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It seems the world has forgotten Korea. There was a very clear bad guy. Unfortunately he remained in power. His son took his place and remains a mass killer, literally starving untold millions in North Korea. Just because the engagement got wrapped around the axle in other global issues doesn't change that basic fact. And there was an absolute bad guy and host of good guys in Desert Storm, where Kuwait was taken by military force, then released. Tom B

Dan, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. It does get complicated. I would not dream of suggesting that any or all of those killed at Ft Hood should be decorated for valor, just because they were shot. But that is not the meaning of a Purple Heart. It is instead official notice that one made a sacrifice of blood for the nation, in official service. Nothing more, nothing less. You mentioned that they were killed because they "happened to be soldiers". That is not the case. They were deliberately killed BECAUSE they were soldiers. That removes any comparison to random events. In these circumstances, and I speak of those killed, a Purple Heart may be mere symbolism in the big picture to the nation. But symbolism is very important to their wives, children and parents. It becomes something for them to hang on to in the darkest moments of their lives. That medal can be something for a growing child to touch, when their parents are no longer there to be touched, and I support it for that. One person, as you state, can't make war on the US. But we are in a sanctioned war on terror, directed by the President and approved by Congress. And this individual clearly was attacking that action and policy. He acted in mental unity with those we are in war with, be it officially declared or not. The mere geography of the act, Ft. Hood, or where they were about to be deployed, should not be the determing factor here. Would anyone question the award if they were in Iraq or Afghanistan? Again, thanks. Tom Tom B

I think because it was a political act. When soldiers are killed because they represent US government policy, it is not just murder, and they are not just murder victims. It is literally an attack on the whole US and its policy. Tom B

Her new life, post VP run, was clearly a distraction to the operation of the entire executive branch of the AK government. There were more reporters there digging into things than employees, so her leaving was clearly in the interest of the government and the AK population. But I don't pretend that was her prime motive. If you offered me the opportunity to resign, and enter the speakers circuit at $50K to $100K per night, I would take it. Who wouldn't? Dems should look at the bright side. Had she not resigned and chosen the other path, she may have been the next Senator from AK.

I live in Butler County, Ohio. At least until very recently, registering as a Republicaan was the ONLY way to actually participate in selecting who would be elected in critical county races. The Republican primjary WAS/IS the election. I might have registered as a Libertarian in other states with different election rules, but probably not. On the other hand I supported Democrat Strickland for Governor, and pushed hard to get our Republican County Auditor thrown out of office. So take the party line sanctomy to someone else. Have you ever run for office, any office? Or is the keyboard your vent to a glimpse of reality? Of course I voted for McCain, and as of last week's Rasmussen's poll, am in the MAJORITY of Americans who would elect him over Obama today. But that doesn't make me a party line idiot. I vote for ideas above party and always have. And no, I don't watch Hannity, except in changing channels. I used to watch it a little, but not after Colmes left. I generally haven't watched Fox since Brit Hume left. I dislike TV where they shout at each other, and you can't hear what they actually say. As for your comparison, no I don't think Hannity is like MoveOn.org. If you said Ann Colter or Glenn Beck, I would agree. But I wish I had either's cashflow. Tom B

I rode out two hurricanes, one in Corpus, the other at Coco Beach. But neither made category five the day before landfall, and I wasn't sitting 15 feet below sea level. But the great majority of the flooding happened long after the wind was gone. Hell they even were starting to let people back in neighborhoods before the big levee break. From everything I read, and watched live on TV as it happened, if you lived near a levee breech, say the 9th ward, it was a flash flood indeed. But for other parts of the city, it was very slow, or at least that is what the Corps of Engineers reported. I also found a private journal tonight while looking. "The water had risen knee-deep during the storm, but despite the clearing skies, it had continued to rise one brick every 20 minutes, according to Kyle Scott, continuing its ascent well into the night." That is the kind of reports and video that led me to suggest many could have walked to one of the elevated roadways, where rescue would have been much easier. Not out of New Orleans, just to the high roads and bridges. Sounds very good compared to the looming winter in Ohio. I was raised on Shreveport TV however, in the times of Earl Long and Edwin Edwards. I still can't convince people here just how different Louisiana really is. Blue ones. Enjoy the beer. Tom B

