They must be lying, their lips are moving

Why the Government Shouldn't Run Anything Extra

2011-04-26T15:02:00.002-05:00

Sometimes small examples point out huge issues.

Two local radio commentators were talking this morning on a Charleston, SC radio talk station about the issue of providing IPad2’s to children in a few local schools. One caller pointed out that it might be preferable to use the money for merit pay for better performing teachers. One of the hosts stated that “the money was allocated for capital improvement projects” and could not be used for pay. It seems like a small thing but it is not. It is typical of government at all levels and shows why citizens get so disgusted with the way government functions.

The money for the IPad2 computers is being distributed from a “pot of money” that was allocated for school improvement projects. Remember that this money was collected in taxes from citizens and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The legislature or school board hung a piñata of many millions of dollars without any specific projects or uses in mind and people are now swinging sticks and fighting over where to spend the money which falls out. Politicians like to allocate spending this way because: 1) they can talk about how they support education, 2) they don’t have to actually make any decisions; and 3) they don’t have to do any work, and 4) when the money gets used in crony deals or for dumb projects, they can claim that it was someone else’s fault. The very fact that the money is not allocated for specific projects leads to back room deals, lobbyists influencing spending, and political payoffs.

The IPad2's might be a great idea but one would think that if buying IPad2s for students IS a great idea, there would be a public hearing where the people proposing the idea would explain: 1) how it will help the students, 2) the cost of the proposed project versus the cost of traditional textbooks; 3) how software updates, security, and content is managed, 4) how maintenance and repairs are handled, and 5) how they impact of the program will be measured and assessed. Then, if the legislature or school board is convinced that the idea has merit, the funds are allocated to cover the program, and not a penny more. As the judge in My Cousin Vinny stated, (paraphrasing) “That is a well thought out, cogent argument”. But that is not what happens. The money is distributed by lobbyist influence, political pay offs and to the "network of the connected".

Another result of allocating money in the government manner is that every September is Christmas for the government. Financial managers in the government know that any money allocated and not spent will be withheld the next year. Therefore, every September there is a buying spree for every government agency to ensure that the funding is spent, whether the purchases are needed or not. The money falls downhill. The big agency “dumps” money down to smaller organizations that have to spend the money or pass it down even further. If the government was surprised one year and was only allowed to spend in September at the average rate of the previous eleven months, billions of dollars would be saved and the waste exposed (which is why that will never happen).

One of the arguments for the recent health care bill was that funding could be obtained from waste recovery. Waste is built into the government spending and anyone who works in government knows that waste recovery is a false promise. Until the government leaders who spend the money are held responsible for the way that they allocate the money and do their business, waste will continue and cronyism will continue.

Anyone who thinks the government runs anything more efficiently than private industry is deluded, at best. There will always be someone who pipes up with, "What about the military?" Anyone who says that has obviously never been in the US military.

A Hypothetical Conversation with President Obama

2011-01-29T21:18:00.005-05:00

Mister President, thank you for taking the time to meet today.

POTUS: You're welcome

Today, your approval ratings sit at near lows and the economy is still in the doldrums. Do you see things turning around soon?

POTUS: I still believe that the stimulus package saved us from catastrophe and will help the economy gain strength.

Mr. President, I would argue the stimulus package hurt you in two big ways: your poor approval and the birth of the Tea Party movement.

POTUS: How can you make that argument? They are not related.

I believe they are. First, One of the biggest criticisms of you when you were a candidate was that you had little executive experience. In all honesty, even Gov. Palin had a lot more experience than you in executive positions and your campaign operatives hammered her endlessly about being inexperienced. But the stimulus package is where the narrative was reinforced: I believe that when your economists advised you that if you didn't put $750 billion into the economy it would tank, so you tried to do it in good faith. However, you made a rookie mistake; you trusted Speaker Pelosi.

POTUS: Rep. Pelosi is a strong and loyal public servant.

I know you believe that but she went to Rep. David Obey, Chairman of Appropriations, and said "spend $750 billion". He, in turn, went around to every Congressman he could find and asked them what pet projects they wanted to spend money on. That is how you ended up defending $789 billion of crap.

POTUS: I wouldn't put it that way. A lot of those projects were very worthwhile.

Maybe so, but you ended up defending stuff that even you had to turn your nose up at. An experienced executive would have crafted a bill with projects that had to be paid for anyway: bridges, schools, roads, the electrical grid, etc. and sent that bill to Congress. All that would have happened was you'd be moving necessary projects forward. You got boxed in and embarrassed by your Democratic Congress despite good intentions.

POTUS: That may be how you see it but how does that have anything to do with the Tea Party?

There was a lot of unrest with the government during the last years of the Bush administration with rising spending and the wars. You ran on a promise to change things. Many people who knew that you were no where near as qualified as Senator McCain voted for you because of the ideal you represented: no more status quo, transparency, change, etc. When your administration started doing things without transparency, sneaking through unpopular bills by bending rules, spending even more than the Bush Administration, doing almost everything for the benefit of labor unions, the people had finally had enough. Because you had represented yourself as different, and turned to be a larger version of the same old politicians, there was a lot more disappointment with your administration than there would usually be. Because the Republicans were big spenders and Democrats turned out to be even bigger spenders, along comes the Tea Party.

POTUS: You seem to forget that I ran on green jobs, ending the Iraq War, closing Guantanamo Bay, and bringing a different tone to Washington.

Mr. President, the Iraq War was won when you came into office. That was a done deal. If anything, the Democratic Congress made the tone in Washington much worse. Republicans weren't even able to present ideas on any of the major bills. You know you can't close Guantanamo Bay and send those prisoners back into the fight. And until technology improves, green energy will destroy our economy. Besides, this winter is making Al Gore look a little foolish.

POTUS: Climate change is an important issue. We need to be the leader in this regard.

True, but you and everyone else knows that until India and China sign on, anything we do here will not only be futile, it will give those two countries a competitive advantage. Beside, real data contradicts the UN's computer models about the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.

Moving on, the biggest controversy in Washington these days is the health care bill. Admit it, you could not have possibly known all the junk that was in that bill and it certainly wasn't written in a few weeks.

POTUS: There are some things in the bill that need to be adjusted, like the 1099 requirement for small business. But a lot of other parts of the bill are monumental achievements, like the pre-existing conditions section.

Since you bring that up, let's take two scenarios: 1) A 55 year old man has been working for the same company since he was 18. He has always paid his taxes, never been in trouble, a stellar citizen. He has hypertension and mild diabetes. His company goes out of business. He can't get insurance at his new job. Clearly that is wrong.

POTUS: That is exactly the person we are trying to help. This bill prevents that from happening.

Fair enough. Scenario 2: We have a 32 year old male. He has never worked a day in his life. He is perfectly healthy. He chooses not to work. He never pays taxes. He even sells a little bit of crack to school children to get by. One day, he has a pain and goes to his emergency room for some free care. He finds out he needs a major operation and long term postoperative care. He has a pre-existing condition. What obligation do the people who have been paying into the system their whole lives have provide him insurance?

POTUS: That is a little extreme for an example.

No. They are both pre-existing conditions. Wouldn't it have been better to allow all people to purchase across state lines and to own their own policy so they can carry it from job to job?

POTUS: I have said anyone with good ideas can bring them to me.

Those ideas were brought to you before the bill was passed and the Republicans were not allowed to offer amendments. That is why people are fed up.

POTUS: I agree there are adjustments that have to be made.

Moving on, we have massive debt now. You offered to freeze spending. But that was after you raised spending for most domestic programs by about 24%. That is like curing binge drinking by not drinking more than you did when you were drinking the most alcohol.

POTUS: We are trying to reduce the rate of growth.

That doesn't make sense. You don't reduce the first derivative. You have to make the amount go down, not how fast it gets bigger.

One last question: You work closely with Sen. Reid. How can you possibly put up with that guy?

POTUS: Senator Reid is a great public servant who worked hard to get many of my agenda items passed.

True, but it is one thing when a politician lies to you. It is another when he is lying, you know he is lying, he knows that you know that he is lying, but still lies to you anyway.

POTUS: Lying about what?

You know as well as I do that the set of suppositions and nonsense that was given to the Congressional Budget Office about the health care bill, such as ten years of taxes to offset six years of benefits and a separate bill to fix reimbursement for physicians in Medicare, was garbage just to make the numbers turn out in your favor. Sen. Reid always talks about how the bill will bring down costs when he knows it isn't true.

POTUS: He and I believe that it is true.

That just about says it all. Thank you Mister President.

Does the First Amendment Mean What It Says?

2010-04-20T20:00:00.003-05:00

The first amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I was considering the arguments about separation of church and state the other day and thought it might be helpful to review what the first amendment actually said. I know this may seem a little simplistic but the amendment specifically prohibits Congress from passing a law establishing an official religion for the country or a law that prevents people from practicing their religion preference. The amendment specifically does not mention the executive or judicial branches, or anyone else, for that matter. Of course, one must remember that the founders would not recognize the current federal government. The original theory was that the Congress would basically run the country in times of peace but the President had large powers for emergency situations and war because the Congress worked too deliberately in a crisis situation. George Washington felt he would only veto a bill if he believed that the law violated the Constitution. Today, Congress sits on its hands and even is currently trying to pass laws ceding power to the executive branch. I find that pretty interesting since when George W. Bush was President, there was much gnashing of teeth about too much executive power from Democrats but with Barrack Obama as President, Democrats are giving unilateral power to the Treasury Department, for example.

The founding fathers were acutely aware of the history of Europe and the Middle East where untold millions had died as a result of religious wars over the centuries. In Britain alone, the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Protestants had caused war, government upheaval and tension for centuries. Therefore, in order to avoid those types of conflicts, no official religion for the country would ever be established. Some modern advocates try to make it sound like the founders were against religion. It only takes even a cursory reading of any of the writings of most of the founders to trash that view. The vast majority of the founders were devoted to their religion and used it to guide their actions and values routinely. To claim otherwise is fiction.

People in line with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have taken the position that anything government in the same area code as anything religious is a violation of the Constitution, specifically the first amendment. But is it? Since the federal government intrudes into almost every area of citizen’s lives, does that mean that religion has no place in the modern United States? Or, does the Constitution mean what it says?

Let’s look at an example for the sake of argument:

There has been a monument to memorialize Americans who lost their lives in military service in the Mojave National Preserve since 1934. It is a cross no more than about eight feet tall. It can be seen from a few hundred yards. A case recently went to the United States Supreme Court to decide whether it was allowed on public lands. I suppose it is redundant to point out that no one seemed to mind for about sixty-six years. Looking back at the first amendment, did Congress have anything to do with this monument? Did they make a law establishing it? The memorial was originally placed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars which is not Congress, and, as an organization, is a heck of a lot more respected and popular. So, since 1) Congress was not involved, and 2) no law was made, and 3) no prohibition on the free exercise of religion was established, how does the mere presence of the memorial violate the first amendment? None of the specific prohibitions listed in the first amendment apply. The case is, of course, a lot more complicated than it appears. There is question of standing for the plaintiff, there is a question about land transfer and a number of other issues including that the government refused to allow a Buddhist monument in the same area in 1999, stating they were going to remove the cross. Notwithstanding all the complexities, the plaintiff in the suit argues that the mere presence of any religious symbol on government property establishes an official religion for the nation.

Using that same premise, a Star of David or a cross on a headstone in a government cemetery is an endorsement of religion. If the mere presence of a religious symbol establishes religion, then there certainly are a number of established religions in the country.

It comes down to the same argument all over again: Can judges interpret the law any way they want, or does the Constitution mean what is written? If the liberal former view is true, they Bill of Rights would have been a lot easier to write as one amendment, “Do whatever you want to” and courts could serve up the Law du Jour each day of the week.

Is Barrack Obama the President of the United States or the President of the AFL/CIO?

2010-01-15T10:22:00.001-05:00

(This is an update of a previous posting)

In the first year of this presidency, the current administration has displayed deference, almost subservience, to organized labor. Deference would not be surprising, since organized labor is the single largest contributor to the Democratic Party. Organized labor is now getting treatment which discriminates against non-union workers and those policies are now forming a disturbing trend.

First, the automobile industry bailout: Money was given to prop up General Motors and Chrysler instead of allowing the companies to reorganize under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In fact, the US government now owns the majority stake in the companies. In bailing out these companies, public money was taken, in the form of taxes, from auto workers in the south whose average salary is about forty three dollars an hour and given to United Auto Workers members in Michigan whose average salary is about seventy one dollars an hour. The Obama administration portrayed the action as helping the General Motors and Chrysler corporations. In fact, a chapter 11 bankruptcy would have been much more advantageous to the companies as it would have allowed renegotiation of the labor contracts and would have relieved the pressure of legacy costs to the companies. Additionally, it would not have cost tax money. The money was really a bail out of the United Auto Workers, not the companies. It hasn’t worked and the two companies have shown no signs of changing fortunes. At a recent auto show, all of the awards for vehicle of the year in all classes were swept by Ford Motor Company, the company that refused the bail out.

Second, the school voucher program in Washington, DC: The voucher program in Washington, DC cost about $7600 per student. The schools at which the voucher students attended had 90% higher scores in language skills tests and 95% higher scores in mathematics testing. The interesting paradox is that the Washington, DC public school system spends about $13,000 (almost twice as much) per student. The omnibus spending bill removed funding for the school voucher program. The Democrats, in their infinite concern for children, cancelled a program which cost taxpayers half as much and resulted in markedly better school performance. Why would they do that? The answer is easy. The teachers union has been paid off for supporting Democratic candidates in the election. The Democrats are willing to harm poor children and their families in order to pay off the union.

Third, the stimulus construction projects: The stimulus bill passed by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration has a provision that stipulates that stimulus construction projects have to pay union wages to workers on stimulus projects. Why would that provision be in the bill? After all, it would result in less money to do projects and the ones that are completed would cost more. The reason is easy. Governments don’t build roads and bridges, private contractors do. Those contracts are awarded by bid. A non-union company can submit a lower labor cost bid than a union company. The raw materials cost will be the same. Therefore, the non-union bid will generally be lower. This provision in the bill is expressly for the benefit of union contractors to receive stimulus money contracts for infrastructure. The unions will receive money but the taxpayers will get less and more expensive infrastructure projects completed for their money.

Fourth, the “Employee Free Choice Act”: This piece of legislation is close to criminal. The rules would change and take away the right of workers to a secret union election ballot. To organize a union, all that organizers would need is 51% of employees to sign a card and the union would be installed. The cards would be public and the period of time to have them signed in unlimited. This is like the mob protection racket in Chicago in the 1930s. Union thugs intimidating workers is not progress. The intimidation may not even be the worst part of the bill. In the event of non-resolution of a union contract, after a set period of time the federal government will set wages. Hmmm… with the Democrats in power, I wonder whose side would be favored? Therefore, people who are intimidated into a union will have their wages set by the federal government. This is an economic disaster of the highest magnitude just waiting to happen. It will lead to companies closing because they are no longer profitable and revival of the union thugs who have essentially gone away (with the exception of the Service Employees International Union) due to people's reluctance to embrace unions. South Carolina just won the competition for the new Boeing 787 assembly plant largely based on Boeing not being forced to deal with labor unions.

Fifth, the health care proposal currently before Congress: More than sixty years after his death, the United States is still being hurt by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s financial policies. When FDR froze wages as part of his recovery policy, the only way to compete with compensation packages for employees was to add benefits. This was particularly true in collective bargaining agreements. Subsequently, since they could not raise wages, labor unions developed expensive and comprehensive health care benefits for their members. The current Democratic mantra is always to pay for everything by “taxing the rich”, despite the fact that it is not fiscally possible to do that. Then again, they never let logic or facts get in the way of policy. The problem with “taxing the rich” is that a significant portion of higher income earners are actually small businesses which file tax returns as individual returns and the people with large benefit packages tend to be union members. Since the unions put the Democrats in office, they expect some pay back. It was announced yesterday that the conference bill (which in the Senate version was supposed to be financed partly by taxes on “Cadillac heath plans”) now has an exemption for organized labor. In other words, if you are not in a union, you pay higher taxes but if you are in a union, you do not. Not only is that a blatant pay off to labor unions, it is likely not to pass a constitutionality challenge. As an aside, I think the pop-up timer is out on the current health care bill. Put a fork in it, it is done.

In all five examples, it is easy to see the pay off to the various unions by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration. It is brazen and open. It is also going to massively harm the United States economy and prevent recovery. Most people in the United States don’t regularly follow politics, but they certainly recognize dishonesty and graft when they see it. A recent poll which asked people if they desired to have their jobs converted to union jobs had only 9% say yes and a resounding 83% say no. Since union membership is at an all-time low, preferential treatment for labor unions at the expense of the majority of the population is not very smart politically, as well. This is the Democratic version of the organized crime “protection” rackets and is disgusting. The current administration’s poll numbers are tanking and the mid-term elections may become disastrous for Democrats should the course not be adjusted.

Liberals and Modern Education... or Lack Thereof

2009-10-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

With education clearly on the decline in the nation’s public schools, one has to ask why it is happening. There is a movement afloat which began in the 1920s which theorized that there was too much information available to be taught and that new information was created at a rate that defied the ability to have it taught. The theory suggested that a better way to educate the young was to “teach them to think” rather than teach facts. Using that theory, mathematics, history, and science were placed on the back burner and “life skills” and “life adjustment” classes were prioritized. We have now had many years of those theories and to be honest, they suck. To paraphrase another writer, there is no use in being able to think if you have nothing to think about.

One could argue that the purveyors of those theories didn’t understand what was being taught in the first place. While it is true that most people not involved in science, engineering, finance, architecture, etc. don’t use higher mathematics on a regular basis, the theorists completely misunderstood mathematics education. While mathematics education does teach students how to manipulate and solve equations and problems, that is only one part of the class. More importantly, mathematics teaches students how to approach any problem rationally and to be careful in what assumptions you make. Problems need to be solved in a step-wise manner in which each step must be justified and not left to whim, chance, or assumption. Many times in mathematics, the real answer to a problem is not what the answer is intuitively. Additionally, when an answer is obtained using firm and true assumptions and steps based on correct technique, one can be confident that the solution is solid and reliable. This approach is valuable to almost everyone every day. Systematic problem solving is a valuable life skill and is arguably much more important than how you “feel” about the problem. As an aside, mathematics is important to the daily life of US citizens in that the current Congress certainly has demonstrated that they have no mathematics skills.

History classes tend to be criticized as rote memory of names and dates. If taught correctly, they are anything but that. The early history of the United States, for example, is a drama worthy of any novel or made for television movie. The founders of the United States were not homogenized in their views and goals. There was much consternation about splitting with Great Britain and even more dispute on the proper construction of the government once the revolution was won. The Constitution barely passed. The study of those people tells students not only who those people were but what this country was intended to become. It tells why these people were willing to die to create a way of life where individuals, not a monarch, held sway over their own lives. The founders were real people with differing thoughts and goals, not caricatures on different currency denominations. To be able to take a side in a political discussion, educated citizens should not only understand current issues but how the country got to be where it is and what it was in the past.

Science, at its core, is the search for the truth. Scientists are sometimes accused of being amoral because they do not subscribe to determined agendas. The true scientist takes the data presented and analyzes the data to determine where the real truth lies. Real science is reproducible and does not change with varying researchers. That is why true science is “open source”. Conclusions are only valid when someone else can do the same work and get the same result. When there is disagreement, it is because the data is conflicting when studied by many, not because a political or financial agenda is overshadowing the work. The ability to remain objective and unbiased is a very useful skill in everyday life and is difficult to achieve without education. If anyone watches opinion shows or reads the newspaper, they will realize objectivity is a resource surely lacking.

Political leaders who have nefarious objectives have always sought to “dumb down” the population because it is much easier to mislead and take advantage of an ignorant mob than an educated population. Educated populations ask tough questions and demand accountability from the leaders. In a representative form of government, the government functions best and is predicated on having an educated people. The founders realized that.

The conservative political philosophy encourages individual decision making and liberty. The liberal political philosophy encourages elite groups of leaders to make decisions for the population in their best interest. The assumption is denigrating in that the people are presumed to be unable to decide issues for themselves. It is therefore in the interest of liberals to have the population less informed and less educated and, conversely, in the interest of conservatives to have the population better educated so better individual decisions will be made. It is easier to guide the population to the liberal elites' interests if they are less informed and more dependent. The teachers unions are decidedly liberal, as evidenced by their devout support of liberal politicians. Perhaps that explains why the teachers unions oppose educational programs like the voucher program in Washington, DC which clearly produced better student results at half the taxpayer cost. Teachers colleges educate future teachers on the liberal 1920s theories of education and reinforce the “life skills” agenda. The old saying is “When you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging”. The current educational philosophy in the United States public schools has consistently shown itself to be a failure. Why not go back to what worked and teach people how to think while they actually learn some factual information? Consider it a bonus.

Our Basic Freedoms: Exposing Hypocrisy, Lies and Arrogance

2009-10-19T19:22:00.002-05:00

The founding fathers recognized early on that in order to have an effective government in which the people had a say in their governance, a number of things had to be present. I want to discuss several and the siege upon them. The basics are:

First, an educational system which allowed individuals to be cognizant of how the government worked and the history behind the system was necessary to have voters who had a sense of what the goals of the nation were and how it became what it was.

Second, individuals needed to be free to express opinions publicly so that all sides of a discourse were presented and debated.

Third, the press needed to be free to expose dishonesty, scandal, and the political process so that a ruling class could not operate in their own self-interest without being revealed.

The United States is not a democracy; it is a republic. Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying something to the effect: “a democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what is for lunch; liberty is a well-armed lamb disputing the outcome”. In order for any representative form of government to be viable, an informed and knowledgeable electorate is required. Let’s look at some recent developments and see where we might be heading.

Education – the public education system in the United States has been declining over the last several decades by most measures, especially in urban areas. The basic skills required over the first several centuries of the countries existence (the three R’s: reading writing, and arithmetic), and the concerted study of our nation’s founding and history have been mostly replaced. Courses centered on “life skills” abound. Children are passed despite poor performance because we don’t want them to “feel bad”. There are no winners and losers. Everyone gets a trophy. The study of early American history and the moving parts of the government have less priority than contemporary study of the Civil Rights movement and homosexual rights. The Constitution is presented in essence as “someone wrote it and it passed”. There is no discussion of the effort and great contentiousness of the debate. Most cannot tell one Founding Father from another except to spout out sound bites. Samuel Adams is a beer. John Hancock is an insurance company. It seems the purpose of a public education is presently not to teach basic skills but rather to make people feel good about not knowing those skills. The teachers unions vote for Democrats because they are liberal. The Democrats pass legislation helping teachers unions. Teachers are then obligated to be liberal. It is incestuous. By dumbing down the population, politicians can operate without intellectual confrontation and debate. It is in the powerful player’s interest to stifle an educated population. It is easier to control the uneducated. Moslem countries and dictatorships have done this for all of history. Since test scores and measures of education keep getting worse, why expand the same policies which have contributed to the decline? If my walking was getting worse, I would stop hitting my foot with the hammer.

Individual Expression - Individuals who express opposing opinions can be dealt with in several ways. The most reputable way is to debate publicly on the issues and attempt to convince the populace that your side is correct. Politicians who are pursuing questionable policies or self-interest which will not hold up to public scrutiny use the second method which is to marginalize or demonize the critic. Using character assassination to dispute the reputability of your critic is common practice now. Recent episodes (i.e., Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, an unknown prior to asking an opportune question) have shown that anyone critical of those in power can expect to be crucified by the supporters of the powerful. Politicians even set up media teams whose specific job is to destroy an opponent’s credibility. The third method, mostly used in dictatorships, is to have your opponents “disappear” to either a gulag or a grave. Fortunately, the United States doesn’t usually use that method. Using any of these methods to intimidate an individual citizen fly in the face of the founders expressed intentions.

Freedom of the Press – The way to fight corruption is to expose it. The central weapon in that regard is the press. Investigative journalism is the bedrock of acquiring information and shining the light of publicity on government practices. One of the first things a totalitarian regime does is to muzzle press freedom. There have always been and will always be people in the press and, more recently, broadcast media with agendas and political viewpoints. Anyone can watch CNN, NBC, CBS, etc. and easily see the liberal bias. Anyone watching Fox News knows that there is conservative bias. There is much more liberal television than conservative television. There are liberal newspapers and conservative newspapers. There is conservative talk radio and some, albeit a lot less, liberal talk radio. Those who constantly complain about the bias are unrealistic. It will always be present. The founders view was that the more media outlets there are, the more likely there was to be exposure of some semblance of the truth. One side can print biased stories or opinion pieces or even lies but the other side can confront those biases, opinions, and lies and publish or broadcast opposing views. There is now movement afoot to stifle public debate by controlling the media’s political viewpoint under government control under the guise of “diversity” and “fairness”. There has never been anything fair about the media. The Hearst papers essentially started the Spanish-American War. Grover Cleveland was called an illegitimate father. The papers of the colonial and post-colonial period, as well as the Civil War period were much harsher than anything seen today. For the government to attempt to control media is dangerous and is a first step toward totalitarianism. It should be avoided at all costs. Trying to control media output is tantamount to accusing the population of being too stupid to recognize nonsense when they see it and is disparaging. If you are going to have representative government, you can’t say the people are too stupid to participate.

Another Goofy Idea

2009-09-09T14:35:00.002-05:00

President Obama just came up with an idea on his weekly radio address that would allow people to put a check in a box on their Internal Revenue Service tax return to receive a Series I Savings Bond instead of a payment or check. Ahh...where to begin?

First, anyone who wants to buy a government savings bond can certainly do so now without the IRS's assistance. All this program does is allow the government to borrow extra money from citizens every Spring. After all, a government savings bond is just an IOU from the government for money you lent them. They borrow the money from you and give you interest on the loan. So instead of your money, you have a piece of paper. Why would anyone lend money to these guys until they constrain their spending? That is like giving money to a crack addict and expecting a return on your investment.

Second, it is not their money. It is the taxpayer's money. If someone overpays a bit to avoid writing a check at the end of the year, give them their money back. This program says "let me get back to you later with that money".

Third, will this eventually lead to all refunds being processed this way? If so, it will never work. It is easy enough to change your W-4 form to claim 935 deductions to pay less taxes during the year and just write a check on April 14th. If anything, the taxpayer will have more money to pay the bill with from the interest accrued during the year. The government will, of course, have less. The end result will be that the money the government gets to use now from people overpaying during the year will go away and the net result will be less money to the government, not more.

In one week, the President said we have to spend more and that we have to save more. Which is it?

This is a dumb idea.

What Is A Right and Does Health Care Belong in That Discussion?

2009-08-11T00:21:00.003-05:00

Recent political discussion has brought up the concept of the "right to health care". If you need something, is it the view of some folks that you have a right to it. In order to have a "right" first you need to understand what a right is.

For example, if you are hungry, do you have a right to food? You certainly do need it to survive. However, a right implies that someone cannot take it away from you and that someone is obligated to provide that right to you. In the current political discussion, that someone is the US government. So, getting back to food, if you are able to work and provide for yourself but choose to sit in a lounge chair on your front porch, does the government have an obligation to bring you meals? I am not talking about someone who is affirmed or disabled, but rather about someone who expects assistance because of the "right" to food. Obviously, there is no right to food. If you can provide for yourself, you are expected to do so.

Do you have a right to a residence? We certainly don't want homeless people wandering the streets but if someone is capable of providing for his/herself, does the government have an obligation to house that person? Once again, I am not talking about affirmed/disabled people. The answer is obvious, of course not. Therefore, there is no "right" to a residence.

Alexander Hamilton in 1775, said: ``The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself;
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.''

The beginning of the Declaration of Independence reads "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness..."

Seems pretty straightforward, I suppose. The idea, in both quotations is that rights are not granted, they are things which cannot be taken away. However, that is not always true. Some rights are specified in the US Constitution (more about that below). There are times when individual rights are balanced against the community's. You would think the life part would be pretty simple in that no one can kill you. However, it can get complicated. For example, there is the question of what constitutes life? Are fetuses considered a human life? Not to abortion proponents but yes to opponents of abortion. If someone's heart is beating but the upper brain is not functioning, are they alive? Legally, the answer is no even if they can continue physical existence without assistance for a period of time. The protection of your right to life is an obligation of the state. However, in death penalty cases, someone's right to life is taken away by the state. In those cases, it is the considered judgment of the state that the crime committed was so heinous that taking away the individual's life is justified for the protection of society as a whole.

