Failure

Failure is the one ingredient that is necessary for progress. Without failure, there can be no success. Failing to correct what goes wrong dooms us to repeat the experience. Others have said the same thing more eloquently than I, but the importance of failure and how it guides us personally, socially, and politically cannot be overstated.

Scientists call their endeavors to elicit the truth of a theory ‘experiments’. It is the experimental failures that lead scientists to make the necessary adjustments for success. The failures of their learning progress may even lead to other discoveries that create more theories. Progress is achieved by taking advantage of mistakes. Failures are a guide to success.

Whether we are talking about people, inventions, nations, or the world collectively; it is in learning the lessons from our failed attempts to get it right that leads to success.

Our cultures are littered with failures that have been proven to not serve the interest of the citizenry. Among societies’ failures we can include the feudal system, authoritarian regimes including kings and dictators, the rigid capitalistic model, the communist model, patriarchal and matriarchal models, and the socialist model. All have been tried and failed because of their inadequacies. The democratic model is survivable only because it gives the people a non-violent method to make changes to the different environments that the people find themselves in.

Humans are tribally centric. There is no ‘one size fits all’ set of rules that fits everybody’s needs. It is for that reason that total centralization of power just doesn’t work. The American founders realized this when they formed the United States. Local governance empowers individuals with the ability to make decisions affecting their ‘tribe’ or community without the involvement from people who are not affected by their decisions. And, as long as the local and state decisions do not contradict the umbrella agreement agreed to by all the States known as the Constitution, everybody feels that they are a part of the whole, yet independent.

The government formed by the founders also allowed for mistakes. They built into the Constitution a method for us to correct and make adjustments for the passage of time and human progress. The method the founders built into the Constitution is the amendment process.

Our Supreme Court, made up of generally well meaning judges, bring to the bench their different personal philosophies. Their decisions can alter the way we live. Because of the potential for a fanatical viewpoint to become prevalent on the Supreme Court, each justice has to undergo Senate approval. That process is supposed to ferret out any individual with a bias or desire to change the society according to their personal philosophy. Our system of justice selection is not perfect, but until a better method comes along, it is the system we rely on. The system does make mistakes and the Court has had its share of radical justices who made it to the Supreme Court for political reasons. Justices sometimes see the role of the court is to make changes to the society at large through their legal decisions rather than defer the issues not found within the Constitution to the Legislature for enactment on the issue. The Constitution does not embody every facet of human activity. That is why we have a legislature that is supposed to represent the will of the people. Several issues have been made into law that no legislation was ever written.

What has this all to do with failure? Starting today, it should be recognized that whenever the will of the people is circumvented, that the harmony of the whole is disrupted. Divisive decisions made without regard to the wishes of the public have broad and unsavory consequences. The decisions about abortion and prayer in school are examples of divisive issues that should have been codified by the legislature and the legality of that legislation decided upon by the Supreme Court. By working the issues through the people’s representatives, we empower the people with the responsibility for those decisions. Supreme Court Justices making decisions are not answerable to the people. They take it upon themselves to create law instead of deferring the matter for legislation where the people writing the legislation are held accountable by the voters.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with those decisions is not relevant to this discussion. The thrust of this dissertation is to point out that the will of the people was circumvented and created unnecessary divisions within in our society. The angst felt by the people who disagreed with those decisions would have been avoided if the Congress would have done their job by proposing legislation or allowed the amendment process to proceed so that the will of the people could be respected. Instead, the Congress failed in their responsibility and the matter was left in the hands of the Supreme Court. These are failures by a legislature afraid to rock the boat and satisfied kicking the can down the road without having to face their voters.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court seems perfectly willing to make changes in our society via their legal decisions. The Supreme Court does not have to face re-election and therefore have job security regardless of how they vote on an issue. The Congress uses the Supreme Court to handle tough decisions because it keeps their hands clean from having to expose their true position about an issue. In essence, the Court becomes the shield for congressional inaction. The court can make decisions about controversial issues without the voter’s involvement. This process disenfranchises large bodies of American citizens and is a failure of Democracy. Failure begets failure and will not change until Americans of all political stripes put an end to career politicians.

