Finally finished up that contract. It's in review now. After all these years of having released websites that are being viewed by millions of users there's still that little knot in the stomach when you give something the greenlight. It's a tiny knot now, but it's still there.
There's a little nagging voice that says "Did you remember everything? What if you forgot something so simple that it breaks the first time someone uses it?"
Of course that never happens cuz I kick so much ass, but it's always in the back of my head.
Onto something that saddens me, the death of Ronald Reagan. For anyone who didn't grow up in the 80's it's probably hard to understand the impact this one man had on our lives. No matter what was going on in the world, as a child of the 80's you'd look up at Reagan and say "Well at least if anyone fucks with us we have a bad ass who wouldn't hesitate to beat the shit out of them."
It's in the American psyche to like being able to kick someones ass. Just take a look at our military and nuclear stockpiles to see that. It crosses over of course into an extreme arrogance when viewed by other countries, but I'm sure they're happier to have an arrogant country like ours rather than Nazi's or the former Soviet Union being the last big man on stage.
But Reagan means more to me than just his swagger. I'm a fiscal conservative and he is the epitome of my views on the subject. Reagan IMHO would probably berate these CEO's sending so many jobs overseas, because he loved America and its people so much he would have done something.
Now don't get me wrong, I like the current George Bush, however he waits too long on a lot of things. That situation in Fallujah made us look like some real pussies. His lack of movement on all the offshoring is abyssmal. Maybe with the death of Ronnie, Bush will re-evaluate his positions on some things and realize that he needs to act on issues in order to be looked upon as a real crusader for the American people.
Ronald Reagan took a stance on things. When those wimpy air traffic controllers who were well paid individuals went on strike to try and blackmail for more pay or affect millions of peoples jobs and income relying on the air industry, Reagan stepped in and said "look do your fucking job or you're fired." (not his exact words, but close enough). Selfishness like that needs to be met headon with anger. It goes back to that American arrogance thing. Sometimes having that arrogance starts to make you think you're entitled to more than you're getting, even if it forces millions of others to suffer in order to get it. And sometimes people need to be slapped back into reality This means you CEO's.
It's amazing how few great presidents there are who actually had an impact. Since Kennedy, Reagan is the next great one.
Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter don't fit.
Bush Sr. compromised too much on issues and even with winning Gulf War I he didn't stand up for enough he believed in or get anything else done to warrant greatness.
Clinton sat on his hands for basically 8 years and let things take care of themselves. You can't include the net boom and growth as his creation, he was just along for the ride and shouldn't get credit for that. Clinton should get credit for doing nothing though, by staying out of the way he didn't kill the growth. He should be slammed for his lack of attention to the growth of terrorism on his watch.
Which leads us to the current Bush. The jury is still out on where he stands in history. My guess is he is going to go the way of his dad. While he may win a second term, if he continues on his current course he'll go down as only accomplishing Afghanistan, Gulf War II and his amazing stance and leadership directly after September 11, 2001. Nothing else will stand out.
He hasn't done a thing about outsourcing, something that's near and dear to my heart. The curse of outsourcing is that it drags down US pay and only will continue to do so. We cannot support a workforce of 1 billion worldwide at 1/10th of our payrate without a direct effect on current pay rates in the US. If you have a job and are sitting back saying "bah, it's just unemployed people and those dot comers whining about this." then you are shortsighted.
When the going rate is 3 bucks an hour for the same job you are doing now it will continue to be in the back of an executives mind to get rid of you or give you the ultimatum of lower pay every year rather than the current expectation of a pay raise.
The least Bush could do is somehow limit things, so that it won't be a serious problem, but I doubt he will. So where will he stand in the history of presidents after he's out of office?
Only time will tell.