Liberty is a little tougher. The old saying is that your right to swing your fist ends at my face. Allowing individual liberty must be balanced with the good of society. The first amendment protects free speech but not speech inciting violence or endangering the public. Per the second amendment, individuals have the right to bear arms but those arms do not include things like cannons, 500 pound bombs or other mass destruction weapons. You can have consensual sex with pretty much anyone you want but not with children. Believe it or not, in many states, it is legal to have sex with animals. In Oregon, it is not a law violation to be in public nude, even in the presence of children. Liberty as a specified right cannot be taken away unless your exercise of that liberty is deemed sufficiently harmful to society as a whole. Those specific limits to individual liberties have been litigated for as long as the United States has existed, and continue today. Some liberties have even been stretched a bit. Nude dancing in strip clubs has been interpreted as free speech. I think if people want to strip nude and dance in an indoor club out of the view of anyone except those who went there to specifically see the dancers, more power to them. But calling that free speech is a stretch.

I have always found, the phrase "pursuit of happiness" pretty vague. To take away someone's pursuit of happiness is then also a vague proposition. We clearly don't want to do it but don't know exactly what it is.

Other specified rights are included in the Constitution; protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the ability to practice the religion of choice; petitioning the government for grievances; freedom of the press; no quartering of soldiers in private homes in peace time; no self-incrimination, a speedy trial, etc. However, what is important to realize is that the Bill of Rights really specifies what the government can't do to citizens rather than what it can.

With that as a preamble, is there a right to health care? Just like food, people can certainly need it, at times. As opposed to food, a majority of the time, most people don't need it. While no one wants people to die from non-treatment of curable conditions, I revert to the previous example. If someone is perfectly capable of providing care for him/herself and chooses not to, does the rest of society have an obligation to give them a free ride? Once again, I am not talking about people who cannot fend for themselves. If health care is a "right" then the government has an obligation to care for those who can afford to take care of themselves and choose not to. I have a tough time swallowing that argument. If you are ninety seven years old with peripheral artery disease, poor cardiac function, obstructive pulmonary disease, etc., and you fall and break your hip, does the government have to provide you a hip replacement? I am not talking about whether it is risky but rather is it a right? If you choose not to wear a motor cycle helmet or seat belt despite a law requiring it, do you have a right to taxpayer-funded health care if you choose not to buy insurance for yourself? If you gorge yourself up to 600 pounds and cannot leave your bed, does the government have to pay for your care or gastric bypass? If you choose to become a heroin addict and contract hepatitis via an infected needle, do you have a right to free health care from the government?

I think is a rightful role of government to help the those who cannot help themselves due to disability or impairment but that if you have the ability to provide for yourself and do not choose to do so, you are on your own. Therefore, there is no "right" to health care and those who argue for it are doing so out of a desire to have everything provided to them without effort. Of course, if enough people go that route, no one produces anything and there is no care for anyone.

Health Care Insurance Reform Fallacies

2009-07-23T11:05:00.001-05:00

Most of the political posturing about health insurance reform has now gone back to the old political methods of presenting heart-wrenching cases as justification for sweeping reform. It is much akin to how the media produces a sad case to promote their agenda. During the middle of the Bush administration, when the financial outlook was really good, liberal news outlets would find some obscure person somewhere and do a story on how terrible her situation was as a way of blaming the administration. It is common procedure. But alas, you will never see a story now about how bad the economy is but how well a particular person is doing somewhere.

There are ways to improve health care access and reduce costs that are fairly simple and a lot less costly than what is being proposed. I have previously written about removing state monopolies and other strategies. However, let’s think about health insurance generically and what it is supposed to do.

Back in the day, someone thought it would be a good idea to go to someone with money and sell “If you pay me some money up front and regularly, I will pay for your expenses if you have a catastrophe of some sort.” The concept would work for fire damage, severe weather damage, your herd dying of disease, your crops not coming in, and other property losses. With the invention of the automobile and the large investment required to buy one and the potential for expenses if you ran yours into someone or something, it seemed a good idea to have insurance against those expenses. The government thought it was such a good idea that laws were passed requiring insurance. Of course, mortgage holders also required insurance for properties that they held liens upon in order to protect their loan pay back. Legislatures are always willing to require insurance as: a) they are made up of lawyers; b) lawyers always pass laws that help lawyers; and c) insurance companies are quite willing to pay legislatures to support passing those laws.

As insurance companies grew, they thought of more and more things to insure against. Of course, health care cost was one of them. Somehow, the concept changed over the years for health insurance. Using the original concept, you would have insurance for catastrophic expenses. If you were injured severely or had a very serious illness, insurance would cover your expenses (or most of them depending on how much you paid up front). Somehow, the health insurance morphed into policies that paid for everything. Routine office visits, visits to the emergency room (even if it wasn’t an emergency), home health visits, cosmetic procedures, and hundreds of other expenses became covered. Of course, there is no incentive to restrain your visits when it doesn’t cost you anything. In fact, there is a tendency to want to “get your money’s worth” out of a policy for which you pay premiums. It is also inevitable that a policy like that cannot ever be financially viable for the insurance provider because the costs have no constraint. As costs rose, it became cheaper to buy policies as a group in order to average risk across a group of people. Since people generally can’t get together and form a group to buy insurance, would form these groups? Company employees. Thus began the employer-provided insurance plans.

With an employer-provided plan, there is exactly zero incentive to restrain costs for the employee. The employee only fills out forms and the employer pays all the costs. The employer goes down the tubes. Another financial innovator went to the large employers with this idea, “If you give me a certain amount of money each year per person, I will take care of their health care needs and you will have fixed costs. If it costs more, I will take the loss, if it costs less, I will keep the extra money”. Thus, the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) was invented. Of course, the way HMOs make money is by doing as little for patients as possible. It is built into the contract. The paradox is that the companies compete by purporting to offer more services but the way they make money is by not providing them.

The real question is how health insurance veered off the normal insurance track. If health insurance was still using the same model as other types of policies, people would primarily have catastrophic insurance and would set their co-pays and deductibles by their level of risk and how much they were willing to pay in premiums. To reduce costs, there has to be incentive for people to do it. The only real incentive is to have people pay for what they use which isn’t catastrophic. For example, if you pay for an office visit, you will decide whether you really need to go before you do. If it costs six to ten times more to go to the emergency room than it does to go to your regular doctor, you will likely go to your regular doctor rather than fill the emergency room with non-emergency patients.

I am not saying people who are destitute should not have access to care. The government should help the poor and people who are unable to work. People don’t have a problem with helping people who are incapable of working. People do have a problem with paying for people who choose not to work or providing free care to affluent people who don’t need it. To reduce health care costs, the exact wrong thing to do is to make it “free”. The real answer to the problem is to go back to basics and review what health care insurance is supposed to do and the best and most efficient way to provide that care. Trying to cover everyone with “free” care and reducing physician payments until there are few doctors left is clearly not the answer.

Using Health Care Reform To Control Everything

2009-06-16T20:43:00.004-05:00

The current administration is talking about the health care "crisis" and is prepared to spend over one trillion dollars to insure about 16 million people (of their estimated 40 million without insurance). That works out to about $62,500 per person. Why not just buy them a policy at a few thousand a year and save a bunch of money? Because that is not what this is about. I wrote an earlier article about the differences between the liberal and conservative philosophies and how the liberals always think they are smarter than everyone else and therefore want to determine how everyone else behaves and lives. Health care is the ultimate weapon of control. How can that be, you may ask? What is wrong with insuring people who have no health care now? Nothing, on the surface. Let's look a little closer at some of the issues.

President Obama said he wants to remove waste and overcharging by physicians. This is a straw man argument. There are already massive amounts of regulation and remedies for physicians who do that, in the way of both regulatory and criminal statutes. It is total nonsense to say new programs are needed. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services stated that she wanted to protect physicians from liability if they practiced with (paraphrasing) "accepted standards". There in lies the rub. The entire idea here is that the government will financially twist the arms of physicians and hospitals to dictate care. They keep repeating the mantra that physicians should be in charge of medical care. Physicians will be free to make their own decisions. The only problem is that if the government disagrees, the physician doesn't get paid. Sounds like Chicago in the 1920s. Capone would be proud.

The government in the United States has a several hundred year history of taking good intentions and totally screwing them up. One of the reasons for this is that they try to write centralized regulations for currently about 300 million people. It is impossible to do and consider individual circumstances. Even much simpler issues (drug policy, transportation, weapons, etc.) have varying circumstances in different states. What you end up with is exception after exception added to the rules until you have the United States tax code (which no one, even the Internal Revenue Service, understands).

If a doctor decides a patient needs a drug and the government wants the patient to get another one, no payment. If your doctor tells you that you need surgery and the government disagrees, pay for it yourself. Actuarial tables will be used to determine who gets what. If you are over a certain age, head on down to the Soylent Green plant because you aren't getting anything that costs money.

But alas, it gets worse. Because the government decides who gets paid benefits and how much, it is easy to creep forward in logic. For example, if you engage in a dangerous activity (skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, etc.) it is easy for the government to say you have to pay more for premiums or we just don't cover you. Okay. But it isn't a big step to say, if you smoke or are overweight, the same thing applies. There is already use of cigarette taxes to fund stop smoking programs. Hmmm. If you stop in McDonalds, you will pay a surcharge to cover the health care cost of eating a cheeseburger or french fries. There can be a dessert tax. You can get a break depending on what kind of car you drive, what kind of groceries you buy, what kind of hypoallergenic make up you use, if you take vitamins, if you are in a monogamous relationship, or if you limit yourself to two beers at the Fourth of July picnic. But how can we tell who deserves these premium benefits and coverage additions? Well, clearly we have to keep track of what people are doing so the government will know who to benefit. The government can track your vehicle registration, your purchases at the grocery store, your exercise log, your sex partner registration, your fast food purchases, if you bought condoms, or if you ate a second piece of cake at the birthday party. It's for your own good. I am from the government and I am here to help you.

Government will tell automobile manufacturers what kinds of vehicles they can make (already happening with General Motors). Government will determine which restaurants can stay open and what they can serve by imposing "unhealthy food" fees. Government will tell you which hobbies you can and cannot have and when you need to lose weight. It's okay though, because it is for your own good. Because anyone who is not liberal or progressive is too stupid to realize what is good for them individually, it is the government's responsibility to make decisions for them.

It is easy to take those steps in logic, just like it was easy to go down the path of eugenics in Germany in the 1930's. That didn't work out very well. Is this something we really want to do? Like they said in The Incredibles, "When everyone is super, no one will be". Take anyway people's right to individual decisions about their life, and there is no freedom and some would argue that it isn't a life worth living because we become cattle. The very basis of this nation's founding will have been killed. This is not about health care. It is about control.

The Unions Get Paid Off by the Democrats

2009-03-16T17:48:00.002-05:00

There is a disturbing trend in the actions of the Obama administration when it comes to how they spend the money. There are at least four different examples which will highlight the trend.

First, the automobile industry bailout: Money was given to General Motors and Chrysler instead of allowing the companies to reorganize under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Therefore, public money was taken from auto workers in the south whose average salary is about forty three dollars an hour and given to United Auto Workers members in Michigan whose average salary is about seventy one dollars an hour. The Obama administration portrayed the action as helping the General Motors and Chrysler corporations. In fact, a chapter 11 bankruptcy would have been much more advantageous as it would have allowed renegotiation of the labor contracts and would have relieved the pressure of legacy costs to the companies. The money was really a bail out of the United Auto Workers, not the companies. It hasn’t worked and the two companies have shown no signs of changing fortunes.

Second, the school voucher program in Washington, DC: The voucher program in Washington, DC cost about $7600 per student. The schools at which the voucher students attended had 90% higher scores in language tests and 95% higher scores in mathematics testing. The interesting paradox is that the Washington, DC public school system spends about $13,000 per student. The omnibus spending bill removed funding for the school voucher program. The Democrats, in their infinite concern for children, cancelled a program which cost taxpayers half as much and resulted in markedly better school performance. Why would they do that? The answer is easy. The teachers union has been paid off for supporting Democratic candidates in the election. The Democrats are willing to screw over poor children and their families in order to pay off the union.

Third, the stimulus construction projects: The stimulus bill passed by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration has a provision that stipulates that stimulus construction projects have to pay union wages to workers on stimulus projects. Why would that provision be in the bill? After all, it would result in less money to do projects and the ones that are completed would cost more. The reason is easy. Governments don’t build roads and bridges, private contractors do. Those contracts are awarded by bid. A non-union company can submit a lower labor cost bid than a union company. The raw materials cost will be the same. Therefore, the non-union bid will generally be lower. This provision in the bill is expressly for the benefit of union contractors to receive stimulus money contracts for infrastructure. The unions will receive money but the taxpayers will get less infrastructure projects completed for their money.

Fourth, the “Employee Free Choice Act”: This piece of legislation is close to criminal. The rules would change and take away the right of workers to a secret union election ballot. To organize a union, all that organizers would need is 51% of employees to sign a card and the union would be installed. The cards would be public and the period of time to have them signed in unlimited. This is like the mob in Chicago in the 1930s. Union thugs intimidating workers is not progress. The intimidation may not even be the worst part of the bill. In the event of non-resolution of a union contract, after a set period of time the federal government will set wages. Hmmm… with the Democrats in power, I wonder whose side would be favored? Therefore, people who are intimidated into a union will have their wages set by the federal government. This is an economic disaster of the highest magnitude just waiting to happen. It will lead to companies closing because they are no longer profitable and revival of the union thugs who have essentially gone away due to people's reluctance to embrace unions.

In all four examples, it is easy to see the pay off to the various unions by the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration. It is brazen and open. It is also going to massively harm the United States economy and prevent recovery. A recent poll which asked people if they desired to have their jobs converted to union jobs had only 9% say yes and a resounding 83% say no. This is the Democratic version of the organized crime “protection” rackets and is disgusting.

Now That They Get It, They Can’t Fix It

2009-03-15T18:22:00.003-05:00

I have written a number of times previously about the source of the current economic crisis in the United States. To briefly review, the Congress and Clinton administration created policy which encouraged loans to low income individuals because they thought more home ownership would be good for the country. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bought a lot of the loans from primary lenders therefore leading the primary lenders to make more poor loans. The real problem came when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created securities based on the value of those bad mortgages and sold hundreds of billions of dollars of the securities to investment banks around the world. The current problem with fixing the problem is that there is no way to determine which mortgages are associated with which securities. Because there is no association, no one can determine how much each security is worth. Therefore, banks who own billions of dollars in those securities don’t have any idea whether they own securities of value or not. They are holding onto the solid money they have because they don’t really know how much they have in those securities. The US government is discussing how to get those “toxic assets”, as they are now known, out of the financial system to try to restore normality to the system. The administration and the Congress are still trying to figure out how to do it.

There are several possible ways to try to value those assets. The grindstone way is to look at every single mortgage which was bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the value of the mortgage (solid, just getting by, or in default). Even if that monumental task was done (and it would take a long time), the question then becomes how to assign the individual mortgages to the securities. None of the owners of the securities want the worthless mortgages assigned to the securities that they own. In fact, the owners of the securities are looking for the government to get them their money back. That is patently ridiculous. The idea that taxpayers should make up money to speculators who greedily and hungrily bought those securities is insane. If I buy a stock and the value tanks, I don’t expect the government to refund my money. One way to assign mortgages which would seem fairer is to evaluate them all and to use the average value to calculate the value of the securities. That way, every institution that bought those securities will share proportionately in the pain of the downturn of the real estate market and none will be assigned entirely worthless mortgages. The problem with that approach is that a vague average is assigned and not the actual value of the individual mortgage. When assets are not based on a real value, there is a lot of uncertainty in the system. It is that very uncertainty which keeps financial institutions from freeing funds for lending.

The government solution currently seems to be to buy those “toxic assets” from the owners of the securities to resume normal operation of the financial system. There are several problems with this solution. The first is that by spending $750 billion on the first TARP (toxic asset relief program), a $760 billion “stimulus program” which had nothing to do with correcting the problem, a TARP II program, and then a $410 billion omnibus spending bill, the American public has caught on to the fact that the money has to come from somewhere. There is little, if any, patience left for another huge spending bill in addition to President Obama’s proposed 2009-2010 budget. The President is continuing to propose huge spending on social programs which are liberal politics and have nothing to do with fixing the problem. The cost of buying the “toxic assets” is staggering. I believe the current administration has misspent the political capital from the election on the huge liberal spending programs and now will have to deal with the resentment to their spending. The resentment and potential political backlash will likely prevent the spending which should have been the first priority, fixing the mortgage crisis. If the mortgage security problem had been originally addressed, the markets would have fixed themselves and several trillion dollars in government "stimulus" could have been saved. By taking political advantage of the crisis to put liberal social programs in place, there is nothing left with which to fix the crisis. The only option is to borrow from foreign countries and tax the people who actually earn money, therefore leaving them nothing to invest in the markets. It is self-defeating.

My guess is that they will inevitably screw the taxpayers by paying way too much for the assets in order to appear to be doing something and gain political points. The actual value of the assets will eventually declare themselves and the government (taxpayers) will be left holding the empty bag. The government will once again reward the speculators and failures at the expense of the prudent and safe investors. The same congressional representatives who screwed the pooch on oversight, regulation and then on spending will be the ones trying to fix the problem. When the government negotiates with people who are actually smart about financial matters and do it for a living, the government will always get hosed.

The Liberal versus Conservative Philosophies

2009-03-12T17:56:00.003-05:00

I noticed that the Democratic Congress is talking about another bogus stimulus package. Everyone who paid attention knows that the first stimulus package was not intended for stimulus or, if it was, it was only a peripheral goal. The idea of that package was to use the crisis to advance liberal programs which would not have been passed through the normal appropriations process. By bundling them up in the package, the Democrats could get a lot of their long stalled programs into law. It was a total scam. President Obama used the Bill Clinton tactic of running as a moderate but has since shown his true colors as a far-left liberal. Let’s look at some of the fundamental differences in the philosophies between liberals and conservatives.

The overwhelming viewpoint of liberalism is arrogance. The view of liberals is that the population needs guidance and caring from the government. They are maternal in attitude. The liberals feel that the government has to be maternal because the liberal officials in government are so much smarter than the population. The fundamentals of conservatism include the concept that people can think and choose for themselves and that an individual or family will know better what they need for their own situation than program directors in the government. You will notice that states where there are large numbers of farmers, ranchers, and others who are used to living independently and making their own decisions are almost exclusively conservative and represented by conservative Republican or moderate Democrat officials. The states primarily in the north east and in the rust belt where people primarily live in large cities and depend more on government infrastructure tend to be Democratic. Much was made of the recent Democrat wins in 2008 but if you paid attention you would notice that a lot of the newly elected members of Congress were moderates, like Rep. Heath Shuler in North Carolina. I find the liberal attitude insulting and demeaning. The idea that someone who has never met me, knows nothing of my own or family situation, and has less education than I do, can tell me how to run my life because they are smarter than me is insulting and arrogant. The government is supposed to serve the people, not control their every day life. If you read the Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, it is clear that while there are clear reasons to have a strong central government (military, commerce, treaties, etc.) the Constitution is primarily there to define what government is NOT supposed to do. Liberalism thinks that the government should constantly guide your decisions because they know so much more than you do. It is offensive.

Both liberalism and conservatism attempt to improve the financial standing of the general population. There is a great difference in the ways that the two philosophies go about it. In general, conservatives feel that the road to economic success lies in opportunities and restricting the amount of personal or business income that the government takes from the population in the form of taxes. The idea is that people, when provided opportunity, will improve their own situations based on their merit and work ethic. By allowing individuals and businesses to achieve success based on their own ideas and effort, people have incentive to work harder and innovate. By allowing people to keep more of what they earn and by providing opportunities for people to succeed, those at the lower income levels can improve their situation with hard work. Liberals go about this differently. Liberals feel that people of lower incomes are “victims of the system”. The way that liberals will improve the plight of those at the lower end of the economic spectrum is to take income away from the upper income earners and give it to the lower income group. It is denigrating to those who would like to improve their situation on their own. It is tantamount to saying that those without success are incapable of achieving it on their own. It is a philosophy of victimhood and once again shows that the overarching liberal philosophy is that they are smarter than everyone else. Conservatives want to raise the lower end of the economic spectrum and liberals want to lower the upper end by giving their earnings to the lower end. They call it “fairness”. It is a disincentive to work and innovate. How many times have you heard someone say, “Why work? The government is going to take it, anyway.” Of course, the liberal philosophy leads to socialism and eventually communism. The only difference is how far you are willing to go.

Recent program proposals by the current administration are evidence of the differing philosophies. The proposal for government-run universal health care demonstrates the arrogance of the liberal elected officials. I have written a number of pieces about it. The idea is that in order to reduce costs, the government is now going to tell physicians how to practice and to take away the right of successful earners to individualize their coverage. It is demeaning. While everyone agrees that reduction of carbon emissions is a worth while goal, the last ten years have shown a cooling trend on the Earth. Despite data to the contrary, the current administration wants to put in place a “cap and trade” system which will substantially impact the American economy. Their justification is “global warming” despite all data to the contrary. It is because they are smarter than the scientists.

The real common thread of liberalism which differentiates the philosophy from conservatism is control. Everything about liberalism allows the government to obtain power over the population in their daily lives. Once again, the reason that they want that power is because they truly believe they are smarter than the population and therefore should tell the population how to live. If you look at the very populations that the liberals have identified as those they are "lifting up" in the last fifty years, there is little to no evidence that the liberal policies have done anything other than to further the dependence of those same people to government assistance. It is a Bernie Madoff scam of the highest order. Conservatism allows people to be left alone and gives more individual freedom to the population and therefore cedes control away from the government.

The idea that people are incapable of taking care of themselves, working hard and earning based on their own merits is arrogant and insulting. I am constantly amazed how liberal politicians can routinely insult people and still manage to acquire their vote by buying them off. It certainly is easier to just sit back, claim to be a victim, and have the government give you some free money that someone else earned, than it is to work hard for yourself. The problem with that is that if enough people do it, no one is left to earn. Then the economy collapses and you end up in the Soviet Union. Conservatism is the philosophy which drove people from Europe to the United States and drove the movement of people during the western expansion of the United States. It is a fundamental quality of the American people which will prove popular if elected officials who purport to be conservative would actually govern as conservatives once they are elected.

Bringing Down Health Care Costs

2009-03-07T14:42:00.002-05:00

This is another in the health care discussion continuum. I am hearing a lot of ridiculous statements from politicians. Let’s look at some ways that would actually reduce health care costs and if we really want to go there.

I spent a lot of time discussing universal health care, the built in inefficiencies, and how it will lead to poorer quality physicians and care in an earlier entry. I am clearly convinced that universal government-run health care is a disaster and will make mediocre care available for everyone. As I said in that piece, 40 million Americans have poor care now but universal health care will make sure everyone does.

Rationing Care – We could do what the British and other socialized medicine care countries do. They don’t call it rationing. They call it an effective use of resources to deny care to significant portions of their population. The way they do it is with actuarial tables. For example, if the median age of death in the country is 74 and you are 76, no matter your medical health state, you are a bad investment for medical resources. If you prescribe to those statistical methods, you probably also believe that when you reach a certain age, you should just jump off a building or head on down to the Soylent Green plant for processing. Additionally, under mandatory universal health care, someone like Warren Buffet with a billion dollars earned, gets the same care as John Q. Suckerfish, who had lived his life on welfare. A system like this will set up generational war where the younger members of society will hoard the health care dollars despite having no where near the need for them. Do you really want to see your parents and grandparents denied care, even if they are in good health, based purely on an actuarial table? I don’t think we want to go there.

Improving efficiency – Everyone always talks about improving efficiency in health care. You might notice that they always do it in generalities. President Obama continually talks about the “billions of dollars we can save by improving efficiency in health care” but the only specific he ever mentions is electronic medical records. I have addressed the problems with those in an earlier post. When people talk about improving efficiency in generalities, it is a sure sign that they have no idea what they are talking about. It is a straw man. It is like saying “I am for better schools” or “I am for a strong defense”. Unless you have specific proposals, you reek of fecal matter from male cows when you discuss it.

Get Out of My Emergency Room – One method of reducing costs which has been widely recognized for years is moving people back to seeing their family primary care physicians and physician assistants. The same office visit which costs $75 at the family physician office costs $600 at the local emergency room. I have worked in many emergency rooms where every Sunday night, mothers bring in their children with minor complaints of colds, fevers, etc. to inquire whether their children should go to school tomorrow or not. It is major waste of health care dollars. If a family physician or pediatrician held office hours Sunday evening, the emergency room would only have half as many patients and the cost would be reduced by a factor of ten. The reasons that emergency rooms exist is because doctors historically did not want to have to work twenty four hours a day. Since internists and surgeons would be called in at all hours of the night to see patients, they came to hire physicians to man the medical facility at night. That eventually led to the creation of the emergency medicine specialty.

Many people now use the emergency room as their local clinic. Part of the reason for this is that emergency rooms are not allowed to turn away patients. Therefore, a person can choose not to pay for health insurance and just show up. Who picks up the cost? The taxpayers of the local area. In an analogous manner to the emergency room physician, why not have physicians or practitioners man clinics at night to allow primary care to be done at the clinic rate rather than the emergency room rate? If people use their existing health policies to make office visits instead of using the emergency room, huge savings are possible.

Private Health Insurance – Over the years, business interests have put in place laws which severely restrict which health care plans people can purchase. For example, in most places, you cannot buy a policy across a state line. If you live in Maryland, for example, you cannot buy a policy from a health insurance company in Utah. The system was set up by the local legislature after lobbying from the local health insurance company to set up a monopolistic system. The system guarantees no competition and therefore no reason to improve policies or reduce premiums. It is the same as universal health care in that the system is bloated and inefficient. To reduce costs almost immediately, those state line restrictions should be dropped. This must be done in combination with the next section to induce competition among health insurance providers. A family will buy the health insurance policy with the best benefit package and lowest premiums available if those plans are in competition.

Third Party Payers – This section goes hand in hand with the prior one. Companies always complain about runaway health care costs as the reason they are unable to make a profit. It many cases, it is true. No one who has company-provided health care cares what it costs because they never see the premiums. As long as you can get care for your family and keep your job, there is no reason to care about the premiums. I believe one answer is to get rid of third party payers. If your employer gives you, as part of your pay and benefits package, money to buy health insurance instead of providing a policy, you then have a vested interest in knowing what it costs and finding the best policy available for the best price. A system like that would provide a lot of flexibility. It would be like automobile insurance in some ways. If you are a young healthy person, you could opt for low premiums with higher co-pays (deductibles) because the likelihood of having a serious illness in your twenties or thirties is fairly low. As you age, you can adjust your policy for higher premiums with lower co-pays because the likelihood of your needing medical care increases. If you have an individual or family policy that you own personally, you can take it with you if you change employers. Since you would buy the policy while you are young, you would not run into the problem of changing jobs in your late forties and finding the new premiums prohibitively expensive. If any policy anywhere in the country was available, people would shop for the best policy around. Insurance carriers would then be forced to compete with better benefits and lower premiums in order to attract customers. This is the way that free markets always improve services for customers.

Did you ever notice that when you buy a slice of pizza in New York City that it is really good? There is nothing genetic about the people in New York that makes them better cooks and the ingredients are the same as everywhere else. Why is that? It is because if you don’t make a good pizza slice, there are three more places down the street that do and you go out of business. That is the way competition works. If competition in the health insurance industry is opened, policies will improve and prices will improve. People will be able to maintain their policies no matter where they move and if they change their job. The market will fix the problem if we let it. For those unable to purchase policies due to physical or mental disabilities, the government can help them. No one has a problem with that. The prices will be less expensive to the government because of the competition in the industry and it will cost less in tax dollars. I should point out that I do have a problem with providing tax money for health care to able-bodied people who choose not to work or buy a policy. They have chosen their own fate as people in the United States are free to do.

