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We have serious problems to solve.  At this moment deciding who is to blame for them is less important than deciding how to solve them.  Campaigns are built on ideals and theories.  Only when candidates confront the complexity of the real issues do we see how well the theories will hold up.  No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.  In order to proceed forward we will have to step in to the mine fields. 

Whether you are a Republican or Democrat or Other… these are only labels.  The steps we take will be as a nation—a nation that is a member of the world.  While we may have great influence on the world we do not speak for the world.  On both the domestic and the international stage we must go forward humbly.  We must be prepared to question common convention.  We must be ready to consider that an opposing view may yet lead us to the same goals.  We must not fall back on tired excuses.  We must not get hung up on differing labels.  Solutions that work while not compromising our values are correct regardless of what we call them.

The ideals of our country have not changed although I would say we have not considered them often in the last 8 years.  I refuse to believe that our nation was founded to cater to elite rich and international corporate interest while at the same time ignoring the welfare of every human being below a certain balance sheet value.  The notion that if you let the super-rich get richer, then this will make middle and lower income household better is not proving to be true.  The accusation that “lazy Americans” are to blame is only partially true.  Americans are responsible for America, but I don’t know any lazy ones.  The vast majority of Americans I know work really hard with both spouses trying to put in 40+ hour weeks. They work hard trying to afford homes, health care, day care, insurance, taxes, and retirement.  While at the same time the corporations they work for, pay less salary, reduce health care, penalize (mostly women) for child care demands, steal retirement funds, and avoid taxes at every opportunity.  The Executives that run these corporations are often paid 300% more than average employees, receive perks valued at millions of dollars, never want for health care or child care, and are often paid huge bonuses even when their employees face lay offs.  If we implement a few policies to curb unchecked greed and allow working families to establish homes, receive health care, provide for their children, and save for their own retirement, then I think we will have made some vast improvements. 

People desire to live well and do well for their children, but I think most folks would also see the same opportunities given to all people.  I think America can deliver that.  I think by doing this well we will see prosperity grow and expand naturally.  International influence will spread by example rather than by force of policy.  But know that your neighbors and fellow citizens would see you do well.

Intarweb Eats Blog

I had a good general blog written.  My proxy ate it.  Here is the short form...

Amy and Gabe are home. Yay! :)

I have new walking shoes, new hiking shoes and new sandals. Yay!

Today is Guy Fawke's Day. Fireworks tonight!

It is windy.

Work is better than average.

I am writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month.

Talk to ya again soon!

Corporate Taxes

I found this clip on Facebook.  I hesitate to believe anything that talks about financial benefits for corporations, but this does make some valid points.  Although, I think the solution is flawed.  The US will never be able to compete for low cost operation with other countries--our cost of living is too high.  It will always be cheaper for mega-corporations to outsource most of what they do to China, India, or Mexico.  Financial decision making is not exclusively based on tax rate.  But still, this does cover an interesting topic in easy to understand language that people around the world should be aware of--not just Americans.

 

If you Love something...

Todays lesson from the random universe.  If you love something, then go after it.  If you love someone, then tell them.  Do not hesitate another day.  Do not make excuses for why today is not a good day.  Do not assume it won't be as good as you hope.  Join that group.  Call that friend.  Sit with your mother.  Climb that hill.  Go see that place.  Do the thing and find out what you have been missing.  Waiting won't get you any closer.

Babylon A.D.

In a word, "Crap".

I am generally pretty forgiving about action movies.  If they have pretty much nothing going for them other than pretty cool stunts and explosions, I still rate them adequate movies.  I also like Vin Diesel as an action hero.  But Babylon A.D. was crap.  While meeting the requirements of no plot and lots of bullets... even the action wasn't all that great.  Each combat seemed to even start the same way... Bad guy gets the drop on Vin with shotgun to his head... Vin whacks gun in such a way as to reverse the barrel to bad guy and blamo.  They repeated that trick like 4 times.  A bad sex scene would have improved this particular title and while they set it up, they killed it at the last moment.

The rest of the movie makes no sense whatsoever.  But on the "how bad was it" scale, I'd say it was not as bad as Blade III or Highlander III.  But if you never saw this movie you wouldn't be missing anything any one will remember in a month.

Political Commentary!

Here's a link if that doesn't embed right... damn Multiply. Blatently stolen from my Sister-in-Law.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxvHkFLmqRk

Embedded below!

