Principles...A Statement

My Father watched his friends die in WW I,

I watched my friends die in Korea and Vietnam,

The flag they all died for was the U.S. Flag,

My Grandparents on both sides of the family were immigrants and the first thing they did was to integrate into the American culture since they were now Americans living in America…not the Old Country. (Even before they took the oath of allegiance they knew they were Americans.)

In Texas, not long ago, a student raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole, another student took it down. For that simple act of American patriotism he was expelled from school. When I read about that I had to wonder at the logic of those who punish a young adult for protecting the flag of his country while letting a fellow student get away with raising an alien flag over U.S. territory.

In California kids in a high school were sent home on Cinco de Mayo for wearing shirts with the American flag printed on them. At the same time Hispanic kids at the school were encouraged to wear Mexican flags and iconography as symbols of their heritage! Please explain to me why it is ok for others to celebrate their heritage but wrong for Americans to celebrate our heritage.

Enough is enough.

Let me make this perfectly clear!

THIS  IS MY COUNTRY!  And, because I make this statement DOES  NOT mean I’m, a raciest or against immigration!!!

Every one who wishes to join is welcome here in my country, Welcome, to join with us legally:

1. Get a sponsor! It’s the law!

2.  Get a place to lay your head!

3. Get a job! Isn’t that why you came?

4. Live By OUR Rules!

5. Pay YOUR Taxes!

6.  Learn the LANGUAGE like all previous immigrants have in the past!

We’ve gone so far the other way, listened to politicians who see immigration as a source of willing fools, and treat the citizens of this country as feckless idiots. Because they believe the foolish immigrants (mostly illegally present in our country) will also keep them in office. Americans are told that we must bend over backwards and not offend anyone, while those same politicians allow others to repeatedly offend the very people whose country they are living in.

The American Dream is dying at the hands of politicians who have turned their back on that Dream and think that the Constitution (and the laws that followed) are not for them…the privileged masters of our country.

I will not forget…with every election cycle I WILL affirm that I am an American.

Worthy of his salary

I couldn't write it any better myself. The link below leads to a story of an Air Force B-1 pilot assisting a commercial crew during a medical emergency.

http://www.afspc.af.mil/news1/story.asp?id=123412412

The Downside of Green

In February of this year, a 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste burst open at the nations only nuclear dump in New Mexico.

Investigation into the cause of the accident points to a pet store purchase that went bad.

"It was the wrong kitty litter," says James Conca, a geochemist in Richland, Wash who while not part of the investigation is an expert on nuclear west management. It turns out there's more to cat litter than you think. It can soak up urine, but it's just as good at absorbing radioactive material.

It actually works well both in the home litter box as well as the laboratory or industrial incident. The waste management industry has been using kitty litter for years to soak up liquid waste, dump it into a drum of sludge and it will stabilize volatile radioactive chemicals. The kitty litter acts by preventing the waste from reacting with the environment.

And this is what contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory were doing as they packed Cold War-era waste for shipment to the dump. But at some point, they decided to make a switch, from clay litter to organic. That might sound nice, you're trying to be green, but the organic kitty litters are, as it says on the label, organic, Organic litter, is made of plant material, which can also be full of chemical compounds that can react with the nuclear waste. Investigators now believe the litter and waste caused the drum to slowly heat up sort of like a slow burn charcoal fire heats up.

Only one drum out of a shipment of about 500 drums overheated, but the threat has required authorities to seal all the remaining drums in larger, pressure proof containers. The road to living green can really be hard at times!

Remember

A Living Wage

I was listening to a news report on NPR regarding raising the minimum wage for fast food workers and other low paid occupations and some idiot being interviewed said "why should someone working for McDonalds in Denmark make $15 an hour and I can't here in the US".  I know that the ignorance of some people sometimes leaves me speechless but my first instinct was to say "because you don't live in Denmark you ". The comment did get me to thinking about "living wages" so I did some checking.

Most minimum wage people here in the US pay little or no income taxes after deductions and even if they did the lowest tax rate is 15%. However if a McDonalds employee in Denmark were to make $15 an hour their lowest tax rate is 45% so that $15 per hour turns into $8.25 take home. Also the social state in Denmark raises the cost of living: gasoline averages $8.55 a gallon, an average pair of Levis cost $145 and the average cost of a Big Mac meal in Denmark is $8.20 USD compared to about $5.75 here.

I guess ignorance is bliss, but if NPR had spent a few minutes checking facts (like I did) I doubt they would ever have broadcast the comments of that concerned "community organizer".

It's all in how you count things

About (mumble, mumble, ahem) years ago I worked for the Veterans Administration and as part of the job I lead the team that designed and implemented an automated claims tracking and control system for veterans benefits. When a claim was received it was entered into our system and as the claim was worked the status of the claim was continually and automatically  updated. At any time it was possible to see just where in the system the claim was, what was holding up processing and who was the responsible individual that had the claim sitting in their inbox.  It replaced a manual system that was replete with errors and that had made it possible for people to manipulate the figures. At first management didn't like it since it showed that it was taking lots of time to complete a claim that they had previously been able to hide from review.

The system was so successful that it is still in use today, although I certainly hope they have updated it over the years since I retired. The medical side of the agency adapted the tracking concept and built their own version in order to track veterans health claims and both systems worked as designed...giving hones and direct answers to requests concerning individual claims status and providing statistical information for management and Congress.

When I designed the system we realized that the Achilles heel of all such systems was that if a claim (or request) was not entered when received the system failed to track. We depended on the basic honesty of employees and management to assure a complete and accurate reporting system. And for the most part it has worked. But there is always some individual (or office) that will take advantage of the system for their own ends. It appears that the Director of the VA Hospital in Phoenix did exactly that. She had employees withhold input date from the system in order to make the stats look better than they really are. From what I've read (and heard form friends in the Agency) she did the same thing at two previous hospitals she was assigned to.

Like the IRS employees who were caught cheating on their tax returns and who then received performance bonuses I suspect that this particular Hospital Director will be kicked upstairs to a management position at headquarters. And that all future reports and statistics from the Agency will be doubted by those who care. What was once a fine system has been debased by those who care not how things are, just so long as they look good.

Duty of Care and the media

In 1928 a Mrs. Donoghue was served a bottle of ginger bear at a bar in Paisley Scotland. The bottle contained the well rotted corpse of a snail and Mrs. Donoghue spent several days in hospital. She sued the manufacturer of the bear and the case (which is known in legal legend as the “Paisley Snail” case) was finally decided by the House of Lords in 1932.

Their decision created the modern concept of negligence, by setting out general principles whereby one person would owe another person a duty of care. Before the Paisley Snail decision courts had ruled that there had to be a contractual agreement between the parties in order that a tort action be taken. Since then however courts have generally held for the concept that any one who produces a product owes it to future users to assure that there are no obvious defects or errors and omissions that could negatively impact the user.

While the original concept pertained to goods and manufactured items I’d like to see the concept expanded to thoughts and statements that commentators and writers knowingly issue when they know the statement is untrue. Today if the media lies and demeans me as an individual I can sue for libel, but what if the untruth is a lie directed to the public at large. If the writer (or commentator) knowingly evades the truth, or does not provide an honest and complete version of events should they not be responsible for their product?

Two thousand years ago Marcus Aurelius said “If it’s not right do not do it, If its not true don’t say it”. Those words are just as important today as they were in his day. Perhaps we should apply the concept of Duty of Care to those who try to influence society by distorting or ignoring truth.

Please comment…I’d like to know if my thoughts have merit.