OCinBuffalo

As I said in the other thread....I can teach them how. And, how, in a way that is completely non-threatening politically.

You know my favorite, favorite part of this? Very soon, gatorturds and the like will be BEGGING us for the observable in real time, consistent, comprehensive metrics that literally only we can provide(not soley due to technical approach, but also due to method/understanding). Nobody understands any of this yet, and that's fine, because they have no reason to care. This is all arcane, barely relevant stuff right now. It's just fun to see this now, knowing what I know about things like Meaningful Use....and knowing what I know about how gatorturd et al will be forced to defend it. What they will require, and more importantly, whom they will require it from? Hilarious.

I voted 0 times for Bush. And, what a surprise, I say the word stupid....and it attracts gatorman.

Yes, and I would lump all of that under: incompetence. So, we're back to: either own incompetence, or, own insubordination. What is a an upper manager: who has created the conditions/culture of finger-pointing you describe? Perhaps s/he is devious? Keeping business units fighting, so that they are easier to manage? But then: who needs "easier to manage"? Incompetents. Competent upper management has no problem with "hard to manage". The relish it. They are bored with anything else. I'm not doubting you, or your story. In fact that sounds about government-right to me. However, if I was the boss of the people you are currently arguing with, they'd probably be looking to steal your idea, and take credit for it, because I keep demanding that they think, then produce. "Easiest" way to manage this? If I see no one spending any $ this quarter on hardware....there better be a reason, because deploying new hardware means? We've deployed new software. We better be deploying new software at the DOD, all the time, because it's not like we've even come close to covering our requirements list, "right Bob"? See? I don't even need to know the shot/angle of approach, etc. I don't need to know the project plans. I don't even need to know where we stand on the reqs list. I could merely look at the hardware spending by unit, only, and still be doing the job. Why? Competence.

Then you need to work on your learning. We don't do "right from wrong" here, unless John Adams/birdog are on another of their "Look! I'm more moral than you are!" contradiction in terms/casting of their values, as morals, crusades. No. We do smart vs. stupid here. We look for ways to identify stupid, being advanced by posters, for the specific purpose of calling them names! Name calling is the reward posters get for finding the stupid. Calling names, without finding stupid, is doing it wrong.

Politically? Forgive me, I though this was PPP. Morever, the problem with the VA is the problem with Obamacare: Overpromised outcomes, due to a level of assigned that have 0 chance of delivering those outcomes. In other words: rationing. Rationing, and/or price controls(which necessitate Soviet-style side payments to actually get seen by the doctor this week), is how government-run health care operates the world over. "Single Payer health care" is a giant lie. So are the "per capita spending" #s on health care. I've already proven that in this thread. But, I don't expect you, or anyone else except perhaps Magox, DC_Tom and perhaps TTYT to care about the proof. Not when Obamacare and VA can be connected so easily politically. Why would any low-information tool want to educate themselves about anything, when they can simply go with "Government Health Care Bad"? Remember: that's the downside of the slice and dice/micro-demographic messaging that got Obama a 2nd term: it all gets blown up by universal truth. Each micro-message isn't nuanced enough to withstand a massive, general, contradiction, because it's been designed just for that micro-demo. The universal truth in this case: Government Health Care Bad. Let me at them. No, I'm being serious. I have facilitated objective metrics being created amongst $8/hr nurse aids. That alone should qualify me, no? See, the approach we have taken treats them as professionals first. We come in and literally define them as professionals. Who is going to argue? Not even the union president. We just set a self-defined expectation bar with a single word. Thus, we create an environment where they expect themselves, as professionals, to create objective metrics, for themselves. We then track activity for cost, sure, but also if they meet those metrics. Actually we look at cost entirely based on those metrics. In trade, they have a legit chance to, for the first time, control their own process-->jobs and career, what is good/bad, like professionals, rather than being treated as mindless minions to be herded. Yes, yes, Tony Robbins. But, Tony Robbins ain't got schit on me....because Tony Robbins can't write code! Moving on: The mission for government has to be set by policy makers. However, the execution of mission is rarely managed by them. That's because they are largely unqualified to set the damn mission in the first place, that's because at the highest level, they are political appointees. And, if you actually attempt to get them involved in their own damn business processes, and educate themselves on the operations...they flush you to a subordinate...who ain't gonna risk their job on anything, and is unqualified to make large scale process change decisions as well. Hence...as with health care, the only place to start is at: the bottom. We find ourselves having our client staff training the managers. Not the other way around. So, "reporting" has become "training". It's kooky, but it works. There's nothing I've found that says this approach wouldn't work for government.

