East Anglia; Who Knew What and When
Powerline brings up a good point that the most damning e-mail from the hacked East Anglia climate files was written in 1999. But, this no where near exonerates the pack of rogues of who have been pushing the anthropogenic global warming (AGM) fraud.
The authors of these e-mail, as the putative experts in the field of global climate changes would have had the most detailed knowledge of the weaknesses of their AGM arguments. They, for example would have known about the Roman warming (about 300 BC to 400 AD) and the Medieval warming (about 900 AD to 1300 AD) periods. They would have also know about the bad effects of the global cooling following those warming periods. Little events, like, the fall of Rome and the ushering in the dark ages; literally and figuratively. Or, with the onset of the little ice age, in 1300, the black plague.
Could it be, that maybe the books were being cooked, even back in 1999, because these researchers needed to make this latest bout of global warming look really bad? Did they need a little extra to explain away the fact that the internal combustion engine wasn’t around for the Roman or Medieval warmings?
We know from the asides and the chatter that these ’scientists’ were engaged in a political agenda. They’re entitled to their opinions, political and otherwise. But, the tenor of these e-mails demonstrate that these guys didn’t check their personal opinions at the door when they punched the clock going to work at East Anglia.
And, if they did have an agenda, what was it? Were they out to ride the hobby horse of AGM with the goal of pinning the blame on carbon dioxide? Was the goal of making carbon dioxide the ‘fall guy’ the creation of rationalizations to further agendas of global governance in the name of cutting green house gas emissions? Or, to create a case for the regulatory monstrosity that is the cap and trade bill voted out of the House earlier this year? Or, an excuse to create a economy and job killing tax regime that is integral to this House bill?
Did these researchers know that there were serious shortcomings to their AGM theories that would eventually see the light of day? Did they, even in 1999, have to manufacture data to create air tight case that there is global warming, show that it was worse than any other such on record and then create the inference that carbon dioxide is the culprit to segue into the the above agendas?
Okay. This makes me a right-wing conspiracy nut-job. But, the raw data that these ‘researchers’ and ’scientists’ are sitting on are courtesy public money and government grants. Likewise, these guys are getting paid to write these e-mails via grants that come from public monies. My money. My tax dollars.
But, there’s a simple solution to this problem. It involves taking a page from the campaign promises of our el maximo leader, Obama. Transparency. I simply propose that the raw climate data, in large part paid with my taxes, be completely and with reservation, placed in the public domain. No hacking necessary. Put all the raw data on the internet. All of it.
‘Health Care Reform’–Chicago Style
The tired hobby horse of health care reform gets another lap on the race track as Reid schedules a vote in the Senate today. This is one horse that needs to be retired to the glue factory. But, as you take this bill in context of Pelosi’s and in the context of the ’stimulus’ legislation and the Cap-and-trade bill one get a very clear sense of where this is all going.
One needs to understand, in Chicago, that all the named purpose of any public institution is always the secondary purpose. The primary purpose for all Chicago public functions and agencies is that of graft, corruption and vote buying. Chicago, with its machine is the most obvious example of machine politics that plague governance of much of the northeast and, of course, California.
Indeed, over the years, as the cost of such vote buying has grown so has the cost of government. And, corruption is expensive. I remember, as a kid, the big debate over the establishment of a state income tax in Illinois. It was to ‘more equitably’ gather tax dollars to replace such things as property tax revenues. Well, some 30 year later, Illinois is saddled with an income tax, property taxes that are literally a whole order of magnitude greater than mine in Wyoming and sales taxes just shy of ten percent.
Indeed, the function of governance is an annual exercise in scraping enough revenue to pay-off all co-opted interest groups necessary for that fifty percent plus one to keep the Chicago machine in power. Moreover, governance to actually benefit its citizen–such as economic growth and jobs–are mere distractions. Governance becomes an exercise in constant intrusions into the business and the private lives of people, otherwise competent adults.
Once upon a time, Northeast Illinois, the Chicago area, used to be a powerhouse of economic growth. Steel, the Stockyards, railroads. Now, what economic activity still remains stems from the fact it can extort rent by virtue of its physical location. New York state was the same way, truly the Empire State. Kodak, Westinghouse, IBM, Corning, Xerox and so on. Most of those industries have moved on. Factories shuttered, waiting to be turned into tres elegant loft apartment instead of factories generating wealth, jobs, opportunity and wealth. But, the power class doesn’t care. So long as there is something to tax and so long as there are enough votes to get to fifty percent plus one, the downward spiral of once great regions continues unabated.
Aside from coming up with new ways to gin up more revenue to tamp down another ‘crisis’ to close yet another multi-billion budgetary gap are a bunch of generally rich, out-of-touch legislators who pursue agendas that saddle the average taxpayer with even more burdens. While they, by virtue of personal wealth, shielded by trust funds, vote on legislation with intended and unintended consequences that will never touch their priveledged lives. Pelosi married well, she has access to personal wealth to buy her way out of any medical rationing; the lush congressional health plan helps as well.
Governance becomes the personal hobby horse of these same said elites to pursue personal conceits with the power and revenue of government to supercharge their agenda far beyond their wildest dreams when they concocted them in their respective college midnight dorm-room bull sessions. California, with its imploding fiscal crisis, wants to regulate large screen TV’s. Never mind that this will be just another business and job killing venture that will have Californians buying those TV’s out of state instead of locally. Chicago seems to have debates over whether it will allow a Walmart to build within the city limits. (Jobs? New tax revenue? Less on the welfare rolls? What’s not to like? Oh! Pissed off Unions.) New York City, amid its fiscal floundering, sees the need to regulate trans-fats at restaurants. Remember the great foie gras ban in Chicago; got anything better to do? Functions and decisions that otherwise competent adults used to do for themselves are political.
So where do we stand with Chicago-style governance? The track record since January of this year is tax and spend. In matters not what the bill’s title said; beneath the title on bills that go on for over a thousand pages on average, have nothing but monies spent for every liberal wish since the last time the Democrats controlled all three branches of government with the majorities they have now in the first two years of Carter’s presidency.
First was the ’stimulus.’ The point was to bolus a large infusion of money into the economy immediately. And, had Rahm Emmanuel’s need to “never let a crisis go to waste,” that stimulus might have worked. But, it merely put most of the money into 2010 to buy votes. And, to set the stage for ‘health care reform.’
Then came ‘tax and cap.’ It was originally intended to be a cash cow of taxes to fund Obama’s socialist remake of America; and at the same time create a never ending source of money to fuel machine style elections for a Democratic machine in Washington D.C. As if it weren’t already apparent that climate change was a fraud, it is a fraud. But, that never mattered, it was the ultimate tax since it was geared to tax carbon dioxide and methane (alleged ‘greenhouse gases’). Carbon dioxide and methane, fancy terms for what you breathe out and what you fart, respectively. A tax on basic bodily functions.
But, tax and trade, as the bottomless cookie jar, fell short of its promise when the Democrats could figure out how not to tax Democrats. So, the tax angle, which was the real purpose of this bill became a means to create bureaucracy to distribute largess and government jobs.
And, now the latest, we have two bills, one in the House and one about to be debated in the Senate, that are notable for taxes. Taxes on Cadillac health plans, surtaxes on the ‘rich,’ elevated Medicare payroll taxes, again on the ‘rich.’ Mandates to buy insurance or pay a fine (or go to jail). If the coercion isn’t on your wallet, it’s literally on your person. There is the creation of all sorts of new regulatory agencies (more government jobs) to ‘reform’ health care.
My job as a physician is, ultimately, to sit down with my patient and try to find the best course of action to preserve my patients health and well being. It’s that simple. Yet, in this mass of thousand-page bills were is the simple concept of getting a patient and doctor to sit down and decide what is really best for that patient’s well being? Obviously of no political value.
Mammograms And Rationing
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) steps up to the plate, swings and whiffs. In the face of other recommendations, it recommends that screening mammograms be started for women above the age of 50; instead of the current practice and recommendation of starting at age 40.
And,
“While the bills are still being drafted and debated in Congress, health insurance reform legislation generally calls for the task force’s recommendations to help determine the types of preventive services that must be provided for little or no cost. The recommendations alone cannot be used to deny treatment,” he wrote. (white house deputy communications director Daniel Pfeiffer; see above link)
And, from HHS Secretary Sebilius,
“The U.S. Preventive Service Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government.” (see above link)
Of course. And, of course. The 900 pound gorilla that are the proposals of Obamacare will just docilely let doctors and their female patients make that mammogram decision on their own.
It’s probably true that there’s probably valid science behind the recommendation. Some of my gynecological colleagues seem to think so. It’s probably true that no, absolutely no, considerations of money were brought into the final decision. But, it would be nice to know who sat on that panel and who paid them. Full disclosure of funding is now standard by any presenter at any medical meeting for purposes of continuing medical education.
