So who is right?  They all are.  None of them are.  The key is to realize that there is no universally right moral value system.  Broken down to the most basic constructs, morality is simply the system by which living beings treat one another.  Moral beings hold a sense of empathy and consideration toward others, thus forming more successful and steadfast societies with vigorous rates of reproduction and growth. 

Any explanation more complex than this tends to be instilled with ideas of universal morality containing bold judgments on absolute moral rights and wrongs.  These so called universal moral standards usually incorporate numerous baseless declarations often used by organized social circles as justification for whatever agenda they are endorsing at the time.  Outside of a general compassion for fellow peers, moral values are based entirely on opinion.

Of course… this is just my opinion, and that’s a fact.  😉

We all know that American journalism and mass media is heavily skewed and censored, but this sort of one-way media manipulation just irritates me… and I’m not even a diehard Ron Paul supporter.  One of my good friends, Nick, is a diehard Ron Paul supporter, so he emailed the following letter directly to CNBC.  Even though this is off-topic for my blog, I feel strongly that Nick’s letter should see the light of day beyond some CNBC executive’s email trash bin.

Dear Old Media,

In response to your “Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful,” you only gave half of the story.  While many of the claims you made were not outright false, your analysis of the situation is incomplete.

First, let’s stop with the childish implications of “hacking”.  Nobody is hacking anything and you know it.  Millions of Internet transactions take place securely every day that would be much juicier targets for hackers than a silly Old Media poll for which there is no gain and which is censored as soon as Ron Paul pulls ahead, as many of them have been – this is not the first.  Just admit that several thousand real people took the time to go to your website and vote in your poll.

The Ron Paul Faithful will admit to organizing to vote in your poll.  You claim this amounts to “…a well-organized and committed ‘few’ [throwing] the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of ‘the many’…”  Perhaps, though I hope for the future of this great country and its future generations that we are a well-organized majority.  That point aside, your claim is hypocritical because this is exactly what the Old Media and the “legitimate” polling organizations (as you call them) have been doing all along.

The Old Media is itself the well-organized minority that is throwing the results for the majority through censorship, misleading data and half-truths.  Take for example the amount of questions and response time that Ron Paul is granted during these debates.  He is consistently granted the least amount of time out of all the candidates, despite polling higher and raising more funds than many of them.

Let us also examine the “legitimate” polls that you reference to imply that Ron Paul’s support can’t be so high.  As you well know, these phone polls are unscientific and biased.  You are claiming that the opinions of a few hundred Republicans with land-line telephones represent the opinions of the majority.  Furthermore, the polling companies regularly leave candidates like Ron Paul off their list of poll choices, naming only “mainstream” candidates to choose from.  These polls that you swear by and reference so often represent the opinions of the majority no better than the poll that you took down when you didn’t like the results.

So who is the well-organized minority that is trying to sway the majority?  Is it really us, a sincere group of citizens trying to get the word out concerning our candidate?  Or is it you, an Old Media giant and biased polling community who tries to enforce their personal choices of “mainstream” candidates on the citizens of this country?  We were not given equal voice in your format so we organized and took voice in our format, the Internet.  We’d do it again.

The Old Media seems to have forgotten the meaning of, and it’s responsibility to, unbiased journalism.  If you are going to present an editorial as news because it is more entertaining, you must strive to give equal time to all opinions.  Otherwise, just go back to reporting the facts and keep your predictions and opinions to yourselves.  When a well-organized few has such an effect on the opinions of the many and on the outcomes of our political process, I get very worried.  You do the entire nation a great disservice.

Sincerely,
The Ron Paul Faithful

I disagree with the labels of pro-choice and pro-life.  Their strict affiliation with the subject of abortion is nonsensical.  I’ve never met someone who is not in favor of life.  Likewise, most levelheaded people realize the importance of liberty and free choice.  With the exception of certain stubborn radicals, most people have a fundamental value system that trickles over the lines which divide the pro-choice and pro-life ideologies.

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Do you want a MySpace page that is guaranteed to help you fit in with the majority?  Allow me enlighten you:

The more flashing graphics you have on your profile page, the better!  Add at least 100 digital photos, cropped in all different sizes, all over your homepage.  Organization is of no concern.  Have a loud rock or rap mp3 queued for auto-launch as soon as a visitor hits your page, and make sure the media player’s stop button is hidden amongst the clutter of random photos and flashing graphics.