Tort Reform – Many physicians are now required to practice what is known in the sector as “defensive medicine”. What that amounts to is getting your ducks in a row before the inevitable frivolous lawsuit. Extra expensive radiology studies, laboratory tests, and follow up visits are the norm to prevent litigation. In the obstetrics field, there are two kinds of baby births: perfect and lawsuit. It doesn’t matter if the birth mother is a crack-smoking alcoholic who performed as a professional wrestler while eight months pregnant, if the baby isn’t perfect, the Ob/Gyn is getting sued. That is because there are law firms that do nothing else but sue physicians and hospitals. In Pennsylvania, the same malpractice insurance policy for a general surgeon that costs $37,000 a year in premiums in Virginia, costs $135,000. Why is that? Are surgeons that much worse in Pennsylvania? No, it is because the tort laws in Pennsylvania are set up for lawyers to make money. You will find this to be true in every Democratic state. Since the Trial Lawyers Association is the biggest single contributor to the Democratic Party, you will never see tort reform in one of those states. About 36% of the general surgeons in Pennsylvania have left the state. They cannot afford to practice there. They have to make $135,000 before they make a penny to keep. The does not include paying office staff, leases for offices, supplies, administrative costs, licenses, continuing medical education or any of the other routine costs of running a practice. Therefore, they move or stop practicing. Pennsylvania screws itself. Of course, that won’t stop the legislators from complaining about the situation, even though they caused it. It is a lot like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank talking about the housing crisis. Next time you think medical care is too expensive; go to see your lawyer to get that coronary artery bypass surgery. I’m sure he can hook you up.

In summary, there are a number of ways to reduce health care costs which are far preferable to government-run universal health care. I have pointed out a few but not all. I am sure I will visit this subject again.

Democratic Selective Memory

2009-03-07T01:21:00.003-05:00

Let’s start with a fact which is beyond dispute: The Democratic Party has been in the majority, and therefore in control, of both houses of Congress since the 2006 elections. In most of the recent discussions seen in the media and by Democrats themselves, that fact seems to get lost.

Part 1. When discussing the current economic condition of the United States, President Obama and all his surrogates constantly remind us that “this administration inherited this crisis from the previous administration”.

More facts: Article I, Section 7 of the US Constitution states, in part: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”
Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, states, in part:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I deleted a number of lines which don’t have to do with finances. I think you can get the drift of these two sections of the US Constitution. The Congress owns the money and determines where it goes. How it is it, then, that the Democratic Congress has nothing to do with the current economic situation when they have been running both houses of Congress since 2006? It seems they forgot.

Part 2. The $410 billion omnibus spending bill which is currently under consideration contains about 8600 earmark spending projects. The current administration campaigned on and constantly disparage the placement of earmark spending projects. Their excuse for the current bill is that that Congress did not pass a budget at the end of 2008 for fiscal year 2009 and this is a leftover from the Bush Administration. Therefore, the earmarks in the bill are a product of the Bush Administration. Let me review: The Democratically controlled Congress did not pass a budget in the fall of 2008. The Democratically controlled Congress inserted about 8600 earmarks into the current bill. The Democratically controlled Congress raises the baseline spending in the budget by about 8%. Somehow, all of that is the fault of the Bush Administration. That is insane.

Part 3. When describing the housing downturn and banking crisis in the United States, Democrats blame the Bush Administration. The Senate Banking Committee, which regulates banks, is chaired by Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut. Not surprisingly, Dodd received the largest amount of political contributions from Fannie Mae. Senator (at that time) Obama, received the second most. The House committee regulating banking and housing is chaired by Representative Barney Frank, Democrat from Massachusetts. When approached by the Bush Administration and Senator John McCain about increasing regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac several years before the crisis, it was Barney Frank who prevented the increased scrutiny and declared boldly during a committee hearing that “There is no crisis at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” The Securities and Exchange Commission was run by Christopher Cox, a Republican appointee. Let me review: The Democrats controlled both of the committees which regulated banking and housing. Therefore, one can argue that there is plenty of blame to go around, but to blame the Bush Administration exclusively is insane.

If you listen to MSNBC or other liberal media outlets, every day there is some story like: “Today a woman in Podunk, Missouri was run over by a toddler on a tricycle while searching for her lost cat. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated today that lack of regulation of toddler tricycles by the Bush Administration is to blame for the accident.”

At some point, people are going to realize that the Democrats have run Congress since 2006 and will hold them responsible for their action and inaction.

Universal Health Care

2009-03-05T06:37:00.002-05:00

Health care costs in the United States are rising at a rate significantly higher than the rate of inflation. Corporations which provide health care to their employees are hammered by those increases. There is much discussion about how to slow the increase and improve efficiency. The Democratic Party has been pushing for government-run health care since the Clinton administration. Since it a huge agenda item for the Obama administration, let’s look at some of the issues involved.

Let’s start first with the people who actually provide health care. I will talk mostly about physicians but one must remember that in a private practice environment, if the physician makes less money, everyone associated with that physician makes less money also. One of the things which is coming out of the administration spokespeople is that they want to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and reduce payments to physicians. Let’s talk about reducing payments to physicians. I am a physician and I can honestly say that I don’t know a single physician who went in to the practice of medicine exclusively to make a lot of money. That being said, for those readers who might not know what is involved in becoming a practicing physician, let me give you a clue. I spent the requisite twelve years in public school getting good grades. Because my family could not afford to pay for college, I did an enlistment in the Navy to obtain Veterans Administration benefits. Using, those benefits and working full time, I obtained a chemical engineering degree in five years. I spent four years in medical school on a military scholarship and with loans because I could not afford medical school without them. I then spent five years working about 110-120 hours a week with virtually no days off to finish a surgery residency. I spent two more years completing a trauma/critical care fellowship. If you add that up, that is twenty eight total years of education. I paid for the scholarships with years of my life. Is it reasonable to think that after all those years of effort that I should be financially secure? Should I be held in contempt because I expect my efforts to be rewarded? I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination. With all of that education, should I make the same salary as a bank clerk, automobile mechanic, carpet installer, or ice cream vendor? It is an interesting question. In fact, should I be salaried at all or should I be paid by the services I provide? If I am a better surgeon than the guy down the street, should I make more money? I don’t make one tenth of what a professional baseball player makes. Is a baseball player more valuable to society than a surgeon? To place fixed salaries on any profession is to encourage mediocrity. If all baseball players make the same amount of money, there is no reason for anyone to try to become a star. There is no incentive. If you reduce incomes of physicians to the same level as any profession that requires one-year training program or a college degree, where is the incentive for someone to go through what I went through? I love taking care of patients but I am not a financial masochist. It took me sixteen years to pay off my medical school loans. Government-run socialized medicine is a one way ticket to mediocre physicians. Smart people will find something else to do.

What are people entitled to? There is discussion about whether health care is a right. Is everyone entitled to everything at any time? In an ideal world, that would be possible but in a real world with fixed resources, it is not. If it is not possible for everyone to have everything, who decides who gets what? The Democrats want the government to decide. That is happening in England now. They use actuarial tables to decide by your age what health care to which you are entitled. For example, past a certain age, if you having a failing heart valve, the government will not pay for a valve replacement because they have decided that it is a bad investment. It certainly does save costs. They do the same for interventional radiology, transplants, x-ray studies, etc. It is only another small step for the government to decide who lives and dies. It will be like planned obsolescence. You reach a certain age and you will be considered useless to society and we find ourselves cast in Soylent Green. Another government, years ago, went through these logical steps: why spend a lot of money on people who don’t contribute to society; why allow those people with genetic defects or insanity to reproduce; why spend money housing those people who aren’t reproducing anyway; why not terminate those people because their life is worthless and miserable, we would be doing them a favor. They called the science eugenics and it led to millions of deaths. In the current American system, decisions are made with your physician based on your individual story. I make these decisions all the time. A socialized set of rules will lead to philosophical questions. If you are a fifty year old award-winning teacher, do you deserve less care, based on an actuarial table, than a twenty-five year old crack dealer who was shot committing his fifth violent felony? If you are sixty five years old and are an active member of society, you have different options than a sixty-five year old in a skilled nursing facility who is completely unaware of the surroundings and has multiple chronic debilitating diseases. Is that cruel or is it just a better use of resources? While private insurers do limit treatment payments, the individual has a voice in choosing the limits of their coverage by the premiums they chose to pay. In a government run system, the rules will be fixed in concrete and the individual circumstances won’t be considered. The fixed salary, robotic doctors will practice under constraints and algorithms which will take decisions away from the doctor, patient, and family and leave in the hands of government health care administrators. That will lead to a dual system of medicine: a fee for service upscale system for the wealthy and a government-run mediocre system for everyone else. It is another step on the road to mediocrity. The Democrats argue that currently 40 million people have poor health care. They want to make sure everyone has equally bad health care.

Any government program has inherent flaws. The first is trying to write rules that apply to 300 million people and address all circumstances is impossible. Whenever it is tried, like in the tax code, it leads to tens of thousands of exceptions that no one can understand. It never works. Another generic problem with the way the United States government works is the way that money is handled. In private industry, the people who do the work own the money. Private industry will invest money in order to save money or improve efficiency any time they see a chance to do so. It is those investments and improvements which drive the economy and fill market niches. In the government, the people who own the money and the people who use it are separate. The government puts that system in place to try to control expenditures. The problem with that system is that the people who dole out the money don’t understand the work being accomplished and the only way that they can look good is to spend less money. Therefore, every year the money people have the goal of restricting spending no matter the outcome. There is no better example than the military supply system. It is onerous and unwieldy and the deck plate workers can’t understand the system or find what they need. Anyone who has ever worked in a government program knows that the program always asks for more than they expect to use. They also save money until the end of the fiscal year in case something comes up. If they spend less than their budget, the budget will be reduced the following year. Therefore, the left over money at the end of the year is always spent on something, no matter how redundant or unnecessary. If you plotted spending by month, you would find every government agency spends huge sums in September before the close of the fiscal year. It is built into the system. It wastes vast sums of taxpayer money. Universal government-run health care will be inefficient and wasteful. All government programs are. Any one who says differently has no experience with the government.

Pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, medical service companies, and health care in general, is better in the United States than anywhere else in the world. I have heard the arguments using statistics about longevity and birth rates deaths, etc. But sensible people vote with their wallets. Does anyone leave the United States for anywhere on the Earth looking for higher quality care? People go all the time for cheaper care but not for better care. Pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment companies are not altruistic. They are in business to make a profit. Most of the advances in medicine, prosthetics, and equipment are developed in the United States and marketed around the world. If you take away the profit motive, those developments will slow to a crawl. The only reason that pharmaceutical companies invest so heavily in research and development is that they stand to make profits when successful drugs are marketed. If that profit potential is taken away, only government research, funded by tax money, will continue.

The very basis of the success of the United States is the market system. It is the best system ever developed to provide incentive for hard work and new ideas. The fact that the individual who works hard or develops a better product receives the benefits of his/her hard work or ingenuity is the thrust behind the success. People do not work hard when there is no incentive to do so. It is the reason communism and socialism always produce poor economies. If I work twice as hard and receive the same benefits, it is only a matter of time before I work down to the lowest level which allows me to keep my job. It brings up more philosophical questions. If I have been a producer, worked hard my entire life, and contributed to society in good behavior and tax revenues to the government, am I entitled to more benefits than the person who did not work and lived off the government (my earnings)? If the Democrats answer is no, why would anyone work? If everyone gets the same thing no matter whether they work hard or not, welcome to the Soviet Union. Some people will say it isn’t fair to have some with more benefits than others. I believe it isn’t fair to those who work hard and produce to be restricted in their benefits to the same level as those who don’t. At the same time I say that, I also say that there is clearly some base line level of care that all citizens should be receiving. Notice I said citizens. No one who is in the country illegally is entitled to a dime of publicly funded health care. It is insane to provide that kind of incentive to people to sneak into the country.

In summary, universal government-run health care will lead to poorer quality physicians, lesser paid assistants, rationing of health care based on broad-based rules not on individual needs, less new products and medications, and inevitable inefficiency and waste. It is a terrible idea and flies in the face of the very system that made the country great.

Task Force Uniform (The Fraud, Waste and Abuse Kings)

2009-02-22T07:01:00.005-05:00

I have already addressed some of these issues but we were discussing them once again and I thought I would reorganize the thoughts, specifically about the new blue battle dress uniform (BDU) and some other Navy recent uniform changes. I have some questions for Task Force Uniform about the new blue BDU uniform.

First: This uniform can only be worn on naval installations and aboard ship. Sailors cannot stop for gas, groceries or any other routine stop between work and home. If the uniform has to be worn only among other naval personnel, who are the people in a camouflage uniform hiding from? Aboard a ship or on a naval installation should be the safest environment in which naval personnel will ever be located. Why is it necessary to wear camouflage?

Second: Assuming everyone is wearing this camouflage uniform on board a ship, does it make any sense at all to be wearing a blue camouflage uniform when a sailor falls overboard? It is hard enough to find someone in the ocean without the added disadvantage of having the person in the water in a purposely difficult to see uniform. Maybe a shipboard uniform, which is worn virtually nowhere else, should be reflective yellow or fuchsia to be seen.

Third: In rapid evolutions (man overboard or general quarters), why come up with a uniform that takes longer to don than the current uniforms? Having worn BDUs in many deployments, they are a hassle to wear correctly with trousers bloused. People will argue that blousing isn’t necessary in a hurry. The counter argument is then why put in place a uniform which ever requires blousing on a ship?

Fourth: Another justification for the BDUs which has been offered is that it will make sailors feel more like “warriors”. This has to be the most condescending, insulting comment ever. Is anyone actually implying that Sailors in blue jeans and white T-shirts who fought throughout World War II were wimps? Are submarine Sailors in coveralls that perform so admirably upon submarines not warriors? I suppose it is a good thing that Task Force Uniform finally came up with a uniform which will make SeALs feel like warriors. This is the worst made up excuse for a uniform ever.

Fifth: If a Sailor deploys in a joint arena with the Army or the Marine Corps, will a Sailor be able to wear this new BDU uniform? Of course not, it is BLUE. If it makes you feel like a warrior, why is it inappropriate? The Sailor will wear either the Army colors or Marine Corps colors to blend in. So now we have a battle dress uniform which can only be worn in battles at sea. It isn’t used in land battles. That is ridiculous. Why come up with a uniform for combat that can't be worn most of the places where combat happens?

Sixth: The cost of the new uniform is $410.05 before the name and rank devices are attached. This uniform costs two to four times the uniforms it replaces. That is a lot of money for a relatively useless uniform. Whose idea was it to come up with an almost prohibitively expensive uniform?

Seventh: The Army and the Air Force allow their members to stop for routine necessities in their BDU uniforms. Assuming that there is a legitimate reason for the uniform (which I haven’t found), why would Task Force Uniform agree to one that is so hideous that no one can be seen in public wearing it? If the Army and Air Force uniforms are acceptable, why not change to Navy versions of similar ones? Someone commented that the leadership wanted time to have people get used to wearing it. Once again, it is incredibly insulting to imply that experienced Sailors cannot figure out how to wear a new or changed uniform and follow instructions.

Now, let's talk about the new physical training uniform. Only Task Force Uniform could come up with a physical training uniform for Sailors which cannot be laundered on a ship. It melts. Additionally, when Sailors bought it, it was like a tourniquet on the upper thigh. It is obviously poorly thought out and a total waste of money.

Let's talk about the new boots for the useless BDU uniform. There are two varieties. All of the other services now have suede finish boots which do not require polish. They are easier to care for and, not coincidentally, harder to be spotted by enemy snipers. Task Force Uniform, in their infinite wisdom, came up with two different black boots. One suede finish boot can only be worn on shore installations. A smooth polished boot must be worn aboard ship because of the sole and steel toes. You can wear the smooth boot on ship or on shore. Let's see... at about $120 a pair, do you think anyone would buy the boot you can only wear on shore if the other can be worn anywhere? Of course, this means that if a Sailor goes anywhere on land in a combat zone, he/she will have to buy the khaki suede boots to go with the Army or Marine Corps uniform. So, my questions would be: Why not find a suede boot with the correct soles and steel toes? Manufacturers will climb over each other to produce them. Why not use the khaki boots everyone else uses? Marines wear the khaki boots when they are on amphibious assault ships. Should they be less safe than Sailors?

Task Force Uniform has really screwed the pooch on this one. Someone in authority needed to squash these things. This is analogous to the ill-fated enlisted uniform of the mid 1970s which temporarily replaced the classic blue jumper uniform. This is the "New Coke" of the Navy's recent past. I suppose the Task Force Uniform members feel obligated to do something to justify the billets and the budget but doing dumb stuff just to do something is not adequate justification for these fiascoes. One of two things will happen with this new blue uniform, either it will go away after a long enough trial period to allow the people who came up with it to save face (and the manufacturer to make a lot of money), or the policies will change and the uniform will have similar limitations to the Army and Air Force. In the mean time, Sailors will have to take the costs on the chin so some manufacturer can get rich.

Complaining About the Inevitable Results of Your Choices

2009-02-20T07:48:00.003-05:00

One of the silver linings of the re-election of Marion Barry as Washington, DC Mayor a few years ago after his crack cocaine bust was that the whole DC statehood issue went away. After all, could folks who elect a crack head as mayor possibly be reputable voters? The issue has recently reared its ugly head again but only because the Democrats want to try to have more seats in Congress. It has nothing to do with fairness or people’s rights. In addition, the Democratic White House wants to manipulate the 2010 census numbers to increase Democratic seats in Congress and funding to Democratic districts. President Obama may become “Papa Doc” Obama if Rahm Emmanuel is unchecked in his power to skew the census. It got me thinking of a broader set of issues which have to do with complaints about the results of knowing choices. The theme will emerge as we look at some seemingly disparate issues.

When you become a resident of Washington, DC, you do so knowing that since the advent of the city, it was meant to be and still is a federal territory providing a location for the federal government. It was created from land ceded to the federal government from Maryland and Virginia for specifically that purpose. The Virginia side was returned to the state in 1846. People have suggested all kind of options: making the District of Colombia a state, ceding it back to Maryland, etc. I suppose it is appropriate to point out that the establishment of the District of Columbia as a federal territory is mandated in the Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 and specifically argued for in Federalist No. 43. It was a sensitive issue after Continental soldiers marched on Philadelphia when it was the capitol and caused the Congress to flee to New Jersey. The point I am making is that when you move to a federal territory and then complain about living within the rules of a federal territory, you are an idiot. That is like moving from one state to another state by choice and complaining about the new home state’s sales tax. You moved there, suck it up.

In Virginia Beach, Virginia, the Oceana Naval Air Station has been an active home to many US Navy fighter and bomber jet squadrons for many years. As the city allowed development to sprawl because of the housing boom and their desire for tax revenue, developments of housing encroached closer and closer to the air station. A couple of years ago, there were many outcries from people who bought homes and lived near the air station complaining about the noise from the fighter jet engines as they passed overhead. It is funny how when the Navy proposed to move the entire base to Florida, taking hundreds of millions of tax dollars from Virginia Beach, all of a sudden everybody LOVED jet noise. If they had built the air station after you already lived there, you would have had a valid complaint. If you bought a house at the end of an existing runway and then complain about jet engine noise, you are an idiot. You moved there, suck it up.

If you live in a Democratic controlled state and you complain about the lack of tort reform, higher taxes, unfriendly atmosphere toward business, companies leaving the state, or social programs for illegal aliens funded out of your tax money, you should move or vote for someone else. Those are bedrock principles of the Democratic Party. The largest single contributor to the Democratic Party is the Trial Lawyers Association. If you think the Democrats will ever pass a law which costs lawyers money, you are smoking crack. Liberals always think the government knows more about what you need than you do. Other huge contributors to the Democratic Party are labor unions. Business is evil to liberals. Business is evil to labor unions. Therefore, a perfect marriage: liberals and labor unions. If you continue to vote those folks into office, businesses cannot prosper and go to where they can prosper, taxes stay high because the businesses leave, causing more to leave. What you end up with is Michigan. If you live in a place like that and support the liberals, you deserve what you get. You live there, suck it up.

I remember several young women in the US Air Force who were on CNN at the beginning of the first gulf war with their parents complaining about the war. These two “rocket scientists” actually had the gall to say, “We joined the Air Force to get a college education, not to go to war”. They might as well have “idiot” tattooed across their respective foreheads. If you join a military organization, you might find yourself doing military things. I have heard Sailors complaining about being at sea. In fact, it is said that a Sailor is never happy except when complaining. I suppose if you join the Navy, you should probably be aware that the Navy has ships which sail on and under the oceans. If you join the Army or Marine Corps, you should expect to spend some time with a rifle. If you join the Air Force, you might find yourself in an aircraft. Anyone who can’t figure out those things is an idiot. The American military is an all volunteer force. No one is drafted. You joined the service; suck it up.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are associated with some religion. The founding fathers did not want religious groups taking over the government and imposing their views on others who did not share the same views. That is the Islamic state model. In contrast to what is being espoused by some recently, the founding fathers were not against religion. In reading the writings of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, John Jay, and on and on, there was a common thought that the freedoms sought after in this country were of divine origin and that divine providence was part of the very formation of the nation. Currently, the American Civil Liberties Union wants to remove all reference to religion from everything the government touches. With the Democrats now controlling all three branches of government and expanding greatly on the Republican mistakes of late 2008, the US government is rapidly getting involved in the financial system, automobile manufacturing, the housing market, and other private industries. There will soon be nothing that the government does not touch. Therefore, there will be no place for religion in the nation. That is clearly not what the founding fathers intended. If you elect leaders who agree with this philosophy and who appoint judges who agree, you deserve what you get. If you elected them: don’t complain, suck it up.

The goofy woman who had eight embryos implanted and ended up with fourteen children despite being uneducated, unemployed and living in her parent’s home made a selfish choice. She is banking on the state of California welfare and Medicaid system to pay for her children. People will argue that you shouldn’t punish the children for the idiocy of the mother. I agree. Take the children and put them in proper homes. They are doomed with this incompetent arrogant fool as a parent. She made the choice to have them. She can either find a way to adequately care for them or lose them. The taxpayers have big hearts and have no problem helping distressed children. However, they have no obligation to help the mother. She made the choice; she can suck it up.

Most people who work for a living have a fairly good idea how much money they earn. Knowing that information is fairly important in determining how much stuff you can buy. I recently bought a house. Before I did so, I sat down and spent a great deal of time determining if I could afford the payments on the house. That is apparently a novel idea to some people. Because I did figure out how much I could afford, the current downturn in home values would only affect me greatly if I had to move anytime soon. Therefore, I do not plan on doing so. In fairness, I should point out that this does not apply to you if you lost your job in a lay off. I also saved some money just in case of hard times, another old school idea. Thank you for teaching me that lesson, Dad. There has been a recent wave of conspicuous consumption. Everyone has to have the biggest car, a huge plasma television, and the list goes on and on. Apparently, everyone wants to be on MTV Cribs. I am currently driving my well-maintained 2001 vehicle, watching my normal television, and not wearing ridiculously priced clothing. I do not run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt which I cannot pay back. Therefore, if you do spend a lot more than you earn, I have no obligation whatsoever to bail you out. You spent the money; watch the bad economic news on your giant screen plasma television and suck it up.

In a much larger version of the same theme, California has for years passed ridiculous anti-business laws and watched the businesses flee from the state. California gives health care and free public education to illegal aliens. California passes liberal policies which cost fortunes and environmental policies which raise costs. California is sitting on billions of dollars in off shore oil and natural gas but won’t allow it to be tapped. To expect the other states which act responsibly to bail California out for its inane policies and irresponsible spending plans is idiotic. The people of California voted in that lame government, let them live with it. Other states are under no obligation to allow the state of California to continue with their insipid policies. California spent the money; they can suck it up.

There is an axiom that insanity is performing the same act over and over again and expecting a different result. Electing liberal politicians inevitably results in higher taxes, more intrusive government, disparagement of religion, discouragement of business, artificial inflation of wages for union workers, more money for attorneys resulting in increased insurance premiums, and less incentive to work. In the liberal world, nothing is ever anyone’s fault. Everyone is a victim of circumstance. A famous golfer once said that the harder he practiced, the luckier he became. Making any choice for which the outcome is inherently obvious and then complaining about that inevitable outcome and expecting someone else to come to your rescue for your foolish choice is shirking responsibility and idiotic. You live with the result of your choices. That is why they should be taken seriously.

Another Day, Another Stimulus Hose Job

2009-02-18T12:28:00.008-05:00

Well, here comes another “stimulus package”. This time it is $75 billion for troubled mortgages. Of course, there is no reduction in mortgage rates for anyone who is currently paying their mortgage on time. Is anyone else seeing the trend in all of these stimulus and bail out packages? Let’s see if we can spot a common theme in these packages.

In the case of the bank bail out, the Treasury Department takes money from the general revenue fund and “infuses it” into banks that are in trouble. Banks that did not engage in questionable lending practices do not receive any help and just get to pay their taxes on time. The successful banks are having their money taken to support the unsuccessful banks. It seems a little counterproductive. With the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guaranteeing that depositors would not lose money, banks that go under would be replaced by other successful banks rapidly and individuals would not lose any deposits less than $250,000.

In the case of the automobile manufacturers, there is no help for any of the successful companies in Tennessee, South Carolina, or Texas. The provision to give tax credits for all automobile purchases was stripped from the bill. Therefore, the only help is going to the automobile manufacturers in Michigan which have United Auto Workers Union plants. What a coincidence. Therefore, tax money from auto workers in the south who earn about $45 an hour is being used to prop up wages for union auto workers in Michigan who earn about $71 an hour. The successful companies are having their money taken away to support the unsuccessful companies. If the Michigan-based automobile companies stopped making cars, would everyone stop driving? I think not. People would buy cars and trucks from the more successful and better-run companies. The Democrats say the answer is more union involvement when the very millstone around the neck of the auto industry is the United Auto Workers.

In the case of the bail out to the states, tax money from states with responsible governments like Texas is used to bail out irresponsible state governments like California and will only encourage more bogus spending and will delay the state legislature making the appropriate decisions to balance their spending and income. California refuses to secure the Mexican border and continues to provide free health care and public education to illegal aliens. Should it surprise anyone that their budget is screwed up? The successful states are therefore being screwed to reward the unsuccessful states. Irresponsible governors like Schwarzenegger are not held responsible for their actions.

In the case of the mortgage bail out, tax money is being used to refinance mortgages of people who, in many cases, should have never qualified for a mortgage in the first place. Will those people suddenly be flush with money? What is always failed to be mentioned is that the mortgage lenders will have to make their money back somehow. Let’s see… how will they do it? They will increase the rates on newer mortgages. Who will receive those mortgages? Only those people who are well-qualified will receive them because the mortgages lenders have been burned once and won’t do it again. Therefore, money will be taken from successful home buyers to bail out unsuccessful home buyers. At least this one has a logical argument in that preventing foreclosures reduces inventory of existing homes and stabilizes home prices. It does hurt the rental market. In listening to President Obama today, to his credit, it seemed that at least someone has put some thought into this package. That is a refreshing change from "You have to sign it now or the Earth will explode" spending packages.

Did anyone notice that Senator Harry Reid snuck a hand-written amendment of five billion dollars in the stimulus bill for a light rail system from Los Angeles to Las Vegas? Bernie Madoff is a small-time operator next to Harry Reid. The worst part is that no other Senator will point out how crooked that is. Five billion dollars without a hearing, without oversight, without anything but a pen. It makes you want to vomit.

The common thread throughout the processes is obviously to reward the unsuccessful and sometimes criminal at the expense of the successful and responsible. It is economic redistribution which rewards bad behavior. In time, people who are responsible will either stop producing because it won’t be in their best interest to produce or everyone will jump on the bandwagon and just start behaving badly to get on the gravy train. The problem there is that someone has to pay for that gravy train because it is a government-sponsored Ponzi scheme. When enough people stop putting money in, the whole thing will crash. That is where we are heading with these “stimulus” packages. All they had to do was stabilize the housing market and let people keep more of their money and the problem would have corrected itself. Every time the new administration interferes, the stock market dips lower because smart business people recognize where this is headed. It is nice to finally see some effort to do something about housing. In this case, it seems the right thing to do.