That's crap. It's not like hard disk space is at a premium now, or was in 2009, and emails use so litte of it that it's preposterous to suggest that overwriting emails is necessary. You're looking at 10 years to fill up a standard 6TB server with email alone, for 10k people, and that includes attachments, because email servers rountinely compress old email. Morever, tape archiving, or just filling up an old hard disk with archived data, and sending it to a backup sever farm, is standard practice. First thing on google when one searches for "archive farm", and its pricing == https://www.archivefarm.com/index-3.html Which... ....is why I don't buy this $ excuse at all. You are looking at fractions of pennies with that pricing when considering the entire IRS IT budget. I will prepare a plan using those prices, if necessary. But I can tell you now that we're going to end up in the same place: $ is not the concern. $ due to hard disk space? Ludicrous. Besides, these clowns almost certainly already have their own dedicated FIPS-standard data center, complete with all bells and whistles. Um...FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standard. Are you really suggesting that the IRS isn't following FIPS? Because: now that would be a real scandal, wouldn't it? Bureaucrat on Bureaucrat crime! Somebody might actually get fired! Here's how that goes: "Holy hell! Immediately schedule 10, 50-people meetings this week! We need them so we can hire consultants to study this, before it gets out that some employees might lose the 40 jobs created here at the IRS...just for FIPS compliance! Quick: leak it to the media that it's not that we're incompetent, or that we didn't hire 40 people just to do this: No! We don't have enough $! They'll be howling for Congress to spend $ by the end of the week!" Don't forget: I've worked in government too. That, and "backup" is the first thing that client-side IT people obsess about, because it's the first thing they can point to for job security. Hell, in my experience, client-side IT clowns routinely use "backup" as their "something to say" at meetings, largely because its the ONLY thing they can say! The policies you are talking about have to do with laziness/incompetence, not $. If the policy makers are involved at all, it's to support the laziness/incompetence. So, again, either the IRS IT owns incompetence, or, they own insubordination. Pick one. No way in hell they don't have the $.

I'm not making any claims other than the ones I've already made. You're dancing on the edge of putting words into my mouth here. Don't bother trying. Also, I am only working with the words you've chosen, and those you haven't chosen. The leftist agenda is now clearly known to all. I'm not going to waste our collective time detailing what we've heard from the D party and this D president. Or, do you think he hasn't made enough speeches? That agenda is in dire trouble, primarily because it has, once again, failed to produce results. Your purpose for this entire thread is as I said: you know that the agenda/Obama is in trouble, and, as a coping techinique, you're searching for a way for Obama to hit bottom, in terms of Bush. (Btw, the time when you can save Obama, or save the agenda, not both, is rapidly approaching) Specifically, you are looking for reinforcement that Obama is not as a bad as you've said Bush was...for 10 years now. You are scared schitless, and right to be, that we're going to wind up in a place where Obama is WORSE than Bush...becuause then you're going to feel exposed. Also, you are testing the water, and looking to see where everybody is(hence the poll approach), again in an effort to set a baseline. It's telling. Speaking of telling: http://msnbcmedia.ms...18 Release).pdf It seems you are not alone in your trepidation. In fact, do a Ctrl-F for "Bush" and you will soon see: more people find Obama "Not competent at all" than Bush in 2006! The year the Ds waved into Congress. So, again, it's interesting, even if you don't see it, that this question would be asked the way you asked it, and then supported by bullet pointing/Ben Franklin close approach. If you look around in this thread, you'll see that I'm not the only one who knows a BS Ben Franklin when they see one. TYTT is coming at this from his standard quant approach. I am running my standard knowledge+experience=behavior-->process approach. In either case, your effort in this thread basically guarantees a response from both of us.

Can't read the rest of the WSJ article, but....I did read "quiet admisson that it has spent most of the past year willfully defying Congress". Doesn't that mean jail? I thought that was supposed to be turned over to a Federal judge, and the judge throws them in jail?

