At the Academy Awards ceremony this year, Seth McFarlane has caused a great deal of buzz about a  song and dance number he performed called, "We Saw Your Boobs".  It was funny and lighthearted, and pointed out a very obvious fact; a number of famous actresses had appeared topless in a number of movies.

Several actresses have chosen to be offended by the performance though, foremost among which is Jamie Lee Curtis, who's blog on the topic is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-lee-curtis/and-the-oscar-goes-to-hell_b_2793392.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment  My comments follow.

There are two things wrong with this blog.

First, Ms. Curtis, you miss the point.  It wasn't about you. The song was making fun of the juvenile male - typically between 15 and 35 - who goes to any R-rated movie he can simply for the chance of seeing a boob or two.  That's all he'll remember about the movie too; he saw a boob.  AND movie producers make sure to put that 2 or 3 second image in there so they'll get his money!  There's even a website - Mr. Skin, I believe - who's entire purpose is to make money by highlighting exactly where in each R-rated movie the boobs appear so that such juveniles can skip directly to the point in the movie where they can be seen!  If you don't already know this, you are remarkably naive.

Second, with the sole exception of Scarlett Johansson who's phone was hacked, EVERY SINGLE WOMAN MENTIONED WAS PAID to bare her chest.  None of you were forced - you all could have said "no".  Jennifer Lawrence apparently did.  You won't find any pictures of my wife's chest on the net...or my mother's, or my sister's, or my grown daughter's.  There are hundreds of thousands of women who make it through life without appearing topless in movies for pay and without posing on a red carpet in some cleavage-baring fashion statement.  I'm not criticizing your choice to do so, but you apparently need to be reminded that it was YOUR CHOICE!

If you are sorry it's the current topic on the net, you have no one but yourself to blame.  Stop being offended by the results of your own actions and move on.

Letter to the President

Note: I wrote this blog entry some time ago, but misplaced it and am only posting it now, about two years after I wrote it.  I still believe what I wrote then, thought.

I recently read Frank Shaeffer's "Open Letter to President Obama about the Republicans", and I found myself dismayed that such bitterness resides in an individual deemed worthy to be paid to publish his opinions in print.  I don't know why Mr. Schaeffer is so bitter, but I pray that it doesn't spread to his readers, and I know that his advice would be the worst possible for the President to follow.

I am both religious and generally conservative, although not rabidly so.  I am also black, married, employed and have three children.  As a former liberal and current conservative, I have to say that I believe that President Obama's course so far has been right on target.  I don't agree with every page of the stimulus bill; then again, I don't know that the President does either.  I do believe that something needed to be done.  There is a great deal of mistrust between liberals and conservatives these days, and only a fool would expect that gap to be spanned in a month, or even a year.  Still, what can I say about someone who believes it isn't worthwhile to even TRY to bridge the gap?

That is the source of our President's greatness, and the reason the American people elected him - his willingness to keep trying to take the high road, to find a way to build trust and bridge gaps. The only way to succeed in such a difficult endeavour is to keep trying; the only way to fail is to quit.

As a student at MIT I had the opportunity to hear then Ambassador Andrew Jackson present his ideas to the association of black students there, and I will always remember the thrust of his message.  We, as Blacks of the world in general and in America in particular, have suffered much; we have gone through slavery, degradation and oppression; we have suffered through abuse and hatred.  We have truly run the gauntlet.  Now it is up to us to show the real mettle of a people who have been through so much; to show that we have far more to give to this nation and to this world than anyone would believe or even imagine.  I suspect the time that Mr. Jackson spoke of more than 30 years ago may have arrived with your election to the office of President of the United States.

President Obama, speaking as one American citizen, DON'T QUIT!  Don't let the naysayers of either stripe get you down or infect you with their bitterness and closed mindedness.  Don't let them convince you that we are a nation composed of people who are one half wrong and the other half right.  Everyone is sometimes wrong; no one is always wrong.  The vast majority of Americans will always support the course they honestly believe to be the correct one for this nation.  That this isn't a single course is indicative of the diversity of our nation which should be counted as a strength, not a weakness.

