Run for the hills!
I fully intend on keeping my promise of not talking about politics… although I have a lot to say… but perhaps I’ll branch the blog and have a separate one for things like that. I would like to say I’m terribly afraid of next Tuesday. One thing is definitely true… “Change is coming.” On a lighter note, I found a link to a very humorous article[wisebread.com] that describes the American tax system in an interesting light. I would like to say, individuals would not act this way… we’re not that selfish. However, when applied to large groups, especially “disenfranchised” groups where individuals are relatively anonymous… you bet your ass we act this way.
So… Life… I’ve been asked a number of times recently how I am. The last time I was asked happened to be on Facebook so of course I responded in kind. I noticed as I was typing out my answer that I had resorted to responding with a list of events in my life, which of course doesn’t really describe how I am… so… here is my list of events 🙂
I like my new group at Cisco a lot. I haven’t really started on any projects, in fact I probably won’t get to the project they’ve assigned me for over a month, but its been a lot of fun to work with them. Igor is an incredibly smart Ukrainian with a very peculiar sense of humor. Animesh is an odd Brit with a wealth of knowledge himself. Jeff works in QA so I don’t get to talk to him much, but he is an great ping-pong player who is very willing to teach. Finally, Justin joined through Choice with me and we seem to get along pretty well, but I’ve stepped in the political pile of crap on occasion since he and I seem to differ pretty widely.
Last week I got to play with a lot of expensive hardware and configure my own lab rack. I don’t have a lot of equipment yet, but it is pretty friggin awesome that I have my own rack. This week, my group was kind enough to send me to the CCNA Bootcamp… so I should hopefully be certified in a few more weeks. Justin (who is also in the class) and I are going to study together and hopefully get each other up to speed (since the class is only 5 days, it is a bit compressed). I can’t say I’m learning a lo of networking (with the exception of learning how routing protocols work), but I am learning a lot of Cisco specific stuff, which makes me happy. It also looks like I may be able to self train for the CCNP and have that within 6 months (my group will probably pay for books too).
In non-work related news, a little over a week ago I found a friend of mine who moved away when I was 12. I had only heard from him once, which was just after his move. I’m not entirely sure why, but every once in a while I would think about him and it happened to roll across my mind a couple weeks ago. I tried looking for him directly on Facebook, which didn’t work, so I tried to cross reference his name with graduation records… still not much luck. I gave up for a little bit until it occurred to me his bother was probably around somewhere, so I searched Facebook for him. Up until recently, I wasn’t really sure where his family had moved to, although, I thought it might have been North ______, so when I found his brother’s name in North Dakota I was pretty happy. I looked through his brother’s friends to see if I could find my friend, and it turns out I was just spelling his first name wrong. Fortunately I didn’t torture him enough when we were younger to leave a terrible impression, in fact at first he didn’t remember me at all. Just to show how small this world can be, it turns out he lives in North Carolina, his brother was just stationed in North Dakota for the USAF… whats more… he lives in the greater Raleigh area about 15 miles from my apartment. We’ve gone out bowling a couple time now and I think his family will be having me over sometime soon.
Someone (other than Theresa) is finally coming to visit me! Of course I love to see Theresa when ever possible, but its nice to see others from home too. March is driving down today and is staying through Sunday night. I’m sure many antics will be had, although, since I’ve been in training all week I haven’t had a lot of time to plan much.
So… I tried to include some details to actually answer the question of how I am… but in reality I’m not 100% sure. There is a lot of good things going on in my life, things that I am very happy with, but unless I’m at work or have one of my sporadic chances to go out and have some fun… I’m just stuck at home doing nothing.
While I was editing this post as a draft, I found a really funny poem about the current election. Check it out after the jump… but keep in mind that, while I am afraid of a liberal super majority… I don’t go this far. It is just amusing.
‘Twas the night before elections
And all through the town
Tempers were flaring
Emotions all up and down!
I, in my bathrobe
With a cat in my lap,
Had cut off the TV
Tired of political crap.
When all of a sudden
There arose such a noise,
I peered out of my window;
Saw Obama and his boys
They had come for my wallet,
They wanted my pay,
To give to the others
Who worked not a day!
He snatched up my money
And quick as a wink
Jumped back on his bandwagon
As I gagged from the stink.
He then rallied his henchmen
Who were pulling his cart.
