David Ross, one of the last living liberals

I just do not understand. How is it that a religious-based community center two blocks from the World Trade Center is an affront to human decency while strip clubs and off-track betting parlors in the same area escape any attention? Why is it that politicians of both major parties and Christian and Jewish leaders condemn the proposed Moslem center but tolerate sex and gambling next door?

Stop the Party of NO! Vote Democrat in 2010

Remember:

It was under the Republican Party that the record-breaking surpluses of President Clinton became record-breaking deficits.
It was under the Republican Party that the Great Recession began.
It was under the Republican Party that British Petroleum began its deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
It was under the Republican Party that the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture saw reductions in inspections that could have prevented outbreaks of E. coli and Salmonella.

The Republicans in Congress voted "no" on health-care reform. They voted "no" on extending unemployment benefits during the worst recession since the 1930s. They voted "no" on protecting consumers from greedy banks. The only issue on which the Republicans in Congress will vote "yes" is continued tax cuts for those wealthy individuals who have been untouched by the Great Recession.

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Statistics

Inflation: 3.49%

Change in browser user base for Internet Explorer since March 2003: −57.6%

First, it was 228,000,000. Then, 380,000,000 eggs were recalled when hundreds of people were sickened with salmonella. All the eggs were produced by a single company in Iowa.

This illustrates the danger when too much production is concentrated into a very few large companies. While the egg recall was an issue of health and life, it is not much different from the danger to livelihoods and economic strength when too much control of an industry is concentrated into a very few large companies. That latter danger was illustrated by the near-collapse of the financial and automobile industries under President George H. W. Bush, an economic disaster that still afflicts the United States.

On the same page inside the Los Angeles Times "Business" section on 27 March 2010, two articles had conflicting headlines: "Stocks edge higher as pessimism grows" and "Optimism grows as 4th-quarter earnings soar".

Both optimism and pessimism are growing at the same time? This only proves that no one really knows future economic trends. They can only guess. Predicting the economy often requires the reading of burnt goat entrails.

Community Service

Profession

Computer software engineer specializing in requirements analysis and testing. Advocate of software life-cycle methods that minimize errors and prevent budget overruns, schedule slips, and dissatisfied end-users through up-front analysis, ongoing reviews, and formal verification. Proficient with software for platforms including stand-alone main-frames, desktop PCs, and client-server networks. Experienced in technical management and, for small organizations, top-level management.

Expertise includes:

Requirements Analysis: Consult directly with customers to ensure that software requirements reflect their needs. Prepare specifications that contain verifiable requirements.
Software Verification: Develop tests to determine correctness, implementation of requirements, and integration of both commercial off-the-shelf and custom software.
Mathematical Analysis: Apply numerical analysis and statistics to the design and study of scheduling systems and physical systems.

Professional Activities

Published research: "Pseudo-random number generators for a calculator", Communications of the ACM, volume 38 number 1 (January 1995), pages 122-124.
Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1966-2003.
Reviewer of computer literature for the monthly Computing Reviews, 1993-2003.

Hobbies

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Stamp collecting

Gardening

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Listening to classical music

Surfing the Internet

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When I turn on the faucet, water comes out. At night, the street lights come on. Our streets are swept, and our joint school and public library continues to operate. Both children and adults enjoy themselves in our community's parks. Our public schools are as good as any other schools — public or private — in California. Deputy Sheriffs patrolling our streets and judges in our courtrooms keep our community's crime rate very low in a county with one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. Mail is delivered six days each week. In Oak Park, government is working; it is not our enemy.

David E. Ross

Oak Park, California 91377

Statistics

Community Service

Profession

Professional Activities

Hobbies