Of course it is. The average dude, already having been shown government's scintillating capacity to manage and deliver a working system in Obamacare, then gets exposed to their capacity to manage health care via the VA? Double whammy. All Rs have to do is come out and link the 2 in every sound bite. Not hard. Which Democrat is going to come out and defend against that? None: because no Democrat is going to be caught dead talking health care right now, or for the next 3 months at least. All the Rs have to do is hit the wide open hole. Then, in a few months, it comes down to, as I asked you in the other thread: "How many of you believe the government can manage health care?" As of today, the VA scandal has done massive damage to that answer, because now, Obamacare is no longer a "one-off". Now anybody with a brain can accept the argument from the Rs that a pattern has formed. Then, let's modify the question: "How many of you believe the government can manage health care...by itself?" You'll get 80% no. Then ask "Should the government be in charge of health care, or, should they merely be one of many participants"?(or something like that, I don't do marketing/polling for a living). You'll get 70% the latter....and then you run to the media with the results. And, then you've just opened the door for "Fixing Obamacare" to be what Magox listed above. ALL of it. This is Politics 101. Now, it does remain to be seen if the Rs will execute properly.

Yeah. Dude. You framed the question as you did. You then started the bullet point process, as you did. Now? You're telling me that I need to unknow what I know...and then claiming disinterest/observation? Why the bullet points then? Why not just let the poll happen, let the question take its course, and sit back, and "observe"? Sorry. Behavior Tells. All behavior has purpose, and you framed the discussion purposely with those bullet points. Hey, it's possible you may not see it. It's possible that you actually think you are merely observing. I don't. I see what I see. That's the thing about tells, they are usually subconscious, and the teller is unaware of them. That, and if you are so disinterested/disgusted by the process, why even bother posting in an obscure political board on a Bills football website? No. Look, it's OK to have serious concerns about this guy, and your agenda. You'd be nuts not to have them. Nobody should aspire to live a lie. You're better off dealing with them rationally, and revisiting more than a few things. For example: do you really think the government is capable of managing our health care? EDIT: What does the empirical evidence suggest about Obamacare, and the VA? With a mountain of evidence againt, where is the evidence for?

The VA represents 1 of 3 additional massive failures between now and 2016(I had another in mind, but this works just fine). The next 2 are the 2015 inevitable rate hike, and the final #s on how many people aren't paying a thing, and the emergency room visits/skyrocketing cost that comes with not having a personal, fiscal stake in your own health care(and if one of these don't happen, there are 3 more) What does this mean? The poltical will to protect Obamacare, as is, will be completely eroded. The normal screaming and howling about "entitlements", the "Ryan pushes grandma off a cliff" commercials....simply will not work this time. That's because everybody, wether they will admit it or not, knows its a mess. Who cares if you are pissing off 20-30% of the country by "fixing" Obamacare? You're pleasing 50-60%(possibly even 70% if you do it right) of the country in doing it. That's an easy political win waiting to happen, by any definition, and for every politician of every stripe, except far-left. Again: they only represent 20% of Congress and people. "San Franciso shouldn't be dictating the how health care system works for every other city and town in the country. The majority of this country knows Obamacare is broken. Therefore, the majority of Members have been sent here to fix Obamacare, including me, and we won't be deterred by a small minority of people in a few isolated districts." See? Isolating them, and then marginalizing them, is easy, hence, clear lane to the hoop for an easy political dunk. That is why even if Hillary wins, she will be no different than any other R president. "Fixing Obamacare" will be on the agenda. And, as Magox says: Fixing = literally chopping out Obamacare's legs pretty much along the lines he's described. This is pretty much inevitable.

Then this is easily resolved. You threaten the pay, not jobs, of every single IT person at the IRS. The whole chain of command. You present them with a choice: either produce the emails, or, while we may not be able to fire you, we don't have to pay you for incompetence. The American people aren't going to care, so there is absolutely 0 political risk/cost to Congress cutting the budget of IRS IT to $1. IF you want to stay, and work for free, you may. Otherwise: produce the emails. Then, you pull the funds for every contract for every IRS IT contractor. You offer them a choice: "produce the emails, and your contract gets funded for 5 years. You don't, and your contract is done immediately." They can either claim and own firable incompetence, or, they can can own that they know what they are doing, but are refusing to do it, as well as literally being insubordinate. Nice and tidy logic trap. Since the IRS works in reverse, you can't fire them, etc., you have to threaten them with no pay instead. What I can't believe is that nobody has gottent the contractors to flip, and hand over everything. ALL you need to do is promise whoever is in there(and you know someone is) an "acting CIO" role via the budget, and they would turn on the IRS managers like a mother in law. "Acting CIO" is the highest level of achievement for any consultant. You are literally signing your own paychecks using their money. No consulting firm would ever turn that down.

