[Gathnet] Comments from Pilgrim Rest - caution Democrats-- contains some political observations.

[stuart g gathman]

Dear Gathnetters,
This is just a quick note to let you all know we are still alive.  We 
have had a wonderful rain!!!!!   In fact since monday, we have had 9 and 
9/16 inches and it is still rainy.   This is almost the years average 
for San Diego.  Holenbeck River and Loose Creek are both flowing!!!! 
somethin that never happened for the last few years.  What a blessing.   
The last time it rained here was in April.

I can't wait till the elections are over.  Inspite of all of the 
negative mud being slung,  I still  don't really know what Kerry thinks 
whereas Bush seems straight forward.  Somehow I don't believe that if I 
vote for Kerry my cancer will be gone or that the lame will walk!  I am 
really afraid of government run health care.  I have worked too long for 
the government to trust any decisions to be made by goverment officials 
or employees.  It is so much better to have multiple sources believe 
me.   A case in point...  back when personal computers were first coming 
out,  we as government scientists were not allowed to have one.   We had 
to use the "official" large computer at the lab.  This one of course had 
the trouble of costing essentially $700.00  a run for my calculations of 
Mie scattering.  This of course greatly limited our use of the machine 
as we had a very limited budget to work with.  If we could have used the 
money required to make 3 runs. to buy the then available IBM PC,  these 
runs could be done as many times as we needed.  Granted the PC wasn't as 
fast as the mainframe but it could run overnight if necessary to do the 
job.   It could run overnight many times and we would have been much 
better off in our research.   This typical problem was the result of 
upper management making the decision and not being aware of all of the 
implications.   Once they made the decision to buy the mainframe 
machine, they needed to make the rest of us (who really didn't want the 
mainframe) to use it and to thus help to pay for it.  Such a problem 
could exist in the private sector I am sure but in that case they are 
bent on making a profit and mistakes like this would soon be self 
corrected or the competition would get ahead.  In the case of the 
government however, there is no reason to correct the problem because  
everyone keeps their jobs even if the mistakes are made and the tax 
payer keeps supporting them.    Be careful in giving too much power to 
the Government!!!!  Once such a program starts, there is no stopping it 
even if "He has a better plan".

I need to get ready for teaching the lab class today...  Goodbye for now.

der alt Grossvater