McCain and the Stupid Pill

I never consider anyone dumb. However I do recognize stupidity when I see it, having fallen victim to those kinds acts myself over the years. McCain's robocalls are stupid. Studies show people usually hang up within the first 3-5 seconds. Most of us have predisposed anger toward telemarketing. The message is offensive, while I do not like the liberalism the Democratic party tends to reflect they are not dumb. They would not have selected a terrorist or a Muslim. McCain recently called Obama an honorable man when his campaign rallies got racial and ugly.

I will still vote for McCain, but this is a stupid act that will backfire on him.

Unfortunately the message is finding takers. A person I work with who has a bachelor and master's degree recently told me she doesn't trust Obama because of the association with terrorists or he may be a closet Muslim. This is a highly educated person I respect a great deal for her courage to pull herself up from a background in poverty. There are probably others.

Win at all costs, I don't like it but it seems to be a political fact of life.

Immortality?

A recent article on CNN medical has my mind speculating full time. The article concerned a research lab that had taken a rats heart, stripped it of all cellular material leaving a cellular matrix behind, then injected the matrix with cells from the rat's heart which then divided, grew and the heart started to beat again. Now there are all kinds of difficulties, for example they need to figure out how to install blood vessels and nerve endings to recreate the actual heart, but if they can achieve this step they can certainly figure out the rest.

Just think of the possibilities. Taking an organ from a deceased person, stripping that organ down, rebuilding it and transplanting it. If you used cells from the host organism there may be no rejection issues and you could resume a normal life with your immune system intact.

What about cancer, diabetes, congestive heart failure. Replace the organ with a good one. If cancer hasn't metastasized you might effect a cure and reduce or eliminate the risk of recurrence. What does that mean for gene replacement for people predisposed to breast cancer, colon cancer or even Alzheimer's.

A thousand years in the future there may be clinics where every 150 years or so you enter the clinic for a period of time and have your entire body rebuilt. Immortal, could be.

Think about the impact on organized religion. We would become one with God. If we were created in God's image would that not be possible? I wish I were going to be around the hear the debate that is going to take place as we progress towards that possibility. After all, once you've mastered immortality the universe is a piece of cake.

What will be the impact of race on the race?

I've said before if you are voting for Obama because he is black you are voting Obama for the wrong reason. Likewise if you are voting for McCain because Obama is black you are voting McCain for the wrong reason.

I do not know of any polls that indicate the impact of race. There is the Bradley effect, but I do not know of any statistics. However I've been an observer of people for many years because that is how I made my living. Social scientists say that Blacks and Latinos are more apt to act in concert as a member of a group than Caucasians. So in all likelihood blacks may end up pooling their votes for Obama.

However, racial feelings run deep. I've heard the talk. When the curtain on the voting booth closes who knows what happens but I am sure many will vote their heart. I do not think we have any measure of the extent racial hatred exists. Barry Goldwater said during his campaign many years ago that you cannot legislate love into a man's heart. I think we shall find out. Obviously we've come a long way toward honoring diversity, but is it lip service or have beliefs, prejudices and bias really changed?

I think if Obama has a significant lead we will see him win but by 5% lower than the polls predicted. I hope not, but I believe the possibility is real.

Employee Free Choice Act

There is an act that has successfully passed the House sitting on the democratic agenda waiting for the election Nov. 4. It is called the Employee Free Choice Act and on the surface sounds quite attractive. It has been developed by unions and their liberal supporters. What it refers to is a change to the current method used to determine whether or not employees desire union representation.

As of this writing unions wishing to try to organize a company will have representatives stand near company property, or meet with people they have contacted working for the company who may be sympathetic to the union message. A card is proffered and if signed represents the person interest in having an election for union representation. If 51 percent of the active employees request an election then there is a waiting period while the NLRB schedules an election. During this time the company may discuss the possibility of union representation with employees. They have the employees at work and can use work time for the discussion sessions. In addition companies hire firms to come in a survey all personnel to see if the main irritant of the employees can be discovered and remedied before an election takes place. The union is at somewhat of a disadvantage as they have to rely on public meetings or home visits to get their message out.

Unions claim the companies have an unfair advantage and will use any tactic they can including threats and purges to insure the defeat of the proposal. On the other hand the union makes all kinds of outrageous claims, we'll double your wages, you won't have to pay for health benefits, we'll double your vacation time, etc. Do abuses occur, sure. I've been through a unionization attempt at a plant that reported to me in Lexington, TN. The abusive situation that arose concerning the anti-union sentiment came from the community, not the company. I found out what the problem was and took care of it. The problem disappeared.

