Bayerworld - The Rantings of Craig Bayer

The Craig Bayer Phenomenon

And I though I left my political career behind.  Thanks John.

 

http://www.news3online.com/index.php?code=908D727skw733EA3GZqj

Top 5 WiFi Spots in New Orleans

Since I live in New Orleans half the week, I have been trying to find some great places to work.

1.  rue de la course - magazine st

Hands down my favorite coffee shop in New Orleans.  I am usually at the Magazine location on Wed and Thursday.  The Coffee is great and it stays open to 12am. 

2. The balcony bar - magazine st

After work, its nice to grab a beer, sit on the balcony and answer email.  Nothing beats the view or the happy hour specials.

3. Yogurt - Maple St

Its nice to grab a wrap and sit on the street and work.  They just encrypted their WiFi, which sucks because I used to sit in the Starbucks and use it.

4. St. Charles Street Car

When I am going to be downtown the whole day I usually take the street car into the CBD.  From Louisiana on, I can grab the earthlink WiFi and answer emails.  The connection is very unstable but I can get emails in and out.

5.  ???  I need to find a good restaurant like the chimes that it acceptable to work on a laptop.  I tried to do this in Cooter Browns, which has WiFi and everyone looked at me like I was nuts.  I pulled my laptop out at the Rusty Nail and some punk made a smart ass comment.  I thought about smashing my laptop into his face which is why I have taken the nail out of the running.  The search continues...

Beauty and the Beast

Regions Online Banking and Quicken

If you like to download your account information into Quicken you need to change your account in Quicken from Regionsnet to Regions Bank - New.  It only took me about 2 hours of my life to figure this out.  I guess Regions did not think it prudent to tell its customers. 

 

Furthermore my auto loan is now all screwed up because it has been sold multiple times.  These banking mergers are really a pain in the ass.

The United States should not use Mercenaries

     I believe in the principles of capitalism and limited government and generally think that outsourcing services are a good thing.  However, I have a huge problem with outsourcing military jobs to mercenaries, first because I believe solider's should serve for patriotism and not for money, secondly military contractors have no legitimate claim to authority, and finally because the US Government saves no money outsourcing to contractors which defeats the purpose of using them.

     I have a friend who is about to join the United States Marine Corps for a seven to nine year commitment.  I asked him how much money he was going to make and he told me he had no clue.  The ideal of a paycheck never crossed his mind when he decided to sign up, he just wanted to serve his country.  Those are the sort of people I want to give weapons to and ask them to defend me and in certain situations have the ability to give me orders and tell me what to do.  I don't want that person to do it because he or she is making a lot of money.  Here what a classified report prepared by the military had to say on the matter:

The report, which was prepared for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, found considerable frustration among U.S. military commanders, who complained that contractors working for non-Pentagon agencies, including the State Department, often behave arrogantly, traveling through areas of military operations without prior notification and setting up their own checkpoints and roadblocks.1

     A government exists because the population has given up certain rights in return for protection.  The military is the main tool the government uses to protect us from foreign threats and therefore I will obey a United States soldier for that explicate reason, regardless if he or she could overpower me.  If I came in contact with a military contractor such as Blackwater, I would only obey them because they had a weapon and could probably kill me much easier then I could kill them.  They are in power the same way a school yard bully is.  It is reverting back to a brutal state of nature which is what the formation of government is supposed to get rid of.

     True conservatives such as myself believe in private enterprise over government because the forces of capitalism require private enterprises to be much more efficient and cost effective.  It would be easy to argue to out source something like trash collection to a private company if that company could provide the same service cheaper then the city government.  According to these documents, stated in the quote below, military contractors are more expensive then United State Soldiers. 

In its report, Waxman's committee said Blackwater charges the government $1,222 each day for a single security contractor, which works out to $445,000 on an annual basis. That's six times the cost of a U.S. soldier, the report said. 2

The United States pays to train solider's for years and years and then they have the option of leaving the service and working for a military contractor.  Secretary of Defense Gates recently stated: 

"I worry that sometimes the salaries that they [Military Contractors] are able to pay in fact lure some of our soldiers out of the service to go to work for them," 3

By all accounts then, it is not cheaper to use contractors in this case.  Therefore, eliminate the use of mercenaries and used the money saved to increase solider benefits and salaries.   