Then, tile the background with a really bright, high contrast image… Or better yet, use a large, high contrast, fixed background image right in the center of your page.  No worries, your fellow MySpacer’s will be happy to scroll around your flashy fixed background image in order to read the insightful content squeezed into your two sentence “About Me” blurb.  Oh, and don’t concern yourself with populating that optional blog thingy with intelligent content.  Your MySpace friends just want you to mesmerize them upon a single glance, so continue to concentrate all your efforts on uploading more photos and animations.

Sorry for the sarcastic negativity… but, I just pray that this 90’s web design virus stays contained within the MySpace domain.  I understand MySpace uses sophisticated Web 2.0 technologies on the backend, but gosh, the front end is an open wound of bad taste.

The reader is basically changing contextual details of the content in a way that alters the direction of the content for other readers.  The reader/commenter must be aware of their core responsibility to maintain article relevance, focusing first on comprehending what IS written before getting excessively outspoken about has NOT yet been addressed.  It is human nature even in spoken conversation to interject with alternative theories before the speaker has a chance to rest the point.  As with spoken conversation, sometimes a reader doesn’t even attempt to relate to the writer’s point of view, but instead funnels the information through his/her own life experiences… thus completely missing the writer’s objective.

Certainly there are times when it is important for the reader to interject with alternative information, specifically if he/she feels that the writer is misrepresenting fact or deliberately ignoring crucial details in order to derive a false conclusion.  But it seems to me that quite often supplementary information in blog comments stray away from the writer’s key objective.  Before one introduces supplementary content into the work of another, two questions should be asked: Is this added content relevant to what is already written?  Is the content I am adding purposely excluded from the original article for a creditable reason?

Are we just wishing life away?  Nothing groundbreaking usually happens on the weekend that ultimately changes the order of the following week.  It makes more sense to live life between the lines of Monday and Friday by accepting things the way that they are, but simultaneously making proactive steps forward.  It is about not getting completely hung up on the past or the future, but dealing with the present situation in a way that moves you closer to your ideals.  Although, I suppose that would take a lot of self discipline.

At some point in time everyone involved in an exclusive relationship experiences a momentary thought of infidelity.  It’s the flirtatious glimmer in your eye that indicates a brief superficial curiosity for someone of the opposite sex, the simple act of wondering.  For that split second your values misalign, placing shallow emotion ahead of your true moral character.  This momentary shift is a direct reflection of your instinctual emotion splitting away from your moral values.  When your sound moral values and your fickle emotion are disconnected, your mind is divided and thus your judgment is muddled.  Most people’s acts of infidelity are innocent, left hanging to expire in brief, insignificant moments of thought.

It is the strength of our character that realigns this momentary disconnect and prevents innocent thought from transgressing into an act of infidelity.  Reliability, honesty, and trustworthiness can be directly measured by one’s strength of character.  When the act of infidelity occurs, it has nothing to do with love; it is solely related to the shameful weakness of one’s character… weakness that is driven by senseless emotion.

People whom have never actually taken part in the act of infidelity would probably also deny the allegation of ever experiencing a momentary thought of infidelity.  This can be attributed to the fact that the thought never actually enters the conscious mind, but instead lingers in our subconscious.  The thought process is a natural instinct, and although we may be oblivious to it, our minds are instinctually aware of it.  It’s the combination of this subconscious awareness and our general human curiosity that will continue to foster the mass market interest and popularity of infidelity.

I’ll wrap it up with a quote from one of my favorite artists:

Everyone here is wondering what it’s like to be with somebody else.
Everyone here’s to blame, everyone here,
Gets caught up in the pleasure of the pain.
Everyone hides shades of shame,
But looking inside we’re the same, we’re all the same.
And we’re all grown now, but we don’t know how
to get it back to good.

