Haiti and Africa

For some reason, both Haiti and the worst parts of Africa seem to have something in common. I suspect that it is attitude-driven. I have been saying that people have been living in the same place, with a static genetic and ethnic pool for too long, and have developed some destructive thinking patterns.

For whatever reason, Haiti, at its worst, has some of that flavor. The better part of Haiti seems to have fled to the US. They have had the advantage of stable lives and association with more success-oriented attitudes.

I have met some really sharp Africans. They are a fairly diverse lot, geographically, as they have been from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. There are others, but I don't know their ethnic origin, so there probably could be more countries on the list. They were all in the US, and doing well.

There has to be a way to turn places like Haiti and Africa around. They seem to be the victims of organized crime at the national level. Simple aid is insufficient.

I wonder how many people are affected by the wage deflation that has happened in the IT profession, in the last three years?

At least for IT consulting, and probably for telecom and IT in general, there has been wage deflation happening. Companies are either sending work offshore, or are using programmers imported from India on L1 visas. They are paid at India scale, but have their expenses covered. That undercuts people who are based here, and who are badly damaged by working at low rates.

For some skills, which are scarcer, rates are improving, but for many skillsets, rates are at greatly depressed levels. There is also a scarcity of paid overtime. Salaried employees, on the other hand, are in some cases being worked hours that probably violate labor laws. They only (seeming) recourse they have is to quit.

Jobs

For better or worse, the employment situation is going to be a campaign issue in the general election. The Democrats will probably win on that issue. The problem is that they don't have a clue about how to fix things. I can see them raising taxes and putting up trade barriers, as their solution. That would really work great. Ralph Nader is even worse, if that is possible. He has a long track record of being "anti-business".

My working theory is that the anti-business wave of lawsuits and criminal actrions against Wall Street firms and corporations have made everyone "risk adverse". That means being overly conservative, and is driving the cost-cutting that is sending work offshore.

We need pro-business legislation and a stop to the legal attacks. Companies have to feel like they can not be punished for making occasional mistakes. The atmosphere has been so harsh, that everyone is afraid of doing things that might spark a government action or civil lawsuit (or even bad publicity).

Some regions are harder-hit than others. The Dallas-Ft. Worth area has been pummeled in the last three years. My son told me last night of telecom people from his company who have had to resort to panhandling.

Why is John Kerry winning the Democratic nomination?

I cannot make sense of why John Kerry is winning the Democratic nomination, except that there is a "herd instinct" that is driving the part over the cliff. If you hear his senate testimony, from Hugh Hewitt's site, you will know the dispicable things he said about our people fighting in Viet Nam. Even the Chicago Sun Times' cartoonist took a shot at John Kerry over this issue.

Susan Estrich's latest NewsMax column

I suspect that the bad things happening to health insurance and, therefore, pharmacies, happened thanks to moves by the U.S. Congress to pinch insurance companies. Much of the complaints about managed care and other health insurance, and care problems are the direct result of the Government's desire to cut costs. Some of the final effects were the disappearance of neighborhood pharmacies and their replacement by chain stores. Susan Estrich, in her latest contribution to NewsMax (I believe) is about a RiteAid pharmacy horror story. She rightly puts the blame on the pharmacy situation, at least in part, on insurance companies. The real culprit, however, is Congress. They will complain about the unintended consequences, as things have played out differently than they had hoped. The present situation has been pretty predictable, as one Government and business cost-saving measure after another has created the present mess.

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader's rationale for getting into the race is exactly right. The comment on Fox, that John Kerry has moved to the left for the primary and then plans to move to the right, in the general election, proves the point.

Mainstream, establishment Democrats, who are the ones with whom Ralph Nader is unhappy are "trash-talking" about him. The Democratic party really is a special interest money machine, and really is something to be disdained.

Democrats

I am dismayed to think, right now, that the Democrat smoke-blowing machine seems to be prevailing. They are clueless, except to criticize President Bush (usually unfairly).

Andrew Sullivan pointed out, today, an article that shows the vacuity of treating the "War on Terror" as a criminal investigation and prosecution (the article talks about the Clinton administration in 1998 to 2000).

