So what is it, what’s the truth here?  Somebody out there want to ‘fess up and spill it, tell us what really transpired?  I’m really tired of looking like a stupid *ss in front of my kids, telling them what I think is the truth only to find out it’s highly questionable at best.

My daughter asked me this morning who captured Saddam – as if it was one person, somebody special we should be seeing more of on television.  I told her Saddam had been captured based on intelligence on his movements and that our troops finally caught up with him.

I just had to explain that might have been completely untrue, that Saddam may have been captured by the Kurds and turned over to the U.S.

Sweet Jebus,  I wish you jerk-*ffs in the White House would quit the f*cking spin already.  It doesn’t make you look any better to us, and in this case it actually impedes our belief that the Iraqis are ready to govern themselves.

Or is that the idea, milk this out until you get within striking distance of the election?

4:04:55 PM    comment []

Since my new local area network was temporarily botched up this weekend, I confined myself to surfing and commenting in lieu of posting at my own blog.

I found a third post in a series at FastCompany on What Happens When Your Job Is Taken By Someone in India or China? while surfing; being a former IT worker, I can identify readily.  My white collar job didn’t leave directly for Asia, but any chance of that role being revived occurred there and not here, along with most of the other tens of thousands of IT people laid off with me over the last couple of years.  So what do we do?

I know many of us WC’s are fuming about this situation:

White Collars (WC) are getting VERY angry; we grew up being told that getting a good education and a degree or two would save us from the ignominy of outsourcing that happened to blue collar labor -- in some cases, to our parents -- during the 70's and 80's. Unlike the blue collar folks who had labor laws to prevent a sudden plant closure and time to respond with retraining, WC's experienced job losses on a much tighter internet-sped cycle. There is little time for response.

Worse, there is nothing to which WC's can migrate and still make use of their investment in education. A volume of innovative opportunities have not kept pace with the availability of educated workers. We shafted ourselves by doing too good a job, helping our employers become lean and highly productive to the point where they simply didn't need us.

This is in part what is fueling the Dean campaign -- WC's who are frustrated with a system that rewards cost reductions to achieve profitability but not innovation. (It's not the only thing, but it's one thing I'm seeing as I participate in Dean Meetups.) These angry WC's are going to vote with passion for that which supports their needs.

What is their need? For starters, a more effective incentive for investment in American innovation and businesses. We need tax incentives for businesses that invest in R&D here, for capital equipment purchased from U.S. manufacturers, for businesses that develop sustainable and green programs here; generalized tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans do not guarantee results as directly. Tax cuts for middle and lower class Americans, already under pressure because of job losses, are more likely to spend their savings on consumables (what does a couple hundred dollars buy, after all?), encouraging Walmartization by shopping for lowest cost products. We're shopping ourselves out of jobs, as others have said.

Until there is more effective stimulus, Americans should be conscious of buying American products whenever possible -- starting with WC's since it benefits them directly. Easier said than done, I know -- but we have to start somewhere. There aren't a lot of other options if we don't take responsibility into our own hands.

The answers sound pretty lame; one commenter suggests moving to a job that won’t be exported – like becoming an artist or a craftsman.  Sure…I can see becoming a craftsman, to a point.  There aren’t really enough opportunities to go around now, before a new flood of entrants into that market.  Art?  Please.  Who’s going to buy enough of your art to support you, that first and second percentile who will have all the art at which they can shake a stick?

And really, how many of us WC's are inept geeks who can't safely wield a sharp object?  We're going to become self-supporting craftsmen and artisans before our unemployment benefits run out?

Get a grip.  And make sure it's the right end of that paint brush.

12:41:43 PM    comment []