Career politicians spend most of their time running for the next election to hold on to their very lucrative and powerful positions. Please support term limits.

We’ve suffered through these failures and now it is time to correct their cause. Please understand that power is very corruptive whether it’s a corporation, our courts, or by our elected politicians. Our failures are guidepost for the American people to learn from. If we do not recognize and learn from our failures, no progress is possible, worse, failure is repetitive.

End Failure Part 1

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Failure Part2

Part 1 discusses the failure of a system having career politicians. But in the end, we are responsible for those failures. It is we who keeps re-electing them. The longer a politician is in Washington, the craftier he/she becomes. The wizened politician learns the ins and outs of inserting unrelated amendments into a bill that raises his stature with his voting base, but has to be paid for by those outside of his home territory. This action keeps the politician in office because we think he is doing a ‘good job’. If we force the Congress to pass term limits, we will have made a correction to what we have now and force a different outcome from the repetition of mistakes that the Congress continues to make. Remember, failure is only a guidepost. It does not have to be remedied. No, we can live with our failures to correct problems and continue to repeat them.

But this is part 2. - Failure is also a winnowing process. It takes strong people to overcome failure and make the necessary corrections to arrive at their destination. When individuals become discouraged and settle for less than their objective, failure becomes imbedded and accepted by those individuals. Expectations become lower as well as self-esteem.

It is true that everyone doesn’t strive for the same results. Early attempts at endeavors that fail give rise to the acceptance of failure. Whatever our position on the ladder of economical success happens to be, we are at that position because of how much failure we are willing to accept. The more aggressive among us don’t tolerate failure very well and climb higher up the ladder.

Life starts out with high expectations, but the outcome of those expectations depend on how determined and prepared we are to face the obstacles that have to be faced. Preparation is the leverage needed to lessen the opportunity for failure.

Preparation has its own set of requirements. To properly prepare for a venture takes work and sometimes a lot of work. If you have the goal to do well in school, then you know that preparation for your studies will challenge you for your time away from life’s other distractions. One conclusion that you can make about minimizing failure in life is to have a strong work ethic.

One of the most damaging parts of our society to individuals is our practice of trying to help those of us who fail to help themselves. The help we render to those who are not very responsible becomes addictive to them. Failure has already become their way of life and no amount of help can rediscover that spark. The numbers of people who realize their sad predicament and make the necessary corrections for themselves is pitifully small. No, I am not suggesting that we allow these people to just starve. But they need encouragement. Progress on their part has to be a part of the price for accepting help.

Rehabilitation is more than just a word. Self-confidence has to be reignited with the poverty trapped people in our society. It is the ‘how’ to do it that remains to be answered. This goal can be achieved if we look upon the problem as just another obstacle to be overcome. There has to be a recognition that self-esteem cannot be given to a person. Only achievement can produce that result. With encouragement from the broader population, the spiral of low self-esteem can be overcome. The things we take for granted like paying the electric bill can be a monumental achievement for a person who is struggling just to live. These small steps by a person in the poverty trap of welfare need to have these achievements recognized. If we were to pay the electric bill for the person, that person has no way of being proud of it.

Doing things for people just makes them feel even more inadequate. And, that type of help is addictive. It just further aggravates the problem. A hand out isn’t even a band-aid for the problem of low self-esteem. Sure, the helped person would be appreciative but there is still that part of a person’s dignity that realizes they are failures. Handouts only serve to bolster the egos of the ‘helpers’ whether it is an organization like ‘Habitat for Humanity’ or sponsors of ‘Soup Kitchens’, the result is still demeaning to the recipient. Other solutions need to be found so that the poor can develop that sense of achievement. This problem is not about the givers, it is about helping those in need realize self-worth.

I repeat, continuing the failed solutions that we now employ only bring about more failure. Failure begets failure. We should resolve to recognize our failures and correct them. Remember successful societies overcome failure, those who don’t, perish. It is that simple.

Cheers,

-Robert-


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Birth Skeptics

President Barack Obama has a past and his unwillingness to share it with the American people is astounding. Most of his past is kept shrouded behind legal barriers. A reasonable person could ask -why? Why would this popular president object to the facts of his birth? Why would he object to revealing the name of the hospital where he was born or his college records? Could it be that the birth skeptics are on to something?

