LIBERTY: GUBAMINT SKOOLZ might be the bigest problem.

Thursday, July 6, 2006

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger93.html

***Begin Quote***

Consider another example of conservatives’ intentional violation of the principles they expound: public schooling. It would be difficult to find a better example of socialistic central planning – that is, anti-free-market activity – than public schooling. After all, when we use that term – “public” – we’re referring not to the “general public” but instead to the government. Public schooling is a government operation. Even worse, it’s a quasi-monopoly, a type of institution that economists have long recognized is anti-free enterprise.

Under public schooling, the government, either at the national, state, or local level, plans in a top-down, command-and-control manner, the educational decisions of multitudes of students. Attendance is mandatory, with criminal contempt charges hanging over the heads of recalcitrant parents. Students are taught government-approved doctrines by government-approved schoolteachers using government-approved textbooks following a government-approved curriculum.
***End Quote***

Why do we pay for gubamint skoolz, with all the attendant problems, when we don’t pay for kid’s sneakers, fod, medical care, etc. etc.

The State “delegates” to the parents all the mundane stuff and then brainwashes them into the State Religion (i.e., the government is “god”. Only the State can save you!)?

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Greedy local government takes from the handicapped!

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

OK sheep,

Here is today’s lesson in how greedy government is.

Bear in mind that for the most part “parking meters” are not a tax. If you can avoid it, then it’s a “fee” not a “tax”.

For the normally healthy adult visiting Seaside Heights, there is plenty of free parking a few blocks from the boardwalk.

And up until July 1st, there was some free handicapped parking close to the boardwalk. But the local politicians seeing a source of revenue has now made them metered spaces. You still have to have the handicapped placard but you know have to pay.

Since it is not “reasonable” to expect a handicapped person to park down in the free area and hike the four blocks to and from the boardwalk, this is now in my mind a tax on the handicapped.

Intelligent designer forbid that the local pigs not get ever cent possible to waste.

As soon as the NJ governemnt shutdown ends (another farce), I will inquire of the various levels of kings and petty lords, how this is possible?

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: “ZIGGS” is about being “find-able”

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

http://www.ziggs.com/reg/member/Bio.aspx?uid=17380

Here’s another site, sort of like LinkedIn, that can help you be find-able?

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: Seekers need a monthly “staff” meeting

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

You DO have a formal agenda prepared. Don’t you?

Here’s mine:

CEO overview of the past month, plan versus actual for the quarter in key metrics (i.e., financial, aged contacts, and new trends), and plan for the next month.

CFO will reveiw money, capital, burn rate, and trends.

CIO will review tech projects versus plan, backlogs, and resources.

CMO will review the marketing effort. Dashboard items are: job ads reviewed, submitted on, conversations held.

By then, I have usually expended my hour allocated with these fine people.

(For those of you who are not in on my psychosis, these are my imaginary friends.)

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: A “granfalloon” is a group who feel a bond because they share something of no real significance.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

http://tinyurl.com/fmwmm

People Who Drive Silver or Blue Cars Should NOT Read This
by Brian W. Vaszily for http://www.SixWise.com

***Begin Quote***

A “granfalloon” — a term coined by author Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat’s Cradle — is a group of two or more people who feel a bond because they share some circumstance that, beneath it all, has little to no real significance. Vonnegut’s shorter definition is “a proud and meaningless association of human beings.”

So, for example, they may feel kinship simply because their first and last names start with the same letters, or they were born in the same state, or they use the same brand of cell phone service … or they drive the same color cars and trucks.

Like the rest of us, you have probably been in many granfalloons – whether long-term or momentarily, you have felt a bond with others just because they shared something with you that, upon even a bit of reflection, you’d realize is actually quite insignificant and doesn’t make for a real connection.

Perhaps one of the most immediately recognizable examples (unless you believe strongly in astrology) is the excited bond you feel with someone when you learn they share your birthday. Wow, cool! But … so what.

