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Today, Ronald Reagan died at the age of 93.

When Reagan was running for the Presidency through 1980, I was a junior in high school, and I was mortified at the prospect of someone I considered to be a warmonger brought into the Presidency. I felt certain that if he were brought into office in January of 1981, I would never live to see my high school graduation in May.

Well, he was, I did, and the rest is history.

I served in the military during the tail end of the Reagan years, and the first part of the Bush years (which I really think was a pale continuation of the Reagan Presidency). Those time were good. When I went in the service, the nuclear terror was still there, and by the time I left four years later, the Soviet Union was gone, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the Cold War was over. I left the Air Force after one tour of duty, thinking there was not much use for the military career since the Soviets were gone. Almost twelve years later, my complacency would be proved wrong when the attacks on this country took place in the fall of 2001.

Legacy? Well, the thing I believe is the lasting legacy of his administration is that there is no longer the spectre of The Evil Empire lobbing a thousand nuclear warheads at us. That was the terror I grew up with. And for the decade of the 90s, I slept better knowing that I was much more likely to wake up the next morning to the world that was there when I lay down to rest, rather than waking to a nuclear wasteland.

As an adult, my fear of Reagan has melted into respect. I’m now convinced that with his combination of old school defensiveness, diplomacy and terrific oratory skills, he was probably the only one who have led us through the troubled waters of the Cold War of the ’80s.

Now, in the early part of the 21st century, the nuclear terror seems almost quaint, like reminiscing about the antics of the schoolyard bully of youth. The danger now is alleged to come from all sides, with weapons far of more deadly consequences, and so much more ease of production and deployment.

May my former Commander-in-Chief rest in peace, and may his family feel God’s hand upon their hearts during this tough time.

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You know the old children’s tune… “Nobody loves us, everybody hates us, think I’ll eat some worms.” Well, now everyone hates us… more.

Today, Israel took down the leader of Hamas, and Hamas is claiming that the US is as guilty as Israel, as they couldn’t have pulled this off without our support.

So, we do nothing, and we’re the bad guys.

Or, we do do something, and we’re the bad guys.

I guess there’s no way to win these days!

But seriously, all the activity in the mideast really has me spooked. Even beyond the Biblical implications, it just seems like we’re fostering an environment throughout the world that is ripe for hating the US and Americans. That’s a sad and dangerous thing.

I don’t know how it can get better, but in some ways, I can’t see how it can get too much worse, either. Sure as I say that, some crazed group out there will prove me wrong, though….

Think I will eat some worms!

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I was listening to NPR this evening on the way home, and heard about a new consortium of businesses called the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs. [Google It!] This sounds good, right?

Well, if you’re supportive of freeing Corporate America to send jobs overseas, then this is the group for you! From what I gather, they are high powered, well funded, and totally opposed to any legislation that would hinder US companies from sending our economy’s most precious commodity — US jobs — to overseas markets.

If I understand their spin on this correctly, their belief is that keeping US jobs in the US puts US companies at a competitive disadvantage. No one can argue that sending US jobs overseas, and paying someone half or less what a US worker would get, helps the corporate bottom line and increases profits, thus helping… whom? Shareholders… probably. Corporate officers… definitely. The economy? Well, in the short term, perhaps.

While Corporate America takes their turn at the latest get-rich-quick scheme at the money trough, and sends jobs, and, in turn, knowledge, overseas, the US worker finds it tough to find a job. Today, the time on the jobless rolls is about 20 months. Admittedly, those workers are probably trying to find a job in their career field — the field they schooled for, worked hard to be best at, and in which used their skills to make their company a leader. This appears to be a bad thing for the American economy, too.

So much so, in fact, that the Coalition is asking the US government for more money to retrain workers into other jobs. Of course, if you’re sending tech jobs overseas, and blue collar help desk jobs overseas, there’s not much left here to retrain into. There’s factory work, but that’s not lucrative, and takes a while to retrain into. There’s service work — tourism, food service and the like — that doesn’t take much training by comparison, but often can’t supply a living wage.

Let’s see if I get this.

To make our economy better, we must have Corporate America sending jobs overseas, so that US companies can better compete.

By sending jobs overseas, US workers are forced into joblessness and retraining into lower-tier employment.

Therefore, US families having less money to spend on goods and services helps the US economy.

I had no idea I was hurting the US economy so much by keeping my tech job tied down to a crummy US worker. How anti-American of me!

Sheesh.

So, one day, it’ll be “Check, please!” for me, as I check out of Corporate America, and do my own bit for King and Country by self-employing into something different that I thoroughly enjoy.

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So today, General Clark joined the spectators in the Presidential race, and threw in the towel.