Centralized Medical Records, Behavioral Modification and Security

2009-02-13T07:26:00.002-05:00

The currently debated “stimulus” bill has about $300 million in it for establishment of an electronic medical record system for the government. I mentioned this briefly in a previous post but think it should probably be explored in more depth.

The idea of a central repository for all medical records has great merit in an ideal world. Information would be available, no matter where a patient was located, about past medical history, allergies, current medications, and past surgical history. Since everyone is altruistic and no one would access information that was not required, the system would be wonderful in an ideal world. We don’t live in an ideal world.

A central repository of any information of value is a hackers dream. That information would be so valuable to obtain that it could be sold surreptitiously to potential employers, insurance providers, for personal motives, etc. by anyone with access and enough temptation. Miscreants could erase or modify the records for profit or for malicious reasons. The government would counter with a back up system of records. That just provides a broader target to access the information. Even without hacking through computer safeguards, the records could be compromised by individuals through bribes or other personal motives. This is a relatively common occurrence when it comes to national security issues in the United States. People with agendas or personal political philosophical differences with the government pass information to liberal publications like the Washington Post and New York Times which routinely publish classified information. Even more recently, out of one hundred forty anonymous screening tests for baseball players concerning steroids, only the name of Alex Rodriguez was leaked to the press. Someone clearly had an agenda against Alex Rodriguez. It is easy to see similar leaks for candidates for office, other sports figures, celebrities, and for personal vengeance. A history of a sexually transmitted disease, elective abortion, or potential debilitating disease could be used for extortion or political blackmail.

The breadth of the system is inherently a security and bandwidth problem. In order to be effective, the records will have to be available to any medical facility in order to care for patients wherever they present for care. That means that tens or even hundreds of thousands of facilities will have access to the system. A system that large will be similar to the AHLTA military system which is slow, unwieldy, and crashes regularly. A system with that kind of capability probably doesn’t exist outside of the military or National Security Agency anywhere in the world. An electronic health record system which is undependable would be a danger to patients as necessary patient information would not be available when required. Additionally, with the many thousands of access points to the system, there is no practical way to adequately maintain the security of the system. It is like a fence with thousands and thousands of gates, any one of which when breeched makes the entire system accessible.

As a physician, I am well aware of the tendency of health care administrators to now view patient care as a “product line”. In a group of physicians, I have once actually been instructed by a senior administrator to increase patient throughput even if it increases risk of inadequate diagnosis. The reason I bring this up is that there is a tendency for anyone under a time constraint to avoid “reinventing the wheel”. Errors in records in a central repository will propagate because the information will convey authority and go unchallenged. Errors will be like bad tattoos and go with patients everywhere.

To use the hackneyed Orwellian analogy, all health care information in the hands of the government is not a good idea. I will point out that while the government will be a problem, it may not be the biggest problem. With a records system that will inevitably leak like a sieve, it is only a matter of time before private insurance providers get their hands on the information. With that information in hand, insurance companies will begin to modify their actuarial tables depending on your private information. If they note a minor injury while surfing, skiing, sky diving, playing contact sports, riding, etc. you will have the option of stopping the activity, not being covered while doing it, or paying higher premiums. This type of focus will eventually lead to widespread financial behavioral modification. The analogous government scenario is to force behavior modification by denying benefits for activities, diet, etc. that are not approved by some group of “experts” who decide what they want you to do and not do. This is not a new argument. There was a suggestion years ago that in states with motorcycle helmet laws, if you didn’t wear a helmet, there would be no government funding for your health care should you be injured on a motorcycle. The idea was fairly popular. The same has been suggested for bicycle riding for children and cigarette smoking. The idea being that the government says out of one side of the mouth, “We aren’t forcing anyone to change their behavior” while making the behavior so financially untenable that no sane person would engage in it. It is a slippery slope that eventually leads to only government and insurance approved lifestyles being covered. Anything else leaves you on your own.

One advantage proponents will claim is the ability to gather data about treatment options and outcomes. Former Senator Daschle has already written in his book about using those data to determine which treatments will be available. In other words, the financial behavioral modification will not only be used on patients, it will be used to force physicians to become robotic in their prescribing and treatment patterns. Once again, it will be “Treat the patient in the way you see fit, but we will only pay you if you do it the way we want.” If patients cannot be treated individually, we might as well scrap the entire health care system and have everyone use a site like WebMD to treat everyone. There is no reason to talk to patients and examine them if it isn’t going to make any difference in what you can do for them.

My counter proposal, which I have actually sent to Senators Graham and DeMint, is to not have the government establish an actual computer system but rather to establish national standards for the electronic medical record. The format of the record, type of computer storage file, and transmission protocols could be specified and monitored by the Department of Health and Human Services. In the past, similar standards have been established for radio and television transmission, automobile safety, food safety, air traffic control systems, and other systems. My suggestion is that a commission or committee of overpaid top notch experts to establish standards has miniscule costs compared to establishing and building a huge overpriced ineffective system of computer networks. Additionally, in a free market economy, software developers will come out of the woodwork in droves to develop and market commercial versions of software to make new electronic records and convert existing records. To paraphrase Field of Dreams, “If there is money to be made, they will definitely come”. Having private companies supply the software will create many high-paying jobs and result in substantial tax revenue to the government, instead of costing huge amounts in government payroll. Additional jobs will be created all across the country when people are hired by health care facilities to convert existing records into the standardized electronic format. The government virtually never gets the appropriate value for its contracts, there is no reason to assume that it will on this one. Therefore, in the spirit of the American entrepreneur, to save hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money and to avoid the Orwellian consequences, I believe the system I am proposing is superior to the current thinking.

Killing an Insect with a Nuke and Missing

2009-02-11T22:14:00.001-05:00

I cannot figure out who is giving financial advice to the Congress. Everyone knows, or at least they say they do, that the current United States financial crisis began with the issuing of sub-prime mortgages. I have written about that previously. Once those mortgages were bundled into securities by the securities fraud folks at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and sold to investment banks world-wide, the trap was sprung. Now, there is a lot of talk about how the credit market froze. They talk about it like it is unrelated. Why did that happen? It happened because all of those securities based on mortgages are bundled groups of mortgages. Some may be full value and some may be worth squat. Therein is the problem. Banks holding billions of dollars in purchases of those securities don’t know what they are worth. Worse yet, there currently seems to be no way to determine how much they are worth. Therefore, the banks don’t know whether they have money or not. Just like anyone else, they don’t lend money if they don’t know if they have any. And they certainly won’t lend to another bank holding a lot of those same securities. So, once again, we are back to mortgages and securities fraud.

In order to “stimulate” the economy, the Democratic congress has come up with a bill to spend almost $800 billion dollars on a lot of projects. No where in that bill is the mortgage crisis addressed. Thus, the title of this writing. They are trying to use an incredibly large program (nuclear weapon) to kill a pest (mortgage securities) which they should have just stepped on with their shoe (address the mortgage problem). Worst yet, they missed. If they took care of the uncertainty in the mortgage securities, banks would know how much money they have and the economy would begin to function normally again. Surely, it would take some time to recover but the base cause would be addressed. Making the next few generations bear the brunt of this by spending money we don’t have on things that should at least be discussed, not jammed through, is immoral. You don’t spend $800 billion dollars in slush funds without at least having some hearings on the content of the bill. This is Congress doing their best Bernie Madoff impression.

Electronic Medical Records

2009-02-11T11:43:00.002-05:00

A lot of discussion has gone on recently by the proponents of electronic medical records, including the current administration. I have discussed them before but wanted to take another look, including the views of a user. The military has already implemented an electronic system which was originally called CHCS (Composite Health Care System). When it was first introduced, it provided some valuable services despite its user unfriendliness. It allowed students and physicians to access laboratory results and radiology results without having to trek down to each department and go through a log book to retrieve them. When I was first training in medicine, that is exactly what we had to do each morning and evening. From that stand point, CHCS was a boon to efficiency. Those same tests could be ordered in the system although there was a learning curve as the names of the tests were not very intuitive. There were a lot of problems with the system. For example, if a laboratory technician entered an order from a drop down menu under the incorrect physician’s name, the results of the test would be returned to that physician and that physician would be asked to electronically sign the order. There was no way to correct the mistake. Even the administrators of the system could not fix them. Physicians were constantly receiving results and signing orders on patients they had never met. Rather than quibble on the other inconsistencies and problems with that system, let us move on.

The next iteration of the system was originally CHCS II, but has subsequently been renamed AHLTA (Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application). The AHLTA system has many of the same advantages in that no matter where you go (in theory) your drug allergies, medications, past medical history, etc. are available to a new physician to whom you present for care. That is not entirely true as I have been deployed eight times in the past five years and have never had access to the AHLTA system on any deployment. While the AHLTA folks consistently crow about the advantages of the system, they never discuss what it is like to use it. Let’s look at some of the results:

The Navy has decided that in order to improve efficiency, they want the physicians to see seventy five per cent of the productivity of major Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). Part of the reason is to lower costs, and part of the reason is that they are having trouble keeping enough people in the Navy to serve the patient population. In the brick and mortar hospitals, the current requirement for a General Surgeon is to see forty five clinic patients a week (based on HMO productivity). If that is only seventy five percent of what an HMO doctor sees, why should that be a problem? First, the average physician in civilian practice averages four support personnel per physician. The civilian practices know that the only person in a surgery office that makes a dime for the practice is the surgeon. Therefore, people are hired to keep the surgeon from doing anything which is not billable. Record keeping, billing, coding, telephones, communication, cleaning, education, etc. are all handled by trained assistants, freeing up the surgeon to do surgery and outpatient care for which billing can be generated. In the Navy, there are four physicians for each support person. Those people are Civil Service and we all know how much incentive the Civil Service has to work hard: none. Therefore, Navy physicians type their own notes, write their own consults, fill out their own preoperative and post operative packages, make phones call, schedule procedures, etc. I forgot to mention above that those forty five patients have to be seen in only two clinic days a week. Broken down evenly, this means twenty two patients on one clinic day and twenty three on the other.

Meanwhile back at the AHLTA system: Even after the training required to use the system, it is so cumbersome that trying to find your way through it is very time consuming and frustrating. I know how bad it is for surgeons. I can’t imagine how bad it is for primary care physicians who see such a wide variety of diagnoses. There are templates which can be customized for a specialty, which can save time but any unusual case will take a lot time to do the note. Additionally, the system can not keep up with the amount of usage so it is slow and crashes regularly. I have found the average AHLTA note to take between ten and twenty minutes to do even with a template. Therefore, twenty two times fifteen minutes equals three hundred thirty minutes. That is five and one half hours a day entering notes into AHLTA. If a surgical appointment is 20 minutes long, that means four hundred and forty minutes, or seven hours and twenty minutes a day talking to and examining patients. So far, we are up to twelve hours and fifty minutes each clinic day. Why do patients go to see a surgeon? Because they might need an operation. Assuming that only half of the patients need surgery, that means eleven preoperative packages (preoperative orders, admission paperwork, consent forms, notice to parent command, history and physical examination, etc.) need to be completed in addition to the AHLTA note for those eleven patients. Just for argument, let’s say that they only take fifteen minutes each (not realistic). That is another three hours and forty five minutes a clinic day. Now we are up to fifteen hours and thirty five minutes each clinic day. That is assuming that the physician never goes to the rest room, eats, or takes a break from paperwork. Additionally, the physician needs to round and care for inpatients which requires going to the ward or intensive care unit. Does anyone wonder why people leave for increased salaries and lots of administrative support?

Another phenomenon of the electronic record in the military is that performance evaluations have become partly based on the amount of relative value units (RVUs) billed as interpreted by the coding of each visit by the system. Subsequently, the smart physicians have learned to “game” the system and turn every visit into a coding bonanza with their templates. The coding is not based on what you do, it is based on what you write. Therefore, the smart ones learn to produce templates that over code visits by entering extraneous and unnecessary data into the AHLTA system. If you do what is considered a normal work up on a patient, you will fall way behind the coding curve. Since everyone is now forced to play the competitive coding game for advancement, even more time is spent on the computer entering redundant and irrelevant information.

Another interesting thing about the AHLTA system which has not been improved is that information, once entered is almost impossible to remove. Errors and diagnoses follow the patient around like a bad tattoo.

I wonder about the wisdom of a central repository of private medical information. I can see not only hackers but the Orwellian use of that repository for behavior modification and other abuses. It will not be hard for advocates to argue that anyone with a risky hobby (e.g., surfing or skiing) or diet should pay more for insurance or might not be looked on as favorably for employment. The proponents will argue that the privacy of the system will be guaranteed but if it is available to any physician (as it has to be to provide medical safety), it will be available to nearly anyone eventually. I believe a better alternative is for the government to establish standards for the format of electronic medical records and have them stored locally at physician offices or hospital records facilities. If records are required in another location, a secure and verified request can be made for those records and they can be instantly electronically transmitted to the requesting location. That system would also allow tracking of who requested records and for what reason. That should reduce the incentive for anyone to pry unnecessarily and would increase privacy.

Proponents of the electronic medical record argue that they will reduce medical errors by having allergies and medications available. That is intuitively true. I wonder how many errors will be produced by the lack of time to talk to and examine patients caused by the increased requirement for computer time to input data. If you want to reduce errors and provide better care, get some support personnel for the physicians so they can spend time taking care of patients and have some “scribes” enter the data into computers.

How the Economy Doesn't Work and More Fabrications

2009-02-04T21:28:00.008-05:00

A collection of thoughts about the last couple of weeks:

The "stimulus" bill now being considered in the Senate which passed in the House is being talked about non-stop by all the talking heads on television. As it continues to languish, someone described it as a rotting corpse. The longer is is exposed to the sunshine, the more it begins to stink.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi was just on television yesterday saying that "every month that the stimulus package is not passed, 500 million Americans will lose their jobs". I find that statistic interesting in that the population of the United States is just over 300 million people. How she can say something like that with a straight face means that she must have had a stroke or slow virus brain disease. It is not possible for what she said to be true and any middle schooler could tell you that it was not possible.

Spending by the government is a revolving door and does not stimulate the economy. You take taxes in, pay them out, and take them in again. It doesn't produce anything. It is money that is just being printed by the government and being covered by borrowing from foreign countries. In order for the economy to function, private industry must generate wealth and pay taxes into the government. The workers who are employed by those private industries must earn wages and pay taxes into the government. It is private industry that generates revenue, not the government. To think that the economic crisis will be resolved by just printing more money is idiotic and not very reassuring about the competence of those advocating that course. It has never worked in the past and is silly.

Another big lie is that this current wish list of a bill is a stimulus package at all. It is a laundry list of liberal wishes. Some of the ideas may have merit but they are not stimulative to the economy. As the people have seen more and more of this bill, public opinion has turned against it and rightly so. Fred Smith, CEO of Fedex was on television the other day and pointed out that the United States Tax Code is weighted substantially toward helping financial institutions and inhibiting the manufacturing sector. The Democrats constantly rail against manufacturers relocating facilities overseas yet never admit that their own tax policies are causing the movement. The obligation of any CEO of a corporation is to make a profit for the stockholders. If that CEO can find a more favorable environment to manufacture the companies products, he has an obligation to do so. Since the United States has the highest business taxes in the world, should it surprise anyone that businesses are going elsewhere? We have seen the same phenomenon within the United States with businesses relocating from the industrial north (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, etc.) to the Southeast where the weather is better and the local and state governments are more friendly to business and the tax structure is better for business. That very thing is what has happened to the automobile industry in Michigan where dumb business decisions and liberal policies have whacked the industry. Automobile manufacturers in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are doing fine.

If the Democrats wanted to stimulate the economy, they could have money in the people's pockets in two weeks: reduce payroll taxes. It would only require the stroke of a pen. There are things in the stimulus bill which cost tens of millions of dollars and produce only a dozen jobs. If you are you going to do that, just give me ten million dollars and say it is a job. I won't even tell on you. In every single instance in United States history, reducing the capital gains tax has resulted in increased revenue for the government. Additionally, every single time capital gains taxes are raised, government revenue decreases. Can anyone see what the right thing is to do? Duh.

The Obama people say giving a rebate check to the people is stimulative. Consider this when comparing the rebate check to tax relief: Would you be more likely to make a big purchase (car, washer, refrigerator, computer, etc.) with a single rebate check, or with more money every paycheck for the forseeable future? Anyone can see that tax relief makes more sense and will be more stimulative to the economy. To say otherwise is to show your partisanship and no knowledge of the economy.

The left, in order to pay back the big labor unions for their support in the elections, is trying to pass the goofy "card check" legislation which will take the right to secret ballots away from union elections. Perhaps we can establish a KGB and a Ministry of Propaganda as well. The secret ballot vote is a fundamental right of all Americans in all elections. How anyone can claim it is progress is demeaning to anyone that can think.

If only these guys would start looking out for the people and less about their own butts.

The Abuse of Power

2009-02-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

In thinking of Rep. Charlie Rangel (cheating on his taxes), Gov. Bill Richardson (special favors for campaign contributions), Timothy Geitner (tax cheat), Sen. Tom Daschle (tax cheat), Rep. William Jefferson (bribes), Sen. Ted Stevens (bribes), Gov. Rod Blagojevich (pay for play), etc., it is apparent to me that what I wrote in an earlier entry about staying in politics too long being too corrupting is true. I can’t take credit for that being an original idea.

In Federalist 6, Alexander Hamilton wrote about situation leading to conflict between neighboring states and the motives of their leaders, “And there are others, not less numerous than either of the former, which take their origin entirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears, of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members. Men of this class, whether favourites of a king of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquility to personal advantage, or personal gratification.”

In both Geitner’s and Daschle’s cases, I believe President Obama was duped by those individuals. Geitner received compensation from the International Monetary Fund and was reimbursed for taxes he owed to the United States. Every fiscal quarter, he received notification of those taxes and reimbursement and had to sign an acknowledgment form. He cannot credibly claim that he did not know he owed those taxes. This is a man billed as a financial wizard. Even more damning is that when he was audited back through 2002, he paid past due taxes for 2002 and 2003 pointed out to him by the Internal Revenue Service. He did not pay the same taxes due for 2000 and 2001 despite the situation being identical. Once again, it is not credible for him to state he didn’t know he owed the taxes. He is a tax cheat and now runs the Internal Revenue Service.

Daschle received free use of a limousine and a driver for four years. He received them from a man who was also paying him $1,000,000 a year in salary. I believe he could have afforded a car. Daschle says he made an inadvertent mistake. If that is true, why did he find out in July he owed the taxes from his accountant but not pay them until two days before his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services were to begin. The taxes were about $148,000. A regular person would have criminal charges filed for an amount like that. Daschle additionally “advised” health care companies which he would have had to regulate in the cabinet post. He is a Washington insider, a knowing tax cheat, and was forced to withdraw his nomination despite his statements and the Obama administration’s comments to the contrary.

The biggest lie in Washington is that “I am resigning because I desire to deal with personal issues and spend more time with my family”. That is Washington code for “I just got caught”.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2009-01-16T21:30:00.004-05:00

Recently, the incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on a You Tube video in response to an e-mail that the new Obama Administration was going to definitively get rid of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military. I am a little interested in how that is going to work. There are a lot of issues that would have to be resolved but we can look at it from one limited set of difficulties. By the way, I don’t use the word gay to describe homosexuals as it implies that anyone who is not homosexual is not happy.

In a U. S. military shore billet, open sexual preferences likely won’t make any difference to people who live off base because they live separately and commute to work like anyone else. That is the perspective of almost all the civilian people arguing for the change. For people who live in military housing or are deployed, it is a huge difference. By definition, people in the military who are deployed in tents or ships or live in barracks serve in very close quarters. Many years ago, I had a discussion with former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina about this same subject. He brought up the point of hygiene facilities. He wondered if we were going to have a single set of showers for everyone. The movie Starship Troopers showed a facility like that. Maybe that is where we are heading someday. The point being that if you are going to have to shower with someone who might look at you as a potential sexual partner, you might as well have the heterosexuals do the same. Why should homosexuals have the advantage of showering and using the same rest room facilities as the other same sex unit members when the heterosexuals are segregated? There is a lot of discussion in the military about unit cohesion. Does it enhance or hurt unit cohesion to have members feel uncomfortable when using hygiene facilities? It isn’t a homophobia issue; it is a privacy and comfort issue. The homosexual advocates will say that it is homophobic and portrays an inaccurate stereotype that all homosexuals are predatory in nature and that to think every time someone looks at you, they are thinking of you as a sexual partner. I agree that the stereotype is inaccurate. All heterosexuals don’t lust after all people of the opposite sex, either. Therefore, per the homosexual advocates, heterosexuals shouldn’t have to worry about homosexuals using the same facilities. Given that same logic, heterosexual men and women should not be segregated in the showers, if it is not required for the homosexuals. If it is not a problem for openly homosexual men or women to use same sex facilities with heterosexuals, it is women and men will have to get used to the idea of using the same facilities, using the same logic.

So, we have a paradox: If it is okay for openly homosexual members to use the same facilities, it should be okay for openly heterosexual men and women to use the same facilities. If you don’t agree with that logic, then one possibility is the four facility solution: 1) heterosexual males, 2) homosexual males, 3) heterosexual females, and) homosexual females. It is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit ships and barracks to those standards. Will the homosexual male facilities become the gay bath houses of the nineteen seventies? No, clearly that solution won’t work because it still puts potential sexual partners in compromising positions. Therefore, we have to go to the same two facility system we have now except the homosexual men will use the current women’s facilities with the heterosexual women and the homosexual women will use the ones with the heterosexual men. In order to keep heterosexual men from sneaking in with the women and the other permutations, all people will have to register their sexual preference when joining a unit so they can be classified to the correct hygiene facilities. Or should it just be added to your identification card like a religious preference? Should you wear some identifying badge? Germany did that in the 1930s and it didn't turn out very well. Is anyone beginning to see a problem?

Will homosexuals in relationships have to be segregated in berthing? Clearly, we can’t have people with an ongoing sexual relationship sharing the same berthing spaces with dozens of other members. Does that mean the Senior Enlisted Leadership will have to keep a spread sheet on who is dating so they can make berthing adjustments? Should we use the solution above and house homosexual males in female heterosexual berthing and homosexual females in male heterosexual berthing? No, that won’t work. All the homosexual males are clustered in the same berthing and all the homosexual females are clustered in the same berthing. It is back to the same problem. On the other hand, if we don’t care about segregating potential sexual partners, think of the money savings and convenience of opening all restrooms and showers to everyone. No more long walks down the passageway on a ship to find the sex-specific rest room. No more worrying about separate male or female berthing. Since none of the predominantly 18-25 year olds with raging hormones ever have sex when they are living in a barracks or deployed on a ship for eight months to a year, it won’t be a problem. Wait… you mean 18-25 year olds with raging hormones do have sex while deployed or living in a barracks? Say it ain’t so. Anyone who agrees with the above mentioned hygiene and berthing ideas and thinks they are feasible lives in Fantasyland and has no idea what it is like to be in the military. That is a recipe for turning an aircraft carrier deployment into a singles cruise.

Maybe we should just tell people not to have inappropriate sex, keep their sex life to themselves and keep their behavior professional. What a coincidence. That is exactly what the military does now. When it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Everyone knows that there are many homosexuals in the United States military who serve honorably and do their jobs well. There is no reason that your sexual preference prevents you from flying a plane, shooting a rifle, or watching a radar screen. The point is that no one’s sex life is a subject for discussion at work. To serve openly as a homosexual means that you have told people around you about your sex life. No one, heterosexual or homosexual should be discussing their sex life at work. It is not professional and does nothing to improve the climate in the work place. Everyone’s sex life, not just homosexuals, should be subject to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I hear liberal media always talk about how the policy doesn’t work. They constantly refer to some Arabic language speakers who were separated for homosexual acts. If you publish those acts to push the envelope, you cannot expect any other result. Heterosexuals are separated for inappropriate sexual relationships as well when they become known. The idea is to keep your private life to yourself and it is no one else’s business. To those who say the policy doesn’t work, I would say that I haven’t seen that in a lot of year’s experience. It has worked well every place I have been stationed when people keep their sex life to themselves and do their jobs professionally.

Immigration

2009-01-14T09:58:00.002-05:00

I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that politicians are using the immigration debate for political points instead of using a common sense approach to the problem. Both liberal and conservative politicians see the rising percentage of Hispanic voters in the United States and are trying to get those potential voters into their camp. Let’s take a look at some of the issues and see if there is a sensible way to deal with the issue.

First, you have to get your head around the fact that the only issue appears to be the Mexican-American border. There is virtually never any discussion of the Canadian-American border or immigration of Canadians into the United States. There is no public discussion about Europeans, Asians, or Africans arriving by ship or plane. There will inevitably be some left winger who says it is a racist issue. I will preface my comments by saying that everyone in the United States who isn’t a Native American is an immigrant and that immigration is one of the strengths of the nation, not a detriment. Anyone who knows anything about science knows that populations improve by melding the strengths of the various components. Populations that don’t improve become extinct. With that as a background, I will focus on Hispanic immigration through the Mexican-American border.

I am definitely in favor of legal immigration because of the additional cultural aspects, foods, labor force, ideas, and all the other things that immigrants bring to the nation. Illegal immigration is a completely different issue. There is no obligation for taxpayers in any nation to pay for the health care, education, unemployment benefits, or any other expense for anyone who sneaks into any country illegally. There is a political view in California and other states that says that the children of illegal immigrants are victims and should be legally educated in state-funded schools. If these children are victims, they are victims of their parents who are, by definition, criminals. There is no obligation to provide benefits for them. No, I am not against children. These people could have come into the country legally. They chose not to. One of their incentives to come in illegally is the very fact that they do receive those benefits. The states bring the problem onto themselves. California is virtually bankrupt because of their policies and is asking for federal money to bail them out. The education system in California has gone from the best in the nation to one of the worst. They apparently never learn. They are now asking for a federal bail out. How do taxpayers in Iowa, Virginia or Ohio have an obligation to bail out California in light of their stupid policies?

Another incentive for the immigrants to come into the United States is our law which says that if you are born while physically present in the country, you are a citizen. Perhaps we should rethink that. If you are in the country illegally (a criminal act) and drop out a baby, how does that entitle the child to become a citizen? It reminds me of the old legal concept of the “fruit of the poisoned tree”. Evidence obtained unlawfully is not permitted to be used in court. If you deliver a baby while committing an illegal act, should the baby receive benefits for it? It is another incentive to sneak in. If fact, the hospitals on the border routinely deliver babies from women who wait until they are in labor, sneak into the United States, and deliver the baby in country. I suppose the question has to be asked, does this entitle this child to all the benefits of being a United States citizen? Would it make more sense to have the requirement be that any child born in the United States would become a citizen only if the mother was in the country legally?

No one can argue that the construction, farming and service industries in the United States do not benefit from the presence of illegal immigrants. Because of the decreased costs of production in picking vegetables and fruit, building homes, cleaning hotels, washing dishes, etc. there is definitely benefit to all American citizens from decreased prices. So, if we need all those folks to do those jobs, why would we want to prevent them from entering the country? The answer is: we want them to get in. The caveat is that we want them to get in legally.

The benefits of legal immigration are unquestioned. That is why I actually prefer the suggestion made in the past few years of the Guest Worker program. If workers from other countries (primarily Mexico, Central and South America) can enter the country legally with temporary paper work, there are a number of advantages for the United States. We can keep track of who is entering the country. From both the security and financial standpoints, this is clearly what we want. This also assuages any guilt over nailing people who come in illegally. If there is an easy way to enter legally for people who just want to make some money to support their family, there is no reason to feel sorry for people who decided to come in the illegal way.

If there is an easy way to obtain legal temporary status to come and work, what is the incentive to sneak in unless you have nefarious motives? Since so many less people need to sneak in, the numbers of people that need to be apprehended is less and the Border Patrol can focus on the real criminals trying to sneak in with narcotics, etc.

The temporary workers can take their earnings and go home to their families in Mexico, Central or South America, knowing that they will be able to come back the next season without having to enter illegally. That gives them more time with their families and less anxiety over the process of entering to earn. The industries which employ the workers who are now illegal will have legal employees who don't have to hide and don't have to stay when their work is out of season.

