A tax cut can create jobs? No way

From RightMichigan.com, comes a new post in regards to jobs being created in Michigan.

The wonderful government in Michigan has raised taxes on business and has pretty much created a hostile climate for business.

No via the AP we get word the state has approved $120 million in tax cuts for General Motors.  And guess what?  GM announces the engine plant in Flint will be getting more jobs.  Crazy talk I know…

Now if we could just get rid of that other $1.5 billion in tax increase to the rest of the citizens of Michigan.

My grandpa remembers watching Roosevelt on TV in 1929

When he talked about the causes of the finanical mess that started the great depression.  He was also comforted by the Fireside Chats from President Truman over the TV as well during World War II.

Seriously Senator Biden?  Do you really not know your American History?

Let’s take a look at the quote again, in an interview with CBS Anchor Katie Couric:

“Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and to communicating to people … this is how we can fix this,” Biden said. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”

A couple of problems with that statement. 

1.  According to Wikipedia the first working television system was created in 1928, so it would be very experimental so I doubt many people saw Roosevelt talking about the cause of the stock market crash  Also NBC demonstrated inter-city television broadcast on February 1, 1940 according to this Wikipedia entry.  So how many Americans had TV in 1929?

2.  The bigger issue is who was President in 1929?  Not Roosevelt, but Hoover.  In fact Hoover probably lost the election because of the stock market crash and how he responded to it.

Congrats Senator Biden, you don’t understand American History at all

A wake up call for all politicians

My friend Robert Scoble and I have disagreed a lot lately in  the current discussion on politics that have take place on FriendFeed but on his most recent blog entry I agree with him on a lot of things

I would argue that his post should be titled “A Wake Up Call for All politicians” and not just Democrats.  There are some things towards the end that I disagree with but let’s look at what I think should be a wake call for all:

1.  Our education system:  Why is our education system lagging?  Is it because we have teachers that need to be removed but can due to tenure?  Is it because of the classroom size?  Or is because our colleges are not training the students correctly?  Maybe our education system is broke because the parents are not taking the vested interest they should?  But I totally agree the education system needs to be fixed.  No Child Left Behind was a start, but so much more needs to be done.

2.  Our taxation and infrastructure is whacked:  Yes our taxes are way too high but no one (Republican or Democrat) wants to cut programs or cut spending.  Plus our invovlement in Iraq is costing us a fortune, which in turns is costing us a ton in debt and taxes.  Lower taxes and make the current tax cuts permanent.

I think before we worry about broadband and other technologies we need to worry about our physical infrastrucutre. Our power grid is way outdated, in fact this is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as more and more people use alternative sources of energy (wind, solar, etc).  We lag behind the world in Nuclear Power Plants, lag behind the world in Oil Refineries, lag behind the world in so much…

So focus first on our infrastrucutre and then worry about things like IPTV, broadband, etc

3.  Our health care costs:  Not only are business drowning in costs, but people are drowning in health care costs.  I took my son for his 2 month shots and they were over $350.  Thank goodness for insurance covering all of that.  Why are these costs so high?

4.  Our immigration policies:  Congress voted to build a fence and also the money for a fence but nothing has been done.  Why?

And not just our borders w/ Mexico but the different workers that are coming to work and live in America.  When MS has to open an office in Vancouver just to help meet the needs of its foreign workers there is a problem.  We are losing great minds, their income, the secondary jobs they provide for spending that income, plus everything else they and future generations would provide to America

I disagree with Robert on some of the concepts he brings forth in the last two points but everything else is something every politician should be promoting.  Now if we could find real men and women who would stick up for their beliefs and help make America a better place it would be great.

Where and what is this generations Moon Shot?

Interesting Title About Recent Poll Results

Headline from the Associated Press in regards to a recent poll “Whites lift McCain to slim lead over Obama in poll.”

Shouldn’t the headline talk about how more people view McCain has the experience to be President or how more people feel Palin has more experience then Obama.  Instead of how the white people are voting for McCain?

Let’s look at some figures from the poll

The Arizona senator has a 13-percentage-point lead over his Democratic rival both with men and senior citizens, and a 23-point advantage among rural residents

So McCain is leading Obama amongst men and senior citizens and also amongst rural votes.  By a lot

Another stat:

94 percent of Republicans back McCain, while 83 percent of Democrats prefer the Illinois senator.

