Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Extinction of the Dinosaurs, continued

Detroit has gone through it’s catharsis (purgation, if you will, actually a ‘Car-Tharsis’).  What we have now is a nationalized auto company in GM (& to some extent, Chrysler).  We’re offered cash by DC politicos to ‘swap out’ of our gas-guzzling SUV’s.  And what do most people trade in to?

 

Toyotas and Hondas.

 

No kidding.  We have subsidized the US automotive industry and now, in a roundabout way, we’re providing cash for people to buy fuel efficient cars.  They just happen to be made by foreign car companies. 

 

Can it get any wackier?  Honestly, we’re nearly at the point where it just might be more reasonable to consider a new currency while we’re at it, since dollars will be worth fractions of a penny in the coming decades as our national debt reaches irreversible proportions.  There is no way the US can continue to bail out one industry (financial markets) after another (autos), pay for the health care of an aging population, and even begin to think about the myriad of projects that need attention (infrastructure, education, alternative energy, etc.). 

 

It’s time for those wonderful people of cutting-edge business and academia that brought us the Internet, New Media, and web 2.0 to consider other industries and how they can be transformed.  Transportation, health care delivery, education reform, everything is fair game.

 

The political domains are rapidly blurring, old institutions are coming apart, and new ideas need to surface and find traction. 

 

Otherwise, pay me in Euros.

 

---Hack

Thursday, April 02, 2009

World should take on ALL Global Responsibilities

Some separation between the Obama administration and the Pentagon?  Check out the article here:  http://cli.gs/WrDZn1  Took long enough.  If we're going to ask the G20 to bear the costs of pulling the World out of it's global financial troubles, we should also ask the World to bear the costs of rooting out global terrorists.  Enough of America paying the bulk of the costs of a protracted 'War on Terror', it's time for the rest of the G20 to step up, financially and with other resources.
 
---Hack

Friday, January 30, 2009

Extinction of the Dinosaurs, part 2

Millions of years ago, the dinosaurs ruled the earth, until they met their end, and turned to oil. Now, it seems, another wave of extinction is in the early stages. The bumbling ex-Governor of Illinois has been impeached by a unanimous 59-0 vote AND was declared ineligible to hold public office in Illinois. As an influence peddler and abuser of elected office, Bloggo took his hubris a little too seriously and his filthy politics apparently were bound to surface. You can’t operate with complete impunity forever, eventually your enemies will have their day too. Now it remains to be seen if others will be taken down by this scandal, including Jesse Jackson, Jr., who has been linked to Blogo as being one of the candidates who was willing to cough up the dough for President Obama’s vacated Senate seat. I have a feeling this ugly chapter of Illinois politics ain’t over yet. In the Land of Lincoln, they’ve succeeded in sending one political dinosaur to extinction. More will follow.

Meanwhile, some distance away, a scorned and bitter self-righteous talk-show host / gas bag stole a few headlines, talking (blowing gas) about cheering for President Obama’s failure. Nice going, gas bag, really great to know where some embittered people stand in America for their country. (special note to those who believe they’re feared: that’s not the case, in spite of your over confidence in your view of where you stand in the national scene. Like a flashlight with a weak battery, it won’t be long before you’re just as dim…)

Let’s review a few simple points about this. Stop me when it becomes too obvious. 3 branches of Government, one of them is the Executive, that’s the office currently held by Mr. Obama. Like him or not, voted for him, or not, believe him, or not, this guy is the President of our United States of American. Period. This means that, for us as a nation to carry forward, to be a member of planet Earth, and to promote the peace, freedom, prosperity, and co-existence with the other members of the world, we’re going to NEED him to succeed. The Nation spoke last November, it’s his election victory we have to live with, according to our excellent Constitutional arrangement for the peaceful and orderly transition of leadership in this nation. To all the gas bag talk show hacks out there, including the grossly overpaid ones, would you rather have a Zimbabwe, where the immovable power of the rifle and the rigged ballot box brings an otherwise promising nation down?

Hoping for failure is like wishing your kid strikes out, gets F’s in school, or wishing the firemen would fail to put out the apartment fire. Hoping for failure in your elected leadership is like hoping the legislative process locks up and nothing gets done, so your economy goes deeper into the tank, your citizens can’t get back on track, and your place in the world sprouts mold and begins to decay. That’s what we really want? That’s unfortunate. It’s too bad that some blowhards with a large national forum choose to espouse failure for the country’s leadership, and a belief that by doing so, someone ‘better’ might step in and fix the mess. Hey gasbags, we’re already in a mess. We need help NOW, not after another election cycle. 2 years won’t do, it needs to happen now. Time to get over the election beating that took place last year. Move on, as they say, and take the high road (go outside one’s petty self) and promote positive changes.

It’s funny how many of the self-proclaimed ‘conservative’ sheep are ignorantly aiding a select few self-righteous talk-media blowhards line their pockets. These gasbags spit venom, hope for failure, cloak themselves in the Flag, and collect millions from sponsors all-to-glad to buy ad space for the targeted demographic. The blind and ignorant followers, many of whom are now feeling the excruciating effects of the very policy they’ve been forced-fed by the condescending money-grabbers, have to realize they’ve been had, spun, duped, and rolled over, big time. They need to wake up, see what’s happened, and realize that, like Kato Kaelin, all these blowhards can just fade back into the backwaters of the AM dial, back into their rightful place of oblivion, doing whatever tasks they were doing before they realized their long overextended 15-minutes of fame.

The point is, now is the time to put aside these dinosaurs of the former embittered, spoiled child of America, 2001-2008, while the task of rebuilding this Nation, at home and abroad, is moved forward by people who can see beyond the petty and the little and the small-minded and know that our individual success will help our collective success.

---Hack