The short version: Obama’s mother was in Africa and very pregnant. She was so far along that the airline would not board her. Her only alternative was to have Barack at a local hospital in Kenya and then proceed to Hawaii.

This is plausible because Barack’s birth certificate is the ‘short form’ which doesn’t include the normal items of a birth certificate such as the attending physician, nor the name of the hospital. But, short form birth certificates are legal. Those children born at home, or other places have to have a mechanism to obtain a birth certificate. For that reason, I believe the short form birth certificate to be genuine. However, the short form birth certificate also supports the idea of Barack not being a natural born citizen.

Citizenship is another matter. Bararck’s mother married an Indonesian who reportedly adopted Barack. He was then known as Barry Soetoro at that time and was enrolled into an Indonesian school as Barry Soetoro. See photo below of the supposed school enrollment paper. This document has not been authenticated and represents just a fraction of the documents that proliferate all because Obama chooses to not reveal details about his origin, college enrollment, and other such pertinent data that would satisfy the doubters about his eligibility to serve as president.



This writing will not publish the complaint of Philip Berg’s challenge to Obama. However, those of you who are interested in the details of the doubts surrounding Barack Obama, I include the web address where it can be found. This link will take you to that web page. I recommend that you read the full complaint if you are not familiar to the ‘Birthers’ point of view.


http://headinthegame.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/22/2029004-from-the-lawsuit-complaint-berg-vs-obama-must-read

Legally Weird: The lawsuits (and there are many) against Barack Obama have never been argued before a judge. All complaints have been dismissed on technical grounds and therefore not judged on their merit. It seems that the legal system is not interested in making sure the Constitution of our Country is being adhered to. This is where I am interested. If there is a legitimate question about Obama’s citizenship, then there should be a hearing to decide with finality the answer to the question.

Apparently, Obama was not vetted properly by the DNC or these questions would not still be around.

Recently, Lou Dobbs of CNN has been criticizing publicly the lack of proof about Obama’s failure to produce any of his school records or the ‘longform’ birth certificate from a Hawaiian hospital.

According to TalkingPointsMemo.com Jon Klein the President of CNN stopped Dobbs from further assertions with an email stating: "In 2001 - the state of Hawaii Health Department went paperless. Paper documents were discarded The official record of Obama's birth is now an official electronic record Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the Health Department told the Honolulu Star Bulletin, 'At that time, all information for births from 1908 (on) was put into electronic files for consistent reporting,' she said."

Lou Dobbs had to go on the air and repeat the statement in an effort to give finality to the flap over Obama’s legitimacy as president.

It was after the public retreat from the issue by Dobbs, that Janice Okubo of the Hawaiian Health Department issued this statement: "I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department. When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don't destroy records. ... Any records that we had in paper or any other form before 2001 are still in file within the department. We have not destroyed any vital statistics records that we have."

Her statement highlights the audacity and lengths that the left will go to prevent Barack Obama from having to prove his eligibility to be president.

In another twist to this strange saga comes the latest salvo from the complainants. I received this email on Sept. 16th: This should prove to be interesting.

I and many other concerned veterans and citizens attended the hearing today in Federal Court in Santa Ana in the lawsuit against Barack Obama to determine his eligibility to be President and Commander in Chief. About 150 people showed up, almost all in support of the lawsuit to demand that Obama release his birth certificate and other records that he has hidden from the public.

Judge David Carter refused to hear Obama's request for dismissal today, instead setting a hearing date for Oct. 5, since Obama's attorneys had just filed the motion on Friday. He indicated there was almost no chance that this case would be dismissed. Obama is arguing this lawsuit was filed in the wrong court if you can believe that. I guess Obama would prefer a "kangaroo court"! Assuming Judge Carter denies Obama's motion for dismissal, he will likely then order expedited discovery which will force Obama to release his birth certificate in a timely manner (if he has one).

The judge, who is a former U.S. Marine, repeated several times that this is a very serious case which must be resolved quickly so that the troops know that their Commander in Chief is eligible to hold that position and issue lawful orders to our military in this time of war. He basically said Obama must prove his eligibility to the court! He said Americans deserve to know the truth about their President!

