Saturday, October 26, 2013
A Software Developer's Take on Healthcare.gov
As a software developer I have some experience with projects like healthcare.gov. I worked for companies that provided computerized testing. They had worldwide registration systems and transmitted exam databases and software to a network of autonomous testing centers across the world, where high-stakes exams were delivered under the supervision of proctors and the results transmitted back to our central hub.
The tragedy of software development is that the launch of the health care website is all too typical. That's not an excuse: it's a simple statement of fact.
When Target came out with its site in 2011 it had a ton of problems. Best Buy also had serious issues with its site. When United Airlines and Continental Airlines merged their reservation systems they had terrible problems (United was still having problems as recently as September, when it was charging customers $0 for tickets). Pretty much every online game has launch-day blues, ranging from minor issues to major meltdowns that can take weeks or months to fix. Who can forget the problems that Microsoft has had with every major revision of Windows, including Vista (which had a redo with Windows 7) and Windows 8 (which just came out with Windows 8.1).
And of course, there are the problems that George Bush's signature program, Medicare Part D, had when it came out. Instead of jeering on the sidelines, Democrats helped the Bush administration resolve those issues.
The reasons for these problems are usually the same: late starts, uncertain scope and scale, shifting requirements and inadequate testing. The healthcare.gov site suffered from all of these problems, many of them foisted on the project by its detractors.
Late Starts, Cast-in-Concrete Deadlines
Most software projects don't get started on time, but the deadline rarely changes. This was especially true of the ACA, which had been delayed by legal action for years. The people who claim the developers had four years to write the software are flat-out wrong. Lawyers were still duking it out in the Supreme Court in June of last year, which meant that the software developers didn't even know whether the project would really happen until 16 months before launch date. At that time the justices threw out a major portion of the law -- the Medicaid expansion -- which affected the design and implementation.
Shifting Requirements
Then there are imprecise requirements. The health care exchange was clouded by uncertainty over the exact scope of the website: the law gives the states the right to create their own exchanges, and many did so. If all the states had created their own sites, that would have dictated a much smaller design for healthcare.gov, relegating it to a simple entry portal to the state exchanges and back-end data processor and validator.
But the developers of healthcare.gov had to wait for all the states to decide what they were going to do -- and many of them didn't make a decision until December of 2012, after the Republican Governor's Association asked the Obama administration multiple times to delay the deadline. That gave healthcare.gov only 10 months after finally learning the true scope of the project. At that point they learned that they had to set up exchanges for 38 states. And only 10 months to do it. Imagine how difficult it would be to design a skyscraper without knowing how many floors it was going to have.
It's rather hypocritical that the Republicans who forced delays in the development of healthcare.gov -- through lawsuits and dillydallying on deciding whether they would create their own exchanges -- are now complaining about its rocky start.
Full-Bore Launch vs. Incremental Development
Websites that people compare healthcare.gov to -- Amazon.com, for example -- have been developed incrementally, and have been up and running for more than a decade. When Amazon began they had few customers and little visibility. They had low volume on launch day and were able to fix their problems in obscurity. They had no deadline other than their own internally imposed one. They could push the launch back without any repercussions. They could grow slowly and incrementally.
The healthcare.gov website was a huge deal that everyone was watching. Its start date was dictated by law. Millions of people and thousands of companies are depending on it. The site got hammered by millions of hits on day one, and it collapsed -- just like thousands of smaller-scale private software projects before it.
Inherently Messy Project
The job this site is trying to accomplish is much messier than ordering a coffee maker. It's not trivial to find out whether people qualify for tax credits, and you can't find out the real cost of a policy without that information. You have to make sure that the person really is who they say they are, and you have to be concerned with privacy and security. Making something simple to use and making it confidential and secure are competing -- almost contradictory -- requirements.
I'm not making excuses for the problems. I'm just saying that we've seen them before, in thousands of private and government software launches. But we've got time -- two more months before any insurance policies issued under the ACA actually go live, and three more months after that for people to sign up.
People should give Jeff Zients his month to get the problems fixed. If we're still having these problems on Dec. 1, then we can go into full histrionics mode. Until then, healthcare.gov isn't all that different from many other software launches that limp along in their early days. Except that the project is beset by millions of people hoping desperately for it to fail and actively trying to sabotage it.
The real reason that this health care rollout is so messy is that it's basically the Heritage Institute and Mitt Romney's plan to keep the insurance industry profitable. Obama didn't originally want an individual mandate; he preferred a public option that would have looked a lot like Medicare, which would have eliminated many of the problems with healthcare.gov.
Thus, the left criticizes Obama for selling out to insurance execs, and the right criticizes him for a socialist takeover of health care.
I guess that's the definition of compromise: nobody is happy.
The tragedy of software development is that the launch of the health care website is all too typical. That's not an excuse: it's a simple statement of fact.
When Target came out with its site in 2011 it had a ton of problems. Best Buy also had serious issues with its site. When United Airlines and Continental Airlines merged their reservation systems they had terrible problems (United was still having problems as recently as September, when it was charging customers $0 for tickets). Pretty much every online game has launch-day blues, ranging from minor issues to major meltdowns that can take weeks or months to fix. Who can forget the problems that Microsoft has had with every major revision of Windows, including Vista (which had a redo with Windows 7) and Windows 8 (which just came out with Windows 8.1).
And of course, there are the problems that George Bush's signature program, Medicare Part D, had when it came out. Instead of jeering on the sidelines, Democrats helped the Bush administration resolve those issues.
The reasons for these problems are usually the same: late starts, uncertain scope and scale, shifting requirements and inadequate testing. The healthcare.gov site suffered from all of these problems, many of them foisted on the project by its detractors.
Late Starts, Cast-in-Concrete Deadlines
Most software projects don't get started on time, but the deadline rarely changes. This was especially true of the ACA, which had been delayed by legal action for years. The people who claim the developers had four years to write the software are flat-out wrong. Lawyers were still duking it out in the Supreme Court in June of last year, which meant that the software developers didn't even know whether the project would really happen until 16 months before launch date. At that time the justices threw out a major portion of the law -- the Medicaid expansion -- which affected the design and implementation.
Shifting Requirements
Then there are imprecise requirements. The health care exchange was clouded by uncertainty over the exact scope of the website: the law gives the states the right to create their own exchanges, and many did so. If all the states had created their own sites, that would have dictated a much smaller design for healthcare.gov, relegating it to a simple entry portal to the state exchanges and back-end data processor and validator.
But the developers of healthcare.gov had to wait for all the states to decide what they were going to do -- and many of them didn't make a decision until December of 2012, after the Republican Governor's Association asked the Obama administration multiple times to delay the deadline. That gave healthcare.gov only 10 months after finally learning the true scope of the project. At that point they learned that they had to set up exchanges for 38 states. And only 10 months to do it. Imagine how difficult it would be to design a skyscraper without knowing how many floors it was going to have.
It's rather hypocritical that the Republicans who forced delays in the development of healthcare.gov -- through lawsuits and dillydallying on deciding whether they would create their own exchanges -- are now complaining about its rocky start.
Full-Bore Launch vs. Incremental Development
Websites that people compare healthcare.gov to -- Amazon.com, for example -- have been developed incrementally, and have been up and running for more than a decade. When Amazon began they had few customers and little visibility. They had low volume on launch day and were able to fix their problems in obscurity. They had no deadline other than their own internally imposed one. They could push the launch back without any repercussions. They could grow slowly and incrementally.
The healthcare.gov website was a huge deal that everyone was watching. Its start date was dictated by law. Millions of people and thousands of companies are depending on it. The site got hammered by millions of hits on day one, and it collapsed -- just like thousands of smaller-scale private software projects before it.
Inherently Messy Project
The job this site is trying to accomplish is much messier than ordering a coffee maker. It's not trivial to find out whether people qualify for tax credits, and you can't find out the real cost of a policy without that information. You have to make sure that the person really is who they say they are, and you have to be concerned with privacy and security. Making something simple to use and making it confidential and secure are competing -- almost contradictory -- requirements.
I'm not making excuses for the problems. I'm just saying that we've seen them before, in thousands of private and government software launches. But we've got time -- two more months before any insurance policies issued under the ACA actually go live, and three more months after that for people to sign up.
People should give Jeff Zients his month to get the problems fixed. If we're still having these problems on Dec. 1, then we can go into full histrionics mode. Until then, healthcare.gov isn't all that different from many other software launches that limp along in their early days. Except that the project is beset by millions of people hoping desperately for it to fail and actively trying to sabotage it.
The real reason that this health care rollout is so messy is that it's basically the Heritage Institute and Mitt Romney's plan to keep the insurance industry profitable. Obama didn't originally want an individual mandate; he preferred a public option that would have looked a lot like Medicare, which would have eliminated many of the problems with healthcare.gov.
Thus, the left criticizes Obama for selling out to insurance execs, and the right criticizes him for a socialist takeover of health care.
I guess that's the definition of compromise: nobody is happy.
The Gun Free Zone Lie
The evidence continues to mount that the emotionally fueled and asinine idea that gun free zones are the proverbial honey to killer bees is completely ridiculous. A disgruntled National Guard recruiter shot two military personnel at an armory outside a Navy facility near Memphis on Thursday. Yes, that's right...an ARMORY.
Let's see...that's Kirkwood City Hall, Fort Hood, the Navy Yard in DC, the gun range in Texas where Chris Kyle was killed and now this. Those are just the ones off of the top of my head. A little research shows that there have been many more.
Of course Media Matters did a piece after the Navy Yard shooting that pretty much torpedoed the gun free zone lament. This study and this study point out that there is not a single case from 1982 to 2012 that contains evidence that the shooters chose their targets because they were "gun free" and that fewer that one quarter of mass shootings in public spaces from January 2009 through January 2013 occurred in gun-free zones.
Whether or not a facility is armed is inconsequential. We should be spending more time on the mental health aspects of these cases (and keeping guns out of the hands of said individuals) and zero time entertaining the adolescent feelings of the gun community who don't like being told what to do and where. I wish they would just be honest and admit that they want to be able to carry their gun wherever they want because they have a problem with authority and are fucking children who need to have their toys with them at all times.
Let's see...that's Kirkwood City Hall, Fort Hood, the Navy Yard in DC, the gun range in Texas where Chris Kyle was killed and now this. Those are just the ones off of the top of my head. A little research shows that there have been many more.
Of course Media Matters did a piece after the Navy Yard shooting that pretty much torpedoed the gun free zone lament. This study and this study point out that there is not a single case from 1982 to 2012 that contains evidence that the shooters chose their targets because they were "gun free" and that fewer that one quarter of mass shootings in public spaces from January 2009 through January 2013 occurred in gun-free zones.
Whether or not a facility is armed is inconsequential. We should be spending more time on the mental health aspects of these cases (and keeping guns out of the hands of said individuals) and zero time entertaining the adolescent feelings of the gun community who don't like being told what to do and where. I wish they would just be honest and admit that they want to be able to carry their gun wherever they want because they have a problem with authority and are fucking children who need to have their toys with them at all times.
Friday, October 25, 2013
More Backdoor Corporate Welfare
In the last election one party chose to portray people who receive public assistance as lazy moochers and takers. But the fact is, the companies that employ those same people are mooching off the government. More than half of fast-food workers are forced to receive some sort of public assistance, according to a study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. That includes SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, earned income tax credits, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The McDonald's employee help line McResources even advises workers to go on food stamps and Medicaid.
The total cost to American taxpayers is $7 billion a year.
And it's not just McDonald's. It's Wendy's and Burger King and Walmart, whose employees also suck up billions of dollars of public assistance annually.