When you can track guest workers, those people will pay payroll taxes and social security taxes and therefore will be entitled to basic services because they are paying into the system. The financial balance will be much improved for local and state governments. No one should mind the presence of anyone who wants to work and provide for their family. It is the best of human motives.

To me, a Guest Worker program makes sense on many levels. Politicians oppose it for their own reasons but it seems to be the best answer to allow fairness and to maintain viability of the industries mentioned above.

My Aunt and the Interconnections of People

2009-01-13T01:03:00.002-05:00

I have unfortunately reached the age where my older relatives seem to disappearing rapidly. My aunts and uncles are all of the World War II generation and those folks are going away quickly. I received information that my last remaining aunt, who is ninety five, is apparently not doing well and is expected to pass away soon. It got me thinking, as those types of events tend to do. We always say with dark humor that the only time that the family gets together is at weddings and funerals. I don’t even think we get together at weddings. The real shame in that is that my mother’s family, including the entire first cousin group that I am in, was very close when I was child and saw each other at least weekly. I have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days and thought I would collect some of those thoughts.

I have spent the last ten years or so researching and writing a book about the genealogy of my family. In doing so, I have noticed some generic trends in society. In the United States, up until the twentieth century, the country was primarily an agricultural economy. When I look back at the census listings for my ancestors, with a few notable exceptions, nearly everyone was listed as a farmer. The way things progressed typically was that you were raised on a farm, married someone nearby and either inherited your parents farm or bought some land near by and started your own farm. Families were never too far apart and helped each other when ever bad times came around. People tended to stay in the same area for the entirety of their lives. I can go to the Louisa County, Virginia Circuit Court House and follow my mother’s family from the present all the way back to about the year 1600 when some guy came over on a boat.

My older brother, and several of my first cousins and I were the first in our family to ever graduate from college. The combination of higher education, the change in the economy from agriculture to manufacturing and service, and increased mobility has led to families like mine dispersing about the country in ways almost unheard of one hundred years ago. Back then, when you went out west, you were never seen again. While the increased mobility has led to better job opportunities and more financial independence, I wonder about the impact on families of not having close relationships with one another. In the case of my aunt, my wife is traveling to stay with her, a first cousin (not her child) is checking on her daily, and my mother is in contact with her almost daily by telephone. That support does not include what her living children are doing. I wonder about how much support will be given to the elderly of future generations when their nephews and nieces hardly know them.

My aunt is a person who never misses an opportunity to laugh at the silliness that the world routinely exposes. She has had the uncommon blessing to spend ninety five years on this Earth with all of her mental faculties. Despite all kinds of health issues, she has always been alert and able to think for herself. I only pray that quality is genetic in my family. In fact, the more I think about it, the only person I can remember ever having anything resembling Alzheimers is an aunt by marriage. We also don’t have any male pattern baldness. That is pretty encouraging.

The reason I started typing this entry was because I was thinking of how many lives my aunt touched and connected with over ninety five years. I particularly think of people who were not family. When she lived in Louisa, she would drive a quarter of a mile to a local convenience store to buy a Virginia Lottery ticket and a newspaper daily. She would always have a nice conversation with the clerk. I went down to the store one day for her. The clerk just about talked my ear off about how much she looked forward to seeing my aunt every day. She lived in a housing project subsidized by the State of Virginia and made close friends with her neighbors. That is her, in a nut shell. The examples could fill volumes. She is just someone who is fun and comfortable to be around. My mother regularly goes with my step father to eat lunch at a Subway franchise. The manager of the Subway recently gave a birthday present to my mother just because she likes to see her. I think we all don’t bother to think about the impact that we have on other people as we move around doing our daily tasks. The difference between being abrupt and a kind word can have large implications on the people with whom we interact and we usually are not even aware of it. Something as small as a thank you when you actually mean it can have impact. Most people do the right thing when they can and don’t ask for anything more than just some small acknowledgement that their efforts have been recognized and appreciated. Being pleasant is a valuable asset. My aunt is a walking ray of sunshine that brightens everyone she passes. When you get old enough, inevitably you will have to visit someone in a nursing home. Those visits can be terribly uncomfortable. It is a rare and extraordinary thing to be able to say that I always look forward to visiting my aunt in the nursing home. I will miss her terribly but can’t help but smile every time I think about the good luck I have had to be a part of her family and have her in my life.

Leadership and the Herd Mentality

2009-01-09T04:02:00.001-05:00

In any large population, the distribution of the people in the population will be represented by a Bell Curve. That means that ninety-five percent of the population will fall within two standard deviations of the median. By definition, two and one half percent of the population will be at the upper end, outside the two standard deviations, and two and one half percent will similarly be located at the bottom.

I am not particularly concerned over the dregs of the group because they will almost never be successful or provide any meaningful contribution. The upper two and one half percent will almost inevitably be leaders. The rest of the group will tend to follow a herd mentality. You see examples of this everywhere. In the entertainment industry, any time that a new popular show is developed, multiple clones always appear shortly thereafter. Every time a new band creates a buzz, other record labels will come up with similar acts in short order. Production of new fashion lines, toys, consumer products, computer innovations, etc. all follow the same pattern. The innovators and producers of new and imaginative products will be followed by the knock offs and the similar, if not quite as good, products. In some cases, when a product has been rushed to market, the newer product may be an improvement. The use of the herd mentality is an advantage in some circumstances. On Wall Street, the few truly inventive and innovative investors can use the fact that the herd will follow to their advantage when buying and selling stocks and commodities.

In any large organization, an analogous population distribution will exist. One of the difficulties in leadership is to recognize who the upper group is among the herd. To do so requires patience and foresight. An intrinsic quality of innovators is that they are not afraid to try new ways to do things and take risks. The taking of risks means that inevitably some attempts at improvement will be unsuccessful. To punish people for taking risks which do not work is to discourage anyone from trying to improve any process. It breeds an environment of safety in which no one does anything new in fear of making a mistake. The military is becoming such an organization. One adverse fitness report can stop your career as an officer. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, unless you are a mass murderer, no one gets a bad fitness report. Unless a weakness is so obvious so as not to be ignored, it is glossed over and a bland positive report is generated. Second, since no one gets a bad fitness report, any minor weakness actually reported stands out as a major problem because no others exist in the majority of reports. This environment discourages honest reporting and creates a herd of vanilla, bland officers who do everything by committee to share responsibility and will not take risks. I have pointed out in the past a large number of successful military leaders (Grant, Patton, Sherman, etc.) who couldn’t even get promoted to positions of leadership today because of their political incorrectness. One of the differences in the American military in World War II was that the majority of the military members were not career oriented and just wanted to win the war and go home. Therefore, they weren’t worried primarily about their careers.

Senior leaders should have the best interest of the organization in mind and not their own personal job security. A good leader can always get another job. The good leader allows their people to innovate and take risks and realizes that mistakes will happen. The good leader recognizes the difference between mistakes due to incompetence and mistakes made in good faith while trying to improve processes and does not punish the latter. The true leader encourages innovation and risk taking. Only in this way, will an environment be created which will lead to improvement and new ideas and not to a stagnant and unchanging organization.

The Anonymity of the Internet

2009-01-08T08:13:00.002-05:00

There is an interesting case I heard about on the news which I am pondering. A model, Liskula Cohen, is suing Google to find out who is responsible for a web site devoted to trashing her photos and personality. It brings up some interesting arguments.

There will, of course be those who argue for the First Amendment right of free speech. Before I partially agree with that point of view, I feel obligated to point out that the right of free speech was intended to be for political speech. It was the view of the founding fathers that to have a functional democracy, the population should be allowed to hear all sides of issues to make informed judgments. In order to have representative votes, the population has to be educated on political debates. I don’t believe they ever intended exotic dancers to run around naked as part of their first amendment rights. Therefore, I believe the First Amendment is critically important to a democracy when interpreted in that light.

That being said, before the internet, when you spoke out or wrote about a subject, any subject, it was easy to recognize who the source of the information was. That recognition allowed the subject of the discussion to respond accordingly to the speaker or writer. The internet has now allowed anyone, anywhere to widely broadcast any information, factual or not, anonymously without directed response and without ever being held accountable for the content. In law, one of the fundamental rights of trials is to be able to face your accuser and present your side of an issue. It is precisely the anonymity of the internet that allows cowards and provocateurs to make slanderous accusations without ever being held responsible.

In order to win a case of libel in court, one must show that the information presented is false, that damage has been done, and most importantly, that there was intentional malice in the presenter’s publication of the information. This is where almost everyone, particularly news organizations, gets out of responsibility for their false information. They just say they never intended to hurt anyone. In fact, for most public figures, it is assumed that lies about them are par for the course. Whether a Vogue model is a public figure can be debated. The question is more about where the anonymity line is drawn. The fact that some coward calls a model a “skank” is not Earth-shattering but the fact that the person cannot be identified means that all restraint is gone. What if the person is publishing classified data or advocating open rebellion? I can already hear people saying, “But that is against the law!” or "It is only an opinion". Slander and libel are also reasons to be held accountable. The only difference is that it is a civil action, not a criminal one. Can someone knowingly publish false facts or intentionally hurtful information on the internet anonymously with impunity?

Let’s take a couple of more examples: Can someone intentionally publish misleading information about drug dosages which leads to many people taking overdoses of a medication? Can someone intentionally publish inaccurate instructions on how to put a product together which cause injuries to the users? Can someone publish instruction on making home-made weapons? Once again, the arguments would be, “These things cause harm to the users”. But one could also argue that trashing a professional model’s reputation could cause her to lose work and therefore harm her financially. She would, of course, have to show that harm in a court case. But the problem in all those scenarios is that the publisher of the information has no responsibility at all if the publisher remains anonymous. If someone published the above mentioned information in print or spoke it in public, the source is easily identified. I believe that the internet is a valuable tool and cannot conceive of not having access to it but it should not be a wall of privacy for every ne’er do well on the planet to hide behind as they perform nefarious deeds. I also believe that Google and all other internet service providers have an obligation as citizens to not assist people in either committing crimes or causing intentional harm. To the person who made the comments, come out of your mother’s basement, step up to the plate and identify yourself. If you can’t take on a ninety five pound model, you are one sad sack of feces.

Term Limits and Corruption in Politics

2009-01-08T08:06:00.004-05:00

As I have watched the political landscape over my adult life, I have seen more and more of the ineffectiveness of the legislative branch. I am convinced that many of the problems which we all see regularly playing out on the evening news and the twenty-four hours news outlets could be avoided by term limits. I have written earlier on how the US Constitution was purposely developed in the way that is was to make the passing of new law and the changing of existing law difficult so as to not be subject to whim and short term fads and trends. What we see now is not what the founders intended.

The founding fathers embraced the concept of the citizen-legislator. This is when a person becomes successful in some private endeavor and then voluntarily leaves his vocation to temporarily serve in the government to try to better the state for all. The citizen-legislator does not join the government to advance his/her own interests but serves to improve the lot for the people. After a period of service, the citizen-legislator leaves government voluntarily to return to their vocation, content in the knowledge that they have served their country and that others will carry on in their stead. It is a way to pay back the country for the opportunities which allowed the person to become successful in the first place. It is not done for personal enrichment or glory, it is altruistic.

We have devolved to the lowest political scum, the career politician. The only goal of the career politician is to remain attached to the public teat for as long as possible. Those who are career politicians may have the public good at heart as a coincidence, but their primary goal is always to maintain their office and to consolidate their power. Let us examine some of the problems with the career politician.

Anyone who spends their entire life in public jobs has no idea how the overwhelming majority of people in the United States earn their living. I will use some examples throughout this discussion. How a very wealthy Senator who never held a job of consequence in his life (e.g., Edward Kennedy) claims to be champion of the working man amazes me. The idea of the citizen-legislator was to bring people with real-world experience and knowledge to the legislature so that people who understood commerce would craft laws about commerce. People who understood the effects of taxes would write laws controlling taxation. People who held jobs would create law which encouraged job creation. People like Bill Clinton who never had a job not paid for by tax payers are stereotypical of what the founding fathers did not want. The Civil Service, not elected office, is the place for people who want to make a career in government.

There is no reason to consolidate power into a kingdom if you know you will be leaving office and will no longer be King. Lobbyists pay off the more senior and more powerful legislators precisely because they know that those people will never leave office voluntarily. You might have noted that every time you see a Representative or Senator charged with misconduct or ethical violations, it is always some one who has been in Congress a long time (Stevens, Frank, Dodd, Rostenkowski, Hastert, Rangle, Jefferson, etc.) That is because it makes no sense to bribe someone who doesn’t hold power to promote your agenda. The saying that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” could have been the motto of the US Congress. Quoting Alexander Hamilton in Federalist number six, "Men of this class, whether the favourites of a King or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquillity to personal advantage, or personal gratification."

The career politicians always argue that the people have a right to vote whoever they want to into power for as long as they want. Of course, the people don’t know about the many back room deals, gerrymandering and bribes which go into continuously getting those same politicians re-elected. That argument might work if there was a level playing field but there clearly is not.

The career politicians also argue what a wonderful job they have been doing for their constituents. While this may be true and many unnecessary tax-funded projects may have been brought back to their political contributors in their home districts, the arrogance of the argument is startling. If you are, for example, a Senator from New York, will you honestly argue that there is no one else in a state of millions of people who could do a good job as Senator? Does Ted Stevens have to remain a Senator (and crook, apparently) for thirty six years? Is there no one else in the State of Alaska who could do the job? He stayed there for that long and you see where it ended up. Joe Biden has been a Senator for twenty eight years and is now actively seeking to have his son taken the seat from him. Is that an elected office or a kingdom? The King is now Vice President; long live the new King, son of the old King.

My suggestion is that when the amendment restricting the terms for the Presidency to two was passed, it didn’t go far enough. That is not unusual because Congress almost always includes a codicil in every law they pass which states that the law does not apply to Congress. I think that five terms (ten years) is enough time for any representative to do some good then go home. Two terms (twelve years) is enough for a Senator. If you can’t get anything done in twelve years, you need to be replaced on principle. A system like that would set up a staggered rotation, eight years for President, ten years for Representatives, and twelve years for Senators. The idea of Robert Byrd tottering around the Senate, barely able to speak and stay awake, is ridiculous. By the way, if you want to see how absolute power does absolutely corrupt, go see Robert Byrd in West Virginia. You take the Robert Byrd Highway across the Robert Byrd Bridge and the Robert Byrd Dam, turn onto Robert Byrd Parkway past Robert Byrd Park, Robert Byrd Elementary, and Robert Byrd High School until you find the Robert Byrd Federal Building. There may be something in West Virginia not named after Robert Byrd but I am not sure what that might be.

Art and Public Funding

2009-01-06T03:30:00.004-05:00

There is always an ongoing debate about public funding, as in tax money, being used to give grants to art projects through the national Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and other public mechanisms. I have had the same debate a number of times over the years and today I was reminded of it so I thought I would make an entry about this subject.

The first problem with the system is that art, by its very nature, is so subjective that the difficulties in determining which projects should be funded are problematic. It will always be left up to the interpretation of the leaders of the NEA what constitutes worthwhile projects. Inevitably, there will be public disagreement about whether a project is worthy. A large part of this is that the very people chosen to be a part of the NEA are not going to be in the mainstream of American education or values. Anyone who believes that a crucifix in a jar of urine is not offensive and is worthy of public funding is clearly outside the mainstream of public opinion. The art community will, of course, argue that the very nature of art is to be provocative. While that may be true, it in no way obligates the use of tax funding to subsidize the making of such projects.

My older brother, who is one of the smartest people I have ever known, once told me that a project like that was art because it “evoked an emotional response”. I argued in response to him that if someone was to make a bowel movement on the hood of my car, it would certainly evoke an emotional response in me and I wouldn’t consider it art. Additionally, what I would do to that person would certainly evoke an emotional response from him/her and that person, while traveling to the medical facility, would not consider my response performance art. It would, however, be nice if the police said no charges could be filed because I was just doing some “art”.

After the conversation with my brother, the analytical side of me reared its head and I decided I needed some objective criteria for what I considered art. So, here are a few that I came up with in a short time:

1) If I can do it, it isn’t good. I am absolutely terrible at painting anything other than a wall in a house. If art work consists of randomly throwing something at a canvas, scribbling nonsensical figures, pouring something to have it splatter, dropping something out of a flying plane, or especially, using bodily fluids, it sucks because I can do that. I am not sure who decided that three I-beams stacked up and painted orange is art but you see that same crappy thing in front of buildings everywhere. Once again, I can do it, so it sucks.

2) If you have to explain it to me, it isn’t good. Quality pieces of art have some intrinsic beauty or force that allows one to just know it has merit when seen. If I have to listen to some long-winded explanation about how it represents mans constant struggle to revive the extinct Dodo bird, the artist is not an artist, he is a bullshit artist. I can look at anything Rembrandt painted and just be awed by the lighting and mastery contained in the painting. Anyone can look at a Michelangelo statue and have no question of the mastery in his hands. I don’t need Rembrandt or Michelangelo to come back from the dead and explain it to me.

3) If you can’t sell it, art is your hobby, not your job. I play the guitar pretty well and sing while I am playing. That does not make me a professional musician. I do not expect the United States government to fund my upcoming CD costs. I don’t believe that Brad Paisley, Josh Groban, or the Rolling Stones expect funding for their recordings, either. If no one likes what you are producing enough to purchase it, you should at least consider the idea that your art work is not good. There are thousands of “actors” in Los Angeles who have never made dime from the entertainment industry. If you are making your living bussing tables, you are a potential actor but not a professional one. In fact, you are a bus boy. A struggling artist is a pseudonym for someone who can’t make a living from art. My previously mentioned brother is a very successful writer but he always had a job in addition to writing and didn’t expect taxpayers to subsidize his work.

4) Funding for art education is a legitimate use of tax dollars. The idea of having a broad educational experience for children in public schools, including art and music is a good thing. When you consider the current state of commercial television and the pop recording industry, it is clearly in the interest of all people in the country to have kids exposed to some quality. Classical music, jazz, poetry, classical literature, and art all deserve a place in education. I will also add that they should be in addition to, not in place of, reading, mathematics and science. I would much prefer kids to know the story behind the 1812 Overture than what “I’m gonna do with all the junk in my trunk”.

5) Good art and literature stays good. Charles Dickens books are still good all these years after he has departed. Leonardo DaVinci's works still inspire awe despite the hundreds of years since he produced them. He is another one who doesn't have to come back and explain them. Anything that is trendy and doesn't stand the test of time exposes itself for what is is... bad.

When the outlay of public funds for art projects is left in the hands of a small group of people chosen because of their out of the mainstream radical views, it is inevitable that curious and outrageous decisions will be the result. Their response is the typical left response of “You just don’t get it” because anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid. Recognizing trash when you see it is not one of the prerequisites for stupidity, however, not recognizing it certainly is.

Judical Activism

2008-12-30T22:24:00.004-05:00

In all of the media frenzy over non-issues and personalities in the last national election, the most lasting historical effect of any President's administration was mostly overlooked. The choice of Justices to the US Supreme Court and Judges to the Circuit Courts of Appeal and the Federal District Courts have a profound effect on the lives of the population of the country. While the issue was largely overlooked, judicial activism is a constant danger to the make up of the government. It amounts to the judicial branch subverting the very document they are sworn to uphold and interpret.

When the founding fathers of the United States designed the mechanics of the government, they made the passing and changing of law difficult. To people desiring changes in the law, it can be frustrating to watch the sniping and deliberations which go into the passage of legislation. It has been famously said that “no one should see how sausages or laws are created”. It seems inefficient and more difficult than it needs to be. That is not coincidence. It was designed to be that way from the beginning and it is very intentional. At the time that the ratification of the United States Constitution was being debated, there was a lot of wariness of a strong central government and allowing the central government too much power. After all, the country had just fought a long and bloody war to get out from under a too powerful government which was not responsive to the needs of the people.

It was precisely because of the suspicion that central government which was too powerful would be subject to trends and to shifting political winds that the constitution was written the way it was. It takes deliberations in both the House of Representatives and the Senate separately, and then agreement between the two bodies before the bill being considered is even sent to the President. All of those steps were meant to ensure that fads and short-sighted trends were not constantly causing changes in law which were fickle and subject to whim. Political preferences in the United States are cyclical and the founding fathers knew that in order to have stability, the law must have some consistency.

Keeping those ideas in mind, the changes which are, by design, most difficult to make are changes in the constitution itself. A change to the United States Constitution requires involvement of all of the state governments and two-thirds of those governments must ratify the amendment. This is a Herculean task by any measurement. It is supposed to be. All of the articles of the constitution were hammered out in long debate and compromise in which all sides strenuously argued the merits. It is not something to be casually changed on a whim.

The constitution specifically delegates the power to create law to the legislative branch. The legislative branch is designed to be most representative of the governed population. Any idea without merit will not get through the scrutiny of the elected legislators because in short order they will be facing those same people asking to be re-elected. The country tends to be reluctant to wholesale radical change and so these processes allow progress to be generally very methodical with some notable exceptions. By definition, every constitutional amendment is a big change.

Liberal political thinkers got frustrated by their inability to pass legislation that agreed with their political views so they found a way to get around the constitution. They found activist judges. The idea is that they can find a judge who agrees with whatever interpretation of the law they want codified and they argue a case in front of the judge. The judge then rules that the law is only constitutional if it is rewritten the way the judge wants it. In that way, the legislature becomes powerless to change or adapt the law in any way other than the judge wants it.

There are a number of problems with this approach. The first is that the legislative branch is delegated the authority to create law specifically because they are accountable to the people in open elections. Federal judges are political appointees who, except in cases of malfeasance or criminal conduct, are accountable to no one. The second problem is that case law from one area of the country can be used as precedent in another part of the country. This allows creative and radical decisions by rogue judges to spread like malignancies across the country. It is a well documented phenomenon that liberal lawyers "shop" cases around until they find a favorable federal judge and try the case in that district or circuit. The third problem is that an isolated federal judge making a decision creating law removes the entire deliberative process installed in the constitution specifically to prevent trendy and whimsical changes in federal law.

A constitution which constantly changes shape like an amoeba and adapts without deliberation and debate and the input of the legislatures is no constitution. There is no stability and no consistency and besmirches the system of government on which our country’s very existence is based. Judges who create law are not interpreting law, as the constitution intended and specifically states, they are pseudo-monarchs creating law without accountability. The American Revolution was fought to divest this country of just such a system of government.

Olympic Judging and Other Impressions

2008-08-20T15:58:00.003-05:00

Has anyone else noticed the seemingly endless parade of screw jobs in the Olympic judging concerning the Chinese athletes? Don’t get me wrong, some of them are just awesome. The guy on the still rings looked like Conan the Barbarian and did stuff that seemed impossible. The female springboard diver was clearly the best. But, when a Chinese female does a vault and falls to her knees and gets the same score as the All-Around Champion who sticks her vault, something stinks. Before the gymnastics fanatics go crazy, yes… I understand start values, deductions, etc. and the way the system works. Nastia Liukin also nailed her uneven parallel bars routine and scored lower than the Chinese female with multiple obvious faults. One judge scored her execution 9.0 and the Chinese girl 9.3 despite many more obvious mistakes by the Chinese gymnast. I don’t think it is a conspiracy but may just be a bunch of judges trying to please the home fans. The overall impression stinks like old fish. Bela Karoly did have an excellent point when he suggested that the Olympics get rid of the 16-year-old rule. The Chinese girls were clearly not sixteen but certainly were good enough to be in the competition. Why make governments falsify passports when everyone can clearly see they are underage? If they are good enough to compete, let them.

This brings me to the larger point. I absolutely detest any sport requiring judges. Over the years, I have seen so many screw jobs in: diving, gymnastics, boxing, and absolutely worst of all, figure skating. I much prefer the sports like swimming and track & field. Here is a line. Everybody line up on it. Whoever gets to that line over there first is the winner. Simple and pure. Or, whoever throws this heavy thing the furthest, wins. Simple and pure.

There are a lot of Americans complaining because softball and baseball are being dropped from the Olympic Games. I don’t believe they should have ever been there. I know there are professional track athletes but I would generalize that any sport with popular professional leagues probably shouldn’t be an Olympic sport. Olympic tennis? Give me a break. I was as excited as anyone to see the American/Russian hockey game back in the day but those were college players. I don’t want to see the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB, or FIBA rehashed like another set in a series of pick up games. Some sports only get attention during the Olympics, like rowing, real wrestling, weightlifting, badminton, etc. Despite the sacrifices made by those dedicated athletes who don’t get big endorsement deals and huge contract salaries, all of the TV coverage seems to be of the NBA stars, and the bikini-clad beach volleyball players who are making a fortune regularly. I guess the up side to beach volleyball is that the outfits piss off a bunch of fanatic Mullahs.

On the positive side, there was some great sportsmanship and attitude among the swimmers. Dara Torres, who granted has more maturity than others, had the head official hold the start of a heat so another competitor could change into a non-ripped suit. The girl did not qualify for the final. If she hadn’t swum in that heat, she would have had years of preparation and training and not even had the chance to swim. She was not a teammate of Torres. It was a class move by a class athlete. Torres also showed her class with her reaction to losing the 50-meter freestyle by .01 seconds. She is a real role model. Milorad Cavic, the swimmer who lost to Michael Phelps by .01 seconds showed great class after the race. There were several American swimmers, I believe Rebecca Soni and Katy Hoff, who swam American record times and did not win their races. Instead of whining about it, they expressed joy at swimming their best times ever. That is how it should be. If you do your best and someone else is better, congratulate them.

Another interesting thing I haven’t quite figured out is the disparity in distance versus sprint athletes. Almost everyone in the sprint finals was from the Caribbean area and almost all the distance racers are from Africa. It causes one to wonder if it is a cultural thing or if it is the altitude training in Kenya versus the sea level training in the islands. I have to admit that is was fun to see Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser celebrate their wins because they were so happy. Bolt cared nothing for the world record. He just wanted to win the race. The United States doesn’t seem to have any significant distance runners. Even the ones like Bernard Legat are from Kenya and he did not qualify for the final.

All told, the Olympics, to this point have been schizophrenic. The greatness of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt’s accomplishments have been stirring but the judging and lack of coverage of the lesser-known sports is disappointing.

Judicial Activism and the Courts

2008-06-26T23:09:00.004-05:00

I have become more and more interested in this subject recently after a number of court rulings, particularly by the United States Supreme Court. I have looked into several interesting decisions specifically because of the liberal use of the courts to establish law. My previous posting was about the danger of more liberal nominations after the next election should Barack Obama win the election and the Democrats control the Senate. This time let us look at a couple of specific cases.

The District of Columbia Gun Control Law (Heller versus DC)

Mr. Heller is a man who legally carries a gun during the performance of his job in Washington, DC. He is trained to use it and carries it when at work. The DC gun law denied Mr. Heller the right to possess a firearm at home despite his training and demonstrated ability to carry a gun safely. Mr. Heller sued based on the interpretation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution that the individual right to own guns for legitimate purposes is not to be infringed by state or municipal law. DC maintained that its interest in the protection of the citizens of DC was sufficient cause to pass the law. In a 5-4 ruling today, the US Supreme Court struck down the DC law, causing howls of liberal protest and celebration by conservatives. Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that while the efficacy of protecting the citizenry by restricting gun ownership is debatable, the power of the court to contravene the Second Amendment is not debatable. Therefore, the Supreme Court has the power to review and interpret law but does NOT have the power to make law. It therefore follows that if the US Supreme Court does not hold this power, no lower court does.

The landmark case of Marbury vs Madison confirmed the idea of judicial review even though the concept had been informally in place earlier. In the Marbury case, Chief Justice John Marshall found that there was a conflict between the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789. Since the Judiciary Act was a law passed by Congress, the question became whether Congress could legitimately pass a law which conflicted with the Constitution. Marshall wrote that law that conflicts with the Constitution is not law and therefore the Constitution always wins out. Since the Constitution is the highest law of the land and judges swear an oath to it, how can a judge issue a ruling in conflict with it? Marshall’s point was that there was no reason to have a Constitution if Congress never paid attention to it and passed laws in conflict with it.

