The Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives: It's Not What You Think...

So, I've been playing with watching streaming video over the Internet on my TV, through my XBox, and found a program called PlayOn. Playon lets you set up a PC to receive video streams from a variety of sources, including Amazon Video-On-Demand, Netflix, and YouTube. It's pretty easy to install, costs $35, and mostly works well (there are a few glitches but the PlayOn folks release updates often and the software has improved even in the past month or so that I've been using it).

One of the YouTube channels I've subscribed to has been TEDtalksDirector, the video stream for the various TED presentations available. TED, which stands for 'Technology, Entertainment, Design' is a yearly conference series that brings together movers and shakers from a variety of different areas including high tech, education, politics, business, and entertainment. The conferences offer a multitude of presentations on a variety of subjects, from how the world began to the use of rock chords in progressive jazz... in other words, a very eclectic mix. Although some of the presentations are controversial, and others are just fluff, the occasional nugget of gold can be found.

I'm embedding a TED Talk entitled "The Real Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives" by Jonathan Haidt. I just watched this, and at the beginning I was thinking yet another biased presentation, yet by the end my opinion switched to thinking that this was perhaps the best TED Talk I've seen yet.

Here it is. Please watch it and then feel free to leave a comment on what you thought.



As for me, it made me think about the various discussions I've had with my liberal friends... and the political combat that seems to be growing even harsher with every passing year regardless of who wins the White House or Congress.

The Economy Will Remain Broken Until Washington Is Fixed

Glenn Reynolds, over at Instapundit, links to a Politico article on how the Democrat activist organizations are starting to attack the Republican Congressional leadership in an effort to turn around public perception on the Stimulus Bill. Fine... that's politics after all, but I don't understand Reynolds' comment that he's "tired of it." Tired of what? The GOP leadership? Or, attacking the GOP leadership? I think many Americans were hoping that Hope and Change meant hoping for true bipartisanship, for putting country above party, and for changing the way things were done... but despite all the hope nothing has changed. Certainly the Democrats haven't changed.

The Democrats own the Stimulus Bill. Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrat leadership wrote the bill, and Senator Harry Reid and his fellow Democrat senators put together the Senate version. Democrats will control the conference committee that ends up deciding what the final outcome will be. As Obama, Pelosi, Reid, MoveOn, DailyKos, etc., are so fond of reminding us, they won. They are going to use their control of the Legislative and Executive branches of the government to ram this spending colossus through and nothing is going to stop them... not public opposition, not the CBO report that shows doing nothing is a better strategy, and certainly not the greatly outnumbered Republicans. Chances are the eventual bill won't even be made public until after Obama signs it.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if we were just talking about the fate of one or the other political parties, which after all are really just associations of like-minded folks banding together to move things in the direction they want. Who gives a fig? However, the Stimulus Bill is more than just partisan politics. We're talking somewhere north of $800 billion dollars here. Do you realize just how much money that is?

Here's some comparisons that will help you wrap your mind around the enormity of the $800+ billion we're going to print and spend, and obligate ourselves:

• We could select 16,000 random folks (yes, 16,000!) in each of the 50 states, and give them a million dollars
  
• We could give 10% of the population of New York City a million dollars each
  
• We could give every man, woman, and child in the country a new computer, a new iPhone, a new digital camera, and a 42" LCD HD TV... and still have enough money to pay their cable bill for a year
  
• We could give every American family a three-month paid vacation, at the average salary
  

Does anyone really believe that the way to get out of debt is to indebt oneself even more? Of course not. The first thing a smart person does when facing a shortfall is to cut spending, not raise it. After all, if spending like a drunken sailor would get us out of our difficulties, we would never be here in the first place.

The Financial Times had a great article on the cause of our current economic woes, and the possible solutions. What I don't understand is, if Tim Geithner is the financial genius who is uniquely qualified to fix the problem, then why didn't he cover these points in today's press conference... you know, the one that drove the Dow down several hundred points, because investors realize the Obama Administration doesn't have a clue about how to proceed and is flailing desperately. What was their solution? Let the bad banks fail, and stop throwing good money after bad. Yes, bank investors will lose money. That's what happens when you invest in a business that makes bad decisions.

