Yeah.....

The other day, I posted a Facebook update that said:

"To both sides of the aisle - If China wants to start trying to push us around, don't you think it's about to time to shut up and start working to better this country - NO MATTER what it does to your personal standing? This isn't about you, it's about The United States of America, or did you forget that right after you were sworn in?"

If I could have added more to that, I would have said, "If we keep up this pace, the Chinese will have clean energy technology before we do."

Today, this tweet from the West Wing Report (WWR):
"WWR: The U.S. worry: China is racing ahead with development of clean energy technology - at a pace & scale that dwarfs American efforts"

As usual, the Deacon is right on target.

Writer's Block

Cohesion? Most likely, none at all. This will be far more of a rant than most other posts, as I use it to try and cure some writer's block.

Think I might have mentioned before that my favorite statement about social media comes from Chris Brogan - who said that calling yourself a social media expert is like saying you know how to email. Just look around and see how many people describe themselves as a social media expert. I just saw someone who described herself as a social media and PR rookie - Jesus, why would anyone hire you? Or, another favorite is the person I saw that bragged about being able to put together successful Meetups. Amusing because, well, because Meetup exists the way it is today because of myself and a few others who were so good at what we were doing, we pushed it past the breaking point. For those thinking, "Meetup? Don't you mean Tweetup?" no, trying to put together a "tweetup" is a shot in the dark - for the effort you would have to put into making it successful, you might as well just pick up a phone and call people.

Thinking at a point in time that I should really start paying more attention to my diabetes, I started reading a few diabetic blogs. All these people talking about their pumps and how perfect they worked, first, made me think I was doing something horribly wrong, then, just annoyed the hell out of me. So, I stopped for a few months, then went back to check them out last week. Surprisingly for them, not so much for me, things weren't running as smoothly as they would have liked, consistently high sugars, no way to safely take care of that, i.e., a shot, problems with the pump site, having to leave work early because of not feeling well. Yeah, all that sounds like more than enough of a reason to spend thou$and$ on a pump. Anyone who reads a story about a diabetic, and thinks that it can be applied to all diabetics, hasn't a damn clue.

Eh, I guess there was cohesion, if I had felt like breaking that up into 2 different posts, but, oh well.

The Uselessness of Twitter

I could sit here and write a little blurb on how useless Twitter is, but my point would be better made by the fact that 90% of you would think, "Oh, yeah. I signed up for that once. Oh well."

The problem is that you signed up for it to stay in touch with your friends, i.e, a basic way to send out a mass text message saying "Meet me here for coffee!" That's all well and good, until it became social marketing instead of social networking. Now, your entire stream can be a single person posting 20 tweets in a row - would you really stand in front of that person listening to all that if you were having a face-to-face conversation?

The best part of it, though, is that when the geeks who created this project started, they never expected it, so they were as well prepared for it as FEMA in NOLA. First, they didn't have enough server space to handle the amount of traffic, now, they completely lack the man power to not just stop spammers, but also to properly update your account to block them.

Yet, there are those who consider it a glorious use of technology. Give me an example of an instance where a company is given that much importance, does a piss poor job, and still receives praise. Bah, Bah, Bah. Moo, Moo, Moo.

Clunkers

I'm a bit sick of hearing people complain about the Cash for Clunkers program. "The government couldn't even run it right!" Really, because I'm pretty sure you all are saying that because it was so successful, it surprised everyone? "What good was it? It didn't help American car companies!" No, the billions of dollars we gave them months ago did that, this was helping auto dealers, and, is it our fault that American car companies took so long to produce more fuel efficient cars?

You do know that is what the program set out to accomplish, don't you? If you had a "clunker" that got 20 mpg, well, that was not a clunker. When fuel efficiency standards go up, people have to catch up - this pushed them along. The program did this, and did something the car companies couldn't do at the time, helped auto dealers.

Of course, you're going to have people who complain about how much this cost. Well, what if it was a tax rebate instead? "That would have been the way to go!" How does that change what it cost the government? If you think you would have been better off with a $4500 tax rebate, then put it away and pay your taxes with it.

Also, take a second to look at the World, not just you neighborhood, and then think about arguing about the merits of this program. America, with it's selfish political parties and the damage they do through media outlets, seems more and more like the little baby of a 233 yr old country it is, doesn't it?