I humbly suggest that it is now your job to plot a course for this nation and ALL of its citizens that will lead us to true economic recovery, true world leadership, and true peace and prosperity.  It's a daunting challenge, but as a man who shares your heritage of trial by fire I believe you can face it and win if you remain true to your ideals.

Julian Assange's interview of Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah

I've seen a lot of interviews, and a lot of interviewers.  Julian Assange's interview of Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah does NOT measure up.  Just to be honest,  I am not a fan of Assange's politics, and am personally quite critical of the man. I actually watched his program to find out just who was brave enough to advertise with him...no one, it seems - and I'm not surprised.  Advertisers generally aren't dumb.

Quite independent of my dislike of Assange's politics, I found that the man is a miserable journalist and interviewer as well.  Below are a few of the problems I found with his interview.

1 - The questions are obviously canned.  Assange is checking his printout of questions each time before he asks anything, and there are NO followup or clarification questions after the answers are given in spite of the fact that Nasrallah frequently didn't answer the question as asked.  It is possible that a condition of the interview was that the questions be pre-vetted, but that makes this a PR program, not an interview.  No journalist looking for the truth would accept such conditions.

2 - The claim by Nasrallah that the reports about things he had said which Assange had found in STOLEN DIPLOMATIC CABLES were just western propoganda to attack Hezbollah is ridiculous on the face of it.  If it were propaganda it would have been in the press without Wikileaks having to steal it.  Assange should have at least questioned that claim further...as in, "If this was a propaganda attack on Hezbollah, why did I find it suppressed and hidden in a diplomatic cable?"

3 - Hassan Nasrallah is quite obviously in favor of Assad of Syria doing whatever it takes to deal with his people, however many he kills.  The Arab Spring movement in Syria is not politically different from the ones in Libya or Egypt that Hezbollah supported, so that they verbally defend and support Assad in this case has to be politically motivated by some relationship with Assad.  Why didn't Assange ask more about this?!

4 - Assange is sitting there listening to the answers he is getting, and NODDING HIS HEAD THE ENTIRE TIME!!  I always thought *I* was pretty gullible about expecting people to tell the truth, but you've got to be kidding me!  The video shows him to be just sucking up and believing every word Nasrallah says, like a well-behaved child in a classroom.  The last time I saw that level of gullibility was on a late night infomercial!

5 - Assange is obviously an atheist, and at the 24:15 minute point in this interview he attempts a "very provocative" non-political question (which to Assange means "religious"), and showed himself to be naive beyond belief.  At 24:52 you can see Nasrallah working very hard not to laugh out loud at just how ridiculous the question was, but he composed himself and found a way to say something he knew would have Assange nodding his head again.  Assange apparently has some sort of naive belief that there is an inherent conflict between being a 'freedom fighter" and believing in a mono-theistic God.  That's just dumb.

There are other reasons this program was weak, but these should suffice for now.   Given the amount of time he's been in the news, I expected Assange to be a lot smarter than this, but after watching it I'm a lot less worried about his anarchistic politics affecting the world.  He isn't smart enough for that to happen.

Political Whack-a-Mole?

It's been amazing watching the media play "Whack-a-Mole" with the Republican candidates. For example, as I write this there are people on CNBC castigating Newt Gingrich over his history in congress and his history with Freddie Mac, and these same people couldn't remember his name two months ago. Now that his polling numbers have risen they can't talk about anyone else. You'd think Rick Perry was erased from history, and if you bring up Ron Paul they'd look like a deer in the headlights trying to figure out who you were talking about.

I find the process a bit bothersome. I understand the media trying to answer legitimate questions about the candidates that people want to know, but what I am hearing is media attacks on whoever happens to be ahead in the polls this week - hence my "Whack-a-Mole" characterization.