All of the political posturing we've seen over the last week is just so much kabuki theater. The truth is really rather simple: the Dems want Republican support so that everyone owns this stinker of a bill... and no single party can be held responsible.

What I Did This Weekend...

I went to the Seattle Startup Weekend 2 held at Google's Seattle office over in Fremont to pitch an idea... and got 27 votes and a dozen folks to help me make it happen. After two days of hard work, we actually have a catchy domain name and a prototype website.

What's the idea? Bringing consumers and service providers together, using geolocating to improve efficiencies by utilizing available bandwidth. In layman's terms, we allow service providers to take advantage of opportunities near their current location while they're otherwise unoccupied. Think of a plumber, for instance, who has to travel for a half-hour to do a two-hour job, then has a couple of hours until his next appointment. If a plumbing service call opportunity a mile or two away from his current location comes to his attention, he can choose to take that service call without additional travel time. A consumer's example would be, say, a need to haul a load of yard debris from last weekend's cleanup to the dump... but it would take several pickup truckloads, the dump's ten miles away, and the minimum dump fee is $15. Why not post a job for someone to come and haul your stuff away, for a maximum fee of $25? Some enterprising landscaper who is working in the neighborhood already has half a dump-truck load... and can spend 30 minutes picking up another four trash piles (you and others in the vicinity), and make a quick $100. You save money and time, and the landscaper collects an extra $100 for the same actual overhead. Win-win.

It was a lot of fun, with some frustration at the intermittent Internet service and blowing circuit breakers. We ended up spending almost all of Sunday at Peet's Coffee and Dad Watson's (both offering free Wi-Fi to customers), returning to Google at the end of the day to report on our group, watch what others had done and show off our own work.

Grace Under Pressure

By now I'm sure everyone knows about US Air Flight 1549, the Airbus A320 that took off from New York City's LaGuardia Airport enroute to Charlotte, North Carolina but ended up floating in the Hudson River after encountering a flock of geese shortly after takeoff. The jet lost both engines due to ingesting geese, and was too low (3200' and 90 seconds into the flight) to make it back to LaGuardia. I've embedded a CBS report featuring a simulation of the flight, including radio transmissions plus some security camera footage showing the jet landing in the river.

Captain Sullenberger, the pilot-in-command, has been singularly recognized for his coolness in the face of emergency, and his presence of mind in rapidly exploring and then discarding all of the alternatives as unviable until only one remained... landing in the Hudson River. As he explained it to the NTSB during his deposition concerning the incident, he didn't want to crash catastrophically in the dense New York metropolitan area, couldn't make it to a runway, and so the only choice left was to land in the river.

I don't want to take anything away from Captain Sullenberger, who I think exemplifies Hemingway's definition of courage as 'grace under pressure.' However, the NTSB's full audio of all ATC transmissions does show Sullenberger's stress as reflected in his voice, and his anguish at realizing the impossibility of making a safe landing at Teterboro Airport (just to the west of the river). To his credit, once Teterboro is no longer possible, Sullenberger focuses on his only remaining choice, landing in the Hudson, and then works with his aircrew to put the plane down safely. Great credit goes to Captain Sullenberger, but also to his aircrew including copilot Jeffrey Skiles (who was busy trying to restart the engines and implementing other emergency procedures while Sullenberger flew the plane), and flight attendants Doreen Walsh, Sheila Dail and Donna Dent who prepared the passengers for the crash landing and then helped to evacuate the jet quickly and safely. All of them deserve every bit of praise for miraculously saving the lives of all 155 passengers onboard.

Another unrecognized actor in this drama is the air traffic controller handling the flight. I can't find his name, but he is trying everything he can to help the pilot... clearing traffic, suggesting alternatives... and then his voice is filled with resignation and despair as he loses the plane on his radar and knows that it has gone down. Another controller steps in to relieve him shortly thereafter, and understandably so. I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall and have seen his reaction once he learned that everyone survived. Listening to the audio gives one a glimpse of how it must feel to be a first-hand witness to a tragedy. I know I had to sit and digest what I heard for a minute or so, even with the benefit of knowing how the story turned out.