One of the more interesting things which came out of this decision is how the four liberal justices (Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer) all found a way to justify the law despite it being in conflict with the United States Constitution. The Canon of Constitutional Avoidance states that if an issue can be interpreted without causing a constitutional conflict, it should be interpreted that way. In this case, there was no way to avoid the conflict because the law directly conflicted with the Second Amendment despite any good intentions of the DC government.

Eminent Domain (Susette Kelo versus City of New London)

The concept of Eminent Domain has been around for a long time. The idea is that a government can seize property from an individual property owner for use to benefit the community at large. Per the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the property owner is compensated for the value of the property, though often not to their satisfaction. This has historically meant takings for uses like hospitals, transportation centers, public utilities and other obvious public welfare projects, usually tax-funded. For completeness, eminent domain does not only apply to real estate properties, it can be used by the government to seize military needs, trade secrets, patents and other intellectual properties. The difference in the Kelo case was that property was being taken from an individual to be used for a private venture for profit by other private investors, not the government. The government of New London argued that the improvements to the property would increase tax revenues and the business venture would be good for the citizens at large. Kelo argued the government had no right to seize property from an individual for another individual. The taking of property for profit subsequently made its way to the US Supreme Court.

The case was decided 5-4 in favor of City of New London setting off nationwide protest. The majority were the five liberal justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy. In opposing the ruling, Justice Scalia argued that ruling in favor of New London would eliminate the distinction between private and public property and that the only private property would be property the government was not interested in obtaining. After the decision, reaction was swift. Polls showed between 65-97% of people interviewed disagreed with the decision. President Bush issued an executive order banning similar eminent domain procedures by the federal government. More than forty states have enacted laws to prevent takings like the Kelo case. This is another case of the liberal US Supreme Court justices making law in conflict with the constitution. The Fifth Amendment specifically states “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”. The liberal justices substitute “public purpose” for the actual phrase “public use”. This means that any wealthy business can have the local government condemn (take) anyone’s property solely with a promise to have a more successful business. This is clearly an example of liberalism in that the government is always smarter than its citizens and always knows what is best for individuals. This decision also preferentially gives advantage to the wealthy and powerful.

Both of these cases point out the need to avoid nominating judicial activists to the courts. President George W. Bush can be accused of a lot of things but he has certainly been a lot more successful in nominating Supreme Court justices who interpret rather than create law than either Presidents Eisenhower or Reagan.

Judicial Nominations and Politics

2008-06-03T11:34:00.002-05:00

Let's start with a couple of references from the United States Constitution:

Article 1 Section 1 - All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Article 3 Section 1 - The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

By legislative powers, in addition to funding and other duties, the constitution means to create and modify law, subject to ratification by the Executive Branch, in the person of the President of the United States. By judicial power, the constitution gives courts the power to try federal cases (including disputes between states) and to interpret the constitutionality of laws. It is very clear to any reader that these powers do not include any provision for the judiciary to create law. In the last few decades, a slick way of writing unpopular law has emerged. Any party who has an agenda which will not be supported by the elected legislators can bypass the legislative process by filing a legal action with a sympathetic judge. The judge then issues an opinion that favors the plaintiff and it essentially becomes law. Even worse, the judge can strike down existing law and tell the legislature what kind of interpretation the judge will allow to stand, which makes the legislators redundant and powerless. It that case, the judge is clearly creating the law. Since the constitutionality of law is subject to review of the judiciary, and the judiciary is making the law, it should be fairly obvious that a judge is not going to strike down his or her own interpretation of the law. This process is usually referred to as “judicial activism”. It allows judges to do whatever they want to without regard to precedent or the desires of the elected representatives of the people. One needs to look no further than the historically astonishing opinions of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California for many examples. Not coincidently, the Ninth Circuit has more opinions reversed by the US Supreme Court than any other circuit.

Judicial activism has been responsible for a number of liberal causes becoming law. The recent same sex marriage opinion in California was created despite a 61% recent defeat of same sex marriage by the population of California in a vote. Roe versus Wade, the famous abortion decision, was decided based on a constitutional right to privacy which was created out of thin air by the Supreme Court. Under the theory of judicial activism, judges are free to do anything they want and, unlike elected legislators, there is nothing voters can do about it once they are in office. In fact, the legislature becomes powerless and useless.

Part of the Democratic push for the White House is that Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75 years old. In fact, the liberal justices are significantly older than the conservative justices. With a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic President, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party will push for extremely liberal activist replacements should those justices retire or pass away. Additionally, the Democratic majority has been “running out the clock” by refusing to hold hearings of dozens of nominated judges so that if the next President is Democratic, all those nominations can be squashed and replaced by activists. Since the liberal agenda cannot be supported by legislation, the judiciary is used to create it.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are pushing for the Presidency so that more “strict constructionist” judges will be in place. Conservatives feel that by replacing even one of the liberal justices (Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, or Souter), the direction of the court will be shifted. Chief Justice Roberts and both Justices Alito and Thomas are in their 50s. Only Justice Scalia, of the conservatives, is significantly older (72). Justice Kennedy, thought to be in the middle, is 71.

Since the court is currently thought to be four liberal, four conservative, and one swing vote, one new appointment could make a substantial difference to the make up of the court. Liberals are more anxious because of the ages of the liberal justices.

The choice in candidates is pretty clear. Barack Obama said in a recent statement, "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges." Therefore legal expertise and experience apparently have no place in evaluation of judicial nominees, as long as they support his political beliefs. John McCain said that he thought that "abuse of judicial authority" had continued unchecked. "The result, over many years, has been a series of judicial opinions and edicts wandering farther and farther from the clear meanings of the Constitution,"

It is interesting that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted against the confirmation of both Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts despite their stellar credentials and qualifications. Clearly their votes were agenda driven on not based on qualifications. John McCain voted to approve both nominees.

Despite the little political and media attention paid up to this point, judicial nominations might be the single most lasting result of the next President.

The Republicans Join the Suicide Pact

2008-05-10T00:48:00.000-05:00

I have written previously that the Democrats have taken an election that should have been theirs in a walk and managed to screw it up enough to make the contest competitive in the general election. Now, not to be outdone, the Republicans are attempting to destroy themselves, as well. The truth is that no staunch conservative had a chance to win the Presidency in the current political environment given the war, the current economy, the Republican incumbent retirements, and the fact that a two-term President is leaving office. John McCain came along at the only time he could have been nominated as a Republican in recent history. Although he will be painted as “George W. Bush II” by the Democrats, anyone familiar with politics knows better. That being said, some contemptuous conservatives would rather leave the country to ultra-liberals than have a candidate that is not the “perfect” conservative. When I hear people like Ms. Coulter openly rail against John McCain, I cannot help but think of the ages and health of Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The conservatives whining about McCain cannot possibly be thinking if they do not consider twenty more years of judicial activism a problem. In the current climate, the Democrats will likely pick up seats in the Senate. Therefore, a Democratic President will be able to nominate and confirm any flaming liberal activist judge and the Republicans will just have to grin and bear it. If McCain is elected and nominates a conservative justice, the Democrats can not possibly stall a Supreme Court nomination for an entire four years, like they are doing to the Appeals Court justices now. The Democrats have been holding up hearings on judicial nominations “running out the clock” until the next election. The nomination of the next two or three Supreme Court justices and having hearings on the Appeals Court justices may be the single most important legacy of the next President. It is mind-boggling to think who Barack Obama might nominate, not only for the Supreme Court but also to the Appeals Court positions currently held in limbo. That alone has the potential to change the country more over the next two decades than any elected official. Republicans better wake up to reality before the entire country is San Francisco.

Recap of Recent Political Events

2008-05-10T00:25:00.001-05:00

Where do we stand? Barack Obama does not have enough pledged delegates combined with super delegates to go over the top to the nomination. Hillary Clinton isn’t about to go away. John McCain is consolidating. It is quite a mess for the Democrats. Let’s look at some of the individual issues.

Florida and Michigan: First, let’s look at the electoral map. The way that the country is divided by historically Republican and Democrat states means that to win the Presidency, the candidates have to win two out of three of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, assuming they win all the normal red and blue states. That the Democrats have managed to upset the people in Florida and Michigan is pretty poor strategy. John McCain, because of his record of support for Israel and other issues, will run strongly in Florida. The last thing the Democrats need to do is irritate the voters there. Florida has elected Republican governors and has a Republican Senator. Except for the famous “hanging chad” areas of West Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Counties, the state is primarily conservative. The Democrats are trying to blame the Republicans for the dilemma but the original piece of legislation introduced to change the date of the primary was introduced by a Democrat. That makes the “Republicans are to blame” argument hard to sell. Michigan will likely go Democratic unless they feel disrespected by the national party. There are currently no plans by the Democrats to revote. Therefore, any seating at the convention will be a non-representative appeasement, thus telling the voters that we can vote in your stead. It is bad politics all around. Howard Dean is looking remarkably ineffective as Democratic Party leader.

Hillary Clinton: The Clintons (you have to bunch them together) never cease to amaze. One the one hand, you have to give them credit for relentlessness going back throughout their entire public life. On the other hand, organized crime is relentless. The Clintons have historically complained about the “politics of personal destruction” but it has paradoxically always been their favorite weapon against their opponents. In the last day, she has again begun to plant more racial wedges by stating to USA today that, to paraphrase “the white voters are moving away from Obama and that makes me the stronger general election candidate”. There is a theory by Dick Morris that she is weakening Obama so that she can run in 2012. It looks more like she is using the scorched Earth strategy and will never bow out. It does lend credence to Morris’ argument that if she does manage to wrest the nomination from Obama on some sort of technicality, she is likely to lose in November anyway because several traditional Democratic constituencies would never support her. Therefore, wresting it away doesn’t seem to make sense.

Barack Obama: He is in an interesting position. He claims to be the candidate that will “cross party lines and bring people together” although he has a record diametrically opposed to doing that. He is the single most liberal Senator in the Senate and routinely refuses to join bipartisan coalitions. He also wants to change “politics as usual” but has himself and his representatives constantly lying about McCain’s statement about the security force in Iraq despite knowing better. He is going to have a hard time running as a moderate when nothing in his record remotely suggests he would ever take a moderate position. Obama should get a bump in the polls after he clinches the nomination and after the Democratic convention. Obama always seems to poll higher than he actually does in the voting. It is an interesting phenomenon.

John McCain: McCain has always been an independent thinker. It some cases (Iraq, federal judges) he is very conservative. On others (immigration, environment), he is moderate. The conservatives are complaining that he is not going ultra-conservative to please “the base of the party”. To win the general election, that would be a huge mistake. Why anyone expects him to change from the last twenty-five years is silly. Additionally, we won the primaries running as himself. Why would he make a disingenuous change at this point after watching how “flip-flopping” hurt John Kerry, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton?

Issues: The economy – Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax despite the fact that every time the capital gains tax has been lowered, government revenue increases because the economy expands. McCain wants to lower the tax to keep industry in the United States. Obama keeps speaking of how opportunity exists in the United States but if you do manage to get rich, the government will take your money away in taxes on the rich.
Health Care – Obama wants universal care through a government program which will raise taxes and will not affect prices. McCain wants to have individuals buy their own policies so there will be competition and prices will lower. Additionally, this allows portability of policies between jobs.
Iraq – Obama wants to remove troops from Iraq regardless of the conditions there; McCain wants to continue the fight until we win.
Judges – Obama conforms to the Democratic position that since they cannot get the liberal agenda through elected legislatures, they will appoint activist judges who will create law through judicial fiat. McCain want to appoint judges who will interpret law rather than create it. Of course, that is what the United States Constitution says should happen.

One of the Democratic “strategists” Robert Zimmerman stated on CNN last night that the race would be between a “conservative Republican” and a “main-stream Democrat”. There is a load of manure if you ever heard it. McCain is a well-known moderate whom the conservatives are complaining about and Obama is the single most liberal Senator in the United States Congress. It is disgusting to hear both the right wing and left wing commentators spit out their vitriol. I almost e-mailed Bill O’Reilly about that. He calls his show the “no spin zone” but after every interview, he always has two “strategists” from either side who come on the show to do nothing other than “spin” the interview answers shamelessly.

CounterSpin is a Crock

2008-04-21T19:02:00.001-05:00

I was on the road today and happened to be listening to National Public Radio. A program came on that was called CounterSpin. It purports to be a review of recent print and electronic media reports published or broadcast recently. It is a product of a group called Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). It only took several minutes to realize that there is nothing fair about this program. A rhetorical question: How far left do you have to be when you complain about the “conservative bias” of the New York Times and Washington Post? The “reporters” that present the stories throw in snide comments throughout the stories often. One of the guests was an investigative reporter named Mark Shapiro who was really giving a thoughtful review and analysis of the problems encountered when reporting on matters of scientific research. He has written a book about the dangers of chemical additives in commercial products in the United States. He later spent some time extolling the European Union because they have, in his opinion, done a better job of restricting chemical additives which can be added to products produced in China. In an interesting paradox, many pharmaceuticals are allowed to be sold to consumers in Europe which have not been approved for safety in the United States. I suppose you get to pick your poison literally. The person interviewing him could not let his very skilled answering of the questions stand without leading him toward criticizing any conservative policy or business. While Shapiro was very interesting and thought-provoking, the remainder of the program was an ode to socialization and had an obvious anti-business bias. After doing a little internet searching, it was easy to find out that one of the former leaders of FAIR was Laura Flanders, who hosts a program on the flaming left Air America. To be “fair”, the program does not report to be news; it is a commentary show. I can say without equivocation that there is nothing fair and accurate in the interpretation presented by this group. The FAIR group is as objective as the group Media Matters which has been shown over and over to be a left-wing smear machine. How anyone can claim to be an objective observer and be associated with this program is disingenuous.

Immigration Politics

2008-04-14T18:34:00.001-05:00

I listened to a “news report” on National Public Radio today about “undocumented workers” and the passage of a law in Prince William County, Virginia. The law basically states that when a person is arrested or brought to the attention of law enforcement, they will notify the US Government about the illegal status of the person. Therefore, a person who is violating the law of the United States will be reported to the appropriate authority about the law violation. On the surface, this seems to be a pretty intuitively obvious thing to do. However, the political left is outraged. National Public Radio tends to be a liberal news outlet and the story was, of course, extremely sympathetic to the plight of the law-breakers (“victims”). Some of the justifications they used require some severe stretching.

The focus of the story was two women who entered the country legally using work visas and then stayed past the expiration of their visas. Let’s make sure this is clear: the two women knowingly violated the law by overstaying the visa that the United States granted them. How does that make them sympathetic characters? The story lamented how one could not visit a friend in the hospital because she might have to produce identification. I suppose we should feel badly for bank robbers on the run who can’t visit their families because they might get caught. We are also supposed to be feeling sorry for illegal aliens because they might be reported if they commit a crime and get arrested. Am I the only one who sees how stupid this argument is?

The next segment was an interview with someone who was talking about how a group of three or four hundred illegal aliens (“undocumented workers”) who were receiving free tax-funded education to learn English as a second language were no longer attending classes. Let’s make sure this is clear: A group of immigration law violators are no longer using U.S. tax funds to receive educational benefits in a country where they shouldn’t be present. How is that a problem? The point was that the new law was causing illegal aliens to leave the county. How is that a problem?

The next portion of the report was about the financial burden. A County Commissioner was saying that because of the volume of illegal aliens in the county, it would cost a lot of money to enforce the law. Let me make sure we understand this: We won’t enforce laws because it costs money. It sounds like the county needs a new commissioner.

I found the interview with the head of the police force very interesting. He stated that the police force does not set up immigration screens or checkpoints. If they encounter someone who is an illegal alien, they do not detain the person unless they are being detained for committing a crime. They do appropriately report the encounter to the federal immigration authorities, as they should. They do detain illegal aliens who are arrested for committing a crime. How is that a problem? Should illegal aliens have special benefits that criminals that are American citizens do not? That is patently ridiculous.

I assume all of this ridiculous logic is way to try to obtain Hispanic support in the upcoming elections. The liberals also said that committing perjury was no big deal for President Clinton because it was about sex. Therefore, the political left can pick the subjects in which it is okay to tell lies in court. When a woman accused Clinton of sexual assault, the National Organization of Women said nothing, because their political agenda (abortion) agreed with Clinton’s. The liberal wing chooses which laws to obey and not obey and when the law contradicts their philosophy or goals, they find a judge who agrees and the just “re-interpret” the law. One cannot cease to be amazed.

Infomercials, the Epitome of Falsehoods

2008-04-08T08:59:00.004-05:00

As someone who tends to see a lot of late night television peripherally while working on my computer, I have found a really entertaining habit. Every time one of those obnoxious commercials comes on, I immediately do a search on the product. A pretty consistent pattern has emerged. Let’s look at some examples:

First, there are “the product is completely bogus” scams.

Lipozene, the magic pill that helps you lose weight rapidly by “burning fat”. The retailers of Lipozene have been fined twice previously for deceptive business practices regarding television advertising. Lipozene does cause a brief weight loss in that it is a laxative. Therefore, if you are constipated, you lose the weight of the stool you lose. Other than that, the product does nothing. This is a total scam.

Shapely Secrets, the “motionless exercise”: Greer Childers, the attractive blonde who hypes the program, was ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to stop advertising her previous scam, BodyFlex, in which she insisted that you could lose weight by breathing deeply. Why anyone fell for that one, I have no idea. Her new scam is to stand still and lose weight. She also includes some diet tips, presumably to keep from getting fined again. Once again, a total scam.

Dual Action Cleanse: That is the one where the guy who sort of looks like a 1970s porno star tells everyone about the terrible toxins in the colon and basically hawks an expensive natural laxative. The implication is that your own feces are poisoning you. Since most people find bowel movements pretty disgusting, it is an easy sell to the uninformed. There is nothing about his product does that can’t be accomplished with a healthy diet containing fruit and vegetables. Another total scam.

Free and Clear: A real estate investment program where people can buy foreclosed homes for a couple of hundred dollars. Take a minute to think about this: There are hundreds of properties worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars but real estate people don’t know about them, bankers don’t know about them, or even more unbelievable, they know about them and don’t snap them up two seconds after they become available. Does this sound logical? If it doesn’t, congratulations, you have figured out this guy is full of crap.

Next, there are a series of what are called “implied consent” scams. This is where the seller continues to send you stuff you don’t want and continues to bill you monthly.

Video professor, the guy who wants to send you his “free” demonstration software: The are hundreds of complaints about another billing scam where people are charged $79.95 a month for a subscription service which sends them educational software, sometimes for programs they don’t even own. Consumeraffairs.com reports “But in actuality, it appears impossible to just get one free disc. Instead, it is a packaged bundle of three discs that cost $6.95 for shipping and handling. If the customer doesn't return one of the discs, at their expense, within 10 days, they will be enrolled in an automatic renewal service which sends new three-disc bundles every month for $79.95.”

Girls Gone Wild: This is the group that gets women drunk and has them flash and do other nefarious activities. They use the same business model. They sell you a cheap initial DVD and then continue to send them and bill you much larger fees. Once again, getting them stopped is apparently not very easy. By the way, Joe Francis, the founder and owner of the company, just spent time in prison and is up on further charges for using under aged girls in his videos. Therefore, owning any videos he produced with under aged girls means you legally own child pornography. Just something to think about.

Pro-Activ: This is the anti-acne program hawked by Vanessa Williams, P. Diddy, Jessica Simpson, and others. I have some personal experience with this one as my daughter and one of my sons used it a while. It seems like an honest product although my daughter found stuff at Walgreen’s that worked better. The problem is getting them to stop shipping it and charging you for it. It took months to turn it off. Of course, during that entire period, they bill your credit card.

Then there is the ultimate combination of bogus product and implied consent.

Enzyte, the magic pill that enhances “that certain part of the male anatomy”: There are literally thousands of complaints to the Better Business Bureau, the Consumer Protection Agency, and the Federal Trade Commision over this scam. The obvious complaint is that the product is totally bogus, but it is much worse than that. Apparently, the product retailers entice customers with a 30 day free trial, after which you can return the product or stop the additional shipments. The common complaint is that as soon as the initial “free trial” is shipped, the customer’s credit card is billed. When customers complain that it doesn’t work (which it always doesn’t since it is bogus), they are directed to a number in

India

which takes information and is supposed to contact the customer. They don’t. Since the subscription doesn’t stop, the customer continues to be billed for several months at about $50 a month. The product and the billing are a total scam.

Kevin Trudeau’s Natural Cures book: Knowing something about medicine, I knew this charlatan was full of crap but it seems a lot of people listened to him. He charges a lot, about $100, for the book which is relatively useless then charges $9.95 a month for a newsletter that the customer is apparently not told about and doesn’t ask for.

Then there is the “Hard Sell” approach.

Direct Buy: I am particularly sensitive to this one because once, a long time ago, my wife and I fell for one of these against my better judgment. This reminds me of the “free” vacation or “free dinner” you receive just for listening to a sales pitch. It tends to be a time share or vacation sharing. At least when my wife talked me into a “buyer’s club” back in the day, it only cost about $600. By the way, we never bought one item from the club. The prices were not good and it was an incredible hassle. Now, Direct Buy is charging about $6900 to join and there are loads of consumer complaints about them. Avoid these people like the plague.

How about the “we bill you and sometimes we don’t even ship the product?””

Milinex Power Storm Vacuum is supposed to cost about $55. With a bunch of bogus charges, it sometimes costs up to $400 and some customers never received their vacuum. There seems to be no way to return it or get a refund. This is a classic example of if it sounds too good to be true, it probably stinks.

In thinking back over the years, I can only remember one infomercial which had a legitimate product that didn’t over bill, good old George Foreman and his grills. We actually own one of those (bought in a store, not from television) which actually works really well. Therefore, I know the possibility actually exists for a product on late night television which isn’t a scam but it is the only legitimate one I have ever seen.

B Movies and Stretching the Truth

2008-04-01T00:54:00.004-05:00

How can you tell a B movie when you see it? The most obvious clue is that it stars a bunch of folks that you have never heard of or seen before (excluding Jean Claude Van Damme, Shannon Tweed, Shannon Whirry, Sybil Danning, Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quiggley, etc. all known B movie actors). The sets tend to be a lot cheaper. They don’t seem to be able to afford a decent script supervisor. For those of you wondering, the script supervisor is the person whose job it is to ensure continuity between scenes and some semblance of reality to the movie. Movies are filmed in the order that will defray costs so the scenes are not done in chronologic order. Examples of famous mistakes are:

- Julia Roberts is eating a pancake, then a bagel, then a pancake in a scene in Pretty Woman

- The windshield of the truck Arnold Schwarzenegger is driving in Terminator I shatters as he jumps into the drainage conduit and is back to normal five seconds later.

I just watched part of a movie, Freedom Strike (made in 1998) which is about a Middle East peace accord being signed on a US aircraft carrier. The only actor I recognized was Tone Loc, which should have told me something. The President arrives by helicopter (an appropriate one) as seen from the Pri-Fly tower (obviously stock footage). During the broadcast news conference, a Middle Eastern cameraman tries to assassinate the President and fails due to the efforts of a Navy SeAL (the hero). I noticed a few script supervisor moments:

- The SeAL’s haircut isn’t close to military.

- Two Middle Eastern cameramen that close to the President of the United States and on a US aircraft carrier? Are you kidding?

- The SeAL’s partner is a super-model female Marine weapons expert.

- When the President is whisked away from the “carrier” he leaves on a CH-46 helicopter from a flight deck full of them. CH-46 helicopters are never on a carrier. Clearly, the film was stock footage from an amphibious assault ship.

- The Commander of the carrier is wearing dress blues showing him to be a four-star Admiral. The commander of a carrier strike group is usually a one-star and occasionally a two-star Admiral but NEVER a four-star. I would have given them a little slack on that one because the President was on board but they lost it when the same Admiral is wearing a khaki uniform with FIVE stars on his collar. There have only been four five-star Admirals in the history of the US Navy (Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey, all in World War II).

- When the bad guy runs from the hero, he runs down passageways with railings (not present on a carrier), and goes down to the engineering spaces which are unoccupied. You can’t turn around on a carrier without excusing yourself for running into someone. You have to merge into passageways like an interstate highway. In fact, during the entire chase scene, only one other person is seen. They must have had a really tight budget.

- Interestingly, the chase would actually have been conducted by the ship’s security department. There is a scene where one of the bad guys is texting a message back to his co-conspirators in Syria (not possible within the hull of the ship) and one security person walks by (the only time a security person is ever seen). Clearly, a tight budget.

- A second bad guy jumps to his death from the island (tower) of the carrier which is white (wrong) and has multiple balconies (wrong). It looked like a freighter was used.

- The Navy physician shows up to take care of the injured Syrian Ambassador in a khaki uniform with a crisp white doctor’s coat over it (no doctor wears a white coat on a Navy ship).

- They take the patient to a storage room, not to the Medical Department, and operate on him in the storage room. I don’t even have to explain how wrong that is.

- At the conclusion of the “successful” operation, I noted the patient was never prepared sterilely and is still wearing his shirt and ECG leads despite the doctor working on a chest wound.

- Additionally, the “explosive” shell is removed pristine and intact. The actual way to remove one is to remove a layer of tissue around it (a little technical, but true). The way the doctor did it in the film gets you killed. Any surgeon would know better.

- And, as usual, despite both being wounded with gunshots, both heroes are smiling and walking normally after killing the last bad guy. Contrast that to how Bruce Willis usually looks at the end of a Die Hard movie.

It reminded me of the movie GI Jane, when the script required some sort of made up mission so that Demi Moore could look heroic and competent at the end of the movie. The scenario was that an American spy satellite had fallen into Libya and there was fear that the Plutonium core could be recovered by the Libyans. I actually said “B*llsh*t!” out loud when Demi Moore declared “It’s weapons-grade”. For those of you who don’t know, there are three fissionable materials known to man (stuff you can make an atomic bomb from): Uranium-233, Uranium-235, and Plutonium-239. The power core of a satellite is made from Plutonium-238 which is a very long term source of heat but cannot fission. Therefore, it can NEVER be “weapons-grade”. The people that are making these movies really need to hire a technical expert. Dale Dye has made a good living doing that. He is in every major military film made in Hollywood, or at least it seems that way.

Granted, I have a lot more expertise in these areas than most (or maybe anyone in this strange combination) but I really wish they would take the time to do these things correctly. . Even with nothing else to do at midnight, these movies are a waste of time.

Obama Unwittingly Helps McCain's Fundraising

2008-03-27T11:24:00.004-05:00

There has been much made recently about the differential between Democratic and Republican fund-raising for the Presidential election. John McCain is lagging significantly behind the Democratic candidates due to the contentious race for the Democratic nomination. Surprisingly, I believe Barack Obama came to McCain’s rescue today. In a “major” speech about the economy, Obama, the presumptive nominee, stated that the solution to the country’s economic problems was more regulation. He proposed a tax cut to “working families”. Of course, that already exists in the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. In proposing more regulation by the government, Obama has begun the process of filling McCain’s election coffers by stimulating donations from almost every business in the country. If there is anything a business doesn’t like, it is the federal government telling them how to do their jobs.

The two Democratic candidates are locked in a heated battle. On the nasty side, they continue to delve deeper into accusations and nit-picking and it is wearing the voters thin. On the other hand, they battle by trying to out-promise each other, thereby buying the votes with bribes. It is an interesting paradox that if a candidate walked up to you and offered you $100 cash to vote their way, they could go to jail. Yet it is perfectly legal for them to offer you thousands of dollars in government money for the same goal. What no one seems to realize is that the money they offer comes from tax revenues. Obama has already offered up something like one trillion dollars in new spending proposals. Someone will have to pay for his programs. It will be people who work, thereby removing the incentive to work.

We have all heard someone say, “Why work harder? The government is going to take it, anyway.” There is some tipping point where people lose the incentive to try. That is the very reason communism fails as a form of government. It flies in the face of human nature. The reason the United States became the most powerful economic nation in history in only roughly 200 years is because there is incentive to work and produce. If you work hard or come up with a better product, YOU live in a better home, drive a better car, take a nicer vacation, not everyone else. In communism, everyone works down to the lowest level at which you can maintain your job (kind of like the US Civil Service). When liberals take more money from working people for socialist-like economic redistribution programs, they remove the incentive for people to work harder. A graduated tax table does the same thing. Graduated tax brackets are the driving force behind loopholes and tax cheating to reduce income levels on paper.

