Cooper Arena

Hmmm, Pakistan is in the news a lot suddenly. One has to wonder how the strategists in the Bush administration let Pakistan recede to the backstage. Let's do some Monday quarterbacking and look back to the U.S. responses to 9/11. Everyone seems okay with our efforts to remove the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. After that, we were told that Iraq would be the strategic move in the war on terror. Iraq, a country without nuclear capability, no Al Qaeda presence, hostile to Iran, and no terrorists. Pakistan, a country with nuclear capability, Al Qaeda presence, some instability, and plenty of people sympathetic to terrorists. Why would Bush think Iraq is more important than Pakistan? Iraq was the better business opportunity. I have a history against lawyers in government, but I don't support MBAs in there either, particularly those with blind allegiance to markets. Bush is a man of God, but probably because God's name is used on our currency. Economics is a single social science, and if one wants to use social sciences to shape a country, one should draw upon all social sciences.

I visited the ABC News web site and saw a headline about being rich in order to be U.S. President. In my lifetime, there have been more non-rich presidents than rich ones. Kennedy, rich; Johnson, non-rich; Nixon, non-rich; Ford, non-rich; Carter, non-rich; Reagan, non-rich, Bush, rich; Clinton, non-rich; Bush, rich. That's 3 rich and 6 non-rich, and the rich served many less years. So why the question?

Advertising might be the financial driver for the Web, but it’s also become the major cause of slow-loading Web pages. Whenever I look to see why a page load is stalled, the cause is some ad image or site that can’t put its little piece of promotion in place. Bandwidth used to be the big kink in the pipeline, but my connection now is 20 to 75 times faster than when I started surfing in the early ‘90s. I remember the early days when I would set my browser to ignore graphics, in an effort to increase load speeds. I haven’t had to think about that option for many years, but it may become something to consider. You software engineers out there, come up with a browser add-on that screens out advertising links. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we’re marketing ourselves to death. That’s from someone with an MS in marketing communication, but a lifetime in appreciation of the humanities.

President Bush says he makes decisions on principles, not politics. He also communicates by platitudes, not particulars...

Any one notice how many war supporters have adopted the Iraq-is-like-the-U.S. Civil War party line? Baghdad is sometimes compared to Richmond, VA. That's nice. Someone fill me in, but which foreign power acted as an occupying, stabilizing force during the U.S. Civil War? Which foreign power removed our leader so a foreign political system could be implanted and grow? Before the U.S. arrived, Sunnis and Shias lived side by side. We need a new word to describe the situation in Iraq. A word that combines chaos, anarchy, religious horror, profiteering, exploitation, looting, hopelessness, senselessness, sociopathy, psychopathy, and more. For now I'll call it "The Decision." The lifeless brain child of President "Decider" and his Board of Disrespectors.

A Florida state representative was arrested and charged with soliciting a male police officer for sex in a public restroom. I guess he wants to show the people he’s ready to represent Florida in DC. One problem with the news business is that it doesn’t stay with stories after an initial impact subsides. Where’s Mark Foley today anyway?

I see that Christopher Walken is in a new movie where John Travolta plays a woman. Travolta says he liked Walken for the part because he has a history in Broadway and musicals. The Hollywood birdies tell me that Walken was chosen because he’s used to the company of transvestites. Notwithstanding the air of indecency that has scattered around Walken for years, his work as “The Continental,” cowbell loving “Bruce Dickinson,” and “Colonel Angus” on SNL is comedic treasure.

Who watched the Men's Wimbledon final? Roger Federer is a kind of Houdini, an escape artist who finds serves and shots and points when he needs them to stay alive. This year, it looked like Rafael Nadal would upset Federer, but despite being down 15-40 in two of his service games in the final set, Federer won that set 6-2. TV announcer and former champion John McEnroe had to talk about Federer's troubles and diminishing odds as the match progressed, but I've learned you can never tell with Federer. You can never say he's done, he's out, he's beat.

I remember a match Federer had with Nadal a few years ago, it was a five setter that Federer won after being down 2 sets to love and 1-4 in the third. The match was televised, but I wasn't able to watch it live, so I recorded the match to catch it later. By the time I got around to watching the match, I knew the final score and that Federer had won, but I watch tennis matches even when I know the outcome because I can learn from and appreciate the talents. Anyway, I was watching that match and got to the point where Federer was down 2 sets and 1-4 in the third, and I could not believe that Federer would go on from that point in the tape and win the match. That fact seemed impossible. Federer looked so out of a match he'd won that I was actually wondering if he would still win on the tape. Of course, he came back and history did not have to be rewritten. I saw that day, however, that no matter how bad Federer can look up to any point in a match, he's not out of it until the final point. Not even against the top players.

The news people report that Al Gore's son was arrested for speeding in California. The report claims he was going 100+ in his Prius. Rumor has it that Gore's first comment was "In a Prius? Woo hooo!"

