How to win friends and influence people

July 4, 2009. N. Korea Defies US and Fires Barrage of Missles

In 1986, the world had a problem with terrorists - Abu Nidal backed by Libya and Col Mohamar Kadafy.
When diplomatic approaches failed to quell an escalating series of terrorist attacks, Ronald Reagan took swift and bold action - a bombing raid that took out military targets, terrorist enclaves and killed one of Kadafy's children in the backyard of his palace. Kadafy became a changed man. He postponed indefinitely his promotion to "General", and albeit reluctantly, assisted the US and the UN in the fight against terrorism.

Now it is time for Obama to step up and respond to "Fearless Leader". Launch a missle (like a ground-launched CRUISE that can fly through an open window) into the palace and take out Kim Jong-il's cognac collection and any sons who aren't trying to sneak in to the Michael Jackson memorial service in Los Angeles. Then call him up and tell him his left shoe is untied.

The GOP would take note - even Cheney's AEI would have to applaud while daring Obama to take the fight to Tehran. Russia (who dances a jig when anyone defies the US and the UN) would take note. And China would "owe us one" since they want the little guy to go away but they don't want to look like they're helping us.

Carbon, Cigarettes and Calories

Two years ago, Thomas Friedman, author and columnist for the NY Times, suggested that gas should be $4.00/gallon forevermore. The price spike we suffered in the late 1970s became a threshold in Europe and Japan. And they learned to live with it through efficient mass transit. We didn't, and we were even more unprepared for $140/barrel oil last summer. Keeping the price above $4 (still cheaper than Europe or Japan) would motivate Americans to adjust their behavior in ways that lessen our dependence on foreign oil. The difference in delivery cost and retail price, would be a tax boom to both state and federal coffers. Hopefully used to fund alternative energy development and distribution (which would certainly benefit Elon Musk).

This week, Elon Musk, CEO of the US electric automobile company Tesla, called for $10/gallon gas, based on behavioral change at the global level. "No one explicitly pays for the destruction of our atmosphere and the warming of the world's oceans". A lofty goal but shifting 8% of GDP from one pocket to another would be severely disruptive. (American's burn ~375M gallons of gas/day). But we could move slowly in that direction with a Carbon tax. Obama's Cap and Trade program has become a typical political failure - claim success while doing essentially nothing except hiring more Federal overseers. Maybe in his next term we will get change that actually adds up.

California democrats are proposing higher cigarette taxes as one way to fix the budget deficit. Cigarette consumption is a behavior that implicitly costs everyone though the burden of health care. Cigarettes kill more American every week than the war in Iraq has - to date. Insurance companies pass the cost of $100,000/year cancer treatment on to their other clients. You are subsidizing cigarette smoking whether you know it or not. $10/pack would equate to a short-term tax boon and a long-term reduction in health care cost - a double win.

The number one killer in America is heart disease. Add in complications from diabetes and you have about $1T (or 8% of GDP) in cost burden that we all pay for, one way or another. So let's start taxing calories. High sugar soft drinks. 1000 calorie "value meals". People cut down rain forests to grow cows to supply fast food restaurants that degrade health and increase health care costs in developing countries. Changing this behavior is a triple play.

The changes don't, and shouldn't happen overnight - shifting big chunks of the economy from one pocket to another is disruptive. But over time these changes would shift the behavior of 300M people in a better direction.

What is a story?

To be a person is to have a story to tell. Isak Dinesen

When I was younger, I could remember anything,
whether it was true or not. Mark Twain

Some people think we're made of flesh and blood and bone. Scientists think we're made of atoms. I think we're made of stories. When we die, stories are what people remember, the stories of our lives and the stories we told. Ruth Stotter

Out of the blue and into the black.
Once you're gone, you never come back.
Neil Young, from the album Rust Never Sleeps

Create, Preserve and Share Your Story at Online Legacy

Draft Dodger Disses War Hero

On Sunday's Face the Nation, Vietnam war draft-dodger Dick disses Colin Powell, a highly decorated war hero, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and architect of the only successful invasion of Iraq. And picks a rich, recovering drug addict, talking-head as the voice of the Republican party. This might be a good time for George W. to preserve a bit of his own legacy and admit that everything that went wrong was Uncle Cheney's idea.

Read more on how Cheney is putting the nails in the GOP coffin in today's Washington Post.

Did eliminating EIT make America weaker? Ineffective reactive approaches do nothing for the root cause - soaring unemployment in Middle East young adults - 25% overall (50% in the Gaza strip) - an ideal opportunity for radicals offering change. And besides, Jack Bauer will continue to do whatever he deems justified.

Face the Nation,
24

Adsense makes no cents?

Adsense (if you don't know) is a Google product that distribute ads paid for by Adwords users across millions of websites. Google charges variable rates to the Adwords user and shares some of the revenue with Adsense distributors, based on the visitor traffic to the site. The operative TLA (three letter acronym) is Cost per thousand unique page views. More page views, more money. Typically these funds accrue in your Google account until a threshold that warrants "cutting a check", i.e. $100. After 1.5 years, my account has reached $7.07. At that rate I'll get a check in 2029. Or never, since I deleted the Adsense garbagio from the sidebar.

I disobeyed a Presidential Order and survived the Swine Flu

IN 1976, President Gerald Ford ordered a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine flu epidemic.

Ford was acting on the advice of medical experts, who believed they were dealing with a virus potentially as deadly as the one that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. The virus surfaced in February at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis told his drill instructor that he felt tired and weak, although not sick enough to skip a training hike. Lewis was dead within 24 hours.
The autopsy revealed that Lewis had been killed by "swine flu," an influenza virus originating in pigs. By then several other soldiers had been hospitalized with symptoms. Government doctors became alarmed when they discovered that at least 500 soldiers on the base were infected without becoming ill.

My wife got the vaccination and immediately got sick. I was too busy building a GaAs development lab to get sick "on purpose". Turns out I was right. Within weeks reports started coming in of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease, right after taking the shot. Within two months, 500 people were affected, and more than 30 died.

swine flu,pandemic

Tell me what your plans are, and I'll tell how your are going to Fail.

Who hasn't heard that? Second-guessing is a skill honed in every office place in the world. In politics it is second nature to second guess. Because it so easy to find potential flaws, it is almost human nature to do so. In today's Internet-connected world we are all second guessers. What used to be reserved for the Editorial and Opinion page is now "news" on TV, radio and every blog on the net.

This is good, you say. This makes us think. Well placed criticism does make us think. Feedback is part of any successful planning process. But most of what is labeled critique is actually "throwing stones to draw attention to the stone thrower". If some talking head on CNBC says Timmothy Geittner's plan will fail, he isn't trying to help the Treasury Secretary solve the world's problems. He is trying to sell his own name, his blog, his book, i.e. his "brand". In a few months, when the dust settles on the Financial crisis will errant opinions be called out and graded? Nah. We live in a short-term world. Yesterday's news is buried in a heap of Tweets no one can keep up with. Good stone throwers know that if you keep throwing stones at new targets, old "misses" are soon forgotten.

There is a greater implication. The loss of long-term thinking in a world that only measures short-term results. Our world is increasingly complex but our news is remarkably simplistic - a child murderer in California, toxic assets, a few cases of swine flu. Did you know that 1000 children die every day from contaminated water? Or that more firefighters die from Heart Disease than fire and smoke? The result is a total lack of perspective and context, which creates the ideal environment for throwing stones.

Tell me what your plans are and I'll tell you how I can help - maybe.

Talking Heads,Second Guessing