Sunday Musings June 25, 2017

I only have half my paper, the part that came on Saturday, for some reason.  There was no delivery today when I went down at 8:00 a.m.  But the Book Review comes on Saturday and I have read it unusually early.

A historical book about the science of understanding human gestation (how sex works to produce future generations of a species) was reviewed.  I had never really thought about it, but the actual science of baby creation was not understood until 1875 when a German scientist studied sea urchin creation under his new improved microscope.  This late development was not the result of people not trying to understand this science in earlier times.  They did try but there was not a sufficient base of knowledge for even Leonardo da Vinci to know what truth was.  Technology had to reach a certain point of development for the science to be revealed.

The reason I am writing about this is because 100 years after this was initially discovered, I graduated from college.  While I was not a biology major, I did take the science of human gestation for granted and 42 years late, I am surprised that it was not known earlier in time.

So for literally thousands of years, humans had no understanding of where we come from.  But the human mind, while curious, also wants certainty.  So it is not surprising that religion was believed in because it provided answers to uncertainty.  And Lord knows if there is one ever present condition in this world for humans, who are not filthy rich, it is the presence of uncertainty in their lives.  The possible sources of uncertainty are numerous for everyone ranging from lack of knowledge, to capitalism, to disease, to accidents, to aging, to political policies of all kinds.

Democrats need to remember that religion plays a role in helping people deal with this uncertainty of the human condition.  Religion is deserving of respect.   While religion is also the source of trying to hold back society in various ways including the uncovering of science, that is only because religion can be a political organization.  It is those politics that must be opposed when they are wrong, but religious belief is such a basic part of the human framework, that opposing belief in religion cannot be part of a political platform.  That will turn off too many voters and you will not win elections.  And then you end up with the policies of Donald Trump and the GOP.

This is something the Green Party of the United States needs to contemplate very carefully.  Their candidates have given us both George Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 as our Presidents.  That has not been good for the long term condition of the environment.  Nor has it been good for economic development.

I am going to see if the rest of paper has been delivered.

Well it was and Maureen Dowd, who I usually find tiring to read, really nailed the Democrats with thoughts like I have.  You have got to be for something with the 1st words out of your mouth or you won't get Trump voters to switch.  They are not responding to "Trump is Awful & you are awful if you vote for him".

Link to "Donald Skunks the Democrats"

And Ross Douthat outlines the good within TrumpCare and the reason the bad overwhelms the good.

Link to Douthat column

And a person within the Health Insurance Industry describes the reality of it.  This was a really good read.

Link to "Get Cancer Now Before it Makes You Uninsurable"

I've been quiet because what can you say, but this is worthwhile

even if it only states the obvious.

There is a difference between the Democrats and Republicans even if Jill Stein does not believe so.

The link below explains this.

Link to the Upshot

And as for everything else.

The Yankees and Mets and Cubs are all underperforming their potential during the last week (and longer for the National League teams).

The Knicks and Nets have been bad for so long, I can't spend the time to even contemplate whether their draft moves will help them.

Does anything the NHL teams do matter?  I want to pay some attention, but I can rarely generate the interest to do so.

Oh, Ron Johnson Republican from Wisconsin wants insurance companies to be able to not insure people with pre-existing conditions.  Now you would expect the reporter to explain how he wants them to be able to afford health insurance, but I guess they didn't ask the question.  This was an article on Politico.com

And, as I have said before, the Democrats need an economic message when they campaign.  Being the anti-Trump only works in Twitter and Blogs where you speak to the base.  Politicians need to listen to the voters and have ideas to present to them in order to give them hope.  And yes, I too am tired of Nancy Pelosi.  Her one goal as minority leader is to be the majority leader and she has taken the Democrats in the wrong direction.

Michael Gerson is a bit late to the thought, but now he agrees with me

Talk Radio is evil.  And we might as well throw in Talk Cable TV, which pretends to be news, but is really partisan political entertainment aimed at making people angry.

Link to Michael Gerson column

Cut Medicaid, you cut essential Health Care and Create Death Panels

66% of Medicaid spending covers the care of the elderly poor (mostly dementia patients) and disabled adults.  Only with the expansion of Medicaid in ObamaCare did that % go down.  Without the expansion, it would be even higher and those covered by expansion would be going uninsured.