However, union representatives do misrepresent their claims, continuously. After all, would you listen to a person asking you to support a unionization attempt who said, I'm not sure I can increase your wages or improve your health benefits, but we'll have strength in numbers and I want 3 hours of your pay monthly for dues.

The new law would make the signing of the cards the vote. In other words, there wouldbe no waiting time to present sides or for a company response. If the union representative convinced you to sign the card with whatever sales pitch he/she made the card would represent a vote. If 51 percent of the vote was for, a union would be recognized by the NLRB.

This is a bad law. Perhaps there could be some negotiation. Perhaps the company and union representatives could state publicly to one and all their positions and then see if a vote should go forward. To deny the company time to rebut the proposal and to deny a secret ballot is not the way to go.

Obama's Economic Recovery Plan

Senator Obama has five new ideas in and article on CNN Money this morning. Some aren't too bad. Here is my opinion:

Relax rules on emergency withdrawals from retirement funds.

A plant in our area pays its workers extremely well. The average production worker can make over $70,000 annually and with overtime it is not unusual for workers to make in excess of $100,000 a year. Yet, every three months their pay system has one week where the hours of work on the pay check are 36 instead of 48. When that happens there is a rush to the personnel department to borrow against their 401(k). My point is I'm not sure if people would use the money to stave off the wolf from the door or it would be just a means of sustaining a life style they shouldn't be at anyway. It probably won't be repaid, plus the tax liability will be foregone and Uncle Sam will be down in tax receipts. I do not think this is a good idea unless they could come up with a method of proving need, for example to be applied against a mortgage payment, or in an unemployed situation.

Give Seniors a break in a bad market.

While this won't effect me, I agree with this position. Why penalize a person's IRA with a withdrawal made when the market was high. This economic difficulty should not penalize those who saved and developed enough savings or investments on their own that they wish to protect. The article goes on to say that in this instance, Obama agrees with McCain's idea. Hmm!

Have the federal government finance state and local governments.

I don't know about this one. Some of those governments are in areas that went through an inflated economic real estate boom that has turned out to be more speculative that real. Yesterday I hear the mayor of San Diego say that his city has simply lived beyond its means. Departments that may not be needed have been created, services that are nice to have may have been created, perhaps there should be some real retrenching before we finance overspending at the local and state level.

Encourage job creation

On the surface it sounds good. However, it is the usual liberal ploy that won't work. They would give a $3-5000 tax credit to companies for every full-time job they create. It doesn't work that way. What you are really telling businesses to do is create jobs when they are not needed. Business operates in a competitive, fairly free market condition. They are not going to add jobs simply for the sake of a tax credit. The tax credit does not even come close to offsetting the cost of a new job creation. This is a stupid idea. Better to resurrect the public works programs FDR created back in the 30's to get income into the hands of people. At least you would get some work done, and the program could be phased out as the economy recovers.

Extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks beyond the 24 week period.

As much as I do not like something for nothing, this may have to be done. However, I like the idea of redistributing the money through public works. There are a lot of roads and trash that need picking up. There are public areas that need to be refurbished. How about the idea of getting something instead of just giving money away so a guy can go fishing every day.

In general I don't think Obama's plan will be implemented in time to do much good. I question what good it will do. There are a couple of items that I think will have to be implemented, however one of them appears to be an idea put forth by John McCain. So where is the change, the new ideas in this proposal. Many of these ideas are old hack ideas that have surface and been implemented in past years. Nothing new here.

Knee jerk politics

One of the reasons I don't mind grid-lock in our national legislative process is that it prevents knee-jerk politics. What do I mean knee-jerk politics? How about the time Congress was going to pass a law making the public destruction of our flag a federal crime. I do not like seeing our flag burned as a protest to events taking place in America, but it seems to me that taking that step of outlawing that form of protest is taking a step down the road of becoming a police state. I served in the U.S. Army for four years back in the 60's and while I hate that form of protest I do not think it should be outlawed.

Now, the "bail out" bill is being rethought. First of all it won't be implemented immediately. There are some columnists that are commenting that by the time the "bail out" bill is implemented the crisis will be over. Now Paulsen wants to rethink the use of the funds, perhaps taking ownership in banks by the purchase of equity will be best. Hell, we didn't know how to the attack the problem in the first place. Yes, the adjustment may be massive and ugly, but our economy was built on too large of a credit base. It has to be reigned in.

The price of gas.

The price per gallon for gas has dropped in our area to below $3 a gallon. I wondered this morning if American consumers are so short sighted that there will now be an increase in auto sales, specifically SUV's and trucks. I would be so disappointed in the collective mind set of our society if that were to happen. That would certainly reinforce the concept that we are not a whole lot above cows being lead to slaughter.