Just Wondering - Unemployment

What do you think about all the talk in Washington, and across the country, about unemployment? I think the debate is more political than factual. No matter how many talking heads blame the other person or the other party, the condition does not change. I think that there has always been the unemployed and there always will be. Societies throughout the ages have always had periods of either high or low unemployment, but they have always had it. Perhaps a quick example will help illustrate my point. I will call it a brief history of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Secrets - Normandy

My mind is spinning around this whole discussion of Wiki-Leaks. I try to think of something else but before I know it, I realize I am right back to Wiki-Leaks. I am doing the whole point-counter point thing mentally. I knew I had to do something to change my mood. I decided that a good, long hot shower would be just the thing. It was starting to work and then I had this vision play out before me. It went something like this.

Economics Primer - Taxes

As the old saying goes, there are only two things for sure, death and taxes. It’s easy to understand the first: you’re born, you get old, and you die. It’s sad but true. The second is a little harder to understand. I mean, why are taxes inevitable?

Wiki-Leaks

Is Wiki-Leaks a good or bad thing? Well, that depends entirely on your perspective. If you hate America, you just received the greatest gift imaginable. If you love America then you want the perpetrator caught and punished. If you are neutral then you can look at the situation with an objective lens and question not the act, but the motive. You can ask questions like; why that data, why that country, why now. I mean, look, it seems this person has no problem collecting Top Secret documents. Why not steal classified files from the IRS and release all the personal data on every U.S. citizen contained in the IRS files? Why not sneak into the files of Wells Fargo bank and release all the personal data on mortgage holders. For that matter, you could steal into the computers at Haliburton and release all the files on Iraqi contracts. Why not Iran or Russia or England or North Korea? No, this was very specific and very deliberate and aimed directly at the United States of America. That goes to the heart of the debate, motive.

As incredible to me as anything could possibly be, I have heard people call this man a hero. I have heard people say that now the world will know just how corrupt and evil the American government is. The evil empire that, alone among all the nations in the world, “should” be singled out for this punishment. That it serves these devils right. Well, it doesn’t take much imagination to know who is saying these things. That would be the people around the world, and yes, right here in America, who hate the United
States and everything that its history stands for. In this case what would the motive be?

Tort Reform

Read today that there is some new twist to suing BP. Seems that you won’t be able to sue if you are asking for a lump sum payment. That made me start thinking about all the suing going on these days. Then I thought about “tort reform”. It was then that I realized that I didn’t really even know what that meant. I mean, what is a “tort” and why do some folks seem so set on reforming it.

I looked it up and found that, “A tort is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else.”[i]  For example, if I am in the park and want to practice my knife throwing skills and end up stabbing someone walking by, they could sue me for negligent behavior resulting in harm to their person. To win they would have to prove that a reasonable person would have known that throwing knives in a public park was a bad idea.

Just Wondering - Civility

What has happened to civility in America? I am old enough to remember a time when there was discourse in the United States. You know, discourse, when two people or two groups of people could have civil discussions. I can even remember a time when Democrats and Republicans would dine together, have Friday night poker games together, and walk down the halls of congress together. Well, those days are over. I fear that those days are over for good. I am afraid the line has become a wall.

The Law vs God

I had a lot of yard work to catch up on today. Part of it included burning logs from a tree I cut down several years ago. For me there is something pensive about sitting around a fire. Every now and then, I catch myself starring into the fire and wondering how long I have been in that trance. That is what happened to me today. When I came out of my trance, all I could remember was that I was thinking about Biblical Law.

 I really do not know a lot about the idea of Biblical Law. I mean it seems to me that it would have to derive from a religious book. The only other comparison I could make was to Sharia Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia) from when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.  Then I thought to myself that is not Biblical Law that is Muslim Law. I could not see how Biblical law and Muslim Law could be the same thing. I mean, they are both Religious Law based on the Holy Book of that religion and the prevailing religious views of that culture.