Captain Sullenberger and his crew are heroes, ordinary people who rise above circumstances, who keep their heads in a crisis and calmly do the right thing. Yes, we admire grace under pressure in, say, a Super Bowl quarterback, but football isn't life or death where one wrong choice means the deaths of hundreds or maybe thousands... and you can always call a timeout and go to the sidelines for advice. Our true heroes are found in airline cockpits, and military cockpits, on the battlefield, or in ambulances and firetrucks, running towards danger rather than away from it. I think as a country we forget this too often, and it takes a 9/11 or a US Air Flight 1549 to remind us of what we should gratefully acknowledge on a daily basis.

Everyone who risks their life in the service of others is a hero. More important, every hero who gives his life for our country is bestowing a priceless gift to the rest of us. How often do we think of their sacrifice? How often do we honor it by giving of ourselves, by being better citizens and better people... by "earning this?"

The Stimulus Bill Won't Work... and Obama Knows It

After passing the House of Representatives last week without a single Republican 'aye' (and 11 'nays' from Democrats), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is on the way to the Senate for approval.

However, there are already signs that support for the stimulus bill is waning, particularly among Democrats. And no wonder, because as the public learns more about what is actually in the bill, public support has dropped to 42%, or to put it another way, the majority of the public is against the stimulus bill in its current form while expecting it to be enacted.

The lack of public support for the stimulus bill, which turns out to be a $900 billion funding package for a hodge-podge of Democrat-supported pet programs, most of which have very little to do with economic stimulus and a lot to do with rewarding Democrat supporters and entrenching Democrat control of the federal government, has grown as more of the bill's provisions have been publicized. The American public isn't so stupid as to believe that funding abortions overseas, or providing billions of dollars to Democrat-supporting activist groups such as ACORN, or spending hundreds of millions of dollars on condoms, will pull us out of the deep recession we find ourselves in. Nor do they believe that a spending bill that spends less than half of the appropriated money in the next two years will have a significant impact on the economy. In short, the public is starting to see through the smoke and hand-waving, and that is not good news for Obama or the Democrat Congress... which brings us to why support from Congressional Republicans is wanted.

Obama is not stupid. He knows that he owns the economy now and voters will hold him and the Democrats responsible if things haven't turned around by 2010, and if he doesn't get a full recovery by the end of his first term he will not be re-elected. I'm sure that Obama would prefer that Congressional Democrats had written a cleaner bill. And, I'm also sure that Obama is deathly afraid the stimulus bill won't work... and without Republican support he will own that failure. You see, if Republicans also vote for the bill, then its failure can't be used against the Democrats. This is why Obama went to Capital Hill last week, not to prove his ability at generating 'bipartisanship' but to get the needed political cover for this mess of a bill. It didn't happen. And, Obama needed that cover because the stimulus bill is about everything except stimulating the economy. It's not going to work.

Here's why: the bill is predicated on the assumption that government spending is a net positive, that each dollar spent by the federal government results in more than a dollar of GDP growth. In other words, there's a multiplier effect. Obama's economic advisors are stating that the multiplier is 1.6 or above, meaning that each dollar spent will create $1.60 in additional spending. Other economists aren't so sure, arguing that the multiplier may at best be 1.0 and most likely it will be even less, meaning that the stimulus bill will drive us even deeper into recession as it takes money out of the economy that would otherwise be used by the public for investments and spending. Who is right? It seems obvious that, if deficit spending would prevent a recession, then we would have a booming economy given that the federal government has been spending money like a drunken sailor. No, the result of this pork bill will be another $1 trillion added to the national debt, massive inflation as the money supply (the amount of cash in circulation at a given time) is almost doubled, and a devastating impact on the national economy as the country spends several decades paying this money off. Think about it: how can the government boost the economy when the government is taking money from the public and then passing it back out?

