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Most negotiations boil down to getting what you feel is important while sacrificing points that are not as critical.   So if two parties walk away thinking they got what they wanted while letting the other side get something, both parties think they won.   Unfortunately, the devil is in the details and while we live in a digital world, negotiations are analog.   In business to business this can be seen in: “Yes we agree that you should be able to raise prices, but we don’t agree with your formula.” Or in sports it often boils down to incentive clauses, but what performance metrics (points, goals, wins, etc.), what point, and is there a sliding scale.   Often these negotiations are initiated when one side floats a Term Sheet or Memo of Understanding, and if both sides see enough common ground here, formal contract negotiations ensue. In Washington, we see this in the form of floating ideas to gauge the opposition’s response.   The GOP stuck out its chin talking about eliminating cert

This is by no means an expansive review of the 2012 political year.   Nor is it a top ten list, as every cable news station and talk radio show has created their lists and checked them twice.   Instead, here are my thoughts on what was the political year. Let me start by saying that political tricks and shenanigans are like most movies and television shows: there is very little original material or innovation.   Pick any time in American History   and you will find the same wheeling and dealing, the same attack pieces, the same gamesmanship, the same special interests, and the same political manipulations.   In 2012 we were worried that the Citizens United decision would cause such an influx of special interests’ money that and that government of the people, by the people, for the people would no longer exist.   Irrespective of Citizens United, our government is unduly influenced by special interests and their lobbyists.   Every industry spends billions of dollars influencing ou

1)       Will lactose intolerant people be as indifferent to the milk cliff as nonsmokers are to increased tobacco taxes? 2)       Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party are seeing its January 22 nd election popularity waning at the expense of his former aide Naftali Bennett and the rightist Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.   The 40 year old son of American immigrants, Bennett has called for unconstrained settlement expansion while opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.   Since Netanyahu will not have a majority, he will have to choose between a hard right wing coalition or the mish mash of center left parties to form a government.   The stakes are high and could set the peace process back 20 years.   Sadly, I see Netanyahu choosing his former aide, putting the Israeli government at odds with its patron in Washington.   What is even more disappointing is the clear shift in the Israeli electorate to the far right.   I just don’t see that being in Israel’s bes

Last week while in New York, we visited the Museum of Jewish Heritage and its Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Battery Park.   One cannot help but be struck by the horror of the Nazis, their collaborators, and those that facilitated and perpetrated the persecution, systematic murder, and decimation of Jews, Romas, and other ‘unwanted people’.   Men, women, children, young, old, doctors, artists, lawyers, craftsmen, etc. It did not matter.   But there is more to the story than the rise of the Nazis, the concentrations camps, and ultimately the death camps.   The holocaust or Shoah, was but the most recent chapter in thousands of years of persecution and anti-Semitism.   Many love to celebrate the holy crusades, yes these same crusades murdered Jews.   The glory of the Columbus voyage in 1492; financed by the Spanish crown while the same crown systematically rounded up Jews and Muslims and offered the choice of conversion to Christianity or death. I have had the opportunity to vi

Twenty Questions and Comments for a Holiday Weekend; 1)       Is there a worse mall smell than the offensive odor emanating from an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Shop? 2)       Are mid-season NCAAM basketball rankings as useless as announcing the starting lineups of   a hockey game? 3)       If the NRA sponsored GOP thinks that it is necessary to arm good guys for protection against bad guys, do they support nuclear-armed Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, and Bahrain if Iran achieves nuclear capability? 4)       GOP lead House calls for investigations into Fast and the Furious over the death of one Border Agent, but why are they mute on #SandyHook?   (OK that one’s a rhetorical question). 5)       If mental illness is a pre-existing condition, and Obamacare makes sure pre-existing conditions do not prevent people from getting health insurance, and mental illness is the leading cause of gun massacres, why is the GOP opposed to Obamacare? 6)       In North Carolina liquor can b

So Mike Huckabee thinks we need more God in the classroom? Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Socialist Baptist Minister?  The National Education Association requested the pledge be written to demonstrate the unity of our growing diversity in public schools.  A believer in the absolute separation of church and state, it is safe to say that when his ubiquitous pledge was modified in 1954during the Joseph McCarthy led anti-communism, anti-atheism, anti-enlightened histrionics to include the words ‘under God’ he would have been mortified.  It seems that “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” has a history of being quite controversial because the catholic Church opposed it during World War I because it was making American Catholics, more American than Catholic. You see, it's called public school for a reason and we haven't taken God out of the school as Huckabee cries.  It was never meant to be there in the

On December 16, 1689 an Act of Parliament created the English Bill of Rights.   Amongst these rights were: Protestant subjects "may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and allowed by law".   100 years later the US Constitution would also include a Bill of Rights, and its 2 nd amendment would state: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. There is little debate that our Bill of Rights were strongly based on the English Bill of Rights.   But the English Bill of Rights was as much about righting the wrongs of the monarchy and establishing Parliament’s power while the American counterpart was about protecting citizens from tyrannical government.   Nonetheless, when it came to guns, the English Bill of Rights was specifically addressing the 1671Game Act that forbid Protestants from owning guns.     This new Bill of Rights would allow all citizens

