Posts from — April 2006

Love our troops? Love to grill?

Then get this book!

All proceeds from the sale of the book go to charities that support wounded or killed U.S. Marines and their families.

I think that it is pretty clear where I stand on Immigration. I’m very much in favor of immigrants that mesh well with our culture, but I’m also strongly in favor of gaining control of the flow. Thus, I’ve often said that the only real solution is a viable fence across the border.

Many folks take real issue with this, saying that it will upset people and that it is too expensive, etc. Well, the fact is that we already do employ fences, but they are poorly designed and have been ineffective for a variety of reasons. So this argument doesn’t hold weight, as we would simply be replacing what already exists with something that will do the job that it is intended to do. And, the only other real option to a fence is to simply throw more people at the problem. Talk about expensive!

The long controversial Minute Men are launching a new campaign that will start building fences on private property to do what they feel the federal government should have been doing all along. While it seems largely symbolic given the size of the border and the likelihood of running into vast stretches of Federal land, it may start to draw a line in the sand that the Bush administration can’t ignore any longer. Check out www.weneedafence.com for more information.

The fact is that SOMEHOW we must gain control of our borders, and frankly I haven’t heard a better option. Have you?

A new version of Performancing is finally released – Version 1.2.

From their website, this version contains:

1. Image FTP Upload
2. Basic Metrics Chart viewing
3. Blogger.com improvements (Currently there are issues with the blogger.com service)
4. API url autodetect
5. Much improved stability and performance.
6. Fixed PFF from prompting password on firefox startup (for masterpassword users)
7. Optional “Powered by Performancing” tag insertion.
8. Better category support for other blogging platforms.
9. Quick File FTP upload (under Performancing in the context menu).
10. Bug fixes for trackbacks.

But, personally, I like the emphasis that they have put on getting inline spell checking to work properly. They outline it a bit more than they have in the past. Using Spellbound, I now see little red squiggles under all my poorly spelled words. While this is a nice thing to have in conjunction with Performancing, the fact is that it works in all of your text areas! No more copy and paste from a form into Word to check my spelling! A big “cheers” to the Spellbound crew for that, and for the Performancing crew for turning me on to it!

I’m also looking forward to testing the image upload feature…

Bob Atkins Photography has a full review of the Canon 30D. As usual, his review is helpful and insightful. They are always half way between the dry manufacturer feature lists and the typical sunshine brigade that you get in most print magazines.

And, while I’m on the topic of digital camera reviews, you can also check out these sites:

• Steve’s DigiCams
• Digital Photography Review

Between these three sites, you should be able to find any bit of photography information that you are looking for.

Another funny courtesy of my Dad:

At last. A bumper sticker for both parties.

FINALLY, someone has come out
with a 100% bipartisan political bumper sticker:

“RUN HILLARY RUN”

Democrats put it on the rear bumper.
Republicans put it on the front bumper.

HAHA!

Here is some great commentary from Asymmetrical Information on a New Yorker article that looks at how poverty levels are determined in the US.

The article itself has some good points and has a lot of helpful information. Unfortunately, it draws a conclusion that is naive at best, and disastrous at worst. It’s main thrust is pushing an idea of a relative poverty line, rather than an absolute level, as is currently used.

While this may have some benefits – read the article to see what I mean – I think the overall side effect is very dangerous. It supports an idea of entitlement. The average “poor” family today has many things that families years ago would have considered luxury items – like televisions, VCRs, and a Nintendo, etc – yet a relative poverty line would say that they are even poorer because their neighbor’s have DVD players, flat screen TV’s and a shiny new XBOX 360.

How can someone be poor, simply because they don’t have what another person has? That is a ridiculous idea – if it were true, then I too am poor, because I don’t have what Bill Gates has. Am I poor compared to him? Sure, but who cares (besides me…)? I have no right to have what he has, just as no one has a right to what I have. But, in today’s society, we’ve deemed that someone does have a right to eat. There is a very big difference.

While this idea would certainly be embraced by lower income people, I can tell you that the idea was never invented by a lower income person. If you’ve ever gone through a time of wondering if you are going to get to eat today or not, you know that you aren’t so concerned with the quality of your TV. Only a mind linked to a fully tummy has time for such considerations.

The article also quotes certain people as saying that our current poverty levels don’t make sense in more expensive urban areas, such as Boston, New York and San Francisco. They advocate raising the poverty line in these areas because it is so much more expensive to live there, and therefore requires that a person earn more to get to the same standard of living. Again, I think that this shows more of an entitlement attitude. I agree that these areas are more expensive to live in, and that a person who lives there has a much harder time of making ends meet – but I cry bunk at the idea that this is a problem. No one has a right to live in a specific area and I certainly don’t think government entitlement programs to allow them to do so would make very much sense at all.

Yes, I do understand the need for an income spectrum in the labor force – there are both high and low earning jobs to be done in an urban setting, and pushing out lower income workers can hurt the overall economy by leaving jobs undone. Yet there is also the argument to be made that in a more wealthy area, those jobs that truly need doing will then pay more to attract the appropriate labor. The market will adjust itself, as it always does – yet government redistribution programs are expensive to administer, always politicized and completely non-voluntary. So, exactly why is that preferable to relying on market forces?

While the current poverty level designation is showing many signs of wear, I don’t think the idea of a specific subsistence level should be thrown out in favor of a relative index.

On Sharlet’s blog, she relayed a question that was asked of her by a friend:

“If we all have to leave this world someday, then life is meaningless right?”

That’s the crux of everything, isn’t it?

As you can probably guess, I fall into the “life is short, therefore it is meaningful” camp.

Every day that I get to wake up and kiss my wife, hug my daughter and smile at a friend is one more day that is worth living. To say otherwise is like saying that because a movie ends, that it isn’t worth watching, or that a book isn’t worth reading because it has a last chapter, or that because you eventually finish the ice cream cone, it just isn’t worth eating.

No, I must disagree. Ice cream is always worth eating.

And life is always worth living. It must also then be meaningful, as only things of consequence, things of value, things of worth are meaningful.

When something desirable is scarce, it becomes MORE valuable, not less.

And, I haven’t even touched on the more spiritual aspect of God’s eternal purpose for us…