This is why many economists are in favor of an immediate payroll tax reduction; the money stays in the hands of the public who will pay down debt and buy consumer goods with it, boosting the economy and raising the tax revenues. So why are the Democrats opposed to this program, which will have no administrative costs, and has repeatedly been proven to have a large multiplier effect? Perhaps because they vociferously opposed the Bush 2003 tax cuts which caused the economy to boom, just as the 1983 Reagan tax cuts caused the economy to boom... and perhaps because once the public gets used to having more money in their paycheck it will be politically difficult, if not impossible, to raise taxes. The argument reflects what's wrong with American politics in a nutshell: the majority party can't do what works because they've opposed it before solely for political reasons, and they don't have the courage to admit they were wrong.

Surprising everyone, the Republicans stood firm on principle (and good politics) and told the Democrats to take a hike. Obama's "I won" comment, and Speaker Pelosi's deliberate exclusion of Republican input, didn't help, but really, what was the upside to supporting the bill? If it passes and it works, Democrats will get all of the credit, and the Democrats don't need a single Republican vote in either house to pass it. If it passes, and fails, Republican support means it's off the table as a campaign topic. However, since there was no Republican support, the onus is on the Democrats and many in Congress will live or die, electorally speaking, on whether the American public views the stimulus bill as a success or failure. Unfortunately for the country, the Democrats have chosen to write and pass a bill that doesn't address the problem.

Now, the stops are all out. The Democrat PACs are gearing up to intimidate Republican senators from blue-leaning states, and you better believe that Obama and his political advisors are behind it. They also know that several Democrat senators from red-leaning states are very worried about political survival if they vote for the stimulus bill. If Obama can't get 50 votes in the Senate, he is in for a very rough four years. Even it the bill passes, if he can't get at least a half-dozen Republican votes, then the Democrats will own the bill... and woe betide them if it fails.

You see, the goal here was to use the recession and the fear-mongering that the press has been generating around it to ram through three decades of Democrat pet programs, several of which would aid Democrat support groups and help to ensure electoral success for the next several decades. This was never about stimulating the economy, it was about building an impregnable Democrat majority, with the help of the Republicans. But the Democrats were too greedy, and the plan is unraveling. I wonder if we're going to look back in four years, after what seemed like a repeat of the Carter Administration, and see that it all started to fall apart these first few weeks.

Knowing When To Fold...

I came across this photo by David Proeber, one of a series of an armed robber during the last few moments of his life, on Mike Johnston's 'The Online Photographer' blog.

Reading about this guy's backstory (in the second link, to the news website) makes one wonder. He wasn't a hardened criminal, just a guy with a temper and an ego. A guy who liked to play poker, and thought he could bluff his way to other people's money... and thought he deserved that money if he was audacious enough to take it. Not a professional (he's holding a piece-of-crap Makarov Russian pistol, and holding it as someone who doesn't know much about guns would). Problem is, his balls were bigger than his brains. He never thought about what would happen if he didn't get away. Probably even driving his own car.

So, here he is on the last day of his life, his front tires flat and police cars close behind, looking for a way out, when the way out was to put the gun down and lie face down on the pavement. He didn't have the balls to do that, though, and he couldn't bluff the police because they don't bluff. Armed robbers waving pistols around! Talk about an invitation to get shot.

The poker player refused to fold on a losing hand, and instead went all in... and lost. A sad epitaph.

The Day After

The Day After © 2008 John Clifford

In yet another sign of global warming (or is Al Gore visiting Seattle?), we here in the Pacific Northwest have been hit by more cold weather. A freakishly cold (for Seattle) wave has hit us, resulting in below-freezing temperatures and snow. We had about a foot of snow late Wednesday evening into Thursday, and according to the weatherman we'll get another foot or so dumped on us later today and tomorrow. Oh, joy.