1.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100500865.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

2. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iHe3RGdxzFVjqN54O2181uAuXjmwD8S17H2O1

3. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates27sep27,1,301517.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Immigration is messed up

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it reached its limit for 2008 H-1B visa petitions in a single day and will not accept any more, to the dismay of technology companies that rely on the visas to hire skilled foreign workers.

From CNN.COM

Many years from now when America is no longer the world's super power we can look back and point to immigration as one of the big reasons.  You hear Pro-Mexican immigration politicians all the time say that "we need to let these people from Mexico in because they are doing jobs that Americans won't do like cleaning toilets and wash dishes."  What about engineering and science?  As we graduate fewer and fewer people in those fields could we not classify those high skilled jobs as something Americans won't do. 

In Microsoft Corp.'s case, about one-third of its 46,000 U.S.-based employees have work visas or are legal permanent residents with green cards, said Ginny Terzano, a spokeswoman for the company.

Would you rather have a country filled with guys that are skilled at cleaning a bathroom or a guys or gals who can design a high tech piece of software and build infrastructure.

"Our broken visa policies for highly educated foreign professionals are not only counterproductive, they are anticompetitive and detrimental to America's long-term economic competitiveness," said Robert Hoffman, an Oracle vice president and co-chairman of Compete America.

If I were president I would open the flood gates to India, China and all other counties that have scientist and engineers that want to move to America.  I would also seal off the border with Mexico and get them to stop exporting their poverty to the United States.  Good job Bush!

 

Who is John Galt?

Knocking on Heaven's Door

Ran a half marathon on Sunday and weighed in at 210.  Its hard to believe I weighed 248 pounds on January 1st.  The half marathon was actually not that bad.  I am getting dehydrated and decided to get a camel back, which I should get in this week.  I also started eating while running.  Tried Hammer Gel and it was pretty good.  I am going to probably take two or three with me on my long run.  I have set a weight loss goal.  I will weight 190 by June 29th which is my 27 birthday.  That should be an easy goal to achieve.  I only lost 7 pounds this month.  Clark and I talked about it and we have decided we have gotten lazy and cocky.  We lost a ton of weight in Jan and Feb and cheated in March.  We are going to make April and awesome month. 

Easter Sunday I am going to run my resurrection run which is 15.39 miles.  Check it out at Map My Run.

Great week ahead.  Picking Jimmy up on Wednesday and Anna up on Friday.  Lauren's wedding is Friday and should be a good one.

Also updated Flickr with some picks from the weekend.  We tried to go downtown but ended back up at Chelseas. 

Car Crashes into ZZ Gardens

Clark witnessed a car drive into the back of ZZ Gardens Saturday  Night.  He stopped long enough to make sure no one was hurt and to take a picture.  On Friday night John and I saw a car smash into another one in front of ZZ Gardens.   

That Night

 

The Next Day

Crawfish was a bust

 

We had our first Crawfish yesterday in the pouring rain.  There were 5 people and 80 pounds of crawfish so we ended up dumping about 40 pounds of live crawfish into the creek behind my house.  Brandon tried to get as many into the creek as he could.  I checked the next day and they are gone  so hopefully they are alive and well.  We also have official named our crawfish group the claw.

I Hate New Years Eve!!!

Every New Years, I swear that I am never going out on New Years Eve again.  A whole year goes by and I decide that maybe this year will be different and end up going out.  Since 2000 every New Years Eve has gotten worse and worse.  After what happened the other night,  I have a feeling that nothing in the world could ever convince me to go out on New Years Eve again.  I created this chart to illustrate how bad New Years Eve keeps getting.

It has helped me come up with several interesting resolutions.

1.  No drinking or going out until my St. Patrick's Day Party.

2. Celibacy.

3. No more stupid feuds with people in Baton Rouge.