Apr
10
I admit I hadn’t studied the constitution in a half a decade when Ron Paul made it popular to study and promote true principles of freedom again. When I heard the presidential candidate promises, I asked myself, “can a president really do all that?”
“Do they even have the power to make such promises? Can they save our homes from the housing financial crisis?”
I was shocked to reread the 13 short paragraphs about the office of President again in the Constitution. Try reading it for yourself and ask yourself what we’ve created of our president. Sometimes the rhetoric seems like we want a Saviour to solve all of our problems. It kind of reminds me of a time when people wanted a king really badly, but it turned out not to be in their best interest.
We know that what Ron Paul started, he didn’t actually start, and the momentum he created will live on. I was excited to learn about BJ Lawson running for congress in North Carolina (good people live their, including my friends at LuLu). His platform demonstrates the principles of true freedom (and responsibility) to me and I encourage you to participate in Bucks for BJ whether or not you live in North Carolina.
And if you’re in a position where you can’t afford even $5 in support of Constitutional principles, take time to reread the article on the President and keep it in mind as you vote this fall.
Jan
30
I’m Not A Popular Guy Right Now
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc., Freedom, Government, Politics, etc. | Leave a Comment
After a Personal Management class at the University of Scouting that I took my 11 year old scouts to last Saturday, I asked the instructor (who works for a local bank) how he advises the people in his bank when the dollar is loosing so much value and Bernanke dropped the interest rate again to help the stock market.
He said, “when I have little old grandmother’s who were getting 5 percent interest on their life savings coming into the bank and finding out that they get 2 percent, I’m not a very popular guy right now. These folks were barely making it as it was.”
Imagine that. Hard-working Americans who aren’t free-riding on the government, who’ve saved, who are now in their later years…and they’re savings are vanishing through their fingers. All so that we can shore up against the consequences of bad decisions by the Federal Reserve Board in the past. I couldn’t have painted a better picture how irresponsible policies to “stimulate the economy” hurt the poor.
This banker friend of mine, said, “2008 may be one of the most difficult years we’ve seen in a long time.” I fear he is correct and now wouldn’t be surprised if Bernanke does it again.
Jan
30
Adopting New Technology
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
Anyone in the business of helping people adopt new technology will get a kick out of this video on YouTube…
Jan
21
My good friend from high school, Aaron Anderson, started blogging recently and asked me why I supported Ron Paul. I never got around to writing any more than why I had cooled on Mitt Romney (I’d choose Romney over McCain or Hillary any day).
Our country faces some serious problems right now, lots of them. Given the circles where I interact and what I read, the problems I hear most about are:
- The weakening of the U.S. dollar and an imminent recession/depression.
- A failure in Iraq and poor reputation globally.
- A failing educational system.
- A heightened anxiety about immigration.
- Concerns about outsourcing and China.
- Healthcare crisis (I hear this more in the media than from conversations)
This list by no means purports to be all-encompassing, it’s just the issues I’ve heard a lot about and have stood out to me. Which candidate hasn’t talked about change? Obama, Hillary, Romney, et. al. say they’re going to bring change to Washington. They will be different that it’s been in the past.
Yet, the only one the media really points out as different, to the point of trying to marginalize him, is Ron Paul.
First, Aaron, to put the principle problem into perspective…
View a piece from the Comptroller of the United States, David Walker and Glen Beck on the bankrupt United States of America. This is for real, Aaron. That you and I owe, right now, $400k each for just Medicare and Social Security, is slightly disconcerting, isn’t it? How did this happen?
Ron Paul’s view, which I share, is that we created the problems abroad, in health-care, in education, and in many other facets of our government by departing from the famous contract that we, the people, have with our government. I’m going to share Paul’s take on each of these issues (with my thoughts) in a separate posts.
Here’s an 8 minute introduction to Ron Paul (ignore the bit about polygamy and Mitt Romney…these videos are created by his supporters, not his campaign). Take a few moments to watch it, including the credits.
The most common argument against Paul I hear is that he can’t win. That’s not true. Whether or not he takes the nomination, the principles he stands for are the only ones that can win. Natural consequences of going against correct principles will correct us whether or not we decide to change, the question is how painful will those consequences be? How long do we wait to change? I have hope, because of Ron Paul’s campaign, that there are a substantial group of Americans who understand the Constitution enough that they want to live by that document again. These people give me hope. I feel nothing but hope for America’s future and for our Constitution (this is link to a wonderful song about the constitution).
Dec
16
My wife has asked me what I want for Christmas. I responded with only two requests:
- A pair of jeans (mine have no left knee and even my corduroy pants are only held together by threads).
- A few of our very limited dollars to donate to Ron Paul tomorrow.
When I see the support for this principle-based man grow, I’m confident that these campaign supporters are people who represent true hope for America and for the future of the U.S. Constitution. Our voice still matters.
Nov
29
I realized years ago that computer monitors bothered my eyes; I hate to read books or anything on them. Anyone who knows me well also knows that I’ve talked to anyone I get a chance to talk to about creating a computer monitor that doesn’t emit light. Why not do it the way a book does it? The way God does it? Just let the material on the screen reflect light? You know…more like paper.
When Duane told me about eInk over a year and a half ago, I got really excited and started following the company to see when we’d get something to the mass market. I was really excited about the Iliad and the Sony Reader last year, but they didn’t really cut it. Mostly, the contrast wasn’t good enough yet on the screen and they were expensive and Sony’s was proprietary. More than anything I wanted standard formats, notes (or some kind of input) and simple web browsing (this would save my eyes a ton of strain while doing my research).
