Of Course It Doesn’t Mean Anything

It is time to analyze the political slogans that have come to my attention. Since no cared enough to bring any slogans to my attention, the burden falls upon me to provide all the material. I am aided in this task by the vacuousness of the typical candidate’s mind. Still, this being an off year, the picking, like the candidates, are pathetic.

One lady, running for county legislature, in her latest mailing to sully our mail box, compares herself to some “political boss” of whom I have never heard. She claims that the said boss had never proposed a job creation program. She says that she supports such (undefined) program. I guess that she, having never before held elected office, never proposing any such program is not germane to the election.

The same candidate’s mailing states that she believes in strong community relationships. I am not sure what these are, but I suspect that these relationships are a good thing. If she is elected, I will look forward to having one–I think.

There it is. It is now up to you. Go vote, or not, and hope for the best. Something is sure to happen sometime.

A Monument to the Memory Hole

There is to be build in New York City a monument to memorialize the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The monument will be built on the site of the fallen twin tower buildings. There will be other monuments built at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania. The monument in New York will be of special interest. It will memorialize the Memory Hole.

The phrase Memory Hole comes from George Orwell’s book 1984. The Memory Hole is where the government sends history it finds inconvenient, forgotten forever.

The most curious and least explained event of September 11, 2001 is the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. It is also the most forgotten. The Memory Hole is effective.

What is curious about WTC7 is that it collapsed and that it collapsed so neatly. The collapse was so neat that CBS News anchorman Dan Rather said its collapse was like a controlled demolition of an old building. Dan said this only once. That idea also went into the Memory Hole. So did Dan.

It is also curious that the BBC reported the collapse of the building well before the building actually collapsed. This tidbit of news is also in the Memory Hole.

When the  memorial monument is unveiled, look for what is not there. It will be surprising if there is any mention of Building 7, because once something goes into the Memory Hole, it never comes out.

Win Anyway

There is a great deal of uncertainty in the air. It is a form of pollution that is ever present. You cannot change the fact of its presence. You can, however, mitigate its effect. It is easy to say “Nothing can be done.”, but something can be done. It is just a matter of doing it.

What can be done? No list of to do’s will be complete. No collection of tasks can be anything but a start. Here are some that can be started immediately.

Turn off the television, or reduce you time in front of the tube to a few hours a week. This thing is a giant, time-wasting intellectual sludge pit.

Stop, or reduce, video game playing. It is a lot like television.

Get a library card and use it. This is the only way to break free of the government’s near monopoly on your intellectual input. Read some authors that posit a view that you do not like. This will sharpen your mental tools.

Get your news from sources other than the mainstream media. These groups have largely become shills for the government, especially since we how have a new, politically correct president in power.

Lose the weight and get in shape. You may need to be able to do a lot more manual working than you have been used to.

Open a secondary bank account at a bank not connected to the one you now use. With the number of recent bank failures, likely to continue if not increase, it is wise not to put all of your money in just one bank. Yes, there is FDIC coverage, but by the time all the paperwork is done, it could be a long time before you have access to your funds. Meanwhile, the bills keep on coming.

Look back through your life and find all the things that your enemies would use against you. Fix them.

Reconcile with all you have offended and offended you. Forgive them and ask them to forgive you. Move on with your life. Give up the grudge; it is poisoning you.

Get out of debt. Go here for help.

Pay off all old traffic tickets, child support, alimony, taxes, fines, etc. This is a prison sentence waiting to happen. Think of the next job application you fill out: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Prison aside, you don’t win here.

Improve your manners. The culture is becoming more coarse and vulgar. You will needlessly offend people with bad manners. Good manners, like neatness, only count when you don’t have them. The power elite are impeccably polite, at least in public. Emulate them.

Improve your English. Communications are fundamental to everything. All human contest can be reduced to a battle of and for information.

Stop the whining, self-pity, sour attitude. You don’t like to be around people like this, so why be what you don’t like?

Extend this list.

With list as a start, you can be doing much to prepare yourself for the trouble that lies ahead. If the trouble does not come, you still win.

Full Fraud Schools

Most of us think that the colleges we attended and in some cases from which we graduated are scrupulous in their grading and academic standards. Walter Williams has just published a revealing article about academic dishonesty. He names the names, the big names.

This is the quiet scandal. It is not just the students that are doing the cheating. It is the schools themselves that are lying. I have known that the academic system is largely corrupt. Until reading Williams I thought the putrefaction was confined to the politically correct forces that now dominate the remains of higher (sic) education, but Williams reveals that the problem is system wide.

Read it http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/AcademicDishonesty.htm.

No, you don’t get academic credit for this reading, but you will be rewarded for knowledge.