– Rob Thomas

For instance, if the regional director Bob of Spazz Inc. asked John, one of his small branch managers, how the brand new employee training system was functioning, would John be honest with his boss? Without any knowledge of the company structure, maybe he would. But what if John knew that Bob had a lead role in convincing the president of Spazz Inc. to pour 25 million dollars into designing the new employee training system. If the training system was truly a faulty disaster, would you expect John to be upfront about it with the director project, whom also happens to sign his paycheck

Situations like this create an absolute void of productivity and efficiency. Unfortunately, this sort of thing occurs in corporate America on a daily basis and companies of all sizes suffer from it. This is not just an isolated management dilemma. The problem starts at the root of executive company administration and spills out to every facet in the chain of command. The source of the epidemic correlates directly to a shortfall in the company-wide team building process. When an employee does not feel comfortable with the management, a lack of trust sets in, at which point they will tell their boss exactly what they think their boss wants to hear. And sadly enough, many times this is exactly what the boss desires.

You are alone out there.  That’s the bottom line.  Nobody will be there to save you from your own stupidity.  Likewise, nobody will be there to save you from someone else’s inanity.  The mere act of traversing your daily routine places you evenly on a fine line between absolute triumph and utter defeat.  Freedom in life is a fragile privilege resting gently on the edge of muted detention.  Thus, our reasoning and rationale may fall on the deaf ears of those we employ to save us.  All the laws of society are only 50% assured at any given moment, so plan on uncertainty and injustice ahead.

Sorry about the negative rant.  My buddy was beaten in the face a couple days ago by some drunken college-age asshole.  He was attempting to break up a fight outside of a popular downtown watering hole.  The SOB left a large bloody gash across my buddy’s broken nose after he swiftly head-butted him for no reason other than for telling the drunk guy that fighting some other guy was foolish.  The cops detained the jerk for about 10 minutes, wiped their hands clean of the mess, and let the guy walk.  My buddy received a police department case number, followed up by a phone call the next day.  The policeman said that after a thorough investigation, there was no criminal fault made by the other party involved.  It was simply a quarrel between two parties that resulted in an injury.

Thorough investigation… my ass!  I guess the fact that my buddy never laid a finger on anyone is just an extraneous detail.  Oh, and assault and battery must be legal nowadays.  I witnessed this injustice firsthand… and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Most people probably think the obvious; cost must have something to do with it, right?  Sure, but while cost is always a factor, it’s not exactly a good reason to leave someone important off your wedding guest list.  We intend to get married only once, so this certainly isn’t an affair we plan to be frugal with.  Which brings me to the foundation of our reasoning:  This is an intimate affair.  The people who we invited are thought of as family, whether we are related by blood or not.  These are the people we trust, respect, and love.  These aren’t just the people that we hope would be there for us in our time of need, these are the people we will immediately rush to assist if they ever find themselves in a time of need.  In other words, we assembled our wedding guest list based on invitations sent only to our best friends and family.

But either way, when we look back at these photos we both agree that none of this really matters.  When you capture a still frame on camera you freeze that moment in time.  All events that follow that moment aren’t reflected in the image.  You only capture life as it was right then at that slit second.  As depicted in these photographs, Sam and Nick used to be great friends of ours, but since then their foul actions have destroyed relationships that we all admittedly miss from time to time.  Unfortunately these actions were also too cruel to easily disregard.  While we do miss the people that they were, we don’t miss them.

One thing is for sure though… the time spent on this cruise could easily be ranked 10 out of 10.  We all had a blast, and we cherish the moments in every one of these photographs!  Thanks to everyone in them for making these moments unforgettable. 2683 2743

You’ve been respectful in the past and have established a solid rapport with her.  Does the existence of this informal relationship give you the right to stretch the rules of the work environment?  “She likes me.  She’ll let me get away with a little tardiness.  Won’t she?”  It’s this kind of attitude that quickly eats away at the relationship and dismantles all levels of the trust and respect you’ve constructed in the past.

I’m a young female professional, and yes, I am the boss.  I’m fair and compassionate, but I expect results.  I certainly expect my employees to follow the rules, but above all I expect honesty.  Because I choose to occasionally socialize with my employees in an informal setting, they sometimes feel that they can use this as a free pass to slack off at work.  When this occurs, I find myself in an uncomfortable situation. 