So, senior citizens should expect that the Republicans are going to support the full restoration of the Medicare program that they enjoy. Right? No, I truly wish that were possible, I really do.. Republicans would literally pee their pants in excitement, getting to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to restore seniors' healthcare, and consequently move large numbers of seniors into the heart of the Republican Party. But the money required to do so simply will not be there. Why? The health care legislation requires massive new spending to provide medical coverage for many of the thirty five million people who can't afford medical coverage today. The largest source of this "new" money, is the $600B to be cut from Medicare. Unfortunately, by the time we are able to really see the disaster it will cause in Medicare, the money will have already been spent on other groups. What then? How will we recover from that? OK, I will lean back and await your next claim that those on the right who disagree with you are all lying scums who just don't know what is going on. Surely you can do better than that, and discuss/debate the issues instead of slamming the people. Quote

They were indeed. No doubt about it. But for an already significant, and ever growing number of independents, that bubble has burst. To many of them, Change We Can Believe In somehow morphed into Change We Couldn't Imagine Even In Our Worst Dreams. In this week's Rasmussen poll, the lines finally crossed, with more voters claiming they would vote for McCain than Obama. I don't believe that would matter however, as Hillary has outscored Obama in several polls, and I believe that she would get the top spot on the Dem ticket. Hell hath no furry like a pissed off senior citizen, and that is coming for the Democratic Party, if not Obama. The question is when. With the bill not going into effect until 2013, Obama might slip by the year before. But when the seniors fully realize that the best Medicare program, Health Care Advantage is gone, the 30% on it will be pissed. And I don't care how often the Dems say it won't happen, pulling $600B out of Medicare funding WILL result in fewer options and services. I do admire the Dem's timing plan on this however. Tom B

Lucky, do you really think that Republicans have nothing better to do than sit around and watch Hannity all night? Around here we are far to busy trying to disenfranchise Democrats. You do know that Hannity isn't registered as a Republican any more, right? How about that the Republican Party is more than a little bit pissed at him over the NY Congress race mess, and his slamming of several Republicans? Lucky, you can always set up your own liberal TV show or even start a liberal radio network. Even better, you can probably get a good buy on Air America at its next bankruptcy hearing. They can make you a great deal on everything except listeners.

Well, what makes the public believe the scientists more extreme claims are real? I used to run an R&D lab, and I guarantee you that many study results around the world are skewed in the the quest to get follow-on funding. And there is no doubt that a study "finding" a problem is more likely to get-follow on funding in this subject, than one finding none. For years I used an Excel routine to generate first, second, third, and fourth order equation graphs to present to management. After finding out what their mood of the day was, THEN, I selected which graph to show. It didn't skew our actual science, but certainly did the funding requests. Don't get me wrong, it can't be a good thing to put giga-tons of carbon into the air. But don't believe scientists are beyond using spin to get funding. Tom B

It goes so much deeper than that. Almost to the point of being impossible to believe. Remember right after Katrina when they said almost a thousand police officers just bugged out? It turns out most of them never existed to start with. Their paychecks did, but not the officers. There are elevated roads across the city, well within walking distance for healthy people, in what was a relatively slow increase in water levels unless you were right at the levy break. The entire school bus and city bus fleets sat there, first unused, then eventually under water. Only in the Big Easy would huge numbers of healthy people sit on their porch, knowing they lived below sea level, and watch the water rise. Tom B

It is not quite that clear cut, for it exists on both sides of the negotiation table, at the same time. Owner, and bargining unit. But again, the few companies like that are exceptions. Few unions actually have seats on corporate boards. I am sure it is unchanged John. The problem is that the rest of us can't understand through the smoke and mirrors just what your position actually is. Let's take a look. Here are the first three of your "one" claim in this thread. Six more to follow later. But unions still do not manage the company, which is ALL I have claimed in this thread. Really John? Actually you have made 9 separate claims, beyond stating that unions don't manage companies. And the hilarious part is that I can't find where anyone disagrees with you on that point.You seem to be debating that one with yourself. Let's take a look at your other claims. When told "Management tells the striking union workers to get back to work and they laugh in his face", John replied: If the manager was worth his or her compensation package that wouldn't happen. Don't blame unions for incompetent execs. Now there is one hell of an unexplained belief. Make that an unexplainable belief. Yes John, it may be more likely to happen to bad management to be sure, but striking workers laughing at management most certainly is not limited to the incompetent ones. It is strike mentality, kind of like jocks in the locker room. Rarely is it more. And it is not all that rare either. If you believe that competent management makes all such problems go away, then you must live on planet Utopia. You followed that up with: It makes absolutely no difference what the worker's reasons (for a strike) may be. MANAGEMENT'S JOB is to manage the corporation including its workforce. Yes that is their job, but the reasons for the strike will most certainly impact your ability to do your manager job, and perhaps even to keep the company alive. The reason for the strike is kind of important to know after all. Do you just make this stuff up? Tom B

