Archive for the ‘WorldEvents’ Category
Inflation
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Excellent speech on abortion by 12-year old
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009A bit more info on the story. And another story in which a student was called a “fascist bastard” by his teacher for a gay-marriage speech. I commend these people for speaking out and defending their beliefs. Many may disagree with those views, but we have to be able to have open discourse. Teachers should be the ones facilitating that.
Change
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008Some thoughts on the upcoming election. Probably preaching to the choir here, but perhaps someone will consider this:
I know a lot of people sincerely hope for things to change. My concern is that people are not seriously considering the impact of the change Obama advocates.
The only way he (or ‘we’ if you prefer) can accomplish those things on his agenda is by adopting more socialist, nanny-state policies:
- “progressive” taxes that punish success
- “redistributive change” that rewards people for another’s effort
- More entitlements that destroy individual responsibility and initiative
- In general, bigger government and more dependence on it.
That is exactly the wrong direction we need to change. Americans need
to wake up and own their own success. Government needs to get out of
the way. The role of government should be to ensure the promise of the
Declaration of Independence: that all citizens have the same right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government has no
business trying ensure anyone actually has happiness. The attempt can
only result in making everyone equally miserable.
Unfortunately, no major candidate is running on a message of personal
responsibility and smaller government. By and large, people don’t
respond well to being told well that no one else is going to solve their
problems. Obama’s message is primarily one of class envy and
victimhood. McCain’s approach isn’t much better. Sarah Palin’s (brief)
history makes me think she gets it, but her message is muddied by the
association with McCain.
Presidential speeches tag cloud
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007This is a very interesting use of a tag cloud to show themes of speeches made by US Presidents over time: http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags/
Fascinating to see some of the themes that have come and gone. Even more so is the one that seemed to stay pretty much constant: war.
Intel site hit by Hezbollah rocket attacks
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006A couple of pictures of an Intel building in Haifa, Israel, that was hit by Hezbollah rocket attacks on 8/11/06. It was a Friday so few people were around, and the alarm was sounded well in advance. No one was hurt. The rocket actually landed ~150m from the building, and the damage was done by shrapnel.
This is the site where I was hoping to be working at this very time — I had been planning a five-month rotation to the site for the second half of this year, along with my family, but it was cancelled back in June (after we got the passports and visas all done).