So, as the Democratic candidates continue to promise bigger government (meaning more taxes and more regulation), they spur contributions to the McCain candidacy from business and people who earn income. McCain should send Obama a thank you card.

Embellishment and Hillary Clinton Fatigue

2008-03-26T14:53:00.005-05:00

How is it that any politician running for national office thinks that they can get away with embellishment, lying, or misleading statements in the modern age of communications? How Hillary Clinton can relate a story of “running under sniper fire” when video exists of the actual events is beyond me. In recent history, Dan Rather was run out of town for forgeries, Barack Obama’s minister’s sermons were exposed, Gary Hart had pictures of his affair exposed, Eliot Spitzer had his prostitution usage exposed, Nixon had tapes in the White House, Bill Clinton left evidence on a dress, Kwame Kilpatrick had 10,000 text messages, and on and on. There is virtually nothing that happens of consequence that doesn’t leave some trail of evidence.

Hillary Clinton started out behind the eight ball. People already had, at least independents and conservatives, an opinion of her as a scheming, no trick too dirty political opportunist. Her campaign had to be, in part, an effort to convince people that the impression was false and that she was genuine. Moving to New York to be elected certainly hadn’t helped that view. Everyone, even Democrats, knew that the move was political opportunism. The Clintons always complained about the “politics of personal destruction” and then were the foremost practitioners of it. Hillary Clinton had to run an almost perfect campaign in order to offset that image. To the Democrats, she was the “heir apparent” to the Presidency and the primaries were to be a formality (thus, the unimportance of super-delegates). In fact, the super-delegates were supposed to get the nomination process over more quickly by squashing any second place usurper who dared to make it a contest. What the Democratic leadership had not counted on was the appeal of someone other than Hillary Clinton. Make no mistake, Barack Obama is an appealing candidate, but a large part of his appeal is that he is NOT Hillary Clinton. Recent polls have shown that 19% of Obama supporters would vote for John McCain if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. That speaks volumes about the opinion of Democrats. In the Michigan primary, without Barack Obama on the ballot, almost 40% of Democrats did not vote for Hillary Clinton. They preferred “none of the above”. Many Democrats have been dismayed with what the Clintons did to the Democratic Party for a long time but always held their tongues because they were convinced that Hillary would be President. The haters of President Bush feel the Clintons were responsible for him being elected. Now that there is another viable candidate who is actually leading her in delegates, the truth is coming forward. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t like her in a big way and never did. Combine that with the fact that Republicans loath her and it makes for a tough candidate to elect. If she was winning big, the Democrats who dislike her would hold their noses and vote for her but now they have an alternative and they are jumping on that train.

The latest Bosnia embellishment is not surprising given her history of similar episodes but it is more revealing of the Democratic Party as a whole as they use it to again justify why so many would support anyone else. In a column just before New Hampshire I wrote that I didn’t think Obama had much of a chance. I clearly underestimated the undercurrent of Democrat desire to get away from the Clintons.

Teamwork and Stability

2008-03-26T14:11:00.003-05:00

One thing that has become fairly apparent over the last few years is that teamwork and stability are pretty important in the success of an organization. There are some really outstanding examples of how not to manage an organization.

When Daniel Snyder bought the Washington Redskins, he clearly was a very successful businessman but just as clearly knew nothing about how to run a sports franchise. He thought that putting together a bunch of talented individuals from different systems would produce a great team. His teams struggled mightily despite the huge payrolls. His free agent acquisitions were routine busts. When he hired a proven coach who seemed to be turning the franchise around, Marty Schottenheimer, Snyder fired him after winning his final seven or eight games to hire Steve Spurrier from the University of Florida. There must be something cursed about Schottenheimer as he was fired from San Diego after a 14-2 season. In both cases, Steve Spurrier in Washington and Norv Turner in San Diego went on to have decidedly worse records than Schottenheimer. Snyder finally hired the legendary Joe Gibbs back and allowed several poor seasons before the Redskins organization got itself back together. Only a coach the stature of Gibbs would have been allowed to do that. When Gibbs retired this year, most of the organization was retained and little free agent action has taken place. It seems that finally Snyder has finally learned that stability is important.

There is an old saying the “The enemy of good is better” or “The enemy of good is perfect”. No where is that sentiment better represented than in the New York Yankees. Joe Torre wins three world championships and makes the playoffs in every year but one of his long tenure and he is fired. The Yankees organization laments on the old days when they won all the time. In those days however, you almost needed to be an archaeologist to mark changes in personnel other than pitchers, who generally have a shorter shelf life, anyway. There was stability in the organization and you knew every year that the team would be good. Of course, it always helped to have more money than the U. S. Mint. Mickey Mantle was offered a pay CUT in 1957 because he didn’t win the Triple Crown like he did in 1956. The Steinbrenner family is very similar to Daniel Snyder, and the US government for that matter, in that they feel money is the cure to every problem. They never take into account team chemistry. The best thing that happened to the Yankees in recent history is when they failed to sign Albert Belle who was well known team poison everywhere he went. Belle went to the Orioles and they have never been good since. Look at the response Alex Rodriguez received for one of the best offensive seasons in baseball history; he was booed by fans for the team’s finish. These are the same people who celebrated cheating the Baltimore Orioles out of a playoff game on an erroneous umpire call. It is hard to have empathy for them.

In the military, it is often said that the soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and airmen don’t fight for foreign policy but instead fight for their buddies next to them. It was well known in both Viet Nam and World War II that the replacements were thought of differently than the group that originally deployed together. There was a movie about the new Captain of a US Navy vessel who had his men build a sailboat for the ship. They were all angry about having to do it but another character in the movie recognized that by making the crew mad at him, the Captain had brought them together as a crew. Players and coworkers look out for one another when they have a relationship. Good coaches and executives recognize the need for cohesion. In the movie Remember the Titans, Denzel Washington’s coach character forced his players to learn about one another. Team chemistry is important to any organization and it takes time and stability to establish it. The people who go for the quick fix will always be left behind (and broke).

The Democratic Fondue Pot Melt Down

2008-03-24T14:42:00.005-05:00

I have recently began reading the comments section below some of the news stories on the web and have noticed the visceral angst among the Democratic voters about the Clinton/Obama race. To believe the Democratic Party can come together between the September convention and the November election unless they resolve their candidacy issue before the convention might be wishful thinking. The blog commenters are inflamed and displaying a lot of vitriol. It has gotten down to a lot of "yo momma" types of comments. The two sides are building a lot of genuine animosity against the other.

To try to look at the options somewhat rationally, let's look at the likely general election tactics:

Obama versus McCain is a large contrast (young vs old, ultra liberal record vs moderate/conservative record, black vs white, etc.); Clinton vs McCain not quite as much (woman vs man, mostly liberal vs moderate/conservative) and keep in mind that Clinton/McCain have voted the same way many times. The problem Clinton has against McCain in the general election is that all the arguments she uses in the primaries against Obama don't work about McCain. Therefore, she will have to do a 180 and run with Obama's arguments of change. Her arguments of: experience (McCain has a lot more), legislative accomplishments (McCain has a lot more), working on bipartisan bills (McCain again), ability to be Commander in Chief (She isn't in the same zip code) will not sell when looked at closely. Therefore, she shouldn't distance herself from Obama too much because she will have to use his platform of unity/change in the general election. However, by using Obama's platform, she will become another "flip-flopper" in the eyes of the public. Obama would have it easier because he will run on his current platform of unity/change. Obama will have a problem there. His record shows that he always votes with the liberal block and has a record of not supporting bipartisan bills. That makes his "unity/bipartisan" theme a tough sell to make. Additionally, he has been knocked off his pedestal (ironically by the Democrats, not the Republicans) and now appears to be a regular politician. When evaluated as a regular politician, he has almost no accomplishments and negligible experience, when examined closely.

Add to those problems a really bad case of timing. The Democrats have been trying to sing in chorus that the Republicans have a "corruption" theme. However, all the latest scandals (NY governor, Detroit mayor, etc.) have been Democrats. Additionally, their own primary system process is beginning to look corrupt. If you really look at Obama/Clinton, there is much more similarity in their positions than differences. The Democratic Party is destroying itself over little details, egos and personalities. Someone needs to do a sanity check. Howard Dean is really falling down on his job. They are at risk of giving this thing away from within.

How to Effectively Moderate a Debate

2008-03-10T00:16:00.005-05:00

I was fantasizing about moderating a Presidential debate the other evening and thought I would reveal portions of my formula for an actually informative debate which, of course, the candidates would hate. I believe people get tired of lame generalities and talking heads waiting for the right opportunity to get in a good sound bite. Of course, that is fueled by the media only talking about the good sound bites in their post-debate analysis.

First, at the beginning of the debate, I would have the candidates stipulate that none of the others were trying to bring down the world as we know it and that the others were not inherently evil people. I would also have them stipulate that THEY, not their respective spouses, were running for office and that whoever won, the spouse would be fine as first whatever. I would have them agree that no one was supporting bad education, less health care, a weaker military, etc.

Second, I would have them agree I could cut them off when they drifted into talking points instead of answering questions. When they answer with "We need a President who can.... (list of generic issues they can spout on about)", the microphone gets turned off. Additionally, no meaningless sound bites (e.g., "We are not going to balance the Social Security system on the backs of the elderly", which sounds great but doesn't mean anything and just wastes time).

Third, I would make them answer questions specifically. When they say "We have to fix the Social Security system", I stop them and make them spell out their specific steps to do it. When they say, "I will bring our troops home", I stop them and ask specifically how and what they will do in Afghanistan and Iraq which will make that possible, or will they just leave those people in the lurch after we committed to them as a country. When they talk about "experience", experience doing what specifically? What did you accomplish or did you you just hang around a long time? "I worked to... (fill in the blank)" is a lot different than "I actually did something". The object is to point out the specific differences in what they propose to do.

Fourth, when they claim a statistic or make an accusation, I stop and ask them to provide proof of their statement. No more made up statistics or vague accusations.

Fifth, no personal stories. When the candidates get a hard question, they always respond with "I met Jane Doe in Smalltown, North Some State, and she... (heart wrenching story)". That is like the news media who, no matter how strong the economy is, can always find someone not doing well so they can criticize the administration. It contributes nothing and allows the candidate to avoid the question.

Sixth, no redirecting questions. None of the "That is a good question but what we should really be talking about is... (stump speech points)". Answer the question or quit wasting our time and shut up.

Final point (to the audience), as soon as the debate is over, turn off the television or change channels. Do not listen to the opposing spin-meisters talk about how great their candidate did. You watched the debate, you heard the candidates, you know what they said. That should be enough.

The Democratic Soap Opera♦

2008-03-08T20:32:00.004-05:00

It is really interesting to watch the latest in the Democratic Party nomination process. Barrack Obama still leads in delegates and it is pretty far-fetched to see Hillary Clinton catch him mathematically, given the proportional distribution system the party uses in their nomination process. It is also apparent that the Clinton campaign is getting pretty desperate because they have begun to try to destroy Barrack Obama. I have always found it ironic how the Clintons have always wanted it both ways. When their actions are examined closely, it is either a "vast right wing conspiracy" or "the politics of personal destruction". But every time they find themselves behind the eight ball, their tactic is always to try to destroy anyone who gets in their way (e.g., Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Ken Starr, Kathleen Willey, etc.).

Barrack Obama is facing a tough fork in the road. His campaign has been trying to remain positive and to set a new tone but if he doesn't respond to the Clinton attacks, he will appear weak. Since everyone knows that Clinton will stop at nothing to achieve her ends, making vicious attacks doesn't affect anyone's opinion of her, sadly. However, when Obama fights back, she can claim he was facetious in saying he wanted to run a positive campaign. For her, it is a no lose strategy because without it, her campaign is lost, anyway.

The interesting fact is that, on most substantive issues, there is little to no difference in their respective policies. To see so much blood-letting over no real policy differences just points out the egotism in both candidates. It certainly follows since most people who go into politics tend to be egocentric. If the race really was about issues, it would be much less rancorous.

The real shame in all this is that the Democratic Party is taking an election that should be a walk in the park and are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Self-Reliance and Accountability

2008-02-27T22:27:00.003-05:00

The liberal philosophy forgives everything. Nothing is anyone's fault. Anything bad which happens is clearly the result of evil forces, never a bad judgment on anyone's part. I wonder if that has anything to do with the Trial Lawyers Association basically owning the Democratic Party. If everything is someone else's fault, there is always a reason for a plaintiff's attorney to file for damages. No one ever does anything wrong but instead has situations foisted upon them... unless, of course, you are a Republican. In that case, you clearly are evil and it is only through fortunate circumstance that you are exposed.

Most people find over their lifetime that other than their parents, no one is ever really looking out for your best interests. The may SAY they are, but they aren't really. If your best interests happen to coincide with theirs, then okay, but when given a choice, they will always go with their own. That is a stone cold truth. The object lesson there is that you better wake up and pay attention because if you don't look out for yourself, you are going to get hosed.

There are, of course, no people more self-serving and full to their necks with fecal matter than professional politicians. Their whole goal in life is to convince people that they are looking out for the people but sooner or later, their true colors are exposed. The House of Representatives is a group of politicians who essentially continually run for office and occasionally vote on something. The Senate is a group that does mostly lip-flapping and wallow in their self-importance.

This wasn't originally about politics. What inspired me to write this time was the current housing "crisis". Recently, I have heard Hillary Clinton propose a moratorium on foreclosures. Barrack Obama has also promised help. It is an interesting problem to deal with. There is no way to correctly separate: 1) people (novices or not really smart people) who were given loans by predatory lenders and didn't bother to figure out if they could make the payments when the interest rates went up from 2) the much larger group of real estate speculators. I known what you are thinking, "These are people in their primary residences". True, but most of the people I know who overbought in the last few years did it as an investment figuring the way housing was rising in prices, they could make money by living in the house a couple of years and unloading it and taking their profit. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt so I think the group of morons (read "victims" if you are a liberal) is a minor population compared to the investment crowd. That brings in some harsh reality. If I bought Google at $200 and the stock tanked, would I be asking the government to bail me out? Most would think I was crazy for trying. That is what investing is all about. You take a risk after looking at the cost/benefit scenario. Sometimes you make money and sometimes you lose money. These people for the most part are not the victims of lenders as much as they are victims of a mob rush to make money in real estate. They gambled and they lost. I never saw a form in Las Vegas that you fill out to allow you not to pay the casino after you lose.

Last year, I found a house that was too good to pass up and paid off my 4.375% mortgage on my first home (sadly, I miss it) and bought a new house at 6.0%. My mortgage payment doubled. Before I bought the house, I did something apparently novel... I figured out if I could afford it. I also did not get an adjustable rate mortgage and spend my evenings praying interest rates wouldn't rise. Let me summarize: I bought a house I could afford and got a mortgage I could pay. I know it sounds simple but apparently it is genius to some. Senator Dick Durbin wants to allow bankruptcy judges to be able to adjust mortgages. The reason first home mortgage rates are lower than second homes, yachts, etc. is precisely because that CANNOT happen. If he succeeds in passing the legislation, people who pay their mortgages and buy houses they can afford will have to subsidize the speculators and ignorant people who buy over their heads.

But of course, it isn't their fault. It is always someone else's fault.

The Rhetoric of Electioneering

2008-01-08T12:34:00.001-05:00

The buzzwords currently flying around about the current election cycle are "experience" versus "change". After an eight year term by any President, the election is always about change. Eight years always tires the public of whoever the sitting administration happens to be.

It is interesting to watch the Democrats. particularly Hillary Clinton going down in flames as she argues for herself on the "experience" side. In fact, the candidates with actual experience have all failed to gain any traction. For a resume, you can't get much better than Bill Richardson (Governor, Ambassador, Cabinet-member, etc.) but he never made it out of single digit poll land. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd were long term Senators and received little support. The fact that they sounded like raving maniacs trying to attract the attention of the media that they never received probably didn't help. The media long ago decided that the Democratic race was Clinton, Obama, and Edwards and basically didn't cover anyone else.

Clinton constantly touts her experience. What experience? She was an attorney in an apparently disreputable law firm. Then she was the wife of an elected official who managed to screw that up. Finally, she is a second term Senator in the carpetbagger tradition who has no significant legislative accomplishments. How does that translate into experience? Simply put, it is the best argument her campaign could come up with to put up against Obama. Obama shouldn't even be a Senator except that his opponent who would have beaten him dropped out of the race. He won against Alan Keyes (essentially a forfeit). He has done nothing in the Senate. Therefore, Clinton thought she could use that argument against him. Big mistake. After an eight year administration, having a nothing record is probably an advantage. Edwards is not really a factor. There is virtually no chance of him being elected. The reason he didn't run for re-election in North Carolina is that he knew there was no chance he would win.

On the Republican side, Huckabee has emerged in Iowa to the surprise of most. He will get little support in New Hampshire but may do well in South Carolina. If he does, it could represent a sea change in American politics. Mitt Romney continues to decline in popularity because he represents the status quo (big money, negative campaigning). While studies show negative campaigning works, the public dislikes it intensely. Romney is creating the impression that he is trying to buy the election, and will do anything, no matter how smarmy, to win it. It is not a way to get popular. Huckabee's strategy of not answering with attack ads may not work, but if it does, it could change future elections to the positive. McCain has taken a page from Huckabee's book and stayed a bit more positive than usual, despite the fact he is well known as (to put it mildly) an acerbic character. Basically, he is a prick. However, that could serve him well as President. Giuliani decided to tank Iowa and New Hampshire. The problem there is that if you get off the media radar, it is hard to get back on it. It will take a big showing somewhere else soon to get back in play when you have a lot of negatives. Thompson is both figuratively and literally a non-starter. You can't make an announcement on the Leno show than never show up again. Ron Paul comes off as your nutty old uncle who no one ever takes seriously. He has no shot.

New Hampshire is today. It will be interesting.

Sean Taylor and unintended consequences

2007-11-29T01:54:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the terrible tragedy of the murder of Sean Taylor, there will be some interesting consequences of the event. It is very sad to see any 24 year old killed. Taylor was a physical freak of nature with unlimited potential as a professional football player but that is not nearly as important as a young father killed inside his home by an intruder. The actual circumstances may never be known but it appears to be a home invasion robbery. Here are a few predictions:

1) There will be much speculation about his past run ins with authority. Some will raise the "where there is smoke, there is fire" speculation. Others will say that such discussion is racist because Taylor was black. If he was killed by a robber, both sides are morons.

2) There will be a spike in gun sales. Despite this being a solitary incident in Miami, there will be an elevation of the paranoia level across the US and people will purport to protect themselves with weapons. I just hope people are smart enough to buy the correct weapon, a shotgun. Since police who regularly train with weapons only hit 40% of what the fire at, a sleepy non-trained person in a dark room at three AM needs something that doesn't require accuracy. You can fire a shotgun around the corner and almost hit everything in the room.

3) The NFL will honor Taylor this week, then completely forget him by next year. In professional sports, if it doesn't make money, they aren't interested.

4) Some idiot sports fanatic somewhere is wondering how many weeks getting killed will keep him from playing and whether he should be dropped from his Fantasy Football picks.

CNN and MSNBC Off the Cliff Again

2007-09-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

CNN and MSNBC, fading quickly in relevance and audience due to the decidedly biased reporting they are now widely recognized for, have now started using the tabloid journalism trick of trying to create controversy when none exists. In their most recent attempt to rally their liberal viewers, they have attempted to create controversy surrounding comments by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. O’Reilly, who has the most watched program in cable news, was discussing how the gangsta rap culture does not represent the mainstream black culture in the United States with Juan Williams, a respected liberal journalist who writes for the Washington Post and is also a Fox News regular contributor. What O’Reilly said was that Sylvia’s, a well known restaurant in Harlem was no different than any other conventional American restaurant in atmosphere. CNN and MSNBC have attempted to construe those remarks as racist. Juan Williams, who is black and usually very restrained, has called the people at CNN “idiots” for their pretend controversy. I am not a big O’Reilly fan but I can certainly recognize sensationalized nonsense when it appears.

I watched this evening as Heidi Collins of CNN had two people on to discuss the topic. LaShawn Barber, a black woman, said that if you listen to his comments in context that there is nothing offensive about them whatsoever. However, in addition, they bring on a raving diatribe-spewing Boyce Watkins, who manages to accuse Bill O’Reilly of a long standing history of racism and hate and even manages somehow to insult President Bush in the process. This is their “expert” opinion? It is like Wolf Blitzer giving credibility to Jack Cafferty, the loudest whining shill of them all.

On MSNBC, there is Keith Olberman who apparently has some pathologic hatred of Bill O’Reilly as he devotes episode after episode of his cable-access style program to smearing O’Reilly and Fox News. Tonight, he had some “expert” who sounded more like an asylum escapee saying that Mr. O’Reilly is about to have a mental breakdown and talking about psychiatric diagnoses based on how Mr. O’Reilly pays for his food in restaurants. Who at MSNBC thinks that discourse of this low level has any place on television? Countdown with Keith Olberman cannot aspire to moving up to the class level of the Jerry Springer Show. The show is a total sham when it comes to any objectivity.

As I said earlier, I am not a big fan of the O’Reilly show. He is sometimes unnecessarily uncivil to guests and talks over them. But I am a fan of some semblance of objectivity. I am reminded of the McCarthy hearings. At long last, CNN and MSNBC, have you no sense of decency? Have you lost all of your self-respect? Are advertising revenues and ego so important that you are will to prostitute your journalistic values to this kind of phony controversy? It is shameful.

Leadership, Responsibility and Behavior

2007-09-10T02:52:00.000-05:00

There is a disconnect I see relatively often when it comes to leadership positions. Many don’t seem to understand that responsibility and authority come as a package. You cannot be held responsible for things you don’t control and you cannot control things without being held responsible for the outcomes of your decisions. The more common disconnect of the two is people being reprimanded for things they did not decide. I have written earlier posts about brown-nosing and non-confrontational leadership. Being in charge is a lonely position. Those who cannot handle the isolation need not apply. In order to be effective in those positions, there are certain core requirements. First and foremost, effective leaders demonstrate that they have the welfare of their people at heart. This does not mean a leader is always nice. A leader does reprimand. A leader does hold subordinates accountable. A leader hands out unpleasant tasks. The true leader does these things fairly while simultaneously attempting to the utmost to provide the best working environment for subordinates.

There is similarity between leadership in an organization and raising kids. The two most important factors are caring and consistency. Your subordinates and your children have no reason to behave if they feel you don’t care what happens to them. They have nothing to lose from you by misbehaving. Children want to maintain the trust and caring of their parents. Subordinates need the same support from their leaders. They need to feel like their leaders have their interests at heart. The minute they don’t feel it, they lose respect for the leader. Everyone knows there are tough jobs to do but if the jobs are handed out fairly and leadership takes the time to explain why the job is important, respect will remain in place.

Consistency is a hallmark of a well-run organization. Both children and subordinates need to know where the lines are and that there will be repercussions for crossing those lines. It is not that there MAY be, it is that there WILL be. There is a lot of security in knowing the rules. A lack of rules shows subordinates that leaders don’t care. Consistency with the rules shows fairness and forethought. Everyone hates the stress of “walking on eggshells” situations where you never know what is coming next. A consistent mean-spirited leader is better than never knowing minute to minute what is coming.

Another side of responsibility is individual. I have told my children many times that at some point in your life; you have to decide what kind of person you will be. Being a reliable and conscientious person is not a grand act. It is not one day running into the burning building to save the occupants. It is a series of small daily decisions, often made when no one else is around. It is deciding to do the right thing when the right thing is inconvenient or unpopular. It is taking the harder course of action and not allowing standards to slip. It is being willing to uncomfortably confront someone to improve their performance or correct a mistake when the easier course is to let it slide.

At the end of the day, it is not the perception of others that the good leader strives to improve. The real leader holds himself/herself up to a personal standard. You cannot fool yourself. You know, even when others don’t, that you did not do your best. You know when you blew something off. If you did everything to the best of your ability, in the end it doesn’t matter what others think because you cannot control others opinions and you will have the satisfaction that comes with true accomplishment.

Here They Go Again

2007-08-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

For the last few months, the country has been anxiously awaiting the progress report on Iraq by General David Petraeus in September. The Bush Administration and the Republican supporters of the war hope he will say that the surge in troop levels has been effective. The Democrats hope he will say the entire thing is a disaster and we should leave immediately. Everyone acknowledged when he took the job that as the US Army’s top counter-terrorism expert, he was the appropriate and best man for that job.

When Petraeus arrived in Iraq, he completely changed coalition strategy. Instead of operating out of isolated Forward Operating Bases, Petraeus instead has the troops interacting more with the local Iraqis in the population centers. This has led to more intelligence gathering as the locals begin trusting the troops and has also established working relationships between the local tribal leaders/warlords with the US troops. The result has been local cooperation and even fighting between the local population and Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has been mostly driven out of several of the formerly hottest provinces due to the cooperation of the local leaders. Even Sen. Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and no friend to the Bush Administration, recently returned from Iraq saying that significant military progress had been made. The Democratic presidential candidates admit progress has been made. I can tell you since I am deployed out here seeing what is happening that they are correct in their assessment. We are making a lot of progress.

With that as a background, what do CNN and MSNBC do? Because the anticipated report by General Petraeus is now widely expected to be different than the networks own agenda, they are starting a campaign to impugn General Petraeus’ integrity before he arrives to give the report. The same guy who was the best great hope a few months ago has these same network hacks saying he is a partisan lackey and has no credibility. These people are so transparent and vile that it should surprise no one that they have less and less viewers all the time.

I wrote a piece a while back about how the other news network anchors, particularly the ones with obvious agendas, constantly publicly trash Fox News. However, on one recent ratings night, the viewer numbers were:

FNC O'REILLY 2,260,000
FNC SHEPPARD SMITH 1,308,000
FNC BRIT HUME 1,286,000
FNC HANNITY/COLMES 1,278,000
FNC GRETA 1,031,000
CNN DOBBS 813,000

No wonder they trash Fox News. They are being whipped like a Michael Vick dog. Like most liberals, their inflated egos lead them to believe that the people are stupid and are being led around by Fox and the evil Rupert Murdoch. They can’t imagine that most people are fed up with their trashing of the American system and character assassination tactics. In one of the seemingly hundreds of Democratic debates, Hillary Clinton recently said about her negative numbers in polls that any of the other Democratic candidates will have high numbers after the “Republican hate machine” gets through with them. She won’t acknowledge that maybe people just don’t like her or maybe people actually loathe her. In typical liberal fashion, it couldn’t possibly be her fault. Well, folks, keep railing on. People will vote with their remote controls and MSNBC, CNN and the other left agenda news organizations that purposely trash America will continue to wither on the vine. Rush Limbaugh calls them the “drive-by” media for their tactics. I will now refer to them as the “Raisin media” because they are drying up so fast.

ESPN Jumps the Shark

2007-08-04T04:13:00.000-05:00

When did ESPN jump the shark? What was originally a sport reporting network now almost uses sports as a background for their own network self-promotion. In a period of very busy sports activity (major league baseball, football training camps, professional golf events, the Tour de France, major soccer, etc.), what does a significant portion of the hour go to? The “Who is more Now?” contest. First of all, what the heck is “now” anyway? More importantly, who CARES? The anchors at ESPN have fallen into the trap historically set for ministers and politicians who believe that they personally are more important than what or who they represent. The network has gone the way of the National Basketball Association in not promoting its product but rather its individual performers. And performers are what they are, not reporters. Each anchor has an obligation to come up with his/her own catch phrases and uniquely quirky delivery so as to become personalities rather than reporters. I personally want to know the outcome of the sporting event and don’t care to hear the next addition to the sporting lexicon. We are returning to the days of the “Battle of the Network Stars” where sporting events are not covered, they are created, like the reality shows on every network now. I would appreciate it if the people at ESPN could go “back back back back back…” to the days where they reported on sports events instead of trying to be the show themselves.

