Obama – Page 2 – Zombies Uncensored

TMD;ST – Too Much Debate; Stopped Thinking

After seeing there is yet another health care plan from President Barack Obama, I’m becoming an advocate for ignorance and apathy. There is an eleven page PDF about the Presidents latest proposal and my first thought was to respond with tl;dr (“Too long; didn’t read”). The country needs a retreaded health care proposal about as much as the internet needs another opinion… like this one. At this point one more health care proposal or debate is just tears in rain.

I know my first reaction to something isn’t always the best response. I’ve tried to stay informed on the health care debate. I want to have at least a semi-informed view. After hearing this issued debated through a two-year Presidential campaign and a year of Obama’s Presidency I think there has been enough debate. I’ve heard so much about health care that parts of my brain have gone on strike and are boycotting my natural curiosity.

You know that soft spot on a baby’s head? That is what health care is on my brain. The optimist and lizard portions of my brain have been demanding curiosity supply some good news about the economy. Since natural curiosity has done such a poor job supplying any news to satiate the cries from optimism, other portions of my brain have started listening to ignorance and apathy calls to censor optimism. The ugly mess our nation is in, has been reproduced in my consciousness.

The conspiracy part of my brain is still somewhat active (and trying to convince the logic center that the plethora of health care bills is a plot to bring about this apathetic response). Logic is demanding more proof before it will seriously consider conspiracy’s argument.

The logic center is just out of luck in hopes of further information, because TMD; ST (Too Much Debate; Stopped Thinking.)

Penn Jillette on Red Eye discussing Obama

Last week Jillette wrote an article on Obama’s ‘stupid’ jab at Vegas and discussed the President on Red Eye last night. Here is Penn Jillette defending Las Vegas in response to President Obama telling people not to spend money there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XPZwQpe9IM

Presidential Obama seems to be unaware of the damage that can be done from the bully pulpit. Its a shame the insurance industry, police officers, overweight people, banking industry, Wall Street, talk radio, and doctors don’t have someone as funny and thoughtful as Penn Jillette to defend them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG-yhcSGGuo

Groundhog Day

So I went looking for news stories today hoping for something at least remotely related to an issue, but didn’t have much success.

I see Glenn Beck said something about Nancy Pelosi and Arianna Huffington said something about Beck. President Obama and Sarah Palin both spoke today. There were several political stories about one side being far superior to the other and new statistics to backing up the claims. The government will be spending more money, or taxing more, or both.

A few stories about global warming being real or fake. Micheal Jackson’s doctor is being charged for I don’t know what. A few more economic stories about how bad things are. Big banks something, something, something. Health care blah, blah, blah, blah.

Bad things happened in the Middle East. There is bad weather here and there. Something new about the iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so there will be six more weeks of the same news.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Distractions for Washington DC Cause Increase in Productivity

Each time the economy slows down, it leads to micromanagement at work. When a company is making money, the people at the top are either taking it easy or looking for new ways to make money. When the money isn’t coming in as fast as they’d like, they start looking inside their company for savings and efficiency. It turns into a living hell for the people at the bottom because everything they do ends up being micromanaged.

Many workers are hoping and praying for the economy to turn around just because they are tired of explaining how and why they do some of the simplest tasks. A slow economy leads to the annoying time-sheets detailing every minute of the day. Pointing out the loss of productivity to management caused by keeping track of work rather than doing work falls on deaf ears. Workers catch on to being micromanaged and learn to fake time-sheets so they can get back to being productive.

In some work situations, the micromanaging turns into having a supervisor watching over the shoulder of workers. Having someone watching everything you do doesn’t mean you are going to do it any faster, because it’s a distraction from doing the job at hand. Pointing out the loss of productivity from excessive monitoring will once again fall on deaf ears. Workers also learn how to play this game by finding things to keep their managers busy. Workers start complaining about how other departments are run and how much the “defective” departments are making their jobs more difficult. With any luck, the managers will all be busy in meetings fighting with one another so you can get back to work.

The same workplace dynamic of the people at the top needing to do something is taking place in Washington DC. Just as workplace management can’t acknowledge the harm they do by interfering with the job at hand, the government can’t see the harm they are doing to the economy. Reforming health care and new regulations for business are examples of the government micromanaging the economy, and when the loss of productivity is pointing out, it falls on deaf ears.

Politicians have no qualms distracting the public so we aren’t focused on the job they are doing, so I have no guilt in suggesting we distract the government so we can do our jobs. The Obama administration is starting to look at the Bowl Championship Series and that’s a good thing; as long as you aren’t part of the BCS. We need to come up with more innocuous distractions like college bowl games to keep them busy. I’m calling on my fellow American’s that when they are involved in any polling to pick the least intrusive option. If asked which of the following is most important – the economy – heath care – sexting by teenagers, for the sake of our future please pick “sexting.”

