Triptych

Panel One: On impeaching president bush, the murderous moron

Congresswoman (D) Elizabeth Holtzman, with a career that includes Watergate, remarks in her article in this month's The Nation on the growing public debate--or call--for impeaching the convict in the Oval Office. Referring to bushie's lying the country into war in Iraq and the warrantless, illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens, Holtzman writes:

"As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office. A high crime or misdemeanor is an archaic term that means a serious abuse of power, whether or not it is also a crime, that endangers our constitutional system of government."

She goes on to explain her reasoning for fully investigating impeachment, in reasoned, sober, even humble tones, but neither her tone or political position can hide the fact that impeaching the murderous moron is the only reasonable and responsible course of action.

For further proof, head over to Truthout.org and read about bushie authorizing wiretapping prior to 9/11. Political mudslinging? No, internal documentation, from the National Security Agency (NSA), the perpetrator of the illegal action.


Panel Two: Schools suck

In the pages of Reason Magazine (very very under-rated publication), John Stossel, of ABC Network News fame, slams the public school system of the U.S.

Stossel focuses on over-unionization in the public school system in this article, though he sideswipes the very notion of a government monopoly on education, advocating instead for a private, competition-based system, i.e., schools as a business niche.

Nothing you haven't heard The Jenius say before. Here it is in Stossel's own words:

"The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from countries that spend much less money on education.

This should come as no surprise once you remember that public education in the USA is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse."

The solutions lie in taking education into private hands--beginning with parents. We simply cannot afford to let The Fools and The Dully Incompetent (teachers and other educational system flabware) curtail or even destroy the best in Our children's future. An educational system run like retail competition makes all the sense in the world, for it places the true emphasis for success where it belongs: on delivering value. Yes, delivering value for money, but right now We're handing over money and getting bat snot. Low-quality bat snot, at that.

So yes, some schools will be "Wal-marts", others will be "Nordstroms" and still others will be "Guccis". Fine. Because in Our consumer-obssessed society, becoming value-conscious about education through the Madison Avenue pseudomagic of "get your money's worth" might be the only thing that keeps Us from lodging Ourselves firmly into global backwaters. (Or We may just decide to create a better educational system as its own reward...at about the same time We colonize Io.)


Panel Three: Make that big decision

You face making a decision and though you go over it endlessly--like a dog chasing its tail--you're getting nowhere. Break that cycle and make the decision using one of these four methods: (with more that you can find here and more you can download here)

1) Make a weighted list of pros and cons. List the positive expected results of the decision and the potential negatives, then assign each a number that indicates how important, valuable or undesired that result is to you. Whichever side ends up with a higher number is the decision you should make. Best when used with "either/or" scenarios.

2) For decisions with multiple variables, make a list of the important variables in the decision. These are your "categories". Then for each option, assign a weight or ranking in each category. Add or subtract (if you use negative values) until you get an answer. In My case, the rankings are from "1" (best) to whatever number the variables are, then by adding the numbers, the lowest score "wins" (because it involves the best of high-ranking criteria).

For example, in hiring a new salesperson, the categories could be Experience, Initiative and Management Potential, while the candidates could be Anne, Bill and Carlos. In each category, rank the candidates. Anne scores 1, 2 and 3 in the categories; Bill scores 2, 3 and 2, while Carlos scores 3, 1 and 1. Total scores: Anne has 6, Bill has 7 and Carlos has 5. So you hire Carlos.

3) Open a book. Any book, though most people choose the Bible. The idea is that the words will trigger a new angle of thought or coalesce one already formed, so in effect, it isn't that the book tells you the answer, but rather that your mind uses the act of reading a random phrase as a trigger. Some people do this consciously with TV, movies, music, the Internet, pictures and even exercise (to distract one's attention). It's possible to do this with any stimuli so long as one is aware of the process of decision-making.

4) My favorite, though never used completely: Assign one option to one side of a coin ("heads") and another option to the other ("tails"). Flip the coin. Before the coin lands, you'll think of which one you want to see come up and you'll know your decision.

Why hasn't The Jenius used it? Because even before needing to flip the coin, whatever option is "heads" is invariably My preference.

Like you really expect The Jenius to settle for "tails"...

The Jenius Has Spoken.