Essentially, this makes the contest a two-and-a-half-horse race (Howard Dean’s still in there, screaming about one thing or another! 🙂

It appears that John Kerry is making a lot of headway, mostly due to his perceived electability. I’d rather Edwards be the candidate, but given the momentum Kerry has, it’d be tough to overcome him and pull into the lead. However, maybe for Vice President…..

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It looks like John Kerry will win a few more states tonight, and it looks like Howard Dean continues to falter. My favorite, John Edwards, won South Carolina, did well in North Dakota, but that was about it.

I still can’t help but feel that a Kerry/Edwards ticket would be pretty unbeatable.

Snow again tomorrow night, BTW — four to six inches! That’ll be the biggest yet. Hope the weathermen don’t disappoint me!

Once again, terrorism has struck in our nation’s capital.

It’s unbelievable that this kind of thing continues to happen on our shores. Yeah, it’s easy to create toxins like this, and it’s sure easy to put a stamp on an envelope, but there’s got to be some way to shut this kind of activity down.

It’s terrifying to think of just how bad an attack like this could be….

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Yesterday, our CIO announced to IS that we are starting an endeavor to outsource some of our projects overseas. Now, I think this is the third project that I’m aware of that’s been sent abroad, but I guess the news is starting to hit the streets, and that’s why we were informed officially of this move.

I have opinions about this. Imagine that. 🙂

I think that, in chasing after the almighty dollar, American businesses are setting themselves up for future problems as they try to bring higher profits to shareholders. Anything that can be done remotely — programming, system administration, system performance — can be sent overseas, and be done at a fraction of the cost of doing the same work here.

Our CIO tells us that we are doing this for legacy projects, and there will not be project design efforts perfomed overseas. That may be.

Then again, this could just be the beginning of the end for folks doing programming or system work for our company. Either way, it’s a sad state, to me anyway, for a company that so prides itself on its strong American heritage to begin giving work away, rather than keeping it here in the US.

Yeah, so this is probably a firing offense to disapprove of this sort of thing, but I just can’t support it.

Tonight, it looks like John Kerry moves another step closer to the Democratic nomination. I’m not greatly surprised that New Hampshire went for him — that’s his backyard, after all — but I am disappointed in John Edwards’ performance.

I still think he’s the best candidate out there, with the best message… Of course, that means he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance.

However, a Kerry-Edwards ticket might be fun. You’d have “native sons” from the North and South, and a reasonable swath of rich and poor, war hero and social programs. A pretty good combination, I’d think.

The last I heard, Edwards didn’t want the VP, but if his performance isn’t better come next Tuesday — eight states, I think? — his tune may change.

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So, it wasn’t just me that thought Dean was out of his mind in conceding Iowa. Now, it has become known as the “I Have a Scream” speech. What was with that sound? Primal scream? Hemorrhoids? Serious scrotal itch? Perhaps someone was giving him a wedgie.

The media has latched on to this un-presidential utterance, and have really been letting him have with both barrels. It’s really kinda comical, and frankly a little embarassing to keep reliving this low point in his campaign.

Look at it this way, though. At least Dean will have a fallback career of screaming sound effects for horror films.

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Wow. Kerry. Edwards. And then — distantly — Dean?

I’m amazed.

Kerry is a bolt out of the blue. I’m just flat shocked that he came out so strongly on top. I really saw Dean and Edwards duking it out for first and second place, and Kerry and Gephardt fighting for the crumbs of third and fourth place.

Wow.

(And, from a techie perspective, all the candidates’ sites were working… except John Edwards — I kept getting “Server too busy” messages from their IIS server. Kerry had a “we won” banner up before he spoke to his supporters, and Gephardt already had notes on his site that led you to believe that he would drop out because of the results in Iowa. Ain’t technology grand?)

Now, Kerry has indicated that he is in favor of making it more difficult for US companies to ship their jobs overseas. Others — namely the Computer Systems Policy Project (Dell, HP, Intel, IBM) — have indicated that allowing jobs to go overseas is the only way for American business to survive. They favor the government investing in tech research, rather than protectionist policies, like Kerry’s. They even go so far as to indicate that there will be many good jobs out there for high school grads with basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

Hope those kids are rehearsing….. “Do you want fries with that?”

So, once those companies have all their e-commerce jobs overseas, we could be held hostage to their interests, and would probably find that our quality of life here is lessened, with a smaller personal tax base, and fewer dollars to purchase those goods and services that the Computer Systems Policy Project are fighting so hard to serve from elsewhere.

Good luck guys — I think you’re wrong. I know it’s not politically correct to toot the American horn. In fact, some might say that I’m somehow close-minded, or anti-foreigner. Both are wrong. Perhaps I would be labelled “pro-American”.

That would be true.