Yep. That's sounds about right. Dorkington can demur all he likes. But, as I said, there are many answers in the question itself, how it was asked, and especially in how Dorkington moves towards "Ben Franklin" in subsequent posts. I didn't make him do that, you didn't. He chose that all on his own. Reasonable "progressives"(I believe this term's shelf-life lasts through November, and then they'll have to find a new word for "socialist in everything but name"), started to get panicky about Obama a while ago. That's because he may very well end up destroying their agenda. After all they've done to tell us how smart and skilled he is, it's not like they can go back. So, he is inseperable from the agenda, in the minds of everyone but the far-left, who will of course use the age-old excuse for failed socialism: "Obama didn't do it right"TM. There have been many columns...such as "What if Obama can't lead"? Now? That's no longer in question. Obama's leadership, and capability, is known. Hence, again, Dorkington, you can demur and obfuscate: but you've already shown us your cards. The fact that you need to reach back for a Bush baseline? To try and assuage your concerns, by suggesting that Obama hasn't crossed that baseline? I play poker. I do enterprise IT. In both disciplines: you've just given us a tell.

The Bill QB situation is literally the best on that list. Partially becuase I think EJ pulls out the shocker this year. Partially because other than Manziel, where's the upside? What's the very best we can expect from EJ? A lot more than the rest of that list. And, we might as well compare on upside...because if things go the other way, who cares? It's not like this league is about developing players anymore. Everybody thinks Hot Pockets is the way to go now, even with QB. (Hehehe....I got a Hot Pockets reference in) That's the one thing that's interesting, for me, about Marone. He does want to take a "program" approach, and develop players, and I think that may be a secret weapon of sorts. It usually pays to NOT be doing what everybody else is in the NFL. Example: Belechick playing 3-4 when everybody else was playing a 4-3....meant all the elite 34 LBs/NTs/34 DEs went straight to him in the draft/FA(which is why Kiper said they may lose all their games in 2000. He was thinking in terms of what every other team was doing, and not seeing what the Pats were doing.) Easy to build a great team when nobody else is competing for the players you need. Thus, if everbody is looking for guys to "play now", you can clean up with "upside/project" players.

Well, I will once again do this thing....that I seem to have to do every 6 months or so: 1. Baby Boomers started out being self-aware in the 60s. But they are young, and many have the opportunity to be the first in their family to go to college. So, they vote Democrat, because it's "hand out" time. Hence, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon....who by any standard is a big government guy. Subsidized education, day care(Head Start), food stamps, etc., gets the Baby Boomers started in life, all the way through Carter. Plus....they get to tell themselves they are doing the "moral thing" by voting for the Great Society. Self-Congratulatory. Self-aggrandizing. Douchebaggery. That's pretty much the best summary of 1964-1969. 2. But, it's the early 70s now. It's time to get a job. Now that they are on their 2nd job in the late 70s? All of sudden? Paying taxes sucks. Really sucks. So, time for a change = Reagan. Reagan/Bush gives them years of cut income taxes, and a massive cut in the capital gains tax. So, now they can invest, live well, and be the literal "Me Generation"(only generation that name has ever been applied to). Of course, this is also right around the time that 50% of them start getting divorced every year...creating havoc for Generation X, because when every single friend's parents get divorced in a 6th month period? That's havoc for you as well. And, for the first time: it's "hand in" time. This is the first time we hear "the government has got a hand in everybody's pocket" and the like, from Baby Boomers. 3. However....it's getting late in the 80s. And, guess what? Not only it is time to put the kids through college...its also time to get retrained for a new career/get that master's degree/MBA. The tech economy is coming, and these Baby Boomers need to go back to school/borrow money to start a business/get tax breaks/buy a new(another?) home and capitalize. They need to be "invested in" again. Well, what do you know? Clinton, despite 90% Bush 1 approval rating just a year before, gets elected. The "Baby Boomer" "hand out" is back out in full force, and Clinton is there with promises of putting $ in that hand. "I need, I need!"(What about Bob?) 4. The kids are now out of school, and the Boomer's are in their "prime earning time" of their life. Man, it's time to forget all these Clinton taxes. It's time to deregulate the stock market. It's time to "get government out of the way, and let me make as much $ as possible". What a surpirse. Despite all conventional political wisdom(Clinton policies polling at 70%+), Gore pits outs....and Bush gets elected to cut taxes, deregulate(this was his agenda....then 9/11), etc. 5. Well, now. The Boomers have their $. They have their retirement plan. The only thing that threatens it? Health care costs. Entitlement reform. And, they are gettin old. They want to feel like they did back in the 60s. Before they die....they want to personally "complete" the Civil Rights movement....by voting for a Black President....who also just happens to represent the least amount of threat to their personal stash/income. Obama doesn't want to tax them. Obama wants to make young people pay for their health care! (Tell me that isn't exactly what Obamacare does) Hence Obama is voted in...despite the fact that most Bably Boomers knew damn well that he didn't have the experience, because they have experiene. You guys can talk all you want. When you get done? The Baby Boomers, and their voting their self-interest, is precisely how we have come to be here, whether the result was good or bad(mostly bad). The pattern is undeniable, because it's so consistent.

