Write-in votes: the way to break the stranglehold of the two major parties.

See a local example of obfuscation.

With all the online resources, I cannot understand why those who find the two major political parities so unacceptable do not mount write-in campaigns, unless they really prefer to curse the darkness rather than light a candle.

Such a campaign could be done with very little money, certainly much less than the disgraceful and obscene one billion dollar objective of President Obama for his re-election in 2012.

Hillary rising and just how big a wimp is Obama?

Yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the transfer of military no fly operations in Libya from the United States to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Say what?

How come President Barack Obama didn't make the announcement himself?  Or if the president delegated the announcement shouldn't it have been to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, especially since it was basically a military issue?

Or was Obama placating his women hawks featuring Hillary Clinton at the expense of his men doves featuring Robert Gates?  Obama had already acceded to Hillary Clinton's wishes and ignored those of Gates.

This is more than a simple point of protocol.  Did Hillary Clinton take this upon herself?  Unlikely.  But it's still alarming given that Hillary Clinton is the least qualified Secretary of State since World War II.

There are two qualifications for any cabinet position: executive experience and subject matter knowledge and experience.  Hillary Clinton was zero for two.  No, being married to the president and making trips to foreign countries does not count as foreign policy experience.  Nor does being a U.S. Senator.  The last Senator to be Secretary of State was Edmund Muskie and he was a late term fill in during the failed term of Jimmy Carter after Cyrus Vance had resigned in protest over Carter's failed rescue attempt of the Americans being held hostage in Iran.  Even Muskie had been a governor.

The closest thing to executive experience that Hillary Clinton had prior to being named Secretary of State was heading her can't lose presidential campaign in 2008, which was mismanaged into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

In her brief time as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presided over the most enormous leaking of secret government documents (to wiki leaks) and has yet to be taken to account.  Why is that?

Here's a trip down memory lane of Secretaries of State past and their qualifications.  Read this and you'll see how pathetic Hillary Clinton's credentials were.

Condoleezza Rice January 26, 2005 – January 20, 2009: President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term; President George H.W. Bush's  Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Colin Powell January 20, 2001 – January 26, 2005: retired four-star general in the United States Army; National Security Advisor; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Madeleine Albright January 23, 1997 – January 20, 2001: fluent in English, French, Russian, and Czech; she speaks and reads Polish and Serbo-Croatian; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Carter's National Security Council’s congressional liaison; academic staff at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., specializing in Eastern European studies.

Warren Christopher January 20, 1993 – January 17, 1997:  Deputy Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration: Deputy Secretary of State in the Jimmy Carter administration negotiating the Algiers Accords, and securing the release of 52 American hostages in Iran. He also spearheaded the Sino-American relations with the People's Republic of China, helped to win ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, and headed the first interagency group on human rights. President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, on January 16, 1981.

Lawrence Eagleburger December 8, 1992 – January 20, 1993: career diplomat; joined the US Foreign Service in 1957, and served in various posts in embassies, consulates, and the State Department.

James Baker January 20, 1989 – August 23, 1992: Secretary of the Treasury from 1985-1988; Chief of Staff for Reagan and Bush the elder; served on the Economic Policy Council and National Security Council.

George P. Shultz July 16, 1982 – January 20, 1989: Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970; Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974; professor of economics at MIT and the University of Chicago, serving as Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1962 to 1969;  1974 to 1982, Shultz was an executive at Bechtel, eventually becoming the firm's president.

Alexander Haig January 22, 1981 – July 5, 1982: United States Army general who served as White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, the second-highest ranking officer in the Army, and as Supreme Allied Commander Europe commanding all U.S. and NATO forces in Europe.

Edmund Muskie May 8, 1980 – January 20, 1981:  governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, United States Senator from 1959 to 1980; Democratic nominee for Vice President in the 1968;  Maine House of Representatives.

Cyrus Vance January 20, 1977 – April 28, 1980: Secretary of the Army and the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Henry Kissinger September 22, 1973 – January 20, 1977: Nobel Peace Prize; National Security Advisor; consultant to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board;  doctoral dissertation was titled "Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich)."; Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971 and Director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971; consultant to several government agencies, including the Operations Research Office, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Department of State, and the Rand Corporation; U.S. Army Sergeant: volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge; awarded the Bronze Star; taught at the European Command Intelligence School.

William P. Rogers January 22, 1969 – September 3, 1973:  Attorney General from 1957 to 1961; U.S. Navy lieutenant commander in WWII.

Dean Rusk January 21, 1961 – January 20, 1969 (second-longest serving U.S. Secretary of State of all time, behind only Cordell Hull): World War II Army infantry reserve captain;  work briefly for the War Department in Washington. Joined the State Department in February 1945, and worked for the office of United Nations Affairs;  Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs in 1950; president of the  Rockefeller Foundation.

Christian Herter April 22, 1959 – January 20, 1961:  governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1956; born in Paris, France; attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin;  part of the U.S. delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference; Commerce Secretary; Massachusetts House of Representatives; United States House of Representatives; founded the Middle East Institute; served on the board of trustees of the World Peace Foundation.

John Foster Dulles January 26, 1953 – April 22, 1959: Both his grandfather, John W. Foster, and his uncle, Robert Lansing, served as Secretary of State; legal counsel to the United States delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference; member of the War Reparations Committee; participated in the San Francisco Conference and worked as adviser to Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg and helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter. He subsequently attended the United Nations General Assembly as a United States delegate in 1946, 1947 and 1950; appointed by New York Governor Dewey to the United States Senate July 7, 1949, to November 8, 1949; In 1950, Dulles published War or Peace, a critical analysis of the American policy of containment.

Dean Acheson January 21, 1949 – January 20, 1953: Undersecretary of the United States Treasury;  1939-1940 he headed a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government; assistant secretary of state in 1941; implemented the Lend-Lease policy that helped re-arm Great Britain and the American/British/Dutch oil embargo that cut off 95 percent of Japanese oil supplies and escalated the crisis with Japan in 1941; attended the Bretton Woods Conference (the birthplace of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the last of which would evolve into the World Trade Organization.) as the head delegate from the State department; Undersecretary of of State.

George Marshall January 21, 1947 – January 20, 1949:  Chief of Staff of the Army; third Secretary of Defense.

James F. Byrnes July 3, 1945 – January 21, 1947: U.S. House of Representatives (1911–1925), U.S. Senator (1931–1941), Justice of the Supreme Court (1941–1942); headed Roosevelt's Economic Stabilization Office;  also headed of the Office of War Mobilization; attended Yalta Conference in early 1945; close advisor to President Truman.

So where would you rank Hillary Clinton among these people as far as credentials to be Secretary of State prior to being appointed?  Last if you're even a little bit objective.  That's why it's alarming that Obama would let her infringe upon his responsibilities or those of the Secretary of Defense.

Libya: what the heck are we doing?

President Obama is making his usual mess of things in the Libyan civil war, trying to split differences.  What happened to his willingness to negotiate with anyone as he stated during the 2008 campaign?  He seems to be bouncing between two of his secretaries: Robert Gates at Defense and Hillary Clinton at State. Gates has the dove position and Hillary Clinton has the hawk position with Obama being dragged into the hawk sphere, trying to make amends for former President Bill Clinton's lament that he did not act more decisively to stop genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s.

The Arab League seemed to advocate then equivocate about wanting a no fly zone established in Libya.  So why don't the Arab states just do it?  Why do they need western states, especially the Unites States, to do it for them?  They hate the west, especially the Unites States.

And why are so many in favor of opposing this particular tin horn dictator when there are so many from which to choose?  If this were Mr. fill in the blank tin horn dictator, I doubt that much, if anything, would be said much less done.  But because this tin horn dictator happens to be who he is, entire nations are behaving differently.

And why are U.S. war ships necessary to launch attacks?  Why not launch them from Italy or France or Greece or, better yet, neighboring Egypt?