Point is, because humans are social beings, it is natural to bond, even if the points that connect you are arbitrary or flat-out worthless and the bond is only fleeting.

As with all the most effective marketing tricks, granfalloon tactics prey on this fundamental human need. They manipulate you into feeling part of a group — centered of course around their product, service, political party, or idea — in order to obtain your allegiance and your money.

***End Quote***

I first read this in the Wall Street Journal’s National Business Employment Weekly.

Since I was out at the time with nothing to lose, I created several granfaloon groups. Same last name, same first name, same middle name, same brith state, same birth year, I forget the others, but I remember I figured out 10.

As an injineer, I need measurements to make me feel like I wasn’t just guessing. So, I also created five control groups of ten people who had nothing I could use as a ganfaloon “hook”. I set the minimum group size as 10; the largest same middle name had about 30.

I USMAILed ALL the people a virtually identical requested for help with my networking profile. The granfaloons had about a 25% response rate; the control had less than 5%.

If you can create a connection, even it is as shallow as “middle name”, you’ll get a chance to let people help you.

p.s., I never had anyone say “you have to be kidding”. Let’s have a contest here about who can come up with the most outrageous fraternal group. You have my entries above!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: “ZIGGS” let’s you post an interview, but the question may give to good an insight into a seeker

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

BUT THE QUESTIONS ARE INTERESTING!

What is your favorite quote and what does it mean to you?

Can you name a couple of organizations that you belong to?

What is your favorite book and why?

Can you name one person who has single handedly influenced you most?

Can you name one event that has single handedly influenced you most?

If there was one person, alive or dead, that you could spend a day with, who would it be? Why?

Can you name the greatest risk you’ve taken that resulted in failure?

What was your most difficult decision in the last year and what made it so difficult?

If you had the opportunity to start your own company what would it be?

What is your favorite color and what do you think it reflects in your personality?

What is your favorite hobby or past time?

Do you have a ‘good luck’ charm? What is it and why is it so special to you?

If you could see into the future or travel backward in time, which would you choose? Why?

In high school, what was your favorite subject and why?

Who or what do you aspire to and why?

Can you name one accomplishment in your life most people might not know about?

Who would you name as the most influential person of mankind up-to-date?

If you could be anything else, what would you be and why?

What was your very first job experience and how did it affect you?

Do you think that you are successful?

Can you name one long-term goal of yours?

If you could give the world one piece of advice, what would it be?

Can you name two aspects of your career that you are most passionate about?

If you could see yourself ten years in the future, what would you be doing?

Can you describe your most significant on the job success in the last five years?

When did you first realize what you wanted to do for a career?

Do you love what you do? Why?

Despite your success, what do you still find difficult in your career?

If you could go back in time, would you do anything differently?

What was the most important decision you have ever made in regards to your career?

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Posted by reinkefj

TURKEY: Advice to a sales seeker

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Realism is essential in the seeking process.

In my mind, peddling is peddling. You need to “feature” the sales closed. I would think that the “bigness” of the deal is less important as the “length of the tail”. If you can take a “small” deal and demo how “long” it can pay off, I would think that play in Wall Street technology selling. Value that long tail higher than quick hits.

Most of the sales resumes I see emphasize size and quantity of sales aot the value of the tail. When some have followed my advice on the “tail” strategy, they have seen better “pickup”.

I’d think that “sales” is hard to sell.

On the other hand, the sales process is probably just second nature to you salesy types.

Interesting to me that most of the “sales types” that I’ve advised have a hard time applying to themselves as a “product”, “sales person”, and “sales manager”.

Maybe that’s why they wind up talking to me. (“Are you talking to me?” You must really need amateur help!)

The other thing that I always suggest is what I call “bottom fishing”. In the technology sector, I urge seekers not to prematurely just opptys as “too big” (i.e., bigger scope than they feel they can do), “too small” (i.e., smaller scope than they are looking for), “too high” (i.e., level is more than two steps higher than where they currently are), or “too low” (i.e., two levels below where they are today). Learn where you can supply value. Don’t assume!
Even the full-time part-time distinction can cloud the eyes. I know a few tech consultants who have five or ten part-time gigs that build to a lucrative “full time position”.