The two U.S. Attorneys representing Barack Obama tried everything they could to sway the judge that this case was frivolous, but Carter would have none of it and cut them off several times. Obama's attorneys left the courtroom after about the 90 minute hearing looking defeated and very nervous.

Great day in America for the U.S. Constitution!!! The truth about Barack Obama's eligibility will be known fairly soon - Judge Carter practically guaranteed it!

Video from the press conference after the hearing coming soon. Congratulations to Dr. Orly Taitz! She did a great job and won some huge victories today. She was fearless!

Jeff Schwilk, Founder

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109242

A California judge today tentatively scheduled a trial for Jan. 26, 2010, for a case that challenges Barack Obama's eligibility to be president based on questions over his qualifications under the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.

If the case actually goes to arguments before U.S. District Judge David Carter, it will be the first time the merits of the dispute have been argued in open court, according to one of the attorneys working on the issue.

In a highly anticipated hearing today before Carter, several motions were heard, including a resolution to long-standing questions about whether attorney Orly Taitz properly served notice on the defendants, which she had.

The expedited trial has been set for Jan. 26, 2010, just 4 1/2 months from now!

This news illustrates the point that this issue will not go away. If Obama should prove to be ineligible, he would be known as a usurper, and all legislation signed by him would be vacated since he was not a legitimate president. Wow!

I will point out to all of you birthright skeptics, this may be about a man who just wants to maintain his privacy and a large serving of crow could be in your future.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Tapping Casinos for Revenue

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Spam Control

Like everybody else, I get deluged with unwanted email. Where does all of this stuff come from? The numbers of people trying to make a few dollars through email solicitations is growing. On any given day I receive the same solicitation from many different people, which tells me that the spammer’s mail lists are being distributed to a lot of different people.

Email addresses are harvested through a variety of techniques, and one contributor to those lists is our email client program – Outlook, Thunderbird, etc, and etc. It would be a simple matter for the mail client programs to not send the attending mail addresses that are present when you receive an email from someone. But they don’t. Whenever a person sends you an email, unless that sender used the BCC option, his whole list of recipients is exposed. When the email gets forwarded by you to your mailing list, you are automatically forwarding the addresses from your email list and the person who sent the email to you.

Those email addresses that accumulate on all of those forwarded jokes, and interesting tidbits that we all forward to friends on our mailing list eventually get harvested by any party wanting to create or expand a mailing list.

It would be easy to blame the person who forwards an email for the problem, but the real culprit is your email program for allowing those email lists to be included on any document that you forward.

Anti-spam programs are as much a problem as the spammers. Controlling spam is a business. But the anti-spam business can also act like a censor. How, you ask? Spam filters work using a variety of techniques. Here are but a few:

• Reject mail using keywords.

• Reject mail with links to other web pages.

• Reject mail that has links to web pages on their blacklist.

When the people who control these anti-spam programs have an agenda, they can act as a censor or gateway to what you receive in your inbox. For instance, if the email that was sent to you references a known anti-Obama website, the anti-spam program can reject the email because the referenced site is on their “blacklist”. Or if it contains words in the email that are on the spam list, then the email is rejected.

Ever wonder why some advertisements seem to always get into your inbox regardless of the spam filter? These unwanted ads force you to deal with them. Remember, those anti-spam people are in the business to make money and for a price, they will not classify their customers as spam.

Take control of your inbox! Reject the anti-spam censors and insist on spam filters that let you be the arbiter of what gets into your inbox. I have never understood why any person willingly gives control over his/her life to someone else. The anti-spam programmers know that the majority of people do not rummage through their junk mail box to see if there is anything that they might like to read, so when the anti-spam program puts an email into you junk-box, you have been effectively censored.

Voice your concerns over this form of censorship to your representatives. No, I am not advocating allowing all spam into your inbox, but our email programs can do a lot better than they do.

When your prospective email contains a link to a blacklisted website, the mail servers may just reject the email and you never even get to see it in your junk box. Anti-spam companies and the popular mail servers do not share their list of blacklisted websites with you. Wouldn’t you like to at least know from whom your mail is being rejected? Wouldn’t you like to have the opportunity to decide for yourself if a particular website should be rejected?