These are highly profitable companies that have grown almost exponentially over the past few decades. Walmart has put thousands of smaller retailers of all types across the country out of business, sending the profits to Arkansas. McDonald's has replaced thousands of independent restaurants with franchisees who are pressured to treat employees like cattle, siphoning billions of dollars of local profits to Chicago. Profits that had previously been spent and taxed locally and contributed to the local economy.
The business models of McDonald's and Walmart are based on paying workers slave wages, forcing federal and local governments step in to make sure these workers and their children are clothed and housed and don't starve. That is an indirect government subsidy to those companies: these people couldn't work at McDonald's and Walmart without government help.
If you buy what McDonald's pretends is food or the cheap cost-reduced junk that Walmart pawns off on their customers, you too are getting a handout from the federal government. Because these companies couldn't provide you these products at the prices they do if they paid their employees what they actually cost the economy at large.
Well, actually they could quite handily: but it would require lowering their profit margins. Other companies, like Costco, Trader Joe's and QuickTrip, give their employees decent wages and benefits and still make a profit. Not quite as much as Walmart and McDonald's, admittedly. But WMT/MCD business practices are costing all of us money, not just the people who buy their stuff.
If we really need the products that those companies sell, we should be willing to pay their actual costs. It's not right that our tax dollars subsidize the incomes of the McDonald's and Walmart employees who actually do the work, while all the profits go into the pockets of the guys at the top.
The total cost to American taxpayers is $7 billion a year.
And it's not just McDonald's. It's Wendy's and Burger King and Walmart, whose employees also suck up billions of dollars of public assistance annually.
These are highly profitable companies that have grown almost exponentially over the past few decades. Walmart has put thousands of smaller retailers of all types across the country out of business, sending the profits to Arkansas. McDonald's has replaced thousands of independent restaurants with franchisees who are pressured to treat employees like cattle, siphoning billions of dollars of local profits to Chicago. Profits that had previously been spent and taxed locally and contributed to the local economy.
The business models of McDonald's and Walmart are based on paying workers slave wages, forcing federal and local governments step in to make sure these workers and their children are clothed and housed and don't starve. That is an indirect government subsidy to those companies: these people couldn't work at McDonald's and Walmart without government help.
If you buy what McDonald's pretends is food or the cheap cost-reduced junk that Walmart pawns off on their customers, you too are getting a handout from the federal government. Because these companies couldn't provide you these products at the prices they do if they paid their employees what they actually cost the economy at large.
Well, actually they could quite handily: but it would require lowering their profit margins. Other companies, like Costco, Trader Joe's and QuickTrip, give their employees decent wages and benefits and still make a profit. Not quite as much as Walmart and McDonald's, admittedly. But WMT/MCD business practices are costing all of us money, not just the people who buy their stuff.
If we really need the products that those companies sell, we should be willing to pay their actual costs. It's not right that our tax dollars subsidize the incomes of the McDonald's and Walmart employees who actually do the work, while all the profits go into the pockets of the guys at the top.
It Begins (And Ends) With The Parents
Nearly all of the challenges I face as an instructor are due to poor parenting. Parents do indeed really suck and they are getting worse. Even the number of sucky parents are on the rise as our culture becomes more and more cemented in the misplaced and harmful values of the Michael Jordan Generation. It's very clear that parents are just not doing their job.
Never was this statement more true than with the parents of the shooter in the recent Sparks, Nevada Middle School shooting. While it hasn't been fully confirmed yet, the student who killed teacher and vet Michael Landsberry and wounded two other students likely got the semi-auto 9mm from his parents. What the hell were they thinking? And what kind of a fucking country do we live in where a guy who does tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan lives through that but gets shot in his hometown? It's stuff like this that completely disgusts me.
This would be a clear example of people who should not be allowed to own guns and why our laws regarding arms need to be changed. Their license to own a gun should be taken away and they should face criminal charges. I'm wondering if they were "live free or die" types like Nancy Lanza who also thought it would be nifty to let her mentally ill sun have access to her guns.
The facts of this case have been very slow in coming but my takeaways are that it's clear there was some sort of bullying involved (more on that later), the shooter was mentally ill, and his parents are directly responsible. Further, this latest incident has led me to reflect about Newton and come to the conclusion the ideology that bloviates from the gun community is also responsible. This is particularly true in the case of Nancy Lanza who bought their lies to such a degree that she felt she needed a fucking arsenal to protect herself.
It begins and ends with the parents, folks. If they don't do their job, we end up with situations like this. And more and more of them these days are failing miserably.
Never was this statement more true than with the parents of the shooter in the recent Sparks, Nevada Middle School shooting. While it hasn't been fully confirmed yet, the student who killed teacher and vet Michael Landsberry and wounded two other students likely got the semi-auto 9mm from his parents. What the hell were they thinking? And what kind of a fucking country do we live in where a guy who does tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan lives through that but gets shot in his hometown? It's stuff like this that completely disgusts me.
This would be a clear example of people who should not be allowed to own guns and why our laws regarding arms need to be changed. Their license to own a gun should be taken away and they should face criminal charges. I'm wondering if they were "live free or die" types like Nancy Lanza who also thought it would be nifty to let her mentally ill sun have access to her guns.
The facts of this case have been very slow in coming but my takeaways are that it's clear there was some sort of bullying involved (more on that later), the shooter was mentally ill, and his parents are directly responsible. Further, this latest incident has led me to reflect about Newton and come to the conclusion the ideology that bloviates from the gun community is also responsible. This is particularly true in the case of Nancy Lanza who bought their lies to such a degree that she felt she needed a fucking arsenal to protect herself.
It begins and ends with the parents, folks. If they don't do their job, we end up with situations like this. And more and more of them these days are failing miserably.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Good Words
"In theory, lawmakers should hope that government programs work well, and if they don't, work to fix them. Elected representatives should hope that government agencies carry out their missions smoothly, and if something goes wrong, try to figure out what happened to avoid making the same mistake in the future.
Obviously that's not how things work in the United States, where one of the two parties doesn't actually believe in government. Republicans want to shrink government until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub! They think there's nothing scarier than the prospect of a government employee trying to help! With beliefs like those, it's perhaps not surprising that -- with disturbing frequency -- they root for failure in order to score points." --- JULIET LAPIDOS, October 24, 2013
Obviously that's not how things work in the United States, where one of the two parties doesn't actually believe in government. Republicans want to shrink government until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub! They think there's nothing scarier than the prospect of a government employee trying to help! With beliefs like those, it's perhaps not surprising that -- with disturbing frequency -- they root for failure in order to score points." --- JULIET LAPIDOS, October 24, 2013
Demons of Progess
A recent discussion on Facebook made me realize that my frustration with conservatives has two levels. The first is that I simply don't understand how they can believe the lies that are peddled to them inside of the bubble. These fictional tales can easily be torpedoed by a simple check of the facts. But that's not even the worst part.
The second level is what really drives me nuts. That's when they very erroneously believe that liberals are the ones that are actually brainwashed. Their media are the ones telling the lies and only conservative media tells the truth. They essentially turn it around (Projection/Flipping) and truly think people like me are the ones that have fallen victim to the "liberal" media. This notion is completely false.
With each level, no amount of reality will persuade them yet I think we are coming to a turning point in this country in terms of information gathering. The conservative bubble isn't going to hold for all that much longer as reality comes crashing in (climate change, antiquated gun laws, poor macroeconomic policy etc) and destroys it. I already know that, while there is certainly liberal bias out there, it's not the out and out lying and propaganda that we see coming from the Right. Liberals, by nature and definition, are very reflective people and recognize the shortcomings of their own views and policies. That's where the over-analysis comes in to play. Conservatives are the exact opposite. They don't reflect at all, are set in their ways, never change and under analyze.
They are, in short, the demon to progress and that's why I can never be one.
The second level is what really drives me nuts. That's when they very erroneously believe that liberals are the ones that are actually brainwashed. Their media are the ones telling the lies and only conservative media tells the truth. They essentially turn it around (Projection/Flipping) and truly think people like me are the ones that have fallen victim to the "liberal" media. This notion is completely false.
With each level, no amount of reality will persuade them yet I think we are coming to a turning point in this country in terms of information gathering. The conservative bubble isn't going to hold for all that much longer as reality comes crashing in (climate change, antiquated gun laws, poor macroeconomic policy etc) and destroys it. I already know that, while there is certainly liberal bias out there, it's not the out and out lying and propaganda that we see coming from the Right. Liberals, by nature and definition, are very reflective people and recognize the shortcomings of their own views and policies. That's where the over-analysis comes in to play. Conservatives are the exact opposite. They don't reflect at all, are set in their ways, never change and under analyze.
They are, in short, the demon to progress and that's why I can never be one.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Good Words
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." ~John Kenneth Galbraith, 2002
Own It
I thought it was the right move for the president to hold a presser about the problems with the ACA web site but he needs to go even further. Jeffrey Zients (aka Mr. Fixit) should hold daily briefings on the progress towards all the fixes and debugging. In short, the administration needs to own it more than they are right now.
Another thing that needs to be pointed out that people keep forgetting is that this is only affecting about 10 percent of Americans. The rest of us already have health care plans that work just fine and aren't going to change. Even if the problems with the web site persist, most people are not going to care because it doesn't affect them. Look for conservatives to (again) overplay their hand and continue to obsess (see: sore losers) about the law while completely losing focus on what the majority of Americans care about which is the economy and jobs.
One final note on the ACA, I caught this story this morning and am wondering if the fix is as simple as it was for Randall Bennett.
Bennett's solution was to open a Google Chrome browser in incognito mode, which allows users to browse the Internet without recording the website and download history. It also deletes cookies, or information storage, after a window is closed. “I was using it for debugging in my software to try something out, as if I were a fresh user," he said. Bennett said he happened to go back to HealthCare.gov and logged in. The white screen then redirected him to the main page. Now he, his wife and 2-year-old son are ready for Jan. 1, when their new insurance will go into effect.
And he lives in deep red Utah...whoda thunk it?:)
Another thing that needs to be pointed out that people keep forgetting is that this is only affecting about 10 percent of Americans. The rest of us already have health care plans that work just fine and aren't going to change. Even if the problems with the web site persist, most people are not going to care because it doesn't affect them. Look for conservatives to (again) overplay their hand and continue to obsess (see: sore losers) about the law while completely losing focus on what the majority of Americans care about which is the economy and jobs.
One final note on the ACA, I caught this story this morning and am wondering if the fix is as simple as it was for Randall Bennett.
Bennett's solution was to open a Google Chrome browser in incognito mode, which allows users to browse the Internet without recording the website and download history. It also deletes cookies, or information storage, after a window is closed. “I was using it for debugging in my software to try something out, as if I were a fresh user," he said. Bennett said he happened to go back to HealthCare.gov and logged in. The white screen then redirected him to the main page. Now he, his wife and 2-year-old son are ready for Jan. 1, when their new insurance will go into effect.
And he lives in deep red Utah...whoda thunk it?:)
My Trip South
I recently took a trip to the state of my birth, Missouri. It was for my grandmother's 96th birthday and many of my extended family relatives were there. Most were very old and, well, very white. Previous years have included long tirades against President Obama that are clearly being fed directly from the right wing media industrial complex. One year, my cousin Jim from Texas said that if Barack Obama were in the room, he would put a stick up his ass. I didn't think too much of it because Jim hates nearly all politicians.
