Dear Senator Obama:
I ask with all sincerity and humility
WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU AND YOUR STAFF??
You are the hope candidate and now you are the fear candidate. You have built up my hopes and now I fear they will be dashed, once again.
This is not about money - you have enough money to stop “her” campaign tactics.
I seem to remember when other people wanted you to run. At first you were unsure, but you bowed to the rising groundswell of people who truly want change in this country. I don’t see you running as though the presidency is your birthright. I see your candidacy as a response to a very real need for change. “She” has never had any other thought than getting the nomination for a long, long time. “She” wants it so bad that she is willing to destroy you and herself in the process.
The people of this country need to hear you stand up and state that “she” has destroyed any chance of a twofer ticket with her red telephone ad and her most recent praise of Senator McCain. She is dangling a false message - A vote for me is a vote for both of us. But how can she consider you as a vice president when her attack is that you are not fit or qualified or experienced enough to be president in your own right? You can’t be subtle in saying this. Most people are not that perceptive. They will believe her lure unless you directly challenge it be saying:
“Senator Clinton says I’m not fit to be president. She then alludes that a vote for her could be a vote for both of us. My question is this; How can she consider picking a running mate whom she thinks is unqualified to be president. I think that this is another example of her poor judgment.”
Here is something else I think you need to say out right, in plain English:
“Since March Fourth, Senator Clinton has sounded more like she wants to be John McCain’s running mate then she wants me to be her running mate. She has poisoned the chance for a joint ticket in her zeal to win. This tendency to disregard the consequences just to get what you want is what has gotten this country into Iraq, our Constitutional crisis (a unitary executive branch) and our economic crisis.
PLEASE DO NOT BLOW THIS THING. I dare to hope once again and to believe that Yes; just maybe; we CAN
Peter Bradley
Narragansett, RI
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Romney and the war
I just heard Mitt Romney explain why he is suspending his campaign. He is making the Iraq war the reason. He is trying to cloak his withdrawal in patriotism.
My problem is:
What I heard is a man inviting a terrorist attack on the United States. He said that if a democrat wins then the United States will leave the middle East. So he is giving John McCain a clearer shot at the nomination.
Great!
If McCain is winning, we get to look forward to another 100 years of war. When I hear the republician talking points I hear 1984 by George Orwell. I also hear the last third of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller. War and enemies and fear and don't let them get you and only the republicians can protect you , Hell there the only ones who want to protect you!
If Obama or Clinton is winning then the horrible neferious forces lurking in the vast middle East deserts will be forced to attack us, otherwise we will leave and they will lose the war and enemies and fear and hatred.
THANKS MITT!
WHAT A CHOICE!
YOU DON'T LOVE THE UNITED STATES, YOU LOVE YOUR OWN SELF AND POWER AND MONEY.
Either that or you really are one sick individual
I will pray for you
My problem is:
What I heard is a man inviting a terrorist attack on the United States. He said that if a democrat wins then the United States will leave the middle East. So he is giving John McCain a clearer shot at the nomination.
Great!
If McCain is winning, we get to look forward to another 100 years of war. When I hear the republician talking points I hear 1984 by George Orwell. I also hear the last third of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller. War and enemies and fear and don't let them get you and only the republicians can protect you , Hell there the only ones who want to protect you!
If Obama or Clinton is winning then the horrible neferious forces lurking in the vast middle East deserts will be forced to attack us, otherwise we will leave and they will lose the war and enemies and fear and hatred.
THANKS MITT!
WHAT A CHOICE!
YOU DON'T LOVE THE UNITED STATES, YOU LOVE YOUR OWN SELF AND POWER AND MONEY.
Either that or you really are one sick individual
I will pray for you
Friday, January 18, 2008
Health Care Primer
I am listening to the presidential candidates use a lot of inaccurate and ineffective talk about health care in the United States.
My reality - which is reality as I see it - is as follows:
Health Care in the United States today seems to be state of the art, period.
Access to Health Care is a really, really big problem.
Health Care Cost is another really, really big problem.
Not understanding Insurance Theory is another really, really big problem.
Managed Health Care was never a good idea for anyone except corporations who invested in it.
Access to Health Care:
Universal access to health care will require universal buffering of health costs. Insurance companies are not constitutionally (small c) equipped to provide this service. An insurance company must be 25% to 40% more expensive than publicly funded health access simply because they must provide a return on investment for their stake holders. Medicare has a one percent overhead cost!
The government is capable of providing health access to the uninsured. The problem is that everyone wants it for free. Today, if we pay $4,000,000,000,000 a year for health care and 80% of people have insurance, then does this mean that between $800,000,000 and $1,280,000,000,000 goes to insurance company overhead?
Regardless, if the money is being spent then it is a cost not a risk. Insurance companies insure risk, not cost.
What should the government do? To begin with, the government must use it's power to fix the first problem. The first problem is the citizens who can't pay. The government must recruit an army of health care professionals. As an army, they would be put into service under the command of a cabinet level Surgeon General. They would be recruited be offering to pay back medical school costs in return for services. One year as a government doctor or heath care professional providing free health care to the uninsured and the government will pay back one eighth of the medical or other school debt. It is also time for the government to begin dealing with the pharmaceutical companies as if they were dealing with public money given in public trust. If health care costs $4,000,000,000,000 per year then that is how much the health care plan must budget. Otherwise it is smoke and mirrors.
Health care used to be centered around a doctor in a storefront office or an office in a residential building. People would go to the doctor, or the doctor would go to the sick person. Only "sick" people saw the doctor. The really sick people had to go to hospital. The doctor usually knew the people he was treating and charged for his services according to the probability of getting paid. Obviously, some doctors had richer clients and more lucrative practices, but they still made house calls to provide such services as taking one's temperature or delivering headache powders.
Today, if you do not have a third party payer, you will not get past the receptionist. Unless, of course, the doctor you are seeing has opted out of third party payer health plans and only accepts checks and credit cards.