I awoke early this morning, intending to go out to the Golf Course at Newcastle to try and get a winter version of a previous image, but it wasn't happening. There was a low layer of scud across the city and the Olympic Mountains were barely visible in the distance. I decided to try and get a good image of Bellevue, the largest suburb of Seattle and a major city in its own right. Not as easy as it seems, though, because although you can get glimpses of Bellevue's skyline from many different areas, it's difficult to find an unobstructed view. I even went by the local Lexus dealership, on a brand-new building just east of I-405, the north-south 'bypass' freeway that splits Bellevue down the middle, and managed to get access to their rooftop... but I couldn't get the image I wanted there. On the way home I happened across a spot behind some industrial buildings, and on an impulse decided to grab the camera and tripod. As you can see, it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, what you can't see is the full-sized image... it's almost 77 MP and a full-size print @ 240 dpi will be around 20" x 60" with great detail. Almost like being there....

The sub-freezing weather is supposed to stick around for most of next week, giving us a White Christmas. Thankfully, unlike the usual result of winter storms here in western Washington, we haven't lost power... yet. The approaching storm is forecast to have high winds, though, so we're not home-free. Time to get the axe sharpened!

Mt St Helens, Post-Apocalypse

Apocalypse Now - 4-image panorama taken with a Fuji F30, stitched using Hugin/Pano Tools, post-processed in Adobe PS Elements

I took this picture in the fall of 2006, at an overlook on 504 just over a mile due west of Coldwater Lake. Here's where I took the photo (see the map centered on the overlook).

My first visit to Mt St Helens was in the late spring of 1992. I had purchased a '91 Corvette convertible earlier in the year and had driven around Mt Rainier, enjoying the day, when I came to the sign off of Hwy 12 that said "Mt St Helens" and decided to go take a look. I followed the road south through the trees as it rose above the valley floor, and then as I crossed a ridge the trees disappeared. To be more exact, I left the green forest and came to an area where there were trees... blown down like the hand of God had swept them away from the volcano. Of course, there was no sign of life, the ground was grey and desolate. I followed the road up to the Windy Ridge viewpoint, where the pavement ended, and got out to look at the open crater that gaped at me from less than four miles away. To say the sight was awful is to use 'awful' in its original sense... one is filled with a sense of absolute awe at the devastation. Looking left and right, there are tens upon tens of thousands of dead trees, stripped of their limbs by the blast, the fallen trunks pointing outward from the crater. Spirit Lake, below, has a raft of logs covering a large portion of the surface.

I went to Windy Ridge once more, back around 2003, and happened to get there near sunset on a summer day. It was just myself and my sister, visiting from London, and she was as awestruck as I was. Even though it had been more than a decade since my last visit, not much had changed, in terms of nature restoring itself.

The picture above was taken after an abortive trip to Castle Lake (you can see the lake to the left of the volcano). To get there, you have to drive 20 miles off of the nearest paved road, and that puts you on a ridge about 2,000 feet above the lake. Going straight down is very steep with knee-high scrub. I tried to go there on a Saturday afternoon, got down to the end of the pavement just before sunset, and ended up getting lost and turned around in the middle of the night so I slept in my truck. I woke up at dawn Sunday to hear the sound of bugling elk. With daylight the chance to actually see where I was, I was able to deal with locked gates and finally made it to the ridge above the lake around noon... too late to hike down and fish.

I haven't had the chance to go back, but plan to go back in 2009. It will be a 3-day trip, and I'll bring a friend and my tri-band HT (ham radio). Cell phones don't work out there, and it's big country... a broken leg without a way to call for help would most likely mean death.

Lessons Learned: Terrorists At The Train Station

Azam Amir Kasab, the only one of the ten terrorists to be taken alive, in the main Mumbai railway station (Sebastian D'souza/AP - fair use)

In an armed encounter, the opportunity to end things early and go home often occurs... but all too often isn't acted upon.