The United States Air Force is the world's largest.  Second largest: the United States Navy.  What the heck are we doing spending so much money on our military when Europe is spending less each year.  One way to reduce our military spending is to eliminate the Army.  That would not just save enormous amounts of money but preclude us from engaging in mindless WWII type military activities like those conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan for so many years, including the incomprehensively stupid house to house search.  It's not 1944.

NO boots on the ground.  Anywhere.  Certainly not in stupid Libya, which is probably devolving into tribal war.

More fundamentally, Obama should have gotten Congressional approval, as Bush the younger did before attacking Iraq, and not acted unilaterally,  Congressman Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Representative for Ohio's 10th congressional district, has been making the point on TV talk shows that Obama is/may be committing impeachable offenses.  Unfortunately, all Kucinich is doing is talk.  He has taken no formal action.  If we removed a few of these presidents when they do this stuff they'd stop doing this stuff.

Leave Libya to the Libyans, whatever they are.

Catastrophe in Japan: It's the Tsunami, Stupid.

The scenes of horrendous death and destruction continue to dominate our mass news coverage, especially on television.  Nuclear radiation could almost be mistaken as the cause.  It is not.  People in Japan died because of the earthquake and tsunami (tidal wave) that smashed northeastern Japan ten days ago.  The radiation from the damaged nuclear plants has killed no one so far.

We hear about our brush with possible nuclear catastrophe at Three Mile Island, PA in 1979 mentioned as comparable to the disaster at Chernobyl in the defunct Soviet Union.  The Chernobyl plant did not even have a containment chamber, the massively thick concrete structure designed to prevent nuclear radiation from escaping into the air in the event of a meltdown of the nuclear reactor within it.

The Japanese stored significant amounts of spent nuclear fuel rods on the roofs of its containment chambers.  On the ROOFS!  This is incomprehensibly stupid.  And the Japanese did it, not the Russians.

Lest you think that I endorse nuclear energy in the United States I advocate closing our nuclear plants immediately.  There is no way to safely dispose of the spent nuclear fuel rods.  No one has found a way to do it, not we Americans, not the French, not the Japanese, obviously.

Every expert I've heard interviewed in recent days states that the U.S. must continue to use nuclear energy, just be really careful.  There's no such thing as careful in disposing of the spent nuclear fuel rods.  Ask the Japanese.

The explanation is that the U.S. gets 20% of its electricity from "clean" nuclear energy.  How about we CONSERVE 20% and close the damn nuclear energy plants?  Doesn't that make more sense?

Oh, how ever could we do that?  Suppose that those nuclear energy plants stopped functioning.  Do you think we could figure it out?  Of course.  So let's just do it.  And while we're at it stop using oil.  Same idea.  Just stop.  That would kick renewable energy into high gear.

Most American workers are not needed and should stay home.

Prior to this blog I had some truisms.  These three seem to be converging:


1. Around 1990 I stated that there would be an ever increasing gap not only between the haves and the have nots but also between the knows and the know nots.


2. We're all on welfare, especially people with jobs.  For instance, retired people get paid to not work.  They don't want to consider that welfare but it is.


3. 90% of work in America is not necessary.


How can this be?  Technology.  We no longer need all adults to work for the country to be prosperous.  In fact, we're probably better off with them not working.  The percentage of adults needed for work will continue to decrease.


Recent articles have impacted these concepts.  Computer systems, including artificial intelligence for things like e-discovery in the practice of law, degrade the job possibilities for the knows, i.e., those who are educated.  There are computer systems that can generate newer computer systems.  Obviously, this undermines the mindless conventional wisdom most recently espoused by former Florida governor Jeb Bush at a joint appearance in Florida with President Obama.  Even if throwing money at the education disaster worked and properly educated most students, there may not be enough jobs to support all the educated in our model of middle class life, which is assumed to be necessary to support our capitalist economic system.


Most entire industries in the U.S. are not necessary: advertising, insurance, junk food, real estate sales, insurance, much of law, sales, banking, etc.  Necessary are:


- food production
- health care
- public safety: military, police, fire protection
- communication
- distribution
- infrastructure
- high level engineering, especially computer science
- physical labor, especially the big three that cannot be outsourced: electrician, plumber, carpenter.


Much of the rest is done in other countries anyway: clothing, manufacturing (especially electronic), toys. etc.


That's about it.  How many people do you who know are working in those necessary categories and, if they are, how many are doing jobs that require a human being?  What percentage of the U.S. work force is necessary?  I'm guessing ten percent.


So instead of fighting the obvious, why not deal with it.  Send people home and share the remaining work.  Or have everybody do something local like cleaning up public areas.  Stop trying to decrease unemployment.  That's a losing strategy.


Our Puritan American work ethic is still very valuable.  However, it is misplaced for most American workers who would rather work for a paycheck than accept welfare.  The problem is that most of their jobs are welfare because the jobs themselves are not needed.  What else would you call that?  They are performing the old 1930s depression era economic concept of being paid to dig a hole and then fill it up.


Just let most of them stay the heck home and take care of their kids.  That would be a greater contribution to the nation than jerking around at work, consuming energy both at the work place and in transportation to/from it.


At least 30 years ago it was thought that office workers could tele-commute, i.e. work from home.  That never happened, I think, because boring old corporate management did not trust its workers to work at home.  Better to have them goofing off at the office and tending to personal stuff on company time.


Even education, once kids are taught to read and write, may be done better by computers and those stay at home parents.  Today's teachers are clearly getting increasingly worse results.  Those clowns in Wisconsin should wake up and realize that most of them are not needed.


With the web people can educate themselves, even without using formal educational online programs.  Most colleges have online classes.  Many, maybe most, will not educate themselves.  Those are the same ones who are not learning now, except that they are consuming resources better allocated elsewhere.


Grammar schools have devolved into incredibly inefficient baby sitters for working mothers, still earning less than their male counterparts, who would be more valuable staying home and educating their kids themselves.  With my system, most dads could stay home, too, and do likewise.


Pay people to:
- educate their own kids
- perform local public service stuff
- spend.


That should have the economy humming along nicely.

One man, one vote. One millionaire, one million votes.

That's what you might conclude from some of the hysterical comments from "experts" with whom I might normally agree.  However, the mess in Wisconsin in which public school teachers are conducting a fit has most commentators becoming irrational.


If Wisconsin eliminates or reduces the bargaining rights of public service workers it will not be the end of democracy.  It's a bit analogous to term limits.  My position is that we have had term limits all along.  They're called elections.  However, to protect us from ourselves many people believe that we need to limit the ability of an individual to run for the same office too many consecutive times, lest his/her constituents actually vote for that person again and again.


State legislators and governors are the ones to blame for public service workers having such lucrative deals.  The state legislators and governors cave in pretty much every time they are threatened with a loss of services by public school teachers, fire fighters and police officers.


In 2010 the traditionally liberal state of Wisconsin voted for conservative Republican state legislators and governor who are now trying to do what Wisconsin voters should have expected.  What to do?  How about voting them out next time and insisting that their replacements replace the union rights taken away in 2011?  The solution is not a panic attack.


The power of the ballot is not going away, so everyone should just calm the heck down.


A commentator whom I usually respect is Paul Krugman of the New York Times.   Krugman is also a teacher.  Consider this from Krugman's column today:


what (Republicans) are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy...


On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.



Krugman is correct that wealthy people have disproportionate power in the United States.  That's because they are active.  Contrary to Krugman's assertion that we need to codify the power of working people what is needed to counter one millionaire using one million dollars to influence public policy is for one million people to contribute one dollar to work against that position.


So why doesn't that happen?  It's because the American people are dumb and lazy.  Like the basic problem in the housing scandal, people do not have the right to be stupid.

Last grownup standing: why Obama will be re-elected.

As big a disappointment as Obama has been and as much as of a disaster as Obama has been, he is likely to be re-elected in 2012 because every other possible candidate and almost all major national political figures have abdicated that most basic position: grownup.

In the less than two months that John Boehner has been Speaker of the House of Representatives he may have already become even more objectionable than his predecessor Nancy Pelosi as impossible as that may seem at first glance.