If I let them slide, my reputation as a fair manager is in jeopardy.  The image I portray and the example I set becomes tarnished.  Other employees see me favoring their peers over themselves and quickly become displeased.  My credibility is lost.  If I take the necessary disciplinary action, I personally feel horrible.  Punishing or firing someone that you’ve established an informal relationship with can be disheartening.

In the end it basically comes down to “me or them”.  Their unethical behavior will either negatively affect my professional reputation, or I must hold them accountable for their actions.  This is something many of my employees continuously overlook.  They don’t see the immediate affect their actions have on me.  They don’t understand that the compassion I show outside of the workplace is completely unrelated to my leniency at work.

Does my sex have something to do with their misinterpretation of reality?  I know females are typically seen as more empathetic than their male counterparts.  So do they think I’m a pushover? Who knows.  Some may say that one way to avoid the situation is to cease the habit of informal socialization.  But, that would be a sad situation.  I truly believe the fostering of an informal relationship can increase overall employee moral and ambition.  I know it can easily benefit both parties.  Employees just need to follow the basic rules.

Do you informally socialize with your boss?  If so, allow me to layout a concise summation of my experiences and expectations.  I’ll make this really short and sweet.  Here’s a quick reality check of what not to do, and how to harness this informal relationship and use it to your advantage:

Understand this…
There is a distinct separation between business and pleasure.  Believe me, your boss understands this fact.  Don’t cross the line by believing that a stronger informal relationship gives you the ability to break the rules of the workplace.  Also, bragging to your coworkers about the conversations you had with your boss can easily start negative rumors.  This will reflect poorly on your perceived honesty and dedication.

React like this…
Reinforce the informal relationship by proving yourself within the workplace.  Instead of slacking off, do the exact opposite.  Take pride in your work, and go the extra mile.  If your boss takes the time to get to know a little more about your personal life, she probably holds you in high regard.  Don’t screw it up by disrespecting her authority in a professional atmosphere.  Instead, use it to your advantage.  If your boss likes you, she will be willing to spend more time assisting you, training you, and ultimately promoting you.  The choice is yours.  You can lose your credibility, or you can place yourself on the fast track for promotion.  It should be a no-brainer. 

When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was a girl dry heaving behind her car, which was located almost directly in front of my truck.  After about five minutes of nastiness, she got in the driver seat, turned the ignition and drove off.  Then two vehicles parked across from each other on opposite sides on the same parking row backed out simultaneously and bumped each other.  Both drivers pulled back into their space… then one left following the other without ever checking to see if their vehicles were damaged. 

Just then a BMW 3 Series barrel-assed around the corner and was forced to come to a skidding and screeching halt to avoid running over two girls who were attempting to make it back to their car.  They were parked about five vehicles down from the space in front of me.  When they made it back to their car a sudden commotion erupted and both girls started screaming at someone.  I poked by head out the window only to catch site what appeared to be a drunken guy urinating on her car’s front driver side tire.  After startling him, he jumped and started pissing on the hood of the car in front of hers.  Then he staggered away mumbling back at the angry ladies.  He got in a Blazer with one of his buddies that could barely stand up straight, and they both drove off as well.

This was just ten minutes of observation in one parking garage on one side of town.  Let’s just say, I was a slightly blown away.  The roads in downtown Orlando must be five times more dangerous after 2AM than they are at midnight.  I guess we sort of knew it all along.  But witnessing it firsthand broadens your perception.

