Diggapedia

Two girls were hit by an SUV as they fell asleep sunbathing on a rural Pennsylvania Rd.   Fire for effect: ·          I guess roadblocks are more effective than sunblock when street tanning ·          I have heard of the dangers of UVA and UVB, but never SUV. ·          Pennsylvania, proving it just may not be smarter than a 5 th grader. ·          Did their guidance counselor tell them they wouldn’t mount to anything better than a speed bump? Soybean prices are climbing rapidly due to increased demand and poor yields in South America.   The high price may cause food shortages in the developing world like 2008.   I can hear Sarah Palin already “The President’s failed agricultural policies have led us to near disaster in the farmland.   Sow baby sow, sow baby sow.” Kurt Mix, a 50 year old B...

I have never worked on a Presidential campaign, let alone run one.   I watch political television shows, but I am no pundit.   I have never conducted a political poll, let alone been part of one.   So why do I think those that criticize the Obama reelection campaign strategy of attacking Romney as a ‘severe conservative’ are wrong.   Perhaps it’s because I see a chess match where they see checkers.   Perhaps it’s because while we live in a digital world, life is still analog: things aren’t simply 1’s and 0’s. The Presidential campaign will feature ebbs and tides as we get closer to November.   Poll numbers will go up, go down, move sideways, and the 24 hour news cycle will cause candidates and their surrogates to react accordingly and push the campaign off its planned axis.   All that being said, there is no such thing as a homogenous presidential campaign just like the election is really 51 separate elections.   Tactic #1: If all politics...

Why education matters.   The globe is on the verge of another manufacturing revolution, this one driven by technology; surprise.   Over the last twenty years, technology has made the world smaller through IT advancements, products lighter and stronger through material science, factories more efficient through automation, and quality of life improvements through medic al devices and biotechnology.   The rate of advancement and development will continue to increase and suddenly the developing world’s economic advantage of cheap labor will be eradicated through the need for speed to market, rapid manufacturing processes, and mass customization.   The downside is that the traditional blue-collar factory worker jobs in this country will continue to disappear.   The good news is that higher paying technology, engineering, and science jobs will be in great demand to design, develop, produce, maintain, and operate these new manufacturing, information, and healthcare s...

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning Arizona’s anti-immigration law known as SB1070.   As many of you know, I have blogged extensively about 20 th century immigration policy, economic impact of documented and undocumented workers, and what immigration reform needs to include.   I believe public officials and pundits conflate immigration and trafficking as they conflate border security with police work.   But this post isn’t about the legal arguments or public policy.   Instead, why is it such an emotional subject?   Why are so many Americans angry at undocumented workers and why have so many of us forgotten our own past? America has a checkered past of xenophobia and intolerance of immigrants.   Anti-Catholic sentiments led to persecution of Catholics, anti-Semitism was prevalent against many Germans and Eastern Europeans, and anti-socialists and anti-labor movements led to the unlawful prosecutions, deportations, and imprisonments o...

My favorite jokes (yes they’re mine) on the Secret Service scandal: ·          Apparently the agents thought they could get serviced secretly. ·          One of the agents is claiming they did not know the girls were prostitutes.   Really?   The same guys that are expected to identify potential threats to the President couldn’t ID a prostitute when she was sitting on his face. ·          There is no truth to the rumor that The Hangover III involves hookers and blow in Cartagena, Columbia with the Secret Service.   The wolf pack just expanded. ·          The prostitutes claim that the dispute was centered around the agents refusal to pay.   Apparently the agents misunderstood the terms of the new Columbia-America Free Trade Agreement   (CAFTA). Solutions looking for problems.   We...

Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address concludes with “…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The preamble of the Declaration of Independence includes the following: “ We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And then there’s the preamble of the Constitution: “ We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…” I wonder what Lincoln would say if he could observe what has happened to his government of the people, by the people.   The first Republican President would see the 2012 Republican presumptive candidate calling corporations people.   He would be seeing the rotten fruits of the Citizens United ruling by t...