Obama actually sounds like he is in control of his emotions and thinking rationally.  Obama seems intelligent and knowledgeable.  Obama seems respectful of both his supporters and opponents.  Obama seems to consider the impact of both what he does and what he says.  Plus, Obama is already president, making everything he does and says seem grownup.

The other basic thing that will help Obama get re-elected is that you cannot beat somebody with nobody.  Right now his opponents have a bunch of nobodies who seem intent on remaining nobodies, pandering to the most basic biases of the American people to the detriment of the country.  While the American people have continually and consistently demonstrated their willingness to act against their own best interests, it does not enhance presidential aspirations to join in that counterproductive exercise.  You may get elected that way but you cannot improve conditions once in office because you will be expected to act as a non-grownup, something that will surely fail and ultimately earn the wrath of the American people.

While you'll never consistently lose elections by underestimating the foolhardiness of the American people, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.  The chickens will come home to roost. The American people will waste votes in inverse proportion to the seriousness of the office, with president being the post least likely to get votes for candidates who have less than 40% chance of winning, i.e., getting less than 40% of the popular vote.

If the 2012 presidential election is between a grownup and one of the non-grownups, the grownup wins.

Wisconsin teachers suck.

Wisconsin teachers have been beseeching the state capitol trying to pressure the governor and majority of legislators to negotiate into backing down from changing state policy regarding public service unions.

The merits of the issue are not what is important, although you'd never know that from the news coverage, which emphasises video of unacceptable behavior by the teachers and couching that behavior in terms that are intended to make it acceptable.

1. Almost all Wisconsin teachers have attended these activities by taking paid sick days, i.e., lying about their health and defrauding the entity that pays them.

2. Wisconsin teachers are often screaming nonsense and otherwise behaving out of control.

3. Many Wisconsin teachers are carrying signs depicting the governor as Adolf Hitler and describing him as a Nazi.  Other signs are incoherent.

Remember, these are TEACHERS, not clerks in the department of motor vehicles, or cops, or firefighters.  TEACHERS!  People who have graduated college, specializing in teaching and leading young people, guiding them in dealing with life.

If this is what President Obama would describe as a teachable moment, then what is being taught by these professional Wisconsin teachers to the students of Wisconsin?  Nothing positive that I can see.

Wisconsin parents should condemn the teachers and demand that they go back to work and behave themselves.  The students of Wisconsin will have plenty of embarrassing and humiliating video of their teachers to throw back at them the next time a Wisconsin teacher tries to exercise classroom discipline or moral suasion.

Obama, super wimp!

Super Bowl Sunday on the FOX network established two things:

- Bill O'Reilly is the most boorish American
- Barack Obama is a super wimp.

It was demonstrated on MS-NBC last night that in his White House interview of the president O'Reilly interrupted Obama at least once on every question, about 50 times.  I have never seen an American president treated so rudely.

In recent years the conduct and treatment of the president has continuously declined, starting at least as far back as George Bush the elder in 1992 when he was unsuccessfully running for re-election against Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.  Bush was interviewed on the NBC Today show starting around 7:15AM.  He submitted not only to commercial interruption but to a 15-20 minute break for the local news.

As a kid I can recall seeing an hour long interview of President Eisenhower at 10PM.  There were no commercials.  Eisenhower was treated with great respect and the setting was very formal.

Obama followed his humiliation at the hands of O'Reilly with a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce intended to convince the U.S. business community that Obama doesn't really regard them as the Republicans they are: bums who are only concerned about themselves and their rich friends.  I heard this morning on CNN that 48% of their business is outside the U.S.  Maybe the name of their lobby group should be changed to reflect that: 52% U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Repeal Obamacare!

2-2.  That's the score in federal court after a judge just supported the 26 of our 50 states bringing the case by declaring the entire health care law unconstitutional.  Two courts have upheld the law and two have ruled against it.


Cool.


That means the U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly have to hear the case, hopefully soon enough that the ruling will cause the issue to be a major issue in the 2012 presidential and congressional election.


The main provision providing the basis for appeal is the mandate that people buy health insurance starting in 2014 if they do not otherwise have it.  If the law is struck down in 2012 then there will plenty of time for a new president and congress (all of the House and one third of the Senate) to be elected and pass universal health care (Medicare for all U.S. citizens) in 2013.  Not much lost in time but much gained by ridding of us of that mess of a law that Obama to his shame agreed to support in his most offensive weasel compromise.

Is Arizona evil?

Two days ago that might have seemed like an absurd question to most Americans despite the criticisms that Arizona has received, from its revoking the Martin Luther King Day holiday over a decade ago despite the threat of Arizona being denied the Super Bowl game to the Arizona immigration law in 2010, which several other states are trying to emulate and which inspired an Arizona member of the House of Representatives to call for a business boycott of his own state.  I had thought that Arizona was unfairly being picked on, maybe because it seemed so inept at defending itself.  


Until two days ago when she was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in a Tuscon shopping center I had never heard of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona's 8th congressional district, never seen her on C-Span, never heard her speak on one of the many political talk shows.  Apparently the assassin picked on one of the quiet ones.


Arizona and Arizonans are no more or less evil than the rest of us Americans.  I live in a border state: New York.  One of the differences between these two border states is the countries that they border.  Canada to the north is like the United States without the violence: advanced and prosperous.  Mexico to the south is a third world country, which all but encourages its most disadvantaged citizens to cross the border into the United States to improve their quality of life even a little bit.


I have written in this blog about "immigration":


Immigration: the solution


Immigration: suppose you change country to company?


Maybe some Arizonans would be surprised to read how much they agree with some of my positions.


The crazy person who shot the Congresswoman and about twenty innocent bystanders could have done that anywhere in the United States.  It seemed that most people worth quoting on the day of the shooting responded responsibly, although the usual partisan reactions have already started.


Regarding the harsh treatment that Arizona received because of the shooting a dear friend wrote to me: "if my mother were mentally unbalanced, she might have done the shooting herself.  She lives in Arizona, she owns several guns and she hates Democrats, Liberals, the Sierra Club, Obama, and Mexicans".  Her mother is a kind and gentle person and I cannot imagine that she would behave violently no matter how angry.


This Arizona phenomenon seems more a reflection of what we have become as Americans.  We overvalue the constitution and its authors, implying qualities of sacred scripture and prophets.  With that perspective almost anything can be justified.  There is enormous pressure and frustration because our views do not seem to be respected much less embraced.  Our rhetoric is not merely intense, it's mean and intended to be so.


Mean words are better than mean actions.  Sticks and stones can break our bones but words can never hurt us.  But we've resorted to sticks and stones too often, not nearly as often as in other parts of the world but far too often for the most affluent and most free place on the planet.  That combination of affluence and freedom is what makes the United States the best place to live.  That's why people, primarily from Mexico, driven by their own callous government violate U.S. laws to enter and remain here.


We will never resolve the "immigration" problem.  We are at once too greedy for cheap labor and too compassionate toward the weak against the powerful to ever adopt a policy that would come close to satisfying American citizens on either side of the issue.  We need to live with it as we do with a relative we can't stand but can't turn away.


We also need to get a grip on ourselves and our love of guns.  Several congressman have reacted to the shooting of their colleague by announcing that they will carry the hand guns for which they have permits.  Growing up in New York and watching cowboy TV shows and movies I loved guns even though I never had a real one.  I wish I could find my toy hand guns, some of which were very realistic.  As a kid I would practice the quick draw and twirling out of and into my holster.  I can understand the special bond with their guns and gun culture of those who grew up in rural America and learned to shoot when they were young.  They are not evil.


What is evil is our not resolving the inherent conflict between our gun heritage and our modern society, which allowed a nut to arm himself and commit an unspeakable act.  We need to speak about that as calmly as we can.  That's the least we can do.  It won't prevent an assassination attempt but might restrict it to a knife attack on the intended target and save all those innocent bystanders.


Will things improve?  No.  I say that not because I am pessimistic or cynical but because I am realistic.  We've become cowards, unable and unwilling to: "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" - JFK inaugural address, January 20, 1961.  Since his assassination the sword has remained in the stone and it seems increasingly unlikely that anyone will have the stature and integrity to remove it.

