Newt Answers: Boiled Down

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In a Newtshell

There’s a big long document at http://www.newt.org/answers/ with embedded videos and all sorts of text, but here’s the short version, because we know you’re busy, and we appreciate your time.

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Top Ten #Julia Japes

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In no particular order yet:

‎I have just been reminded that “Julia” is the name of Winston’s girlfriend, in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”…   Turning the weird up to 11…

Next up will be a correction. “Forget ‘Julia’. Let’s just call her something neutral, like Liberty 5-3000.”

 

Tom's Energy Platform

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Energy Independence and Security
Dependence on foreign fossil fuels threatens both our national security and our economy.  Americans pay roughly $700 billion a year to OPEC.  That funds terrorism and rewards dictatorship.  It didn’t have to be this way, and it must not stay this way.

American Energy would would create jobs, wipe out the deficit, and pay off the current debt in one generation.  It would  produce a positive trade balance and reduce inflation to background noise.  It would reduce prices and costs on everything from paper clips to property.  Finally, it would not only create but advertise that the United States is no longer dependent upon dictators.

 

Growing Our Energy Supply
We must aggressively increase our nation’s energy supply, in an environmentally responsible way, … Continue reading →

The Last Big Thing

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Here’s an inspirational quote:

We always, it seems, are provided with a glut of material on the next big thing, and not enough on how to make the last big thing actually work. –Alec Sharp

It’s inspirational because it succinctly captures what’s wrong with this quote:

Accelerate the pace of change, and get employees conditioned to accept change. –Michael Dell

The problem is that change for its own sake is not good–it’s bad. Almost anything for its own sake is bad, especially if you have pretensions of customer service or a value stream. Change for its own sake is mere disruption, and without some demand up front and some payoff on the return, all change does is disorient people, and then turn them off. Nobody on either side … Continue reading →

Movie Review: Big Man Japan

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This amazing film is a collection of criticisms of virtually all things Japanese and some merely related to japan, dressed as a moster movie, dressed as a mockumentary.
The atomic monster what-have-you gets a send-up, but the meat of the film is in an adoring but heartbroken look at Japan.  From the first scene when the busdriver announces the stop as “Nakamura Shrine, get off here for the shopping mall”, the movie is a reflection on a society which has forgotten its past, and developed a small and petty focus on the here and now and ooh, shiny!

As the old style problems diminish, so do the old skills for comping with them, until all that is left is pathetic echoes of former glory, longing for a … Continue reading →

9/11 Oath

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For the brave FDNY and NYPD and others who gave their lives, their health, their brothers to the flames and cataclysm in the hope of saving civilians: You were civilians in your own right, ambushed in a war from overseas, overmatched, laid low by cowards.

I humbly thank you for your sacrifice. You were not victims in the end, but soldiers in a battle of unknown dimension. While the world ended around you, you won, you hear? You did not lose, but won, and we the living will repay our debt to you, will not forget, will not forgive, but will emerge victorious.

This I swear.

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