Hillary Clinton PRE-acts to Bush

Senator Clinton reacting be Bush's state of the union speech before he actually delivers it:

"From homeland security to Social Security, from health care to a healthy economy, the message can be summed up in three words - on your own,"

There's lots of ways a political blow-hard can react to the President's speech:
There's a sincere reaction,
There's a calculated reaction,
And there's a knee jerk reaction.

But now Senator Clinton has invented a new form of reacting -a pre knee jerk reaction. That's right, Senator Clinton has reacted to a speech that hasn't even happened. This reminds me of the time Bill Clinton tried to react to the Republican Convention in '04 when he said the Republican party was going to put on a compassionate face and then shed it once the elections were over. President Clinton was wrong. Talks of compassion were non-existent. Instead the GOP Convention was dominated with talks of terrorism and national security.

Will Hillary make the same mistake? It doesn't matter. Even if the public disagrees with her, she'd never admit it.

I Have A Dream Nightmare

Sad to say, but I had never heard the entire "I Have A Dream" speech until this year on MLK Day -42 years after the speech was delivered. It's probably the greatest speech I've ever heard. Why hasn't Washington erected an enormous memorial to the man?

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. MLK spoke a message that was rooted in love and admiration for the principles on which the United States was founded. This says it all:

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

...

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Martin Luther King had so much faith in his country that he believed that by appealing to the core principles on which the United States was founded he would help to create the "greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation."

Now Hillary Clinton comes out this week trivialize slavery by saying the congress runs like a plantation. Why? Because as far as I'm concerned, she doesn't love her country and she has to resort to race baiting to get the country back on a path that she feels is appropriate.

Then you've got Ray Nagin saying New Orleans needs to be a black city. Obviously he missed this:

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

...

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

To me, it's clear Senator Clinton and Nagin don't love their country.

Steve Ballmer contradicts himself

Steve Ballmer throws out a blatant contradiction

Steve Ballmer reminds me of my self when I used to have computer debates back in high school.

NO! Microsoft will always rule the world!
NO! Linux will destroy them
Netscape rules.

My friends and I would make computer predictions. One common thread in all the debates is that we’d all act like we knew everything. The tone in our voices said it all.

Then I went to college and grew up. Steve Ballmer didn’t. It’s pretty easy to pick up on his arrogant tone when he talks. Here’s the link.

Then Steve throws out a blatant contradiction. The old do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. Grr.

STEVE SHEPARD: What was the best, wisest advice Bill Gates ever gave you professionally and personally? He got you to work there.

STEVE BALLMER: The best advice. I say probably the best advice he ever gave me was to drop out of school. (Laughter.) And that was a huge deal. I mean, my dad didn't go to college, as you mentioned, and the notion that I was going to drop out of business school was just loony to him, I mean, beyond insane. And if it hadn't been kind of for Bill's persistence and encouragement and advice, I'd probably be selling auto insurance right now.

STEVE SHEPARD: What we all tell our kids, you know, you look around and you see Bill Gates dropped out of college, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, all these people didn't go to college, who didn't finish college, "Hey, dad, I don't have to go to college either," what do you say to your kids?

STEVE BALLMER: I think if your kid comes to you with an idea that's compelling, as Michael Dell, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, give 'em some money and tell 'em to drop out. (Laughter.) And in the 99.9999999 percent case tell them to get back to work, which is what I'd tell my kids..

Then not more than 2 minutes later....

STEVE SHEPARD: Why aren't there more women at the top levels of Microsoft?

STEVE BALLMER: I just finished a set of reviews of all of our businesses, the people, where all we did was talk for basically a day with each of our business leaders about people issues, who, what, where, when. We talked about diversity, we talked about how we broaden diversity, we talked about our talent pool. And in a sense I'm proud because we've made progress over the last few years in terms of the number of women vice president, executives at Microsoft. This was a year of again progress. I think we're up to 14 vice presidents in our ranks out of about 100, up from 10 roughly 18 months ago, so progress.

You could say, OK, that's still a small number and I think that's right. I think one of the key issues is if you look at our employee population, our employee population is about 65 percent people with technical background, and if you look at the graduation rates for women in technical fields, particularly in computer science, we are not disproportionately below or above the number of women who get into technical fields, and I think we more reflect the fact that we're looking for technical people.

What can we do, what can society do to encourage more women to get in the technical field? That's a very good and important question where a lot of ideas are being experimented with. I don't think there's any one breakthrough though yet we can point to.