Yes to Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats. They are going to force Republicans to vote on a Democratic proposal rejecting the Republican's own attempt to privatize Social Security. Instead of being the usual punching bags, the Dems will make the members of the PTR go on record with their individual positions on Social Security and Medicare. The roll call, when it happens, should be publicized on the Net and on as many news outlets as possible.
The next move, in the Senate, is to let the PTR try to filibuster. In other words, not accept their assertion that they are ready to do so, but make them actually do it. Make a video of what will be a pathetic time waster, and put it on YouTube and any other mass media outlet they can get it on. The Dems should have been doing this all along, but given that they thought they had a 60 vote cushion, it's understandable that they didn't. Now is the time to make it clear that the world -- or at least the U.S. -- is watching.
And while we're on the subject of publicity, now is the time for the Democrats to publicize the fact that Sarah Palin thinks it's OK for people to call mentally handicapped people "retards" -- providing the folks doing it are Rush Limbaugh. You know him: he's the druggie who preaches about self-control and responsibility, and the one who thinks it's OK to publicly call young children ugly, as long as they were Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of prominent Democrats. Why don't the Dems call out these vicious hypocritical people? Now's the time to frame the debate to the Dems' advantage -- not after it's already been done to them.
Also, don't forget to tell your friends always to refer to the former GOP as the PTR, and make a point of saying that it stands for the Party of The Rich.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
What part of beneath contempt ...
The Times reports that, at the so-called Tea Party convention:
Palin called the deficit in President Obama's 2011 budget "immoral" and added that because it increases the national debt, it amounted to "generational theft."
This is so disgustingly disingenuous as to be, like all PTR verbiage, beneath contempt. Most of the deficit is a direct result of Bush economic policies. The tax cuts for the rich already had led to a trillion dollar deficit early on in his second term. Most of the rest resulted from his de-regulation policies which created the financial crisis that Obama inherited.
I never heard one peep of complaint from the PTR about the burden on future generations of the Bush deficits.
But why go on? What part of beneath contempt don't we understand?
Palin called the deficit in President Obama's 2011 budget "immoral" and added that because it increases the national debt, it amounted to "generational theft."
This is so disgustingly disingenuous as to be, like all PTR verbiage, beneath contempt. Most of the deficit is a direct result of Bush economic policies. The tax cuts for the rich already had led to a trillion dollar deficit early on in his second term. Most of the rest resulted from his de-regulation policies which created the financial crisis that Obama inherited.
I never heard one peep of complaint from the PTR about the burden on future generations of the Bush deficits.
But why go on? What part of beneath contempt don't we understand?
Tempest in a teapot department
This is from Associated Press, concerning the popular John Edwards:
"Andrew Young said yesterday that he has the original copy of the tape showing Edwards in a sexual encounter in a safe deposit box in Atlanta."
(Is this an example of safe or unsafe deposit-box sex?)
"Andrew Young said yesterday that he has the original copy of the tape showing Edwards in a sexual encounter in a safe deposit box in Atlanta."
(Is this an example of safe or unsafe deposit-box sex?)
Friday, February 5, 2010
"moderate"?
I sent the following letter to a Globe Staff member. I suggest that everyone write similar letters when appropriate.
Thank you for doing such a good job writing for the Globe. It is nice to read local writers in a local newspaper instead of the usual wire services (and the Times staff).
I have just one complaint, and that is how you use the word "moderate" in its various forms. For example, in today's Globe you write (about Senator Joe Lieberman) that "he has proved to be a powerful moderating force in the Senate." In fact, this amounts to editorializing. Because most people like to be thought of as "moderate" -- as opposed to "radical", say, calling someone a moderate in our political climate is a gesture of approbation. Now many people don't think of Senator Lieberman as a moderate. You suggest -- no, in fact assert -- that his action of "keeping a public insurance option out of the Senate health care bill" is evidence of his moderation.