Businesses can’t use the same tactics workers use with faking their time-sheets. Faking time-sheets might get a worker fired, faking the governments time-sheets can lead to big fines or prison terms. Businesses can fight back by lobbying congress with useful distractions such as, coming up with a way to keep copiers from copying genitalia or convincing congress businesses would be more productive if congress could tell them the absolute value of pi.

If we all put our heads together we can come up with some new distractions for Washington DC. Here are a few ideas–not exactly good ideas, but something to get the creative juices flowing:

Demand all of congress visit every site in the world impacted by global warming before taking any action. It’s expensive, but trust me–it’s worth it.

If enough people film street lights and email them to their representative, we can convince congress there is an imminent alien invasion.

Protest anything from France.

Start a rumor terrorists are secretly sending commands to operatives through 4chan.

Ask congress to find out how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood (stressing how important woodchucks are to the economy).

The number of sex scandals by elected officials is destroying our faith in government and should be investigated by congress.

National Debt Increase by President

The Rachel Maddow Show has posted this debt graph to point out Republican Presidents have increased the national debt more than Democratic Presidents.

On the same page is a video, Pin the Debt on the Donkey!, in which contestants guess which presidents saddle the US with the most debt, the answer being “Republicans.” Rachel Maddow questions why Republicans are considered the “natural party of fiscal responsibility” when they don’t have a history of fiscal responsibility.

The answer is the Republican Party isn’t the natural party of fiscal responsibility, and neither is the Democratic Party.

Its a cruel trick to have you believing that one party would do a better job at handling the nation’s budget. Going by this graph, you could assume the current Democratic President is adding less to the debt than the Republican Presidents. This is not the case. In the first year of President Obama’s administration, 1.5 trillion has been added to the national debt. 1.5 trillion is half of the 3 trillion added under President Bush’s 2nd term. 1.5 trillion is equal to the amount of debt added during both President Clinton’s terms in office.

Its a good example of the damage done in the us-vs.-them of politics, because neither party has shown it has any natural fiscal responsibility. In terms of fiscal responsibility, the us vs. them mentality is simply enabling both parties to be fiscally reckless.

With both parties driving the country towards the cliff of bankruptcy, it’s a poor selling point to say our party will get you there the safest and fastest way possible.

How ‘Ellie Light’ Came to Light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2v7wcxVRnQ&feature=channel

Kudos to Sabrina Eaton

Tips for the President: Customer Service for an Angry Nation

President Obama has lots of angry customers, and the State of the Union address on Wednesday will probably exacerbate the problem.

To that end, here are some suggestions on how to approach the speech to an angry nation.

Some time-honored steps to follow when dealing with angry customers:

1. Listen – Each time a customer has to repeat or explain a problem the anger grows, so listen carefully and take notes.

2. Repeat the problem back – This helps to make sure you understand the problem and the customer will know they’ve been heard and understood.

3. Empathize – Saying something as simple as, “I’d be calling about this problem, too,” makes it clear you see them as a person and you care.

4. Explain the steps to resolve the problem – A long, drawn-out process is made easier to deal with if you know all the steps and you know someone is working on it.

5. Provide updates – Not all problems can be solved immediately. From the customer’s point of view, not hearing anything is the same as nothing being done at all.

6. Follow through – The most important step of all. Following the previous steps goes a long way to tone a situation down. Not following through will only make the customer angrier.

What not to do:

1. Argue with the customer – Do not tell them they are wrong for feeling angry. Don’t put the customer on the defensive by making them justify their anger.

2. Make foolish promises – If they are already angry, don’t make the situation worse by promising something you can’t deliver. It is better to say “I don’t know, but we’ll work on a solution,” than to promise to fix something you haven’t dealt with before.

3. Blame someone else – Problems don’t get fixed through blame. Letting the customer know you think a coworker is lazy might make you feel better, but the problem will still be there after you are done complaining. Working to solve the problem regardless of the cause will earn their trust.

4. Personalizing the problem – avoid using “I’s and You’s” in your discussion, which can trigger defensiveness and come across as ordering the customer around. “You have to bring your car in before I can repair it” feels much different than, “When the car is brought into the shop, repairs will be started.” By staying factual, you can maintain focus on what’s important: solving the problem.