In short, access to all but some emergency rooms the few free clinics that get funded is limited by the power of somebody to pay.
This is why I feel that the health problem in this country is health cost and not health care.
Health Care Cost:
When I entered the workforce in the 1960's, it was common for people to have Blue Cross or a similar form of coverage as part of the benefit package. I got a wallet sized card that entitled me to up to $20.00 a day for a semi-private hospital room. Sometimes I had to pay as much as a dollar a week as a premium copay. I still paid for doctor's visits and other services at the hospital. When I was discharged, I might expect to get a bill for several hundred dollars for a "routine" hospital stay after a bout of pneumonia or delivering a baby or having a broken leg or getting an appendectomy. Catastrophic health events usually resulted in major disruptions in life, up to and including losing one's home and moving "away".
Then the insurance industry began to offer more complete health cost coverage. Companies were competing with each other for market share. The insurance companies began to offer new products. People began to compare their coverage based on things like out of pocket expense. "Hey Billy! How much did it cost you to bring the baby home?"
"Twenty Five Dollars! The insurance picked up the rest."
"Wow! It cost me a hundred. What company do you have?"
As competition increased, the insurance companies needed to pay more and more. The medical industry began to realize that they could charge more and that the insurance company would pay. This is also a time when technology is exploding onto the scene. As Monty Python posited in The Meaning of Life, it was the time of "The Machine that goes BING!"
In the 1970's, if Michael Moore is accurate in the movie SICKO, the corporate philosophy of "Managed" Health Care was accepted and promoted by Richard Nixon and his administration.
The purpose of "Managed" health care was, and remains, to rein in inflationary health costs by requiring dispassionate, disconnected and unapproachable fourth party people to disapprove payment for procedures that seem frivolous solely on the basis of cost/profit ratios.
At the same time, employers were being required to pay higher and higher premiums. In order to remain economically viable, employers needed to begin defunding insurance in the benefit package. The insurance companies got together with the government. They helped us by introducing pre-tax allotments or stipends and catastrophic health care accounts that are non-refundable. We were told that we could now tailor our health care spending to our needs. We could choose our deductible and pocket the money we don't use! All we had to do was call this 24 hour 800 number before passing out and being out in the ambulance.
Meanwhile, the health care industry got real comfortable with being paid what ever they wanted to charge. They found that they could look a patient in the eye and tell that patient "your insurance won't cover this procedure, but if you want to live..."
The medical community also learned something else. They learned to be more efficient. And they learned that being more efficient meant being more profitable. A traditional $6000 operation may take a full surgical team six hours in an operating room and require a week in the hospital to recover. Today that operation costs, in equivalent dollars, $10,000. But it takes one hour, it involves a smaller laproscopic team, it is done in a medical office building and the patient is driven home with a bottle of percocet.
And everybody is expecting someone else to pay whatever is charged.
Not understanding Insurance Theory:
IF AN INSURANCE COMPANY IS NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE A PROFIT, THAT COMPANY HAS NO REASON FOR EXISTING!
THEREFORE - INSURANCE COMPANIES MUST TAKE FROM BETWEEN 25% to 40% of ALL MONEY THAT COMES IN THE FRONT DOOR AND GIVE IT TO THEIR OWNERS AND EMPLOYEES.
The insurance industry, as we know it is only a few hundred years old. Anyone who has worked in sales in the insurance industry has had training that explains the origins. The basic theory is: Nobody expects to have a loss. Every investment will pay off.
That is why I dare to invest in anything. But what are my chances that the ship with all my trade goods will sink? What are the chances that my building will burn down?
So people in Philadelphia began to realize something. If my building is worth $5,000 and has a small chance of burning down, it doesn't make sense to put $5,000 aside to protect me from that risk. Hey! Wait a minute! Every building owner in the city has exactly the same risk. What if 500 building owners each invest $10 in a common fund or bank account and if any one building burns down they get the money.
This was a great idea!
But it only protected one building. The reality of the time was that if one building caught fire, it would probably destroy it's neighbors. The volunteer fire department was invented for two reasons.
Would you rather sell a fire insurance policy to a foundry that deals with molten metal or a water bottling plant? (hint: Foundry people know how to handle fire and would be willing to pay a much higher premium). That is why so many homes in flood prone areas are insured. It is also why, with an increase in floods and hurricane damage, more of those policies are being cancelled.
But back to health insurance. The rule is: Insure Healthy People!
Today, every person running for president is talking about universal health insurance. This concept is untenable. Insurance only makes sense when a reasonable risk is distributed among a lot of people who, individually, have a small chance of filing a claim.
The minute an insurance company is told that they are required to accept, insure and pay the medical bills of a person with a pre-existing condition, the entire concept of insurance goes right out the window.
One final point
INSURANCE COMPANIES MUST BE 25% TO 40% MORE EXPENSIVE WHEN EXPECTED TO PROVIDE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE ACCESS.
Managed Health Care:
One of my favorite jokes goes like this:
Three nurses die and are standing before the pearly gates.
Saint Peter asks the first nurse what she did in life. She replies that she was an emergency room nurse. She worked hard and although she had a very stressful job, she felt that she saved more patients than she lost.
Saint Peter hugs her and welcomes her to Heaven.
He then turns to the second nurse.
She states she worked at a hospice. She spent her life helping the terminally ill die with comfort and dignity.
Saint Peter brushes away a tear and, taking her hands, welcomes her to Heaven.
The third nurse then states that she worked for a managed health care company.
Saint Peter excuses himself and pulls a telephone out of his desk. After about 45 minutes of phone calls, Saint Peter states:
Well you can come in, but you can only stay for three days.
'nuff said.
My reality - which is reality as I see it - is as follows:
Health Care in the United States today seems to be state of the art, period.
Access to Health Care is a really, really big problem.
Health Care Cost is another really, really big problem.
Not understanding Insurance Theory is another really, really big problem.
Managed Health Care was never a good idea for anyone except corporations who invested in it.
