The China Syndrome

Posted on July 23, 2012 by bvanrysdam

The Olympics haven’t even started and already we’re being treated to trash talking and finger pointing. This has nothing to do with the games themselves, but the fact the official U.S. Olympic teams outfits were made in China (insert gasp here).

You don’t hear a lot of agreement in Washington these days, but it appears everyone can agree outsourcing the making of the outfits to China was a bad idea. Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that Ralph Lauren (who is the evil mastermind behind this sinister plot) should “know better”. Senate Harry Reid from Nevada said “the uniforms should be put in a pile and burned” immediately conjuring heartwarming images of book burnings in Nazi Germany and burning Beatles records in the bible belt.

Interesting how politics can make force one to speak out of both sides one’s mouth. Moving jobs to China is simply part of free enterprise and part of living in a global economy, but having an American company like Ralph Lauren manufacture uniforms to be worn by our Olympic athlete is simply un-American! What’s a citizen to do? Next thing you know, they’ll want to take away our iPhones!

Now before we go and burn Mr. Lauren in effigy (although one does wonder what he would wear to it), it’s important to remember that only 5% of clothing sold in the United States was actually made by Americans (that figure was 95% back in 1960). Hindsight being 20/20, Ralph Lauren could have created a wonderful “Made In America” campaign and had us all waving the flag, but than again, nobody seemed to care that the U.S. Uniforms for the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Utah were made in Canada.

Putting all that aide, I’m more irked that they will be wearing berets with strip of red, white and blue that looks more like the French flag (is that is supposed to invoke a feeling of Americana?).

And what’s up with the huge Ralph Lauren logo on the front the blazer? Those makes soccer uniforms seem classy. If we want to go down that road, why take a cue from NSCAR and sell multiple sponsorship logos? Maybe we can use that money to bring down the nation debt.

Electric Owl

Posted on July 21, 2012 by bvanrysdam

Here’s a photo I recently took of a barn owl. I added some filters in Photoshop to the image and came up with this. I call it Electric Owl.

You can double click the image to see a larger version.

Voting to Vote

Posted on July 10, 2012 by bvanrysdam

It seems like there’s one political skirmish after another these days. The latest one centers on whether voters should be required to present a photo ID.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot claims that voter fraud is rampant. He recently wrote an Op/Ed piece for USA Today and said.…

“In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions. Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people, and a city council member who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes. Voter fraud is hard to detect, so cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.”

I, for one, would be curious to know exactly how long a period of time those convictions took place. Was it one year, five years? And, how many voter fraud cases went to trial that resulted in no convictions? I get voter fraud is hard to detect, but really wonder just how prevalent it is. 90% of an iceberg is submerged, so does that mean there were actually 500 cases in “recent years”?

The other side of the fence will insist this is just a ploy by those terrible Republicans to make it harder for minorities to vote for their favorite Democrat. They will tell you many minorities are afraid to have a photo ID because they don’t trust the government which ironically aligns them alongside the Tea Party (and you thought there was no common ground).

How many people who previously voted without an ID, would not vote if they had to present one? Yes, you can say one less legitimate vote is one too many, but you can make the same argument that one case of voter fraud is one too many. So what is a democracy to do?

There has to be a way to determine how many Texans don’t carry a Photo ID, and how many of them actually bother to vote. Anybody want to place on bet on which number would be higher? The number of voter fraud cases, or the number of people who vote without a picture ID.

And, putting everything to the side for just a moment, I have a hard time understanding how anyone can function in today’s world without a Photo ID. How do you cash a check? Do you live in cash only world? You certainly can’t have a back account. How does one get around? Walk, take the bus? You don’t have to have a Photo ID. to be a citizen of these United States of America, but I gotta believe it would make it much easier on you.

Let’s face it, voter turnout is a joke. We should be encouraging people to go the polls, and not run away from them, but I still don’t have a problem requiring someone to show a little proof of who they are before they vote. I just wish both sides of the debate would actually use some facts when making their case, and not spew out a bunch of speculation and presumptions. I would leave that to the experts like economists and sports bookies.