This year, however, there was a noticeable change among all the conservatives in my family. There was a lot of grumbling about the shutdown and how it personally affected all of them. At one point, someone mentioned immigration and my cousin Jim said, "Well the Republicans will just try and block it. That's all they really do." The room was quiet for a minute and then everyone sunk their heads a little bit and agreed. The rest of the conversation turned to a discussion of how frustrated they all were that the Republicans have no real plan of their own and refused to compromise. In fact, it was a real pile on against the GOP with nary a mention of President Obama except when the conversation turned to entitlements. That's when some admitted that the GOP's ideas for reforming entitlements were not at all desirable. Some even expressed the simple fact that the president was in their corner on this one. Honestly, I was completely blown away by the sea change.
The one thing we can always rely on in this country is for old people to get scared and act out of fear. It's not surprising when you consider that people are nearing their twilight years and have so many unknowns. Of course, that's no excuse for them to act irrationally and like children. In some ways, though, they can't help it because that's how their minds are developing at such a later stage in life. It truly sickens me that outlets like Fox News and the various right wing blogs take full advantage of this and peddle their lies for dollars. It's no lie, though, that the Republicans want to fuck around with entitlements and send more money into the private sector where the already ridiculously wealthy can have even more money. They do so at their own peril as old, white people are now their entire base. Lose them and you never win another election again.
I was also quite heartened to hear that many of my younger relatives signed up for the ACA and, interestingly, had no problems doing it. Some used the web site, others used the phone, and my Uncle John did the whole thing via old fashioned mail. They all asked me if I was going to sign up and I told them what I tell everyone else.
I like the health care I currently have and (gasp!) I get to keep it.
This year, however, there was a noticeable change among all the conservatives in my family. There was a lot of grumbling about the shutdown and how it personally affected all of them. At one point, someone mentioned immigration and my cousin Jim said, "Well the Republicans will just try and block it. That's all they really do." The room was quiet for a minute and then everyone sunk their heads a little bit and agreed. The rest of the conversation turned to a discussion of how frustrated they all were that the Republicans have no real plan of their own and refused to compromise. In fact, it was a real pile on against the GOP with nary a mention of President Obama except when the conversation turned to entitlements. That's when some admitted that the GOP's ideas for reforming entitlements were not at all desirable. Some even expressed the simple fact that the president was in their corner on this one. Honestly, I was completely blown away by the sea change.
The one thing we can always rely on in this country is for old people to get scared and act out of fear. It's not surprising when you consider that people are nearing their twilight years and have so many unknowns. Of course, that's no excuse for them to act irrationally and like children. In some ways, though, they can't help it because that's how their minds are developing at such a later stage in life. It truly sickens me that outlets like Fox News and the various right wing blogs take full advantage of this and peddle their lies for dollars. It's no lie, though, that the Republicans want to fuck around with entitlements and send more money into the private sector where the already ridiculously wealthy can have even more money. They do so at their own peril as old, white people are now their entire base. Lose them and you never win another election again.
I was also quite heartened to hear that many of my younger relatives signed up for the ACA and, interestingly, had no problems doing it. Some used the web site, others used the phone, and my Uncle John did the whole thing via old fashioned mail. They all asked me if I was going to sign up and I told them what I tell everyone else.
I like the health care I currently have and (gasp!) I get to keep it.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
On Stiglitz: Part Nine
The penultimate chapter in Joseph Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality illustrates how macroeconomic policy in this country is essentially made for the 1 percent because macroecomic policy, in a broad sense, affects distribution of income. Stiglitz notes that policymakers are not often aware of this and that's why we have the problems we have. People worked hard, studied hard and played by the rules but the best most can hope for in the last decade+ is just to get by. Worse, many were not even doing that as we have seen in earlier chapters in the book.
A basic rule of economics is that life involves tradeoffs. One alleged tradeoff is the balance between inflation and unemployment. If there is low unemployment, generally speaking, there is inflation because there are more people buying things. If there is high unemployment, inflation is low as there are less people fueling the economy. In some ways, this is exactly what the 1 percent (see: financial sector) want. They make more money if inflation is low so the bondholders interest is for the focus is on inflation, not unemployment. This is where the structural problems with our economy begin. According to Stiglitz, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, there is no such tradeoff.
Imagine, Stiglitz notes, if the focus were on unemployment instead. Finding that right number on the lower end (4%?, 5%?) of unemployment that still keeps inflation low is tricky but if you start from the other side (inflation), the policy that is made tends to benefit the least amount of people...those in the financial sector. If you start from the side of unemployment, or at the very least, look for a balance, you benefit more people and the macroeconomic policy of the country as a whole. This is why the Fed fell asleep in the collapse of 2008. They had no balance, Further, they thought the banks could take care of themselves and needed no oversight. When solutions to the crisis were presented, they focused on inflation (the interests of the bankers and the financial sector) not everyone else.
But the problem, as I have always said, was really with the regulations themselves. The obsessive focus on interest rates erroneously led to the Fed believing that they had some sort of magic "lever," as Stiglitz puts it, that can manipulate the economy.
Lower the interest rate and the economy expand; raise the interest rate and it slows down. And though there are times and circumstances in which the interest rate may have those effects, at other times the links are at beast weak and other instruments might have been more effective. For instance, in response to the real estate bubble , it would have made more sense to raise the down payment requirements for mortgages than to raise the interest rates; one didn't want to slow down productive investments, just to dampen the bubble. Such regulations were anathema to the Fed, with its religious devotion to the price system and the wonders of the market.
Exactly. We're talking about a massively rigid ideology here that sadly, to this day, has not been broken.
Getting back to unemployment, such a high level of joblessness doesn't simply hurt those who are unemployed. It also hurts the rest of us because a natural effect of this is lower wages. People entering the work force for the first time are forced to take a salary that they simply can't live on. Less money goes into the economy as consumer confidence and spending shrinks due to a lack of aggregate demand. The financial sector may enjoy this "labor market flexibility" but the rest of us do not. And it's clear that the economy has suffered due to these magnanimous gifts bestowed to bankers from our monetary policy. This policy, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, has been a disaster.
The Fed's low interest rate policy hadn't led to the resurgence of investment as it had hoped. It did encourage those who were planning investments to substitute cheap capital labor. Capital was, in effect, at a temporary artificially low price , and one might as well take advantage of an unusual situation. This reinforced distorted patterns of innovation that focused on saving labor at a time when it was increasingly in abundance. It is curious that at a time when unemployment among the unskilled is so high, grocery and drug stores are replacing checkout clerks with automatic machines. The Fed was making it more and more likely that, when recovery set in, it would be a jobless one.
My only gripe about this line of thought is that it really isn't a good thing to fight progress. This is the same complaint I have about the Right on issues such as energy, climate change, and education. Our nation has one direction: forward. If low skilled workers are losing their jobs to innovation, then it's time that we retrain them and give them the skills they need to compete in the age of globalization. Other than that, though, Stiglitz is spot on.
How did we get such a crappy monetary policy? Deregulation. I've talked about this extensively so there's no need to repeat myself. Instead, let's take a look at the consequences, via Stiglitz.
This deregulation had two related consequences. First, it led to the increasing financialization of the economy-with all its distortions and inequities. Second, it allowed the banks to exploit the rest of society-through predatory lending, abusive credit card fees, and other practices. The banks shifted risk toward the poor and toward the taxpayer: when things didn't go as lenders had predicted, others had to bear the consequences. The Fed not only didn't discourage this; it encouraged it. It is clear that, from a social perspective, the banks did not help people manage their risk; they created it. But when it came to managing their own risk, the bankers were more successful. They didn't bear the consequences of their actions.
Stiglitz identifies a common ground here where liberals and conservatives could work together. At the time of the crisis, there wasn't really a choice in terms of letting the banks fail. It would have collapsed the economy. Now, however, we can regulate the industry so that none of these institutions are "too big to fail" or, better yet, too interconnected to fail. In short, Glass-Steagall for the 21st Century. Dodd-Frank is a start but it still gives the Fed responsibility for implementing the new regulations. Its track record thus far has shown that it is less than average in doing this.
At this point in the chapter I realized that Mr. Stiglitz should be the new Fed Chair! Obviously, it's never going to happen especially now that we have Janet Yellin but we do need someone who will kick the inflation obsession.
It should be apparent at this point that the banks should be focusing on banking and not macroecomic policy. How did we get to this point? More importantly, can we ever break free of this framework and have government leaders who are not influenced by the financial sector of this country? Even the evidence that the Fed was forced to reveal, which showed that the large banks were both borrowing substantial amounts of money from them while also claiming publicly that they were in great shape, was not enough to change the system. Indeed, our problem, as Stiglitz notes, is "more ideological conviction than economic analysis." This, of course, comes directly from the NUMERO UNO free market fundamentalist himself, Milton Friedman, a colleague of Stiglitz.
I remember long discussions with him on the consequences of imperfect information or incomplete risk markets; my own work and that of numerous colleagues had shown that in these conditions, markets typically didn't work well. Friedman simply couldn't or wouldn't grasp the results. He couldn't refute them. He simply knew they had to be wrong. He, and other free market economists, had two other replies: even if the theoretical results were true, they were "curiosities," exceptions that proved the rule; and even if the problems were pervasive, one couldn't rely on government to fix them.
Sounds familiar, eh?:) Many of the problems we have with our modern economic policy can be attributed directly to Mr. Friedman. His cult-like worship of the free market has led to far too many people turning brain dead in terms of economic analysis.
Recall that the Fed's main purpose should be focused on inflation, employment and growth. The second of these three has fallen by the wayside as the bankers have more or less taken over the show. So, the government is the problem but not in the way conservatives would have you believe. It's not that it's too big. It's that it simply doesn't function in the way it is supposed to function due to monetarists' obsession with inflation and their complete ignorance of unemployment. This obsession is based on three very questionable hypotheses. First, inflation is the supreme evil. Second, maintaining low and stable inflation is necessary and almost sufficient for maintaining a high and stable real growth rate. Third, everyone benefits from low inflation. Stiglitz wraps up the chapter explaining that none of these beliefs are true and that inflation hawks have been basically telling tales out of school.
For inflation hawks economy is always at the edge of a precipice: once inflation starts, it will be difficult to control. And since the cost of reversing inflation-disinflation, as it's called-is so large, it is best to address it immediately. But these views are not based on a careful assessment of the evidence. There is no precipice, and mild upticks in inflation, if they look as if they might become persistent, can easily be reversed by tightening credit availability. In short, it was simply wrong that the best way to maintain high employment and strong growth as to focus on inflation. The focus on inflation distracted attention from things that were far more important: the losses from even moderate inflation were negligible in comparison to the losses from financial collapse.
So, we need to remove ourselves from the shackles of obsession over inflation. Our monetary policy should strive for the best possible balance between inflation, employment, and growth. We can't continue to make trickle down policy that is made specifically for the benefits of the banks. In a preview of the last chapter, Stiglitz argues that there is no single best policy. Certainly the obsession with inflation has proved that. Further, there is nothing natural about our currently very high state of unemployment or the low level of aggregate demand. It is the result of policy that caters to serve the small number of people in the financial sector in this country and they have scammed us into thinking that any changes will result in another economic collapse.
Therefore, the first step in changing the system is to not believe them anymore.
A basic rule of economics is that life involves tradeoffs. One alleged tradeoff is the balance between inflation and unemployment. If there is low unemployment, generally speaking, there is inflation because there are more people buying things. If there is high unemployment, inflation is low as there are less people fueling the economy. In some ways, this is exactly what the 1 percent (see: financial sector) want. They make more money if inflation is low so the bondholders interest is for the focus is on inflation, not unemployment. This is where the structural problems with our economy begin. According to Stiglitz, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, there is no such tradeoff.