Are you certain that the "public insurance option" is immoderate then? I suggest that the opposite is true. Every poll I've ever read says that most Americans in fact favor some form of the public option. Certain a majority of Democrats -- who, as a result of actual elections control the Presidency and who have a very large majority in both houses of Congress -- support the public option. It would be part of the Senate bill if majority rule were the rule in the Senate, instead of filibuster by the minority. Opposition to the public option is probably confined to senators and members of the House who represent about 30% of the American public. (Remember that the Senate is not "one person one vote" but is dominated by low population states.) So how is Lieberman a "moderate" by joining this small minority in opposing it? Sounds more like the opposite.
Please be careful how you use this word.
Thank you for doing such a good job writing for the Globe. It is nice to read local writers in a local newspaper instead of the usual wire services (and the Times staff).
I have just one complaint, and that is how you use the word "moderate" in its various forms. For example, in today's Globe you write (about Senator Joe Lieberman) that "he has proved to be a powerful moderating force in the Senate." In fact, this amounts to editorializing. Because most people like to be thought of as "moderate" -- as opposed to "radical", say, calling someone a moderate in our political climate is a gesture of approbation. Now many people don't think of Senator Lieberman as a moderate. You suggest -- no, in fact assert -- that his action of "keeping a public insurance option out of the Senate health care bill" is evidence of his moderation.
Are you certain that the "public insurance option" is immoderate then? I suggest that the opposite is true. Every poll I've ever read says that most Americans in fact favor some form of the public option. Certain a majority of Democrats -- who, as a result of actual elections control the Presidency and who have a very large majority in both houses of Congress -- support the public option. It would be part of the Senate bill if majority rule were the rule in the Senate, instead of filibuster by the minority. Opposition to the public option is probably confined to senators and members of the House who represent about 30% of the American public. (Remember that the Senate is not "one person one vote" but is dominated by low population states.) So how is Lieberman a "moderate" by joining this small minority in opposing it? Sounds more like the opposite.
Please be careful how you use this word.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Chaos at Toyota
The situation with Toyota is, of course, compounded by the arrogance of a large multinational corporation, but I believe a large part of it, especially with the Prius brakes, is a result of the inevitablity of chaos -- unpredictability in complex systems -- a basic theme in the book and movie Jurassic Park. As a mathematician I have seen the proofs of how large systems, obeying complex rules (non-linear differential equations), are very sensitive to "initial conditions", i.e. the "given" or "set-up" rules.
In simple terms, if you have a complex system you simply cannot be 100% certain it will behave as you predict, because you can't ever measure or set up things accurately enough so that 100% predictability is even theoretically possible. Only time and much tinkering can ameliorate the situation, and even then there are inherent, unavoidable possibilities for the unforeseen.
When Toyota decided to completely redesign its braking system and build it around regenerative braking -- the transfer of the energy of the moving vehicle into battery power -- it created a new and complicated system with all the inherent possibilities for chaos. Only time and lots of fixes and recalls will help tame this problem, and there will be others. The history of any innovation shows this phenomenon over and over. (A classic is the airplane-mounted machine gun, which in the early days would often shoot out the plane's prop. There was also the bridge that self-destructed when a simple weather system created resonant and destructive vibrations that had been unforesee by its engineers.)
I discussed chaos previously in a blog about economic theory.
In simple terms, if you have a complex system you simply cannot be 100% certain it will behave as you predict, because you can't ever measure or set up things accurately enough so that 100% predictability is even theoretically possible. Only time and much tinkering can ameliorate the situation, and even then there are inherent, unavoidable possibilities for the unforeseen.
When Toyota decided to completely redesign its braking system and build it around regenerative braking -- the transfer of the energy of the moving vehicle into battery power -- it created a new and complicated system with all the inherent possibilities for chaos. Only time and lots of fixes and recalls will help tame this problem, and there will be others. The history of any innovation shows this phenomenon over and over. (A classic is the airplane-mounted machine gun, which in the early days would often shoot out the plane's prop. There was also the bridge that self-destructed when a simple weather system created resonant and destructive vibrations that had been unforesee by its engineers.)