Interesting the “divided” Republican party backs McCain better then the Democrats back their own candidate.  Wonder how many of those 17% of Democrats are Hillary supporters who would rather vote for McCain?  Looks like good news for McCain.

Bad news for McCain as Obama is:

He’s preferred two-to-one by those who say the nation’s economy is in poor shape

So still looking for the White people lift lead for McCain part that is highlighted by the headline

But McCain now leads amongst likely voters:

McCain leads Obama among likely voters, 48 percent to 44 percent

It isn’t until more then halfway down the article the AP breaks down race/gender/etc and finds that white people favor McCain.   And probably African-American people favor Obama.  Is it that hard to figure out?

Big Surprise ABC edited Governor Palin’s interview

The big suprise of the day today is that ABC edited portions of the interview with Charlie Gibson.

Take a look at the full transcript

Obama attacks McCain’s Computer Illiteracy without doing basic fact checking

There is currently an ad that is running by the Obama campaign that is attacking McCain for not using a computer on a day to day basis.

Once again, Patterico and several other blogs do the fact checking the Obama campaign did not do.  Some checking of the different quotes from magazines and other newspapers report exactly why McCain doesn’t use a computer.

From Ace of Spades comes this quote:

McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.

But that item came from some crazy right-wing blog right?  WRONG

Or this reference “McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying “

Or how about this post from a quote from Forbes Magazine?

“In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.”

Hrmm might want to think this fact checking bit a bit more and re-do the ad.  Let’s attack someone who was injuired in the Vietnam War and can no longer raise his hands above his head

Seven years ago

One of my favorite sites once again comes across with amazing pictures of 9/11 and what has happened on site since at the site of the devastation.

7 years ago I was learning how to be a substitute teacher in Kent County schools.  We were watching videos on how to be a teacher when they interrupted with the news of the attacks.  How my life and world has changed since then.

Creating a Scripted SUSE Server install

I’m working on trying to create scripted SUSE Enterprise Server install and running into all kinds of issues.  First off this will be deployed through the Altiris Deployment Server.  Deployment server supports scripted OS installs, however the only document there is relates to creating a scripted Red Hat iinstall w/ Kickstart and SUSE uses AutoYast.

So has anyone done this?  Anyone used a scripted SUSE Install w/ Altiris Deployment Server or have I run into the great black hole?

Also in AutoYast I can create the profile, and also the profile validates, however when I go to save I get an error:

Some schema check failed

Please attach your logfile to bug id 211014

Checking XML with RNG validation….

However I can’t sign in to view this bug.

Two things I need some help with:

1.  Anyone do any scripted Deployment Server SUSE Linux deployment

2.  Any idea on the bug?

Thanks,

Jonathan

New Blog and Call for Help

The other day, one of my friends Laserjock and I were talking and he mentioned a great idea that he has come up with is a new blog dedicated towards Christians and Open Source Software.

People who use OSS often times have disagree political, social and religious views.  This is a site were we can talk about those differences we have as Christians.  Interested?  Join Us

Thoughts on the Jaunty Jackalope

Mark has posted the codename of the next Ubuntu release, 9.04 along with some of the goals the distro team is going to focus on.

One of these goals is blurring the line between web applications and the desktop.  I hope we don’t move to far in blurring these lines.  I am not looking for an application that can only function connected to the web or some application that loose features when not connected to the web.  There are way to many places that I don’t have web access.  Often as a consultant when I bring my laptop onsite I’m not allowed on the corporate network or even on a guest network (if they even have one) and do not want to loose the ability to use that application.

Is this goal some how designed to combat what Google is doing with Google Gears or Microsoft is doing w/ Live Mesh or is it jumping on a bandwagon? 

One of those applications for Linux/Windows is Dropbox, however it only works in Ubuntu and with Nautlius.  Are we going to have the same problems with these new web apps in 9.04?  That is they only work in Ubuntu and not in Kubuntu, further the often repeated story that Canonical only cares about Ubuntu and not Kubuntu.

 

When will one of the goals be enterprise support and adoption?  Will one of these releases ever focus on ease of use for deployment, configuration and management of hundreds of Ubuntu machines?  Hopefully some place we can discuss this, maybe at the next UDS?  Hopefully I’ll see you there