Dusting off the blog

I've been spending too much time on other online communication sites lately. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, they all serve their place. Where they fail is in substance. It's all immediate blips of information that almost encourage you to have a short attention span. Sometimes, I need more than a quick post. Today is one of those days.

If you know me, you know that politics is one of my passions. I love to follow it, and I love to talk about it, with everyone. I don't care if you're a crazy militia man or a pot smoking hippie, I want to hear your opinion. This, to me, is one of the most critical things we can do to sustain this country - talk to each other, ESPECIALLY when we disagree. You won't always change my mind, and I won't always change yours, that's not the point. The point is to hear as many perspectives as you can, and together with you own knowledge and values, form an informed opinion. On what? Anything. Everything. I am genuinely astonished to think that anyone, anywhere would NOT take this approach, but I've come to accept that this is the case. So be it. This is one quest I will not abandon.

The other most critical thing, is to vote. You must vote. It is your right and your duty as a US citizen (or wherever you live, hopefully a democracy :-). For me, not voting is beyond lazy, it's shameful. It's like looking a fallen war hero in the eye and saying "I don't care that you died for my freedom." I really do take it that seriously. It's why I also think it's important to convey to others the importance of voting. It's typically not convenient. Often times the candidates suck. Deal with it. Get to the polls and vote, or else shut your trap about politics for the next year and take whatever they dish out.

This brings me to what's compelling me to stay up past my old-man bedtime and write a blog post today. Challenges to voting are once again in the news. 14 States have already passed laws that impact voting in the next election. 20 more are considering them. These laws relate to the ID you must present, the times you can vote, the ways in which you may conduct voter registration campaigns, the absentee voting process... pretty much everything related to voting. But why? What problems are we having with our elections that these laws will fix? What cases of fraud have we seen lately? None.

How many people does this affect? Why should I care? The sheer number of voters who could be impacted is larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections - 5 Million people. This has been well documented by Rolling Stone, the non-partisan Brennan Center at New York University, and others. 38 States in total are considering changes. States that have already passed new voting laws? Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas... notice a trend? These states all had poll taxes to suppress the black vote, they're all in the South (sorry Texas), and they are all run by Republicans. Thankfully, because of their history of discrimination at the polls, these states (except Tennessee) must all get their shiny new laws approved by the Department of Justice, thanks to the voting rights act.

But what's the real issue here? Why all the new rules and regulations around voting? Which of these laws is tied to a specific problem, and will it fix that problem? Here are some facts:

Among voting-age US citizens, 25% of blacks, 18% of the elderly, and 16% of hispanics do not have access to the documentation needed to prove citizenship. This is compared to 8% of whites. Why not? An easy example is a man born in the hills of Kentucky, in a cabin, who has no birth certificate. Newsflash: except for the elderly, the top two groups here vote Democrat. Is it a coincidence that Republican legislatures are passing laws that will disproportionately limit Democratic turnout at the polls? Absolutely. Republicans wouldn't do that on purpose, that would be like cheating.

We all agree that only citizens can vote. For 240 years, that has not been a problem, why do we need these laws now? The ID laws have provisions for the people who do not have a driver's license or other acceptable document today. They can go to the bureau of motor vehicles and get a voter ID card for free.. if they can get there and take a day off work to wait in line. Are non-citizens voting? Is this a big problem that new/stricter ID requirements will address? If only someone had looked into the issue, someone we could trust.

Thank God for "W." He instructed his Justice Department to investigate voter fraud, and they did. They spent 5 years looking into it. They found, brace yourself, 86 cases. That's nationwide, after investigating it for 5 years, with all the resources available to the justice department. Were any of these cases citizenship issues, you might wonder? Yes, 2 of them. A man from Pakistan filled out the wrong form. He has since been deported. A man from Mexico who had applied for citizenship thought that entitled him to vote, so he registered and voted. He has also been deported. So the two actual citizenship cases the DOJ found are no longer an issue.

Around 5-10 years ago, sex offenders were a favorite target of politicians. Don't get me wrong, they're scum, but hear me out on this. If a politician wanted to look tough on crime, he'd propose some new over-the-top sex offender law. No one would oppose it, because they'd look terrible. The problem with this is we now have some sex offender laws on the books that are too broad and have REALLY BAD unintended consequences. This guy had consensual sex with his high school girlfriend, but he was 19, she was 16, and her mom was pissed so she called the cops. Now he has to register for life, for sleeping with the woman who became his wife. He also can't vote, because he's a convicted felon!

There are many stories like this. The problem is that politicians have removed the will of the people from what they do. They are passing laws to make themselves look good, and asking their constituents to "trust me, this is in your best interest." No citizen ever said "I think high school sweethearts should be classified as sex offenders," but that's what happened.