How is reversing ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid not going to create the need for Death Panels?

And that is what the Queen of Death Panel hysteria wants as Sarah Palin supports the AHCA, aka TrumpCare.

And as an aside, King Donald held his 1st cabinet meeting and required the cabinet members to speak accolade of him.  That is what Kings do.  I have been in a lot of meetings in my career and unless the leader of meeting was praising one or more of the many in the meeting, there was nothing of the sort that happened in yesterday's cabinet meeting.

King Donald is not a manager, he is a wannabe Dictator.  He is no better that any leader of a country who used the country's resources as a personal piggy bank.

Something for Thoughtful Conservatives & Business people to Think About

One of the phenomenon's about the U.S. political scene that is certainly not true, but has a perception in elements of the Alt-Right is that only they are patriotic, liberals are not patriotic.  What feeds this is the tendency for our all-volunteer military to be staffed by white people from the middle class.  Now there are many people of other backgrounds in the military but this is probably one place where white people are still the majority so the perception begins with that.

Now I have never read Machiavelli but I have reason to believe that many neo-conservatives subscribe to Machiavelli's point of view, and so do I, which is why I have supported a strong military once I got over my Vietnam War brain fog.

Machiavellianism believes the many people are characterized and motivated by a "duplicitous interpersonal style, a cynical disregard for morality, a focus on self-interest and personal gain." (I copied that from Wikipedia).  The latter two items, self-interest and personal gain are the crux of why capitalism works so well as an organizer of society and much better than any other form of economic structure.  But most humans tend to recoil from those who act immorally and act with duplicity.  That after all is what religion tries to coach out of people, successfully for most, and why laws are in place to allow society the means to deal with those who violate social standards for self-limiting all of this behavior.

I went down this path because I read a column this morning on how the biggest leakers, viewed as treason by many who disagreed with what was leaked, are millennial's.  But also remember that our military has been largely staffed with millennial's for the last 12 years and is so today.

"Without intending to, employers and policymakers have engineered a cohort of workers that is bound to yield leakers. An important part of our training for the 21st-century labor market has been an emphasis on taking initiative, hustling, finding ways to be useful, not waiting around for someone in charge to tell us what to do. In a Pew survey of young workers, a majority said they wanted to be the boss someday or already were. And if we can’t boss anyone else, we can at least boss ourselves. The gig-economy service Fiverr, for instance, recruits “doers” who “eat a coffee for lunch.” We are each of us a start-up of one, encouraged to develop and chase our values even if we don’t make much money. That’s usually a good situation for companies, which get ambitious employees (if we’re privileged enough to have that title) at basement rates as long as they’re able to make a thin claim or two about charity or sustainability. However, depending on an army of righteous, initiative-taking mercenaries does have its downsides when it comes to national security."

And now we return to Machiavelli who cautioned against the use of mercenaries.   The all-volunteer military is close to the edge of this precipice in general.  But specifically, the GOP lead march to reduce taxation has starved the military to the point where they have to use contractors for many things.  There is no difference between a contractor and a mercenary as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"One of the reasons Machiavelli advised against using mercenaries is that it’s a no-win situation: Either they’re not competent, or if they are, they’ll substitute their own judgment and goals for their leader’s. Snowden was so efficient at his cybersecurity job that his bosses at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Hawaii office were content to give him the run of the place, and since the government trusted his bosses, the National Security Agency was, in a very real way, relying on him. It’s the kind of mistake that will keep happeningbecause it’s unavoidable. What kind of boss can resist a brilliant young worker who doesn’t need instruction? At a cybersecurity conference, Snowden’s former supervisor Steven Bay explained that the recruit blew away his interview, and with the paucity of technical talent in Hawaii, Booz Allen felt lucky to have him."

"Employee loyalty is a two-way street, and for millennials, traffic has slowed to a crawl. Companies are investing less in workers. “Among the reasons cited for this,” according to the Wharton business school: “the recession, during which companies laid off huge swaths of their employees with little regard for loyalty or length of service; a whittling away of benefits, training and promotions for those who remain; and a generation of young millennials (ages 15 to 30) who have a different set of expectations about their careers, including the need to ‘be their own brand.’ ” In a nomadic world, one of the casualties is a decreasing sense of commitment to the organization."