Imagine, Stiglitz notes, if the focus were on unemployment instead. Finding that right number on the lower end (4%?, 5%?) of unemployment that still keeps inflation low is tricky but if you start from the other side (inflation), the policy that is made tends to benefit the least amount of people...those in the financial sector. If you start from the side of unemployment, or at the very least, look for a balance, you benefit more people and the macroeconomic policy of the country as a whole. This is why the Fed fell asleep in the collapse of 2008. They had no balance, Further, they thought the banks could take care of themselves and needed no oversight. When solutions to the crisis were presented, they focused on inflation (the interests of the bankers and the financial sector) not everyone else.
But the problem, as I have always said, was really with the regulations themselves. The obsessive focus on interest rates erroneously led to the Fed believing that they had some sort of magic "lever," as Stiglitz puts it, that can manipulate the economy.
Lower the interest rate and the economy expand; raise the interest rate and it slows down. And though there are times and circumstances in which the interest rate may have those effects, at other times the links are at beast weak and other instruments might have been more effective. For instance, in response to the real estate bubble , it would have made more sense to raise the down payment requirements for mortgages than to raise the interest rates; one didn't want to slow down productive investments, just to dampen the bubble. Such regulations were anathema to the Fed, with its religious devotion to the price system and the wonders of the market.
Exactly. We're talking about a massively rigid ideology here that sadly, to this day, has not been broken.
Getting back to unemployment, such a high level of joblessness doesn't simply hurt those who are unemployed. It also hurts the rest of us because a natural effect of this is lower wages. People entering the work force for the first time are forced to take a salary that they simply can't live on. Less money goes into the economy as consumer confidence and spending shrinks due to a lack of aggregate demand. The financial sector may enjoy this "labor market flexibility" but the rest of us do not. And it's clear that the economy has suffered due to these magnanimous gifts bestowed to bankers from our monetary policy. This policy, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, has been a disaster.
The Fed's low interest rate policy hadn't led to the resurgence of investment as it had hoped. It did encourage those who were planning investments to substitute cheap capital labor. Capital was, in effect, at a temporary artificially low price , and one might as well take advantage of an unusual situation. This reinforced distorted patterns of innovation that focused on saving labor at a time when it was increasingly in abundance. It is curious that at a time when unemployment among the unskilled is so high, grocery and drug stores are replacing checkout clerks with automatic machines. The Fed was making it more and more likely that, when recovery set in, it would be a jobless one.
My only gripe about this line of thought is that it really isn't a good thing to fight progress. This is the same complaint I have about the Right on issues such as energy, climate change, and education. Our nation has one direction: forward. If low skilled workers are losing their jobs to innovation, then it's time that we retrain them and give them the skills they need to compete in the age of globalization. Other than that, though, Stiglitz is spot on.
How did we get such a crappy monetary policy? Deregulation. I've talked about this extensively so there's no need to repeat myself. Instead, let's take a look at the consequences, via Stiglitz.
This deregulation had two related consequences. First, it led to the increasing financialization of the economy-with all its distortions and inequities. Second, it allowed the banks to exploit the rest of society-through predatory lending, abusive credit card fees, and other practices. The banks shifted risk toward the poor and toward the taxpayer: when things didn't go as lenders had predicted, others had to bear the consequences. The Fed not only didn't discourage this; it encouraged it. It is clear that, from a social perspective, the banks did not help people manage their risk; they created it. But when it came to managing their own risk, the bankers were more successful. They didn't bear the consequences of their actions.
Stiglitz identifies a common ground here where liberals and conservatives could work together. At the time of the crisis, there wasn't really a choice in terms of letting the banks fail. It would have collapsed the economy. Now, however, we can regulate the industry so that none of these institutions are "too big to fail" or, better yet, too interconnected to fail. In short, Glass-Steagall for the 21st Century. Dodd-Frank is a start but it still gives the Fed responsibility for implementing the new regulations. Its track record thus far has shown that it is less than average in doing this.
At this point in the chapter I realized that Mr. Stiglitz should be the new Fed Chair! Obviously, it's never going to happen especially now that we have Janet Yellin but we do need someone who will kick the inflation obsession.
It should be apparent at this point that the banks should be focusing on banking and not macroecomic policy. How did we get to this point? More importantly, can we ever break free of this framework and have government leaders who are not influenced by the financial sector of this country? Even the evidence that the Fed was forced to reveal, which showed that the large banks were both borrowing substantial amounts of money from them while also claiming publicly that they were in great shape, was not enough to change the system. Indeed, our problem, as Stiglitz notes, is "more ideological conviction than economic analysis." This, of course, comes directly from the NUMERO UNO free market fundamentalist himself, Milton Friedman, a colleague of Stiglitz.
I remember long discussions with him on the consequences of imperfect information or incomplete risk markets; my own work and that of numerous colleagues had shown that in these conditions, markets typically didn't work well. Friedman simply couldn't or wouldn't grasp the results. He couldn't refute them. He simply knew they had to be wrong. He, and other free market economists, had two other replies: even if the theoretical results were true, they were "curiosities," exceptions that proved the rule; and even if the problems were pervasive, one couldn't rely on government to fix them.
Sounds familiar, eh?:) Many of the problems we have with our modern economic policy can be attributed directly to Mr. Friedman. His cult-like worship of the free market has led to far too many people turning brain dead in terms of economic analysis.
Recall that the Fed's main purpose should be focused on inflation, employment and growth. The second of these three has fallen by the wayside as the bankers have more or less taken over the show. So, the government is the problem but not in the way conservatives would have you believe. It's not that it's too big. It's that it simply doesn't function in the way it is supposed to function due to monetarists' obsession with inflation and their complete ignorance of unemployment. This obsession is based on three very questionable hypotheses. First, inflation is the supreme evil. Second, maintaining low and stable inflation is necessary and almost sufficient for maintaining a high and stable real growth rate. Third, everyone benefits from low inflation. Stiglitz wraps up the chapter explaining that none of these beliefs are true and that inflation hawks have been basically telling tales out of school.
For inflation hawks economy is always at the edge of a precipice: once inflation starts, it will be difficult to control. And since the cost of reversing inflation-disinflation, as it's called-is so large, it is best to address it immediately. But these views are not based on a careful assessment of the evidence. There is no precipice, and mild upticks in inflation, if they look as if they might become persistent, can easily be reversed by tightening credit availability. In short, it was simply wrong that the best way to maintain high employment and strong growth as to focus on inflation. The focus on inflation distracted attention from things that were far more important: the losses from even moderate inflation were negligible in comparison to the losses from financial collapse.
So, we need to remove ourselves from the shackles of obsession over inflation. Our monetary policy should strive for the best possible balance between inflation, employment, and growth. We can't continue to make trickle down policy that is made specifically for the benefits of the banks. In a preview of the last chapter, Stiglitz argues that there is no single best policy. Certainly the obsession with inflation has proved that. Further, there is nothing natural about our currently very high state of unemployment or the low level of aggregate demand. It is the result of policy that caters to serve the small number of people in the financial sector in this country and they have scammed us into thinking that any changes will result in another economic collapse.
Therefore, the first step in changing the system is to not believe them anymore.
Monday, October 21, 2013
A Link Between Sleep and Football Dementia?
Scientists have long wondered why people and animals need to sleep. We all know that not sleeping is bad for us, but we didn't know exactly why.
For decades scientists have known that sleep is associated with the consolidation of short-term to long term memory. Recently they discovered that during sleep neurons fire backwards, which they think strengthens the electrical signals of nearby and frees up space in the brain for new memories (sort of like defragging your computer's hard disk).
But a new study has found an even more basic mechanism that explains the need for sleep: housecleaning. While asleep, brain cells appear to shrink and cerebrospinal fluid is pumped through the brain to wash out toxins that accumulate during wakefulness. These toxins are beta amyloids, the proteins that are associated with dementias like Alzheimer's.
Interestingly, dementias are frequently associated with sleep disorders, which could explain why Alzheimer's occurs in the first place. With this information new therapies may be developed to prevent dementias that leave their victims empty husks of the people they once were.
And this may explain other forms of dementia. A few weeks ago PBS aired a Frontline special on concussions in football called "League of Denial." It documents the stories of numerous football players who suffered various forms of dementia after taking dozens of knocks to the head every day they play, from the age of eight or ten until they retire at 30 or 40. That results in literally thousands of minor concussions over a career. Many football players have become confused, short-tempered violent and some have even committed suicide and murder.
When the brains of these players have been examined after death, they were found riddled with the same beta amyloid plaques that affect Alzheimer's patients, though their brains looked otherwise normal. With this new understanding of how the brain normally cleans these plaques out, the exact mechanism for dementia in football players may become clearer.
When you get a concussion, your brain is slammed against the inside of your skull, essentially bruising it and rupturing capillaries, which causes swelling and inflammation. This may in turn prevent the brain cells from shrinking during sleep and interfere with the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid that should remove the beta amyloid plaques.
The NFL has downplayed the effects of concussion on football players for years, but last August they settled a lawsuit brought by 4,500 former players for $765 million dollars. And it's not just football that has this problem, we've known forever that boxing causes dementia, and hockey and rugby have the same problem.
This new science may explain why dementia occurs, but it doesn't provide any solutions for preventing concussions in the first place. No matter how much you change helmet design, the basic problem is the rapid deceleration of the brain when it hits the inside of the skull as the head collides with another player or slams into the ground.
The only real way to prevent concussions is to reduce the overall velocity of the skull, which means eliminating crushing tackles and brutal takedowns. But many football fans would say that changing the rules to minimize concussions would turn it into touch football and rip the heart out of the game. Because, though they say they love watching the skill and speed of the players on the gridiron, what they really love is the brutal hammering the players take.
As we understand the connection of minor brain trauma to dementia, the question now is how many parents will be willing to sacrifice their children's futures so that football fans can watch them get pounded into the astroturf?
For decades scientists have known that sleep is associated with the consolidation of short-term to long term memory. Recently they discovered that during sleep neurons fire backwards, which they think strengthens the electrical signals of nearby and frees up space in the brain for new memories (sort of like defragging your computer's hard disk).
But a new study has found an even more basic mechanism that explains the need for sleep: housecleaning. While asleep, brain cells appear to shrink and cerebrospinal fluid is pumped through the brain to wash out toxins that accumulate during wakefulness. These toxins are beta amyloids, the proteins that are associated with dementias like Alzheimer's.
Interestingly, dementias are frequently associated with sleep disorders, which could explain why Alzheimer's occurs in the first place. With this information new therapies may be developed to prevent dementias that leave their victims empty husks of the people they once were.
And this may explain other forms of dementia. A few weeks ago PBS aired a Frontline special on concussions in football called "League of Denial." It documents the stories of numerous football players who suffered various forms of dementia after taking dozens of knocks to the head every day they play, from the age of eight or ten until they retire at 30 or 40. That results in literally thousands of minor concussions over a career. Many football players have become confused, short-tempered violent and some have even committed suicide and murder.
When the brains of these players have been examined after death, they were found riddled with the same beta amyloid plaques that affect Alzheimer's patients, though their brains looked otherwise normal. With this new understanding of how the brain normally cleans these plaques out, the exact mechanism for dementia in football players may become clearer.
When you get a concussion, your brain is slammed against the inside of your skull, essentially bruising it and rupturing capillaries, which causes swelling and inflammation. This may in turn prevent the brain cells from shrinking during sleep and interfere with the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid that should remove the beta amyloid plaques.
The NFL has downplayed the effects of concussion on football players for years, but last August they settled a lawsuit brought by 4,500 former players for $765 million dollars. And it's not just football that has this problem, we've known forever that boxing causes dementia, and hockey and rugby have the same problem.
This new science may explain why dementia occurs, but it doesn't provide any solutions for preventing concussions in the first place. No matter how much you change helmet design, the basic problem is the rapid deceleration of the brain when it hits the inside of the skull as the head collides with another player or slams into the ground.