This is no different that my dealings with managed care back in its height in the mid-90’s. I remember one incident where I was counseling a go slow approach for a series of medical tests only to have the patient challenge me on the basis I was shilling for the insurance plan by making that recommendation for a slower approach to treatment. I was, in fact, trying to counsel not to pushing a surgical decision until we had exhausted all reasonable non-surgical options. But, like our current congress, any remote affiliation with an insurance company destroyed all credibility. That’s why I like to work for myself, in my own practice. There is not even the appearance of working for anyone but my patient–I know, very quaint.
You also have to shake your head at this arrogant tin-eared administration in launching its first rationing recommendation on an incredibly emotionally freighted subject like breast cancer. Not to say that this is all pure emotion, since breast cancer is the number two killer of women in this country. Should have stepped off with, say, vaccinations of delta smelt.
So, you have the debut of health care rationing. First, it demonstrates how political and how politicized every medical decision will become. Instead of a physician and his patient quietly discussing the pro’s and con’s of a mammogram screening at 40, we will now have those heretofore decisions now shouted out in every congressional office in Washington, D.C. Personal medical decisions will now be poll-driven by senators and congressmen fearful of losing the next election.
Whatever the merits, this decision will be shortly rescinded. Probably, as a clause inserted in one of the health care reform bills now swirling around the halls of congress. But, given the rank dishonesty underlying the push for ‘health care reform,’ whatever merits there may have been for this new mammogram recommendation will now be lost in a federal government that has no credibility. That’s what happens when you try the bait-and-switch tactic of “never letting a crisis go to waste.”
Then, the tort bar will weigh in. Which decision will sway a jury? The USPSTF recommendation of mammograms over 50 or the American Cancer Society’s recommendation of mammograms at age 40, reiterated in the maw of this controversy. Chances are that half of the jury will be women; and, women suffering from breast cancer make sympathetic plaintiffs. Will congress be willing to protect physicians by making the USPSTF binding in any tort action? Again, of course.
Welcome to the new world of identity politics. Every disease will now have to have a lobby. And, disease management will now hinge of who can deliver the campaign cash and stuff the ballot boxes on election day. ACORN and mammograms anyone?
Obamacare; Throwing S#*t Up Against The Wall
And seeing what sticks.
The benefit of substantial Democratic majorities is to allow the glib leadership (in both houses and the oval office) a chance to fully take the reins and render perfection out of our oh so obviously broken-down health care system. Now that they’re in control, they can rectify those glaring deficiencies with their brilliant solutions that seems to have just eluded millions of doctors, nurses and sundry health professionals too dim-witted to see the obvious solutions only apparent to the enlighten few that now run the executive and legislative branches our the federal government.
Except that three hundred million people have unique medical needs that somehow don’t fit into any tight delivery scheme. Certainly not the lowest common denominator expectations that Obama’s “best practices” will generate. ”Best practices” really do work except in the cases of exceptions. Exceptions that occur about every time a new patient walks into your office.
Now that the Democrats literally have the votes to pass anything they want, they also discover that they will own what ever mess they will create when they move this country into the Nirvana of “reformed” and “universal” health care.
And, everyone is starting to discover, now that the Democrats are seriously scheming to destroy the best health system in the world, that as bad as our system may be, every alternative is worse.
There was a reason to rush this “reform” through in the dark of night. That reason became abundantly clear when a whole summer’s worth of town hall meetings laid bare some of the myths that drove this reform need–those pesky peasants from fly-over country; just don’t know what’s best for them. Those same said peasants also objected to the price tag because one trillion dollars is a lot of money. 900 billion dollars is a lot of money. In fact, in the hurly-burly of making your household budget balance, 100 bucks is a lot of money.
In the process we learned that there are, as Mark Twain noted, lies, damn lies and statistics. We learned that American medicine does the best job in treating cancer, shortest waiting times and bringing the latest medical innovations to the patient fastest. We learned that American life expectancy is increasing. We learned that, factoring traffic accidents and homicide, we have the best life expectancy on earth. We learned that our infant mortality rate isn’t the best because we count premature births as live births unlike other countries who only count full-term births as live births. And, we have highly skilled neonatologists that that actually try to save these premies.
We learned that for all the griping, most Americans are satisfied with their medical coverage.
We learned, surprise, surprise, that there will be rationing. That rationing will be borne, in particular, by the elderly. That rationing will be forced by penalizing the the top ten percent of doctors (in terms of resource use).
We learned, courtesy former Labor Secretary Reich, that if you’re old we’re going to let you die. Further, don’t expect further increases in life expectancy since money for innovation will no longer be there. Yet, for all the contractions and cuts in care and resources for care; for all the taxes proposed–many to fall squarely on the middle class–we still have “reform” that will destroy the level of care we have now and beggar this country, our children and their grandchildren.
Yet, folks like Reid and Pelosi persist. Especially with their stalking horse for socialized medicine–the “public option.” In some respects, it is almost an obsession of a gambling addict that keeps doubling the ante in the center of the table in hopes of winning the jackpot.
There is no reason for this “reform” when more reasonable alternative are available. Equal tax treatment for all insurance plans whether purchased by an employer or an individual. Allowing insurance companies to purchase plans across state lines.
No, the real reason is the push to bring the entire medical system under governmental control. And, the folks pushing it the most are the Democratic leadership in both houses who all share a common trait of being superannuated Woodstock hippies who sense that this will be the last time, in a generation, that they can push medical socialization through. For them, the leadership in particular, it will be the last time in their lives since most of these individuals are 70 or older. These were the folks who were going to “change the system” by “working in the system.” Now, at the end of their careers, having labored for so long in the vinyards of the hall of congress, they finally have the perfect convergence to get their dream of socialism through. But, even now, their overreaching with things like the “stimulus” leave them just inches short.
They need to do this because socialized medicine is the surest vehicle to wreck a country. France and Britain used to be major players in world affairs–with military muscle to back it up. But, thanks to the enormous drain of resources by their respective social welfare programs, they are now, well, second rate. Now, it is our turn. This an attempt to so consume our country in spending and taxes so as to bleed every other priority dry–especially defense. And, to run individual initiative and economic into the ground; bye bye American Exceptionalism. These aging hippies will finally have the sure-fire solution to any future “Vietnams.” A solution to America’s “horrible oppressions” in the world. Bankrupt America.
The AMA’s Acid Test
Now the Democrats are dangling the promise of averting planned Medicare reimbursement cuts before the AMA in return for support for “health care” reform. And, we shall see if the AMA will truly stand by our nation’s physicians and the finest health care system built by their hard work. Or, will they fall for the fraud.
Even if the “cuts” are restored, we still have a system that so grossly underpays that physicians will still need to cost shift in order to break even. Further, this “restoration” will only avert a cut in reimbursement from the current levels. Levels so bad that seniors are having trouble, even under the current reimbursement rates, finding physicians in the first place.
Also, in many respects, the Democrats aren’t really giving anything away. Seniors vote and any Democrat should know a political third rail when they see one; after all they made Social Security one such. The net effect is that those Medicare reimbursement rates were going to be raised back (er, maintained) to their current levels anyhow.
Ultimately, the only answer is “no.” No, because this whole process of reform is a lie and fraud. Baucus’ plan was supposed to be paid in part by a 500 billion dollar reduction in Medicare. The 247 billion dollars to be “restored” is half of the money slated to “pay” for health care “reform.”
The docs at the AMA should look to the object lesson of the insurance companies. They signed on to “reform” under the supposition that community ratings and no pre-existing conditions would be offset by a robust mandate to sign up young uninsured persons. But, when someone’s constituency got stepped on the mandate got watered down and the insurance companies got stuck with adverse selection nightmare that will, frankly, bankrupt them. The insurance companies no longer had anything to lose by releasing the PriceWaterhouseCooper study. They’re screwed anyway.
Ultimately, the real goal is a banana-republic style expropriation of one sixth of the economy. It say no is to stay free. Accepting the Medicare bribe is just negotiating the terms of your serfdom.
The Fraud of Bacus-care
Smoke, mirrors and accounting slights of hand and we have health care “reform” for only about 829 billion dollars. It conveniently comes in under under Obama’s price tag of 900 billion dollars. Wow. Bacus may look and talk like Montana, but he’s been in Washington much too long; and gone totally native. Because while 829 billion dollars is a real saving compared to 900 billion, here in fly-over land, 829 billion dollars is still a lot of money.
But, this is all a wink and a nod to sell a very expensive new entitlement that will cost far more than the 829 billion dollar loss leader. This will be an entitlement that will grow to consume the federal budget and, indeed, the economy to transform America into a no-growth, no-job zone like everyone of Europe’s nanny states. England, France and Germany used to actually be major players on the international stage. But with social welfare, with “universal” health care leading the way, so consuming every mark, franc and pound (sorry, euro) there’s no money for the real priorities of a nation-state such as defense. No, with universal health care coverage brought to you by the snuggle bears of Health and Human Services, we won’t have to worry about Afganistan, Islamo-fasism or the war on terror. We simply won’t have the money to fight.
