Politics in General

Politics is the art of the possible. Right now, we have a Congress in which all Republicans are opposed to reform. This isn't healthy for democracy, and they must be punished. I hope that the bill passes and Obama is able to pass it into law, however bad it is. But I hope much more than all the Republicans are replaced by new ones that are at least more pliable and more willing to contribute rather than stonewall.

Otherwise, they are just disgusting creatures who besmirch the institutions they are supposed to stand for.

The Politics of Health Care Reform

It's very hard to think. The liberals are too despondent now to vote for Obama again, but I would not be surprised if Obama picked Hillary to be his VP for the second term--however craven it might be, not many people could resist voting for such a power team. But, Clinton might say no. She will sooner leave a sinking ship than try to hitch her wagon to him. That's what I see.

A filibuster threat is more powerful than the filibuster itself, and that seems wrong to me. Senators should be allowed to filibuster 24 hours a day, as needed, rather than by merely threatening it--since filibustering is an exhausting activity--I guess the senators don't like to do anything exhausting. They would rather be pampered.

The teabaggers aren't very successful in stopping Obama because this plan isn't Obama's plan. Unlike Hillary, when HillaryCare worked against her, this plan is a product of Congressional legislation, plus a heaping dose of lobbyists' subsidies. Therefore, they're using the wrong playbook to oppose this legislation. They cannot hope to repeat the failure of 1993-94 unless they change their tactics.

health insurance threat

This threatening to raise insurance rates if the health reform legislation passes is simply ridiculous. We should just say, "Damned if we do, and damned if we don't."

For the last 20 years, insurance rates have been rising and have never gone down. They're going to rise if we pass health insurance and they're going to rise anyway if we don't. But legislation is precisely for the purposing of taming the rising costs of care. The health insurance industry knows it is going to lose a lot of money, and that is why it is running a massive scare campaign.

i wish a politician had the balls to say, "You ignorant fool, the government created Medicare in the 1960s during Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The government did it because the private insurance companies believe that you old people are uninsurable. You're liable to get sick, expensive, and therefore you're going to be kicked off their insurance policies. The government created Medicare to help insure the old. Now, we're debating whether to provide a Medicare-like program for everyone else. You're also wrong about the politicians being insured by private companies. We most assuredly are not, we are insured by the government, and that is why we have been able to live longer than the average American people. So, learn your goddamn facts, you ignorant people."

Great Depression II

The economic news is so depressing, there's nothing to do except to feel gratitude, that it isn't the worst yet. Millions of jobs lost are so much more in magnitude than the fact that during the Great Depression, 25% of the population were unemployed, because the population at that time was smaller.

The population of the United States was 123 million, which means that a 25% unemployment rate is equivalent to 30 million people. Now, we have a population of 317 million people, meaning that a 10% unemployment rate is over the total number of people ever unemployed in the Great Depression.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Depression. It may not be called that now, but it will be called that by future historians who must acknowledge the long decline of the American Empire. Even if businesses pick up, we have already so destroyed small businesses it is highly unlikely we will succeed in halving the number of unemployed anytime soon.

Thirty-one million people should be enough to rise up against the bankers and the government, and yet they stay silent because they are sucking off the teats of unemployment benefits. I don't know any other reason, other than the Americans continue to retain their absolute faith that the beloved Constitution will fix everything, that like in the Great Depression before, we will pull through as long as we help each other.

single-application mode

Single-Application Mode via Daring Fireball

I haven't heard of this feature, but it makes me think that is where the iPhone went, despite everyone not liking it on the Mac OS X. The small screen space of the iPhone almost necessitates the focus of one application at a time, so even if, in the future, the hardware is powerful enough to permit background processes, it will maintain the single-application mode, with the Home button being the Finder that quits each application as you switch.

I did not know what it was called, but now I understand that it is what Apple wants--and it represents one of the differences between Mac and Windows.

For example, suppose I have two Safari windows and a Mail window open, and the first Safari window is on top of the Mail window, which is on top of the second Safari window. I would attempt to minimize the first Safari window to get access to the Mail window, only to be frustrated by the second Safari window popping up.

I found this to be annoying (and I'd say I still find it so, because I prefer to minimize rather than click on the Mail app in the Dock), but at least I understand the purpose. It is part of Apple's obsession with keeping users focused on one application at a time, until the users are explicitly switching to another application. It presents applications as the main focus of attention, with clear delineations from each other. In contrast, Windows presents everything as being subsumed under the single category that is--I suppose--aptly titled "windows." In this case, every application is a mere window, and priority is given by which was last used. So, if you used Outlook, and then click on Firefox, and then minimize it, Outlook as the last used window then becomes the foregrounded application. That in the Mac OS X applications are to be the main focus is a necessity probably born of the conscious UI choice made in the 1980s of putting the menu bar on top rather than in every window.

After all, it would be very odd to see the menu bar changing application identity by virtue of minimization (and it might not even be desirable). In contrast, Microsoft Windows puts the menu bar in every window, so that the application is the focus only in each window. This methodology permits a certain degree of flexibility, but perhaps sacrifices clarity, because non-technical people don't get the sense of what an application is as distinct from what an operating system is. It becomes all "Windows" to them.

Decentralized government

Teacher certification a painful farce

I can't believe the comment, that there are people idiotic enough to blame the problems of teacher certification on too much government. It is idiotic because it's precisely that we have different competing authorities that make it a farce, such that Pennsylvania has a different requirement from that of Connecticut. This is why some people want the federal government to step in, so that it can standardize requirements, and it can assure that teachers who took their education courses in one state can be assured of a job in another.

This is similar to the medical community, in which California actually requires doctors from out of state or country to go to school and take another exam to get a license to practice in California.

It is not an example of more government as much as the problems of decentralized governments and districts disabling people from moving their certification between schools.

Hot Dogs on a Stick

I saw someone I knew who went to ASL class with me working at Hot Dogs on a Stick. I didn't talk with her because I felt like I would embarrass her. I grew up in a TV culture where such occupations were portrayed as uncool. It was something like the Wonder Years, the 80s/90s with the drag color like that Nan Golding photo. I suppose the chain's bright yellow color is its brand, it's recognizable, but maybe the fact it reminded me of my childhood is why we live in perpetual forgetfulness. Brand is just too ubiquitous and sometimes stale, and it has little of local flavors to make one proud.

Meanwhile, I had been hankering for a corn dog. Maybe I will go back to buy one.

Testing aStore

I doubt I will ever earn money because I don't pay enough attention to the care of a store, but it can't hurt to try.

Long Perspective

Daring Fireball linked to 3 key parts of news you usually don't get.

I can't help but agree. I often feel unsatisfied by the lack of long perspective on the health care reform debate. Every news on Huffington Post, CNN, New York Times, and other news sites and papers are breathless in its coverage of the immediate event, as if recent events could have an unalterably large effect on future directions. The shallow parsing done on the Obama Administration's constant, though alarmingly centrist position on the public option is amplified into a meaningless act of putting words in a person's mouth.

It is important to think in terms of context, to give people ideas of the process of health care, rather than reporting on whatever new events are happening, because people don't have the capacity to process and organize information in a manner that allows them to be enlightened at the end of the day. And in fact, it is too easy for newspapers to print loud headlines than to write a thoughtful piece.

We might regard that as journalism, but it's not really journalism as much as a mindless aggregation of the now. And in the end, it leaves one addicted and perpetually unsatisfied.