Two Minutes to Go

I read a book about being organized. It offered the usual advice and a few odd ideas like get rid of hanging files. One thing I did find to be of use was the Two Minute Rule. This rule means that if it only takes two minutes to do a task, do it right then. This is not going to turn most people into super efficient producers, but it will help with getting done those little jobs that are more aggravation than they seem because we let them pile up.

I have been trying to do the two minute jobs as they occur. It does help. I know this when I violate the rule.

Try the Two Minute Rule, and tell me what you think about it.

I Do Not Work for the Government

Once upon a time, the only contact that most Americans had with the Federal Government was when they used the Post Office. I hope it was a pleasant experience. Mine was not.

I needed to mail a letter, but I did not have a stamp. So I went to the Post Office to buy one. The Post Office was closed. I suspected that it might be, but I knew that main office has an after hours self-serve facility. Since I only need a stamp, I thought that this would be an easy operation. I was wrong.

I got into the building without any trouble. The counters were closed, but the self-serve machines were available. In fact several people were using them. I waited. The people using the machines seem a little unsure about how they worked. It was taking some time to get my stamp. I waited some more.

As I waited I saw that the machines had a sign on them that said that they took only credit and debit cards. I looked for a place to put in money. I found none. I left without my stamp.I was not going to put the purchase of a single stamp on my credit card.

I do not think that there is a postal function much simpler than buying a stamp. How could it be so difficult? Is not the idea of a self-serve system to be easy to use? Is buying a single stamp not understood by the postal authorities?

I can not believe that a private system would be this silly and difficult to use. That is because I do not work for the government.

Confused

Consumed Benjamin J. Barber W.W. Norton, 2007. 406 pgs., index, end notes.

We are inundated with advertising. This is not surprise, but it is the main theme of Barber’s book. Aside from the jeremiad about the omnipresent advertising that assaults our senses, the author doesn’t have much to say. This book is one long complaint.

To Barber, the world is run for the benefit of the producing corporations, ordinary people are helpless against the clever marketing of unnecessary products and services, and the only solution are socialist bromides.

Barber displays no understanding of economics. He fails to realize that the customer is in charge. No customers, no business. To Barber, corporations over produce and then use advertising to sell the surplus to hapless and helpless consumers. A tidy world. Was his book marketed?

It does not work this way in real life, but Barber is not a real life person. He lives is a world of pretend. Corporations must be run with a social conscience as well as with a view to profits. Really? The managers of a business have a fiduciary responsibility to the owners to make a profit with the corporate resources. Social conscience is nice, but it doesn’t pay the rent. Return on investment is not important to Barber. Jobs just magically exist. I sure hope that he returns his royalty checks.

It is true that advertising is influential, but are we really defenseless? Does targeting four year olds always (or ever) result in brand loyalty? Do we need some oversight body to protect us from someone else’s free speech? Yes, Barber avers. We are all just a bunch of mindless sheep. Thank goodness that there are wise overseers available to protect us from untoward marketing, otherwise we fools might buy the wrong thing and not learn from experience. Barber does not say how such oversight would be implemented in a free society, nor how the overseers would be overseen. Details, the bane of the idealist.

Barber does admit that his teenage daughter will be more immune to advertising that we are now seeing. She will grow up with a sense of skepticism that will do her well by allowing her to see though the duplicity of the commercial message. Too bad that we adults can’t do that. I guess that we adults are just too confused.

Recycling Platitudes

There has been a lot of talk about green things. We had a green Czar. He is now an ex-Czar, but is he still green? There has been talk of green jobs. The government even owns General Motors and is going to produce green cars that no one wants. Blue ones too.

I am not a green. I am a cheap. I look at the green idea from the stand point of money. Who pays whom? That is the question.  It is seldom asked except by cranks like me. It is never answered in any real way. “It will pay for itself,” is the usual answer.”We all benefit from a better environment” is the other platitude.

Green has never paid for itself. It cannot pay for itself. Green is someone’s idea of what is good for others. That someone has political support. The politicians force you to pay for it. They force you to participate in an otherwise unworkable venture.

We have mandatory recycling where I live. I must sort my trash into groups. The recyclable items are taken by a specially equipped, dedicated truck to a central location where the recyclable items are shipped off to be reprocessed.

I cannot imagine that there is any profit to this. I wonder how green friendly is this process. Do we have a negative effect? Consider what is involved:

Trucks to move the recyclable items must be manufactured.

Special equipment must be made and installed for the truck.

Sorting and handling machinery must be made for the central collection point.

There must be machines made and operated to process the recyclable items.

There is the environmental cost of making and operating the trucks and machinery.