Access to Health Care:
Universal access to health care will require universal buffering of health costs. Insurance companies are not constitutionally (small c) equipped to provide this service. An insurance company must be 25% to 40% more expensive than publicly funded health access simply because they must provide a return on investment for their stake holders. Medicare has a one percent overhead cost!
The government is capable of providing health access to the uninsured. The problem is that everyone wants it for free. Today, if we pay $4,000,000,000,000 a year for health care and 80% of people have insurance, then does this mean that between $800,000,000 and $1,280,000,000,000 goes to insurance company overhead?
Regardless, if the money is being spent then it is a cost not a risk. Insurance companies insure risk, not cost.
What should the government do? To begin with, the government must use it's power to fix the first problem. The first problem is the citizens who can't pay. The government must recruit an army of health care professionals. As an army, they would be put into service under the command of a cabinet level Surgeon General. They would be recruited be offering to pay back medical school costs in return for services. One year as a government doctor or heath care professional providing free health care to the uninsured and the government will pay back one eighth of the medical or other school debt. It is also time for the government to begin dealing with the pharmaceutical companies as if they were dealing with public money given in public trust. If health care costs $4,000,000,000,000 per year then that is how much the health care plan must budget. Otherwise it is smoke and mirrors.
Health care used to be centered around a doctor in a storefront office or an office in a residential building. People would go to the doctor, or the doctor would go to the sick person. Only "sick" people saw the doctor. The really sick people had to go to hospital. The doctor usually knew the people he was treating and charged for his services according to the probability of getting paid. Obviously, some doctors had richer clients and more lucrative practices, but they still made house calls to provide such services as taking one's temperature or delivering headache powders.
Today, if you do not have a third party payer, you will not get past the receptionist. Unless, of course, the doctor you are seeing has opted out of third party payer health plans and only accepts checks and credit cards.
In short, access to all but some emergency rooms the few free clinics that get funded is limited by the power of somebody to pay.
This is why I feel that the health problem in this country is health cost and not health care.
Health Care Cost:
When I entered the workforce in the 1960's, it was common for people to have Blue Cross or a similar form of coverage as part of the benefit package. I got a wallet sized card that entitled me to up to $20.00 a day for a semi-private hospital room. Sometimes I had to pay as much as a dollar a week as a premium copay. I still paid for doctor's visits and other services at the hospital. When I was discharged, I might expect to get a bill for several hundred dollars for a "routine" hospital stay after a bout of pneumonia or delivering a baby or having a broken leg or getting an appendectomy. Catastrophic health events usually resulted in major disruptions in life, up to and including losing one's home and moving "away".
Then the insurance industry began to offer more complete health cost coverage. Companies were competing with each other for market share. The insurance companies began to offer new products. People began to compare their coverage based on things like out of pocket expense. "Hey Billy! How much did it cost you to bring the baby home?"
"Twenty Five Dollars! The insurance picked up the rest."
"Wow! It cost me a hundred. What company do you have?"
As competition increased, the insurance companies needed to pay more and more. The medical industry began to realize that they could charge more and that the insurance company would pay. This is also a time when technology is exploding onto the scene. As Monty Python posited in The Meaning of Life, it was the time of "The Machine that goes BING!"
In the 1970's, if Michael Moore is accurate in the movie SICKO, the corporate philosophy of "Managed" Health Care was accepted and promoted by Richard Nixon and his administration.
The purpose of "Managed" health care was, and remains, to rein in inflationary health costs by requiring dispassionate, disconnected and unapproachable fourth party people to disapprove payment for procedures that seem frivolous solely on the basis of cost/profit ratios.
At the same time, employers were being required to pay higher and higher premiums. In order to remain economically viable, employers needed to begin defunding insurance in the benefit package. The insurance companies got together with the government. They helped us by introducing pre-tax allotments or stipends and catastrophic health care accounts that are non-refundable. We were told that we could now tailor our health care spending to our needs. We could choose our deductible and pocket the money we don't use! All we had to do was call this 24 hour 800 number before passing out and being out in the ambulance.
Meanwhile, the health care industry got real comfortable with being paid what ever they wanted to charge. They found that they could look a patient in the eye and tell that patient "your insurance won't cover this procedure, but if you want to live..."
The medical community also learned something else. They learned to be more efficient. And they learned that being more efficient meant being more profitable. A traditional $6000 operation may take a full surgical team six hours in an operating room and require a week in the hospital to recover. Today that operation costs, in equivalent dollars, $10,000. But it takes one hour, it involves a smaller laproscopic team, it is done in a medical office building and the patient is driven home with a bottle of percocet.
And everybody is expecting someone else to pay whatever is charged.
Not understanding Insurance Theory:
IF AN INSURANCE COMPANY IS NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE A PROFIT, THAT COMPANY HAS NO REASON FOR EXISTING!
THEREFORE - INSURANCE COMPANIES MUST TAKE FROM BETWEEN 25% to 40% of ALL MONEY THAT COMES IN THE FRONT DOOR AND GIVE IT TO THEIR OWNERS AND EMPLOYEES.
The insurance industry, as we know it is only a few hundred years old. Anyone who has worked in sales in the insurance industry has had training that explains the origins. The basic theory is: Nobody expects to have a loss. Every investment will pay off.
That is why I dare to invest in anything. But what are my chances that the ship with all my trade goods will sink? What are the chances that my building will burn down?
So people in Philadelphia began to realize something. If my building is worth $5,000 and has a small chance of burning down, it doesn't make sense to put $5,000 aside to protect me from that risk. Hey! Wait a minute! Every building owner in the city has exactly the same risk. What if 500 building owners each invest $10 in a common fund or bank account and if any one building burns down they get the money.
This was a great idea!
But it only protected one building. The reality of the time was that if one building caught fire, it would probably destroy it's neighbors. The volunteer fire department was invented for two reasons.
- To put out fires and protect buildings.
- To protect that pot of money that was being invested and earning it's own profits for it's member subscribers.