Rick Perry was lambasted for a week over not being able to recall - on the spur of the moment - which Federal agencies he had earlier said he wanted to eliminate. Herman Cain's comments about Libya were rebroadcast over and over and over ad nauseum while he was still a candidate. Heard anything about him lately? President Obama's mislabeling of Veteran's Day as "Memorial Day" and his repeated mispronunciation of "corpsman" were heard only on a Fox News piece about the lack of media coverage of his mistakes. I mean, can you imagine the coverage if Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney said they had visited "all 57 states"...as President Obama did?! The point not being that saying "57 states" was all that big a deal, but that none of the other stuff they make such a big deal over is actually a big deal either. Everybody gets a word or two wrong now and then; everyone has trouble remembering the occasional detail at the spur of the moment. NONE of these are significant, but if CNN and others can be believed these things are the essence of what it required for someone to be qualified to be President...unless they are a Democrat. Then it's no big deal.

I'd rather decide who is President of the country by evaluating their stance on issues. Deciding if I agree with the Federal Agencies he would cut rather than basing my decision on whether or not he can list them alphabetically, or finding out more about what he will do for the country next year rather than rehashing what he did 15 years ago. I also know that President Obama doesn't actually think there are 57 states, and quite frankly I think Memorial Day and Veteran's Day are rather similar holidays myself.

The question is, why are any of these other trivial things so important in the eyes of the media?

'Nuff said.

Political Correctness in Sports has reached a new low...

Like millions of others, I watched the Superbowl this past Sunday, and even though I didn't have a dog in the fight, I was half-heartedly rooting for the Giants to win. Probably because they are the underdogs, and that's what we Americans do.

It was a pretty well called game and I don't expect perfection from referees who are just as human as I am, so I wasn't all that upset when at the 9:35 remaining mark of the fourth quarter, a pass interference foul by the Patriot's Moore went uncalled. The commentators took several looks at that play and it was pretty clear that Moore had grabbed Manningham's left shoulder with his left hand before the ball arrived, and he used that leverage to aid his reach over Manningham's right shoulder to break up the pass. It was clear enough that after the analysis one of the commentators referred to it as a "huge non-call". It was what happened later that made the issue interesting to me.

After the punt, fair catch and then a commercial break, the Patriots took over the ball on their own 8-yard line and started out with an incomplete pass on first down. THEN the commentators said, "Now, let's go back to that 'non-call'." I was literally amazed! I have watched many football games where there was something I'd have liked to see over that wasn't shown, but I can't recall any cases of going back to a play after an analysis via replay had been completed and everyone had moved on.

They proceeded to point out that the referees make their calls based on "real time" analysis of what goes on during the game, and to essentially completely reverse what they had said before the commercial break about it being a blown call. They completely ignored the fact that official review using slow motion and freeze-frame has been a part of the game for years now. They also completely ignored the fact that ONE OF THE COMMENTATORS HAD MADE THE PASS INTERFERENCE CALL OUT LOUD IN THE BOOTH WITHIN A SINGLE SECOND OF THE INITIAL PLAY, no instant replay required.

That they could ignore the reality of official review and the additional reality of one of them actually making the call in "real time" from the booth when it actually happened was enough for me be somewhat disgusted by the political correctness of it all. The simple fact was that the referee had blown the call - it happens - but they couldn't leave it there. They had to go back after the analysis had been concluded and, by ignoring all of the many facts to the contrary, justify the referee's lack of calling the penalty.

I am completely certain that someone during the commercial break told them that they had to undo the criticism of the referee implicit in pointing out the blown call.

I am also completely disgusted by that fact.

Warren Buffett's Challenge

I admire Warren Buffett. The "Oracle of Omaha" had always seemed to show good sense and restraint when it came to what he said, and what he did. Then...

...he wrote this op-ed piece for the New York Times about the rich being coddled by legislators. The problem there is of course that if he honestly believes he pays too little in taxes, he should simply choose to pay more. Congress even made that decision easy by quickly and in bipartisan fashion passing a bill that changes the tax code to make such donations easy - as easy as a check box on your tax forms. Of course, this move pretty easily called Mr. Buffett's bluff because in spite of his claims that he should be paying more taxes, he did nothing of the sort.