But I guess you guys don’t need me teaching “keeping eye open and mind alert to signals”.

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm!

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html?sub=AR

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm
By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page A01

***Begin Quote***

EL CAMPO, Tex. — Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual “direct payments,” because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

***End Quote***

Yup, have to steal more money from honest taxpayers to pay welfare to “farmers” wink wink!

Here’s a novel suggestion. Abolish the Department of Agriculture. End all welfare by the Gubamint! Individual, Corporate , State, and Foreign Welfare.

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: The State doesn’t STEAL enough to satisfy the wants of all the ROBBERS!

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

http://www.njpp.org/com_salestax.html

Statement on Release of Sales Tax Report
June 21, 2006
By Jon Shure

>That (sales) tax has done a lot of good, especially for the higher education system in the early years

Just saying it doesn’t make it so. You don’t know if we have a entirely private system of education what would have happened.

>Governor Hughes wanted the tax after he failed to get the Legislature to support an income tax.

Now we have both!

>We don’t take in enough money to meet our needs

You mean that the State doesn’t STEAL enough to satisfy the wants of all the ROBBERS!

>left to those whose response would be to indiscriminately slash spending, regardless of need.

Whose determines needs! The marketplace is how to peaceful adjudicate the many needs of diverse people. The gubamint uses guns to pick winners and losers.

>This tax could be doing more for us.

Who’s “us”? Stealing more from the people who earn it and reward the people who don’t. Based on what moral principle do you justify this theft?

>cable TV

Telephone and cable are taxed to death.

>And the sales tax is riddled with inconsistency. … They unfairly shift the sales tax burden more to lower income people.
The tax is inefficient and ineffective. It is a theft. A mugging. It forces the marketplace to move underground. It burdens the entire economy with a drag on all production. It raises costs. Basat’s Law: Look for the hidden effects. If someone has to pay tax on detergent, then they can NOT satisfy other needs.

>The sales tax is often, and properly, derided for taking a larger share of a poor person’s income than a rich person’s.

Why is a rich person’s money less important than a poor person’s?

>we should consider a system of credits so low income people can get back the few hundred dollars a year

Oh, create more welfare entitlements. Great idea. Imprison more people in the virtual chains of welfare.

>This report lays out a range of options that could bring in as much as $6 billion a year in new revenue.

It’s not “revenue”; it’s booty. Ill-gotten gains. The proceeds of a crime.

>We can’t afford for the full revenue potential of the sales tax to go unrealized.

Sure we can. Reduce the sales tax to zero. Reduce the income tax to zero.

If the State provides “essential  services”, then the marketplace will supply them. People will have choices.

>But all the easy stuff has already been tried. That’s why we’re in this mess.

No, we haven’t tried freedom. This is the same Socialism that brought down the Soviet Union. It will bring us down just as surely.

> If New Jersey is to be a first-class state, it needs a modern, productive, fair tax system.

No, it needs freedom and liberty. End the sales tax. End the income tax. Free people to be all they can be!

>

It’s sad to see Socialism being advocated as “freedom” and “first class status”.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Reorgs and the deck chairs on the Titanic

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

24.01
STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER
by David Maister

Noted professional service firm advisor, David Maister, offers advice on how to fight strategic flab and make change happen within your organization.

THE LINK: http://changethis.com/24.StrategyFatSmoker
THE PDF: http://changethis.com/pdf/24.01.StrategyFatSmoker

***Begin Quote***

It’s about Leadership. Get with it. Or, get out of the way.

***End Quote***

Ahh, get the right people on and off the bus. When you have the same people “reorganized”, you are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic with the same impact.

It’s also as good as paying a lot of money for consulting studies that tell you what you want to hear.

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Posted by reinkefj

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