Would you rather sell a fire insurance policy to a foundry that deals with molten metal or a water bottling plant? (hint: Foundry people know how to handle fire and would be willing to pay a much higher premium). That is why so many homes in flood prone areas are insured. It is also why, with an increase in floods and hurricane damage, more of those policies are being cancelled.
But back to health insurance. The rule is: Insure Healthy People!
Today, every person running for president is talking about universal health insurance. This concept is untenable. Insurance only makes sense when a reasonable risk is distributed among a lot of people who, individually, have a small chance of filing a claim.
The minute an insurance company is told that they are required to accept, insure and pay the medical bills of a person with a pre-existing condition, the entire concept of insurance goes right out the window.
One final point
INSURANCE COMPANIES MUST BE 25% TO 40% MORE EXPENSIVE WHEN EXPECTED TO PROVIDE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE ACCESS.
Managed Health Care:
One of my favorite jokes goes like this:
Three nurses die and are standing before the pearly gates.
Saint Peter asks the first nurse what she did in life. She replies that she was an emergency room nurse. She worked hard and although she had a very stressful job, she felt that she saved more patients than she lost.
Saint Peter hugs her and welcomes her to Heaven.
He then turns to the second nurse.
She states she worked at a hospice. She spent her life helping the terminally ill die with comfort and dignity.
Saint Peter brushes away a tear and, taking her hands, welcomes her to Heaven.
The third nurse then states that she worked for a managed health care company.
Saint Peter excuses himself and pulls a telephone out of his desk. After about 45 minutes of phone calls, Saint Peter states:
Well you can come in, but you can only stay for three days.
'nuff said.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Tax Cuts Don't Work
When George Bush took office, he ushered in some of the most beneficial tax cuts that the top 1% wealthy people in this country ever got.
He said that tax cuts for the wealthy would stimulate the economy, thus creating jobs and more wealth and thus all the increased money sloshing around the economy would trickle back to the government and continue to lower budget deficits which would in turn justify lower tax rates and allow for more tax cuts.
Now we have had seven years of Bush fiscal policy and the pundits, talking heads and economic experts are speaking about recession,
So... where does the Bush Fiscal Fantasy stand today?
The very rich took their new found money from the tax cuts and invested it in risky things. This in itself is OK because it was just like found money. It was extra. They invested in sub-prime mortgages, hedge funds, no bankruptcy for credit card debt and health care managed for profit, just to name a few things. They got richer.
Bush managed to work the national debt up to about $10,000,000,000,000. The future will prove that this was done on purpose to bankrupt social security and medicare, the last two great liberal thorns in the side of conservatism.
Bush/Cheney managed to drive the price of gas and oil up to at least $3.00 per gallon. This is important because of where the extra money is not going. It is not going to fund a quest for alternatives. No wind power incentives, no homeowner tax credits or subsidies, no trash to energy or other co-generation or hydro-electric or geo-thermal or solar or 100 MPG engines. It is also not going to build more refinery capacity. The money is being used to maintain the high price of energy so the government cannot impose a needed $1.00 per gallon energy independence tax without creating a consumer backlash. We are now paying that $1.00 per gallon and we are not really changing our habits. We gave the energy companies permission to raise the prices when we accepted their trial price hikes. They beat the government to the punch. Their thinking is that they are keeping energy prices too high to tax. And it's working.
All in all, the Bush Fiscal Fantasy is a Fiasco, for 99% of us.
This is what the 2009 United States Government needs to do:
How about this - Congresspeople get pay for performance. Individually, if they don't go to work, no pay. Collectively, if they don't solve a problem, no pay. They don't do their jobs, no pay.
OK I feel better now
He said that tax cuts for the wealthy would stimulate the economy, thus creating jobs and more wealth and thus all the increased money sloshing around the economy would trickle back to the government and continue to lower budget deficits which would in turn justify lower tax rates and allow for more tax cuts.
Now we have had seven years of Bush fiscal policy and the pundits, talking heads and economic experts are speaking about recession,
So... where does the Bush Fiscal Fantasy stand today?
The very rich took their new found money from the tax cuts and invested it in risky things. This in itself is OK because it was just like found money. It was extra. They invested in sub-prime mortgages, hedge funds, no bankruptcy for credit card debt and health care managed for profit, just to name a few things. They got richer.
Bush managed to work the national debt up to about $10,000,000,000,000. The future will prove that this was done on purpose to bankrupt social security and medicare, the last two great liberal thorns in the side of conservatism.
Bush/Cheney managed to drive the price of gas and oil up to at least $3.00 per gallon. This is important because of where the extra money is not going. It is not going to fund a quest for alternatives. No wind power incentives, no homeowner tax credits or subsidies, no trash to energy or other co-generation or hydro-electric or geo-thermal or solar or 100 MPG engines. It is also not going to build more refinery capacity. The money is being used to maintain the high price of energy so the government cannot impose a needed $1.00 per gallon energy independence tax without creating a consumer backlash. We are now paying that $1.00 per gallon and we are not really changing our habits. We gave the energy companies permission to raise the prices when we accepted their trial price hikes. They beat the government to the punch. Their thinking is that they are keeping energy prices too high to tax. And it's working.
All in all, the Bush Fiscal Fantasy is a Fiasco, for 99% of us.
This is what the 2009 United States Government needs to do:
- Institute a federal finance system that is fair across the board and easy to understand. You make money, you pay taxes. Sure the poor don't have as much to spend, but then they use more government services. Sure the rich don't use social services but they rely on the government to protect their wealth. So... if you or your money earns $50,000 or less per year you pay 10%. If you or your money earns $50,001 to $500,000, you pay 20%. And if you or your money earns $500,001 and up, you pay 30%. If you are a corporation and not a flesh and blood human and you wish to do business in this country, you pay a corporate tax on what ever income you receive from doing business in the United States. You pay at the same graduation as above.
- There must be a freeze and moratorium on all government spending. The first month in session, congress must re-evaluate and re-approve all government expenditures.