Obamacare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Obama's plans for health care reform in general, is often nicknamed "Obamacare".[138] The term was usually used pejoratively, but some supporters of the act suggested after being passed that it be embraced and used positively, a la the term Reaganomics to refer to President Ronald Reagan's economic policies of the 1980s

http://speaker.gov/Bio/

John Boehner (bay-ner) serves as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Elected to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Ohio for an 11th term in November 2010, John is a proven leader in the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiric_misspelling#.E2.80.9CK.E2.80.9D_replacing_.E2.80.9CC.E2.80.9D

In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists, particularly the Yippies, sometimes used "Amerika" rather than "America" in referring to the United States.[1] It is still used as a political statement today.[2] It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of America, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports.

__________________________________________

Former back bench flame thrower and later smart aleck speaker Newt Gingrich (1995-1999) popularized the use of democrat instead of Democratic as in the democrat congressman. It was obviously intended as an insult and display of disdain, similar to the misspelling of Amerika. The Democratic polititians either were too dense to realize this or, more likely, too wimpy to do anything about it. Personally, I would have retaliated with the grammatically less sound pejorative republic congressman but that's just me.

Following suit, the much less smart Boehner is the leading user of the term Obamacare, I think unwisely. Next week, his second as speaker, Boehner will lead a pointless exercise in the House to repeal Obamacare. The Senate will not vote for it and the President would veto it even if both houses of congress passed it.

So why do it? Boehner wants to undermine the President and force the "democrat" members of the House to take a stand on it, something which they inexplicably refused to do before they were all elected in November 2010.

Boehner and the other republic members of the House are making a huge mistake. Most Americans are just beginning to feel the impact of the Obamacare legislation and it will be either a non-issue or an improvement. What else could it be? For those of us on planet earth in the good old USA how could anything be much worse than the private health insurance bureaucracy, which has been in effect in recent years?
___________________________

http://matinale.blogspot.com/2010/03/personal-experience-with-health-care.html

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A personal experience with health care insurance.
___________________________

Republic politicians bamboozled American voters once again into voting against their best interests. Democratic politicians were too wimpy and ineffectual to counter this. Shame on them both.

In next week's debate Democratic members of the House may feel unburdened by election pressures and actually attack the increasingly silly positions of their republic colleagues.

Republic politicians are foolishly forcing people to closely associate the President with the improvements in health insurance and care that are likely to occur before he faces re-election in November 2012 and before any real negative impact occurs.

Perhaps even more stupid is the term itself: Obamacare. Parse it. Obama care. Obama cares. When an American voter feels good about medical care in the next two years with whom will that individual personally associate that? Obama, who cares. About them.

The American people are to blame, not the politicians.

Enough already with blaming everyone except the one group that no one has the guts to blame: American people, those U.S. citizens eligible to vote.

I exercised my personal frustration two days ago with the lousy options I had for candidates here in New York by voting for myself. Didn't help. Didn't hurt. Made me feel better, if not actually good. The new embarrassingly inept paper voting system New York state adopted as a result of the 2000 presidential travesty makes it much easier to write in the name of someone not on the ballot. It's amazing that no one has seized on that to promote one's self, Alaska not withstanding as a sitting U.S. Senator ran as a write in candidate and will probably win after a month of manual counting.

When will we U.S. citizens realize that we cannot continue to play pinball by repeatedly shifting from one major party to the other and expecting improved policy? It's like a kid opening and closing the refrigerator door looking for something that he/she has already determined is not there.

These politicians are not from Mars. They are from among us. If we think that we can do better, then do better. One problem is that we don't know what we want. When something is proposed we form an opinion or not. It's like a parent trying to feed a one year old.

American people, grow the heck up!

Democracy is not a spectator sport. Get involved or stop complaining. And get informed.

I don't know whether it's illegal to bribe voters to vote for a candidate but it might be less expensive. I've long wondered if it's illegal to bribe members of the theoretical electoral college, you know, the people who actually elect a president every four years and then dissolve back into the anonymity they so richly deserve (from the play "1776").

Only 270 electors are needed to elect a president. A rich person could offer $1,000,000 to the first 270 electors and become president for a known fixed amount.

States probably have laws against it but I'd consider taking $100 to vote for a candidate for the House. Maybe $150 for the U.S. Senate.

Candidates raise huge sums of money to get elected and become obliged to their big money contributors. This is generally considered to be a bad system and implicitly corrupt. But where is that money spent?

Most of the campaign money is spent on ads, mostly television commercials. Those annoying nasty little 30 second spots, which play us for fools or worse.

And we have the nerve to blame the politicians? We're too dumb and lazy to behave like responsible citizens and we blame the politicians?

Shame on us. Shame on the American people. The American people are to blame for whatever ails the United States of America.

Personal property and religious freedom.

The current hot button issue concerns a Christian minister in Florida and at least some of his congregation who have announced that they intend to mark September 11 this year by burning copies of the Islamic holy book, the Koran.

I oppose this on environmental grounds. Burning is bad.

However, as long as they legally obtain copies of the Koran those books belong to them and they may destroy the books if they wish for whatever reason they choose. Those books are their personal property. It seems silly to me but not completely irrational since the United States was attacked by 19 Muslim men on Sept. 11, 2001 for reasons associated with their Muslimness. This lead to NATO military action in Afghanistan, which continues today.

If we may burn the American flag, why not books, even those considered holy scripture by their faithful? Destroying your own personal property is OK. So is developing it.

This issue closely follows, and may be a reaction to, the fuss over an Islamic Imam who wants to develop personal property that he owns two blocks from ground zero, the site of the on Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He's intent on building an Islamic center. It seemed harmless enough until it became a media issue and then it became insensitive, you know, because those 19 Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and intentionally crashed two of them into each of the two World Trade center buildings, destroying both buildings and killing over 2,000 innocent people including some Muslims. Oh, a third airline was intentionally crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth crashed in a field.

Once it became a media issue it seemed insensitive for the Imam to insist on continuing with the project but, hey, that is his right, to develop his personal property.

New York Mayor Bloomberg weighed in heavily on the side of development, perhaps because of his business background. He also, made a big point of religious freedom.

Both issues have unleashed a tirade of religious freedom rants, which seem completely based on fantasy, not fact. How many Muslims were killed in the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks? How many were attacked? How many mosques were burned? I think few, if any, is the answer to all those questions. President Bush the younger went to a mosque days after the attack to demonstrate religious tolerance. How many Muslim moderates condemned those attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001? Not many. How many Muslim moderates are suddenly crying religious bias now? Many.

So if Americans collectively have shown nothing but religious tolerance toward Muslims since Sept. 11, 2001 why are they painted by some as intolerant for these two recent innocuous issues: one a bit whacky but harmless, the other quite understandable?

The U.S. general in Afghanistan has stated that the whacky Florida minister by merely announcing that he intends to burn his own copies of the Koran has put U.S. troops in harms way. Doesn't that lend credence to the idea that some Muslims are nuts enough to kill people because of something as trivial as a book burning?

An emergency ecumenical meeting of Christian, Jewish and Muslim "leaders" was just convened to condemn the Florida minister. That seems out of all proportion with the minister's intent and importance. Even the president's press secretary has commented. One of these ecumenical leaders even called upon the U.S. Attorney-General to prosecute the Florida minister. For what? Exercising his constitutional rights of freedom of speech and religion?

Doesn't religious freedom include disliking a religion?

Isn't destroying personal property that has religious symbolism classified as freedom of speech, like burning the American flag?

Everybody calm the heck down. Do not become violent. Be tolerant, even with those with whom we disagree.

Andrew Cuomo's five-point plan to build a New NY.

Andrew Cuomo is the Attorney General of New York state and son of the former governor Mario Cuomo. Andrew was also a cabinet officer under President Bill Clinton. Andrew is running for governor.

