I turned off the discussion on Jim Lehrer's show

I had wanted to watch the segment on Jim Lehrer's show where he hosts a discussion with David Brooks and Mark Shields. I turned it off, before it was over, as I was too angry. I get angry at what I perceive to be distortions and exaggerations. I also get angry that things are being handled in a way that they are easy to attack.

I also have lost my patience with John S. McCain, Jr. I voted for him in the 2000 Republican primary, but the more he talked, the more disillusioned I became. Now, his stance in support of Ted Koppel's attempt to bash the administration is inexcusable. Why doesn't John McCain go ahead and join the Democratic Party? I wondered that after the McCain Finegold bill was passed.

Part of the issue is that I am "Center-Right" while John McCain is "Center-Left". Hugh Hewitt is now calling himself "Center-Right", and I know exactly what he means. While I admire many things about my Southern Baptist friends, they often go so far over the top, that even I, who am pretty tolerant, wince.

You probably have heard the "joke" about John McCain. The joke is that John McCain will run as John Kerry's Vice Presidential running mate, as well as Bush's and Ralph Nader's running mate.

Nortel Networks

It was apparent, as the economic downturn started, that there were odd things about how Nortel had been managed. I was still stunned when the top management was sacked, even though I knew that Frank Dunn had been the CFO during the "old bad times". It was as if he had been part of the wrong thinking of the latter 1990's and early 2000's that pervaded the U.S. and Canadian governments. Top leadership in the 1990's had made it seem that ethics and personal character didn't matter, only results (or what they said they cared about).

I greatly resent the Canadian bankers who are said to be soliciting a hostile takeover. That would be devastating the company, people, and customers. Nortel is the last great hope among real North American telecom equipment manufacturers. Cisco just buys technology, they don't develop it. Lucent is is a death spiral, and Motorola isn't much better. Better to let Nortel get past this present unpleasantness and move on.

The Marines pulling away from Fallujah seems crazy

The Marines pulling back from Fallujah seems like a move that asks for trouble. We had the chance to finish off the enemy, and to satisfy the State Department, we give up. How can that be a good thing?

Qwest's outsourcing plans are now public knowledge

We talked about the article in the Rocky Mountain News, in Denver, about outsourcing. We believe that someone must have contacted the paper, in Denver, after hearing a call with the CIO, yesterday. Basically, it was what had already been rumoured. Qwest was investigating outsourcing all IT. In the meeting yesterday, which permanent employees heard, the CIO said ALL IT would be outsourced. When Qwest was contacted by the reporter, they insisted it would only be PART of IT that would be outsourced. The article indicated what had already been rumoured, that IBM had the inside track on the outsourcing contract.

Qwest is investigating outsourcing all IT

The big news, not particularly a surprise, is that Qwest is going to put out an RFP for outsourcing all IT. Whether they do it depends on the response they get for the RFP. They are going through the motions of cutting costs: no more coffee, no more cable TV to the break room, reducing IT consulting billing rates.

"Chicken Hawks", indeed

I was enraged to hear Senator Lautenberg, speaking on the floor of the senate. He was making a partisan attack on the President and Vice-President, because they deposed Saddam Hussein. His reasoning was that only someone who had served in combat should be able to order military action.

It seems like an odd complaint, because President Clinton, a Viet Nam War draft dodger ordered the carpet bombing of Serbia, and the bombing of Iraq. He also ordered the destruction of the aspirin factory in the Sudan. Now we hear that it was not acceptable for the current president, who served as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, during the Viet Nam era, to have ordered the liberation of Iraq from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. What of the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in mass graves? How about the corruption in the so-called "oil for food" program that was funneling billions of dollars to Saddam and to those he was paying kickbacks (in France and Russia, as well as the UN).

More catchy phrases

There is this guy who is a great leader and motivater, within a business group. I have mentioned at least one other thing he said. As he said: "Don't let anyone steal your dream." It is your dream, and it is what motivates and energizes you. "Stealing a dream" means that someone denigrates what you dream of having or doing, and you lose faith that it is attainable, or that it is even worth achieving. Living without a dream is like being dead. Nurture and protect your dream. The key point is to think big (as in "The Magic of Thinking Big", the title of a great book). The people who have "made it big" are those that didn't lose faith, and continued to grow and to realize their dreams.

I am a user of "CityDesk"

I have been a user of Joel Spolsky's product, "CityDesk". I have expanded my use of it to include a trick I recently learned. I make tables in Word documents, then copy and paste them into a blank CityDesk page (in WYSIWYG mode). The, I copy the HTML and paste it into Blogger. Presto! I have a nice table with a border. It beats hand coding tables without borders.

More about Dreadnought

The Elizabethans were fond of their distinctive compound words. Dreadnought is a famous example. Others are Swiftsure, Speedwell, and Warspite. Another, Bonaventure may or may not qualify. The main reason that I might include it is that it was used for a ship that took part in the Armada campaign. I probably could find others, if I were in a place to browse through my copy of "Colledge".

Sir John Fisher's favorite saying

I am an admirer of Admiral Sir John Fisher. He was a close confident of Winston Churchill's in the years before the Great War. One of the distinctive characteristics of Admiral Fisher were his pentient for phrases. For example, he said "Speed is armour". On the other hand, he said "Armour is vision". His favorite phrase, however, was "Fear God and Dread Nought", which was a biblical passage. It also came across as a pun, in that you could apply it to the Dreadnought battleship. Characteristically, we spell the word differently, so the American's called the ship type "dreadnaughts". In any case, it is good advice to "dread not".