Let’s go through the fraud. First, Obama will sign anything, something that carries the label of “health care reform.” For all of his new found fiscal rectitude, he’ll sign if it cost ten bucks or ten trillion bucks. Since the Bacus bill is only the skeleton for the final reform, we can more than expect the price to go up. But, fear not, whatever the price, we can depend on an immediate loss of any fiscal scruples on Obama’s part.
About 500 billion dollars will come out of Medicare “savings.” Like that’s going to happen. Say what you will about making the wealthiest senior generation in the history of mankind footing more of the bill, they vote. Expect, after a proper chastising at the polls in 2010, Congress to come back and restore every penny of Medicare. You’d think, after the Democratic Party made Social Security the “third rail” of politics, that Bacus would recognize a third rail when he saw one.
Then, we have the taxation of the so-called Cadillac health plans. This was supposed to raise some serious money. I’ve read somewhere as much as 200 billion dollars. Well, my dynamic scoring scores this income stream at zero. You can expect every health insurance plan to carefully calibrate premiums to fall just under the limits of $8000 and $21,000 for individuals and families, respectively. And, big labor hasn’t weighed in yet.
How about a tax on durable medical goods and devices. Who uses such things as artificial hip and knee replacement? Pacemakers? Wheel chairs? The same said seniors who are going to clobber the Democrats in 2010 over Medicare. Another 30 billion dollars or so that are purely mythical.
So, what you have is a massive benefit cut for seniors. And, we haven’t started to account for the most spoiled generation, the boomers, who will be joining demanding, with a capital “D,” services as Medicare beneficiaries.
And, after looting the seniors, you have a bill that amounts to a huge middle class tax.
In some respect, it’s good that the Democrats have the majorities that they now possess. Because they, in their arrogance, thought they somehow knew better and could in a mere six months remake the finest health care system on earth. That they had answers and solutions, that somehow eluded the millions of professional that populate the health care system, that only they could see. Of course its a creaky system; how could it be otherwise in dealing with the health needs of 300 million Americans. So, we can now sit back and see the Democrat philosopher-kings, lead by Obama, Reid and Pelosi, come up with something better that the worker bees in the trenches are just too stupid to see.
Go ahead vote that bill. And, better yet, do it in the dark of night before any has a chance to read it. That bill will provide 1000 plus pages of GOP campaign material for 2010 and 2012.
Aging Hippies and Congressional Leadership
The headlong, damn-the-torpedoes approach to health care “reform” is a function of democratic congressional leadership in the hands of a bunch of aging Woodstock era hippies. Much of the top leadership hails from the early 1970’s, especially from the class of 1974; Democrats elected at the height of the Watergate scandal. Many of these were the hippies or fellow travelers who were going to carry the revolution to the establishment by working “in the system” and thereby undermine the “system.”
But, their 30 year journey was greatly frustrated by a misalignment of stars. The last time the Democrats held the balance of power as they do now was in Jimmy Carter’s first two years (1977-78). At that time these hippies were much too junior to exert much influence in the House and Senate. And, so the dream to radicalize America fizzled.
But, now comes the next opportunity. But, for the leadership, their last opportunity since many of them are in their 70’s and will literally be pushing up daisies when the next opportunity comes around. So, we see the most heavy handed legislative pushes on record to move health care “reform,” cap and trade and card check to remake America as some socialist utopia.
True to their boomer roots this leadership will push this agenda forward with out the slightest care about the consequences and damages their children and grandchildren will have to bear. They care not a whit for unintended consequences since they will live their remaining years on a lush congressional pension and then be dead shortly thereafter. They have exempted themselves from the maw of rationing that will be unloaded on the rest of America thanks to their socialized medical monstrosity. And, they will be able to avail themselves of what was once the finest medical system on earth before their “reforms” grind American medicine into the socialized mediocrity that now graces England and Canada.
Reid plans to jam health care reform through on reconciliation or some other obscure parliamentary trick to side it through on 51 votes. This will in effect kill the filibuster and turn the Senate into a more grandiose version of the House. Frankly, Reid has the votes; it only takes 51 votes to kill the filibuster right now. But, once that rule is gone, it’ll never come back. But, what does Reid care that he’ll turn the deliberative functions of the Senate into an over-glorified student senate. He’ll be departed from the scene; hopefully as soon as November 2010.
And, this same leadership is fighting to jam this bill through before anyone has a chance to read it. This may give Reid, Pelosi and company some cheap thrills. But, it’ll be murder for their party. Because the Republicans, going into 2010 and 2012 will have over a thousand pages of selective quotes from that unvetted bill to bludgeon the Democrats. Remember, the actual reform doesn’t take place until 2013. So, the actual vote buying potential of this entitlement will not be around until after the 2010 mid-term elections. Nor the 2012 presidential election.
To hell with all of you left on the Titanic, suckers, I’ve already got my place on the lifeboat.
Iran, Obama and Intellectual Masturbation
In the crush of the 2008 presidential election campaign, the MSM made a lot over Obama’s “cool” and “nuance.” As opposed to McCain’s high stung temperament and “gut” reactions.
Now, with Iran, we can truly see what “cool” and “nuance” are really worth. Because in the world of power politics where there is evil and real enemies. Where there are people who will just as soon as kill you as look at you. Where there are evil people who have the means to kill you; and a thousand times over. You need the guts of a fighter pilot closing in at 400 knots. The guts of a fighter who know you have one chance to get it right. Someone who’s already thought through the complex permutations and can render judgement without hesitation. Because at 400+ knots, if you hesitate, you’re dead. You are now in the world of brutal black and white, where you need to make definitive yes and no decisions. This is real executive decision making. And, this is no longer the midnight dorm room bull session where you mixed pot, alcohol and trendy discussion on some vogue Marxist theory.
This is the world of Churchill, May 1940. Dunkirk, France. 330,00 of your forces trapped on the beaches. What do you do? Sue for peace? Become Vichy England? There are historians that theorize that Hitler pulled his punches at Dunkirk to work out a peace deal. Or, with little to hope for, evacuate, re-group and hope for better fortunes in battle; hope for eventual victory. D-day, the 8th Air Force, V-E day with Britain as one of Berlin’s occupiers were, in 1940, dreams that would buy a ticket to a padded cell.
Yet, this is real history. As Mark Steyn once pointed out, crucial decisions at crucial junctures of history are never clear distinctions between unalloyed good and unalloyed bad. In many cases, in the maw of the circumstances of that decision, you have no idea that your decision will be the crucial tipping point.
So, what’s it going to be? Yes or no? Surrender to the Nazis or fight on? Pick sides with the “street” that is literally dying in its challenge of the mad mullahs that run Iran or throw you lot with the power establishment–the ruling Mullahs? The fact is that neither presidential candidate–Ahmadinejad or Mir Hussein Mousavi–is some paragon of Jeffersonian democracy. Both have had active roles in setting policies that makes Iran the pariah it now is.
Both candidates are just two flavors of dung, take your pick. Both required approval by the ruling mullahs to even run in the first place. But, the significance is that the “street” is taking this debate beyond the a presidential election. Now, the people are asking for accountability from the ruling mullahs. And, in this respect, Obama’s been handed a gift. Because there is a clear choice; to come down on the side of an electorate that wants accountability. To come down on the side of true democracy.
Yet, all we get, after a week of waffling, is Obama steps up to the plate. And, we get a kumbaya response. Let’s just all get along. The folks on the street are dying so they don’t have to get along. Instead of a response of solid and unequivocal support for the demands of accountability, Obama publicly urinates on the sacrifice of those protesters demanding that accountability; demanding the right to a vote equal to anyone else’s.
This is the 3 a.m. phone call; launch missiles or not? As far as 3 a.m. phone calls go, this is a relatively simple choice. You blow this choice and the next 3 a.m. phone call won’t be as easy. Maybe an Israeli nuclear retaliation against an Iranian nuclear attack. Standing on the side of democracy is generally the best default position you can take because democracies generally don’t make war on democracies.
But, Obama and many of his supporters have had little to do in the world of hard decision making. In the brutal world of decision making were, you as president, have your options winnowed down to two, yea or nay. Nuance has other words and synonyms. Trying to have your cake and eat it. Dithering. Waffling. Bullshitting. Intellectual Masturbation. Obama’s out of the bubble of unreality of Chicago machine politics where decisions are made by the bosses and “ratified” by bought elections to maintain the thin veneer of democracy–like Ahmadinejad’s election. But, whereas Chicago machine politics has just run a city into the ground, here we have a high stakes nuclear game afoot, a game being run by a two-bit machine politician who’s idea of high negotiation is greasing the right palms.
GM; An Abortion Known As “Industrial Policy”
“What’s good for GM is good….” You know the rest. The irony, is that GM and the US government has been bound at the hip for nearly three quarters of a century. It started with the Wagner National Labor Relations act. And, ended there. For this company, in particular, became the vehicle that has been the government-mandated honey pot for the UAW.