The only real way to prevent concussions is to reduce the overall velocity of the skull, which means eliminating crushing tackles and brutal takedowns. But many football fans would say that changing the rules to minimize concussions would turn it into touch football and rip the heart out of the game. Because, though they say they love watching the skill and speed of the players on the gridiron, what they really love is the brutal hammering the players take.
As we understand the connection of minor brain trauma to dementia, the question now is how many parents will be willing to sacrifice their children's futures so that football fans can watch them get pounded into the astroturf?
Give That Man A Medal
Apparently, someone at the WWII memorial rally (see: co-opted, takeover, without permission) shouted that Sarah Palin was an idiot. That man should get a medal.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Good Words
“The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion.”
~Charles Pinckney, Constitutional Convention, 1787
Saturday, October 19, 2013
What Passes for "Science" at the Creation Museum
The Creation Museum has obtained a dinosaur fossil that they claim "proves" their theory that the world was created only a few thousand years ago. According to a statement from the museum,
First off, there's more than one way a skeleton can remain intact. The dinosaur could have fallen off a cliff and into a lake, where it drowned. It could have been chased into a swamp by a larger predator and been stuck in the mud. It could have been standing at the bottom of a hill and buried alive by a landslide. There are millions of possible ways that a skeleton could remain intact.
And let's say it did die in a flood. Was Noah's flood the only flood that ever occurred? There are thousands of floods every year, caused by thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and so on. How do they know that this one dinosaur died in Noah's flood? Because Dr. Snelling says most of the bones -- but not all -- were found properly articulated. That's it. That's the "evidence." But all that proves is that the body wasn't torn apart by scavengers.
Did they use radiocarbon dating to determine that the dinosaur died exactly 4,500 years old, and was therefore killed in Noah's flood? Did they find spearheads from human hunters in the dinosaur's skeleton, or toolmarks on the bones, or potsherds scattered among them? No? I didn't think so.
They have presented no forensic evidence obtained during the excavation of this fossil that proved it died when they claim it did. They provided no stratigraphic analysis that proved this fossil was concurrent with humanity. (The "human" footprints at the unrelated Paluxy riverbed site were shown to be dinosaur footprints almost 30 years ago.)
We now know that DNA breaks down over time, and under perfect conditions it can survive for at most 1.5 million years (it has a half life of 521 years). Did the creationists find any DNA in the bones of this supposed 4,500-year-old dinosaur?
Scientists have found intact DNA in the bones of Neandertals from 30,000 years ago, and woolly mammoths that have been frozen for 39,000 years. They have even found soft tissue inside the bones of dinosaurs, which creationists falsely claimed as their proof. Scientists have also found organic material inside the bones of dinosaur embryos. And recently a mosquito was discovered with blood in guts (shades of Jurassic Park!).
However, no intact dinosaur DNA has ever been found. The material found in the bones was deteriorated organic goo. Yet we have found 10,000-year-old human mummies in peat bogs. We have found skeletons of a woman, giant sloths, camels, bear, sabre-tooth cats, birds and so on in the La Brea tar pits. We have found hundreds of extinct animals like woolly mammoths frozen in the arctic tundra. Buried everywhere we have found intact DNA in the bones of every kind of creature that has lived over the past 10,000 years, many of them extinct for centuries like the moas of New Zealand, giant ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats. But we've never found a frozen or mummified dinosaur. We've only found fossilized bones, in which the actual bone is replaced with minerals deposited by water that permeates the structure. And there is never any DNA.
And it's not like scientists don't want to find dinosaur DNA. Dinosaur DNA would be the paleontologist's holy grail. It would answer so many questions: were they related to birds (as most scientists now think), or reptiles? Were they warm-blooded? Did they have feathers or reptilian skin? We don't even know this basic information because we've never found an intact dinosaur: only fossilized bones.
In 1991 two German tourists found a frozen mummy in the Alps. Scientists determined he died about 3,300 BCE, or 5,3000 years ago (well before the time of the supposed flood). They know how he was killed (blood loss from an arrow wound). They knew how lived (around a campire that blackened his lungs). They know what tools he used (his axe was 99.7% pure copper). They analyzed his DNA (he belonged to Haplogroup K, maybe European, Kurdish, Ashkenazi or Middle-Eastern). They even know what he ate for breakfast -- an ibex (they analyzed the DNA).
From this it's obvious that scientists can glean a great detail of information from even a frozen human mummy. But we have never found dinosaurs under any such conditions.
There is no shortage of dinosaur remains: we've found thousands of them, on every continent, pretty much everywhere conditions were conducive to preserving their remains. If they lived concurrently with mankind for 1,500 years, why are they the only creatures from that era whose flesh and DNA have never been preserved? Why are dinosaur skeletons always encased in stone and never in loose soil?
Let me guess: Lucifer and his minions have been destroying dinosaur mummies in peat bogs and planting evidence in solid rock to trick scientists since before science even existed...
As a geologist, Dr. Snelling added that unlike the way most of the Morrison Formation bones had been found scattered and mixed, the intact skeleton of this allosaur is testimony to extremely rapid burial, which is a confirmation of the global catastrophe of a Flood a few thousand years ago.This is an example of the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty and fallacious "science."
First off, there's more than one way a skeleton can remain intact. The dinosaur could have fallen off a cliff and into a lake, where it drowned. It could have been chased into a swamp by a larger predator and been stuck in the mud. It could have been standing at the bottom of a hill and buried alive by a landslide. There are millions of possible ways that a skeleton could remain intact.
And let's say it did die in a flood. Was Noah's flood the only flood that ever occurred? There are thousands of floods every year, caused by thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and so on. How do they know that this one dinosaur died in Noah's flood? Because Dr. Snelling says most of the bones -- but not all -- were found properly articulated. That's it. That's the "evidence." But all that proves is that the body wasn't torn apart by scavengers.
Did they use radiocarbon dating to determine that the dinosaur died exactly 4,500 years old, and was therefore killed in Noah's flood? Did they find spearheads from human hunters in the dinosaur's skeleton, or toolmarks on the bones, or potsherds scattered among them? No? I didn't think so.
They have presented no forensic evidence obtained during the excavation of this fossil that proved it died when they claim it did. They provided no stratigraphic analysis that proved this fossil was concurrent with humanity. (The "human" footprints at the unrelated Paluxy riverbed site were shown to be dinosaur footprints almost 30 years ago.)
We now know that DNA breaks down over time, and under perfect conditions it can survive for at most 1.5 million years (it has a half life of 521 years). Did the creationists find any DNA in the bones of this supposed 4,500-year-old dinosaur?
Scientists have found intact DNA in the bones of Neandertals from 30,000 years ago, and woolly mammoths that have been frozen for 39,000 years. They have even found soft tissue inside the bones of dinosaurs, which creationists falsely claimed as their proof. Scientists have also found organic material inside the bones of dinosaur embryos. And recently a mosquito was discovered with blood in guts (shades of Jurassic Park!).
However, no intact dinosaur DNA has ever been found. The material found in the bones was deteriorated organic goo. Yet we have found 10,000-year-old human mummies in peat bogs. We have found skeletons of a woman, giant sloths, camels, bear, sabre-tooth cats, birds and so on in the La Brea tar pits. We have found hundreds of extinct animals like woolly mammoths frozen in the arctic tundra. Buried everywhere we have found intact DNA in the bones of every kind of creature that has lived over the past 10,000 years, many of them extinct for centuries like the moas of New Zealand, giant ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats. But we've never found a frozen or mummified dinosaur. We've only found fossilized bones, in which the actual bone is replaced with minerals deposited by water that permeates the structure. And there is never any DNA.
And it's not like scientists don't want to find dinosaur DNA. Dinosaur DNA would be the paleontologist's holy grail. It would answer so many questions: were they related to birds (as most scientists now think), or reptiles? Were they warm-blooded? Did they have feathers or reptilian skin? We don't even know this basic information because we've never found an intact dinosaur: only fossilized bones.
In 1991 two German tourists found a frozen mummy in the Alps. Scientists determined he died about 3,300 BCE, or 5,3000 years ago (well before the time of the supposed flood). They know how he was killed (blood loss from an arrow wound). They knew how lived (around a campire that blackened his lungs). They know what tools he used (his axe was 99.7% pure copper). They analyzed his DNA (he belonged to Haplogroup K, maybe European, Kurdish, Ashkenazi or Middle-Eastern). They even know what he ate for breakfast -- an ibex (they analyzed the DNA).
From this it's obvious that scientists can glean a great detail of information from even a frozen human mummy. But we have never found dinosaurs under any such conditions.
There is no shortage of dinosaur remains: we've found thousands of them, on every continent, pretty much everywhere conditions were conducive to preserving their remains. If they lived concurrently with mankind for 1,500 years, why are they the only creatures from that era whose flesh and DNA have never been preserved? Why are dinosaur skeletons always encased in stone and never in loose soil?
Let me guess: Lucifer and his minions have been destroying dinosaur mummies in peat bogs and planting evidence in solid rock to trick scientists since before science even existed...
How To FactCheck Health Care
Eric Stern over at Salon.com gives a shining example of how to expose the bullshit being peddled about the Affordable Care Act. This was my favorite one.
When I spoke to Robbie, he said he and Tina have been paying a little over $800 a month for their plan, about $10,000 a year. And the ACA-compliant policy will cost 50-75 percent more? They said this information was related to them by their insurance agent. Had they shopped on the exchange yet, I asked? No, Tina said, nor would they. They oppose Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. Fair enough, but they should know that I found a plan for them for, at most, $3,700 a year, a 63 percent less than their current bill. It might cover things that they don’t need, but so does every insurance policy.
A great example of willful ignorance and the very real monetary cost it brings with it. More importantly, however, this illustrates the trap that people can fall into when they believe the Big Lie. Stern echoes this as well.
Strangely, the recent shutdown was based almost entirely on a small percentage of Congress’s belief that Obamacare, as Ted Cruz puts it, “is destroying America.” Cruz has rarely given us an example of what he’s talking about. That’s because the best he can do is what Hannity did—exploit people’s ignorance and falsely point to imaginary boogeymen.
Once people realize how the law works, the ignorance will fall away and there won't be any more boogeyman they can pull out of their hat.
When I spoke to Robbie, he said he and Tina have been paying a little over $800 a month for their plan, about $10,000 a year. And the ACA-compliant policy will cost 50-75 percent more? They said this information was related to them by their insurance agent. Had they shopped on the exchange yet, I asked? No, Tina said, nor would they. They oppose Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. Fair enough, but they should know that I found a plan for them for, at most, $3,700 a year, a 63 percent less than their current bill. It might cover things that they don’t need, but so does every insurance policy.
A great example of willful ignorance and the very real monetary cost it brings with it. More importantly, however, this illustrates the trap that people can fall into when they believe the Big Lie. Stern echoes this as well.
Strangely, the recent shutdown was based almost entirely on a small percentage of Congress’s belief that Obamacare, as Ted Cruz puts it, “is destroying America.” Cruz has rarely given us an example of what he’s talking about. That’s because the best he can do is what Hannity did—exploit people’s ignorance and falsely point to imaginary boogeymen.
Once people realize how the law works, the ignorance will fall away and there won't be any more boogeyman they can pull out of their hat.
Gerson Nails It
Micheal Gerson is one of the good ones on the Right and his latest piece on climate change is brilliant. His second paragraph pretty much nails it.
The intersection of science and policy, of climate and politics, has become a bloody crossroads. Blog-based arguments over ocean temperatures and the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet are as shrill and personal as any Tea Party primary challenge. And the IPCC report — designed to describe areas of scientific consensus — has become an occasion for polarization.