The employment situation will be a potent issue

Even though the real job market and economy are improving, the issue will still be a potent one for the general election. The dirty little secret is that the Democrats don't have a clue as to how to fix things, either. Raising taxes certainly will do the job. Perhaps all of us IT people will get retrained to silkscreen T-shirts. The only answer that has a prayer of helping is to keep pumping the economy and do something to help generate more new business. The government needs to stop beating up on business. There has to be room for failure, as well, as not everything will work.

The Democrats think that all they have to do is to keep demagoguing employment and companies sending work offshore, and they think that they can win. They would have a harder time, actually fixing anything.

We like Ralph Nader--Run Ralph, Run!

We like Ralph Nader, because someone needs to shake up the race for President. We also like him, because he is a place for progressives to place their support. Neither John Kerry nor John Edwards qualify. Dennis Kucinich qualfies, but he is not a viable candidate. Ralph Nader may not be able to win, but he can make a good showing. A good showing being that if he represented a party, such as the Greens, he would be able to get them on the ballot and qualify for matching funds, as he did last time around.

John Kerry continues to be a self-promoter who will say anything to anyone, if he thinks they will like what they hear and vote for him. John Edwards is still a smooth trial lawyer who became a millionaire by finding people willing to sue companies and people who had money.

A Two Man Race

Apologies to Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton, but the race for the Democratic nomination is now a two man race. The main problem now, is that neither John Kerry nor John Edwards are very interesting. Howard Dean was at least interesting, even though I strongly disagreed with him.

At one point, I was worried that Howard Dean would win the nomination and beat President Bush, but that didn't happen. Now, the Democratic nominee apparently will be either John Kerry or John Edwards.

I heard John Kerry's testimony to the Senate in the early 1970's on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, and was appalled. He slandered our troops who had fought in Viet Nam. This is especially an issue for me because my younger brother spent 17 months in the North part of South Viet Nam during the fighting. I also met too many men who had been in the war, during my active duty in the Navy. I just don't believe for a minute, that what John Kerry described was wide-spread, if any of it happened at all.

Another problem with John Kerry is that he is obviously an opportunist and self-promoter. He also seems to say whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear, even if it means contradicting what he has said before.

John Edwards is demagoguing globalism and class warfare. Susan Estrich says that she has tried the John Edwards message in every campaign that she has been associated with, in a long career in politics, and the message has never worked for her. The other problem with John Edwards is that he is a trial lawyer who became a millionaire by suing businesses.

The Sun, in Britain

Drudge linked to a story on the Sun, in Britain that insists that there is something to the story about the young woman, and that a major network has footage in the can of an interview done last December. The Sun says that they are collecting evidence to verify facts before broadcasting the interview.

The Sun also says that Kerry asked the young woman to flee to Africa, to be able to avoid reporters.

The Democrats and President Bush

The Democrats are determined to beat President Bush in the general election. They can't debate the issues, so their only possible way to succeed is to have this continuous stream of personal attacks. The Air National Guard flap would be laughable, if the Democrats were not pressing it so hard. The bad part is that there is nothing to flap about. The Democrats so desperately need to make something of it, it doesn't matter if it becomes increasingly apparent to everyone, that there is nothing too the "thing". They have to find a way to smear President Bush, so it doesn't matter. They are ready to lie, cheat, and steal, to win, and they are already doing it.

If I were a betting man...

If I were a betting man, I would guess that the Democrats, with Terry McAuliffe in the lead, will be able to squash the current rumour about John Kerry and a certain young woman.

I would also guess that there are one or more things like this "out there", that would blow him out of the race, if they were known. The chances are very great that one of them will come out, most likely after the other candidates have left the race.

John Kerry, continued

The Telegraph, in Britain, says that the John Kerry scandal is close to breaking into the open, despite his best efforts. With the Brits on the case, he is dead meat, if there is anything to this, as the Telegraph says. That is especially true, after John Kerry's blanket denial on Don Imus' show.