- All spending bills must be readable, understandable and funded. All spending bills must be presented orally.
- No congressperson may vote on legislation that will benefit any entity that has provided that congressperson with money or other value. The congressperson may introduce the bill, may debate the bill but must publicly, on the congressional record abstain from voting on that bill and must disclose the value that prohibits their vote.
How about this - Congresspeople get pay for performance. Individually, if they don't go to work, no pay. Collectively, if they don't solve a problem, no pay. They don't do their jobs, no pay.
OK I feel better now
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Polls and Predicting Election Results
First of all - Stop telling me who seems to be ahead and start telling me what these candidates are going if they get elected. And then start telling me who is telling me the truth. And then start telling me who is playing dirty tricks on each other. Those are the ones who will play dirty tricks on the citizens.
That being said:
A Statistic Is beautiful thing. It is meaningful number. That is what a statistic is. It flows from other numbers. As the Mississippi river gets its power from countless streams and tributaries, the statistic gets its power from the numbers that precede it.
The New Hampshire primary results not following the polls is not the fault of the statistics.
A lot of very well educated, well paid people in and around the media industry make a lot of money pretending to predict the future.
Ask any weather man / meteorologist. We human beings cannot predict the future.
Oh sure, the History Channel re-runs the genius of Nostradamus over and over. The same is true for the National Enquirer. There is a psychic disconnect somewhere when a person reads that the end of time is imminent while they wait to pay for the food that they are buying for the future.
We all want to know what is going to happen. But the only accurate prediction is that, at least for this year, we will not be predicting the future.
Dewey did not defeat Truman for the same reason that Obama did not beat Clinton.
He did not get enough votes.
The sure thing (but wrong) prediction was reported for the exactly the same reasons.
Highly paid, well educated media people and pollsters need to move their lips and vibrate their vocal chords to attempt to dazzle us with their brilliance. That is their job. If they don't do this people will not acknowledge them. There are even people like Rush Limbaugh, who has perfected his paradigm and dazzles his audience with his bull(crap).
The next 11 months are going to be full of pundits and experts trampling each other to get out that next prediction (that everyone will forget next week).
So now I will make my own predictions which are firmly based on past events.
Make your self a score sheet
A positive and a negative column for every candidate.
Then they run a positive ad they get a plus
When they run a negative ad they get a minus and the other guy gets a plus
When the party or supporting organizations (like moveon.org or club for growth) run a positive ad, every candidate in that party gets a plus
When the party or supporting organizations run a negative ad, everyone in that party gets a minus and the other guys get plusses.
If candidates have solutions to problems they get a plus
If they just talk about problems they get a minus
That being said:
A Statistic Is beautiful thing. It is meaningful number. That is what a statistic is. It flows from other numbers. As the Mississippi river gets its power from countless streams and tributaries, the statistic gets its power from the numbers that precede it.
The New Hampshire primary results not following the polls is not the fault of the statistics.
A lot of very well educated, well paid people in and around the media industry make a lot of money pretending to predict the future.
Ask any weather man / meteorologist. We human beings cannot predict the future.
Oh sure, the History Channel re-runs the genius of Nostradamus over and over. The same is true for the National Enquirer. There is a psychic disconnect somewhere when a person reads that the end of time is imminent while they wait to pay for the food that they are buying for the future.
We all want to know what is going to happen. But the only accurate prediction is that, at least for this year, we will not be predicting the future.
Dewey did not defeat Truman for the same reason that Obama did not beat Clinton.
He did not get enough votes.
The sure thing (but wrong) prediction was reported for the exactly the same reasons.
Highly paid, well educated media people and pollsters need to move their lips and vibrate their vocal chords to attempt to dazzle us with their brilliance. That is their job. If they don't do this people will not acknowledge them. There are even people like Rush Limbaugh, who has perfected his paradigm and dazzles his audience with his bull(crap).
The next 11 months are going to be full of pundits and experts trampling each other to get out that next prediction (that everyone will forget next week).
So now I will make my own predictions which are firmly based on past events.
- With the exception of Ron Paul, the chances of someone shooting or bombing a republican candidate are very small. I say this because the types of organizations or people who would actually resort to shooting someone don't ever seem to be upset with republicans.
- The shooting or bombing of whichever democratic candidate seems to be leading, or successfully challenging the leader, will change the entire dynamic of the election. The two Kennedy brothers come to mind.
- Shooting or bombing may be held as a last resort because such tactics as Willi Horten, the black baby whisper campaign and swift boating are still being honed to cut deeper and cleaner into respectable reputations. These tactics will be used, and they will not be properly investigated and prosecuted as a form of election fraud.
- The chances of some foreign entity causing a destructive event in this country increases as the country turns away from Mid-East conflicts. I say this because the greatest ally Osama ben-Laden has had since September 11th, 2001 has been George Bush and his administration. They have been able to unfalteringly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn. It is almost as if they planned to fail all along so that the enemy would always be before us. Ben-Laden gives Bush a reason to exist. And Bush gives ben-Laden a reason to exist. Those two are really handcuffed together. I hate to say it but I now consider the chances of "the terrorists following us home" is actually real. Thankfully, it is not real for the reasons we have been given. I believe that the terrorists will follow us home for the same reason that a two year old will follow its mother from room to room during a tantrum. If we leave the middle east, they will have no one paying attention to them. THAT is what threatens their existence. It is in the interest of terrorists to prevent peace, withdrawal, disconnection or an automobile engine that gets 100 miles to the gallon. So I urge Ron Paul and all the Democrats to exit rallies in a bomb proof manner.
Make your self a score sheet
A positive and a negative column for every candidate.
Then they run a positive ad they get a plus
When they run a negative ad they get a minus and the other guy gets a plus
When the party or supporting organizations (like moveon.org or club for growth) run a positive ad, every candidate in that party gets a plus
When the party or supporting organizations run a negative ad, everyone in that party gets a minus and the other guys get plusses.