Indeed, with governmental help, GM evolved into a Social Security agency and a Medicare agency; with three out of every four UAW members drawing down on retirement benefits. It a wonder that GM had any time to make cars. This charade led to GM’s current business model of manufacturing large cars, SUV’s and trucks to generate the profits needed to subsidize the lush benefits that the UAW now enjoys. Moreover, the CAFE standards were originally conceived to keep small car production in the US, thereby guaranteeing more UAW jobs. So, those same said large cars and trucks also had to subsidize small car production as well.
This delicate homeostasis succeeded until energy became politicized by the environmentalists. The act of pumping gas became political statement. And, scientific inquiry about global weather patterns became similarly politicized.
An energy policy designed to create scarcity, to drive up the price of gas, succeeded with four dollar per gallon gas last summer. And, GM’s balancing act collapsed. Not that any of this ever had to happen. Because, most Americans like large cars. We are, generally, a country that has a very low population density. Ours is under 100 persons per square mile as opposed to populations densities in the hundreds if not over a thousand persons per square foot in Europe or Asia. We therefore, on average travel farther for a given trip. And, given these longer trips will want to carry more. Hence the need for a bigger car.
Energy policy that abandoned the flat-earth mythology of global-warming (sorry, climate change), could easily provide the necessary gas, well under two dollars per gallon, by off-shore drilling. Extraction of shale-oil. Nuclear power. The energy densities of these sources outstrip all other sources. It is only because of energy production politicization that “alternative” power sources are remotely economically viable.
Yes, there are people who live in very congested inner-city areas who would want a very small car. But, the free market is more than capable of providing such cars. But, in America, we engage in gigantic carbon-footprint activities such as having, instead of aborting, children and that, with our low population density makes for a demand for larger vehicles–like Obama’s Tahoe. But, how about letting individuals choose what they want to drive? I guess not in Obama’s command economy.
So, welcome to the brave new world of econo-boxes. Mandated by Obama’s acolytes in the EPA and department of transportation. Actually, the brave-old world of econo-boxes. Once again, thanks to Reagan and the prosperity his policies engendered, we have a whole generation of people who simply forgot or never experienced the world of the 70’s. Remember the le Car? Or, the Gremlin, Pinto or Maverick? How about the incredibly sexy 1974 Mustang? Or, a car so bad, it became the official wheels of Wayne’s World–the AMC Pacer.
And, so, the picture at the top of this post is supposed to represent the new, Obama controlled GM (h.t., Drudge). What we have is a state controlled car company capable of being as innovative as the old Soviet block manufacturers that gave us the Lada or the Trabant. GM is going to require permanent government subsidies to give away these cars. Because, for those with some pocket change left after Obama’s systematic looting via taxes, you aren’t going to lay down one penny more on something out of GM. We’ll also know when some lowly bureaucrat is out an about since they’ll be driving one of those ridiculous GM econo-boxes. The GSA is going to become the official buyer of all products, GM. How else to prop up the US Treasury’s investment in GM.
Since, Obama’s GM will keep the Cadillac nameplate, we’ll also be producing the Zil. So, our solons will be able to look down upon all of us unwashed rubes as they are whisked to their oh so important governmental meetings. We could even, like in the old Soviet Union, have special lanes reserved for the limousines of the high party big-shots.
In a way, it’s fitting. Keep GM. Because GM has been the province of the government and the UAW since 1935. Produce exactly the kind of cars that the enviro’s get wet dreams over. And, keep the UAW as an object lesson, with three retirees for every worker on the line, for the future of Medicare and Social Security.
Spilling Secrets
We learn that our Veep, Joe Biden, spilled the beans on the existence and location of a top-secret bunker reserved for the Vice President at the Vice Presidential residence at the Naval Observatory. What was disturbing was the dissemination of such information was done at the Gridiron Club in a manner to set up a shot at former Vice President Cheney to create a impression of a “bunker mentality” and thereby Cheney’s off-the-wall policies.
Here again is another manifestation of a patently unserious administration that now thinks that state secrets are not only to pillory former out-of-office figures from the former administration. Now, these same secrets are to serve as fodder for jest and humorous talking points. Not once does it seem to occur that people, like Biden, are given a public trust and entrusted to keep this country safe. And, this means keeping certain knowledge safe; safe for enemies who would use this information to harm our country and its citizens.
There is a quaint practice, in the Senate, for the Senators to refer to each other as the Senior or Junior Senator from thus and such state. Not, notice, a reference to a given Senator by his name. But, this practice points to a fundamental fact that in filling a Constitutionally mandated office, you the individual lose that identity and become that office. There is not to be a cult of personality, rather you the individual is subordinated to the Constitution and the office and duties that the Constitution mandates. Your “feelings” and your “empathy” do not matter when wearing the mantle of power as specified by the Constitution.
Yet, Joe Biden seems to regard those awesome duties as matter of personal choice. That the person of Joe Biden is more important than the office of Vice President. This is a man that barely two years out of law school, won an election as Senator. And, has spent his entire adult working life drawing a paycheck as a US Senator; and now Vice President. He is so inured to the trappings of power that he no longer has the perspective to understand the need to subordinate his person to the public trust that serves as the source of his power. But, what perspective does he really have? None, because his entire adult life has been in the bubble of power and prestige of being a Senator. Never, ever, having to derive income by holding down a job that actually requires productivity.
So, Joe Biden the person, now Joe Biden the Constitutional officer, who so regards all this power as his personal entitlement, makes jokes about state secrets.
The Perniciousness Of Evidence Based Medicine
Here, from Hugh Hewitt is the outline of Waxman’s health care reform bill. I’d like to specifically comment on the provision for “evidenced based medical practices.” And, to comment on how pernicious a practice that can be. Medicine in not pure science, rather it is more like engineering. It is a reflection that the human body is too complex to accurate model on the lab bench and expect those results from the lab to work in the day to day real world.
The best examples of this concept can be drawn from the world of engineering. One can create a small chemical reaction on the lab bench and prove out that a certain new material can be made, say a plastic. It can then be determined that this new material will have thus and such properties. And, those properties can be deemed desirable enough to make in large quantities for commercial purposes. But, miniscule variables, to small to be detected on the lab bench because of the small quantities involved, now become major problems in creating the same material on an industrial scale as you scale up from making a few ounces of this material to now making hundreds or thousands of pounds per hour of that same material.
One does not create a new aircraft merely by drawing a blueprint and going directly into production. You create models, test the aircraft in wind tunnels. Then you hand craft your first full scale model, the prototype. Then you take that prototype out for a first flight. Which amounts to taking the aircraft off and landing it. Just proving that the basic concept works.
Human bodies, like the examples cited above, involve the concept of the “black box.” Inputs go in and reactions/outputs come out. We, sort of know what happens inside, but not quite. Therefore, we carefully tweek the inputs until we get the desired outputs. Science may give you the ball park figures the basic inputs, but engineering empiricism makes the final adjustments. At every aircraft plant. At every chemical refinery. In every surgical procedure, in every operating room, every day.
The effects of Evidence Based Medicine will be the following. The most important would be to render vast stores of medical knowledge, knowledge that is the reflection of literally thousands of years of empiric experience, “suspect.” In fact, going back and instituting double blinded studies to brings this medical knowledge into the evidence based medicine” clubhouse would be immoral and unethical.
The ancient Egyptians knew that one treated a boil or abscess by incision and drainage. Penicillin was never involved in double blinded trials for bacterial meningitis. What was once a disease that had essentially a one hundred percent mortality was now cured by penicillin. Much of our modern knowledge in handling trauma came from our experiences in handling combat casualties from the Vietnam War. The appendectomy was invented about 120 years ago and has been a well established procedure for the once lethal disease, appendicitis.
And, now we’re going to double blind all of the above? Of course the all-wise solons who will run Obama care will avoid the bad publicity of denying antibiotics for bacterial meningitis sans a double blinded study. But, in the name of cost containment, there are a lot of more obscure treatments and diseases that can be denied for that reason. Because, absent the imprimatur of “evidence based,” these treatments can be denied because they are “experimental.”
The fact is that double blinded studies forever run against the constraint that you are purposely denying a potentially life-saving treatment to one half of the cohort you intend to test for efficacy of some new treatment. And, unless you truly do not know which alternative is indeed better, you are embarking on an unethical and immoral practice of medicine. Further, you must have provisions to break into the blinded study should you discover, mid-study, that one group is indeed benefiting. Yet, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, there will be plenty of temptation to start to cut ethical corners.
The second factor will be to freeze new treatments, procedures and drugs from ever making it to the market; to the patient. With the government controlling the purse strings, it will have an enormous financial incentive to not advance medical knowledge. With money controlled and curtained to test new advances, we have no way to meed the “evidence based” standard. And, absent that standard, empiric experience gets buried. Medical advances, for what they will be worth, will be few, highly selective and highly politicized.