I waited with great anticipation for Amazon to do it right with the Kindle and got really disappointed when I first read all the announcements and reviews. Yet, I was disappointed too soon. After reading this insightful article from MacWorld, I realized that Amazon has nailed it. I get…
- Books in .AZW (Kindle-specific), .TXT (this gives me access to the Gutenberg Project library), .MOBI and .PRC - Everyone is complaining about no pdf but I read about the technical reasons for this and realized that Amazon isn’t avoiding pdf for any reason except that the format isn’t flexible and so the device can’t be smart in displaying it)
- Free wireless access to Wikipedia and a free dictionary.
- A web browser! You can just surf the Web in general. Kindle comes with a Web browser called Basic Web, which supports cookies, JavaScript and SSL.
- Note, clip and dog ear pages. Everything is backed up online wirelessly
- It was a real treat to discover that my audible account will work on the kindle as well and I can listen to audio books.
I’ve never encountered a device that better suites my life.
The Kindle is at the top of my wish list. I want one bad.
Nov
9
Nashville Tennessee
Filed Under Family Publishing | Leave a Comment
I’m giving a presentation today on Smart Publishing at the Association of Personal Historians conference in Nashville Tennessee. This post is simply for linking to the “PowerPoint” presentation (I really created it on Google Presentations through our Google Apps for your domain account). The Google presentation software is very limited but has great collaboration tools and served my needs for this presentation.
Oct
22
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Filed Under Education and Love for Learning, Favorite Books | Leave a Comment
Ever since reading this book I’ve experimented with different tools for implementing the system. The best I had found was Life Balance, but I didn’t like how it was stuck on my PDA and computer…I wanted a solution online. Leave it to John to solve my problem…his latest post gives you everything you need to start making the Getting Things Done system work for your life. Thanks John.
Oct
22
I’ve really grappled with my choice for President this time around (it seems like the election has entered my life a lot earlier than in previous election years). It has come down to either Mitt Romney or Ron Paul for me. I write this post to work through my thoughts, and hopefully others grappling the same issues will find these comments and help in choosing the next president.
Right now, my vote is for Ron Paul, and I’ll explain why. This post will be on reasons I’m for and against Romney.
Romney seems like he could really curb spending. He pulled it off at the Winter Olympics and as Governor, why couldn’t he do it again? I really, really like this about Romney. Running a company, I really would like to see a President who measures the need for government spending more like the need for spending when running a business. Our country needs to cut waste.
I don’t think that Romney is dishonest or inconsistent on the issue of abortion. It’s difficult to understand that with a cursory look at his change on abortion. As a Mormon, his seeming contradiction on abortion makes complete sense to me. I’ve studied his words before and after and completely understand where he’s coming from. He personally believes that abortion is wrong except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. He doesn’t want to rule out abortion for everyone because he wants women in the above situations to have the choice. His decision to move the pro-life route was as a result of seeing how far the pro-choice legislation had gone. This just makes sense. Sounds like someone who doesn’t want to impose his belief system on others but wants to protect the babies’ lives as well.
The flop on same sex issues bothers me a little more, but not to the point of deciding against him.
Although I really like Mitt Romney and what he did for the state of Utah, I’ve recently watch a few videos produced by him that really turn me off. First, a high-school like play on partisan politics and second a video that makes it sound like Romney is wanting to chase down the Jihadists. I want to talk about that one a little more.
I don’t think we will win chasing the terrorists. As I said before, I’m a Mormon, and in our faith, there is often comparison between terrorism of our day and Gadianton Robbers of ancient America. I’ve studied the Book of Mormon and the parallels to our time are overwhelming. The problem I have with chasing the Jihadists in their hiding places, is that when you chase them, they are going to come back stronger and they are right here with us in our government.
There are so many indications that similar things are occurring in our time with 9/11 and going after the Jihadists. From the historical perspective that this book of scripture gives me, there are two ways to win this war, preach to them or fight the battle, together, on our own turf. Different times, I know, but I think there is something we can learn from the lessons of how people dealt with the Gaddianton Robbers a few thousand years ago.
Dinner call. I’ve got to go get something to eat with my family, but I’ll post on the great things I’ve seen in Ron Paul soon. Most of my feelings come down to one point, I believe in Freedom over security and Ron Paul shares that value like no other politician I’ve seen in recent years.
Sep
20
Create Space from Amazon Wants LuLu’s Business
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc. | Leave a Comment
Well, I always knew they would and they’ve finally done it. Amazon has really stepped up to duplicate our friends at Lulu - it’s called Create Space and they’re going head to head. I created an account and it felt like I was on LuLu.com with different colors. DVDs, CDs, books and near identical offerings as LuLu.
Unlike LuLu, they’re even offering the ISBN numbers and submission services for free.
SelfPublishing.com has a good article analyzing the move. The article is focused on Author House buying iUniverse, but that news isn’t nearly as interesting as his discussion on Amazon’s move. Author House is just the link between the old world and the new, and, as far as I can see, their subsidy publishing business model has a limited shelf-life and reach. The do-it-yourself model will overshadow subsidy publishing as tools become better and the authors more technically savvy. I’m interested in seeing how Lulu approaches this new challenge coming from Amazon.
The weakness I see in the Create Space site is the lack of community tools for content creators to help each other. This is one of LuLu’s strengths. I suspect that Amazon considers the showcase a traffic driver to the website and that the rest of the community will be built around their books in their Amazon.com store. Still, there is a need for the community to help in the creation process when it’s expected to be do-it-yourself. That or the company needs to charge for doing the service like Author House does.
Amazon, generally, does well with their products…it’ll be fun to see how this self publishing space plays out.
keep looking »