'This won't go away. What happened is much nastier than is being reported' By Adrian Blomfeld in Nairobi and Andrew Alderson

Sending IT work offshore

This is a topic that won't go away. My Indian friend, who is a US Citizen, said that the solution would be to have a minimum IT wage, in the US, of $50/hour. I suggested to him that the result would be to have all IT work go offshore. Nothing would be left.

Even in the Blogosphere, everyone in the center and right, are in favor of the practice of outsourcing and sending work to India and elsewhere, outside the US. People in the IT field are understandably upset and want something to be done to restore their well-paying jobs.

The only problem is that there is no good solution. One possibility is to leave the field and get retrained. The only problem is, where would we go? The US has an experienced and innovative IT profession. Almost everyone is either out of work or having to make do with pay scales not seen since the mid-1980's. The result on local economies, such as Dallas, are devastating.

The Twin Cities is bad, but not quite as bad as Dallas. I actually heard about a $50/hour contract job, probably in the Western Suburbs of Minneapolis, doing J2EE development (Java programming on the server, for the uninitiated).

This is certain to be a political issue. The only problem is that the Democrats no more have a solution than the Republicans. The only difference is that the Democrats bemoan the situation while the Republicans say it is a good thing.

the John Kerry story

I was disappointed that this was not going to be talked about this weekend. "Big Media" has been silenced, on this subject. John Kerry denies that there is anything there, so that was it.

Perhaps we were all gullible, but everyone had been waiting "for the other shoe to drop", and this seemed like what would be needed to burst the John Kerry bubble.

I always am suspect about this sort of thing, as they when the Democrats demanded it, they were able to keep Gary Aldrich off of cable and broadcast television. That didn't stop many people from buying his book, however.

Given what we now know about President Clinton, Gary's book is probably all true, even the unverified speculation. We found out that when the subject is President Clinton, if you expect the worst, you won't be disappointed.

That is why, when we all saw the headline about John Kerry on the Drudge Report, yesterday, there was instant acceptance. He already had a reputation as a womanizer, in his past. There is the story about Susan Estrich's friend who had been his first wife (as I think I understand the story).

John Kerry

John Kerry denies that there is anything to the story that Drudge broke. Apparently, this has been floating around in Democratic political circles for at least a while. In the last week, Wes Clark had mentioned this to reporters in an "off-the-record" discussion. My guess is that the story surfaced through Chris Lehane, who had worked for Wesley Clark.

If there is anything "to" the story, I would think that John Kerry is finished as a candidate. If not, it won't affect things, except to anger some people against those who have covered the story. A widespread theory (Kausfiles, for example) is that people have voted for John Kerry because they think other people will vote for him, too, even though they don't really like him.

In any case, the John Kerry story is becoming "mainstream" and will probably be discussed on television and radio (if not in print), in the US. It already is starting to go into the mainstream press, as of this morning.

John Kerry--the buzz

There is an indication (Drudge broke the story) that John Kerry will not stand up to media scrutiny. Apparently, his recent life has not been "squeaky clean". Apparently, Drudge says, Time magazine has a full court press on to find out the juicy details. Drudge also says that this is the reason that Howard Dean decided to stay in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

I knew I didn't need persuading, anyway... After seeing the letter in the Washington Times from a man who had served in the Texas Air National Guard with President Bush in the early 1970's (in the Houston area), I was glad. There are a bunch of guys out there trying to tear the president down, and they don't know what they are talking about. The letter should be required reading, if you are going to be allowed to vote in the general election. From what I can see, to date, the leftist journalists and politicians continue to want to believe what is not true. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is an example.

Al Gore I was struck by what I heard that Mara Liasson and Mort Kondracke had to say about Al Gore on Britt Hume's show, yesterday. Mara Liasson said that Al Gore's remarks about President Bush were "over the top". Mort Kondracke said that he was grateful that Al Gore had not been elected president in 2000. I have been surprised, in a bad way, by Al Gore, as I had read William Safire's comments about him, in the New York Times, and he had said that he seen Al Gore in action on a flight in Central Asia, and had been impressed with his judgment, under stress. William Safire had suggested that if we ended up with Al Gore as president, he wouldn't be as bad as he seemed.