Now that every state has 10 different sex offender laws on the books, it's time to go after the "illegals." Can't go wrong there, right? It just sounds great. "We need to crack down on illegals! They're taking our jobs, and free loading on our education and health-care systems! Let's make them scapegoats for America's problems." Off we go! Immigration "reform" has been a hot topic for years. Yes, the Federal government has failed to address it. Here's another newsflash though - these people are paranoid about getting caught, and rightfully so. I don't support people coming here illegally. What we're seeing though is that they are afraid to report even basic crimes because they're afraid of deportation. They are more likely to be victims of robberies because they deal exclusively in cash - can't open a bank account and don't trust them. Their women don't report domestic violence for fear of deportation. This is un-American. Some of these new immigration laws, like the one that just went live in Alabama, target the children of illegals. They require schools to verify citizenship.

These people run our restaurants, hotels, farms - ask anyone in those industries. Some are illegal, but some are US citizens. They do jobs that lazy Americans are too lazy to do, or at least they're willing to do them cheaper than we are. Have you spoken with a high school kid lately? That's who used to run the McDonalds, and in rural white towns they still do. Show me a city of any size, and I'll show you dozen restaurants that would close without Hispanic staff. In Kentucky, we would not have a horse industry without them.

These new voting and immigration laws target Hispanics because it's popular with the Republican base. The voting laws will inadvertently affect blacks even more though. Either way, we are not a nation of xenophobes, and we need to stop acting like one. Massachusetts changed its voting laws a while back, because it wanted to silence the votes of immigrants. The year was 1857, and they were targeting the Irish, with a literacy test. Connecticut followed suit two years later. Let's not do that again.

How can you be an independent? It's easy

I read a great opinion piece today by David Frum, a former adviser to "W." Frum is a really smart guy, and a great example of something that still baffles me about W's Presidency, which is "how can anyone surrounded by brilliant minds like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and others make so many dumb decisions? There was something about the culture he had in the White House that turned smart people into morons. I just hope Obama fumigated before moving in to get rid of it.

Frum's article makes a point I've been quietly screaming for years - the loud people in Congress who claim to be "conservative" "Republicans" are neither one. In fact, I think they've ruined both terms. These loud mouths just landed a debt deal that will do absolutely nothing to actually solve our debt problems, and in fact is very likely to make our economy worse before it gets better. Here's a great quote from the article:

"Only about one-third of Republicans agree that cutting government spending should be the country's top priority. Only about one-quarter of Republicans insist the budget be balanced without any tax increases.

Yet that one-third and that one-quarter have come to dominate my party."

Exactly. That's why I no longer call myself a Republican. The Abe Lincoln, Henry Clay "Republicans" no longer exist. What we have now are populist Republicans - guys who say whatever they think people want to hear. "Democrats are dumb and the President is a socialist" makes for great sound bites, but it doesn't solve any problems.

Summer heat

Decided I'd better updated my blog before Google decided I'm no longer using it. Perhaps the fact that I've gone so long without updating here means that I'm getting my social media fix through other means - I have been using Twitter more and of course Facebook. Part of it is certainly that I've become super busy at work since I transferred jobs at the start of this year. I'm now working in HP's TS consulting group as a cloud strategist. Sounds silly, and cloud computing is one of the most overused buzz-words in existence at the moment. I'm betting that cloud computing really is going to change the way people look at IT, and the conversations I've been having with our customers this year seem to confirm this.

The biggest change in my personal life was a move to downtown Lexington. We love this town, and we found that we were spending so much of our time downtown we might as well move there. Plus we had a four bedroom house, which was a bit more than we really needed with just the two of us and the dogs. The downside is that I'm spending $50 every time I walk to the farmers' market, but I guess that comes with the territory.

I will be wrapping up my MBA at Indiana University this fall. It's been really enjoyable, but I am looking forward to that February graduation date too, so I can have some free-time back. Fox news is still trash, I don't have an opinion about Casey Anthony, and I think the end of the space shuttle program is a real disappointment for America. I say a great statistic the other day that we spend $184 billion to bail out AIG, and we only spent $165 billion on the ENTIRE shuttle program.

Us and Them

Here is my latest complaint about politics in this country. If you voted for Barack Obama because you thought he was going to change Washington D.C., then you deserve every bit of disappointment you're feeling today.

• The American Presidency is one of the WEAKEST heads of state on the planet
• The powers-that-be in D.C. are extremely happy with the status quo - the special interests (teachers, lawyers, doctors, big pharma, big oil, farmers...) and the career politicians will continue to do all they can to resist change

Between these two reasons and a hundred or so others I could list, it's no surprise at all that Obama hasn't changed Washington. To all you independents and Democrats who are crying foul, get over it.