That is odd. For you found all three points important enough to post yourself, just two posts up the page. Only when someone debunks them do they become irrelevant to the thread? I fear you have been in that Ivory tower classroom too long John. And John, despite your repeated claim you have made only one point in this thread, that unions don't run companies, you have made at least nine other points, few of which seem to match reality. Uh... John.... I have not, and I don't believe anyone else has argued that fiducial responsibility is given to unions. The only exception I can think of is when unions themselves own significant interest in the firm. That becomes an odd circle come negotiation time, with their feet in both campes, but it is an exception to normal practice, and not significant on a national scale. Tom B

Who is to blame? MANAGEMENT. Again? John, have you considered setting up a server, that could scour the world for any labor problems, so that whenever anything goes wrong it can immediately flood the wires, screaming out" POOR MANAGEMENT". John, do you have ANY real and constructive suggestions on how the big old line companies with legacy union contracts, like GM, can turn things around? I believe GM did exactly that. Take another look John. GM took a very wimpy bankruptcy, one that didn't come close to starting fresh. They had one opportunity, and one only, to make the big step that would have given them a path to fiscal redemption. Fresh would have been tossing out ALL of their contracts at that point, and trusting a federal judge to sort things out later. Starting fresh would have been a blank sheet of paper replacing the master labor contract. It could have allowed them to open future plants without an automatic union workforce. It could have let them use lower cost work rules like the foreign manufacturers' plants in the US, which are still great jobs.. They had a path to future long term redemption and instead walked away, taking a very short term bag of cash from Obama. You can't have it both ways John. First you beat the crap out of companies saying in effect that they should never have accepted old contract terms. Then you push that management MUST act decisively to fix things now, that the officers and board are solely responsible to the stockholders to keep the company alive. And now in an example of them doing exactly what you suggest, you claim that they screwed the employees over. Tom B

John, how about the ones where the union sits on the board of directors? I don't know about today, but in the past they included UAL, Chrysler, and several others. That seems to have worked out really well, now didn't it? But what is your point, other than repeatedly saying that management has the responsibility to manage? Ya think? So the stockholders charge the officers and board with leading the company. That does NOT mean they have the control or power you suggest. Not even close. Often their choice is limited to enduring a protracted strike that might bankrupt the company, cave in to union demands which also might bankrupt the company, or close the plant and outsource the work, which makes the company money, at least in the short term. Money talks in those cases. Bill strongly stated above that unions can't make companies do anything. I don't agree with him, but if that is true, so is the converse. Companies can't make unions do anything either. And either side can utterly destroy a viable business simply by getting one or two bad leaders in a row. Tom B

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/19/AR2007101902703.html There are literally hundreds or thousands of IED's per year in the US, depending on how you define them, a heck of a lot more than most realize. You just don't hear about the sucessful interventions, as they play them down for obvious reasons. The war on terror didn't start on 9/11. It just became official. Those who died in the "peacetime" prior to that just got shipped home. People know of Ted Kazinski, the Unibomber, the many blown up abortion clinics, OK City, but the mass numbers come from drug wars on the border, gang wars, etc. There literally are mined and bobby trapped areas in most southern National Parks and Forrests, where people grow grass. It has changed some now, with all of the teams deployed, but not all that long ago, Army EOD teams were charged with responding to all such incidents in the continental US, except where local police had specific training, and that was really limited to larger population areas. Oh, the same FALN terrorists that Clinton pardoned to get the PR vote, were bombing all over for a LONG time. The were even mailing letter bombs to EOD team members' family homes in some places. Having said all that, it was the best experience of my life. Including skydiving. Tom B

Exactly! Since when does military command need micro managing over purple hearts? There is already a medal that Congress has purview over. If they don't think that is appropriate (and clearly it isn't) then they should stick to their knitting. Three of my friends died on EOD teams, two from IED's. Since it was "peacetime" and in the US, none were eligible for Purple Hearts, even though any idiot would consider IED's a terrorist weapon. I hardly think where one is standing when injurerd should be a factor in that award. Tom B