Amid all the campaigning for votes this summer, one way to decide is the iPhone method. The first candidate to own and master the use of an iPhone gets your vote. Most won't be able to do both, but let's just see. I heard there are trainers who show people how to use iPods. I wonder if those trainers will branch off into the iPhone sphere.

Whoever came up with the recurring “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” bit for Letterman deserves an award. The sad part is that his staff doesn’t have to look hard for Bush babblings. The babblings are so dumbfounding, one wonders if Bush tries to give Letterman material.

The Bush clip the other night had him asking to be remembered as a strategic thinker, who focused on a strategy. Strategic is one of those catchall buzzwords that means less each day and is embraced by those who do little but talk. Bush isn’t strategic anyway, he’s deterministic and simplistic. For example, in the illegal immigrant matter, we hear Bush and others say, what can we do about 12 million illegal people here already? That’s deterministic. What’s done is done. It happened, so it must’ve been supposed to happen. Strategic thinking is the legal immigration process, where we manage and measure and choose and protect our people and resources.

Letterman performs a public service by making light of the Bush clips because most of us would never see his mutterings otherwise. Compared to his recent predecessors, Bush will be remembered as a president who lacked the common sense and good humor of Reagan, and the raw intelligence of Bush Sr. or Clinton. Bay Buchanan was on C-SPAN a while back and mentioned how Bush was allocated the full support of the Republican party during the 2000 primaries because he was compliant and dogmatic and would follow party instructions. That’s a long way from strategic.

I've got good news and bad news for David Letterman. The good news? I'm watching the show. The bad news? I'm wondering if he wore sunglasses when he picked his tie!

I may have to move to Alabama so I can be represented by a Senator I agree with, Jeff Sessions. Look at the happy couple who support the current immigration bill, Ted Kennedy and George Bush. The former is more rum soaked than a pirate’s cruller, and the other thinks an overflowing toilet is an opportunity to build a new house. Where I live, I never see an illegal alien working a job an American won’t take. Not at the carwash, not in construction, not in the fields. Why is that? Because our employers follow the law, pay a little more, and charge a little more. Our community doesn’t mind paying a little more to be law abiding. I also wonder how the Americans doing those jobs feel when Bush tells the world that no American is that desperate? Bush is only sensitive to the plight of people when they’re willing to work under-the-table for sub-minimum wage and no benefits. I hear the Army Corps of Engineers is drawing up plans for a moat around the Bush home in Crawford.

Let Joakim Noah be. There's a lot of voices questioning his decision to win another NCAA Basketball Championship, while "leaving millions of dollars on the table" by not entering the NBA Draft last year. None of those voices, however, belong to people who've won multiple championships, and particularly consecutive championships on the scale of an NCAA title. Before we ask the player agents, lawyers, business managers, talking heads, and other insects who float around the hind end of the golden calf of pro sports, let's ask Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan etc. what they think of Noah's decision. Each of them would probably just smile. Tim Duncan, remember how he left "millions on the table" to play four years of college? That sure derailed his life, eh? I wonder what Noah really left on the table anyway, a couple million of guaranties in his first contract, which will make him richer than most people in the world. Then, since the NBA uses a salary scale, his second contract will be big as it can be based on what he achieves. Why am I not worried about Noah's financial future when so many others can't seem to sleep? Now it's said that Noah may "fall" to the Chicago Bulls, a playoff team with championship looks. Would Noah have gone 1 or 2 last year? That's not for certain, and if he went 3-5 he could've began a career for some depressing team as Charlotte, or Atlanta. If that's what he left on the table, we should give his leftovers to the dog.

The best part of Nifong's disbar is that lawyers were able to discipline one of their own. Unfortunately, the legal system is run exclusively by lawyers, and lawyers have the hardest time regulating each other. Judges are lawyers, bar associations and their committees are lawyers, and government is a lot of lawyers. History shows that a lawyer has to cross way, way over a line before another lawyer is willing to threaten the former's "livelihood." To accept that view, non-lawyers are asked to forget how many times a lawyer is willing to threaten the livelihood of non-lawyers without the slightest bit of grief. Will other lawyers learn from Nifong's ordeal? Hope is eternal, but reality bites.

I took time-out last week to read the Second Circuit opinion about the FCC's "fleeting expletive" rule. As always, there are good ideas on both sides of the issue, but one point in the discussion bothers me. I understand the concept of fleeting expletives, but I wonder how fleeting they are when uttered by a habitual user of expletives. If a network invites a known user of profanity to speak unscripted, one could guess, maybe even presume, that speaker will use profanity. Speech that is regular, or predictable, therefore, is probably not fleeting.