Shrill, indeed. Scientific matters and their validity should not be decided based on fucking blog posts or comments. These sorts of discussions should be looked upon in the same way one views TMZ news on Molly Ray Cyrus.
Gerson astutely points out that the warming hiatus, which has elicited adolescent cries of GOTCHA!, is misleading and quite irrelevant. Climate change is something that occurs over several decades, not one and a half. And this trend doesn't take away from obvious facts.
The IPCC report is used or abused, it represents a consensus and not a conspiracy. “Each of the last three decades,” it concludes, “has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.” The oceans have warmed and grown more acidic. Ice sheets are losing mass. Sea ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere are shrinking. Ocean levels are rising.
This is what is meant be settled science.
The rest of his piece defines the political problems that climate change has caused and, I hope, a solution to solving them.
The intersection of science and policy, of climate and politics, has become a bloody crossroads. Blog-based arguments over ocean temperatures and the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet are as shrill and personal as any Tea Party primary challenge. And the IPCC report — designed to describe areas of scientific consensus — has become an occasion for polarization.
Shrill, indeed. Scientific matters and their validity should not be decided based on fucking blog posts or comments. These sorts of discussions should be looked upon in the same way one views TMZ news on Molly Ray Cyrus.
Gerson astutely points out that the warming hiatus, which has elicited adolescent cries of GOTCHA!, is misleading and quite irrelevant. Climate change is something that occurs over several decades, not one and a half. And this trend doesn't take away from obvious facts.
The IPCC report is used or abused, it represents a consensus and not a conspiracy. “Each of the last three decades,” it concludes, “has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.” The oceans have warmed and grown more acidic. Ice sheets are losing mass. Sea ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere are shrinking. Ocean levels are rising.
This is what is meant be settled science.
The rest of his piece defines the political problems that climate change has caused and, I hope, a solution to solving them.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Turning Our Attention To Health Care
Now that Shutdown 2013 is over the political world's attention will turn to Affordable Care Act. The Right are likely kicking themselves for wasting two weeks of being able to hyper-obsessively focus on the three people out there whose rates are (allegedly) going up now that the exchanges are open (see: Hasty Generalization). Yet their bloviating does bring up an interesting puzzle. How does one honestly gauge the effects of the ACA in an unbiased fashion? It is it even possible? If such a site exists, I'd sure like a link.
Obviously the Right is going to blow a bowel if anyone suggests that the president himself is an unbiased source. But he (like myself) finds the problems with the web portal to be more than just glitches and completely unacceptable. Apparently, the primary reason for these issues have to do with last minute changes requested by HHS and a substandard contractor (CGI). Of course, those people that live in states that aren't actively trying to destroy the ACA seem to have few problems using the website. Strange, I know:) Stranger still is that a website rollout with major demand and traffic has significant problems. That NEVER happens in the private sector, only with the government! And who in the fuck wants to sign up via phone (where there are very few problems) in this day and age?
As they do with everything else, we are already beginning to see the strategy that the Right is going to employ to try to prevent this law from working (see: sore losers, can't stand being wrong, fret over irrelevance). Any small problem with the law is going to be blown up to Biblical proportions. It's not a few people whose rates (may or may not) have gone up. It's millions. The people whose rates are going down are lazy, poor people who are spooning off our hard earned money. Anyone who is being helped by the ACA is not what they seem. They are the OTHER. This is generally true for any positive news about the law. Any information that puts the ACA in a positive light. It's all propaganda meant to send us all into government enslavement.
Things sure would be a lot easier if they didn't have such a pathological hatred of the federal government.
Obviously the Right is going to blow a bowel if anyone suggests that the president himself is an unbiased source. But he (like myself) finds the problems with the web portal to be more than just glitches and completely unacceptable. Apparently, the primary reason for these issues have to do with last minute changes requested by HHS and a substandard contractor (CGI). Of course, those people that live in states that aren't actively trying to destroy the ACA seem to have few problems using the website. Strange, I know:) Stranger still is that a website rollout with major demand and traffic has significant problems. That NEVER happens in the private sector, only with the government! And who in the fuck wants to sign up via phone (where there are very few problems) in this day and age?
As they do with everything else, we are already beginning to see the strategy that the Right is going to employ to try to prevent this law from working (see: sore losers, can't stand being wrong, fret over irrelevance). Any small problem with the law is going to be blown up to Biblical proportions. It's not a few people whose rates (may or may not) have gone up. It's millions. The people whose rates are going down are lazy, poor people who are spooning off our hard earned money. Anyone who is being helped by the ACA is not what they seem. They are the OTHER. This is generally true for any positive news about the law. Any information that puts the ACA in a positive light. It's all propaganda meant to send us all into government enslavement.
Things sure would be a lot easier if they didn't have such a pathological hatred of the federal government.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
The Big Lie Again
The last two weeks of shutdown have seen several mentions of the Big Lie that government spending does not increase economic activity nor is it a jobs program. It would be fine if those in the Tea Party said, instead, "I don't like the fact that government spending increases economic activity and is a jobs program" because that would be more accurate.
I've explained previously exactly how government spending increases economic activity and can create wealth, offering the example of the Grand Coulee Dam. The same hysterical complaints were heard then and were proven completely wrong. Even today, the government spends money in many sectors of our economy and is a partner in increasing economic activity and creating jobs. The defense industry stands as a shining example of how this works. So do the energy industry and the National Institute of Health. The list on return to government investment is quite impressive, actually, and it's very clear that they naysayers are having trouble with their emotions about government. One would think that they Right understands return on investment but I guess they don't.
The next few weeks will show what kind of an economic hit we are going to take as a result of the shutdown. I've talked about this before as well and, honestly, Americans are clearly understanding what life looks like when you aren't rational about the federal government. If the Right wants something to worry about, I think it should be this.
What exactly is sedition?
According to the US Code (18 U.S.C. § 2384 ), seditious conspiracy is a crime under United States law. The law states in part that, “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to… prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States… they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
That's exactly what Ted Cruz and his merry band of moonbats have done in the last few weeks. In fact, they attempted to hinder many laws, not just the Affordable Care Act. No doubt, if people like Darrell Issa were faced with these facts, a committee would have been formed yesterday. I think that the Right should be thankful that the president and the Democrats are much nicer and forgiving people.
So, moonbats, I wouldn't rock the boat if I were you.
I've explained previously exactly how government spending increases economic activity and can create wealth, offering the example of the Grand Coulee Dam. The same hysterical complaints were heard then and were proven completely wrong. Even today, the government spends money in many sectors of our economy and is a partner in increasing economic activity and creating jobs. The defense industry stands as a shining example of how this works. So do the energy industry and the National Institute of Health. The list on return to government investment is quite impressive, actually, and it's very clear that they naysayers are having trouble with their emotions about government. One would think that they Right understands return on investment but I guess they don't.
The next few weeks will show what kind of an economic hit we are going to take as a result of the shutdown. I've talked about this before as well and, honestly, Americans are clearly understanding what life looks like when you aren't rational about the federal government. If the Right wants something to worry about, I think it should be this.
What exactly is sedition?
According to the US Code (18 U.S.C. § 2384 ), seditious conspiracy is a crime under United States law. The law states in part that, “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to… prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States… they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
That's exactly what Ted Cruz and his merry band of moonbats have done in the last few weeks. In fact, they attempted to hinder many laws, not just the Affordable Care Act. No doubt, if people like Darrell Issa were faced with these facts, a committee would have been formed yesterday. I think that the Right should be thankful that the president and the Democrats are much nicer and forgiving people.
So, moonbats, I wouldn't rock the boat if I were you.
The Rant
Mark has been posting numerous quotes from the Founding Fathers about separation of Church and State, and I haven't commented much on them. There seems to be little point, because it's so obvious that single-party, single-denomination governments and theocracies are inherently evil: modern Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, England under Henry VIII, Italy under the medieval popes, and so on.
But there are still some Americans who still disagree. They are epitomized by the woman who started ranting on the House floor during the vote on reopening the government.
He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. [to someone next to her] Don't touch me. [to the chamber] He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been— no. It would not have been— constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ.This poor woman's emotions are clearly being manipulated by self-serving politicians and theocrats with ulterior motives that have nothing to do with god.
How does reopening the government mock him? In any case, why would the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful creator of the universe -- which contains billions of galaxies that each contain billions of stars and billions of planets -- give one whit about a political scuffle between groups of insignificant creatures like us?
What's really at stake here is the pride of the people who shut down the government. They are projecting all their own demands and desires on god, justifying their beliefs by dint of constant repetition that it's what god wants. They endlessly twist the teachings of the bible to rationalize whatever political agenda they have.
The irony is that the man they worship was famous for healing the sick and the poor. Yet they are heartbroken that they have failed to prevent our government from healing the sick and the poor.
They argue that healing is not the government's place. Yet they want the government to be "Christian," which would dictate that it do everything to help the sick and the poor. They only want separation of Church and State when the state is helping the less fortunate.
The men who wrote the Constitution (many of them in fact Freemasons) knew a few things about the history of religion, and that's why they kept Church and State separate. The Founders realized that members of religions endlessly compete for power, and use their own interpretations of scripture to justify why they should be in control. These personal ambitions and power struggles splinter religions from the inside out, over and over and over.
Christianity split off from Judaism, currently fractured into three main sects: Conservative, Reform and Orthodox. Christianity continued to splinter, resulting in countless Christian denominations -- the Catholic Church, the national Orthodox Churches (one per country, including Russia, Greece, Armenia, Romania, etc.), the Lutheran Synod, the Anglican Church, the Calvinist Reformed Tradition, various Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. And then you have the kooks, like the Branch Davidians and Warren Jeffs' FLDS.
And though most Tea Party types don't seem to to understand it, even Islam split off from Christianity. In the 14 centuries since then, it has also broken into numerous sects, including Shiites, Sunnis, Sufis, Alawites, and on and on.
Government cannot be controlled by religion because religion is too unstable. You can't give popes, archbishops and ayatollahs that kind of temporal power. Theistic religions are too autocratic and dictatorial, they cannot brook dissent nor allow heresy to go unpunished.
In short, the Founders knew that religion is incompatible with democracy.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The Final Vote
The Senate passed the legislation to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling with a final vote of 81-18. The House vote was 285-144 with 87 Republicans supporting the bill. The president is signing the legislation this evening.
This is a giant win for the president. Clearly, the Tea Party knows they can't fuck with him anymore on the debt ceiling or funding the government. If they threaten to do this again, it will obviously be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Sort of like their entire ideology.
Monte Hall Time!
It looks like we have a deal to end the shutdown and increase the debt limit. Ted Cruz (see: fraud) will not block the vote on the Senate Floor and, as of this moment, John Boehner (or, I guess, Eric Cantor who is now the only member of the House that can bring bills to the floor...huh?...so much for following rules) will allow a vote on the floor of the House and rely on Democrats to get the bill passed.
So, WTF, was this all about again? Oh, right...kill Obamacare....meep morp...kill Obamacare...meep.
I wonder how much money all of this cost the taxpayers.
So, WTF, was this all about again? Oh, right...kill Obamacare....meep morp...kill Obamacare...meep.
I wonder how much money all of this cost the taxpayers.
The House of Right Wing Bloggers
Yesterday was Exhibit A in terms of what our government would be like if it was run by the right wing blogsphere. Adolescent, chaotic, emotional outbursts, no cohesion, bloviating with no real defined goals ...that was the House of Representatives yesterday. They tried to come up with a plan to counter the Senate's effort to end the shutdown but couldn't do it. Can they even govern anymore?