More unpronouncable places in New Zealand

Last weekend I hit the Putangirua Pinnacles with a couple of new friends, Virandra and Nalashi.  I found some pictures of the place on a random Facebook profile from New Zealand.  The picture showed a tiny hiker coming up on a massive rocky citadel looking formation.  At first glance I thought it must me somewhere exotic, but then noticed it was tagged as picture from NZ... Intrigued I thought well it must be some remote place on the South Island so I looked it up.  Turns out the Putangirua Pinnacles are probably on 40 miles away from my house over in the Wairarapa Valley on the other side of the Rimutaka mountains.  So there would have to be some sub-optimal driving to get there, but the whole trip time was listed as about 2 hours.  Remember there are no straight roads in NZ more than about 15 feet long.  Also remember that our speed limits are in kilometers.  The speed limit in the Rimutaka pass is 70 kmh... sounds fast, but that is only about 40 mph.  Anyone actually trying to maintain 40 mph on the bazillion hairpin turns through that pass is going to end up deadas at the bottom of the 300 foot valley.

Realizing then that some navigation was going to be required, I consulted Google Earth.  Getting throught the pass is easy so I started looking at the routes from the first town in the Wairarapa Valley, Featherston--one of the few pronouncable places in this odessy.  From Featherston I had follow to State Highway 53 to Kahutara Rd... no problem.  Kahutara Rd eventually crosses Martinborough Pirinoa Rd.  Since that sign is going to have to be 4 feet long, that should be easy to spot.  Martinborough is easy enough to deal with.  I still haven't attempted saying Piniroa outloud.  Martinborough Piniroa Rd (already tired of typing that) connected to Whakatomotomo Rd... hmmm... Well exercising my lore of NZ phonics I know that "wh" is the "f" sound and that you pretty much annunciate every vowel you see.  But I don't really have to know how to say it, I just spot it on a sign, right?  How many Whakatmmmmmmwhatever Rd's can their be?  Whakammmmmwhatever takes me straight to Putangirua Pinnacles right next to the Aotera Park.

So with Virandra and Nalashi in tow, off we go.  Everything went pretty well until we started looking for Whakammmwhatever.  I discovered that NZ is really only concerned about signage on the State Highways.  Once you get off of those, it is really a crapshoot whether you're going to see other road signs.  They are good about giving you sign about various features.  So you may not know wtf road you're on--and really, you couldn't pronounce it anyway--but it at least you know this road is going to Cape Palliser which is sort of on the way, right? My maps are limited to Wellington so I'm going on memory at this point. What concerns me is that the road to Cape Palliser is listed as "no outlet".  My brain works on this a bit as I whip by about 5 different roads all starting with Whakatxxxxwhatever.  So much for word matching.  At one point I was stopping at every intersection comparing road names letter by letter looking for a match.  But after a few wrongamotomo turns we found the pinnacles. 

What I didn't expect was the absolutely beautiful coastline right next to Putangirua.  A long stretch of open beach meeting aquamarine blue ocean.  I think I might have to come back just to enjoy the beach.  If you do ever make this drive, be sure to stock up on anything you may want before leaving Featherston... there isn't a single shop of any sort on the last hour of the drive.

If you have checked out the pinnacles link you might have noticed there are 2 trails discussed; the "river bed" and the "bush walk".  Both are listed a "easy".  Having experienced kiwi-easy on the Rimutaka Death March last month, I was prepared for "easy" this time.  The river bed was listed as shorter and imagined it as a nice trail only the bottom of the valley.  Something confirmed by the pictures I had found.  So I chose the river bed.  The trail started off a little weird as it wasn't really marked.  There was just a gap in the scrub leading to the wide rocky expanse that held a tiny stream.  Well I thought the trail would appear somewhere. I could actually see other folks returning from that direction.  After about 30 minutes I gave up trying to find a trail.  There really wasn't anything creating the trail other than what the stream had done over the last several hundred years.  It was rocky, unstable and winding... then it got steep.  It got steepas.  After about 45 minutes of steady, slippery climbing we hit the top of the river bed trail which put us in the bottom of the pinnacle valley where I got this pictures.  I'll have some more later.  It wasn't quite as challenging as the Rimutaka trip.  But I was still heaps puffed at the top.  The view was amazing and when all 3 of us stopped talking it was still as the moon.  The NZ bush contains few creatures and virtually no bugs.  There wasn't a chitter or a chirp--just the slight wind in the trees above.  Pretty amazing.

For additional torture and comic relief, Virandra and Nalashi made the round american climb to the top of the canyons on the bush walk.  Despite their best efforts, I didn't fall over dead or even fall off the numerious edges.  The view at the top was pretty cool.  The pinnacles on one side and the ocean on the other.  The bush walk back to the parking lot was a breeze as it was all downhill.

After the long trek we drove the rest of the way down the coast to Cape Palliser and then back reversed our route back to Martinborough where we had an excellent meal that more than negated every calorie we burned on the walk (victory was mine!)  Martinborough is the wine capital of the Wairarapa Valley.  While tiny town, it was a perfect dinner.

Overall it was a good walk with a couple of good friends and a great day.