This is funny, of course because this is "dog ate my homework". It's hilarious in fact, because they were dumb enough to believe this was better than either doing nothing, or saying something else. Nobody believes this email story. Nobody except gatorman-types. But, it's also funny because, 10 years ago, you guys might have bought this story. And, 10 years ago, I might have had to explain this further in IT terms. Now? I bet half of you could explain, at least the theory, behind load-balancing(horizontal scaling)/fail-over architecture. I bet most of you know damn well that even amongst government IT people, maintaining a poperly scaling, load-balancing, and archiving email architecture is easily done. To me, this is just another example of the Dan Rather effect, but updated by 10 years: the internet, and our shared experiences with it, make excuses/cannards like this, that might have worked before....just silly. What serious person doesn't know what a "restore point" is?

Before I begin, I think the state of affairs of the "Obama effort", it's status, must be rapidly approaching awful, if determining it has to be done in the context of Bush. Doesn't it? Consider: would anyone make such a comparison in 2009-11? No. That would have been "pointless". Since at that time, "we all know Obama is much better", would have been the: 100% from the media, 100% from the left and independents, and probably even 60% from the right, standard response to Dorkington's question. However, now, we have a poster in Dorkington, who tends to be on the left side of things, asking this question....and asking it in "Ben Franklin close" manner? I think that speaks volumes. It gives us insight into what must be happening in the brains of most of the reasonable left. They see how bad this is. So, they are reaching for some stability. They are looking for this to hit bottom = "Ok, this is bad, but, is this as bad as we said Bush was?" On the plus side? At least Dorkington is capable of recognizing "bad" when he sees it, and at least he seems capable of introspection. On the minus? Obama hitting bottom is wishful thinking. Which should surprise no one, as most of the left's thinking is predicated on it. This is only part right. The part you don't account for? The exponential radicalization of the Democratic party from 1998 to...Obamacare. And, yes, I do believe Obamacare marks the end, because "blue Dog"/Rahm Emanuel Democrats(Senator Manchin WV) will be the only Democrats who win contested elections going forward. The massive move to the left is not Bush's fault. It started with Clinton's impeachment/the Global Warming/Political Vehicle Scam, and was also fueled by Clinton's active participation in Welfare Reform, and, the rest of the successful, bi-partisan things that were getting done, which were good for the country, but bad for the far-left. No man in history has done more to disprove the far-left's ideologoy than Bill Clinton. After all, "Clinton triangulation" literally means: beat the Republicans to the podium, and announce your plan to implement their ideas. In all cases, Republican ideas get implemented = bad for the far left. Consider: this is the part that nearly nominated Howard Dean, before it nominated Obama. Howard Dean was a "good idea". No. He wasn't. That would have been a slaughter. Kerry lost a close race. Dean would have destroyed the party. So, I submit that Bush may have been a catalyst, but not the main reason for Democrats feeling "empowered" to nominate Obama. A long string of idiocy, designed and energized by unmitigated morons, but, sold by world-class marketers, is the real cause for Obama. Rather than talking about dividing the country, Democrats should be worried about Obama dividing their party. As of today, I see them as massively divided going forward, and then? We will get to ask whether the R winner of 2016 won on his own merits, or, the D divide/how bad Obama was, and/or the energy of the far-right/TEA party, etc.