Has anyone done an audit to determine if we are getting a real benefit from what we are forced to do? Anyone who raises the issue faces the potential wrath of the non-thinkers. Green is sacred.

There has been little voluntary effort by any private company to deal with household items. There has been a great deal of effort to collect and recycle usable scrap items from large producers because of the potential for profit.

It is the economy of scale. It cost the scrap dealer about the same to send his truck to your curb to pick up a few empty boxes as it does for him to send the same truck to the back of a big box store to pick up several tons of boxes.

Election signs are sprouting on lawns near you. Now is a good time to question the candidates about this matter. They won’t have any answers, but you can add what they say to your collection of recycled platitudes.

A Free 200 MPH Test Drive

Did you ever dream of a full throttle test drive of a race car? It is good that most of us never realize this dream. It would entail the destruction of good machinery if we did. Now you can do more than dream. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has placed on line its entire curriculum. You can now get an MIT level education free. Crash helmet not required.

On line learning is the future. Nothing short of ending the Internet will stop this. This changes everything. Every university will follow MIT’s lead. Time has always been a major consideration in pursuit of education. No longer. Neither is location. With on line learning the classroom is always in session. A computer with Internet access is all that is needed. Attire optional.

The lesser schools are doomed. Most colleges are obscure for a reason: they are mediocre. They all offer the same course material at an inflated price. The schools are filled with prosaic students getting cheap degrees and huge debts. Higher education has been immune from price competition for all of its existence. MIT has forever changed that.

Since its inception in medieval times, the university has been anchored in land and buildings. The Internet has made this obsolete. The ivy covered wall have fallen. Good riddance. Alma Mater U, stand by to change. You will not like it, but you will do it. Or else. You may do it and the else.

The state funded schools are exempt. They are funded by taxpayers. They are politically connected. Here there will be no change. Hangover U is safe. For now.

The Big Sports U’s are not safe. These schools have funnels for the professional teams. This function is not necessary for the professional teams. The teams can hire their players directly from high school. Why not? What sense does it make for a potential star player to risk a career ending injury by playing college sports? The signing bonus will by itself be more money than most people will make in two life times. The kid will sign. I would.

In a sense MIT is behind the curve. Home school families have been for years laughing at professional educators–and out performing them. Now with the Internet the home schooled have even more tools to use.

Education has always been about information. Information has been restricted by the elite to the elite. The Internet has evaded this restriction. The Internet is the greatest aid to information distribution since the invention of movable type. The only thing greater than the Internet is the invention of writing. The elite realize the danger.

The chances are slim of you getting into MIT. You can now see if you can handle the course work. You will also learn something, probably how well you handle  disappointment. If you are unable to do the work at MIT you will find out before you go to the expense, the bother, and the embarrassment of dropping out. Your failure will be your own little secret. (I did not want to go there anyway). It is a lot like the fact that I use spell check a lot. This is the reason that I will never apply to MIT. Why should I pay them money for them to tell me that I am stupid? I was smart enough to learn this long ago by myself. (I did not want to go there anyway.)

But don’t despair if you cannot get into MIT.  You can always set you sights lower and apply at the nearby Harvard University. They are not on line, yet.

Finding the Mispelled Werd

I just applied for two jobs via the University of Rochester web site. It was a strange experience. The job I was really interested in was Director of Humongously Large Gift Getting, but I did not apply for this position because I have no experience in first class air travel. I have always been a cargo class man.

The jobs for which I did apply were mail room clerk and parking attendant. These are not within my career field, but I am usually against limiting myself when it comes to getting legitimate income. As long as the job is not illegal or immoral I will consider it. I do not worry about fattening.

To apply at the University site one must supply the school with information about one’s self. Having a self, I did. In doing so, I came to the part about education. I was asked about my highest level of education. In looking though the choices, I noticed that several of the degree options had the choice of “professional or academic”. One degree choice, however, gave the option of “acedemic”.

Most people would dismiss this irony as a typographical error. I am not most people. I am only me.

A few months ago the University’s president wrote an article in our newspaper, the Daily Illuminant, about how he wants to raise the prestige of the school to the level of Johns Hopkins University. I know how he can start: by adjusting the Johns Hopkins University’s web site. This is an application the mindless mantra of equal misspellings for equal schools.

The misspelling does raise serious questions:

How did this escape spell check?

Is this the action of a malcontent with an acute sense of irony? (No, it was not me.)

Is the misspelling a subtle way to weed out the illiterate?

Are you wasting your time reading this?

Modern universities are built upon the principle of no absolute truth. Therefore, I cannot give you any answers. If I did, I might blow my chance at that tenure track job in the mail room.