I should add here that there have been some distortions of what he said in that article published since; distortions of the type that I have found to be common in the media. The oft repeated claim is that he said he paid less in taxes than his secretary. Mr. Buffett in his letter actually made the statement that he effectively paid - as a percentage of his income - less taxes than others in his office. In terms of actual cash he of course pays thousands of times MORE money, but that doesn't make for quite as sensational a headline.

There's a reason for that percentage difference too. Most of his income is derived from dividends and capital gains, money that in most cases has already had taxes paid from it to the government by the corporations that earned it. Because this money has already been taxed, it was decided years ago that the tax rates on money earned this way on the individual should be lower to reduce the effective "double-taxing" of the same money, and to provide an incentive to invest in American industries.

Think of it this way; you work for a company, and then you and I both buy a partial ownership of your company by buying stock and becoming shareholders. When you get paid a salary, the company subtracts that money out of it's gross returns under the heading of expenses and therefore it doesn't pay taxes on your salary. YOU do, in the form of an income tax and that money is only taxed once. After all of the company salaries and other expenses are accounted for, the money that remains is the profit. If our company makes a profit, before any of those profits are divided out to the shareholder/owners, the government taxes that money at the corporate rate. Then you and I get our share of the profits from what remains after the government taxed it; THEN the government taxes us AGAIN individually, effectively double-taxing the corporate income.

So because the money that Mr. Buffett receives has already had taxes paid by the corporation that earned it, the amount he actually gets has already been effectively reduced by being taxed before he gets it. Unlike his secretary's salary which was deducted as an expense and not taxed until AFTER it was paid, he then pays a lower individual tax rate on his investment income because it has ALREADY BEEN TAXED ONCE...in theory.

I say "in theory" because currently Mr. Buffett's company is significantly in debt to the government in terms of back taxes owed. Just how much is in dispute, but the IRS says it has reached the 10-figure mark. That's BILLIONS, not just millions. So in reality - in Mr. Buffett's particular case - he is getting far more money in corporate profit sharing than he should be getting because the corporation hasn't paid a billion dollars to the federal government that's owed. Instead that money has been given to the individual shareholders like Mr. Buffett, who pay lower taxes because supposedly that money has already been taxes once...but in his case much of it hasn't. So yes, Mr. Buffett is certainly NOT paying his fair share of taxes. In his article he claims that he personally wouldn't mind at all being effectively double-taxed on his investment income, and needs no such incentives to continue investing, but apparently he won't do what he appears to WANT to do until he is forced by law to do so. I don't really get that part. Why does he need a law to force him to do something he thinks he should be doing, and why should what HE wants to do be forced on others who have no such wishes?

All of which makes his claim that "I don't pay enough taxes" a little bit hypocritical, since it's HIS company that is refusing to pay the government and instead gives the money to him and others like him. It seems to also support the truism that people who become super-rich eventually get very liberal in their later years. I have to wonder if that isn't some form of guilt.

That would be an interesting end to the story, but there's more. Mr. Buffett, after having his first bluff called, has effectively doubled down recently and issued a challenge to match on a dollar for dollar basis any contribution by any Republican congressman to lower the national debt. Of course, he has left his Democratic buddies out of this so we know right away where his sympathies lie; either than or he doesn't think their money is worth very much. This to me is very interesting though - the challenge, not the sympathies.

Since he chose to couch his initial claim to not be paying enough taxes in the framework of percentage of income, I think that the Congressmen he has challenged should respond in kind with a challenge of their own on those same terms. To wit; offer to put 10% of their annual income (income; not pay or salary) into a voluntary contribution to push down the national debt if Mr. Buffett will do the same. This is still fair because a sacrifice of $15,000 by someone who makes $150,000 a year means a lot more than a sacrifice of $5 million means to someone who makes $50 million a year.