Consider the parachute. This was a humorous article published in the British Medical Journal in 2003; but a profound commentary on the serious shortcoming “evidence based medicine.” It pointed out that the efficacy of the parachute had never been tested in a double blinded study. And, why not? People have survived falls from airplanes with out wearing parachutes. People have died despite the proper use of a parachute. Do people who choose to wear (or not wear) parachutes self-select? We have all sorts of variables left unanswered and yet we spend millions of dollars equipping our military pilots and paratroopers with these untested (from an evidence based perspective) devices. Maybe we should take the advice of the authors and put together a “double blind, randomized, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute” for the advocates of evidence based medicine. Maybe Obama, with his cool faith in science, can volunteer his administration.
Knifing Pelosi
Rep. Steny Hoyer will allow investigations of “torture” to proceed with he inclusion of investigations of Pelosi’s knowledge. Oh, there are the usual bromides about how the GOP diverting attention from the “truth” to a witch hunt about what the Democrats knew and when.
The real truth is that Hoyer knows that everyone knew, the practice of water-boarding was very circumscribed and used with specific intent on specific suspects. And, that specific intent was the fact that there was information, life saving information, that had to be extracted. Hoyer also knows that this use of so-called torture was not used gratuitously to extract a confession for some Stalin-purge show trial.
In sum, this subject as a useful weapon against the GOP is kaput. And, Hoyer knows that too. So, Hoyer is now going to use this weapon against an equally inviting target–Pelosi. He’s got a payback to deliver. Force her out and he’s the speaker. Hoyer also knows that the minute Pelosi gets sworn in, these hearing are going to turn into the when-did-Pelosi-know hearings. At this point, it won’t matter if former vice-President Cheney gets arrested with thumbscrews in his back pocket.
And, then the law of unintended consequences kicks in. First, you can bet that if Pelosi gets called on the rug, she’s going to be sure she’s got as many fellow democrats who “knew” up there with her. Further, with the long knives out, there’s a very good chance that just about every other agenda on the Hill is going to be dropped. Especially, if there’s any chance that there’s going to be a shake up in the House leadership. And, Obama might as well as take his teleprompter to Death Valley to yammer on about having his program priorities delivered to his desk by thus and such a date.
All of which points to the lack of leadership and executive experience of either Pelosi or Obama. Obama farmed out his agenda to rich dilettante, by virtue of marrying well, whose first act was to come up with a “stimulus” bill that beyond caricatured the “tax and spend” liberal. Then Obama came up with these torture memo releases with the full knowledge, despite his protestations to the contrary, that his fellow travelers would immediately use them in an anti-Bush show trial vendetta.
All of which, increasingly, will distract from issues that will really make or break Obama’s presidency–putting the country back on track to prosperity. Executive experience would inform Obama that you need to focus your agenda, sort through all the chaff and distractions to find the real issues that need to be addressed and to pick your lieutenants very carefully. Of which, Pelosi turned out to be a very poor choice. Not that I’m complaining that hard. There’s a very good chance that Obama’s agenda is going down in flames all over informed executive experience that would have told our President that there are somethings you just leave alone.
Socialized Medicine; Stiffing II
Here’s the report from the Fox News web site. And here. A coalition of health care leaders will present a program to “save” two trillion dollars over the next ten years; thereby making Obama’s health care reform fiscally possible by reducing the up-front costs. What this really is is crony capitalism. These players get a place at the table, and a cut in the profits. In exchange, they will do what everyone in government is unwilling to say–ration.
In going to the nirvana of single payer health care, the government is going to take over the private sector to the tune of one trillion dollars per year. Of the two or so trillions dollars that make up 18 percent of the GDP, the share that is spent on health care, about 45 percent is already tied up in governmental medical programs. The rest, in the private sector, is what takes care of the rest of us. And, through cost shifting and unfunded mandates, props up the shortfalls of the governmental sector.
There is no such thing as “uninsured.” Thanks to EMTALA (emergency medical treatment and active labor act), you can walk into any emergency room and must be seen, evaluated and deemed “stabilized” regardless of ability to pay–even if you’re an illegal immigrant. Whether, you show up for a cold or you show up, flat on your back, having just smeared your face over a mile of interstate after wrecking your motorcycle, drunk. In fact, so 50 percent of emergency visits are gratis thanks to EMTALA. The fact is, once the private sector is consumed by the government for matters medical, the government will formally own all of those mandates. That trillion dollars that will be confiscated by the single payer government program is already accounted for. It will be a recurring cost, above and beyond the current Medicare/Medicaid tab, forever.
So, two trillion divided by ten means that we have to come up with 200 billion dollars of “savings” for the next ten years. This is assuming that the profligate spending and loose monetary policy doesn’t ignite a round of inflation like that of the 1970’s.
What this savings really means is there will be an effort to forgo 200 billion dollars of medical care each year. For hospitals, forgoing expansions and modernizations. Forgo new investments in equipment. And certainly, no acquisitions of technology to push into new treatments; since we can’t have even more cost with even newer medical techniques.
But, I don’t know how our hospitals are going to turn down nurses who want raises to cope with rising tax and inflation burdens.
For the pharmaceutical companies; new drugs cost a billions dollars or more to bring to market. You can kiss drugs with limited applications goodbye, the so-called orphan drugs. There have been incredible breakthroughs for myriads of diseases; but at a price. People griping about these new medicines forget that many have replaced surgery or offered a treatment where heretofore there was none. Welcome to the brave new world of none. Most of these big drug companies have their fingers in the manufacture and distribution of generics. I suspect that emphasizing generics rather than innovation will be the new business model for Barry O’s brave new world of single payer health care.
Insurance companies? They just hired themselves out as the price enforcers. They, not their governmental overlords, will take the heat for poor reimbursement rates and care denials. All to keep our politicians accountability-free. They’ll make a nice profit at being the fall guy.
And the doctors. Well, you can get free care right now by walking into any emergency room. It’s required by law. You’ll also wait 12 hours to get seen. Only, now the waiting will extend to every clinic and doctor’s office in the land.
Ration. That’s the real deal being cut between these health care players and the administration. Protected turf in exchange for taking the fall for rationing.
Socialized Medicine; Stiffing and Snuffing
A few thoughts about Barry O’s plan to take us to universal health care nirvana. It’s real expensive. Now in a the-dog-ate-my-homework moment, we have even newer tax proposals to pay for the monstrosity.
First the stiffing. Medical care consumes about 14 to 18 percent of the GDP which works out to about 1.8 trillion dollars annually (these are rough figures). Already 800 billions dollars are in some way tied up with governmental programs such as Medicare and the like. So, the question is what to do about the one trillion dollars that still lie in the private sector. But, the biggest dead beat in the medical system is the government; not the uninsured. Which means that trillion dollars isn’t just lying around just waiting to be expropriated, banana republic style. That trillion dollars is already tied up in propping up governmental programs.
This money, the private sector money, already makes up for shortfalls in the form of cost shifting. The practice of charging more in other areas to make up for shortfalls in governmental reimbursement. Moreover, there are any of a number of unfunded governmental mandates regarding requirements of the rendering of care. EMTALA (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) requires, regardless of ability to pay, legal status or citizenship, that hospitals provide emergency treatment regardless of ability to pay. The law provides no mechanism for funding this mandate. And, something like half of all emergency room presentations go uncompensated. These costs are written off as bad debt by the hospitals. Or, these costs are built into general costs and charges of the hospital to make up that shortfall.
And, as big a money loser EMTALA is, it really get expensive when it comes to trauma care where you can run through $20,000 worth of care in the first 2o minutes of presentation. And, a lot of these folks aren’t just innocent bystanders. Drunks with jaw fractures who were “just minding their own business” at the local bar. Or, drunks, laced with other illicit drugs who happened to roll their cars in a motor vehicle accident. Also, very likely not wearing seat belts.
The bottom line is that that trillion dollars in the private sector isn’t free and clear. Huge chunks of the money are already accounted for and spent to keep Medicare and Medicaid from collapsing. Trauma and emergency rooms services are, in essence a tax amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, given gratis but virtue of unfunded governmental mandates.
This trillion dollars is also what brings new innovation to medical care. Demographically driven medicine, a large part what falls into public health, will no longer yield significant savings or new treatment horizons. Epidemics of, say, cholera, are largely things of the past simple because we’ve already invested in sewers and municipal water systems. Vaccines are now common place. And, so on. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s) have been playing this worn out turn since the 1930’s without any measurable effect.
In the same fashion, Obama’s proposal to create some governmental program to “honestly broker” treatment options. He makes a hypothetical of say Minnesota doctors treating patients of 25 percent less than, say, Florida doctors. But, these guidelines work except in exceptions. Which happen just about every time you see a patient. Moreover, Florida’s residents being, on average, older that those of Minnesota, will likely have sicker patients requiring more resources to obtain a similar outcome. And, everyone would just be healthier if they would all just exercise, cut those trans-fats and stop sitting in front of computers blogging. So, shall we have the health police banging on our doors every morning so we get out and exercise. And, shutter every McDonald’s. Maybe, in the name of health care savings those Florida residents should do their patriotic duty and just die (more below).
