Automated Vehicle Symposium - San Francisco 

I attended the AUVSI (Assoc. of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, International) auto symposium in San Francisco yesterday and came away with the very clear, and rather startling realization that driverless vehicles will be with us in the very near future, and that the auto industry is paying very close attention and working diligently to be certain that Google doesn't become General Motors.

Presentations were made by Volvo, which is committed to attaining zero fatalities by 2020, by General Motors explaining their incremental ramp up to autonomous vehicles, and a presentation by Chris Urmson, the director of self driving cars at Google.  The Google presentation was truly staggering in the scope of its research and implementation.  It seems that one of their biggest problems is that they are allowing their employees to use and test the cars.  Once the test period is over they want to arm wrestle to see who gets to keep the car.  They love them.  The video below has had over 7 million views in a month and a half !

What was very interesting in a different way, was that Ginger Goodin, from Texas A&M transportation Institute spoke about how Texas was looking at the rules and regulations that are going to be necessary to integrate this technology in their state, and while my state of California is not exactly sitting on it's hands with this technology, I was very surprised that no one attended who was representing the State of  California   (at least as far as I know) .

It's equally interesting that this game changing technology, to which every American will soon be exposed, is moving forward so rapidly while the commercial  use of drones in our airspace, an equally game changing  technology, is being hamstrung by the FAA.

Trouble at the Border

It's not right. Billions from the White House

Yesterday in Houston Bernadette Lancelin began to question what was going on in her neighborhood.  The Dept. of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol were looking at a closed local school as a possible site for housing some of the tens of thousands of immigrant children who are flooding our southern border.  Lancelin raises a very valid question.  Why it is that we are spending millions of tax payer dollars to feed cloth, house and provide health care for these young people while our own citizens are going  without jobs, without health care that works and a public debt in the trillions?

While Lancelin is asking for answers, Obama is asking for money.  He wants Congress to authorize $3.7 billion dollars to be used to build infrastructure to care for these young people. He wants it  immediately with little discussion or thought as to whether it should be spent or how.  Meanwhile, millions of Americans want to know why the border has not been secured, why the fence has not been built and why the Border Patrol is stationed 45 miles from the border?  

We need action Mr. President. You need to close the border,  Period.

One of the Greatest Ideas in Human history

England is a great country, Ireland is a great country, there are many great countries,  America is a great idea,  to paraphrase U2’s  Bono, and yet that greatness is simply lost on too many Americans.

 Dinesh D’Souza’s new film, “America, imagine the world without her” , is for me, a great insight into to the “why” of this lost understanding,   Too many Americans have lost sight of the American Idea, a lodestar that has guided not just our own countrymen, but has guided and inspired millions of people throughout the world for over 200 years.

Perhaps one of the most insightful lessons to come from D’Souza’s film is the contrast between the older methods of acquiring wealth through conquest and the American way of creating it.  America, for the first time in human history, has manifested a new idea of wealth creation based on human freedom and liberty that has led to a level of creativity unmatched in human annals. 

We have strayed from that path.

We have forgotten our own story.  Too many believe that we are the villain of the world, we have forgotten our own kindness and generosity.  While we tolerated slavery at our country’s inception, we forget that over 2 million men fought in and that over 200,000 young Yankee soldiers died in that war which ended American slavery.

We forget that in the last century over 500,000 Americans, of all colors and beliefs, died not just in the defense of our country, but in the defense of America as an idea, as a hope and belief that liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness were intrinsic values that all human being shared and that if we, as Americans could bring that to the world, we would all be better off.

I have not scratched the surface of the depth of this film.  Leave your ideologies aside, go see the film and then think about it.  It’s important.

 Here is a trailer