Here is a link for his personal election website:

http://www.andrewcuomo.com/issues_and_agenda

It contains his five point plan, which include:

3. Rightsizing Government
Government in New York is too big, ineffective, and expensive.

Now contrast that with this link to his official Attorney General website "Meet my Senior Staff":

http://www.ag.ny.gov/senior_staff.html

Here are the titles of his "Senior Staff":

Director of Communications

Special Deputy Attorney General for Public Integrity

Special Deputy Attorney General for Guns and Gangs

Counselor and Chief of Staff

Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights

Chief Investigator

Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice

Counsel to the Attorney General

Deputy Attorney General for Administration

Special Deputy Chief of Staff

Special Counsel to the Attorney General

Deputy Counselor and Special Assistant

Executive Deputy Attorney General for the Division of State Counsel

Press Secretary

Special Deputy Attorney General for Investor Protection

Deputy Attorney General for Regional Affairs

Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

Executive Deputy Chief of Staff

Solicitor General

Executive Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice

Deputy Attorney General for the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit

21. I may have lost count but I think it's 21. You can't make up stuff like this. And remember, this is just Andrew Cuomo's "Senior Staff".

On August 9, 2010 I had filled out a form at the website of the Attorney General of New York state, figuring I might get some attention because the office holder is running for higher office. Instead I received a PAPER letter dated August 11, 2010 from someone whose title is "Associate Director of Correspondence". Since the PAPER letter writer is only the "Associate" and since the actual "Director" is not a member of the 21 person "Senior Staff" I guess my message did not have the impact I had intended. That and the fact that the author did not provide an e-mail ID and had his phone number in miniature font size. Plus this: "We are unclear, however, as to the nature of your concerns". PAPER man could have called me. I provided my phone number. PAPER man could have sent me an e-mail message. I provided my e-mail ID. I used digital means to communicate. Why did I receive a PAPER response?

Maybe he was too busy ... attending a staff meeting. Maybe he was trying to schedule a meeting with one of those 21 "Senior Staff" people. More likely he was trying to contact one of the associates of those 21. Or an associate of one of the groups that are not important enough to be among the 21 "Senior Staff", a group such as his own: Correspondence.

Can you imagine a group named Correspondence, that is important enough to have a "Director" who is important enough to have an "Associate Director" who cannot understand a constituent's message and responds as described?

And Andrew Cuomo (Remember him?) has this as one of his five elect-me-governor points:

3. Rightsizing Government
Government in New York is too big, ineffective, and expensive.

You can't make up stuff like this.

________________________________________

The link to this message was sent to:

http://www.andrewcuomo.com/contact

Maybe we need a Dumb Democrat.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

We elected the smart guy.

http://matinale.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-elected-smart-guy.html

_________________________________

I'm starting to have a new perspective. Maybe we need a Dumb Democrat. The smart Democrats who have been elected in recent decades have not done so well: Carter, Clinton, Obama. They seem to know what to do but can't get it done. Carter was inept, Clinton and Obama too expedient. Clinton and Obama can talk themselves into and out of anything.

I'm starting to consider alternatives to Obama who shows no signs of doing anything radical enough to matter. A Dumb Democrat might be just the right balance. Someone who's dumb enough to actually try to do what is needed.

Obama can lose re-election to the first Spanish speaking president.

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush: born February 11, 1953.

Sunday Chris Mathews and his panelists stumbled around the idea that the former governor of Florida could defeat President Obama in 2012 in part because Jeb speaks fluent Spanish as a second language. They failed to describe him as the first Spanish speaking president, somewhat akin to Bill Clinton being described as our first black president.

Jeb is the son of President Bush the elder.

Jeb is the younger brother of President Bush the younger.

Jeb is smart and well spoken in English, something that his presidential relatives were not. Unlike his presidential brother Jeb seems to have actually gone to class while in college. Jeb also lacks his brother's boorish qualities.

Jeb has these advantages:

- he no longer holds public office
- he would not be immediately succeeding his brother
- his children have a Mexican mother and were described indelicately as "the little brown ones" by President Bush the elder, their grandfather.

If Jeb could garner 90 percent of the "Spanish" vote that would overwhelm Obama's 90 percent of the black vote and could decide the election.

Were Jeb to be elected president he would clarify the Bush dynasty as the greatest in U.S. history. So far Bushes have been elected to three presidential terms, one while losing the popular election. Bush the elder lost re-election.

Adamses were elected to two presidential terms, John Quincy while losing the popular vote. Both lost re-election.

Harrisons were elected to two presidential terms. The elder, William Henry, died soon after taking office. His grandson Benjamen lost the popular vote in both his elections, winning in the electoral college in the first.

Roosevelts were elected to five presidential terms but Theodore was a distant relative of Franklin who racked up four of those victories all by himself. Each had been governor of New York.

John Kennedy was elected to one presidential term. Two of his brothers were elected to the U.S. Senate and two of his nephews were elected to the House of Representatives and a niece was elected Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. I think that the Bushes already have that trumped with two presidents and a governor.

Immigration: suppose you change country to company?

http://matinale.blogspot.com/2008/02/immigration-solution-by-kenneth.html

Immigration: the solution

That's something I wrote May 16, 2006. Too bad nobody did it.

Now there is political turmoil about the Arizona law, which was enacted in April and "which, barring an injunction, takes effect July 29 — makes it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant there. It also requires police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop for other offenses if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants." NY Times, July 11, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/us/politics/12governors.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

Sounds good to me. Some people are falling all over themselves in protest, way out of proportion to any conceivable negative impact. What's the worst that can happen? Some of the people in the United States who should be deported are deported.

The fallacy of the concern is that no entity in the United States would tolerate the policy that the entire United States is supposed to tolerate. Try substituting company for country. Then see how far that policy gets you. Any entity has a right to know who is in its jurisdiction and to set policy about that.

IBM, you know the big computer company, has its headquarters a few miles from where I live. What would happen if I showed up there? I might not even get into the parking lot as a non-employee. I definitely cannot get into the building without having an employee vouch for me by
signing me in and signing me out when I leave.

Let's take it a step further. Suppose that I want to work at IBM. What would happen if I broke in? Would I be allowed to stay and would I be put on track to become an employee, employment being the functional equivalent of citizenship? Does anyone think that would happen? Forget about being sent to the employment office and put on the end of the line. The only line I would be on is the one in jail.

To the knuckleheads who think that foreigners should be allowed to break into the United States with impunity: what would you do if you came home and found a family of strangers in your home? Would you call the police and have them removed? Or would you allow them to stay ... and send for their relatives to join them?

How many people who live in houses do not have a fence between their property and the property of their immediate neighbors?

And what about showing identification? We do it all the time. As mentioned previously, virtually every company requires employees to not only have ID but to wear it when at their place of employment. When a police officer stops us for a traffic matter we are asked to show our driver's license, car registration and proof of car insurance. I have no objection to showing proof of citizenship at any time.

So why do some of us pretend to have a totally different attitude about the most basic form of membership: U.S. citizenship? Every country has a right to decide who is allowed to visit, stay, become a citizen.

And why should we pretend that most of the people who violate our borders are not from Mexico and other countries further south? Why pretend that basic common sense is "racial profiling", whatever that is? People who came to the United States from south of the border are generally the overwhelming majority of those who are offended? Why? Are they really concerned? If they were truly concerned about being deported then why would they participate in public protest rallies? Apparently they are not so concerned that the police will round them up. What is the negative implication about rounding up law breakers? How about rounding up deadbeat dads? Who opposes that?

One supposed benefit is diversity. The current dynamic is just the opposite. We are allowing people from Mexico, etc. who are generally poor, not well educated and almost encouraged to leave their countries by the ruling elite of those countries. How many of these Spanish speaking intruders would favor lawless entry into the United States if there were true diversity, i.e., that people from many different countries from around the world were breaking into the United States, people who speak many languages other than Spanish, from cultures very different from theirs, with different religions?

Tolerance is an elusive thing and very subjective when truly confronted.

Conservation.