The real frontier is technology driven medicine. This frontier is hard to predict in terms of breakthroughs; and these breakthroughs create new arenas for medical treatment. They create more demand. They create more cost. Because people actually want this treatment because they want to live and live comfortably. But, this area will be sucked dry because of the cost and in order to limit care (see, again, below). MRI scanners have allowed more accurate diagnosis in a myriad of disorders. Our small town of Casper, Wyoming has four or five such machines. More that entire Canadian provinces. But, accurate diagnosis leads to unanticipated demands in whole new arenas of treatment. Socialism above all requires stasis and ossification.
Then, to, is the fact that much of the medical infrastructure comes from the private sector. Whether a private doctor’s office or a major medical center. Governmental medical programs have largely piggy-backed on the infrastructure. In many respects, governmental medical programs have largely survived because these programs merely make use of capacity at the margins. Economic medical decision making is first of all, based on the economics of private sector finances. Only then do you figure out if a given service can stand, economically, on governmental reimbursement. If new medical initiatives rested on reasonable profits from governmental medical programs, you’d see all sorts of medical construction in our inner cities.
Finally, of course, will be the stiffing of the doctors themselves. It will be some sort of pressure that will evolve from government fiat and monosopy power as a single payer. Surgeons and specialties that do procedures can better survive, to a point, because one can be reimbursed both the procedure and the visit. But, a primary care doctor, without the benefit of procedures, is going to go out of business. A grim reality even today as Medicare patients are having increasing difficulty finding doctors that will take Medicare.
But, while those “bad” doctors may be everyone’s favorite whipping boy, are you also going to cut reimbursements in the form of salary cuts to our nurses?
The bottom line is that trillion private sector dollars will become a recurrent cost annually. It might inject some honesty into the system since the unfunded mandates will also become a formal governmental responsibility. Therefore, each and every year, the federal government will need to raise one trillion extra dollars just to nationalize what we have. New initiatives? New coverages? New innovations? That’s going to cost extra.
Now the snuffing. As in killing. And, this will ultimately be the effect of rationing. In some fashion, rationing of medical care will result in people dying. And, on purpose for reasons outlined below.
Can this really happen? Well, yes, because is already is in a sub rosa fashion. The great tobacco settlements were supposed to drive a stake in the heart of big tobacco. And, those settlement monies were to educate the public to finally put an end to that filthy habit of smoking. We’ll pass over the fact that humans have been smoking and fermenting just about every plant since time immemorial. What really happened was that every state in this settlement became a knowing partner in the enterprise of tobacco use because of the tax revenues. And, states, instead of taxing cigarettes out of existence, tax at a rate to maximize revenue. Moreover, state treasury officials know that smoking usually kills the smoker of a nice clean heart attack at about age 60; thereby freeing the state of any expense for future state Medicare and Medicaid expenditures. It’s a wonder that the Social Security Administration isn’t pushing to revitalize smoking habits.
Debates over state motorcycle helmet laws now revolve on the fact that lack of helmet wearing usually results in the motorcycle rider being killed outright. A much cheaper out come that treating a helmet-wearing rider who survives but with severe, very expensive to treat injuries.
Europe’s experience with euthanasia has already crossed a number of ethical barriers. Doctors increasingly make decisions out of greater loyalty ”gate-keeping” state medical resources than loyalty to a patient. Elderly in Holland are afraid to go to the hospital over this very fact. This fear serves as a great rationing tool since the hospital isn’t expending resources on that patient. If that patient were to die, all the better, since dead patients are really cheap to treat.
A colleague tells me, that in New Zealand, cardiac surgeons don’t work very hard. On purpose. It can literally take months to get a heart operation. You might even die in the interim. More bottom line savings.
And, oh, did you know that approximately 50 bucks of Pentothal is a lot cheaper than 100,000 dollars of hospice care?
Rationing is particularly pernicious to American Exceptionalism and a governing philosophy that organizes around the concept of the maximization of individual liberty (the pursuit of happiness). Yes, as a surgeon, I have participated in the agonizing decision on when to “pull the plug” on a hopeless ill, dying patient. And, in doing so, have had to face the fact the in this particular case, any further efforts are simply futile. But, this was a decision entirely made by private parties. Done only after assuring ourselves that we left no stone unturned. Done without the intrusion or pressure of outside parties with other agenda, read financial, forcing a decision. This was a decision with me acting with an overarching philosophy that only the best interest of my patient matters in this decision.
One must understand the tension of medical economics and Judeo-Christian morality that plays in this issue; and how government sponsored rationing will tear down the latter. In tearing down the latter, to spawn an attitude that runs contrary to the importance of the individual and individual rights. Those individual rights that are central to this thing we call Western Civilization.
Modern medicine operates at the margins. As a volunteer manager of our mutual medical insurance plan, I note, in reviewing our financial data, that 20 percent of our members covered consume 80 percent of the resources (in the form of medical benefits paid out) and the other 80 percent consume on 20 percent of the resources. In the case of Medicare, we find that your last year of life, your last hospital admission, will be the most expensive. Some 30 to 50 percent of Medicare expenditures specifically fund these very expensive end-of-life events. Note, by being on the margins that many of these patients are in no real position to defend themselves. Their illnesses impair their ability to work with a concomitant income disadvantage. They are individuals, who if they died, wouldn’t materially affect statistics such as longevity and infant birth rates; especially if you knew how to fudge those statistics. If you count infant mortality rate as only term babies, the infant mortality rate for premature births never comes on the radar. You’re only a step away from saving enormous bucks by letting those premies, just, go. If you’re in the last year of life, on that last hospital admission, national longevity statistics aren’t going to materially change if, you, just, pull the plug. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars on the line if you do.
On the other hand, there is the temptation to move into post-Christian (? pre-Islamic) America and abandon the Ten Commandments and their requirement to honor our mothers and fathers. Well, maybe the ten suggestions. There is the temptation to abandon the concept that every human is indeed a unique individual, created by God in His own image. There is temptation no longer respect a life time of work and contributions of our elders and give comfort and respect in their old age; rather, to discard them with the old Chicago Machine greeting of “Yeah, but what have you done for me lately.”
There is a temptation to embrace your inner socialist and no longer regard each citizen of our republic as a resource and spark of creativity. But, to regard people as so many parts of a machine that consume food, shelter and create a big carbon footprint. Machine parts to be discarded and replaced as they are worn out. It becomes tempting as a “gate-keeper” to dole out medical resources only to repair those “parts” that are still functioning and “worth” repairing. It becomes tempting to, say, regard every retiree as useless dead weight, past prime and past repair, to be discarded since maintenance now far exceeds the replacement cost. Especially if your butt isn’t on the line.
It is only that trillion dollars, in private hands, that will effectively enforce the precepts of the sanctity of the individual and stand firm against the financial temptations to cut ethical corners in the name of preserving the public’s” medical resources.
Why Not The Worst?
With Senator Spector jumping to the Democratic brand, we will have the legislative and executive branch firmly in the hands of the Democrats. Unless, the Democratic leadership cannot trust it’s rank and file, the trillion dollar agenda that will beggar our grandchildren can not proceed unobstructed. Won’t even be a need for the charade of “reconciliation” to push this agenda through. And, most of all, Obama can shed the pretense that he is president and revert to this true calling as prime minister (or secretary general).
Have it all! Canadian-style single payer health care. Cap and trade. And, the next time Obama meets the king of Saudi Arabia, he needs not stop at a bow; go on, go all the way, the royal crotch was only another six inches away. Chavez, Castro, Kim, Ahmadinejad, your reservation at the Lincoln Bedrooms awaits.
Spread the wealth? Spread away. Why stop at 90% AIG-style tax rates? If you making $250K per year, you’re rich enough. Everything above that belongs to the feds (and by extension ACORN).
And, we can all be greener than Kermit. The folks out in Pennsylvania will now really have a reason to be bitter when our carbon-free future throws them all out into the unemployment line when their coal mines are shut down. All they will have, then, is their guns and religion to cling to.
Torture “truth” commissions? Why stop there? Call up Robespierre and the Committee for Public Safety. Why stop with some DOJ lawyers who nobody can remember? How about Rove? Heck, why not Cheney or even W?
Hyperbole? Hopefully no, but stripping away some of the sarcasm, everything in this post has happened. Obama did bow to a king. Obama talked about more than cap and trade. He talked about bankrupting new coal fired generation plants. He talked about checking your tire pressure as an alternative to drilling for more oil.Pelosi is pushing for a “truth” commission.