I discussed chaos previously in a blog about economic theory.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Don't Ask...the PTR
It is amusing to see the PTR scrambling to find its position on "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen put it well when he said that in the military, where honor and honesty are central, you can't ask people "to lie about who they are." The PTR, always wrapping themselves in what they think is the flag, has long proclaimed that allowing gay people in the military is bad -- in fact, gays in general are bad to their way of thinking. Now, each day, more and more generals and admirals are saying not so. Colin Powell has just joined Adm. Mullen and other top soldiers.
What will the Party of The Rich do? I guess they could try to show Mullen and Powell are socialists, or at least dupes of something ... maybe the gay "agenda"?
The PTR is eventually doomed, as its essential demographic shrinks to a handful of white plutocrats and homophobes. But they still command a lot of votes: fear-mongering, the Big Lie, and ignorance are still potent forces. Can the country survive long enough to outlive them?
What will the Party of The Rich do? I guess they could try to show Mullen and Powell are socialists, or at least dupes of something ... maybe the gay "agenda"?
The PTR is eventually doomed, as its essential demographic shrinks to a handful of white plutocrats and homophobes. But they still command a lot of votes: fear-mongering, the Big Lie, and ignorance are still potent forces. Can the country survive long enough to outlive them?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
More conservative mischief
So now "conservatives" are trying to put mandatory healthcare prohibitions on state ballots. As usual for the conservative agenda, this is an anti-people move couched in the language of "independence", "states rights" and "freedom."
Except for the very rich, everyone would like to buy affordable health insurance. The only people who aren't rich but have misgivings are those those who can't afford it. In order to make healthcare affordable -- in order to may any kind of insurance affordable -- it is necessary to "spread the risk." This leads to a two-fold conceptual problem.
1. By its nature, insurance is mathematical, and people tend to be impatient or totally resistant to mathematics and its careful logic. They would like to have insurance, but only if they are going to need it. Of course, if the only people who bought insurance were the ones who will need it, then it wouldn't be insurance, it would be: "pay for the service you need." There is no free lunch here. If only people who are going to crash their cars bought insurance, then the premiums would be equal to the cost of repairing the damaged cars; in other words, it would be very expensive to buy the insurance. Thus, to keep rates down, insurance companies want to sell insurance to as many people who won't get into accidents as possible. They would also like to charge higher rates to as many drivers as possible, using any excuse to do so. They would also like to avoid paying settlements as much as possible. The insurance companies hire mathematicians who are experts in maximizing profits and minimizing losses over many thousands of policies. These are statisticians or actuaries, and they know this business far better than any average person could. A handful of people might beat the odds and pay a low premium yet get into a very expensive accident, but on average most people will pay much more in premiums than they will ever collect. That and investing premium money is how insurance companies make most of their profits. If you don't believe how well they do, look at the value of their stock offerings.
Because insurance spreads the risk, it is, in a very real sense, a kind of socialism. This leads to a wonderful contradiction, since socialism is the biggest dirty word in the American English. (Unless it's socialism for the rich, in which case it's called "trickle down" economics or "Reaganomics".)
2. Hardly anyone outside the insurance industry thinks that people should have their claims rejected for a "pre-existing" condition; even the Party of The Rich is against this kind of nastiness. Yet, if we are to stop insurance companies from doing this, we can't allow people to purchase health insurance only when they are sick, since if we did, only sick people would buy it, violating the need to spread the risk (see 1 above). No insurance provider, public or private, could possibly survive such a situation.
It follows that, except for the rich, no one could logically support purely voluntary purchase of health insurance at the same time they support preventing rejection of previous condition claims.
Thus, what the conservatives are doing is trying to prevent the vast majority of people from having meaningful and reasonably-priced health insurance. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of unalterable logic -- as in items 1 and 2 above. It is essential that this message be gotten out as soon and as often as possible, since the conservative Big Lie machine is already cranking out the nonsense about "independence", "states rights", "freedom" and other claptrap.