I'm glad to see Mike Nifong paying for his misbehavior during the Duke lacrosse case. It might seem that my musings are directed at Bush and Congress more than others, but my longest running disdain is for lawyers. The Nifong case shows most clearly how government politics and the practice of law don't mix. Nonetheless, lawyers swarm to political office and its side bars faster than ravers to Ecstasy. From time to time I hear how lawyers are necessary for government because one of its chief functions is making laws. Perhaps, but I remember a comment by John Dean who quipped how he thought he needed to know international and business law when he became White House counsel, but soon learned that he needed to be an expert on criminal law. The Clintons strained legality and credibility to new lows. I've seen more than one lawyer testify before Congress that people in DC often prefer to talk to lawyers because those conversations can be protected by Attorney-Client Privilege. That's comforting. Here in Florida, Governor Crist made an artless remark about how his administration has a lot of lawyers. Politics doesn't need lawyers, it's lawyers who need politics... and other lawyers. We should ask ourselves why lawyers need politics, whether government benefits from the high concentration of lawyers in the mix, and what citizens can do to improve the mix? One simple remedy is don't vote for lawyers.

I see the MLB All-Star game is headed to San Francisco. Based on what I've heard about the Giants these days, that game will be the first chance this year to see MLB in SF.

Newsweek has a nice article about life After Bush in the June 11 issue. The writer, Fareed Zakaria, may have some misperceptions however. For one, he suggests that anti-immigration sentiment among Americans represents a fear of Mexico. I'm anti-illegal immigrant and anti-Mexico not because of fear, but because I've seen those forces deteriorate communities. I spent three decades in Los Angeles and can say this without hesitation: show me a place inhabited predominantly by Mexicans, and I'll show you a place where no one else wants to live. Bush wants to see the U.S. be more like Mexico. He'd love to be Carlos Slim. Who knows what benefit Ted Kennedy sees in flooding the U.S. with legal Mexicans. More Catholics maybe, but he won't live to see any of them vote, and the history of Mexican voting is not one on the side of Democrats necessarily. Harry Reid thinks the mess is just an opportunity to shape words and images for political ads. He stood on the senate floor and proclaimed victory because the people would hear that Republicans were responsible for ending the last immigration debate. It's more important to manage messages than lead, or represent these days. There's probably a new wave of people in the U.S. who wouldn't mind a disaster in DC one day, right in the middle of The Capitol and right at the time the President is addressing a joint session of Congress.

Reports say that the CEO of Blackstone Group pocketed $400M last year in pay. According to the report, that's around 1/5th of the profit for the company. $400M, yet he only pays Social Security tax on the first $94,200. We often hear how the SS system will need more bodies to support the growing number of retiring Americans. A much simpler solution is no limits on that part of income subject to SS tax, or have the tax kick back in for individuals once personal income reaches $250,000. If a company can afford to pay a single employee $400M, it can afford to pay more SS. SS never contemplated these huge imbalances in annual individual income. Since the purpose of SS is to use the country's wealth to support key social benefits, there needs to be a more equitable sharing of the burden. At the time of the last SS reform, it probably took ten thousand people to earn $400M in a year.

I saw an article about executive compensation on Saturday. A hedge fund manager justified a $1 Billion payday for himself by saying it could be zero in a bad year. I'm amazed a newspaper would quote such a quack. The true test of risk for that CEO would not be zero compensation in a bad year. The true test would be having to return excessive pay in a bad year. Who cares about zero income in one year when one pockets $1 Billion the year before? I'll suggest, too, that the hedge fund business may have began as an honorable enterprise, but it's now a manipulator, insider, fixer racket run by men who get manicures before tea. The truth about CEO pay is that piles of unrestricted cash are out there for the taking, selfishness is unchecked, and too many really think they are worth whatever they can hustle. Saddam Hussein thought he was worth all the money he looted from Iraq before his demise. Any chance these hedge fund managers are hiding WMDs?

Does anyone believe that the immigration plan favored by Bush isn't more Wall Street welfare? Bush's drug plan was big dough for owners of drug companies. Bush's energy plan was big dough for owner's of oil companies. There's no doubt that any immigration plan Bush supports is good for greed.

I keep hearing how hard it will be to send 12 million illegal aliens home, and that the economy couldn't handle it. Well, the sudden absence of cheap labor should only cause greedy owners to pay people more, and will make law-abiding employers more competitive. What's wrong with a world where law-breaking businesses go under and law-abiding businesses thrive? When Giuliani chased the mob on that principle, he was heroic. Bush thinks the business world needs illegal aliens because he listens to cheats. I'm also sure the 12 million are not all working. The 12 million probably don't even do the work of 2 million full-time employees, and that's a manageable number. Here's an idea, give instant status to only 3 million illegal aliens, the first 3 million that register and pay $5,000 in good faith money. Congress and the President should relate to this plan because it's the way they do business with special interests. That is, the special interests that show up with money at the government's door first get the support of Congress and the President. Or put the entrance fee up for auction and then trading, so that moneygrubbers can really have a ball.