Ninty percent tax rate? Such a thing existed from the 1930’s until the 1960’s. The top marginal rate then remained at 70 percent until the Reagan tax cut of 1981. The Obama, Reid, Pelosi trioka are just testing the waters. They’re getting us used to the word “trillion.” And, to banana republic economics; the ones that issue paper money that has the feel of Monopoly money. First it was taxing away the AIG bonuses. Again testing the waters to see if we’re ready for settling for the mediocracy of “free” health care in exchange for having everything over $250,000 taxed away since that’s rich enough.
But, there is a silver lining to all of this. Now, Obama and the Democrats will be in complete, and I mean complete, ownership of this mess. The high taxes, prolonged recession (?depression) and the hyperinflation.
The “Torture” Memo; Barry’s Monica Lewinsky
War and tortue should be subjects abhorrent to those who value the protections and benefits of a constitutional republic and the rights secured by the Bill of Rights. We carefully parse the law to the nth degree in every capital punishment case. It may take ten or more years to bring such a case to its conclusion with the execution of a criminal. But, a single soldier with an automatic weapon or machine gun, a pilot releasing a cluster bomb, can kill more people in a mere instant than our criminal justice system will do in ten years of executing criminals.
In like fashion, torture, or some enhanced interrogation technique, very rapidly crosses the line over the right to not self-incriminate.
It is why it is best to treat acts of war as such and not as criminal proceeding. And, it is why it is best to conduct these acts of war far from our shores and our citizens. There are some acts, forced by extreme necessity that need to be, in every respect, utterly circumscribed.
Our country is populated with millions of military veterans, all decent and honorable people, who would care not to reflect on some of their actions when in combat. Actions made necessary by the desperation that is combat.
Yet, in this less than perfect world, evil people force otherwise peaceable people to undertake morally ambiguous actions. Actions, regardless of the immediate circumstances, that good people will never be comfortable reflecting upon in more comfortable times.
Further, in the hands of good people, these morally ambiguous actions are recognized as such. Which is why there are only applied in the most extreme of circumstances. The alleged “torture” of al Queda terrorists was not gratuitous sadism with the intent of coercing a “confession” for use in some propaganda show trial. Rather, it was applied to specific persons with the reasonable expectation that they did indeed possess specific and critical information needed to stop further terror acts and thereby save lives of innocent people. There simply is no moral equivalence between what the United States did with these interrogation techniques and the torture visited upon political prisoners in Stalin’s purges or Castro’s prisons. Or, despite our humane treatment of prisoners of war in our custody, the torture visited on our POW’s in the hands of the Japanese, North Koreans or North Vietnamese.
Then, there are the specific factors of specific circumstances. We’ve all, in taking Ethics 101 in college, debated the classic senario of a ticking atomic bomb in the middle of Manhattan, set to explode in one hour. And, we debated the ethics of torturing a prisoner, who knows the whereabouts of said bomb. Is it right to tortue? To what degree? Is it right to commit one atrocity to prevent an even greater atrocity?
I debated such in my own midnight dorm room bull sessions back in the late 1970’s. Back when the nuclear club was indeed very exclusive and the senario of a terrorist organization capable of such a situation was indeed very hypotheticalal. Today, this is no longer a hypotheticalal. We have a death-cult ideology, that is Islam, that would do such a thing in a heart beat. The death toll of 9/11 was only 3000 only because these terrorists could only commandeer civilian aircraft; not atom bombs. Now, we have the Taliban making moves to entirely destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan and potentially gain excess to those very weapons. Millennials now with the means to really deliver.
If our Ethics 101 senario did indeed happen today (and, it’s very plausible), would those charged with national security be morally obligated to even pull out every finger nail to find that bomb? Or, would you be content to just inform that terrorist of his Miranda rights?
But, Obama, in his overweening sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness probably never gave the above the slightest thought. That beyond the immediate bounds of the current debate on waterboarding, there is a bigger question to be answered. That question is that there are times when good people must commit to morally ambiguous actions that they, in their worst nightmares, would never even dream of doing, because of pressing and real concerns that evil, even greater than their actions, must be stopped. And, now people who were never directly in the maw of those front line decisions will, years later, second guess with the threat of criminal prosecutions.
Additionally, along the lines of Monica Lewinsky, this controversy now becomes an issue that will so consume Washington as to consume Obama’s agenda. Bill Clinton had an opportunity to create a durable center-left governing coalition. But, Clinton along with his partisan fellow-travelers decided, in 1992, that the millennium arrived and decided to push as far left as possible. And, that was before Clinton’s own proclivities intruded with his extra-curricular sexual appetites and escapades finally ground down any agenda in the bonfire of the Lewinsky impeachment scandal.
And, here is the “scandal” that will grind Obama’s agenda to a halt. Releasing these so-called torture memos is an act of a narcissist so impressed with himself and his mission that he will sacrifice national security with a distraction of banana republic-style show trials. It is yet another example as to Obama’s lack of executive experience and fitness to lead. True executive experience would have informed Obama to pace and prioritize his agenda. To build public confidence in his leadership by systematically building a record of accomplishment and then using the record to pitch further agendas to a public more confident and more reassured of his leadership capacity. True leadership and executive experience would have also informed Obama that there are just some items that will distract you from the really big, important stuff. There are items that you just let go; its just not worth it. True leadership and executive experience means making choices and saying “no.”
Getting through this economic meltdown should be his only priority. He does that successfully, and he’s going to have the running room to put forth the rest of his agenda.
It is possible, at this late date, that if Obama gets in front of this problem and flat out says no to hearings, prosecutions, commissions or investigations that he could quell the firestorm he just touched off. But, even then, there will be a residual of distrust. As it stands, we have the makings of 41 GOP senate votes to make each and every filibuster now stand. This issue, if not ended quickly and definitively, will indeed result in open warfare on the Senate floor with scorched parliamentary tactics that will freeze the entire Obama agenda. Making, ultimately, Obama’s four years as president a mere asterisk as the first black president. Even Senator Reid realizes that; which is why he’s trying to tamp down Speaker Pelosi’s “truth” commissions. No, this is not (yet) a banana republic. This is a constitutional republic of constrained powers. Prime Minister Obama better start realizing that Alinsky is not a good governing role model.
Inanities of High Speed Rail
Barry O, prime minister of the world, is now going to solve our traffic jams with high speed rail. The brilliance of the guy just doesn’t stop. Here it is, the solution, heretofore hidden from the rest of us lesser mortals, until his superior intellect hits on the idea and makes it clear to rest of us. But, somewhere along the way Obama missed why the railroads got out of the passenger business–and unloaded Amtrak on us. And, why intraurban mass transit it a horrible money loser propped up only by tax subsidies.
Let’s start with the logistics. Mass transit, of any type, depends on a lot of people going to and from the same destination at about the same time. This requires densely populated corridors or two terminuses that have a lot of like minded people–like minded in that they want to travel to and from these two terminuses.
Moreover, one must account for the fact that you don’t just travel from train station to train station (or airport to airport for that matter), but you must come from your home or place of business and ultimately arrive at another such destination such as a hotel or another place of business. So, you step off your high speed train and you still may be miles from your ultimate destination.
From my own experience, if I can reach a particular destination in four hours by car, it’s probably faster to do that than take the train or plane. Simply because the time spent getting to, through and out of an airport more than makes up for the time saved by the actual flying. Also, once you get to your destination, you’re going to need a car anyway. If you drove, you have one. If you flew, that’s even more time waiting for the car rental bus to transport you to the far reaches of the airport to get said rental.
Interurban high speed rail has the same limitations at either terminus. But, even at 150 miles per hour, said train is going to be about half as fast as the plane.
Which gets us to speed. You’re going to have to build trackage parallel to the existing trackage. The existing trackage is completely saturated with freight traffic. More importantly, the current trackage cannot support rail trackage if excess of about 80 miles per hour; about what you can do on the interstate highway system. The high speed trains that run in Europe and Japan run on special trackage that will actually support train speeds well in excess of 100 miles per hour. In sum, Obama’s high speed rail will need a parallel rail system solely dedicated to these high speed trains.
By the way, the cost of materials is about $100 per foot of track. Then there’s the cost of labor and cost of the underlying right-of-way. Here as of 2003. One rail is going to run you about $20 per foot. A standard 200 foot wide right of way works out to about 24 acres of land per mile.
The next limitation is that European rail solutions will not work here. Naturally, Obama and his bi-coastal elites think anything European is naturally superior. But, on the practical side, Europe is generally crowded and densely populated. Therefore, you are going to have a lot of people filling the criteria of a lot of people going to the same places at the same time. Moreover, Europe is smaller making distances traveled shorter. The overall effect is shorter, more heavily travelled corridors making such high speed rail a consideration. And, there are such corridors in the United States; the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington being the best example. By some mysterious coincidence train service exists there. With the Acela Express leading the was with an average speed of 80 mph; it being impossible to get the money or past the NIMBY’s to construct trackage for exclusive use by the Acela. So kiss 150 mph speed good bye.
