, offered to throw in some HHonors points, and is getting me a night in their penthouse suite to give them another try. That right there is amazing customer service! It's so opposite what I had back in May and June that I'm getting whiplash. I'll make sure to spread the word on how things go from here, because service like that deserves to be recognized.

Bad Hilton, Bad!

2009-10-02T09:14:00.000-06:00

Here's a complaint letter I just sent to the SLC Airport Hilton. It was by far the worst hotel my wife and I stayed at on our recent trip to Europe.

To the Manager on Duty:
I've tried several times to contact you regarding this experience to no avail. As a result, I have posted this (1*) review on Trip Advisor to let others know my experience and hopefully steer them away from your property:
"My wife and I checked in here the night before an early trip to Europe. We checked in and were given breakfast vouchers. Our room was at the end of a hall in need of some freshening up, but our room was nice and clean. The pool area was nice and clean as well. So far so good. We went to bed, but at about midnight I woke up because the A/C wasn't working properly. I turned it down as low as it would go in an attempt to cool down the room. I didn't try the front desk as my wife was still asleep next to me. We got up at 4 am for our flight and found that there was no hot water. We called the front desk and were told that "that might happen, but it should be fixed in an hour." That wasn't terribly helpful because we had a 6 am flight. We quickly showered, went down to check out, and I talked with the person at the front desk about reducing our rate because of the A/C issue and the shower issue. He told me that he couldn't do that, but to call back when the manager was in. He gave me the manager's name and number. When I arrived in Minneapolis for my layover, I called and the manager wasn't there because it was Memorial Day. I left a message with my contact information and waited for a response. I spent the next week in Europe and called again when I got back. I again got his voicemail, again left my complaint and contact information and what I felt was an appropriate remuneration, and again got no response. I sent an email with the gist of my complaint. Again, no response. This Hilton will not be getting my business again. I am a Hilton Diamond VIP, so I would hate to see the treatment that anybody else gets when top tier elites don't get the time of day from the manager.
BEST: The pool area, free breakfast (assuming we had been around when the restaurant opened)
WORST: Unempowered staff, management who doesn't respond to complaints, no A/C, cold showers."
Is there something that you could do to change this? Yes there is! I would be happy to amend my review to reflect any sort of effort on your part to win back my business. I don't expect something for nothing and know that ultimately you want people to stay in your beds. As a result, I would propose a combination of the following:
• An apology.
• A room refund. Because this occurred 6 months ago now, I would propose a gesture of 25,000 HHonors points - the equivalent of a one night award at your property.
• Free night at the hotel to win back my business (this is merely to change my opinion, if things were different this time, I would be happy to reverse my thoughts publicly).
Sincerely,

Slight Change

2009-09-26T07:56:00.000-06:00

One thing that I've noticed is that when I don't have time to blog because I'm working 16 hour days (pretty much the past month), I do have time to send tweets because I don't have to flesh out the thought. As such, I've got a Twitter gadget over on the side now that will give you that feed as well. Enjoy!

Some of the Reasons I Love Tokyo

2009-09-18T15:48:00.001-06:00

While not my video, it's hisashiburi (as the Japanese say).

Hitler is an OU Fan

2009-09-11T09:32:00.001-06:00

While there are a lot of these Hitler raging parodies out there, here's one I saw over at the Provonian and thought I'd pass along. Good stuff for the Cougar faithful out there. Was this win as big as Miami in 1990? Hard to say, but I just hope we don't blow it against somebody a la our Oregon game just a few weeks later.

German Advertising

2009-08-30T19:21:00.002-06:00

You've gotta love Kinderkreis:

Having a British Baby: One Mother's Story

2009-08-28T12:18:00.004-06:00

I know that this is terrible form, but Ryan will be okay with it. He and his wife moved to the UK a while back and you can read his thoughts back at the original post. His wife's comments were copied and pasted from her blog, so we're now 3 removed. Nevertheless, here's what the future could look like in the US. Maybe not, but see what you think:

Often when I heard hard luck cases or anecdotal experience I chalked it up as just that. I even wrote on this blog in the past about some of my colleagues negative experiences. Rather than recount my own views of the birth, I thought I'd just share with you what my wife posted on her blog. Sorry, but it is going to be long.

- At prenatal checks they never weigh you. I had to request to check my weight a couple times just because I was curious. So I don't even know how much weight I put on this pregnancy!

- Most women never see an OB/GYN - you are seen by the community midwives for all your checkups. You would only have an OB if you are an at-risk pregnancy or would be having a scheduled c-section.

- They don't check dilation/effacement until you are in active labor; leaving you with no clue when the baby may come!