UNLESS THERE IS NEARLY UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE, THERE CAN BE NO REAL LOWERING OF PREMIUMS OR PREVENTION OF "PREVIOUS CONDITION" REJECTIONS.
This is an unalterable, logical, mathematical fact, equivalent to the non-existence of the proverbial free lunch.
It is time to stop all this "bipartisan" nonsense -- that somehow the PTR and the "conservatives" have some truth and justice on their side. They don't. Their position is to transfer as much wealth to the already wealthy and powerful as possible. They have waged undeclared class warfare for decades now, and it is time to call them on it. This latest move to prevent mandatory health insurance on the state level shows once again that they want to destroy health insurance.
Except for the very rich, everyone would like to buy affordable health insurance. The only people who aren't rich but have misgivings are those those who can't afford it. In order to make healthcare affordable -- in order to may any kind of insurance affordable -- it is necessary to "spread the risk." This leads to a two-fold conceptual problem.
1. By its nature, insurance is mathematical, and people tend to be impatient or totally resistant to mathematics and its careful logic. They would like to have insurance, but only if they are going to need it. Of course, if the only people who bought insurance were the ones who will need it, then it wouldn't be insurance, it would be: "pay for the service you need." There is no free lunch here. If only people who are going to crash their cars bought insurance, then the premiums would be equal to the cost of repairing the damaged cars; in other words, it would be very expensive to buy the insurance. Thus, to keep rates down, insurance companies want to sell insurance to as many people who won't get into accidents as possible. They would also like to charge higher rates to as many drivers as possible, using any excuse to do so. They would also like to avoid paying settlements as much as possible. The insurance companies hire mathematicians who are experts in maximizing profits and minimizing losses over many thousands of policies. These are statisticians or actuaries, and they know this business far better than any average person could. A handful of people might beat the odds and pay a low premium yet get into a very expensive accident, but on average most people will pay much more in premiums than they will ever collect. That and investing premium money is how insurance companies make most of their profits. If you don't believe how well they do, look at the value of their stock offerings.
Because insurance spreads the risk, it is, in a very real sense, a kind of socialism. This leads to a wonderful contradiction, since socialism is the biggest dirty word in the American English. (Unless it's socialism for the rich, in which case it's called "trickle down" economics or "Reaganomics".)
2. Hardly anyone outside the insurance industry thinks that people should have their claims rejected for a "pre-existing" condition; even the Party of The Rich is against this kind of nastiness. Yet, if we are to stop insurance companies from doing this, we can't allow people to purchase health insurance only when they are sick, since if we did, only sick people would buy it, violating the need to spread the risk (see 1 above). No insurance provider, public or private, could possibly survive such a situation.
It follows that, except for the rich, no one could logically support purely voluntary purchase of health insurance at the same time they support preventing rejection of previous condition claims.
Thus, what the conservatives are doing is trying to prevent the vast majority of people from having meaningful and reasonably-priced health insurance. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of unalterable logic -- as in items 1 and 2 above. It is essential that this message be gotten out as soon and as often as possible, since the conservative Big Lie machine is already cranking out the nonsense about "independence", "states rights", "freedom" and other claptrap.
UNLESS THERE IS NEARLY UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE, THERE CAN BE NO REAL LOWERING OF PREMIUMS OR PREVENTION OF "PREVIOUS CONDITION" REJECTIONS.
This is an unalterable, logical, mathematical fact, equivalent to the non-existence of the proverbial free lunch.
It is time to stop all this "bipartisan" nonsense -- that somehow the PTR and the "conservatives" have some truth and justice on their side. They don't. Their position is to transfer as much wealth to the already wealthy and powerful as possible. They have waged undeclared class warfare for decades now, and it is time to call them on it. This latest move to prevent mandatory health insurance on the state level shows once again that they want to destroy health insurance.
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