Take a look at the 1:30 video above, or right-click here for a separate window, taken by CCTV cameras at the Mumbai train station at the beginning of the terrorist attacks. Note the two Indian Police (IP)officers to the lower right of the screen, one with a Lee-Enfield battle rifle. The terrorists first appear around 11 seconds into the video, and the police duck into a hallway to the right. The police appear again around 18 seconds and the terrorists shoot at them, the shots going high (note the dust from bullet impacts in the window above the entranceway frame). Note how one policeman actually tries to shoot the terrorist but evidently misses! He ducks back into cover, where they stay while the terrorists shoot some more and then move off out of view of the camera. The rest of the video shows them moving on to a restaurant section and opening fire on unarmed people who flee in terror through the kitchen. Several dozen innocents were killed by the terrorists until they were taken out (one killed, one wounded and captured) by responding IP and Army personnel, after a considerable delay.

The IP shown in this video had a perfect opportunity to end this incident within the first 30 seconds... yet they failed to act. Why? The IP have complained about being outgunned, but as the video shows, firepower wasn't the issue, and neither was bravery (although common sense might have been lacking in that the IP in the video evidently were in a state of disbelief until they were shot at). Instead, as the video shows, the IP we see had absolutely no clue as to what to do.

I'm not faulting the individual IP here; panic and general cluelessness is the untrained person's natural reaction to a deadly force situation. The stress is tremendous, adrenaline is pumping and the fight or flight reflex is fully engaged... and flight is the rational choice as opposed to a futile effort of resistance that only results in one's death.

Why did this happen? I assume that because India has very low rates of gun-related crime, and because Mumbai is over a thousand miles from the Punjab, the threat of terrorism was seen as very low. Additionally, India has inherited its philosophy of law enforcement from its British colonizers, where the gun is seen as a symbol of the authority of the state to use force instead of as a tool to enforce compliance. Therefore, there is no perceived benefit to train the IP beyond a minimal competency to ensure there are no accidents. The IP plan was more along the lines of, "This is India where Hindus are non-violent. We don't need a plan." So, what you have is a police force that has all of the drawbacks of being armed, and none of the benefits. The result is shown on the video.

What the video also shows is the lack of training among the terrorists, and how aggressiveness and motivation count for a lot. Again, this is the same sort of recklessness we saw in Iraq, where several Fedayeen (literally, 'self-sacrificers') would cram into a Fiat and charge a US armored column... and get shredded. Brave, but suicidal, because prepared and planned aggressiveness beats reckless aggressiveness. Of course, if your opponent hasn't prepared or planned....

What if this had happened in America? In New York? We all know that the police would come running, guns out, and quickly (maybe a little messily) end this. The Transit Authority police would have handled the two shooters at the subway station, and the Emergency Services Unit (NYPD's SWAT team), joined by their federal counterparts (since terrorism is a federal crime), would have gone in and cleaned out the terrorists. Would innocents have died? Yes... because the attackers seize the initiative. But not as many.

What if this happened in your hometown?

Bad guys always have the initiative. The lesson learned here is, Have A Plan. In the video above, if the IP with the rifle had shown the initiative to merely aimed and fired it at a terrorist 50 feet away he would have killed the terrorist, and doubled his own odds of getting the next one. What if two IPs had worked together, from opposite sides of the station, communicating by radio, and caught the remaining terrorist between them? One of them would have gotten a shot, and the second terrorist would be down. End of story.

Here in America, many states have recognized our right to keep and bear arms by providing for hassle-free concealed carry. How many people reading this have a concealed-carry license? Of those, how many actually carry? Of those, how many practice with their carry weapon and have a minimal level of competency? Of those, how many have taken armed self-defense training? Of those, how many have actually thought about what they would do when confronted with a deadly force situation such as terrorists opening up in the local mall or subway station?

Have. A. Plan.

See earlier articles in this series under the 'Lessons Learned' topic...

Fall in Seattle

Enough about politics, the economy, etc. Time to enjoy the beauty of fall in Seattle.


These images are from the Fremont district, north of downtown Seattle, due west of the University district (and the University of Washington), and east of Ballard and the locks, along the Ship Canal.


It was a beautiful day, but the weather has turned colder although it is still surprisingly clear for Seattle in the fall. The leaves have mostly fallen, and winter is near.