In fact, I think they should push the challenge a bit further; they should extend it to all of congress by making it a Republican vs Democrat thing. In other words, they should have a side bet with Mr. Buffett (maybe something concerning campaign contributions?) that a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats will be willing to make that contribution to reduce the national debt, and that they will be willing to continue it until the deficit is reduced to within 3% of the budget. That would put pressure on Congress - both sides of the aisle - to do their jobs. By the way, that 3% number is Mr. Buffett's own suggestion.

Lastly, they should suggest that if he wasn't willing to match their challenge on a percent of income basis they would still be willing to make the contribution for one year on one additional condition - that he would permanently shut up about taxes and get back to investing. Berkshire Hathaway hasn't done very well in the last few years, in my view due to Mr. Buffett concerning himself with other things.

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently." - Warren Buffett.

Mr. Buffett, please take your own advice.

It's Not Easy, Being Green...

About 18 months ago I put energy saving lights over my desk. I didn't go whole hog solartube or anything like that; it's just a couple of lights that use less energy than the standard (cheap) incandescent bulbs we are used to.

Originally the two recessed lighting cans over my desk had held 75 watt incandescent floodlight bulbs, and they lit that corner of the room VERY well. Since it wasn't the original location of my desk they weren't used very much at first, and they lasted for years being turned on only once a week or so. But finally, after over a decade one of them burned out. That happened some time after my desk had been moved into the well-lighted corner, and wanting to be more energy-conscious (at my wife's urging) I changed BOTH bulbs, putting a 50-watt halogen bulb in one of the cans and a 19-watt fluorescent bulb in the other. I hadn't originally intended to compare the bulbs; my purpose was to have sufficient light from the halogen bulb while waiting for the fluorescent one to reach full brightness - let's face it; they may be called "instant on" bulbs, but we all know they are NOT!

I could stand the comparative dimness of the sole halogen bulb while waiting the 2 minutes it took for the output of the fluorescent to reach it's maximum, and once it had done so the lighting over my desk was every bit as satisfactory as the 150 watts of incandescent lighting had been - at a cost of only 69 watts to the environment. Of course, the cost of the bulbs was a different story entirely. The incandescent bulbs were a very cheap at around $3 each, while the halogen bulb price was $11

and the fluorescent was even higher at $12!

Still, the halogen advertized a life of 2500 hours of use, and the fluorescent was much higher at "up to 10,000 hours", making it seem a bargain overall. The manufacturer even posted a lifetime price comparison over incandescent bulbs showing how you'd need 5 incandescent bulbs to last that same 10,000 hours and how they would use so much less electricity and at $.10 a kilowatt hour you would save $35-$50 over the life of the fluorescent bulb even though the initial cost was higher. So not only were you being green and saving the planet, you were saving less money while doing it as well! Who could resist a deal like that?!

Well, after 10 years of changing fluorescent bulbs in my (vaulted) kitchen ceiling, I was pretty sure that the much ballyhooed life of fluorescent bulbs was a myth - and now I have proof. The fluorescent bulb over my desk failed to light yesterday afternoon when I flipped the switch, and several switch cycles later I was convinced it had died for good. It's halogen partner, which had matched it's vaunted lifespan second for second - being on the same circuit - was still going strong with full output instantly and consistently upon demand. And no, this is not a dimmer controlled circuit, and yes, it was mounted base-up as specified in the instructions.

Now I know that a single bulb failing before it's cheaper partner doesn't constitute actual proof that fluorescent bulbs don't outlast other bulbs on average, but I was pretty much past believing that anyway before this happened. The fluorescent bulbs on the vanity mirror in the bathrooms of my home were the first to fail as well; the difference being that they were installed at slightly different times in different bathrooms. I couldn't very well put the fluorescent bulbs in a room with a dimmer circuit when the labels clearly specify not to, could I? I don't know if a dimmer circuit makes incandescent bulbs last longer, but of the original 8 fluorescent bulbs, only 2 are still functioning, while only one of the original incandescent bulbs has burned out.

So, while Kermit the Frog was right about fact that "It's not easy, being green", he left out the part about it not being cheap either.