Now let's examine the Republican + Tea Party message. "How's that hope and change working out for you?" implies that nothing has changed. "We need to take back our government" and "Obama has implemented his socialist agenda and we need to undo it." both make it sound like Obama was the most successful President ever; that he's conducted a complete re-write of American government in just two years.

So which is it? Both of these things can't be true. The Democrats and cynics are mad at him for not delivering the change he promised. The Republicans and Militia men are trying to tell us that our nation is falling apart because he's changed so much of it.

This is like the people who say they want smaller government and then complain that the Federal government is not giving their state enough money. It's like the people who swear they support a free market but somehow farm subsidies and trade tariffs are acceptable. The Christian Right thinks that the evolutionists are winning and thus poisoning the minds of our youth with this crazy science stuff. The Evolutionists are screaming that the Christian Right is winning and thus poisoning the minds of our youth with this crazy Creationism stuff.

The Republican Message

Mitch versus Fact, again

Mitch McConnell released a statement this week warning my fellow Kentuckians about how the proposed energy bill will ruin our livelihoods. One of Mitch's largest campaign contributors is Peabody coal. Any chance these two facts are related? "We'll pay more at the pump for gas and more for keeping the lights on if it passes," he says. That is true, because any sensibly energy bill will

1. account for the economic cost of carbon emissions (there is one)
2. promote energy efficiency (because the current growth in US energy consumption is unsustainable)
3. make us less dependent on oil. we use 19M barrels a day, and we import 12M (63%) of those. Anyone who thinks we can simply stop importing and triple domestic production, is stupid (and wrong).
   

“It’s American troops whose lives are endangered because we’re dependent on oil companies in countries that hate us. It’s American consumers who are tired not just of prices at the pump that soar each summer, but sick and tired of our oil dependency that makes Iran $100 million richer every day that Washington fails to respond.” guess who? I'll bet you agree with the sentiment, and you may be surprised to learn the quote is from John Kerry.

We can't stop using coal either, but we can make it more attractive to get our electricity from other sources. The problem is that the coal (and railroad) lobby in this country are ridiculously powerful. They want you to think your energy bills will skyrocket if we implement a cap and trade system, which is just ridiculous. They're simply protecting the status quo and trying to scare people, and shame on Mitch McConnell for joining them. Ask a Kentucky miner to show you some "clean" coal.

Cell Phone OS

Interesting article about how Verizon is joining AT&T in disabling certain features on phones running the Android operating system. If you've never heard of Android, it's a phone operating system from Google that is free, uses open standards, and is available on many different handsets from many different manufactures and many different wireless providers.

The new version of Android OS (2.2 Froyo) supports tethering (tying your phone to your PC for use as an Internet connection) and also the ability to use your phone as a WiFi hotspot that serves several devices in the immediate area (I think up to 5). These are useful features, but they increase the amount of data usage on the wireless networks. If you buy your phone from your wireless provider, you're generally buying a handset that has a modified (provider-specific) version of the phone operating system. In short, the wireless companies add programs (often useless, but designed to sell you crap) and disable features (often useful, but ones that tax their network).

Imagine buying a Windows PC from your internet service provider. You get your Windows updates from your ISP instead of Microsoft, and in those updates the ISP disables your modem (unless you pay them an extra $20/month) and forces you to use some no-name e-mail software. You only get the Windows updates that your ISP agrees to distribute, versus getting every update that Microsoft issues. Sounds ridiculous, but I just described the exact model in use today for cell phones.

Americans want the latest thing, and they want it free (or cheap). At present, few people go into the wireless phone store and ask "what version of the operating system does it run and what features/programs have you added/removed?" They want an iPhone for free, because they look cool and their friends have one. Chances are good that the iPhone (or Droid) handset they're buying is so far advanced compared to their old phone that the improvements outweigh the drawbacks of limited features and having to sign a new contract. As more and more people get (and use) these next generation phones, I believe they will start asking those questions.

There may also be a legal consideration. Whether you extend your contract when you get it or not, under most conditions you're actually buying the phone from your provider. It's your phone. I doubt the terms of sale require you to run the operating system provided by your wireless company, but in fact that's what happens. You cannot remove certain programs, you cannot access certain hardware features. In most cases, modifying or changing the operating system voids the warranty. Upgrades to the phone OS come directly from the wireless provider, who actually pushes out a modified version of the update - one that retains the customizations that the provider wants. Remember when Microsoft pushed Internet Explorer out with every copy of Windows? They got taken to court on the grounds that it was anti-competitive, and they lost.

For me personally, it's further evidence that I made the right decision to buy a phone direct from Google. I got the full version of Android 2.2 when the phone was shipped to me. Any updates I get will come directly from Google, the guys who make the OS.