Teddy Roosevelt advocated conservation over 100 years ago. Isn't it about time that another American president do it? While the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues unabated, no one has suggested that we conserve and use less oil so that drilling would be less necessary. Not President Obama, not the governor of Louisiana, not the governor of Mississippi, not a mayor of one of those pathetic little places which rely on the fishing industry. NO ONE! Instead of politicians who have nothing in common with NASCAR nation aficionados sucking up to them for their votes, how about SOMEBODY in a responsible position pointing out how absurd it is for the United States to embrace a culture of reckless speeding, needless oil consumption, pollution and weakening our national security through continued dependence on terrorist nations for essential energy sources?

Barack Bush and/or George W. Obama

During the 2008 presidential campaign I wrote that with Democrats like Obama who needs Republicans? Maybe we should search for Obama's birth certificate so that we can compare it to that of Bush the younger to make sure that they are not the same person. Maybe do a DNA analysis to determine whether Obama is an illegitimate son of Bush the elder. There must be some explanation for why Obama's policies are those that I would have expected from Bush the younger had he not been precluded from serving a third term by a constitutional term limit. Consider:


Economy:
- bailout of the auto industry
- bailout of the financial industry
- financial leaders allowed to receive HUGE amounts of money for their incompetence and possible criminality
- high unemployment
Obama's Treasury Secretary may not have been as much of a Goldman Sachs creature as Bush's Paulson or Clinton's Rubin but Geithner could not have protected Goldman Sachs more without being investigated. OK, Obama's justice department is looking into criminal charges against the financial crooks. Bush the younger would never have considered that.


Foreign policy:
- large numbers of troops kept in Iraq with no substantial improvement
- large numbers of troops kept in Afghanistan with no substantial improvement.


Environment:
- "drill, baby, drill" re-affirmed even after the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
- "mine, baby, mine" re-affirmed even after the recent coal mine disaster that killed 29 workers.


You may think that the one major divergence was on health care. Obama's convoluted legislation ensures that the insurance industry will receive government mandated revenue. Bush the younger would embrace that. This is not change that we can believe in. It is not even change.

Is nature (God) giving us a hint on dealing with mother earth?

Two recent events:

1. Coal mine cave in in West Virginia, killing many workers.

2. Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico heading toward Louisiana, causing a state of emergency.

Where are the "drill, baby, drill" and "mine, baby, mine" morons now. Maybe nature and/or God is giving us a final wake up call.

These should be our energy imperatives:

1. Fill in the oil wells and coal mines.

2. Stop burning stuff, all stuff: coal, oil, natural gas, wood. Burning is bad. Repeat: burning is bad.

Then establishing an energy policy should be easy.

A personal experience with health care insurance.

Because my former employer, AT&T, hiked the monthly charge for my insurance carrier, US Health Care, from $141 to $291, I switched to another AT&T provided option for 2010: HIP New York. Monthly cost: zero. There were some minor differences: $50 for a specialist visit as opposed to $40; $50 deductible for prescription medicine, which would be $30 per 90 days instead of $20. Nothing that would justify paying almost $300 per month. Once again, my increase was OVER 100%. Obama was dramatizing the recent 39% increase in California. Hey, 100% is more than twice 39%! With US Health Care I could go to a specialist directly without getting a referral from the primary care physician (PCP). HIP New York requires that I get a referral from my PCP. So far I have not tested this. All my specialists took HIP New York but my PCP did not, so I would need a new PCP. HIP New York seemed to be a good choice. My old single practitioner PCP is a good doctor but his office administration was terrible. Usually, I could not get anyone on the phone, I could not leave a message and his office hours were limited. Having prescriptions sent to Medco (designated by AT&T) for mail order was a continuing source of concern and frustration. I chose Westchester Medical Group, which had many doctors in multiple locations AND a web site in which I could review doctor credentials and make appointments, request referrals, submit billing questions, review test results. http://www.westmedgroup.com/ Impressive, heh? Wow, this seemed like a major improvement if my new PCP was comparable to my previous PCP. My new PCP is good but he is old and apparently he does not use his group's web site. There were issues about simple gastro medicine. He seemed unaware of Medco's mail order system and told me that he just writes prescriptions that patients take to the local pharmacy. How quaint. I insisted that I wanted mail order because it is less expensive and more convenient. He was not sure that his people knew how to submit a prescription to Medco but his nurse assured him that she did. When the Westchester Medical Group, Medco and HIP New York web sites did not mesh on the status and details of my prescription I sent a message through the Westchester Medical Group web site expressing concern, thinking that it would be handled by an admin person. I received multiple phone calls from my new PCP about this. My PCP became agitated, stating that he was just trying to practice medicine and that neither he nor his people would spend hours on the phone trying to resolve this .. and that I should call and not send e-mail. Let's just say that there were more problems and that they need to be resolved, including his switching me to a new non-generic gastro medicine that HIP New York does not classify as continuing, which limits the supply to 30, not 90, days. This medicine appears to be the usual drug company trick of creating a slightly newer medicine when its predecessor is about to go generic. The new med, of course, costs a lot more than the old. My PCP fell for it. February 5, 2010 my new PCP performed an endoscopy on me. A couple of weeks later, I received a bill for $1,050 from the anesthesiology group. They claimed that they did not have any insurance info on me. Say what? Didn't Westchester Medical Group and/or my PCP pass along that info through the hospital? I had to show my HIP New York card at the hospital. Again, how quaint. Suppose that I had lost the plastic proof of insurance? Next I received a bill from a pathological organization, which I assume is the business for the hospital pathologist. After calling that group and HIP New York I learned that HIP New York had paid only $116 of the $330 submission and I was asked to pay the remaining $214. HIP New York informed me that the doctor in the hospital pathology department was not "in network". I asked what pathologist for that hospital would be "in network". HIP New York did not know. HIP New York will re-submit the claim of the pathologist but stated that it would probably be rejected again. What the heck? I had no control over who did the pathology work. I never even heard of this pathologist until I received the bill. At least I had met, though not chosen, the anesthesiologist just before my procedure. Suppose the anesthesiologist had not been "in network"? Could I have been socked with that $1,050 bill? I understand why some members of Congress are against a single payer system for health care: some of it is philosophical but most of it is greed. What I cannot understand are all those regular people who are foaming at the mouth in opposition. Don't they have experiences that are comparable to mine? I am relatively healthy. What the heck are sick people going through? Separate health care from insurance. Have the federal government pay the bills. And if the government will not pay the entire amount, present patients with clear indications of how much they will be expected to pay BEFORE medical work is done. ____________________________________________ Sent to Paul Krugman (New York Times), President Obama, Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Nita Lowey

American citizens need health care, not health insurance.

It's pretty simple and basic. Nobody cares whether or not they have insurance. They just want access to health care. Medicare for every American citizen. I advocated that back in August 2009 on this blog and in a message that I sent to my member of the House and my U.S. Senators and to President Obama. I sent it again today to those same recipients who have yet to "get the message". Drive the damn insurance companies out of business. We do NOT need health insurance! We do not have police insurance. We just call the police and they respond. And for the current Republican rant about the tenth amendment and how requiring people to buy health insurance violates the tenth amendment: hey, states require car insurance. That pretty much sums up our priorities: cars before people ... and that's in the weird world in which insurance is deemed necessary to be healthy. Prohibit employers from providing health coverage. Hey, maybe a side benefit would be to encourage them to stay in the USA and be more competitive. The government should pay the bill as it does for national defense, the interstate highway system, blah, blah, blah. Oh, that would be big government! Government run health care! YES! Get over it! USA is the most powerful country in the history of the galaxy. Stop acting like it's Mayberry. Grow the heck up! We have a government run ARMY! Want to change that to an insurance system supplied by employers? You lose your job and you lose your army insurance and you may be invaded by the Russians. Oh, well that's stupid. Yeah, so is employer based health insurance, which you lose when you need it most when your employer fires your ass! I'll take my chances with that government bearueacrat over the ones I deal with now in the private health insurance companies. And the government is not going to fire me.

Media: pound inequity of the United States Congress!