- The prenatal checkup schedule is much less frequent than in the US. Even at the end of pregnancy you only see the midwife every-other week.

- When I had my glucose tolerance test they have you buy your own "gatorade" and bring it to the lab to drink for the test.

- They asked me if I'd like to have a home birth, and they're actually pretty common here. I said "NO" - I'd much rather have all the equipment and help that a hospital has...oh, and I don't want to have to buy a new bed after delivering the baby in it!

- I don't think I saw any computers in the hospital while I was there. I am so used to seeing a computer with monitors in every labor room, plus several at the nurses' station for charting. Everything is charted on these little blue notes that you carry around with you during your pregnancy and while you are at the hospital.

- While in labor, they don't have monitors to check the baby's heart rate or your contractions. The midwife would occasionally put a doppler on my tummy to listen to the baby's heartbeat, but nothing continuous, and as I said before, no computer read-out or printed reading.

- The doctor on the delivery unit placed my IV for my antibiotics - and totally missed the first time - badly! I still have an ugly, huge bruise. Good thing I was in labor so the pain was minor in comparison!

- The bed I was in for delivery had no pillows, the left stirrup was broken, and it took 2 midwives the better part of 5 minutes to figure out how to put the bed together. Maybe they should not use that room next time!!

- They offer Nitrous Oxide as a method of pain relief. I used some while I was being stitched up and I really think it was just oxygen. It did NOTHING! The only benefit was that you suck it out of this plastic mouthpiece, so I was able to bite on that while the doctor (same one who botched my arm!) was taking his sweet time with the stitching - oh, and not numbing me up properly. He kept saying "This would be a lot better if you had an epidural" - um yeah! You're telling me!! As you can see, I was not impressed with this doctor...maybe it's a good thing I didn't get an epidural...if he was administering it I may be paralyzed!

- My midwife Tina was amazing. She was so kind and really helped me to calm down while experiencing my very quick, unexpected, natural delivery. There was no "team" of doctors and nurses in the room when Ellie was born like in the US - just Tina and Ryan. It's a good thing Ryan wanted to cut the umbilical cord, because if he didn't do it I don't think there would have been enough hands to manage it all!

- They don't give you a hospital gown! You are told to "bring your own clothes to deliver in". Minutes before Ellie was born I finally took my pants off and my new baby was placed on the very shirt I wore into the hospital. Afterwards you just wear your own clothes or a nightgown. I'm a pj pants girl, so I had to go out and buy a nightgown especially for the occasion.

- I wasn't stitched up after the delivery for what seemed like a very long time (long enough to call both our families) - I was telling the midwives that it must not be too bad a tear or I would be losing a lot of blood!

- Babies aren't measured for length. I asked why and was told that "length doesn't matter" so they don't do it. Everything has to be very cost-effective in a national healthcare setting; length doesn't have any particular health implications, so they don't check it.

- You can leave the hospital any time you want after delivery (as long as everything checks out okay). I had a roommate (yes, a roommate - more of that to come) who delivered a baby at 4am and was gone before noon.

- There is no baby nursery, which means they don't bathe the baby after the birth, and don't keep them in there while you sleep. You have to keep your baby with you 24/7 - if you go into the bathroom you just wheel your baby along with you.

- They don't give you any diapers, wipes, onesies, or pads in the hospital - bring your own!

- I was lucky to snag 1 of 2 private rooms in the "mother/baby" unit (someone tipped us off beforehand that we could at least try and ask for one), but sadly was moved that first night because someone needed the room more. My new room was a big room that can hold SIX moms and their babies, only divided by curtains, with the bathroom down the hall. Luckily, there was no one else in there when I first came in, and at most there were 3 of us - but still slightly uncomfortable nonetheless. No privacy, and I felt badly when Ellie would cry knowing that she was probably waking up someone else's baby. Utah Valley hospital is like a hotel compared to the hospital here!

- When you come home from the hospital, midwives come to your house to check up on you and the baby 1 day, 5 days, and 10 days later. They see how everything is going, how you are healing, weigh the baby, and answer any questions. I LOVE this! It's very reassuring to be able to ask questions and make sure you are doing things right; I think I question myself more this time around because I'm always comparing the 2 kids.

