The Web Presence of Brady Alleman

Upon the mention on podpolia, I began reading The Roadmap for America’s Future.  After more than a week of intermittent reading, I’ve gotten through the parts that were interesting to me.   Two sections that were particularly intriguing were those on Social Security, Budget Process Reform and the Business Consumption Tax.  It’s really a shame that the Republicans did… well, nothing, really, towards any of these seemingly practical reforms of government during their majority tenure in the last decade.  Funny how balanced budgets are always the battle cry of the underdog party, but never considered prudent by those in power.  The only time in recent history it actually happened was when power was divided between the parties, right?  Maybe we can try that again.

Also heard an interesting quote today:

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Ben Franklin.

I think there is some wisdom there.

I’ve been giving some thought recently to educating myself about the studies behind climate change.  It’s a very charged issue and one that could have profound impacts through either its effects or the effects of trying to combat it.  It’s also one that’s difficult to discuss.  The term “global warming” has lost its literal meaning and now connotes the heat-death of the world with dead Polar Bears and permanently flooded coastlines.  But what are models really predicting and with what certainty?  What data are these models based on, and with what accuracy?  I’ve just about concluded that I can’t trust anyone but myself look at the primary sources and not the distilled summaries, but that sounds like a massive undertaking.

It was brought to my attention recently that the late Michael Crichton had given a speech about his skepticism of “global warming” (the non-literal term) and I had to give it a read.  In case you don’t know, he’s the author of books such as Jurassic Park which I thoroughly enjoyed for their technical detail.  Not to mention he was working on the movie adaptation of his book The Andromeda Strain while still in medical school, if I remember correctly – so a pretty gifted guy.  While I think his speech makes some oversimplifications (just as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth does – yes, I have seen it), there is one point he makes that I emphatically agree with: “I [regard] science as the business of testing theories with measured data from the outside world. Untestable hypotheses are not science but rather something else.”  If I do manage to do some reading on this, that sentiment will be the standard I measure against.

Our country is supposed to be the shining light of freedom and liberty in the world, something for which we should be proud and work to honor and defend.  Incredibly, the United States Congress is poised to trample our freedoms in its efforts to improve the country’s health care system.

HR3962 calls for the punishment of those choosing to go without health insurance with a fine (assessed as an increase in taxes).  A government mandate of this  nature is contrary to the personal freedom to exercise one’s means as they will.

The bill also calls for the creation of the “public health insurance option” which will be a government alternative to private insurance.  Reducing the cost of health care is a primary goal of the current reform effort.  This goal, combined with a government health care option, would further open the already unlatched door to government regulation of personal behaviors, such as what we eat and what we do, in order to promote health and cost savings.  Such regulations would represent an incredible loss of liberty in the interest of the fiscal responsibility of government-funded health care.

When considering the inherent aspects of this bill that undermine our freedoms, it seems clear that the bill must be opposed in its current form.  The congress should set its sights on fixing the problems that exist in ways that do not erode our liberties.

As always, I hope that everyone takes the time to really consider the implications of proposed legislation, regardless of their affiliations and preconceptions.  As technology and communications open our government process further, we’re given the opportunity to be more democratic, with voiced opinions on individual issues and not just which representative has the least objectionable set of opinions.

Just some random thoughts I’m posting instead of trying to sleep, or do anything else useful.  These probably aren’t anything new, but I at least think I’ve thought of them independently.

“I’m bad at self-deprecation.”  I actually thought that to myself for awhile before realizing there were some logical issues with that.  Maybe it’s just that I’m bad at non-self-self-deprecation, or external-self-deprecation, or however you might term it.  Drat – by posting that here, it’s also got logical problems.  Regardless, I should try to take myself a bit less seriously… unless I just did.