President Obama has been conducting a seminar on health care with members of Congress. All day. Right now Obama is 30 minutes from the end and a senator from Wyoming, another of the Congressional Republican doctors, is running his mouth, protecting his interests. Who is this guy, representing fewer than 250,000 people (half Wyoming's population) when a senator from California represents 17,000,000 people (half California's population)? Media people should in every instance stress the inequity of the United States Congress. For senators, don't just indicate party and state, tell us how many people that senator represents. When senators vote on a bill, don't just show the number who voted for and against. Count up the number of people represented by those votes so we can see the relative weight on each side of the issue. In the House of Representatives, show a silhouette of the member's district and the percent of voters in the major parties. Embarrass the crap out of those in protected districts until the states adopt fair districting according to municipal boundaries. Better yet, call for a Constitutional Convention so we can fix the many deficiencies left by the Fumbling Founding Fathers.

Should liberals embrace states rights?

States rights. The very phrase has so many negative connotations outside of the DSA (Dumb States of America) - see previous post. In the first half of the history of the United States of America, states rights was an excuse to justify and maintain slavery, the south's peculiar institution. In the second half of our history states rights has been an excuse to justify and maintain second class citizenship for blacks and for other backward policies. The U.S. constitution is so flawed in the process for electing a president and in the legislature by having a senate in which California with 68 times more people has the same representation as Wyoming, it's no wonder that our policies are perverted. These inequities cannot be changed without the consent of the beneficiaries of those same inequities. The Founding Fathers were no better than what we have today. What a mess they created. And we still had a civil war. And the civil war didn't even result in addressing secession, the act which triggered it. Three constitutional amendments as a result of the civil war and none dealt with secession. Without a constitutional convention to make fundamental changes there is no way that this system will improve. So, if you can't beat them, join them. Liberals should stop worrying about Mississippi mistreating its citizens. Short of lynchings, Mississippi is unlikely to do anything really terrible with the universal spotlight of the world wide web. If needed, the feds can step in, like in the old days, the 1960s. Besides, people can vote with their feet. That's the phrase that Reagan popularized. Aren't they already doing that, migrating towards the coasts? Isn't that why old people move to Florida, Arizona and Nevada? Oops, real estate values collapsed in those states. Isn't it why retired LA cops move to Idaho? Liberals, stop cringing and embrace states rights. Change the dynamic and make the nuts cringe. Dismantle federal programs and let each state set policy that is not by its nature federal, such as national defense. When the same people get flooded out of their homes every ten years or so because they refuse to move out of Mississippi River flood zones, their state government, not the federal government, will be responsible for rebuilding their homes. Good luck there. And when a city that is built below sea level gets flooded, Louisiana will decide whether New Orleans is such a good idea after all. You want universal health care? Move to New York or California. You want to carry a concealed weapon? Move to Montana or Idaho. You don't want all that government regulation like brakes on cars? Move to South Carolina. Oh, and make each state pay for its stretch of interstate highway. Let's see how NASCAR nation likes that. Why should someone in New York City who does not own a car pay for interstate highways? States rights. Cool.

Dumb States of America (DSA)

The old Confederate States of America (CSA) could join with some of the western states that are also dumb and form the Dumb States of America (DSA). It could be a more perfect union than the one to which they currently belong. At the Olympic games DSA citizens could cheer on their athletes with chants of DSA, DSA, DSA! It should be easy for them to convert from the old USA chant to the new one. Dumb. That's what we have become. Increasingly we allow dumb people to make decisions and set policy on matters that require smart people: climate change, health care, the economy, ... People who are afraid of science. I don't know science but I know enough to know when most scientists have reached a consensus such as on climate change or health hazards of smoking tobacco or human evolution. The rest of the developed world must be laughing at us. We can't even decide to have universal health care. How dumb is that? And we act as if it's a complicated decision. Dumb. You can't have that. Smart people are not always correct but dumb people are usually incorrect. We have over 308 million people in the USA. Why do we let the dumb people have so much influence. Maybe we should split up. Let states secede and form the DSA. Then they can produce as many guns as they want, leave their children uneducated and have a nice weak central government like the old CSA. It was that weak central government that ultimately doomed the CSA.

The United States Senate is a dumb idea.

The United States of America was founded on states rights. The best example of this is the absurd nature of the United States Senate in which each state has the same number of senators regardless of population. According to http://www.census.gov/ here is the U.S. population today: 308,742,516. This includes non-American citizens. The first census was done in 1790. The state totals are here: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790a-02.pdf I created a document for the 1790 census, which shows the data: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tx0ONS8ONKuPMlty8v0CSqg&output=html In 1790 Virginia had 13 times more people per U.S. senator as Delaware. Each Delaware resident had 13 times more influence as each Virginia resident. Here is the state by state population for the 2000 census and through July 2009: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-T1-R&-ds_name=PEP_2009_EST&-_lang=en&-format=US-40S&-_sse=on California has the most residents and Wyoming the fewest. Their ratio of residents per U.S. senator as of July 2009 is 68. 68! That's five times worse than the max/min ratio in 1790. Wyoming residents have 68 times more influence than California residents. This is ridiculously outrageous. Instead of laughing at each others sophomoric wisecracks, those tea party morons should be pushing to reform the system of government. Fundamental reform of the system is the only hope we have of getting better results.

Two Americas? At least.

Former Senator John Edwards used the phrase and theme "two Americas" when he ran for president. Unfortunately, there are at least that many and always have been. Our current political gridlock is derived from the mess of a start that the United States had. Ridiculous compromises and expedient deals were made simply to found this country and they persist in our system of government. The only way to purge them is to change the system, which constitutionally, is unlikely to change. In their desire to have all the relevant British colonies become part of the new nation, the founding fathers made deals that make today's look principled. Not only did they not abolish slavery, they permitted the importation of slaves for another 20 years. They permitted the offspring of slaves to be slaves even though in other parts of the world those children would have been free. They implemented a compromise in which three of five slaves would count as free people for the number of seats in the House of Representatives. They maintained the British aristocratic concept of the House of Lords by establishing the U.S. Senate. Wyoming and California each have two senators. And we wonder why our federal government has become so dysfunctional. I have written about constitutional changes before:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2008 Electing the President: a new system

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008 Electing the Vice President: a new system

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008 City States in America:

New York City ... could be a new state with its own perspective and issues... The U.S. constitution has many flaws. An obvious one is the disproportionate nature of the Senate. The founders did not intend for the Senate to be proportionate but they could never have imagined that it would become so hugely disproportionate because they could not have imagined that cities would become so populous... Once New York sets the precedent, all large U.S. cities should follow... Once cities started to secede the Congress would have no choice but to admit them as city states. _________________________________

What to do?

1. Let states and other municipalities secede. No, the American Civil War did not settle this issue. Show me the constitutional amendment, which addresses this. If Lincoln had truly been great there would have been no civil war. When slave states seceded, he should have let them go. He could have corrected some of the original mistakes while leaving the original sin of slavery where it belonged: with the slave states of the Confederacy. The peculiar institution would have ended in about twenty years and the Confederacy would have failed by then. Those states could have been considered for re-admission but on terms that would have made far more sense than what evolved out of the civil war.

2. Within the limited federal functionality that remains, let states do what they want. If they want to rely on the federal government a lot, let them. If they don't, don't force them. If people in Mississippi want to continue to act against their own best interests, let them. Let health insurance companies in Mississippi rule that industry. But if people in New York state want to rely on the federal government, that should be allowed, too. New Yorkers can have a government option on health insurance, some alternative to the private companies. New York has a lot of regulation on health insurance already. Let New York have as much as it wants. Let Mississippi continue to lose population to places like ... New York. In other words, don't fight the two Americas, the many Americas. Let them exist. With our current constitutional structure there is no choice. So unless you are willing to change the U.S. Constitution or, dare I say it, start over, multiple forms of government will exist. Give tea party people (Are they all grouchy old white people?) the option to live under a form of government that suits them. It seems that about one third of Americans are pretty nuts. You cannot reason with nutty people. Obama needs to learn this and stop wasting his time. You cannot reason with terrorists either. Obama, get over it. There is bipartisanship only with those who are not partisan. Another third of Americans are committed to their political thoughts but are not nuts. Then there are the remaining third of Americans who are dumb, either by birth or by choice. Jay Leno interviews them on the street. We generally are appalled at how much they do not know. They are morons. No offense to former Alaska governess Palin or to any of her neglected kids. Hey, to each his/her own.