You can see where this is going and while I was going to copy some more of the column, I decided to stop here and just put a link in so you can read the original author of my quotations.

Link to Malcom Harris column

i would like Rand Paul to define what he wants Health Insurance to be

He is great at saying what he is against, but then again Kentucky has expanded Medicaid and he says he wants to end ObamaCare and he is against High Risk Pools.  Does he want his voters to die?  Just what does he want those with pre-existing conditions to do if they are not rich?  Why doesn't some reporter ask him those questions?

"The Kentucky Republican, however, has been on a warpath in the GOP Conference lunches over the past week and Republicans do not believe he will vote with them.

In an interview this week, he charged that the House bill is bad enough because it keeps “90 percent” of Obamacare, said he opposes the creation of high-risk pools favored by many Republicans, and urged Republicans to abandon attempts to save the individual marketplace with an infusion of cash."

From Politico.

There can be no compromise with Unreasonableness

After answering some survey questions I was given the opportunity to make a comment.  This is what I said.

Your questions were a bit too black and white.  For example, while I believe Democrats and Republicans should compromise and produce solutions for problems, when the Republicans want to end environmental controls, do nothing about CO2 emissions, do not believe in the Social Safety net,  see no reason to provide for intelligent gun controls, do not produce a balanced budget when we are at full employment preferring to cut taxes for the high income people who do not need any financial help and do not respect all people regardless of whatever traits they have, I cannot vote for any Republican nor will I punish a Democrat for not compromising with them.  You cannot compromise with unreasonableness.

Trump Overload and The Rule of Law

There really is no link between the two, they are just the two topics I feel compelled to write about today.

I saw a short article somewhere this morning about how Trump so dominates the news cycle that one can not escape paying some attention to it and that is both exhausting and frustrating to those who think he is dangerous.  I am trying to pay less attention, but since I am a news junkie, I can only take that so far.

Then there is David Leonhardt's column this morning.  He highlights 5 ways in which King Donald is  trying to downgrade the Rule of Law which is what Monarch's do.  It is a worthwhile read and would be very scary if it were not for the Judicial system which is doing its job.  What is noteworthy is that most of the GOP is tolerating it and many are embracing it in state houses across RedState America. That is very sad and a call to protest in every way possible.

Link to column

Paris Accord and America

I am going to look for a silver lining here so as to perhaps calm any panic that this Trumpian Act of knowing what is best for America by withdrawing the USA from the Paris Accord may have caused my readers.

1st, remember this is only possible because President Obama couldn't get the 67 votes in the Senate to ratify the Paris Accord as a Treaty and the U.S. is still bound by an earlier Treaty.  So, if there is a different President in 4 years, they can presumably reinstitute the Paris Accord in the same manner.

2nd, remember that certain large states can have an outsized influence on how the U.S. actually performs in managing certain issues that will effect how we reduce greenhouse gases.  California, New York and like minded states can issue regulations that force cars throughout the U.S. to use fuel more efficiently.  They also consume a lot of electricity.  So anything they do to encourage renewable energy can assist the U.S. in reducing green house gases.

3rd, coal is not coming back in any large way.  No electricity company is building coal plants.  They are building gas plants because natural gas has a big cost advantage over coal and consumer demand for renewable energy is encouraging expansion of such facilities.  I am for example, by contract, only consuming wind generated electricity.  I don't know how, with a grid composed of nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, wind and solar, they can know that I get only wind, but I suspect since electricity is a commingled energy, that I am paying for wind and then that cost gets subtracted out of the costs everybody else pays.  In effect, I am guaranteeing the wind company my revenue.

4th, the West Coast and the NorthEast (absent Maine & NH), as well as the Democratic minority in every other state, are in open revolt.  We support doing anything within the circle of legality to oppose everything in the Trump Agenda and we will encourage our states to do the right thing where they can get something done in the State government.

But meanwhile, there is absolutely nothing Donald Trump does that makes me anything other than depressed and angry at his supporters.  But we need some of those supporters to switch sides, so we have to respect their opinions no matter how difficult that is and try to convince them with hard examples that Trump is not managing the country to benefit them.