Russell Shaw's Brainstorm Central

Pieta Brown -- Remember The Name

You read it here first. Pieta Brown is a major new singer and lyricist. She elevates melancholy to the highest of the arts.

Looked for her on Kazaa, but could not find her. But that's cool. For a holy-shit voice like that, I don't mind payin.'

Liberalism and Balanced Budgets

Howard Dean says he is a liberal who is in favor of a balanced budget. Well, Doc, sometimes the world does not work that way.

Balanced budgets are fine and OK, but they are not a crucible of liberal policy. They are based on educated presumptions that the economy, and by extension, revenue collections, will accrue to a certain level. What choice do you make when it doesn't? People get hurt. Special needs kids receive less frequent care, more people wander the streets untreated and unmedicated, bus routes necessary to take the poor to work get cut, the environment deteriorates from less hands-on stewardship. I'm sorry. I guess for me, when the choice has to be between the balanced-budget-obsessed bond traders and the care-givers, the care-givers win. Would Dean make that choice? I know that Kucinich and Nader would.

Offshore Outsourcing: The Real Terrorism

This is gonna sound xenophobic, but our biggest enemies are China, which is stealing our code, and India, which is stealing our tech support industry. Far worse than years ago, when Japan clobbered us in the auto and electronics markets. At least then, those enterprises were owned and based in those lands. Now, it is American companies that are aiding and abetting. A white-collar equivalent to what has been going on for decades with the offshore migration of clothing and furniture companies. OK, Malaysia makes our shirts, which are sent here aboard ships of Panamanian registry, and once on the shelves, are tracked by inventory control systems coded in China or India. But I will say it again...these offshore-hiring, outsourcing CEOs care about the stock price more than their country. Most of them would consider themselves "patriotic." Yea, right.

And the problem will only get worse. What does that tell you when, for heaven's sake, one party offshores campaign solicitations? Fitting that Republicans, who one must presume are the party of choice for outsourcing CEO scum, are the party engaging in this practice. What's next? Outsource the 82nd Airborne?