Not so independent anymore....

I'm Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920 - KXLY.....

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. It is the day when we Americans celebrate our independence from England as declared by our forefathers in 1776. As we take a day off, and as we enjoy a barbeque and some fireworks, consider that we are not as independent as once we were. The United States is anything but the self-sufficient nation our founders envisioned when they risked their lives and property to take the bold step of breaking away from the mother country.

Americans rely heavily on many foreign commodities. Chief among them is petroleum. Seventy percent of our petroleum comes from foreign providers. Many of these countries do business with us, but share none of our values. Should we find ourselves in substantial conflict with many of these, they could cut us off. That could be a disaster. On this Independence Day we must vow to change this potentially dangerous vulnerablility. We must set a course for energy independence, and head for that destination at flank speed.

Americans no longer manufacture most of the products we purchase and consume. These too come from foreign providers. "Made in America" once truly meant that products were manufactured by American labor in an American factory. Today the term applies to any product that is 51% made in this country. Sadly, very few products are. We must set a course to return to dominance among the world's makers of consumer goods. We must refrain from further allowing our technology to be used against us.

If we were to accomplish just these two goals, our independence would be far more meaningful than it is today. The world admires our way of life, but we must not sacrifice it in order to earn the approval of our enemies. I advocate no isolationism, but at the same time, I advocate the notion that what we have achieved is worthy of protection.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY....I'm Mike Fitzsimmonns

Posted by Mike Fitzsimmons at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920 - KXLY....

I'm as enthusiastic about technology as anyone. I know we are working on concepts that one day will revolutionize how we communicate, and I favor the research. Automatic speech recognition or computer speech recognition converts spoken words to machine-readable input, and it is already in use by many companies, even though it really isn't ready for prime time. I had a little bout with a mechanical voice recently. In order to avoid paying a real live thinking human being, this company had chosen a mindless machine to placate its customers who call for service. After pressing one for English, I discovered that the friendly mechanical voice that intercepted my call, was no substitute for authentic customer service.

I got a bill I didn't owe. The automatic customer service agent wasn't programmed to help me, but was rather programmed to screen a few callers whose words it was able to decipher. As I was telling it that it was a mechanical device without the ability to think, it must have heard one of those words, because as I wanted the billing department, the nice mechanical guy voice routed me to sales.

One would think that if you get routed, that means you get to talk to a real human, but alas, eleven minutes passed before I spoke to a live person, and during that time I was told, by mechanical voices of course, thirteen times, how important my call was to the company, three times how very important may call was, and four times how the company knew that my time was valuable. Then, when I was finally connected to a genuine human, (I was relieved to discover that the woman wasn't in New Delhi), I was told that I had the wrong department, and further, that the company's computers were down. I was asked if I could call back at a later time.

The company I called is one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, and with that little piece of information, I rest my case.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

Posted by Mike Fitzsimmons at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920 - KXLY....

Pixar's latest film, WALL-E opened across the country last week with predictable enthusiasm from moviegoers. The theater was full of young families when I saw the movie with my wife on Sunday. For a kids' movie, WALL-E is about as complete an example of green propaganda as I have ever seen. In the movie a malevolent corporation called Buy & Large had taken control of humankind about seven centuries ago after destroying the Earth with pollution and garbage. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class) was left behind when B&L launched every human into space aboard a giant galactic cruise ship. Wall-E is programmed to construct skyscrapers out of the garbage heaps that have made the planet uninhabitable. His only companion is a cockroach.

Even working robots like Wall-E get a break now and then. A female robot named Eve lands on the planet to search for vegetation. WALL-E falls in love. After uncovering a genuine green plant growing in all the filth, WALL-E gets taken to the spaceship where the Earth humans wait for the cleanup of their old planet Earth's cleanup. Now seven centuries later, these pampered people are all obese from living in a fully automated environment where they eat fast food provided of course, by Buy & Large.

The messages are unmistakable....corporations are bad, even when they try to look good....man is destroying the planet....technology makes us lazy...and that which is green is to be worshiped. Little kids think they're just seeing a clever animated story about goodness and loyalty. It occurred to me that if Hitler had access to Pixar's creativity, the Third Reich might well be enjoying its 60th year.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

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I’m Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920, KXLY….

It is estimated that Washington State has about a million gun owners. The landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court last week will not likely have a negative effect on any of our state laws. Attorney General Rob McKenna says a review of existing laws found nothing that appears to be in conflict with the Supreme Court's ruling.

What could see an impact is a pending ban on handguns in buildings, parks and community centers in the City of Seattle. Just last month, Mayor Greg Nickels signed an executive order authorizing the ban to become effective in July. Second Amendment protest groups say the Supreme Court ruling nullifies such a ban, and Seattle’s must be withdrawn. Nickels won’t do that. He interprets the High Court ruling as saying a jurisdiction cannot totally ban handguns, but the justices recognized there is a need for common-sense gun laws. Nickels says that means Seattle has the ability to enact reasonable restrictions on guns in public property, and his executive order is reasonable. While Nickels intends to stick to his guns, (pun intended), firearms advocates are ready to take him on. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling offered no legal test formula to determine what is reasonable.

Indeed the majority opinion left open and unanswered, a number of specific applications that doubtless will now have to be litigated one at a time as the practicalities and legalities are explored. This process could of course, take many years, and many lawsuits. Litigation over unclear aspects of Constitutional law is the method by which our Constitution is ultimately interpreted. Though it was passed in 1791, the long and tedious exploration of the Second Amendment has only just begun.

With commentary on 920-KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons

Posted by Mike Fitzsimmons at 07:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920 - KXLY….

Do you suppose it was because Cedar Rapids, Iowa is in the Midwest? Perhaps it’s because it is a more rural setting, but last week as over a hundred square blocks of that community were submerged by flooding, did you notice something very different about this water disaster as compared to the one that devastated the city of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina?

There were no news reports of looting or violence. Cedar Rapids residents didn’t ignore evacuation orders, and they obviously weren’t willing to wait on their rooftops for government to do something. They used every available option to help each other. Mayor Kay Halloran didn’t gripe about a lack of effective state or federal response like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Nobody blamed President Bush, and there was no talk of a government conspiracy to blow up the levees.

There were no reports of the police going around confiscating personal firearms, and no reports of people shooting at the rescue workers, and all the area school busses were driven to higher ground. Nobody in Congress tried to blame bad behavior of flood victims on American society, because, there was no bad behavior by flood victims. The federal government has no plans to move house trailers into the area. Folks will fend for themselves, and there are no plans to pass out $2000 gift cards to victims.

The comparison between the two water disasters suggests that there is a right and a wrong way to behave when nature strikes a blow to your way of life. There seems to be no need for excuses in Iowa.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons.

Posted by Mike Fitzsimmons at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)