Archive for August 21st, 2009

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity and clarity …

August 21, 2009

Ken’s Take: I admire the way Peggy Noonan writes – even when I disagree with her positions. In this article, regardless of your POV on ObamaCare, there’s a powerful, portable lesson on leadership and rhetoric …

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Excerpted from WSJ:  Pull the Plug on ObamaCare, Peggy Noonan, Aug 21, 2009 

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity.

You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people.

Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age.

Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care.

Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.

These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them.

The president’s health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of “he hasn’t told us his plan.” I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—”single payer,” “public option,” “insurance marketplace exchange.”

No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.

And when normal people don’t know what the words mean, they don’t say to themselves, “I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect.”

They think, “I can’t get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I’ll vote no.”

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204884404574362971349563340.html

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Ken’s Take II: Biz world examples from my B&D experience:

1) At one point, B&D power tools were being one-upped by Makita – a Japanese “encroacher”.  The prevailing internal strategic mantra became “Kill Makita”.  Very clear. Very emotive.  Very personal.  Compare that to trite, amorphous slogans like “Commitment to Excellence”

2) Best product name I was ever associated with was the “automatic shut-off iron”.  The name itself conveyed the product benefits in a very emotive way.

That’s what I mean by “portability” of a concept …

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Ironic twists as Hurricane Bill heads for Bermuda

August 21, 2009

1) Bill & Hillary Clinton are vacationing in Bermuda.  Imagine Hillary dealing with 2 Hurricane Bills simultaneously.

2) Wouldn’t it be justice delivered if the 4 terrorists who got relocated from Gitmo to Bermuda got their clocks cleaned ?

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How Is America Going To End? The top 144 scenarios.

August 21, 2009

From Slate magazine ….

Here’s a sampling:

1. Electromagnetic Pulse: A nuclear weapon detonated at high elevation could knock out the country’s electrical infrastructure, sending us back to the Stone Age. The congressional EMP Commission says an electromagnetic pulse “is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences.”

2. Foreign Invasion: The Red Dawn scenario: A hostile alliance of foreign powers dispatches a team of elite combat troops to America. They launch a coordinated assault with thousands of paratroopers on key military and communications installations, dealing the U.S. government a fatal blow.

3. Russia Hits the Button: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg says the United States should fear “a mistaken attack on our country by the huge Russian arsenal of nuclear weapons.” As recently as 1995, a “retaliatory” nuclear strike was barely averted when Russian officials figured out at the last second that what they thought was an enemy strike was really a craft launched to monitor the Northern lights.

4. Loose Nukes: Taliban fighters wrest nuclear weapons from a destabilized Pakistan. Or al-Qaida acquires a small arsenal of nukes from a disintegrating Russia. The nonstate actors launch against the United States in an attack exponentially worse than 9/11.

5. Dirty Bombs: Terror groups armed with “radiological dispersal devices”—a cocktail of radioactive material and garden-variety explosives—launch coordinated attacks in a dozen major cities. The attacks destabilize the government and break our spirit. The terrorists win.

6. Abandonment: After a series of devastating attacks, Washington admits it can no longer protect large swaths of the nation. The United States contracts to a smaller core that’s easier to defend.

7. Suicidal Tyrant: An Ahmadinejad-like figure strikes at the heart of the Great Satan, launching nuclear weapons at major American cities and pushing the country to anarchy.

8. Internal Guerrilla Warfare: Smugglers and street gangs join forces to contest the authority of the U.S. government—first along the Mexican border and later in pockets of major cities—in order to maintain control of lucrative illicit markets.

9. Mercenary Armies: As in the seventh season of 24, a military contractor goes rogue and attacks the United States. Not even Jack Bauer can save us.

10. Space Attacks: A coalition of malevolent nations with hyper-advanced space programs strikes at the United States from the outer limits, disrupting all of our communications and rendering our conventional Army powerless.

11. Information War: A rogue state, terror organization, or group of malevolent hackers takes down America’s infrastructure by infiltrating every system that’s controlled by computers: television stations, traffic signals, telecommunications, the stock market, the power grid. As seen in Live Free or Die Hard.

12. Push-Button Warfare: Nanoscale production allows anyone to make tanks and flying drones with the press of a button. With sophisticated weaponry available to all, the nation-state ceases to be an important entity.

13. Peak Oil: Petroleum production reaches terminal decline. Oil becomes too expensive to extract, and alternative energies can’t maintain our fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle. The developed world goes kaput, with gas-happy America leading the way to the gutter.

14. Peak Water: The overpopulated, overheated Southwest runs out of H20, instigating mass migration to Canada.

15. Overpopulation: A spike in birth rates—or massive levels of immigration—increases the population of the United States to 1 billion. America doesn’t have the carrying capacity to support its new crush of citizens, and a die-off ensues.

For #16 to #144, go to the full article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2223285/sidebar/2223286/

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Thanks to Jim C for the lead.
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Posted in Trends & Milestones | 2 Comments »