I could tell they were out
To tear my country apart!
“On Fannie, on Freddie,
On Biden and Ayers!
On Acorn, On Pelosi”
He screamed at the pairs!
They took off for his cause
And as he flew out of sight
I heard him laugh at the nation
Who wouldn’t stand up and fight!
So I leave you to think
On this one final note-
IF YOU DON’T WANT SOCIALISM
GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!
its not socialism and you know it.
I didn’t say it was… but it does come very close.
Obama’s plan lowers taxes on people who don’t pay income taxes… 40% of America. The only way he can do that is to refund money paid into the welfare system, otherwise known as payroll taxes. These taxes directly support social security, welfare, medicare, medicaid, unemployment, etc. While not exactly income redistribution, it is damn close… and what is worse, the people who use our welfare system will no longer be helping to support it (in effect). Ask yourself this, should someone be able to benefit from a system that they don’t support? Our welfare system is “insurance for society”… and it should work the same way as all other forms of insurance… if you don’t pay the premium you don’t get the benefits. The “spread the weath”, socialist, etc arguments come in when you look at what Obama calls this. He is not saying he is refunding payroll taxes because if he actually did refund payroll taxes our social security and other welfare systems would completely fail… Saying this is income redistribution is just being honest about where the money is coming from… he is quite literally taking money from the rich to pay the taxes of the poor in the form of a check back to the person who doesn’t actually pay a progressive tax.
Now I could go on a very wide tangent here about the numerous ways that Obama’s tax and welfare systems will only degrade our society further from a social moray and economic point of view… But those arguments are partisan and likely not going to be read with an open mind. But I will say, with programs like described above, the average American person over the next few decades will likely become a social dependent instead of “living the American Dream” (i.e. creating your own opportunities and working hard to get what you want – on occasion with the help of society). Yes there are too many abuses of our current system, but expanding it so everyone can abuse it isn’t the answer.
You don’t think there is a moral responsibility anywhere in here? Not everyone is a moocher of the system as you say. The economy gets hurt more by enrons and subprime loans than the unemployed guy who lost his job to mexico so the CEO could get another house. That’s who you need to crack down on. We are a country in debt and we need to pay that debt. This means less spending AND more tax.
Use the poor to fight despicable wars, they come home traumatized, unable to get their life back together, doomed forever to wander homeless, fighting for food and life. Or mentally ill to begin with and we cast them off as people just unwilling to work. The rich got rich off our system and if they want to keep it, I have no problem having them pay for it. It’s a recession and it will go back up again regardless of what we do. I believe the reason people are “abusing the system” is that they have to, not because they want to, which means something is wrong.
I believe the American dream is very much still alive, but we are a conflicted nation. A nation obsessed over flag pins, a nation that doesn’t know what it wants. I think it stems from a lack of personal responsibility for anything. Sue-people-get-rich-quick-schemes are what everyone believes in. More than tax breaks, what we need is a leader who will unite this country. Hardly a generation has gone by and we’re back to what the country will do for us, and not what we can do for the country.
I didn’t call anyone moochers, although you have to agree that they are out there. What I said is that there are abuses and those abuses exist at all levels. We have to close loopholes that very large corporations lobby for. I agree completely that Enron-like companies are despicable and need to be taken care of. Sub-prime loans were just a dumb idea… why the democrats though it would do anything but cause the situation we’re in now is laughable.
We are a country in debt, but we are also a country that is hemorrhaging. We can’t afford more taxes (and please don’t get me started on the Obama’s “95% tax break”). We need to mitigate our debt while we heal our economy… then pay our debt… I promise you… it will still be there in 5 years. I don’t know how to mitigate that debt, but having the government increase spending on programs it already can’t afford when it likely can’t eliminate other programs to offset costs (I remind you, the president does not have the power to control the budget… and Nacy Pilosi really likes to spend money) is certainly not going to do it. Hope is great. I like listening to Obama, he actually does give me a sense of hope, but Obama can’t follow through, and even if he does we’ll be much worse off (if you bother to read all the details of his policies, they are actually quite frightening).
I don’t know that McCain can fix things. I don’t know that Obama can’t. But I do know, that with Congress and Senate falling far left, a sympathetic president may allow the American society to go as far the left as we did to the right under Bush, which will be just as bad… albeit different.