I am very dismayed at the existence of the Bush-haters I alternatively am angry at and dismayed by the Bush-haters. Partly, I don't understand why they would feel that way, except that they are "sore losers". Another explanation is that they listen to the Democratic leadership and leftist media figures, and believe their lies. Why the character assasination of Bush administration figures? The "Left" seems to hate Vice-President Cheney even more than President Bush. Also, why would it be a good idea to increase taxes (sharply?), just as the economy is rebounding. Even I am starting to see signs that the IT job market may finally be improving, even in Dallas.

Parole and crime There is a political segment that decries putting criminals in jail. They are in denial about why the criminals are put in jail. It is not to rehabilitate them, but to protect society against them. When there is easy parole for violent offenders, you have crimes like the murders of Carly Brucia and Drew Sjodin. Hardly a week goes by when I don't hear leftists complain about how many men are in prison. There is a reason, and we can be grateful that they are, because we would have a situation like the late 1970's, when crime was up. President Reagan promoted punishing criminals and protecting society by locking up criminals. As a direct result, the national crime rate went down.

The Democratic race for the nomination is getting strange The Democrats are left with no good choice, if Howard Dean's candidacy is dead. It remains to be seen if that is true, but everyone has written him off. As I may have said, John Kerry's record and history are easily assailed. He is back to being a resume. The only change is that his resume seems more appealing. John Edwards, the only other seemingly viable choice lacks experience. His main strength is that he is a "good talker". Howard Dean is alive, but wounded (perhaps fatally). Wesley Clark is too inexperienced a candidate to survive. He has performed very poorly, to date. His main strength is his resume, which still appeals to some people. The remainder are not serious contenders. They have their constituancies, and that is the only reason they have survived to this point: Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich. The dropout list is growing: Joe Lieberman, the latest to go; Dick Gephardt, the labor candidate; Carol Mosely Braun; and Bob Graham. I almost forgot about Bob Graham, as his candidacy never really received any interest, outside of some insiders (or himself).

The Democratic contest Howard Dean seems to have almost completely imploded. Even Gary Troudeau's Doonsbury seems to be at the point of bailing out. The problem is that the alternatives are not very appealing. Gary Troudeau has already trashed John Kerry with his October 1971 cartoons that tell me a lot about John Kerry that seems to be still true. Mickey Kaus has the links to the cartoons (one click) on Kausfiles. John Edwards may be a slick talker, but he is a trial lawyer. Wesley Clark is just plain extreme, and not a good candidate. Someone joked that Howard Dean's fall started when Al Gore endorsed him. Someone else says that the problem started when Howard Dean and Joe Trippi decided to forego matching funds, so they could spend freely in the primaries. Whatever the explanation, Howard Dean is a "Dead Man Walking".

Outrageous, all too typical Apparently, Terry McAuliffe is a believer in the "big lie" pattern. If your lie is big enough, and you say it often, perhaps, people will start to believe you. Terry McAuliffe's continuing smear campaign against President Bush is what I find to be outrageous. He can't compete on issues, so he attacks "the person". If this is the level that the Democrats are going to stoop to, this election season, they are stooping very low. I can only guess that they are desparate, after all the complaints in Iowa about negative campaigns. Of course, the hard-core, Democratic Bush-haters eat up this sort of rhetoric. I find it to be pure demogoguery.

What Democrats say Democrats seem to be reduced to saying things about President Bush that they wish were true and that they hope people will believe, just because they say them. That is true of Terry McAuliffe with respect to what he said on ABC's "This Week" show on Sunday. Just listen to John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, and especially, Wesley Clark. Mickey Kaus is the best source for information about John Kerry. Kausfiles even has a link to the October 1971 Doonesbury cartoons about John Kerry. They are not flattering.

Susan Estrich and Joe Trippi I just read Susan Estrich's column in NewsMax about Joe Trippi's firing: The Firing of Joe Trippi. She explains how she had known Joe Trippi since he was a young grass-roots organizer, and tells the story of what Joe told her about the Dean Campaign. Susan Estrich is my favorite Democratic strategist and commentator. She is obviously a professional who is skilled in her trade. When you want to know about political campaigns, she is someone you can trust to give you the best information. She says that Howard Dean's campaign is dead.