If candidates have solutions to problems they get a plus
If they just talk about problems they get a minus
Smallpox vaccine
OK - About five years ago we were told that this country's population is at risk for smallpox once again. Either we are at some risk or the Bush administration was playing another fear card to keep us dependent on the Bush administration for our safety. Anyway, my point is; we have had five years to produce enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate/re-inoculate our entire population.
HOW MANY DOSES HAVE BEEN PRODUCED?
Try this:
The next time you have a doctor's appointment (assuming you have access and can afford it) ask for your smallpox booster. Then listen to the answer.
HOW MANY DOSES HAVE BEEN PRODUCED?
Try this:
The next time you have a doctor's appointment (assuming you have access and can afford it) ask for your smallpox booster. Then listen to the answer.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
X-Prize Competition - plus an unexpected rant-
Yesterday I heard that the people who inspired civilian space flight have posted a $10,000,000 reward for a 100 mpg automobile.
OK, I was maybe stingy at asking for a One Million Dollar prize.
I continue to think that we don't need the entire new car design. We just need engines we can afford to have installed into our cars and trucks. Maybe the X-Prize Competition people could offer an additional prize for a retrofittable, affordable propulsion system that we can purchase and have installed into our perfectly good existing automobiles. I have also advocated offering smaller prizes ($50,000 each) to every member of a factory that actually produces an affordable (under $5000) system at a six sigma quality level. We don't need to throw away our cars, we just need to change out our engines.
As long as I'm hoping for a better future, I might as well dream about what the Government can start doing on Jan 21, 2009. It needs to dismantle the neo-conservative K-Street special interest machine. For those who have not been to Washington, DC, K Street is a main road traveling through the capitol. It is not a back alley. K Street lobby and law firms transfer obscene amounts of money for the purpose of securing greater obscene amounts of money for special people. Remember that K-Street, as it now exists is a construct of the Tom Delay, George Bush, Jack Abermofv corruption cabal.
The Government needs to impose a flat tax system that can be written in 12 point type on no more than two 8 x 11 pieces of paper.
Wake up folks! George Bush and his henchmen have put us $10,000,000,000,000 in debt. Its time for the rich people to pay their fair share.
Bush fiscal policies have failed utterly for all but the top 1% of the population. This is not class warfare, it will be ideology warfare.
The Candidates, Ron Paul, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton better be wearing bullet proof vests and not planning to exit rallies by way of the kitchen or ride in open vehicles. They should probably include Kevlar hats with their outfits. After the Kennedy's deaths I still wonder if the forces behind the lone crazed gunmen weren't conservative.
And how did the Government Anthrax get into the post offices after 9-11-01?
I would love to see a court order sealing Dick Cheney's office while an independent auditor catalogs every bit of data. The inventory can then by given to a F(ederal)ISA Court panel to determine if there are any constitutional violations.
Rule of Law - When this country adopted the Constitution, This country created itself by creating the law that created the country. We were not created by God. We did not have a ruler or a ruling class that was ordained by God. We were people who created ourselves. At the time, this concept was considered to be the worst kind of goat burning, baby eating liberalism (by the royals of the world). Today when George Bush uses the term "The Rule of Law" he means usurping the rule of the Constitution through illegal means such as claiming that he had no direct knowledge but the things he didn't know about are protected by executive privilege (means private law in Latin). When George Bush, or any of his cronies for that matter use the term "Rule of Law", they are participating in Orwellian "Doublespeak". And the corporations who report the events of the day allow it to go unchallenged.
Oh Dear! I'm ranting. Time to take a breath and relax.
OK, I was maybe stingy at asking for a One Million Dollar prize.
I continue to think that we don't need the entire new car design. We just need engines we can afford to have installed into our cars and trucks. Maybe the X-Prize Competition people could offer an additional prize for a retrofittable, affordable propulsion system that we can purchase and have installed into our perfectly good existing automobiles. I have also advocated offering smaller prizes ($50,000 each) to every member of a factory that actually produces an affordable (under $5000) system at a six sigma quality level. We don't need to throw away our cars, we just need to change out our engines.
As long as I'm hoping for a better future, I might as well dream about what the Government can start doing on Jan 21, 2009. It needs to dismantle the neo-conservative K-Street special interest machine. For those who have not been to Washington, DC, K Street is a main road traveling through the capitol. It is not a back alley. K Street lobby and law firms transfer obscene amounts of money for the purpose of securing greater obscene amounts of money for special people. Remember that K-Street, as it now exists is a construct of the Tom Delay, George Bush, Jack Abermofv corruption cabal.
The Government needs to impose a flat tax system that can be written in 12 point type on no more than two 8 x 11 pieces of paper.
Wake up folks! George Bush and his henchmen have put us $10,000,000,000,000 in debt. Its time for the rich people to pay their fair share.
Bush fiscal policies have failed utterly for all but the top 1% of the population. This is not class warfare, it will be ideology warfare.
The Candidates, Ron Paul, Barak Obama, and Hillary Clinton better be wearing bullet proof vests and not planning to exit rallies by way of the kitchen or ride in open vehicles. They should probably include Kevlar hats with their outfits. After the Kennedy's deaths I still wonder if the forces behind the lone crazed gunmen weren't conservative.
And how did the Government Anthrax get into the post offices after 9-11-01?
I would love to see a court order sealing Dick Cheney's office while an independent auditor catalogs every bit of data. The inventory can then by given to a F(ederal)ISA Court panel to determine if there are any constitutional violations.
Rule of Law - When this country adopted the Constitution, This country created itself by creating the law that created the country. We were not created by God. We did not have a ruler or a ruling class that was ordained by God. We were people who created ourselves. At the time, this concept was considered to be the worst kind of goat burning, baby eating liberalism (by the royals of the world). Today when George Bush uses the term "The Rule of Law" he means usurping the rule of the Constitution through illegal means such as claiming that he had no direct knowledge but the things he didn't know about are protected by executive privilege (means private law in Latin). When George Bush, or any of his cronies for that matter use the term "Rule of Law", they are participating in Orwellian "Doublespeak". And the corporations who report the events of the day allow it to go unchallenged.