Planned Obsolecense

2009-08-28T08:55:00.000-06:00

One of my passions is photography, and as such I go to a few sites to get information on how I can improve. My favorite is Scott Kelby's site. He had a contest recently where people could submit their best sports shots and get a chance to shoot on the sidelines of a Florida State Seminoles football game with one of his colleagues. The winner won, life was good, and then professional photographers decided that having him on the sidelines was wrong. My question is why the outcry (and there has been a lot...check out some of the posts here and here), anger, and vitriol slung at the contest winner and sponsors. They did something nice for somebody, regardless of the reason and all you can do is denigrate them and what they do to make you feel better. I wish that they had been more constructive with their criticisms, because they might have had valid points. The problem here is that they've walked into a gunfight with a knife. Kelby's stuff is far more widely read than this group of photographers are (although perhaps they're more seen) and as a result, he can level them in one blog post and that makes them look like a bunch of whiny, spoiled dinosaurs who are trying to protect their turf rather than innovate. You could call that breed of sports photographers GM - instead of innovating against Toyota, they circled the wagons and didn't listen to what people were saying. They went from over 70% market share to under 30% in 40 years and if these photographers don't watch out, they'll do the same. If they want to be replaced by amateurs with D90s, all they have to do is keep their heads in the sand instead of innovate.

Been A While

2009-08-26T15:44:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted. Allow me to list some excuses:

I was captured by Jack Bauer
I'm cold and there were wolves after me
Lazy
Busy
Busily lazy

I could go on, but won't. I do have a big health care post that I'd like to get up sometime soon, but it's a complicated issue, and thus a complicated post.

Spoilers Gone Wild XXI

2009-08-12T11:11:00.002-06:00

Here's a CRX with a touring wing that looks more at home on a Boeing 747 than on the CRX this guy was trying to pimp out.

Travels to the Land of Obama

2009-08-05T15:58:00.000-06:00

I say the land of Obama because Hawaii has claimed him as only Illinois should. Nevertheless, I went with the family and we had a smashing time. The kids were great, which furthers my hypothesis from earlier trips with them that kids are resilient travelers. A 6 hour flight and 4 hour time change? No problem! An overnight flight? That's easy! It's shockingly amazing. At any rate, on to some photos

My son is imprisoned on our lanai. He wanted to go to the beach until he actually saw the ocean. Then he wanted nothing to do with it.

My son thought pineapples weren't people, or something like that.

Who'd have guessed they would have a Japanese temple on Oahu? They do, and it's got koi fish and everything. It's kind of like Tokyo Disneyland, only without the rides and mice.

My daughter at the temple. She loved playing around here for a bit.

My ever determined son. I think this is the only picture where I got his whole face because he's usually hauling along ahead of everyone else.

The kids at the aquarium. I've found that kids are great photography subjects, as long as you are really quick on your shutter button.

The Speed of Trust

2009-07-29T20:10:00.000-06:00

I've been reading Stephen M R Covey's book The Speed of Trust recently, and the one thing you need to know from it is that if you operate your business or your life without trust, you're paying a lot more than if you had trust. Obviously, it's about 300 pages more than that, but that's the really, really small capsule.
When thinking about the astronomical costs in 2 key areas, this becomes plainly obvious. First and worst is government. We've heard of the expensive hammers and everything else, but if there's one area where we could really use trust, it's in the government. Let's face it, every single regulation and law comes back to somebody not trusting somebody else. We spend trillions of dollars in every area of government because of it, and it's only gotten worse over time. For example, the B-29 bomber cost $7.3 million per unit in today's dollars ($600K in 1944), whereas the F-22 fighter costs $143 million per aircraft today. I realize that there's a lot more technology that goes into the F-22 than went into the B-29, but the relative technological innovation in each is not nearly as much. As a result, you could argue that we could be paying $100 million in trust penalty. This takes the form of all the regulations that Lockheed had to follow on the project, combined with the constantly changing project requirements, number of aircraft ordered, and so on. If all of that was stripped away and a) the government trusted Lockheed to deliver a product at a reasonable cost that would do everything they wanted and b) Lockheed trusted the government to not try and change the terms once they started business (and thus pad things up front to ensure they don't lose their shirts), think of what that would do in just that one area. We're ordering 240 or so F-22s, so that's $2 billion in actual savings there. If that went across the entire government, I'd guess that the $1 trillion deficit we're facing could be replaced with an actual balanced budget.
Another area where this is obvious is in healthcare. The entire system is set up without trust - malpractice insurance, extra tests, denial staff, and so on. Meanwhile, our healthcare costs are exploding and it seems like there's nothing we can do to stop it. If we started by extending just a little trust that the doctors and medical professionals actually care about how they are doing and aren't just out to get us and our money, perhaps we could start changing the tone. While cutting off the wrong limb is really, really a bad mistake, I tend to think that the doctor didn't try to do it - not that it makes things any better, and some compensation would be in order, but certainly not something that punishes them so severely that their malpractice insurance skyrockets and runs him out of business or causes everyone else to pay more.