Health Care No Health Care?

The Dems are saying the existing Health Care Bill is better than the status quo. That is not so. The present Health Care Bill has one major weak link and that is the Insurance Companies can raise premiums on the insurance beyond what is affordable, thus excluding those with health problems or other risks to profits. The insurance recipient is caught between a rock and a hard place in that he or she is mandated to buy insurance yet is faced with high premiums beyond what they will be able to afford. The only way out of this dilemma is a public option or a bill which sets premium prices that allow for profits on the one hand and affordable premiums on the other.

The Dems have really acted like a bunch of sissies all along. Fragmented, hesitant, fretful to put it mildly. Above all they lack the conviction of their beliefs that the Republicans display.

Is The Globe Warming?

Putting a bunch of thermometers all over the world to get an average is a gargantuan task and likely not to prove anything but seeing glaciers melt all over the world, draught happen, climate get crazy, islands disappear, coral bleach out and the arctic melt during the summer months does indicate empirically that global warming is taking place.

Is it man made? Coincidentally glacier melting and declining began to take place around 1795; just when man began to burn coal in great quantities. Too, basic physics and chemistry points to warming as the result of putting great quantities of industrial and domestic gases into the atmosphere. Am I worried? No, for I wont be around when the crap hits the fan, but I do worry some about what will happen to my grand kids and their kids. Nature will kick back at them big time because the more we wise up to what may happen the more others do their best to propagandize against rational thought and behavior.

Population growth and wasteful use of finite resources combined with irresponsible behavior will catch up with us in the next decade or two. Mankind is totally depended on fossil fuels, particularly petroleum, and when that becomes scarce there is not a fallback resource energetic enough to sustain our present, or future, way of life. We will not be able to feed billions of people using ox power. We have depended on machinery to plow, plant, and harvest large tracts of land, land which has been depleted by over farming, land now fertilized using chemicals made from petroleum. We are in a catch 22 situation. Population demands use of more and more resources; climate demands a reduction in use of resources. What happens when Miami or New Orleans disappears under water or is ravaged by a super hurricane? We can't continue to fork out money to replace real estate destroyed by storms or take in refugees from foreign lands, such as Bangladesh, or Pongo Pongo.

Irrational forces need to be squelched by rational forces. Unfortunately sensible arguments lack certain visceral appeals that irrational forces seem to find to further their positions. Rational arguments are dry, technical, and usually unpopular. Rational arguments appeal to reason and usually require thought, common sense, and honesty. Irrational arguments appeal to the emotions and are put forward using such appeals as fear, name calling, labeling, finger pointing, i.e., propaganda techniques.

Where Are the Jobs?

Jobs are elusive as a result of government incompetence and corporate attacks on labor. Downsizing, off shoring, and propaganda programs have pushed American labor back to the 19Th Century. Government promises and outlandish predictions do little to solve the problem. Everyone seems to forget that good jobs are those that manufacture "things" that people need rather than provide services that have no "substance". Cars, refrigerators, houses, clothing, furniture, pocket knives, tools, are "things" that people need at one time or another, or all the time and are necessities. Sales clerks, brokers, hair dressers, etc., while handy, are not necessary for our basic existence. They are essentially dependent on those who manufacture tangible goods. So what is the solution? Jobs are not going to be created as long as corporations and those controlling wealth in this country have free rein to dictate and control government. The Media is no help doing little more than providing a platform for propaganda provided by the corporations and their government dupes. The fight for Universal Health Care is a good example of the failure of our democracy--the result of all the talking and maneuvering is legislation that will ultimately force everyone to buy health insurance at prices set by the Insurance Industry, much like auto insurance.

Jobs will unlikely return unless off shoring is curtailed, labor is again represented by government,
fair international trade is restored, illegal immigration laws are enforced, and cheap labor from abroad is controlled. Another problem is the high cost of education and the lack of jobs for those who attain education. As it is students are amassing large amounts of debt and finding that they cannot find a job in their field because the jobs taken over by cheap labor from abroad or off shoring of those jobs. Optimism is hard to come by what with all the forces operating against the average middle class individual. The answer is not future high tech industry. People love high tech gimmicks but they are not necessities for the most part. Unfortunately the tech is being developed in the U.S. and then manufactured overseas. As an example, wind rotors for wind mills are now being made in China and then shipped to the U.S. to generate electricity. We create a need in the U.S. then have the item made abroad.

The most important action to restore jobs in the U.S. seems to be the restoring of middle class representation in our government. Corporations may provide the money for campaigns but it is the people who vote. Eventually the people will get so desperate that propaganda fails and then watch out!

Intelligence, Intelligence, Intelligence

No, I am not talking about how smart someone should be, though there is smarts needed regarding Afghanistan, but knowledge of how your enemy plans and acts, who they are, and where they are at any given time, etc.

When you have a populace as diverse, spread out, unknown as the Afghanistani's are, waging an insurrectionist war is doubly difficult. Gathering intelligence under these conditions is at best uncertain and when your troops lives are at stake you have to have good intelligence. Having the upper hand with mobility, strength, logistics is worthless if you don't know where and who your enemy is. Add in the isolation of much of the populace, where strangers would stand out like a sore thumb, gathering good intelligence would be a nightmare. How do you tell if someone is Taliban if the populace is sympathetic, or at best cowed, to the Taliban cause?

Is 30,000 more troops going to mean better intelligence? I think not. It is like shooting a target in the dark.