John Boehner may very well lose his speakership over this but then again he might not. Who else is going to take his place? The GOP is so fractured and splintered now that any power they may have held onto after the 2012 elections is now gone. Like an obstinate teenager, they have not improved their situation politically. They have not made any inroads with women and Latinos nor have they moderated their message to appeal to independents. In fact, their disapproval among independents is now at 70 percent with their approval ratings split 50-50 within their own party!
So, the lesson for folks like Kevin Baker (who oddly commented here recently after voting me off his own site...huh?) is this: you don't know what the fuck you are doing. You are completely out of your depth. You need to go to therapy and work on your problems with authority and losing. Your juvenile emotions cloud any ability you might have to solve our nation's problems. Time for you and your ilk to be sent to military school while the adults (as they always do) take care of the business of America.
In short, say goodbye to GOP control of the House of Representatives.
John Boehner may very well lose his speakership over this but then again he might not. Who else is going to take his place? The GOP is so fractured and splintered now that any power they may have held onto after the 2012 elections is now gone. Like an obstinate teenager, they have not improved their situation politically. They have not made any inroads with women and Latinos nor have they moderated their message to appeal to independents. In fact, their disapproval among independents is now at 70 percent with their approval ratings split 50-50 within their own party!
So, the lesson for folks like Kevin Baker (who oddly commented here recently after voting me off his own site...huh?) is this: you don't know what the fuck you are doing. You are completely out of your depth. You need to go to therapy and work on your problems with authority and losing. Your juvenile emotions cloud any ability you might have to solve our nation's problems. Time for you and your ilk to be sent to military school while the adults (as they always do) take care of the business of America.
In short, say goodbye to GOP control of the House of Representatives.
Good Words
“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”
~Noah Webster, calling for no religious tests to serve in public office, Sketches of American Policy, 1785
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Health Care Polls
Take a look at the latest polls on the Affordable Care Act. The first takeaway is that the gap between approve and disapprove is narrowing. The other more important one is that there are more unsure which spells a hot mess for the Right. I think people are going to wait and see what happens in the next few months before rendering a judgement.
Shutdown A Go Go
Quite a bit to talk about today as we enter the last 48 hours before we default on our debt so let's get to it...
It looks as though Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have crafted a deal which re-opens the government and raised the debt ceiling into early next year. The House has just announced that they are going to push their own deal as well. The former doesn't have much about the Affordable Care Act in it but the House bill wants to delay the medical device tax for two years. The House just can't let go of the ACA, can they? Of course, it's part of their overall temper tantrum summed up quite eloquently by another Mark...
Speaking of the House, Pryor told CNN that "some Republicans are, quite honestly, they're acting childish about this. They almost want a shutdown. They almost want to see us break the debt ceiling."
Marks are cool people. I wonder if he has been reading my blog...:)
Here are the basics about the Senate deal which is the one likely to pass.
I must admit that the Right really had me fooled on this one as I thought they were much smarter and had more power than this. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Had they not taken this route, they could have sat back and made much hay out of the problems with the launch of the health care exchanges. Their popularity would have soared and they might have even gotten some changes through in regards to the ACA.
Instead, they had several irrational and incoherent outbursts (see video below) followed by the usual stomp down the hallway, door slam, and adolescent room trashing. The American people now realize exactly how ridiculously immature these people are and have rejected them. It's now more than possible that the Democrats will take back the House in 2014, six years earlier than I predicted. Had the GOP not engaged in this shutdown/debt ceiling folly, they would have solidified their hold on the House and possibly taken the Senate.
But they can't resist the catnip of being moonbats and, man oh man, have they released a full pack of them in the last two weeks. Roger Simon sums it up quite nicely in this piece.
Protesters marched through the streets of Washington on Sunday with a Confederate flag and then a protester lounged against the White House fence with one. Displaying the Confederate flag in front of a home occupied by a black family was meant to send a particular, and particularly repellent, message. There were other signs of our descent.
Remember Samuel Wurzelbacher? Known as “Joe the Plumber,” he was selected by John McCain as his presidential campaign mascot in 2008 with the same care McCain used to select Sarah Palin. Over the weekend, Wurzelbacher posted an article on his blog titled: “America Needs a White Republican President.” “Admit it,” the article said. “You want a white Republican president again. Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.”
At least one can appreciate the fact that they aren't hiding it anymore. Check out this video.
"I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up," Klayman told the crowd.
Wow.
Through all this anger and hatred, though, it was nice to see that the World War Two vets who have been pushing to re-open the memorial gave the middle finger to the dark hart of American populism.
The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner. Mr. Cruz, Ms. Palin and some attendees, including political parties may have not been aware of the goals of the marches which took place in over 60+ rallies across the nation.
Double Wow. It looks like they are losing the old white guy crowd now as well.
The next two days are going to be interesting, folks. Check back here often as the news unfolds.
Marks are cool people. I wonder if he has been reading my blog...:)
Here are the basics about the Senate deal which is the one likely to pass.
I must admit that the Right really had me fooled on this one as I thought they were much smarter and had more power than this. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Had they not taken this route, they could have sat back and made much hay out of the problems with the launch of the health care exchanges. Their popularity would have soared and they might have even gotten some changes through in regards to the ACA.
Instead, they had several irrational and incoherent outbursts (see video below) followed by the usual stomp down the hallway, door slam, and adolescent room trashing. The American people now realize exactly how ridiculously immature these people are and have rejected them. It's now more than possible that the Democrats will take back the House in 2014, six years earlier than I predicted. Had the GOP not engaged in this shutdown/debt ceiling folly, they would have solidified their hold on the House and possibly taken the Senate.
But they can't resist the catnip of being moonbats and, man oh man, have they released a full pack of them in the last two weeks. Roger Simon sums it up quite nicely in this piece.
Protesters marched through the streets of Washington on Sunday with a Confederate flag and then a protester lounged against the White House fence with one. Displaying the Confederate flag in front of a home occupied by a black family was meant to send a particular, and particularly repellent, message. There were other signs of our descent.
Remember Samuel Wurzelbacher? Known as “Joe the Plumber,” he was selected by John McCain as his presidential campaign mascot in 2008 with the same care McCain used to select Sarah Palin. Over the weekend, Wurzelbacher posted an article on his blog titled: “America Needs a White Republican President.” “Admit it,” the article said. “You want a white Republican president again. Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.”
At least one can appreciate the fact that they aren't hiding it anymore. Check out this video.
"I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up," Klayman told the crowd.
Wow.
Through all this anger and hatred, though, it was nice to see that the World War Two vets who have been pushing to re-open the memorial gave the middle finger to the dark hart of American populism.
The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner. Mr. Cruz, Ms. Palin and some attendees, including political parties may have not been aware of the goals of the marches which took place in over 60+ rallies across the nation.
Double Wow. It looks like they are losing the old white guy crowd now as well.
The next two days are going to be interesting, folks. Check back here often as the news unfolds.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Inhaling Inelastic Demand
The Times had a great piece in yesterday's paper which illustrated yet again how the relative inelasticity of demand in many health care markets leads directly to unfair pricing and erosion of consumer surplus.
Unlike other countries, where the government directly or indirectly sets an allowed national wholesale price for each drug, the United States leaves prices to market competition among pharmaceutical companies, including generic drug makers. But competition is often a mirage in today’s health care arena — a surprising number of lifesaving drugs are made by only one manufacturer — and businesses often successfully blunt market forces.
Exactly right. With only one manufacturer, the sole supplier can set his price way above the natural equilibrium of the market. That's why in cases like this the government needs to step in to improve market efficiency.
Of course, as Stiglitz points out many times in his book, the government doesn't actually do that and, instead, makes the problem worse.
Thanks in part to the $250 million last year spent on lobbying for pharmaceutical and health products — more than even the defense industry — the government allows such practices. Lawmakers in Washington have forbidden Medicare, the largest government purchaser of health care, to negotiate drug prices. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, the United States Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which evaluates treatments for coverage by federal programs, is not allowed to consider cost comparisons or cost-effectiveness in its recommendations. And importation of prescription medicines from abroad is illegal, even personal purchases from mail-order pharmacies.
“Our regulatory and approval system seems constructed to achieve high-priced outcomes,” said Dr. Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “We don’t give any reason for drug makers to charge less.”
And taxpayers and patients bear the consequences.
In trying to find common ground in this day and age of hyperpartisanship, we should look to the very simple solution of government actually doing its job as opposed to succumbing to special interests. This is where critics on the right always misread the left and it has to stop. As a Democrat, I don't want "bigger" government. I simply want better government and that means no more lobbying.
Let's just do that first and then we can worry about the size of government.
Unlike other countries, where the government directly or indirectly sets an allowed national wholesale price for each drug, the United States leaves prices to market competition among pharmaceutical companies, including generic drug makers. But competition is often a mirage in today’s health care arena — a surprising number of lifesaving drugs are made by only one manufacturer — and businesses often successfully blunt market forces.
Exactly right. With only one manufacturer, the sole supplier can set his price way above the natural equilibrium of the market. That's why in cases like this the government needs to step in to improve market efficiency.
Of course, as Stiglitz points out many times in his book, the government doesn't actually do that and, instead, makes the problem worse.
Thanks in part to the $250 million last year spent on lobbying for pharmaceutical and health products — more than even the defense industry — the government allows such practices. Lawmakers in Washington have forbidden Medicare, the largest government purchaser of health care, to negotiate drug prices. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, the United States Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which evaluates treatments for coverage by federal programs, is not allowed to consider cost comparisons or cost-effectiveness in its recommendations. And importation of prescription medicines from abroad is illegal, even personal purchases from mail-order pharmacies.
“Our regulatory and approval system seems constructed to achieve high-priced outcomes,” said Dr. Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “We don’t give any reason for drug makers to charge less.”
And taxpayers and patients bear the consequences.
In trying to find common ground in this day and age of hyperpartisanship, we should look to the very simple solution of government actually doing its job as opposed to succumbing to special interests. This is where critics on the right always misread the left and it has to stop. As a Democrat, I don't want "bigger" government. I simply want better government and that means no more lobbying.
Let's just do that first and then we can worry about the size of government.
A Confederate Flag At The White House
Cranking up the moonbat meter to "More Disturbed," Sarah Palin (not to be left out of all the hubbub in DC) joined Ted Cruz in storming the WWII memorial and protesting...their own behavior? What is it about that place that just brings out the douche? Guilt?
Anyway, the most disturbing part of that story was this image.
A confederate flag at the White House? Really?!??
Anyway, the most disturbing part of that story was this image.
A confederate flag at the White House? Really?!??
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Good Words
“Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.”
~Roger Sherman, Congress, August 19, 1789
The Kingdom of God
With Nobel prize given to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their work in subatomic particles, it seems we are moving closer to the goal that Christ made for us. We are indeed doing his works and greater than these. God's children understand more fully what mechanism gives subatomic particles their mass....amazing...
On many levels, this is a completely stunning thing to consider. Obviously, they have research and mysteries about the particle to unravel (how gravity fits in, for example) but the basic understanding is now there. We know what holds together the atoms that are a part of all matter in the universe. This includes everything from the stars all the way down to us.
This discovery brings new meaning to Luke 17: 21 in which Christ says that the kingdom of God is in each one of us. Perhaps he was speaking more literally than we thought...
On many levels, this is a completely stunning thing to consider. Obviously, they have research and mysteries about the particle to unravel (how gravity fits in, for example) but the basic understanding is now there. We know what holds together the atoms that are a part of all matter in the universe. This includes everything from the stars all the way down to us.
This discovery brings new meaning to Luke 17: 21 in which Christ says that the kingdom of God is in each one of us. Perhaps he was speaking more literally than we thought...
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Good Words
“God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.”
~Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773
Friday, October 11, 2013
They Shittin' Theyselfs...