I would be ecstatic if my mail server would allow me to decide what gets into my inbox. I would be ecstatic if my email client program would list all mail sent by my email program. I am especially interested in that email sent automatically without the keyboard being used. I would be ecstatic if the email “forwarding” instruction would delete the email addresses from the original sender and not let them propagate with each time the email is forwarded. The current crop of email programs fail miserably at controlling spam. There are some simple solutions if there was a will. Make no mistake, the anti-spam industry is beginning to look like ‘Big Brother’ and is becoming as much a problem for the unsuspecting users as the spam that they are supposed to curtail.

Given the above, I fully understand the problem with receiving unsolicited mail. I hate it as bad as the next person. In full disclosure though, I send to a limited number of people a weekly announcement of articles that I write. The largest segment of readers of my stuff comes through search engines – not email. Sure I would like to expand my reader list, but when users receive emails from people that they do not know, it doesn’t help readership expansion, it only serves to aggravate a potential reader.

I even thought about buying a mail list from one of those in the business to collect email addresses, but the reality of junk email prevents me from taking that approach. I do not want to be part of the problem. However, to my readers, if you find the articles to be worth reading, please pass the webpage address to others who you believe might want to read the article.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Selling Vapor Ware

In his most partisan speech to date, Obama spoke last night about the virtues of a non-existent healthcare proposal. He listed details about what he wants, and will sign into law, but most of those details are absent in the only proposal that lawmakers have to work with.

I sat in astonishment that he would be out pitching a non-existent bill and at the same time call everybody a liar who has read what is on the table. The president has no bill, and for him to cite what he would assure us would be in the bill is ludicrous. What the lawmakers are working on and what Obama was talking about are two different animals.

His sales pitch last night revolved around debt neutrality, tort reform and no insurance for the Illegals living in America. None of these items are in the House bill which is the only proposal on the table.

Obama could have helped his cause by insisting that the bill currently under consideration be sent back to committee for an overhaul and incorporate the items he was trying to sell. But he didn’t. He accused those who have read the proposed legislation, of being liars. This type of rhetoric is offensive and does not help to solve the healthcare dilemma.

The president is the chief law enforcer of the United States. I find it sadly amusing that everybody talks about the fraud and abuse in the current system, but there is no attempt to go after the perpetrators of these schemes. How will passing new laws help what is clearly an enforcement problem? How many speed limit laws are needed to control the highways? Passing laws do nothing if there is no enforcement. Is Obama admitting that he is a failure at policing medical fraud? After all, there are already laws on the books against those crimes. It seems that everyone seems to know all about the abuse in the system, but nobody is willing to stop it. Why? Are new laws going to help put away the bad guys?

A little leadership from Obama would be refreshing. I look forward to the day that he stops running for office and starts actually being president. Strong partisan, rhetorical speeches do him more harm than good – and besides it is boring to sit through his wordy self aggrandizing speeches.

His naïve ideas about how to fix the world are putting the U.S. in a position of debt that has no end game except the impoverishment of its citizens. This isn’t like the past where a world war destroyed most of the industrial world except that of America. At the end of that war, America was the provider to the world and was able to overcome government spending. Such conditions do not exist in today’s world. Today, the largest source of income for the government is from its taxpaying citizens.

Our shrinking private labor force is a real problem. All of the revenue that graces the U.S. treasury comes from that shrinking private sector. It is the private sector that pays the salaries for all government workers. Government workers do not pay taxes, the total of their paid income comes from the treasury – they do not add to the treasury.

So I would say to Mr. Obama, stop selling vaporware. Start finding ways to help our business community so that they can begin the process of commerce again. Devising new tax schemes is not helpful. We cannot all work for the government – it has been tried in several economies and has never worked. National prosperity begins with motivating individuals to be creative and start new enterprises. Prosperity isn’t figuring out how to extract more money from a shrinking segment of the population.

I keep hoping that this president will mature and realize that his Utopian ideas are both unrealistic and unattainable. But so far, he hasn’t shown any interest in reality.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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