• Assign enough projects with tight deadlines so that your team has no choice but to work a 60 hour week while you only work 30 hours. – (Follow this up by telling us that we don’t really work that hard all the time…  basically, a slap in the face.)
• Cap overtime pay. – (What overtime pay?  We never saw a dime!)
• Talk more than you listen. – (They loved to hear themselves talk.  But when it came time for proactive suggestions, the office was closed.)
• Constantly underestimate the time it takes to get things done.  – (Yeah… and then force us into the meat grinder anyway.)
• Hire someone that is very weak to take the place of a veteran and expect the same results from the team. – (They basically expected the same level of results regardless of the lack of resources… all day, every day!)
• Consistency is good. Never ask your employees if they are challenged enough or want to take on more responsibility. – (Oh yeah, and let’s keep all the hard working guys in their current position forever because they do such a good job at it.  If an upper level position becomes available, we’ll just bring in an outsider.) 
• Make promises to customers but have no idea on the elements involved in getting the task done. – (Yeah, or employ an entire army of sales guys that are barely capable of operating their own personal laptop, and then have them sell cutting edge client/server based digital video editing systems to multimillion dollar professional sports clients.  I mean, who cares.  If they screw it up, the IT support guys will clean up the mess.)
• Give employees low raises because the more you save, the higher your bonus. – (All they cared about was the bottom line…  Forget about the guys on the front line that are helping the company achieve its goals.  The word “Budget” went hand in hand with the word “Raise”.  Yet, they threw thousands of wasteful dollars around when schmoozing the clients.)
• Create a desk cleanliness policy. – (Or, just randomly piss and moan about it for no apparent reason while living by the “do what I say but not what I do” philosophy.)
• Instead of offering to help hands-on, watch from a distance and provide support over email. – (Upper management was never actively involved in our problems… they never even showed an interest unless a significant financial loss was at risk.)
• Never be the on-call guy to share in the team burden. – (Nuff said!)
• Give advice on topics you are only partially educated in. – (Oh, they were pros at this!  This is what occurs when business men own a cutting edge tech company and ignore the advise of their hired IT staff.)
• Let a couple people work from the house, but provide no reason for it or ways for others to obtain the right.  – (This seemed to be some kind of loophole we never could figure out.  Half of the company staff worked from home, but this wasn’t an option for us… even though it would have been totally feasible.)

It’s amazing that even after dealing with all this corporate crap, I actually enjoyed my job, and I took pride in my work.  I would have loved to remain onboard.  If blatant mismangement hadn’t been such a career impeding problem, I would have never looked elsewhere.  Hopefully they realize that.

“Of the subsequent four acceptable answers in situation X, which one is most likely not going to be the most practical option when the system users are not attempting Y?”

…That poor CISSP hopeful will be numb to life’s purpose, insensitive to his surroundings, and petrified of even the slightest thought of problem solving…  You could probably just ask for his wallet and wrist watch without any confrontation at all.

I took the CISSP exam yesterday, and it’s by far the toughest test I have ever taken.  I studied diligently for almost a month and I walked out of the testing center without the foggiest clue as to how well I performed.  Now I have to wait 2 damn weeks for the results!  A grown man may cry if I fail… and then it’s back to the library for another month.  Its hell…

Here’s an excerpt from a CISSP discussion board posting about the severity of the test.  This description is dead accurate:

ISC2 has done a tremendous job in keeping their questions fluid, relevant and updated. I could tell when I sat down and read the first five questions that this test was SERIOUS, and no amount of ANY practice test questions will save your ass on test day. The bottom line is experience, knowledge, know your theory 100%, and be prepared!

Is it true what everyone says, that you will finish that exam and beat yourself up until you know the results? ROGER THAT!! YES SIR, that’s an AFFIRMATIVE!! I’ve been through certification exams and taught for Microsoft, Novell, IBM, HP, Lucent, Proxim, the Department of Defense and the US Army, and all I can say is that you can tell when you sit down and read your first few questions, the CISSP is a “different breed of test.”

Some of you might think, “Well, how hard can it be, it’s all multiple choice right?” Just wait till you get in the exam, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Although I’m not a PhD or a test developer, it looked like each question was carefully worded to weed out the “certification mills,” brain dumpers, and anyone trying to fake their way through experience. That test WILL put you through your maximum cranial testing abilities! There are lots of, “All of the examples are true EXCEPT,” or “Which one of the following IS NOT.” It’s those little words EXCEPT and IS NOT that will throw you unless you read carefully and understand what you are reading. Let me say that again, READ-READ-READ carefully! One little word will trip the meaning of the question or the answer.

If I didn’t pass after sitting the exam, I knew exactly what it would take for me to pass it on round two: MORE READING! Practice test questions are good and necessary to give you a read on your strengths, weaknesses, timing and pacing through the exam. However, I can honestly say that if you don’t put the maximum effort into reading or getting a hold of as much study materials as you can for this test (reading, white papers, NIST documents, practice tests, audio MP3s, videos, whatever it takes), your chances of passing this test will diminish to almost no chance at all.