Massachusetts Senate Race – It’s the Agenda, Stupid

The lesson to learn in the latest ping pong game of politics is when governing with an agenda other than defending freedom, you are asking for rude awaking from voters. It wasn’t Obama’s agenda that was the problem in Massachusetts–it was having an agenda to begin with. The goal of our form of government is to defend freedom, and when the power of government is used to serve other purposes there will be consequences.

No amount of marketing or packaging or media can turn a loss of freedom into something everyone will gleefully accept as beneficial. Neoconservatives tried to sell national security in exchange for liberty and paid the price at the ballot booth. Progressives have been trying to sell the security of health care insurance in exchange for liberty, and will eventually suffer the same fate as neoconservatives.

The agenda of redefining freedom as security didn’t work for the Bush administration, and redefining freedom as health care security isn’t working for Obama’s administration. They can use the power they have to force their new definitions onto the public, but there will always (and should always) be a backlash for stripping freedom rather than preserving freedom.

What happened in Massachusetts is not a lesson in politics; it’s the rule of getting into trouble when you aren’t doing the job you were hired to do. Jobs have specific requirements. You are expected to X,Y and Z and if you add V and W and stop doing X and Y, you might get fired. We hired the President and Congress; they are our employees, not our leaders. They were not hired to create new definitions of their jobs or draw up a new rule book.

I hope Washington got the message loud and clear; it’s time to put the agendas aside and get back to doing the job you were hired to do. If there is any question or doubt about the responsibilities of their job, somewhere there is a two hundred year old employee manual to follow.

Trickle Down and Around Taxation

Trickle down taxation is when business push higher operation costs onto their customers. John Stossel’s article, “Obama: I Will Tax You to Punish Banks,” expresses the idea that taxes aren’t really paid by business–all taxation eventually trickles down to customers:

“In other words, the Obama Administration is going to punish those greedy banks by making it more expensive for you to borrow money. This is wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with a point made by Jamie Dimon, CEO at JP Morgan Chase: ‘Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea…All businesses tend to pass their costs on to customers.'”

And from TheOneLaw on Trickle Down Taxation:

“Taxes on corporations are just passed on to the customer that purchases the products of that company. If that customer is another business it adds on its taxes and passes it along until it gets to the final consumer of the product.”

I agree with both of these articles, but want to point out not all the additional taxes are paid by customers. With high unemployment, businesses have the option of passing some of the tax burden onto their employees. Several companies have stopped matching 401(k) contributions and unpaid overtime is on the rise. Keep in mind the banking industry is regulated by Washington DC as to what they are allowed to charge customers. The taxation can be passed along with new hidden fees, but don’t be surprised to hear bank employees complaining about benefit and wage cuts.

With each new tax, sooner or later the tax shifts its way to the bottom, to the person that has no power to pass the tax farther along.

The Department of Carrots and Sticks Mission Statement – Liberty through Behavior Modification

The phrase “carrots and sticks” appears in political discussion so often, the first results on Google for “carrots and sticks” are about politics and not about animal husbandry. The Beast of Burden is officially human.

Example: President Obama speaking about dealing with Iran

“If we show ourselves willing to talk and to offer carrots and sticks in order to deal with these pressing problems — and if Iran then rejects any overtures of that sort — it puts us in a stronger position to mobilize the international community to ratchet up pressure on Iran.”

A good way NOT to make progress with Iranians is by analogizing them to donkeys and the USA as their master.

This phrase is dehumanizing , in that carrots and sticks are used on beasts of burden by their masters. It is one of the few honest appraisals you’ll hear a politician utter on how they view the world. From their perspective, you and I and other nations are the dumb animals to be steered in the direction of their desires.

You don’t use carrots and sticks on someone you consider to be your equal. You wouldn’t threaten a neighbor with a club or bribe them with money to resolve a dispute. When you consider someone your equal, you let them decide how to act for themselves without coercion.

You don’t use carrots and sticks on your friends. If you were to say to a friend, “Come over to my home for a superbowl party; there’ll be lots of snacks for you if you come–and if you don’t show up, I’ll flatten your tires,” they won’t be your friend long.

You wouldn’t say to your spouse, “If you’ll lose some weight I’ll help clean up around the house, and if you don’t, I’ll have sex with someone else,” unless the goal was to divorce so you could have sex with someone else.

Politicians are loaded with these carrots and sticks; they’ve got them for health care, cap and trade, banks, buying cars, and the economy in general. Politicians see so much more work to be done, and have an arsenal of creative ideas to corral the masses. That’s what politicians do; they pat themselves on the back for thinking up new forms of behavior modification.

Why is it acceptable to use laws to modify other peoples’ behavior? We wouldn’t treat people we know and care about with a carrot and stick approach, so why is it considered acceptable to treat strangers this way?