If a mother needs police help to get a ten year old to take a shower, a taser is the least of that family's problems. Tom B

They don't need to John. Just pack the pannel with enough people of the correct mindset, and they just naturally wander to the "correct" conclusion. I make no claims about this paticular issue as I don't know much about the panel. But the practice I describe is a long proven tactic. Isn't that why Roosevelt wanted to pack the Supreme Court with additional members? Tom B

Bill we can parse word definitions all day, but my point remains. Whatever word you use in place of MAKE, the impact is the same. But check out the definition of the verb make. It includes to cause to happen, and to bring about These kinds of actions most certainly fit what has happened at negotiation tables over the years. Not only can people "make" others do things, but we even have many career paths where the primary job role is exactly that; "making" people do things they otherwise would not. Start with police detectives who interview suspected criminals. The plain fact is that a highly skilled interrogator can "make" many confess to terrible crimes. In several recent high profile cases it has become clear that they succeeded even in causing innocent people confess to crimes they didn't commit, including capital murder. That definitely seems to be a case of making someone do something. Jump to military recruiters... well we all know that story. How about timeshare units, where you get a free weekend if you just sit for their "three hour tour". Make is real there. Ever been to a CA auto dealership? I would not go back to one without a gun. All of these professions are filled with people who make others do things. Unions hire professionals to do exactly that. Just as companies do in senior management. Tom B

John is indeed quite literal, a good thing for an engineer/physicist, but a bit too much for this case. Making the argument that unions can't force management is like saying divorcing parents could not use their kids as a lever against each other, and blackmail would never be effective. In John's freshman's physics class, I bet he argues that friction is independent of the contact area at the point of touch. If so, why do dragsters have such huge tires? I know the answer John, just pointing out that simply models don't always well fit reality, especially on a topic where federal labor agents are involved. God knows I am too often guilty of it, but one can be too literally John. Tom B

Oh really? And who does MANAGEMENT work for? That would be stockholders, of which you are probably one. About everyone with an IRA or retirement fund is one. That is right John, you and I personally killed GM. . Being serious for a moment John, I agree with you that management should have tried harder to stop much of this especially just after WWII. But even then it was much more complicated than you suggest. For example, unions can legally collude and plan an industry strategy, while companies can not. How long should management of one of the big three automakers solely absorb the costs of a strike, while the other two keep making cars.When the US was the only manufacturing base in the world post WWII, how long would stockholders keep management that wanted to hold a firm line on something that MIGHT happen in 25 or 30 years, and endure a long strike to do so? About five minutes. Take a look at this. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/boulwarism-ideas-have-consequences/# It is about GE Vice President Boulware, who tried to run labor management as you suggest. While successful for two decades with his approach (during which GE consistently offered great benefits BTW) ultimately the National Labor Relations Board found that companies could no longer broadly inform the bargaining unit members of the status of the negotiations, and further that they could not tell the public. Since then, many laws, case findings, and regulations really tie the hands of business. Too often the leaders who represent employees seem to have an agenda far beyond and separate from that, and by law, companies can't say a single thing. Quote Tom B

You answered your own question.. I didn't even ask one. But speaking of BUCKS, by chance did I see your glum face in West Lafayette on Oct 17th? One must stretch these rare moments out when a Boilermaker. Tom B

John is generally quite literally correct. The problem is that the world is not nearly so literal as he projects. Contract and labor law is not a physics lab. We all realize that American management got crazy, especially post WWII, and let things into contracts that they should not have. But once there, they are all but concrete. What can a company like GM readily do, short of declaring bankruptcy and starting fresh? If a company acted 1/10th the way John suggests they can, one of two things would occur. They would force a strike that would cripple the company, or more likely recieve an injunction via the fair labor acts and follow on laws essentially telling them to shut up and move on. The easy path? Settle, or outsource the work. Just look around and you will see both. I agree with John's main point that company management has been weak, and got us into this mess, but the assertion that they can just be firm and fix it is wrong. Tom B

John, how many times have you sat in the management chair in contract negotiations? The biggest problem faced is legacy contracts from a different era, negotiated at a time when economic conditions were quite different, by management teams who thought profits would roll on forever. Yes it may have been short sighted for them to grant those concessions, but don't think for a moment that they are not still in contract language today. And it is about impossible to get them out, unless one is willing to risk the entire enterprise to a strike. I have been on both sides of this one, union and management, public and private, and the reality is a lot more complicated than you suggest. Tom B