Oh Dear! I'm ranting. Time to take a breath and relax.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The Process of Energy Independence
I live in the State of Rhode Island. Because we are such a small state it should be easy to try radical ideas. I have a vision for the state. I believe that it is possible for this state to become the most energy independent state in the nation. This state could easily harness trash, wind and natural gas energy. Part of the proceeds from these energies can be used to fund solar, hydroelectric and possibly tidal power generation.
My vision: The Rhode Island Altruistic Alternate Energy Non-Profit Corporation
Rhode Island now trucks all solid waste generated in the state to a central land fill. Land fill is actually a mis-nomer at this point. The nickname is Mount Trashmore. It will someday soon be the highest point in the state (At this writing the mighty Jerimouth Hill, 812 feet above sea level, is the highest point). The central landfill in Johnston now contains over 24 million tons of trash. Current headlines now report that we add 1.5 million tons of trash every year. The people who brought trash to this facility last year paid $68 million for the privilege. The people who generated this trash paid more. Now the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation wants to spend $43 million to expand this landfill. $68 million + $43 million = $111 million. This money would go a long way toward realizing a better idea.
Several years ago, I visited the trash to energy plant in Preston, CT. This plant converts trash to electricity. The people who bring trash to this facility pay for the privilege of supplying fuel through tipping fees. There are two down sides to the operationL
The first problem can be solved by technology as simple as glass encapsulation if not by the more complicated dedicated high temperature incineration. The second problem is not a problem if the generation plant is located close to the central landfill. There is a brand new natural gas power generating plant on the banks of the Pawtuxet River. This means that the environmental impact statement for cooling water has already been done. Build a trash to energy plant and mine the central landfill while continuing to accept new trash from around the state. We also have other rivers that could sustain such a plant, but only if we generate enough trash. Rhode Islanders would be paying for supplying the fuel to generate electricity. The cost of the electricity generated has to be much less than we are paying now. The disclosure label in my February electric bill states that today, National Grid gets 0% of their power from Fuel Cells, Landfill Gas, Municipal Solid Waste, Solar Photovoltaic or Wind Energy. They produce 1.3% of their electricity from Trash to Energy plants and 2.4% from Hydroelectric Generation
There is a very beautiful windmill in Portsmouth, RI. It’s not ugly. It hasn’t killed any birds yet. It is not noisy. It does not interfere with my radio reception. This windmill is expensive but obviously economically feasible. We have hills elsewhere in the state. I am thinking of the series of hills and ridges in the southern part of the state. I’m not suggesting a windmill big enough to supply the entire town of Narragansett or South Kingstown. I am thinking that a series of smaller mills that could supply, or supplement, neighborhoods. The precedent for this is found in the literature that is sent to me by National Grid. They want me to voluntarily pay a premium for "green" electricity. What they don’t tell me is that the windmills and hydroelectric works are in New York or Ohio or somewhere. Those "green" electrons will never enter my home. They are just too far away. But the utility company thinks there are enough people willing to subsidize alternate energy to justify at least the cost of printing out the offers.
I recently heard that Massachusetts is looking into an offshore terminal for off-loading natural gas. Last year I both wrote to and asked Rhode Island's Governor Carceri why Rhode Island is not talking to gas companies and shipping companies. My idea is that we have a very valuable solution for the danger of LNG transfers. Extending out from the tip of Newport is Brenton Reef. Using the shallow water at the southern end of this reef, build a very low profile liquefied natural gas off-loading facility. The LNG tankers need never enter the bay. Pipelines could be laid up the bay to several possible distribution points. Quonset Point, Melvill and East Providence. The state could charge some, if not all of its fees in product, thus bringing free or at least severely reduced cost natural gas into the state.
Some of the profits from these endeavors should be used to increase energy independence for Rhode Island. The state non-profit alternate energy corp. could, through the ability to buy in bulk, be able to offer roof mounted solar cell arrays. These don’t need to work all the time, but whenever the sun does shine, people get some free electricity.
Rhode Island already has dams and former dams. There is concern about dam safety after the Jim’s Pond dam failed. We could rebuild all the dams in the state with both fish ladders and with hydroelectric generators. As with the windmills, go for neighborhood capacity, not statewide capacity.
And what to do with all the energy that gets produced at 3:00 AM? Start a hydrogen generating industry in the state. Why Hydrogen? That is the fuel for fuel cells. Or that fuel could be used to burn the toxic sludge that is the byproduct of the trash to energy generator.
Benefits:
• Jobs
• Reduction of Mount Trashmore
• Lower energy costs for every citizen in the state
• Incentives to bring alternate fuel automobiles and other transportation into the state
• Not having poor people freeze to death in the winter, or die in heat waves or have to decide between buying food or the fuel with which to cook it
• An energy independent state would be a magnet for business and industry
• The unemployed labor pool would be emptied
• Additional revenues from the exporting of the micro-municipal windmills we start manufacturing along with the roof shingle/solar cell and Hydrogen distribution technology
My vision: The Rhode Island Altruistic Alternate Energy Non-Profit Corporation
Rhode Island now trucks all solid waste generated in the state to a central land fill. Land fill is actually a mis-nomer at this point. The nickname is Mount Trashmore. It will someday soon be the highest point in the state (At this writing the mighty Jerimouth Hill, 812 feet above sea level, is the highest point). The central landfill in Johnston now contains over 24 million tons of trash. Current headlines now report that we add 1.5 million tons of trash every year. The people who brought trash to this facility last year paid $68 million for the privilege. The people who generated this trash paid more. Now the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation wants to spend $43 million to expand this landfill. $68 million + $43 million = $111 million. This money would go a long way toward realizing a better idea.