Everybody is already rationalizing today’s tragedy.   This law would not have stopped it.   Guns are sold illegally everyday on the street.   It’s a mental health issue.   Gun control doesn’t stop crime.   There is no gun show loophole. We need to stop looking at these shootings and everday gun violence in isolation.   They are indicative of a gun-obsessed, special interest fueled, violent society.   So no one ‘thing’ will solve the latest horror, but that is no reason to ignore the underlying cultural facts.   We are America and we have a gun problem. I am not an expert, but it’s time to get started.   And for those that claim I am trampling on the 2 nd Amendment rights, my response is your rights do not trump mine and my right to a nation encompassed in ‘domestic tranquility’. 1)       Close the gun show loophole. 2)       Make the penalty for selling, carrying, buying, or owning a gun without proper documentation excessive.   Zero tolerance.   Prison time. 3)       Ban a

I am part of the 2% and I am not the enemy.   Further, for those on the left that want to use stereotypes that the 2% are not job creators or do not pay their fair share I suggest you pay attention.   Not all of us inherited wealth.   Our wealth comes from hard work.   We are fortunate, but not lucky per se.   And yes many of us understand the need to raise taxes.   Some of us even voted for President Obama. I was fortunate to have parents that understood the importance of education, even though I may have not at times.   They were proponents of education and hard work, and made sure college education was paid for.   Me and my siblings all had jobs when we were young and we understood the value of money, the need to save, and the concept of staying within one’s means.   I parlayed that stable loving upbringing with an engineering degree to get my first professional job as an engineer at Eastman Kodak.   In the 27 years hence I have worked my ass off, studied, learned on the job,

Israel: The Jewish state.   Is it a good thing? Is it necessary?   Of course Israel is a good thing and it is necessary, but should it be a Jewish state?   I do not ask this question flippantly or frivolously.   With My Main Mensch Moshe, say that ten times fast, here in Israel we switch from discussing business to the future of Israel.   Where I am just a casual observer, my man shares with me his thoughts, experiences, opinions, etc. His experiences are first hand and he Obi Wan Kenobi to my Luke Skywalker. Last March I wrote of being a secular American Jew in Israel which included this excerpt: Let’s go back to the idea of the Jewish state and the man most often credited with spreading the concept; Theodor Herzl.   Herzl is credited with being the driving force of the Zionist movement, though he did not create the name, following the publication of his 1897 book Der Judenstaat.   The movement promoted the settling of European Jews in the ancient biblical Jewish homeland of Pa

Economists suck at predictions.   Economist Kevin Hassett, and former Romney economic advisor, said in 1999 “Stocks are now, we believe, in the midst of a one-time-only rise to much higher ground—to the neighborhood of 36,000.” Of course there was President Obama’s own Christine Romer who predicted that unemployment would never pass 8% if the stimulus was passed.   We know how that turned out.   How many economists predicted the 2008 economic collapse?   I can only think of one: Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini.   Roubini now warns of a perfect storm recession in 2013:   “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”    Meanwhile Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says “ So yes, debt matters. But right now, other things matter more. We need more, not less, government spending to get us out of our unemployment trap. And the wrongheaded, i

How about the establishment clause?    Oklahoma judge Mike Norman sentenced 17 year old Tyler Alred to ten years in church in connection to a drunk diving incident that killed the teenager’s friend.   Church?   I am all for a progressive judge trying to find alternative sentencing, but this is bad for justice AND religion. Nativity plays will need new casts.   Pope Benedict XVI says there were no oxen, donkeys, or any other animals for that matter at the birth of Jesus.   No word yet if the Three Wiseman are in jeopardy of being cut too. I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas?   Pope Benedict XVI also claims that the entire Christian calendar may also be off due to a 6 th century monk’s miscalculation regarding the actual birth date of Jesus. Never too soon to kiss ass.   Florida Senator Marco Rubio visited Iowa soon after the 2012 Presidential election.   Rubio is building his credentials with the evangelical Iowa caucus crowd where he dodged the question about the age of the e

  With 36 shopping days until the ‘fiscal cliff’ pundits and analysts from both sides are offering their opinions and giving advice to the political combatants.   And as usual, the left is calling for President Obama to not ‘cave in’ like he did in in 2010, he didn’t, and the right is calling for Speaker Boehner to hold fast and not allow a tax increase.   Now that we are passed the election and Black Friday the rhetoric will amp up on cable news, I won’t watch, and the Sunday Talk Shows, won’t be watching those either, to a fever pitch with the zealots on each side looking for unconditional surrender and unanimous victory.   Yes compromise is on the endangered list of political will. But should this come as a surprise to anyone?   In every aspect of society we feel we have to treat everything   as a competition.   Within hours of the Gaze cease fire, pundits were already trying to declare winners and losers.   Now I am no ‘everybody gets a trophy for participation’ kind of g

I am thankful for: History repeating itself, because I fear how we would cope if everything was new. David Chase making a sociopath the protagonist in the HBO series The Sopranos, and in the aftermath we have been treated to the likes of Vic Mackey, Nucky Thompson, Dexter Morgan,   Al Swearengen, Walter White, Russell Edgington, Don Draper, and Tommy Gavin. Hindsight because without it we wouldn’t know what we were supposed to do. Political pledges because anytime you can get a politician to sign anything you have a document and record that becomes useful in mocking said politician Box cutters because they are the most useful tool to overcome manufacturers and retailers fear of theft and are necessary if you want to open the most basic packaging.  A must if you want to open the package sometime this century Sports surgeons because isn’t every surgery deemed ‘successful’?   I mean have you ever heard a surgeon say “Well that didn’t go so well”, following an ACL pro