One Dollar, One Vote.

The immediate reaction to the 5-4 Supreme Court decision has been an hysterical description stating that corporations may now contribute unlimited amounts of money to political activities. There was little or no mention of labor unions and political action committees being similarly unburdened. According to the instant analysis democracy as we know it may be ending or at least taking a turn for the worse.

 1. The ruling did not change limits on direct contributions to candidates by corporations.

2. You never know what will happen.

3. To combat a rich person spending a million dollars on politics, get a million non-rich people to each spend one dollar.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. That's the problem with the second demise of fundamental health care legislation in less than twenty years. Most people are not involved, especially mentally. Most are not thinking about it rationally. Special interest groups, fueled by big, soon to be bigger, money, fill the huge void left by the masses. Who is to blame: the fillers or the voiders?

"new approach to solving global warming"

A "new approach to solving global warming": that's the description of an interview shown yesterday on Fareed Zakaria's weekly CNN news program: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/ http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2009/12/20/gps.climate.change.cnn.html The basic idea is to actually reduce the stuff that is causing the earth's climate to change. No, not reduce the amount of stuff that we continue to add to the problem but to actually reduce the amount of bad stuff in the atmosphere that causes climate change. This is a radically different approach to all the nonsensical tinkering like "cap and trade", which allows entities to pollute. We could outlaw polluting. That would work but even that would not reduce the amount of bad stuff in the atmosphere. The real question, especially after the huge disappointment of the U.N. climate change meeting that just ended with a giant thud in Copenhagen, Denmark, is whether world leaders, particularly U.S. President Barak Obama, are truly interested in solving the problem or whether they are like Jerry Lewis. Yes, Jerry Lewis, the ancient comedian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lewis_MDA_Telethon The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (also known as The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon) is hosted by actor and comedian, Jerry Lewis to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). It has been held annually since 1966. Many years ago I heard Jerry asked why he didn't simply appeal to Congress to allocate the money needed for muscular dystrophy. He brushed it off as unacceptable. I realized that Jerry was more concerned with making himself feel good than with solving the problem. So, is Barak Obama like Jerry Lewis, more interested in making himself feel good than with solving the problem of global climate change? Or is Barak Obama willing to accept ridicule by considering a radically different approach, one with which his science advisers must now be familiar, even if they were not before they let the president travel to Copenhagen and submit himself to the indignity of chasing the head of the Chinese government to be included in the only meaningful dialog that mattered, that between the planet's two leading polluters: the U.S. and China. President Obama, be radical. You're already holding your nose when you read that embarrassment of a health care bill that your former colleagues in the U.S. Senate just passed. It has become what I expected all along: legislation but not reform. As mentioned previously, we simply need to extend Medicare to all American citizens. The solution to global climate change may be just as simple. Are you willing to embrace the simple direct approach to solving a problem? It's a simple question. _________________________________________________ Note: The link to this message and most of its content was sent to the president through the form at the White House web site. See the auto response below. A formal response was requested and will be published at this blog web site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/thank-you Thank You! Thank you for contacting the White House. President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history. That begins with taking comments and questions from you, the public, through our website. Our office receives tens of thousands of messages from Americans each day. We do our best to reply to as many as we can, but please be aware that you may find more information and answers to your questions online. We encourage you to visit WhiteHouse.gov regularly to follow news and updates, and to learn more about President Obama's agenda for change. For an easy-to-navigate source of information on Federal government services, please visit: www.USA.gov Thank you again for your message. The Office of Presidential Correspondence

Afghanistan: some common sense.

Six days ago President Obama formally announced his policy on the war on terror in Afghanistan. He did it to the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY. This address should have been made from the oval office in the White House. The president should not have used the cadets as political props. As I have written previously, Barack Obama is incapable of taking a firm stand. He cuts issues into halves and half again and again, until there is very little substance in the final position. Obama wants to win but not pay for the surge in troops by raising taxes, much as Obama does not want to pay for increased health care coverage with extra taxes. Obama wants to stay the course but have a deadline. Obama wants the 27 other member countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to also increase the number of troops that they have in Afghanistan. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm Obama intends to place 30,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan. NATO apparently may place 7,000 more troops in Afghanistan. It would seem that those 27 other NATO nations could easily match the U.S. commitment soldier for soldier. A principle tenet of NATO is that an attack on one member is regarded as an attack on all. That is what kept the old Soviet Union (Russia) from swallowing up Germany after World War II. On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked by Muslim terrorists sponsored by the group known as Al-Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan. NATO rightly took military action to destroy this terrorist base. Unfortunately, that military effort failed. Whether the U.S. overthrow of the dictator in Iraq undermined the action in Afghanistan is debatable. The fact is that after eight years no substantive goals in Afghanistan have been met. Further efforts are folly, especially the typical half measures that Obama is doomed to repeat on all his issues. My position, as stated previously, is that NATO should immediately withdraw from Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan eventually drove out the Russians in the 1980s by themselves. The U.S. supplied some weapons, primarily shoulder mounted stinger missiles. Neither the U.S., nor any other nation supplied any troops. If the people of Afghanistan could defeat the Russians, why can't they defeat some of their own: the Taliban ... a radical Sunni Islamist movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001, when they were removed from power by NATO forces during Operation Enduring Freedom? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban Dependence on the U.S. government should be removed with strong incentives and deadlines. Both major U.S. political parties agree on that. They just disagree on the issues where it should be applied. Republicans think it makes sense on social welfare programs. Democrats think it makes sense on war and occupation. Both are correct. We Americans never seem to learn. Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 based largely on his secret plan to get us out of Viet Nam. His ad agency phrase once in office was to VietNamize the war, i.e., turn over responsibility to the people of that country. It never happened. Sound familiar? Remaining in these backward countries never works. Never. Corrupt politicians in the occupied country have no incentive to let the U.S. leave. The U.S. is the source of their power and wealth. No matter how well intentioned American policy is, it never works in these situations, which by definition involve relationships of dependency.

Afghanistan: how about no boots on the ground?

President Obama is conducting yet another of his public decision making ordeals, this time agonizing over Afghanistan. As I have written previously, Obama instinctively tries to split every problem, even those that cannot be split. Instead of agreeing to the request of his hand picked U.S. general for Afghanistan for an additional 40,000 troops, Obama would like to send 40,000 half troops, maybe some waist up, some waist down.

We should eliminate the U.S. Army. That would deprive the commander-in-chief of the option to occupy someplace. We would still have the Air Force, Navy and Marines. That's plenty for what is practical. Oh, and of course, plenty of nuclear warheads on ICBMs and nuclear submarines.

When he was the general in charge of the Persian Gulf war in 1991 for President Bush the elder, Colin Powell popularized the phrase "boots on the ground" as in how many troops do we need. He also popularized the concept of overwhelming force. That's good for winning a war and President Bush the elder had both the common sense and restraint to win and leave Iraq. However, President Bush the younger wound up occupying Iraq and lacking the common sense to know when to leave. He engaged in nation building, even though he stated during the 2000 presidential campaign which gave Al Gore more popular votes that he, Bush the younger, abhorred nation building. Bush the younger did the same in Afghanistan with the same lack of success.

Now these are Obama's wars, despite the amazingly annoying practice of Bush haters to continue to call them Bush's wars. Obama must end them. Obama has shown no inclination to do anything very different so far. He won't do it but it's pretty simple: get the heck out. That's how you end them. Occupation is no longer an option for a civilized country. Too much publicity. Scandals and brutality are inevitable. Even the Russians would have difficulty and they don't care what anybody thinks. To occupy or impose a Pax Americana as President Kennedy phrased it during his inaugural address requires force and plenty of it. No matter how gently one tries to use such force it is always resented. Resentment is the best reaction to hope for. Insurgency is more likely.

Don't do it. Don't occupy. We currently occupy both Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither occupation will work well for the United States. We need to leave ASAP. No boots on the ground.