The auto industry is back in the news again, as they go back to Washington to ask for more money. I’ve been thinking about the auto industry, and realized that GM is only partly to blame for their problems. A lot of the fault just as to do with a fundamental flaw in the free market system. And if I’m right, there’s only one answer: government needs to use it’s power to keep companies small.
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Feb 172009
What does it mean to be “bipartisan”? I ask in the wake of Obama’s signing of the stimulus package, which is widely seen as a failed attempt at bipartisanship. Some want to blame the failure of bipartisanship on Obama; others blame the failure on the GOP. Some want to claim that Obama was naive to try to be bipartisan in the first place. Others claim that Obama understands that bipartisanship is impossible–or alternately that he had no intent to try to be bipartisan–and was simply using the rhetoric of bipartisanship to get elected. So which is it? Is bipartisanship a laudable goal, or a sideshow that obscures real issues and real differences? Should we applaud Obama and/or the GOP leadership for “standing up for their values”, or should we chide them for failing to be “bipartisan”? Is Obama a cynic playing the bipartisan card to get elected, a naive fool for thinking that he could be bipartisan, or something in between?
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This is an unusual post, I admit it. But today I overheard somebody comforting a widow with the phrase “he will live on in our memories” and it got me thinking. Sure, the people we know will live on in our memories after they die. But what about when we die; who remembers them then? I know a fair amount about my great-grandfather – who I never met – through stories from my grandparents. But that’s as far back in the family tree as I can go. And that knowledge will probably die with me, because I doubt I’ll tell my children about a man I never met.
But some people DO live on in collective memory for thousands of years. Socrates, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Alexander the Great… obviously this is not an exhaustive list. We know them through their deeds, their thoughts, and their creations. So, I started thinking about what makes for historical staying power. And then I started to apply those principles to people from modern times, predicting who has that staying power.
In compiling the following top 10 list, I used the following two guidelines: 1) The person has to have been alive at some point during the past 100 years (the modern times part). 2) The goal is to predict who will be known by your average person 3000 years in the future. Obviously, we don’t know what society will be like at that point, which makes this harder: we could have colonized other planets, or we could live in a post-nuclear wasteland, and this will obviously effect historical staying power. So, I tried to assume the future will be like the past – a few dark ages and a few golden ages will happen between now and then, but for simplicity I assume that the time I’m predicting for lies at neither end of the spectrum. Also, fair warning, while I tried to consider multiple cultures, I am necessarily biased by my own knowledge which means that the list is western heavy. Now, with no further ado – the countdown: Continue reading »
This whole Judd Gregg thing just doesn’t add up. Gregg is a pretty conservative Republican Senator from New Hampshire. He accepted Obama’s nomination for Commerce Secretary, and there is some indication that he had even lobbied for the job. He accepted it after Obama had introduced his economic stimulus package, and after the House of Representatives had already voted on it. He had reportedly had discussions with Obama about what his role would be in the Administration, and about how their policy differences would play out. And then, just a few days before his confirmation hearings were supposed to begin, he withdrew by citing policy differences with the Administration as evidenced by the economic stimulus package. The same concerns that a week before he had brushed aside. Something smells funny here.
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Feb 122009
Today a court ruled that there is no compelling evidence that the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Vaccine causes autism. Thankfully. Of course, that won’t stop concerned parents from attacking the decision and once again going over the same correlations that lead to the MMR-Autism myth in the first place. Parents are paranoid; I get that. But shame on any researcher, reporter, or celebrity who exploits that paranoia to encourage parents to not get there child vaccinated. Because, you know what? Let’s pretend for a minute that the MMR vaccine does everything that its detractors say it does. If that were the case, and you were a concerned parent trying to make the right decision, even then you should still get your child vaccinated. Let’s do the math.
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