Here’s the map from the White House web site showing the rest of the high speed corridors “envisioned” for the future. You find a lot of the trackage is going to go over a lot of empty land. Take a look at the Houston/New Orleans route; a lot of that goes over swamp just like the current Interstate 10. Then there’s the Texarkana/Little Rock corridor. Wow, must be lots of folks who need to get to the Bill Clinton Library. Oh, and there’s that Tulsa/Oklahoma City corridor.
The fact of the matter is that the US has an overall population density of less than 100 persons per square mile. Far less than the population densities of Europe or Japan that have hundreds if not over a thousand persons per square mile. Our transportation system is reliant on the car for that simple reason–population densities are too low to make mass transit viable except in some select urban corridors. Highways are cheaper to construct and maintain. Highways allow people to travel at will, thereby eliminating the need to try to schedule or run train schedules that would result in very expensive conveyances with only one or two passengers. For the really long haul, it’s far cheaper to pave two miles of concrete at each end of the trip; they’re call runways.
Our transport system is the reflection of the efforts of thousands of civil engineers and tens of millions of the traveling public who already worked through all of the above. Yet, in their supreme arrogance, Obama and his toadies seems to think they have hit on a solution that has somehow eluded the rest of us since the invention of the wheel.
The really sad thing is that all of the above is already apparent to Obama. But, all Obama cares about is coming up with any excuse to stiff our great-grandchildren as much spending as that quick little mind between those big ears can gin up.
Farts and Breath; the Audacity of Global Warming
Let’s just put the concept to rest; that global warming is bad. Long before the emergence of SUV’s the earth has warmed and cooled. Probably secondarily to solar activity. The biggest advances in human civilization occurred during periods of warming. Longer growing seasons, more more land, further north, available for settling and cultivation and so on. Here we see a case that some of greatest advances in civilization occurred during such periods of warm. The Roman warming, from 300 B.C. to 400 A.D. coincided with the rise of Rome and the Pax Romana. And, when earth starting cooling in 400 A.D. tribes from the north were pushed against the boundaries of Rome. Rome fell and the dark ages commenced.
In general, a rough pattern emerges. Civilizational advances during times of warming and contractions during times of cooling. Rome and the Pax Romana rose during the Roman warming only do fall with the onset of the dark ages in 400 A.D. The Medieval warming from 900 A.D. to 1300 A.D. I would submit one of the factors that led to the Renaissance. Now, since the end of the little Ice age since about 1850 is our current warming period with its contaminant advances in science, technology and prosperity.
It all makes sense. Cooling periods make less land available for food production and living. Relative scarcity and crowding will lead, as it did, to famines and plagues. And death.
So, given that some of these past warming periods greatly exceeded our current warming period, we have very little evidence that we have anything approaching a crisis. In fact, the historical record would clearly show that warming periods produced untold benefit for the human race and cooling periods the reverse. Of course, the bi-coastal elite trust-fund babies aren’t terribly worried that they will have to suffer the least privation that lesser humans will have to bear with the next cooling.
Let’s look at what the EPA now wants to regulate in the name of global warming–nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. These are gases released from volcanoes. Go to Yellowstone National Park and smell the rotten egg smell around the geysers near Old Faithful. Yes, sulfur compounds. Naturally released from volcanic activity that existed from time immemorial. Long before an SUV ever graced the roads of Yellowstone NP. (Lake Yellowstone is actually a super-volcano caldera.) Maybe, in the name of global warming, Albert Gore needs to pave over Old Faithful.
And, the EPA wants to regulate methane and carbon dioxide. The former is what we fart out and the latter what we breathe out. We are going to regulate farts and breath.
So, what we really have is a whole political movement based on fraud. Not only is global warming not a problem, it historically has been times of some of the greatest advances in the human condition. The warm that we now have is something to be welcomed and cherished; for hard times, dark and cold will come again.
The purpose of this fraud? Global warming is the latest manifestation of a rapacious governing class, and their fellow travelers, to gin up a rationalization for even more power and revenue. A rapaciousness so out of control that it will create any myth with only the thinnest veneer of “science” to create an excuse to regulate an newly discovered “health menace” and to impose an economy killing tax known as cap-and-trade. Even if this regulation, at its core, is to regulate farts and breath. Farts and breath.
Pirates; Now the Hard Part
The Easter Sunday rescue of the skipper, Richard Phillips, of the SS Maersk Alabama was exactly how piracy should be handled. My only criticism, outside allowances to tactical considerations of our SEALs on the spot, was the slowness in response. The order, from Obama, of shooting only in the face of “imminent” harm, belies a fundamental mindset that these pirates are somehow entitled to due process. Certainly, a brilliant Harvard lawyer, like Obama, should be aware of the fundamental legalities that were worked out by the ancient Romans that pirates operate outside any civilized norms and deserve not of the courtesies afforded to people who choose to subscribe to those civilized norms. There is only one policy, one solution, to piracy–summary execution.
But, though the outcome was positive–a failed piracy attempt, our crew alive and free and three dead pirates–Obama backed into this happy outcome. His order of “imminent” harm gave away the game. It was Obama, prime minister to the world, that crafted that order. What Obama, president of the United States should have immediately recognized was that it was American sovereignty under attack, it was protections of the Bill of Rights for America’s citizens that were under attack. It was these principles that were paramount and required immediate and muscular defense. It is these principles that take precedence over even the lives of the crew. Had this attack come from a governmental entity on the Horn of Africa, this would constitute an blatant act of war. Along the Horn of Africa, Geneva Conventions don’t apply; these are non-uniformed combatants who don’t even deserve Gitmo.
And, so, we have a lot of luck that allowed a happy conclusion to l’affaire Alabama. Obama still has the legacy of a robust Navy that actually had assets in the area that could be brought to bear rapidly. Obama had the advantage that American individualism is still the norm and this allowed a successful repelling of the pirate takeover. And, of course, was the brave actions of the skipper, Phillips, who was able to spare his crew and ship and move the venue to a lifeboat. Finally, thanks to the Navy, Phillips was kept at sea which made his eventual rescue so much more easy.
We also had the luck that this pirate takeover took the pirates by surprise since the usual script, a passive surrender by the crew, did not occur.
But, the ante is now raised. Unless there is strong follow-up resulting in the repeated forceful repellings of pirates by American flagged and/or crewed ships, these pirates are going to specifically seek out American ships if for no other reason than to kill Americans in revenge. The long term result is that the American military is going to need to more than double down in supressing piracy along the Horn of Africa. This is going to include action at sea and direct military intervention against the pirate’s land bases.
The pirates lost nothing last Sunday. The three pirates killed were bottom feeders in the pirate chain of command; completely expendable. Nor, did last Sunday’s rescue, measurably dent the pirate operations; certainly not the profitability of these piracy operations.
Unless, the US Navy significantly ramps up its operations, there’s just too much money for last Sunday’s setback to serve as a deterrent. Moreover, this money isn’t just buying a lot of cars, whores and booze for the pirate warlords. A significant fraction of this money is making its way into the hands of Islamic terrorists. These pirate warlords only exist at the sufferance of what passes for governmental authority in Somalia. A sufferance purchased by cutting Islamic Imperialism in on the profits.
Which brings us to the final point. Self defense. Like something that fires lead; not those idiot devices like slippery foam that sounds like a project out of the Dangerous Book for Boys. I suspect that part of the successful repelling of the pirates off of the Alabama was facilitated by a stray pistol or two in the duffels of the Alabama’s crew. Oh yes, those things aren’t allowed by company policy so we’ll probably never know. But, especially when its your butt on the line, gun restrictions and guns laws are largely observed in the breach.
Now, every American is now going to carry a particularly steep price on his head; those that aren’t killed outright when the next American flagship is successfully boarded. Which means that our government is going to have to actually trust that individual Americans can defend themselves responsibly. (A fact more than amply supported by our experiences with “shall-issue” concealed handgun permits.) We are going to need to arm our merchant ships and our merchant marine. A modern naval cruiser traveling at 35 knots (about 40 mph) is going to be unable to respond fast enough. That means that this high seas criminality is going to have to be dealt with on a “retail” level. That is, merchant crews, trained to spot a boarding and, with lethal force, repel such boardings. The administration and State Department is going to have to insist that armed merchant ships and armed American merchantmen will be allowed access to foreign ports.
Also, handling piracy on an immediate level has a way of preventing these incidents from blowing up into major international crisises. Imagine how much different the history of the last eight years would be if the pilots of the four 9/11 airliners were armed. Everyone used to make a big deal about resisting a hijacking. And, guns, heaven forfend! We’d have airliners blowing up and crashing out of the sky! Which was just what happened on 9/11. In the same fashion, there would be no international incident with an American warship involved had the Maersk Alabama been armed. Just the bodies of four dead pirates to be quietly kicked overboard.
Obama better enjoy last Sunday’s victory. It isn’t going to last long unless he’s willing to follow through.
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