Ah, a grand wizard of moral relativism, and apparently now results relativism, has come to impart his wisdom! (I was going to do this in a thread, and I may still, but, this is great test case(soon to be object lesson, for bridog), and I can't pass it up.) To this I merely ask: how does one identify one shade of grey from another? ( The intelligent here just realized bridog is screwed, and how/why. I have it all written out...but, no spoilers)

Not for nothing? Douchy article. Sorry, but I hate the "blame the voter" mentality on display here almost as much as I hate the "blame the customer" mentality. Any politician, especially an R one, is a fool if he subscribes to the mentality above. Why especially an R? If they are smart, the Rs can be the "party of competence". They can turn this whole thing on its ear. Can Greenfield honestly say that Rs have put forward a kick ass, "party of competence product" in John McCain, and Mitt Romney? Can they say they've supported that product with excellent services? Well, they can say that they stopped the Obama bleeding. That's important, and that's not nothing to independents, who've seen the bleeding clearly(every poll says so). However, whoever is up in 2016....needs ideas. If you're actually going to be the "grown up in the room"? You don't say it. If it is true, you don't need to say it. Real grown ups: lead, and have no time/tolerance for identifying who is a grown up and who isn't, because they spend all of their time on the work in front of us. No "speechifying". We already have a speaker-in-chief who apparently finds out about his organization's problems from the media, and not his managers. What Rs need is better ideas, and then, the courage to go out and win with them. Frankly, that's precisely what Chris Christie and Scott Walker did. There's that word again: courage. Christie/Walker had a ton of courage to take the approaches they did. Courage begins with self-control. Self-control is not saying: "47% of Americans"....are essentially losers, or, calling people "adolescent-minded". That's for us, here, at PPP. A presidential candidate shouldn't be looking to win PPP. That's precisely what Obama's been trying to do. IF voters are "idiots" ? That's an opportunity, not a threat. "Adolescent minds" have a tendency to oversimplify, because they have knowledge, but little experience. Good. Then, Rs should say: "It's simple. We are the Party of Competence. The Democrats are the party of something else. We come from business, and therefore, we are about results. The Democrats are the party of something else, largely having to do with not knowing very much about any industry, but then declaring themselves fit to tell it how to operate."

One. Size. Fits. All. Or. Chaos! Now why don't you people get that? In Obamacare, in everything else: How are the people in DC supposed to monitor cheese production business processes*, when you people keep insisting on having more than 1 of them? No. That makes their job way too hard to do. In fact no one can be expected to monitor mulitple/varied business processes at the same time. It's not like this is inflexible, you can change ingredients in the cheese you make, add flavors or whatever, but, you have to make it the same way every time...or our quality measurment instruments become useless! Nobody wants that! You think that's sarcasm? No. That's literally the mentality I've seen on full display in 7 different industries now. This is about "no one can be expected". Let me re-write that objectively "You can't expect me to come up with a way to do that, because I can't". That is the key. That's where the mentality originates: lack of competence/sub-standard individuals being put in position to literally make business decisions that are completely out of their depth. They have no business being anywhere near making business decisions for anyone, in anything. Yet, now we have them deciding how to make cheese? Did Congress pass a law? They are the ONLY people empowered to regulate commerce. *(um, cause that's what regulators think they are supposed to do now. You know, manage your business for you...from DC...without really knowing the industry/your people/your customers)