What Men Really Want

2007-08-04T02:48:00.000-05:00

I have theory about the difference between men and women in one great respect. This is not exclusively a male characteristic but it almost always holds true. What is it that men really want? My theory is this: It doesn’t matter if you are talking about a sexual relationship, a job, a vehicle, a night out, car repairs, lawn maintenance, wives, friends or anything else. What men want most is: NO HASSLE.

There is a certain amount of hassle that is just associated with living. If you expect a paycheck, you need to show up for work. If you want to drive a car, you have to occasionally stop to get gasoline. Men can deal with those hassles because they are a given and come as part of the package. What inflames men more than anything else is: unnecessary hassle. Things that are made more complicated than they need to be or require more than an appropriate amount of effort. One of the reasons that all houses of married couples are decorated the way the wife wants it done is that women will always win any argument about things the man has little interest in because women can dial up the hassle meter until the man inevitably says “screw it” (or words to that effect). In any relationship, the last thing a man wants to hear is, “We need to talk”. That phrase always means there is some sort of mental hassle awaiting. Men don’t like deep complicated movies or dramas because it is too much hassle to worry about the feelings of the characters. That is why simple blow up the bad guy, attractive naked women movies do so well. When the check is for $31.95, the man throws in $40 and doesn’t worry about the appropriateness of the tip because he doesn’t want to have to worry about it. There are guys with calculators and a change purse, but we don’t talk about them (don’t ask, don’t tell). I would rather throw away semi-valuable things from my garage to finally be able to walk in it than hassle with a yard sale to make some not worth my time amount of money.

In the male community, those who make things simple and easy are well thought of and those who create hassle are shunned. It is a badge of honor to be someone who makes things go smoothly. So, despite being occasionally accused of being a simpleton, most guys would gladly rather have that accusation than go through the hassle of proven the critics wrong.

I was once in a discussion about how much money I wanted to make. My answer was this: I don’t know how much in actual dollars but what I want is: when I turn the key, my car starts; when I feel like Chinese food, I buy some and don’t worry about not paying my car payment; when someone calls and wants to have a picnic, I go get some munchies and go; when I pull in the driveway, I am happy to live where I do. That is what I want, an income that produces a hassle-free life. So just like all guys, the avoidance of hassle is the ultimate goal.

Cheaters Again

2007-08-04T02:45:00.000-05:00

I wrote an earlier piece about how cheating doesn’t seem to bother people anymore. Now, on the verge of Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record and the Tour de France scandal of 2007, it seems appropriate to revisit the issue. One of the things I have always admired about real golfers, not the weekend kind who cheat endlessly, is how they would rather lose than win dishonestly. In almost all other professional sports, the coaches and athletes will wink at missed calls and clear cheating and call it “part of the game”. The coaches who were really good at mentally working over referees were against instant replay. Why would anyone interested in fairness be against something which reveals the truth? Calls are not overturned without convincing credible evidence. I read an article pointing out the hypocrisy of Americans jeering the Tour de France while cheering for Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Shawn Merriman, and the other well-known cheats. Her point was valid. The Tour de France is being transparent and looking for cheats instead of ignoring or praising them. That is actually refreshing. There is a philosophy of “anything you can get away with is okay”. This is not confined to sports. Routinely, Congressmen use the phrase “I did not break any law” when justifying actions which are clearly unethical and wrong. They skirt the edge of legality and use that phrase to “prove” they did nothing wrong. Even when caught breaking the law (e.g, Bill Clinton), supporters quibble about the law. It is okay to perjure oneself as long as the subject is correct.

In the service, we use the code words of Honor, Courage and Commitment. Despite that, there are people like John Kerry saying that military members were too stupid to choose to do anything else. When 70-80% of officers have postgraduate degrees, it is hard to make that argument. In this case, though, consider the source (a proven liar).

I cannot cheer for steroid, human growth hormone using freaks of nature in baseball and football, teams using illegal components in auto racing, or erythopoetin using bicycle racers any more than I could cheer for sailors who gun deck log books or leave their post while on watch. Until the public stops rewarding the athletes who cheat by refusing to pay to attend the games and stop making money for the owners of the teams, the doping will never stop. There will always be someone of low enough moral fiber to break the rules of decency.

Brown Nosing and the Destruction of an Organization

2007-07-31T03:10:00.002-05:00

Where is the line between enthusiasm and brownnosing? It is like the quality of a great painting. It is difficult to define but we all know it when we see it. A big part of the impression comes from what we think of the individual’s personality. People that are not well-liked are construed to have ulterior motives just because we don’t like them. It is fuel for the fire. But what is it that tips the balance? Is it one act or a series of smaller things? Most people who develop the reputation, at least in my observational experience, set a pattern but it is usually one event that seals the deal. There is a common measure of what is expected in a co-worker. All jobs have some inherent unpleasant things which need to be done. It is the nature of work. People expect that. Most people want to get the job done and go home where the enjoyment is located. The brownnoser is different. An extra duty, particularly a “face time” event where it is generally considered a pain to participate finds the brownnoser overwhelmingly excited to be able to attend. That is one of the recognizable differentiating factors which identify the individual. Another identifying factor is the desire of those individuals to stop at any moment and tell anyone at great length how valuable the brownnoser’s efforts are and how the organization would be doomed without those efforts. Other co-workers contributions are recognized but one gets the sense of a grudging acceptance and feigned over-enthusiasm rather than real enthusiasm. In order to make themselves part of the “in-crowd”, the brownnoser always speaks to others in a “just between us people in the know” attitude in order to give the impression that they are part of the inner circle. This usually involves dropping names of the powerful in the organization. This sucker fish approach to riding on the coattails of power is an attempt to leverage the brownnoser into a position of more power in the organization. In Washington, DC, the saying is “The appearance of power is power”. That is because if someone thinks you are powerful, they will treat you with the proper deference, and therefore you are powerful because you get what you want. The brownnoser uses name-dropping to associate themselves with the powerful in order to appear to be part of that group.

The error in this approach with a smart boss is that the experienced intelligent boss also recognizes brown-nosing for what it is. Unfortunately, brownnosing often works. I remember an engineering job years ago where a peer that was universally regarded as a weak performer by his entire group of peers, with good reason, was rated number one in potential by management primarily on the basis of his organizing golf tournaments which had nothing to do with his job. That is a recipe for poor morale and disgruntled employees. A number of excellent engineers left the organization because of that situation. Communism was ultimately doomed to failure because it flew in the face of human nature. If there is no incentive to work harder, why would anyone do it? The brownnoser does the same thing to an organization. If the brownnoser succeeds preferentially, the other employees stop performing because they recognize their legitimate efforts are in vain. Their only defense is to begin brown-nosing as well and you end up with an organization consisting of two factions: the competing brownnosers and the disgruntled employees doing the minimum to maintain their jobs. Unfortunately, most of us have been in an organization like that at some point. The only way to maintain your drive is to find another place to work. In fact, the most likely people to leave are the best performers because they are in the best position to get better jobs. You cannot work for long for people you don’t respect and those who unwittingly respond to the brownnoser are not respected. Therefore, to maintain the quality of an organization, managers must recognize the brownnoser and not allow their actions to reap favoritism. Only by avoiding that mistake will productivity and morale be sustained.

Leadership Skills

2007-07-20T03:11:00.000-05:00

What has happened to leadership skills? I’ve noticed a great tendency toward non-confrontational leadership recently. There is a widespread philosophy of what I call “Punish the innocent for the offense of the guilty”. I noted this process a lot in the military, particularly during my time with the Marine Corps, but it is also present in the Navy and in civilian settings as well. The scenario is usually like this: 1) Something happens which causes some angst for the boss or gets noticed; 2) a knee jerk policy is put in place to prevent anyone from making the same misjudgment even though only one of 10,000 people did it. A more specific example: A large group of military members goes out in town in a foreign country. Of the huge crowd, one or two, misbehave. Therefore, leadership doesn’t allow any else to go out, punishing the 99% who behaved responsibly for the crimes of the one or two who didn’t. Another example: One person abuses a phone privilege. Therefore, no one can use the phone. Once again, punish the innocent. Last example: A specific individual makes an obvious error in judgment or omission. Therefore leadership states, “It is a process problem” and appoints a team to study the process and make recommendations, instead of confronting the specific individual.

Why does this happen? The first reason is laziness. Rather than investigate and hold the specific individuals accountable, it is easier to make a blanket policy despite it being the wrong course of action. The second reason is to avoid uncomfortable confrontation. I am not sure whether people are scared or wimps but sometimes leadership means getting in someone’s face and calling them to account. The R. Lee Ermey style in Full Metal Jacket is extreme but you get the picture. Wimps are terrible leaders, particularly in the military. Individual responsibility is a key to success. I find it ironic that the Marine Corps, which does individual responsibility better than anyone, uses the mass punishment a lot. By using these techniques and a “one strike, you are out” policy, our society creates a group of never make a decision, never take a chance, always form a committee leaders who are ineffective. They are always late with decisions because they run them past everyone who will listen before a decision is made. The decision is usually issued with disclaimers in case anyone doesn’t like it. I heard someone say once, “I am not sure what the path to success is but the sure path to failure is trying to please everyone”. People like Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, George Patton, etc. who were politically incorrect would not do well in today’s leadership models.
Leadership positions are lonely and involve pissing people off on occasion. I look at it this way: You can either occasionally take a turn taking on the responsibility for driving the bus or you have no right to complain when it shows up someplace you didn’t want to go. Authority and responsibility go hand in hand. One cannot be held responsible for something one has no control over. One cannot have power and not be held accountable for actions taken with that power. It is not enough to walk around with a business card that says you are a leader. The skills must be exercised daily. You don’t have to tell people if you are a leader, they will know by watching you.

Fooling Them Most of the Time

2007-07-19T15:10:00.000-05:00

An interesting Zogby poll came out in the last couple of days which shows some of the influence of the main stream media and in some ways how it causes results it doesn’t desire. While the networks and cable outlets have been trashing the Bush Administration for years and managed to get the approval rating for the President down to the lower 30s, the approval ratings for the Democrat-led Congress they favor is down to a historically low 18%. The House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi has effectively done nothing and the Senate is the same under Harry Reid. Both leaders spend all their time making speeches about how bad the current administration is but never seem to offer more effective alternatives. In the public’s view, the Democratic Party is determined to lose the war without regard to consequences and they plan to lose it as a way to gain political power. This is clearly not the way to win in November 2008. The latest stay up all night and debate Iraq stunt was seen for the inane political theater it was and the public does not seem to be pleased. I have no idea who is advising Harry Reid but, whoever he is, his former career as a grocery bagger seems a safe bet in the near future. Reid, one of the two Senators from “the state which shouldn’t even be a state” (almost all federal property), is the poster child for inability and distasteful politics. The best thing for the Republicans to do between now and November 2008 is to have Reid and Pelosi on television as much as possible. By constantly giving coverage to these two shrill whiners, the networks have created a result they clearly don't want.

The other interesting item from that poll is how about 60-70% of people polled were quite content with their personal finances. However, despite all-time record high stock market closings, low unemployment, record home ownership, etc., only 20% thought the US economy was doing well. Let’s see if I have that straight: most feel they are doing well, almost everyone has a job and has a place to live, stocks are booming but the economy stinks. That demonstrates the mainstream media in action. They rave about how good the economy was at the end of the Clinton presidency, which was not nearly as strong as today’s, but at the same time say today’s economy stinks. These are the same people who lambaste Fox News and claim that they themselves have no political agenda. There are a lot of ill-informed and gullible people in this country but I don’t think there are enough for the Democrats to pull this off. At least I hope not.

The Real Culture of Corruption

2007-06-10T23:10:00.000-05:00

I find it really interesting that the sex offender and convicted perjurer, William Jefferson Clinton, is still the most popular person to the Democrats. The Democratic Party constantly talks about the Republican Party as having a "Culture of Corruption". In examining history though, that conclusion may not be so obvious.
1) Rep. Mark Foley, Republican from Florida, sent some clearly inappropriate (horny) emails to Congressional pages. There was never any indication that he engaged in any sexual activity with those pages. There was a national uproar which led to the ousting of Rep. Foley from the House of Representatives. By contrast, Rep. Gary Studds, Democrat from Massachusetts, was actually caught in the act of having sex with an underage Congressional Page. Did the Democrats scream for the pedophile predator's expulsion? Did the Democrats wail about ethical standards in Congress? No. They made him a committee chairman and supported his re-election to three or four more terms.
2) When Rep. William Jefferson, Democrat from Louisiana, is caught red-handed with $90,000 in cash in a freezer in his house, he is not investigated by the Ethics Committee. He is given a committee chairmanship by the Democratic leadership. Just for completeness, the same Rep. Jefferson was recently indicted on nineteen counts of corruption. There is still no uproar from the Democrats in Congress.
3) Sandy Berger steals classified documents from the National Archives to cover up what the Clinton Administration knew prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and only has to pay a fine. Despite being neither indicted or accused of anything, the Democratic Party calls on Karl Rove to resign during the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation. The hypocrisy is astounding.
4) Senator Harry Reid, Democratic Majority Leader, makes hundreds of thousands of dollars from real estate he does not own. In his defense, I suppose it is impossible to be elected in Nevada without having connections to crooks, given the history of the state.
5) The most obvious example, however, is how despite abusing his power as President to have sex with a White House intern and being convicted of perjury, William Jefferson Clinton continues to be the most popular Democrat in the party. The Democrat's argument about his perjury at the time was "It is only about sex". Apparently, in the Democratic Party, individuals are free to choose which subjects they are allowed to perjure themselves about. A question was asked at the Democratic Party debate about how to use former President Clinton in a new Democratic administration. All of the candidates had grandiose plans for him. Not one candidate has the nerve or moral fortitude to call him to task for his past actions and to not hold him up as a superb leadership example.
The party that owns the true "culture of corruption" is obvious.

Pardon controversy

2007-06-10T22:40:00.000-05:00

This whole Lewis Libby sentencing thing is becoming very intriguing. Thirty months is a long time to spend in jail when you are Libby's age. I am generally not a pardon aficionado but this case does have some interesting factors:
1) The judge said that someone in as high a position in the government as Libby's should be held to a higher standard and, therefore, the sentence would be stiff. I suppose it is redundant to point out that the President of the United States was convicted of the same offense a few short years ago and only had his law license revoked and served no jail time. It is clearly adverse and impractical to try a President while in office but it could have been once he left office. It is obvious that position is not a factor given this comparable case.
2) The Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knew specifically that Richard Armitage was the definitive source of the information about Valerie Plame very early in his investigation. With this knowledge, he a) continued the investigation, and b) not only allowed, but encouraged speculation that that others (Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney, etc.) were involved to keep press coverage intense. This strikes me as prosecutorial misconduct.
3) Fitzgerald also continued the investigation after testimony under oath by Victoria Toensing, the individual who authored the law in question, that it specifically and clearly did not apply to Valerie Plame. Therefore, the "crime" he was investigating could not have possibly been committed.
4) Knowing that there was no crime and who the leaker was, Fitzgerald continued the investigation for at least another year.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Fitzgerald, a Clinton appointee, wanted to "get" higher profile targets and is taking out his frustration on Lewis Libby. Given the bogus nature of the investigation, many argue that Libby shouldn't have even been prosecuted. While the investigation was bogus, I still believe if he actually lied under oath, there should be a penalty. Sandy Berger paid a fine for stealing classified documents. Bill Clinton had his law license revoked for perjury. Thirty months just seems excessive.

The Pinnacle of Hypocrisy

2007-03-31T18:55:00.000-05:00

In the past on TV, there was a sort of unwritten rule that one network never mentioned another network, as if they didn’t exist. For example, a television actor promoting their show on the Tonight Show would never state the name of the network on which the show appeared, if it wasn’t NBC. I can’t help but notice the recent coordinated effort on the part of the liberal news media to collectively try to make the Fox News network look biased and disreputable. Everyone knows that Fox News was originally created because of the liberal bent of the mainstream news media so it shouldn't be surprising that the network would be more accomodating to conservative viewpoints.
It is nauseating to see a smarmy ideologue like Keith Olberman, who does not have a reputable cell in his body, interviewing a host of an Air America program about Fox News. If Olberman had another nerve cell, he could make a connection. Air America, the ultra-liberal talk network which went bankrupt because no one watches it, is a competitor of Fox. That is like interviewing Target about how great WalMart is doing. Olberman called the people at Fox “idiots” on the air. The Air America host said that the Fox News network is a part of the Republican Party. No matter your political persuasion, that is not journalism of any quality, whatsoever. I suppose they are just upset because CNN’s viewership is at an all-time low and the six or seven people who watch MSNBC are insignificant. Fox News now has three times the viewers that CNN does. It would be a bigger deal if anyone actually watched Olberman’s show but since hardly anyone does, he can spread his rants without much consequence.
Along the same lines, CNN is another pot calling the kettle black. Lou Dobbs does a show that is supposed to be a news show but he makes biased comments about every story and never presents both sides of any story. It is like they hired him to do a one hour diatribe every night and pretend to be news. On Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, I know Jack Cafferty is a liberal ideologue but I can’t say recently how bad he is since I started muting the television every time I see his image now. He is the most whining harpie on television and, since he never had anything resembling useful information to say, I no longer waste my time listening to his spewing. He always reinforces his rants with poll questions like “Do you think the Bush Administration should continue to starve the American people?" It is always a “Do you still beat your wife?” type question.
Don’t misunderstand. I actually like to hear both sides of a debate but I want to hear facts on the news with commentary and analysis correctly labeled as such. Even CBS, which historically is one of the most liberal networks, had Eric Severeid come on with the label “commentary” when he appeared. News is fact and commentary is opinion. They should be kept separate.
I find that when two opposing sides give information, the truth is usually somewhere between the two. That is why I like both sides to explain their views. Calling the other side names and yelling does little to clarify debate and expose truth. But since Air America, CNN, MSNBC, and the like are fading like cheap wallpaper in the sun; I guess they feel they have nothing to lose by compromising journalistic standards and whining about declining viewer numbers.

Intolerance and the Inane Media

2007-03-13T01:02:00.000-05:00

This latest flap in Nevada about the Democratic Party not wanting to debate on Fox News reminded me of the intolerance of ideas in America. It is similar to the rhetoric post I made earlier in some ways. The same people at liberal arts universities who scream for anti-war, abortion freedom, gay rights, and entitlement program “freedom of speech”, will not allow anyone of contrary views to even make a speech. What an incredible double standard. Without taking a side on any of those issues, it is easy to see why it is just ludicrous to support that. Freedom of speech was first and foremost put into place to protect political discourse (not strippers, sorry). Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, communists, or anyone else should be able to discuss their own views with anyone who cares to listen, as long as it is not something illegal like inciting violence or creating an unacceptably dangerous public environment. The Founding Fathers knew that representative government works best with an informed electorate who are free to exchange ideas and attempt to influence others to their point of view. A group can never achieve consensus if none of the members ever communicate with the other members. The world is a Bell curve. There will always be people on both sides of any issue. To say that the other side cannot even express their views about the issue revives the specter of totalitarian societies. Ann Coulter is obnoxious in presentation to liberals but she has the right to speak. Bill Maher clearly has brain damage to conservatives but let him talk. People who make no sense, make moronic statements, or have nothing of clarity to say expose themselves by speaking loudly. It is the best way to ferret them out. It is better to have them expose their inconsistencies and errors in logic than to have people assume that their arguments are credible because their name is familiar. If you disagree heartily, you don’t have to attend a speech or you can use the ultimate weapon, the remote control. If you think about it, why would political candidates trying to reach the voters not want to appear on the most-watched cable news channel? It is going to be your own words that are broadcast. Conservatives appear in front of liberal political fronts like Tim Russert and Chris Matthews. Liberals appear with staunch conservative Sean Hannity. If your ideas have merit, you will be able to defend them.

Along those same lines, I am tired of the news media assuming that I am stupid. When I watch the State of the Union speech in January, I don’t need someone to come on immediately after the speech and tell me what the President said. After all, if I am tuned in to that channel, I listened to the speech. If you want to analyze program changes, spending initiatives, diplomatic initiatives, etc., okay, but I heard what he said. I also don’t need to hear the requisite two political hacks: the incumbent party representative talking about the second coming of Abraham Lincoln in the speech, and the opposition party declaring every program, even ones not yet thought of, “dead on arrival”. I also do not care about the staged “standing ovation” count or how many times each side stood. It is scripted and stupid. Why report on it other than to demean the artificiality of it? It is not news if it means nothing. It is an offensive and insulting waste of my time. Therefore, for major speeches, CSPAN it is. I pity those without cable television who are subjected to that nonsense each time.

Culture of Celebrity and Cheaters

2007-02-14T21:54:00.000-05:00

Not being a psychologist, I am shooting a bit in the dark here but the media and our culture of celebrity baffles me sometimes. It used to be that someone was famous because they had accomplished something which stood them apart from the masses or had some talent or ability which made them distinct. Today, the popular media has reversed the logic. If you are famous (or infamous), you are portrayed as having special distinction and talent. Completely unaccomplished people who wouldn't make decent dinner conversation are followed by the press and there is an insatiable market for that information.
Well known examples (some are like the proverbial fish in a barrel):
1) Paris Hilton - a girl born wealthy with no apparent talent or brains whatsoever except to immediately strike a pose when a camera is in the same zip code. Interestingly enough, it is always the same pose. She is famous for: being an idiot, not wearing underwear, dropping her clothes at a moments notice in public, and making unflattering sex videos with sleazy guys. Which of those qualities deserves admiration? If it were not for her inheritance, she couldn't get a job at a convenience store. I have vowed to change the channel whenever her image appears. It just makes me feel less slimy.
2) Anna Nicole Smith - It is sad when anyone dies but 24-hour news coverage? She is famous for: posing naked (a common denominator in this group), working as a stripper, bilking an old man out of a lot of money, being an idiot (another common thread), appearing semi-conscious in public venues, and not deciding who of the many men with whom she has had sex is the father of her latest child. Which of those qualities deserve anyone's attention?

My daughter laughs at me whenever I bring it up now but the cult of celebrity is cash-based. The motion picture industry discovered this secret many years ago in the horror film genre. Slasher films do not require a star and make lots of money. Beginning with The Real World and Survivor, television networks discovered the same. Therefore, the explosion of reality shows. Instead of paying $100,000 an episode for a star to do a sitcom, you get a bunch of unknowns who will do anything for fame and a buck and make up some ridiculous contest. Every network does it, even Comedy Central and the Food Network. I personally flip the channels occasionally and almost every channel has some show to which I say "who cares?" In the case of the MTV shows, I see people I wouldn't even want to speak with and don't care a lick if they are upset by each other. You can make the argument that television is becoming more about real people and less about fictional characters but the real people I seem to see are really not very entertaining or interesting. I suppose it is too much to ask to have a Hallmark Hall of Fame or a decent variety show. Those types of shows have quality and that costs money. To paraphrase the leader in Demolition Man speaking of how Taco Bell was the only surviving restaurant, "All shows are reality, except the 17 versions of Law & Order and CSI"

Along the same line, when did cheating become admirable? Does the end truly justify the means? How can anyone in their right mind admire Barry Bonds with all of the performance enhancing substances he uses and the way he lies about it? Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, the list goes on and on. I used to love to watch the Tour De Drugs every summer knowing they were chemical-dependent but the doping there was at least even-handed because almost ALL were using them. At least it was a fairly level playing field. I know, ye of much faith will say your personal favorite never did. Even back in the US Postal days, that team had a reputation. The Discovery Channel team lost riders, T-Mobile lost riders, and on and on. The new preventive program that the Slipstream team has in place is suspect because their coach is a former US Postal rider. Anyone who knows anything about cycling knew, after watching Floyd Landis crack like an eggshell then come back the next day and smoke the field, that something was way fishy about it. Not coincidently, that was the day his test popped positive in both samples. When the New York Yankees won a playoff game with the Baltimore Orioles they should not have won because a young fan interfered with a catch, the boy was treated like a hero by David Letterman, etc. When the University of Colorado beat Missouri on the "Fifth Down" play, they didn't forfeit the win, they claimed a national championship. Willingly accepting cheating is the beginning of a slippery slope. Will we next be celebrating the guy who has a traffic accident with a player intentionally to keep him from attending the game? With that logic, Tonya Harding will be making a comeback and female figure skaters will be wearing hockey uniforms with knee and shin guards.

Apparently, it is too much to ask for the media to exalt people who actually accomplish worthwhile endeavors without cheating and those who actually have talent for anything other than looking good and having bad morals.

Abortion rhetoric

2007-02-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

Does the rhetoric drive you nuts, too? "Pro-life" "Pro-choice" are both happy euphemisms for something completely different. I am pretty familiar with life and death decisions in my line of work. So let's look at the issue with some sense. Granted, there are some nuts out there, but I long to believe that most people have some bit of reasonableness in them.

Even the most strident abortion foe cannot possibly believe that making a woman die to give birth, or carry a dead fetus to term is not incredibly cruel and dangerous. If a fetus is diagnosed with trisomy 13, or trisomy 18 (not trisomy 21 Down's Syndrome, before someone goes nuts), anencephaly (baby with no brain), or Tay-Sachs disease, all universally fatal, incompatible with life; who would make that woman continue to carry that fetus around at the risk of her own health and sanity? The arguments for adoption, etc. can potentially be made for rape or incest victims but not for a fetus which cannot possibly live. The people who say "no abortion" are saying they would let women die and/or deliver dead babies. Therefore, any reasonable person should admit that in some set of cases, abortion is an approprate medical procedure.

Even the most strident abortion supporter cannot honestly think that using abortion as a routine birth control technique of convenience is a good thing and that decapitating a healthy late-term fetus is a good outcome. Therefore, if you believe that a fetus is a living being, there should be some reasonable limits set by society about when abortion is an appropriate procedure.

Given those arguments, the discussion becomes not a yes/no absolute but rather, "When is abortion appropriate?" No law or set of criteria will cover all individual cases but the discussion should be couched in those terms. Of course, you don't hear that question because those reasonable terms do not fire up the hard right and hard left primary voters.

The world is not black and white. There are hundreds of abortion and end of life Terry Schiavo-type medical decisions made every day without national publicity. I have been involved in them with families. Except for political gain, there is no reason to stake out extreme unreasonable positions but to raise campaign funds and demonstrate your prostitution to the vote.

Politics as usual and bad actors

2007-02-13T20:36:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze. Democrats who stood in line to approve removing Saddam Hussein from power now selectively remember that they were never for the war. Hillary Clinton says she wouldn't have voted for the authorization if she thought the President would actually use it. Liar or moron? You make the call.
Hillary also says "if I knew then what I know now, I would have never voted for the authorization." Hmmm If Abraham Lincoln knew then what he knew later, he wouldn't have gone to Ford's Theater. What an incredibly inane argument.
The same people who were all for removing Saddam now say the President "recklessly" got us into a war and "misled the American people." Funny how they looked at the same intelligence and came to the same conclusion but where they are pure as Ivory Soap, the President is an evil plotter. I am not sure Obama has a snowball's chance in Hell but at least he said he was against it before it happened. Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, Barrack Obama is portraying himself as the second coming of Lincoln. As was once said, "I knew Abraham Lincoln, I worked with Abraham Lincoln, and YOU are no Abraham Lincoln."
I always thought Dan Quayle should have replied to Lloyd Bentsen, "You are right, I am no John Kennedy, I sleep only with my own wife", but you can't criticize someone once they are shot. It is an American rule.
Here is a question: other than to look at the classified ads and sports page, why would anyone with two neurons to make a synapse buy the Washington Post or New York Times? Those papers could burst into spontaneous flame, which would be fine if they kept opinion on the editorial pages. The economy is so good there is a surplus predicted. No credit to the administration. The White House says the Pelosi plane story is ridiculous (which it is), no credit.

Here is a random thought. Some actors (i.e., George C Scott, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman) are an almost ironclad guarantee that a movie will be good, or at least interesting. I have my own list of guarantees that a movie will stink on ice. Here is a partial list (nothing personal, folks):
Jean Claude Van Damme, Shannon Tweed, Steven Seagall, Shannon Whirry, and my favorite wood carving of a human being, David Carradine. He was perfect for Kung Fu because he was supposed to barely speak. He has been doing Kung Fu ever since. I will admit I did like Kill Bill but it was despite, not because of.