Consider the interview question “What are your weaknesses?”  Too bad I didn’t think of something like a deadpan “I have difficulty taking silly interview questions seriously.”  Not that it’s a bad interview question from the interviewer’s perspective, but as an interviewee, what are you supposed to say to that?  An uncensored catalog of your self-perceived weaknesses (even if limited in scope to work-related stuff)  seems an ill-advised thing to launch into – and stumbling around the question seems kind of disingenuous itself.  Would anyone not trip on that question?  Tripping on it didn’t cause me anything more than mental grief, luckily.  Personally, I think that if an interview is to consist of a written script of questions, it would be worthwhile to give the interviewee an advance copy.  I’ve found conversational interviews to be far more comfortable, at least as the interviewee.  They’re probably more insightful, but less comparable between candidates for the interviewer, I would guess.

If you can put aside your predispositions for a second, give this article a chance. It agrees with my view of a portion of the “mortgage crisis” – the view that news coverage is apt to preface with “the McCain campaign says” while it reports Obama’s talking points as “news.”

And the “editors note” doesn’t do justice to the uniqueness of Orson Scott Card. This guy is a prolific SciFi writer – I’m reading the third book in his Ender series right now. He holds many positions that don’t fit comfortably at all into our two party system.

No, probably not. Congress will likely not be able to get much done in its newly elected configuration. And, really, there’s nothing wrong with that at the moment. It’s not as if either party is interested in what I would like anyway… term limits, bans on consecutive terms, balanced budget requirements, reduced size of government… I really just don’t want to hear Nancy Pelosi’s voice (or what she has to say), but at the same time, at least we won’t have to see Dennis Hastert as often (ouch, sorry).

As far as local races, I would have preferred Casey to have gone against Specter instead of Santorum for one of PA’s seats in the US senate. Casey isn’t bad necessarily, but I did like Santorum far better. And of course our great governor was re-elected. Rendell does seem to be able to cut some fat in the budget (just not on himself… ouch, sorry, again), but I detest his vast expansion of gambling in the state, as well as his shady ties to our good fiend Comcast. Not that we needed a former football player running the state either…

Overall, it’s not great, not good, but not terrible. I reject the maxim that “change is good” as there are clearly counterexamples. However, there’s nothing wrong with variety. Two years of a Democrat-controlled Congress after several years of Republican control should make for a healthy competition in 2008.

Vote Libertarian!

End Political Rant.

The Democrats outburst of applause at a failure of proposed Bush policy, coupled with Bush’s finger-wagging reaction was pretty darn funny last night.

Today, Bob Clay showed me a shirt that says “I see dumb people.” That’s honestly the funniest thing I’ve seen this year. I need one of those!

In case you’ve missed it, there has been a bunch of fuss lately about a local school district requiring its biology teachers to read a statement on intelligent design to “balance” the teaching of evolution. This went to federal court which decided that such a statement was in violation of the separation of church and state.

This never made sense to me. Evolution describes a “how” of creation – a means by which life as we know it was brought into existence. Intelligent design describes a “why” of creation – meaning rather than means. They are orthogonal topics, without the ability to be contrasted or balanced as the school board allegedly attempted to do. The Dover School Board was nothing short of incompetent in trying to shove these things together. Intelligent design itself might not be a religious endorsement, but its forced usage in this context certainly would seem to be.

There are still things that should be included in a discussion of evolution, though. Irreducible complexity should at least get a footnote. Irreducible complexity is a concept that doesn’t intend to disprove evolution, but rather to state that there are still things that cannot be explained completely with current theories. The most important concept that can be taught in science is that science changes, and that no theory is above some measure of criticism and doubt. Science isn’t (or shouldn’t be) concerned with facts or truths, but with best explanations and predictions of observations. There are probably cases where you should remind your science teachers of this.

In situations like this, extremes get the coverage. There are many that consider the term evolution to be sacrilege when used in any biological sense. There are others that have their hand on the speed dial for their lawyer every time they think God might be inferred in a classroom. Both are stupid. It might be unfortunate, but it’s definitely a greyscale world, not black-and-white.

CBS is incredible. Having word-wraps the same as MSWord would have been enough for some serious eyebrow-raising, but having fonts, automagic superscripts (of a reduced size), and identical spacing makes it just about irrefutable. What’s worse is Rather defending it. Ignore the politics for a moment, just look at the document samples. A third-grader could have helped you make a better forgery.

Clippy image blindly stolen from this site. Thanks!