No wonder House Republicans are ready to deal now...
Republicans hit all-time low in Gallup poll
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked this is what happened. Did they actually believe that people would embrace their moonbattery and join them?
Meanwhile, we have this conservative leaning poll on the president...
Republicans hit all-time low in Gallup poll
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked this is what happened. Did they actually believe that people would embrace their moonbattery and join them?
Meanwhile, we have this conservative leaning poll on the president...
Good Words
“Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.”
~Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Good Words
“Some very worthy persons, who have not had great advantages for information, have objected against that clause in the constitution
which provides, that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. They have been afraid that this clause is unfavorable to religion. But my countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution, and to secure to you the important right of religious
liberty. We are almost the only people in the world, who have a full enjoyment of this important right of human nature. In our country every man has a right to worship God in that way which is most agreeable to his conscience. If he be a good and peaceable person he is liable to no penalties or incapacities on account of his religious sentiments; or in other words, he is not subject to persecution. But in other parts of the world, it has been, and still is, far different. Systems of religious error have been adopted, in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates, to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish, and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error, but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe.”
~Oliver Ellsworth, Philip B Kurland and Ralph Lerner (eds.), The Founder’s Constitution, University of Chicago Press, 1987, Vol. 4, p.
638
The Lowest of the Low
Our federal government spends money on all sorts of things that are beneficial. Here is one of them.
Shutdown Denies Death and Burial Benefits to Families of 4 Dead Soldiers
The fault for this lies directly with the Republicans and their current adolescent temper tantrum about spending....spending, I might add, they already approved! This example is one of many and very illustrative about how the lack of federal spending has a very real affect on people's lives. This would be why I continually try to remind people that the federal government does all sorts of good things that people fail to note through their continued complaints about it.
Shutdown Denies Death and Burial Benefits to Families of 4 Dead Soldiers
The fault for this lies directly with the Republicans and their current adolescent temper tantrum about spending....spending, I might add, they already approved! This example is one of many and very illustrative about how the lack of federal spending has a very real affect on people's lives. This would be why I continually try to remind people that the federal government does all sorts of good things that people fail to note through their continued complaints about it.
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Republican Type #7
Sadly, I know a few of these types...
Extremely Uneducated Republicans:
These Republicans are Republicans because they think it’s cool. They have a Republican friend in one of the other groups listed, so they think they know what they’re talking about. They have terrible spelling and grammar but they expect you to believe whatever they say because they are saying it to you.
The problem with this type of Republican’s views:
It’s hard to tell if they ever made it past the 4th grade. Most of their posts are illegible. They don’t know anything about their position other than what they have heard their friends say. They think Republicans are fiscally conservative because they say that they are, and call anyone who doesn’t agree with them “sheep.” They ignore all historical information that is contradictory to what they say. They are 100 percent blind to facts.
What to remember when debating them:
No amount of facts or logic will ever convince them that their buddies are wrong. You could be a college professor and they will still think your facts aren’t credible. Instead of trying to argue with them, try explaining algebra to your dog. I’m sure it will be much more productive.
Extremely Uneducated Republicans:
These Republicans are Republicans because they think it’s cool. They have a Republican friend in one of the other groups listed, so they think they know what they’re talking about. They have terrible spelling and grammar but they expect you to believe whatever they say because they are saying it to you.
The problem with this type of Republican’s views:
It’s hard to tell if they ever made it past the 4th grade. Most of their posts are illegible. They don’t know anything about their position other than what they have heard their friends say. They think Republicans are fiscally conservative because they say that they are, and call anyone who doesn’t agree with them “sheep.” They ignore all historical information that is contradictory to what they say. They are 100 percent blind to facts.
What to remember when debating them:
No amount of facts or logic will ever convince them that their buddies are wrong. You could be a college professor and they will still think your facts aren’t credible. Instead of trying to argue with them, try explaining algebra to your dog. I’m sure it will be much more productive.
Good Words
“Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression.”
~Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut Ratifying Convention, 9 January 1788
Shocking...Not
Uninsured Find More Success via Health Exchanges Run by States..
It does help when you don't have adolescents who can't stand losing trying to sabotage your efforts.
It does help when you don't have adolescents who can't stand losing trying to sabotage your efforts.
Sowell Goes Full Moonbat
A conservative friend of mine posted this piece by Thomas Sowell on his Facebook wall. Check out this insanity.
Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt. Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.
I've come to the conclusion that Jesus of the Right Wing Blogsphere is not as intelligent as I thought he was. Either that or he is just trying to play to his audience for dollars. He's certainly done that in the past. And I still can't figure out why he doesn't write "Liberals are stupid" for everyone of his books and columns. He certainly could save more time.
But if he does actually believe what he has written here, then he has officially gone full moonbat (as well as not understanding basic math). Raising the debt ceiling does not allow the federal government to spend more money. Congress authorizes how much money the government is allowed to spend and they have already done that. The debt ceiling only determines whether the U.S. government can borrow enough money to fulfill the spending obligations that Congress has already passed into law, like Medicare reimbursements or military pay not to mention unexpected crises that arise that may need funding.
He's not alone either. Politico has a piece up about the default deniers in Congress.
“Spending a day highlighting the debt and the deficit in Congress as part of raising the debt ceiling is probably a healthy thing,” said Tony Fratto, a consultant at Hamilton Place Strategies and a White House and Treasury official under President George W. Bush. “But the moment you start talking seriously about not raising the debt limit it becomes dangerous. And a lot of members of Congress are now saying things that give evidence that they have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the debt limit and the way government financing works.”
The tax money the moonbats are talking about speak won't be enough to cover the daily expenses of the government. We already hit our debt limit last May and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has been doing things like tapping exchange-rate funds to raise extra cash. A recent analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center shows that the government will bring in roughly $222 billion and owe roughly $328 billion between Oct. 18 and Nov. 15, assuming the government is open, hence the date of October 17th and the threat of default.
Of course, none of this takes into account the uncertainty factor and how that will play with the image of the United States and interest rates. Sowell simply ignores this. The treasury will be in the position of having to choose which obligations to honor and which ones it won't. And the drastic spending cuts will have an extremely adverse effect on the economy, cutting growth massively. it would lead to another recession.
Whether they choose to believe it or not, a $175 billion dollar cut in government spending would take about 1 percent out of the economy. Stock markets would likely fall. Household wealth would shrink. Consumer confidence would plunge as Americans would cut back on spending. Higher rates on debt would raise borrowing costs, including mortgage rates. That's just the cut in spending, mind you, not an actual default which would add fuel to the flames.
The American Taliban doesn't really care about any of this and simply wants to burn the house down at this point. They want American to fail on Obama's watch. I guess Sowell is has now joined them.
Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt. Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.
I've come to the conclusion that Jesus of the Right Wing Blogsphere is not as intelligent as I thought he was. Either that or he is just trying to play to his audience for dollars. He's certainly done that in the past. And I still can't figure out why he doesn't write "Liberals are stupid" for everyone of his books and columns. He certainly could save more time.
But if he does actually believe what he has written here, then he has officially gone full moonbat (as well as not understanding basic math). Raising the debt ceiling does not allow the federal government to spend more money. Congress authorizes how much money the government is allowed to spend and they have already done that. The debt ceiling only determines whether the U.S. government can borrow enough money to fulfill the spending obligations that Congress has already passed into law, like Medicare reimbursements or military pay not to mention unexpected crises that arise that may need funding.
He's not alone either. Politico has a piece up about the default deniers in Congress.
“Spending a day highlighting the debt and the deficit in Congress as part of raising the debt ceiling is probably a healthy thing,” said Tony Fratto, a consultant at Hamilton Place Strategies and a White House and Treasury official under President George W. Bush. “But the moment you start talking seriously about not raising the debt limit it becomes dangerous. And a lot of members of Congress are now saying things that give evidence that they have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the debt limit and the way government financing works.”
The tax money the moonbats are talking about speak won't be enough to cover the daily expenses of the government. We already hit our debt limit last May and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has been doing things like tapping exchange-rate funds to raise extra cash. A recent analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center shows that the government will bring in roughly $222 billion and owe roughly $328 billion between Oct. 18 and Nov. 15, assuming the government is open, hence the date of October 17th and the threat of default.
Of course, none of this takes into account the uncertainty factor and how that will play with the image of the United States and interest rates. Sowell simply ignores this. The treasury will be in the position of having to choose which obligations to honor and which ones it won't. And the drastic spending cuts will have an extremely adverse effect on the economy, cutting growth massively. it would lead to another recession.
Whether they choose to believe it or not, a $175 billion dollar cut in government spending would take about 1 percent out of the economy. Stock markets would likely fall. Household wealth would shrink. Consumer confidence would plunge as Americans would cut back on spending. Higher rates on debt would raise borrowing costs, including mortgage rates. That's just the cut in spending, mind you, not an actual default which would add fuel to the flames.
The American Taliban doesn't really care about any of this and simply wants to burn the house down at this point. They want American to fail on Obama's watch. I guess Sowell is has now joined them.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Yep
From a friend's Facebook wall...
Oct 2008: "You'll never get elected and pass healthcare."
Nov 2008: "We'll never let you pass healthcare."
Jan 2009: "We're gonna shout you down every time you try to pass healthcare."
July 2009: "We'll fight to death every attempt you make to pass healthcare."
Dec 2009: "We will destroy you if you even consider passing healthcare."
March 2010: "We can't believe you just passed healthcare."
April 2010: "We are going to overturn healthcare."
Sept 2010: "We are going to repeal healthcare."
Jan 2011: "We are going to destroy healthcare."
Feb 2012: "We're gonna elect a candidate who'll revoke healthcare NOW."
June 2012: "We'll go to the Supreme Court, and they will overturn healthcare."
June 2012: "We can't believe the Supreme Court just upheld healthcare."
Aug 2012: "American people'll never re-elect you-they don't want healthcare."
Oct 2012: "We can't wait to win the election and explode healthcare."
Nov 2012: "We can't believe you got re-elected & we can't repeal healthcare."
Feb 2013: "We're still going to vote to obliterate healthcare."July 2013: "We're going to vote like 35 more times to erase healthcare."
Sept 2013: "We are going to leverage a government shutdown into defunding, destroying, obliterating, overturning, repealing, dismantling, erasing and ripping apart healthcare."
Oct 2013: "WHY AREN'T YOU NEGOTIATING???"
Oct 2008: "You'll never get elected and pass healthcare."
Nov 2008: "We'll never let you pass healthcare."
Jan 2009: "We're gonna shout you down every time you try to pass healthcare."
July 2009: "We'll fight to death every attempt you make to pass healthcare."
Dec 2009: "We will destroy you if you even consider passing healthcare."
March 2010: "We can't believe you just passed healthcare."
April 2010: "We are going to overturn healthcare."
Sept 2010: "We are going to repeal healthcare."
Jan 2011: "We are going to destroy healthcare."
Feb 2012: "We're gonna elect a candidate who'll revoke healthcare NOW."
June 2012: "We'll go to the Supreme Court, and they will overturn healthcare."
June 2012: "We can't believe the Supreme Court just upheld healthcare."
Aug 2012: "American people'll never re-elect you-they don't want healthcare."
Oct 2012: "We can't wait to win the election and explode healthcare."
Nov 2012: "We can't believe you got re-elected & we can't repeal healthcare."
Feb 2013: "We're still going to vote to obliterate healthcare."July 2013: "We're going to vote like 35 more times to erase healthcare."
Sept 2013: "We are going to leverage a government shutdown into defunding, destroying, obliterating, overturning, repealing, dismantling, erasing and ripping apart healthcare."
Oct 2013: "WHY AREN'T YOU NEGOTIATING???"
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