Category: Politics

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Politics

Palin detractors insult dads when they criticize her pursuit of a career

There’s a meme being tossed around as a criticism of Sarah Palin, runningmate to John McCain in the upcoming presidential election. The idea is that since Palin is a mother with a family, she shouldn’t be spending time in politics. This is the type of rhetoric we used to laugh at when I was growing up in the 1980s as old fashioned, conservative thinking. It’s remarkable that these criticisms are coming from Obama supporters who must be self-described liberals.

The insult to women is obvious. Michelle Malkin launched an attack on the media who would continue this line of argument while failing to question the many successful mothers we see every day on news programs.

What struck me is the implied insult to fathers packaged up in this meme. When I was growing up, the culture typicall accepted that fathers spent their time working, came home expecting dinner and flopped down in front of the TV for the rest of the evening. Mother’s took care of raising the kids, preparing meals, cleaning house. A mom was liberated if she had a job in addition to all of this.

It doesn’t work that way any more.

Every father I know works his ass off participating in the family. Yes, most of us have full time jobs, but we come home to help out with the cooking, cleaning and nuturing. Perhaps it’s just the crowd I associate with, but we understand that being a father includes getting up in the middle of the night to change a diaper. And if my wife is busy with some other obligation, I am perfectly capable of caring for our two little kids.

When I hear the argument that Sarah Palin’s family is somehow suffering for lack of attention from her, it implies that any contribution from her husband is discounted. Futhermore, it implies that fathers, in general, make no contribution. We do.

I am proud that made it through washing out cloth diapers in the toilet! There’s hardly a more macho job for a dad than dealing with the dirtiest jobs. Ultimately, it’s this meme that ought to be flushed down the drain.

Categories
News Politics

Iran Months Away from Having the Bomb

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post called It’s Time to Destroy Iran. At that time, UN representative Mohamed ElBaradei claimed that Iran was 5 to 10 years away from having nuclear weapons. The tone of the NY Times article was one of relief that we had so long to work on the problem. Of course, 5 years is brief moment in time in the realm of government action. Unfortunately, this week we are learning from the UN that the clock is down to 6 to 12 months.

In an interview with MEMRI, ElBaradei said “If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least…six months to one year. Therefore, Iran will not be able to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon.”.

Given that his estimate of two years ago was 5 to 10 years, and the new estimate is 6 to 12 months, does this almost suggest that Iran virtually has nuclear weapons already? Does 12 months seem like enough time to prepare for an attack on Iran? There have been hints that our government has made some preparations, but it’s also clear that the Bush administration makes no plan to take action before its term is through. We can only hope that Israel will defend itself when there appears to be no alternative.

As with four years ago, the threat of totalitarian governments is the one greatest issue of the presidential campaign. We needed Bush, not Kerry, to execute the Iraq war. He’s fought it with one hand tied behind his back, but our military has made slow progress. I don’t feel any better about McCain than I did about Bush, but it’s very clear to me that Obama would be incapable of handling the crisis we’re headed for.

Last year, McCain joked about bombing Iran to the tune of the Beach Boys song, “Barbara Ann”. Our best hope is that this represents McCain’s true resolve, that he won’t paralize us with endless negotiation. The overwhelmingly important task of the next president will be helping the people of Iran to shed the chains of their totalitarian government, and therefore restoring security to the rest of the world.

Categories
Business Politics Programming

Optimize the Most Significant Parts

There’s a general principle to optimization that many people miss, but seems so simple once you know it. I’m sure I first read about it in The Practice of Programming from Kernighan and Pike. You should optimize the most significant part of a program to get the most reward for your effort. The procedure is simple. Measure how much time the computer spends in each part of your program. There’s likely a loop that takes up a significant portion of the time. Optimize that part first. If you don’t follow this formula, you’ll probably spend a bunch of time optimizing what you intuitively think is slow, but it may not matter at all.

I’ve found that this approach applies equally well to optimizing money. For example, when you’re running a business, you have a range of expenses. Some of them are for tangible goods, some of them are for outside services and some of them are for salaries. Imagine an office with a fancy coffee maker. Everyone might think it’s a waste of money and a luxury, but the cost of that expense is likely minuscule compared to salaries. You’re usually better off figuring out how to improve efficiencies in your work process than going with cheapo amenities.

Of course, once you know how this work, you can use it deceptively. Politicians do it all the time. Watch how they talk about earmarks, or the apocryphal $100 hammer. You might agree that it’s not a good idea for a congressman to request a $1mil earmark for his wife’s employer, but even $1mil is nothing compared to the most significant costs to the U.S. budget: Social Security and Medicare. If you check the measurements, you’ll find that all the earmarks together total about 1% of the budget, which Social Security and Medicare are about a third. (Total federal spending is about $2.9tril, and Social Security plus Medicare is about $900mil).

I’m a relatively young person in my late 30s. I wonder if I’m not alone in counting on getting absolutely nothing from Social Security by the time I might need it. I’m not taking that chance. I’m saving money in a 401K plus whatever else I can beyond the annual limit of a 401K. I really wouldn’t mind if my taxes were 30% lower and I had to take responsibility for my own retirement.

Categories
Politics

Does Wealth Make Us Bored Enough To Hurt Ourselves?

Robert Tracinski runs a newsletter I really enjoy called TIA Daily. You can try it for free, but ultimately it’s about $70/year. It’s well worth it–no other source provides the same quality of new coverage. A few days ago, Robert was offering a hypothesis on why the green movement appeared and seems popular. We are so amazingly wealthy that we’re bored and we have the luxury of indulging in self-destructive behavior. As an example, he sites this new carbon-neutral city in the UAE. It’s all funded by oil money! But make no mistake, this luxury is the same luxury experienced by a teenager smoking cigarettes.

I enjoy the minor thrill of the bargain involved in some forms of recyling. I buy lots of second hand books and CDs. The moment that it’s some kind of duty that induces shame when we don’t comply with the dogma is the moment one should really feel shame for indulging in such a stupid, self-destructive habit. Choose logic over doctrine, choose pleasure over unaccepted obligations, and choose life over death.

Categories
Politics

The Next President Should Fix the TSA

USA Today reported that the TSA is now tied with the IRS as most disliked government agency. Since all of these annoying patdowns and shoe x-rays don’t seem to be worth anything at all, an enterprising presidential candidate should take up its abolishment as part of their platform. Other than all those useless agents who will have to be let go, the only people who might protest are comedians.