“God willing, he will know how to use Christianity in the right way.” “What do I think about the election?   So far I can only say I am confused.” “People are willing to vote for him, not because they believe in him, or his ideas or his agendas, just because they are confused and they don’t want to waste their vote.” “Nobody understands anything – that’s the slogan you hear.   Most of the conversations are filled with questions about basic facts.   And they end with ‘May God grant the presidency to whoever deserves it.’” The above quotes could easily be from any individual from the U.S. electorate right?   Actually these quotes were taken from Egyptians discussing the coming presidential elections in that country (OK in the first one I substituted Christianity in place of Islam to make the point).   But you have to admit they could be the words of a Tea Partier, a moderate, an independent, and a social conservative.   Oh, and one more th...

1.      2.      3.      4.      5.      6.      7.      8.      9.      10.    He bets a fellow candidate $10,000 on national TV during a debate.   According to the 2010 U.S. census that would be equal to 10 weeks of income for the median household. 9.        Stay at home mom Ann Romney is a regular fixture at international dressage competitions, considered the most elite form of equestrian activities.   Her prized horse has been rumored to be worth $250,000.   According to the 2010 U.S. census , the median value of owner-occupied homes was $188,000. 8.        The Romneys are installing a car elevator as part of their renovation to their $12Million villa in San Diego.   The renovation includes a 3,600 square foot expansion. ...

Two ends of an energy story, both of them handled badly. Here in the U.S., Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest domestic gas producers, saw its shares fall 7% on Wednesday on the news of some questionable deals by its charismatic CEO and co-founder Aubrey McClendon.   McClendon has been one of the natural gas industry’s biggest proponents and one of the first to realize the value and possibility of the Marcellus Shale’s gas reserves.   It seems McClendon has taken out over $1million in loans secured against Chesapeake Energy wells.   Both McClendon and Chesapeake Energy claim nothing was illegal as an arrangement has been in place since 1993 that allows the CEO to buy into some of the company’s wells, an arrangement that has been disclosed in SEC filings since 2007.   The question is whether this represents a conflict of interest; a serious question indeed.   Imagine the CEO of McDonalds has the ability to buy into specific franchise locations.   As CEO...

The GOP and its water carriers have gone on and on about how brave Paul Ryan was in submitting the GOP House budget.   The statements of his courage were based on his willingness to be truthful with the American people about the true state of our finances and the potential collapse of our economic freedom by the twin gargantuan entitlements of Social Security and Medicare.   It seems courage and brave are as frivolously applied as ‘celebrity’ in today’s culture.   Before I lay siege to Mr. Ryan’s courage, let’s apply some context: For the sake of argument and to maintain consistency, I am only considering the notion of courage in terms of the political dimension.   On a scale of 1 – 10, one would have to place the Founding Fathers, especially the likes of John and Sam Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, at the top echelon of a 10.   The words and deeds of these men, when the majority of colonists were opposed to protest,...

Last weekend at the juncture of Easter and Passover I wrote about the concepts of being a good Jew and the Christian thing to do, a topic that received considerable commentary.   After posting the piece, I watched To Kill a Mockingbird,   listened to the religious and political leaders on the Sunday talk shows, and started reading Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism , which has led me to the nexus of politics and religion.   Much has been written about the 1 st Amendment and the establishment clause, so I won’t re-blaze that trail.   Instead, I want to focus on the politics of religion, enlightenment, and the dangers that come from religious based policy. For starters, we are a nation of laws that is governed by the rule of law: the laws of man.   For those that claim we should follow the rules of God, I ask two questions:   What incarnation of a deity and if you mean the Ten Commandments, while I believe honoring one’s mother an...

Checking in from 38,000 feet after a quick business trip that will no doubt end up with more to do on my plate.   Is doing the right thing for your employer necessarily in your best interests?   Shit if I know. I see Facebook paid $1Billion, yes Billion, for Instagram.   I have no clue regarding Instagram’s product or service.   I do know the company has 11 employees.   Yes 11 EMPLOYEES and the company sold for $1Billion.   Plenty of people will opine on whether Facebook paid too much.   Shit if I know. Sociologists and anthropologists believe there is a distinct difference between liberals and conservatives that has nothing to do with politics.   The prevailing theory is that liberals tend to empathize with others and feel it is society’s duty to help the downtrodden while conservatives feel individual liberty comes from pulling yourself up from your own bootstraps.   Is that a genetic or environmental force?   Shit if I know. Revisi...