Or.... We could properly look at this as precisely what it is: behavior conditioning on a grand scale. One of the stated objectives of environtologists is to force people to live in cities, and to stop the "deadly" suburban sprawl. All this does? Sooner or later BC residents are going to move to cities...where they can be further controlled by the left. And that leads us to the real, cynical, objective here: if they force more people to the cities, individual liberty, individual rights, and individual ways of life....can be pushed aside in favor of what is best for the collective. You can easily make cases like: "more people are living in this city now, so, we need more government employees(and more votes)" and "well, you need to understand that we have to raise your property taxes, because we have to hire these new people. The very worst thing that has happened to the left in the last 50 years has been de-poputation of cities. They win most of their elections in cities 90/10, but they win far fewer of them overall, and far more of them have become untenable. This is why winning our House, in a "standard election year" is now a pipe dream for the left. Period. It doesn't matter which country you live in: decentralization, in all cases and applications, is the enemy of the left. There's been a Taranto link(B-Man) in this thread, so, in the spirit of his posts, and in celebration of you providing a perfect Fox Butterfield moment: "Fox Butterfield, Is That You?" http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323482504578227664228137272 When literally everything is a losing issue = health care, foreign policy, governance, economy....then something like cap and trade, in comparison, yes, becomes a "winning" issue. The math: Your going to whipped badly on the other issues + so few people care about Global Warming = You "win" that issue, because the only people that care about it are the far-left nuts who are going to vote D no matter what. When they do the exit polls...I predict you'll have "won" the Global Warming "battle"! Hooray! You'll also have won the "alien abduction is real", and "vaccines cause autism" issues, because those are the same people. Hint: you can win with 20% of the electorate in CO. What do you do about the other 80%, with whom you are losing on the issues they care about? With Udall polling at 45(at best ?/43 and 41? Ouch!) , as a sitting Senator in CO? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/co/colorado_senate_gardner_vs_udall-3845.html Bye Bye Buddy. An incumbent, with name recognition in a swing state...polling at only 45 against a guy whose only been in Congress for 2 terms? Not good at all for Udall. Of course, as always, I'm not saying who will win/2 term Congressman guy might turn out to "be a witch". I'm saying: the #s don't look good. CO has an environtologist base, sure, and he's probably hoping to turn them out. But, CO also has a signficant no-nonsense/no-ideology/practical demographic...which is why Udall is at 45. Only a clown sees any of this as "winning".

The problem here is: this is our longest war. If this was WW2, you'd have the lists/data/detail 6 years ago. And, 6 years ago, with victory, all the points this guy makes would be rendered irrelevant. But, as long as we are still at war, which whether we like it or not, we are, then we can't give up any tactical advantage, or expose our tactics in any way. Transparency is never worth somebody's life. We'll just have to suffer the indignity of the bad things terrorists have to say about us. As if they will sway anyone. The people who are going to be "affected" by terrorist propaganda...are going to find some other reason to support terror/come after us in its absence. Also, remind me: Who is the audience we are supposed to impress with our transparency then? Europe? Why the F do I care what they think? Their entire ethos on Iraq, Afghanistan, and now, Russia, has been thoroughly debunked. What more can we expect from them than the little bit they do now? The Middle East? now you're just being silly. We know who is on our side, and who isn't, and civilian death transparency doesn't do a thing for them. So whose left? Asia? Aussies? Africans? South Ameriicans? Why do we give a rats ass what any of them have to say about terror/war policy, and/or, what exactly does increased transparency get us from them?

I thought you said you had to be really pissed to do your best work Tom ??? My guidance counselor scoffed at me when I said I wanted to do "physical therapy". He then proceeded to inform me that I was going to be an "engineer...or something. Something worthwhile", in a most berating tone. I was being complimented, and berated, at the same time. That was weird. To this day, I still don't get that. I mean, it's not like I said "Hollywood writer".... ...or some other debasement of science(hey you want Adam's references, you get them) Really. Well, I see somebody needs a string of long posts, or better, PMs, on: Keynesian economics the inner workings of the Mimimum Data Set v3.0...(Hey, you said you want to see new things, well, here's a fine example of what happens when a couple of characters are cracked, and then, for reasons passing understanding, are given a voice, because they sure as hell can't find their own.) PKE encryption the utter hopelessness of our world cup soccer team run-of-the-mill analyis of our soccer team any random thought on soccer in general, or our world cup soccer team my personal exploration of moral relativism my dabbling in pacifism We'll have you drinking like a proper writer in no time. (Hehehe...missed this one.) Why, so I can be called a narcissist for speaking directly from experience as to why Medicare, or worse, Medicaid, doesn't create doctor jobs? Now, why should I want to do that? Walking into one of my own thingers? I have been away. Away doesn't mean "suddenly became a maroon". It's hilarious, because a forceful argument could be easily made that both, Medicaid especially, destroys doctor jobs, and do so as both policies and reimbursement instruments....but, I'm not doing it.

The notion that people are damaged by carbon emissions, in a vaccum, that doesn't also include them benefitting from electricity, is absurd, before it is anything, including libertarian. We cannot separate the two. The benefit and the emissions are intrinsic.