Several years ago, I visited the trash to energy plant in Preston, CT. This plant converts trash to electricity. The people who bring trash to this facility pay for the privilege of supplying fuel through tipping fees. There are two down sides to the operationL
- The final waste product is highly toxic.
- The facility needs to be guaranteed a steady volume of trash so that the fires never go out.
There is a very beautiful windmill in Portsmouth, RI. It’s not ugly. It hasn’t killed any birds yet. It is not noisy. It does not interfere with my radio reception. This windmill is expensive but obviously economically feasible. We have hills elsewhere in the state. I am thinking of the series of hills and ridges in the southern part of the state. I’m not suggesting a windmill big enough to supply the entire town of Narragansett or South Kingstown. I am thinking that a series of smaller mills that could supply, or supplement, neighborhoods. The precedent for this is found in the literature that is sent to me by National Grid. They want me to voluntarily pay a premium for "green" electricity. What they don’t tell me is that the windmills and hydroelectric works are in New York or Ohio or somewhere. Those "green" electrons will never enter my home. They are just too far away. But the utility company thinks there are enough people willing to subsidize alternate energy to justify at least the cost of printing out the offers.
I recently heard that Massachusetts is looking into an offshore terminal for off-loading natural gas. Last year I both wrote to and asked Rhode Island's Governor Carceri why Rhode Island is not talking to gas companies and shipping companies. My idea is that we have a very valuable solution for the danger of LNG transfers. Extending out from the tip of Newport is Brenton Reef. Using the shallow water at the southern end of this reef, build a very low profile liquefied natural gas off-loading facility. The LNG tankers need never enter the bay. Pipelines could be laid up the bay to several possible distribution points. Quonset Point, Melvill and East Providence. The state could charge some, if not all of its fees in product, thus bringing free or at least severely reduced cost natural gas into the state.
Some of the profits from these endeavors should be used to increase energy independence for Rhode Island. The state non-profit alternate energy corp. could, through the ability to buy in bulk, be able to offer roof mounted solar cell arrays. These don’t need to work all the time, but whenever the sun does shine, people get some free electricity.
Rhode Island already has dams and former dams. There is concern about dam safety after the Jim’s Pond dam failed. We could rebuild all the dams in the state with both fish ladders and with hydroelectric generators. As with the windmills, go for neighborhood capacity, not statewide capacity.
And what to do with all the energy that gets produced at 3:00 AM? Start a hydrogen generating industry in the state. Why Hydrogen? That is the fuel for fuel cells. Or that fuel could be used to burn the toxic sludge that is the byproduct of the trash to energy generator.
Benefits:
• Jobs
• Reduction of Mount Trashmore
• Lower energy costs for every citizen in the state
• Incentives to bring alternate fuel automobiles and other transportation into the state
• Not having poor people freeze to death in the winter, or die in heat waves or have to decide between buying food or the fuel with which to cook it
• An energy independent state would be a magnet for business and industry
• The unemployed labor pool would be emptied
• Additional revenues from the exporting of the micro-municipal windmills we start manufacturing along with the roof shingle/solar cell and Hydrogen distribution technology
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Social Security or Neo-conservatism - you choose
Has anyone remembered or did anyone notice that as soon as George Bush got elected (2004), he wanted to do away with social security? Well, he evidently didn't have the mandate he thought he did. But the cause hasn't gone away. This nation has been blithely spending money our grandchildren will never have. On a personal level, people carry debt that cannot possibly be paid off before death. We import everything except jobs. On a business level it is becoming much more acceptable for corporations to default on retirement plans. On the government level, we (through our elected representatives) ear mark billions of dollars. We give away billions of dollars. We pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq. They have enough oil to buy the United States from China.
I keep asking; "What is the bottom line - for me?"
I think I can now see that line becoming visible through the mud.
Because we have gutted our tax collection rates in a system that is derstandable -
(a derstandable system is a system that is un-understandable:-) - we will have no recourse but to suck every penny out of every social system, Social Security, Medicare, Public Health, Education, Welfare, Veterans Benefits, and every other social system that grew out of the New Deal and the Great Society.
Why do I think this?
Right Now, Rhode Island has a gap between the next state budget of about $600, 000,000 and projected revenue. Our Constitution (thankfully) prohibits the state from deficit spending. How is the Governor dealing with this crisis? He laid off 1000 state workers. How is the legislature dealing with this? They voted to not have a Christmas party and are slashing support for the poorest and sickest and most venerable of it's citizens while pushing through tax cuts for the richest of our citizens. They also want to scrap the state retirement system and they sold our share of the tobacco settlement two years ago to balance that budget.
So what will the nation do?
If we let them, our elected representatives will spend your retirement benefits. But don't worry, there are three magic words that any stroke victim can learn which will ensure a subsistence wage as long as you can be dependsed upon to show up for work. Those words?
Welcome to Wal*Mart
I keep asking; "What is the bottom line - for me?"
I think I can now see that line becoming visible through the mud.
Because we have gutted our tax collection rates in a system that is derstandable -
(a derstandable system is a system that is un-understandable:-) - we will have no recourse but to suck every penny out of every social system, Social Security, Medicare, Public Health, Education, Welfare, Veterans Benefits, and every other social system that grew out of the New Deal and the Great Society.
Why do I think this?
Right Now, Rhode Island has a gap between the next state budget of about $600, 000,000 and projected revenue. Our Constitution (thankfully) prohibits the state from deficit spending. How is the Governor dealing with this crisis? He laid off 1000 state workers. How is the legislature dealing with this? They voted to not have a Christmas party and are slashing support for the poorest and sickest and most venerable of it's citizens while pushing through tax cuts for the richest of our citizens. They also want to scrap the state retirement system and they sold our share of the tobacco settlement two years ago to balance that budget.
So what will the nation do?
If we let them, our elected representatives will spend your retirement benefits. But don't worry, there are three magic words that any stroke victim can learn which will ensure a subsistence wage as long as you can be dependsed upon to show up for work. Those words?
Welcome to Wal*Mart
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