Our family values

April 14, 2005

In an interview with the Washington Times Speaker DeLay continues the Republican assault on families. Asked whether he agrees with the White House on guest worker and immigration issues DeLay responded:

I've talked to the president about this. He thinks the country of origin is a good idea. He's open to other ideas. He's a little tough on bringing your family. But the key here is you don't want to bring your family, don't allow it - they go home anyway now illegally. They go back and forth all the time. It's not a matter of breaking up families, it's a matter of good sense. If they bring the family and they get established here, they'll never go home.

In other words it's about family values as long it is not one of those families. This kind of subterfuge just makes my blood boil. Congress has proven, very recently in the Schiavo, case that they are willing to throw their traditional family values out the window for a few political points. So if I am to understand correctly the only families that deserve to be together are those of United States Citizens and those who can come on programs that aren't guest worker programs? How does one expect that the immigrant families of guest workers are any different than students? Foreign students can have their families stay with them in the United States and they are expected to leave the country when the visa expires. What is it that would cause Mr. DeLay to expect something different of blue collar workers and their families? This sort of insidious racism and classism is thoroughly disgusting, all the more so in national leaders.

The customer is always right?

April 13, 2005

I had a very bad customer experience recently. About a year ago i purchased a software package that I've lauded several times. It does its job well. After some time spent moving last year and a few other things I got around to re-installing and starting to use the software again. As I did so there was a new beta version of the software.

Some history is necessary to understand this completely. The product had released version 3.0 as its first version, numbers having been changed to protect the guilty. The "upgrade" from 3.0 to 3.1 was free. Now comes 3.5 as a free 'beta' version that expires. It takes some work, not much, to install each beta but there were some nice fixes to old annoyances. So I downloaded beta 3.5 and installed it. Several times through the beta cycle as a matter of fact. Along the way I contributed several hours to the beta testing of the new product, a worthwhile trade for the new features.

Once 3.5 was released the download went away and was replaced by a site asking for a modest fee for the upgrade. Of course by this time my data was all in 3.5 format and there was little option but pay the fee. At $20 it wasn't a huge deal but it really made me much less happy about the product. It is still good but I'll watch out for updates. As a part of the form for the upgrade it asks for comments so I mentioned that I was disappointed.

There is a note to business people coming. Take your mother's advice. If you can't say anything nice keep your mouth shut. A customer won't like the "well I posted it over there" response. Not at all. The response I got said the information had been posted on a beta email list and on the blog of the product's owner back in November. Great, so I'm supposed to know that I should have to subscribe to an optional list or read the archives of a blog instead of being able to think the documentation that comes with the download would actually contain the information. At the end of the day I know that this developer doesn't care much about the user's experience. They've put together a pretty good product but I don't expect it to last with the attitude employed. So there is my story, well almost.

Former Senator Dole on NPR

April 13, 2005

Former Senator Bob Dole was on Morning Edition yesterday talking about his new book. The interviewer asked him about plans to scramble the rules in the US Senate in order to weaken the minority Democratic Party and push through judicial nominees. Senator Dole suggested that Republican lawmakers should tread very carefully. The rules protecting ensuring a voice for the minority party are very important.

Several other important topics need to be covered here. In the coming days expect to see more about Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs) and developments with the sudden halt to a small town school construction project that leaves the students worse off than when the project started.

20K

April 11, 2005

Late last week I changed the settings on this site to require a login to post comments. In the days since 20,000 fewer comment spam postings have been submitted each day. Sadly the Drupal folks are going to have to do something drastic quickly to allow comment posting while preventing the time-wasters. There are still plenty of trackback spam posted each day, something for later this week.

If you build it, they will come

April 11, 2005

Monday morning and time for cliches from sports movies. In any event the field of dreams is more a column of light in this case. On the way home from the rodeo yesterday evening we witnessed the flocking of the moths to the Luxor light beam. They were so numerous as to warrant speculation about whether they were moths, birds or bats drawn by the rich collection of insects. Turns out they are healthy moths fed on the wet winter Las Vegas has experienced.

Filibusters are wrong when we disagree

April 8, 2005

Recently I received an email from Senator John Ensign, (R- Nevada), in which he states "I believe the
use of the filibuster in approving or disapproving judicial nominees is unconstitutional. Please be assured we are looking at every option to stop this practice including legal action."

Interesting. It is worthwhile taking a look at where the tradition of filibustering judicial nominations originated. At least six judicial appointments by President Bill Clinton were held up with filibusters in the previous administration. Although the practice started with the Republicans in the Senate using filibusters to block nominations they found objectionable that is not a basis for determining its constitutionality or not.

Many of the pieces of propaganda on this matter suggest the Senate is somehow duty bound to vote using a simple majority on nominations. However, the founding fathers, in the Constitution left no such guidance. The Constitution says that the President makes appointments with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. It is notably silent on how the chamber is to arrive at its consent. Perhaps they will one-day choose a 90-vote super-super-majority. That, it seems, would be equally constitutional and would likely lead to many centrist appointments.

Are many centrists better than a mixture of extremists? A question for another day...

Miscalculation

April 7, 2005

The Washington Post has a story today confirming a memo laying out the perceived political benefits to be gained from the Senate's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. After weeks of disclaiming political motives the memo puts the lie to the story.

Of course the polls on the subject suggest that the desired political outcome was an all-around miss. "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," the memo states. Polls taken a few days later suggest a majority of Evangelical Christians felt the Senate's action was wrong.

Pages

Subscribe to