Category Archives: View

View 791 Saturday, September 28, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

It has been a hectic week, and I have really had little to say about the main story: the kabuki theatre in Washington, with the President threatening to shut down the government if the Republicans won’t give him everything he wants on Obamacare, and the Tea Party Republicans saying they won’t fund Obamacare, and the Senate playing its strange little games. I don’t know how it will play out, because there are Real Uncertainties here, assuming that you believe that a few Senators or a couple of dozen Members of the House still have vestiges of free will.

As I write this the House has sent the Senate a bill – keep in mind that under the Constitution it had to originate in the House – that defunds most of ObamaCare. The Senate, with the aid of a few Republicans voting with all the Democrats, shut down debate, after which the Democrats alone with no Republican votes refunded ObamaCare and sent it back to the House, where after a few rounds of kabuki dances, it was once again modified, this time to delay ObamaCare for a year and remove on of its particularly onerous taxes on medical equipment. The Senate probably won’t pass that, and the President has vowed to veto it if it does pass, which means that Monday at midnight the government runs out of money. Of course that doesn’t actually mean that all the soldiers and police will go home, or that air traffic controllers won’t go to work, or that Bunny Inspectors won’t continue to attend stage magician shows to be sure that if the prestidigitators use a rabbit they have a federal license to do so (unless they kill the rabbit as part of the show in which case no license is needed) – such essential parts of the government will continue. White House tours, and the National Zoo and the arts galleries and many municipal services in the District of Columbia, and anything highly visible that makes life easier for the citizens will be closed. TSA will lose no people but you can be sure they will do their job of making this experience annoying.

Alas, I have no real advice for the few sane people left in Congress. My own proclivity would be to restore ObamaCare to its pristine condition – fund it on the condition that there are no exemptions, no exceptions, no White House fiddling: no ObamaCare and water, just the pure ObamaCare as passed without a single Republican vote, and owned entirely by the Democrats. You asked for it, you threatened to shut down the government to get it, now you have it, but you will not exempt anyone from it: you get it as you passed it, or not at all. I am not sure how to word that, but I am sure there is sufficient expertise in the House.

Newt Gingrich has said that the Republicans should defund it and let the government shut down; it worked in his day, and it will work now. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/20/gingrich-favors-house-republican-budget-push-on-obamacare/comment-page-1/ If he were Speaker now it is what he would do. He knows more about these matters than most and he has thought about it a lot, and he may well be right.

Meanwhile we have a few more rounds to play before time runs out and they start laying off the Smithsonian staff (but not the Department of Agriculture bunny inspectors).

More depressing statistics. In Pennsylvania about 47% of the students read at an acceptable level. In a separate study, 99.5% of the teachers (average salary with benefits $110,000) have been rated at full competence or higher. Maybe if we shut the government down some of the money that allows states to pay teachers unable to raise student literacy to the level the US had fifty years ago could be saved. It’s not hard to get literacy up to 85% and above, and it doesn’t take expensive teachers to do it, but so long as the money flows into the current system nothing will change.

And I happened to see a skit from some new TV show in which a college student faces financial difficulties and suggests to his father that they take a second mortgage on the house to bail him out so he can continue his studies. I saw no more than that – it was a clip advertising a new show – but there is horror enough there. Apparently the goal is to convert every house holder in the nation into a bondsman. The entire middle class is to be saddled with debt; that will keep those people docile. The academics will continue to be paid handsomely (particularly in private institutions where the children of the professorate get free tuition, so they graduate without debt). The middle class become bondsmen. And so it goes. And so long as the money flows in academia will keep raising its costs to absorb it. Is there anyone who doesn’t know this? But they never catch wise.

People used to work their way through college without incurring a lifetime of debt. Colleges turned out school teachers, civil servants, even engineers. We can’t do that any longer, but we do have really well paid college teachers and administrators. I wonder how we got along without all that in the past?

And the new channels are full of the story of how 95% of the world’s best scientists now understand how global warming works, and it’s all a matter of heating the oceans – never thought of that with the billion dollar models, but now we know. So now we understand it, all it takes is more money to the scientists and we’ll understand it and get to work on fixing things.

World’s top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought – and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Worlds-climate-scientists-confess-Global-warming-just-QUARTER-thought–computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html#ixzz2gGEjcX5Q

But the spin is on, and they no longer admit anything of the sort.

And I’m getting depressed. I have some good stuff on a rational approach to health care, and some other matters, and there is some good news from science, but this week most of the news has been depressing. I think I ought to go to bed.

I’ll have to find the original mail that pointed me to this place, but if you have a moment, have a look. It’s really odd. http://imgur.com/opNnoOx

View 791 Wednesday, September 25, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

The MRI went well. I don’t have any results yet, but I don’t expect any anomalies. I continue to be impressed with the courtesy and efficiency of Kaiser. A few glitches here and there, but none that waste more than a few minutes of my time, and their system lets all my test results be available to all the myriad doctors who are involved in keeping me going. If Kaiser can do this so well, making something as unpleasant as an MRI easy to afford ($170 co payment; not cheap but it’s only once a year – if they find something that requires more those get charged differently). We had to take Roberta out there Monday for unscheduled medical, and that worked out well also. On this the co payment was $5 for the visit, $20 for a lab fee, and about $20 for prescriptions.

Before I reached 65 I paid Kaiser about $400 a month to take care of my entire family, and everything worked out very well. Co payments were about the same then as now, I think. When I reached 65 I was given two options: pay membership fees of about $1800 a month, or pay $20 a month and let Medicare – which is to say you – take care of the rest. This seemed unreasonable, but those were the choices, and investigation revealed there were no others.

Given that I pay self-employment taxes and at that time the Kaiser premiums would not have been deductible, I didn’t see any real choice. We were more than satisfied with Kaiser before I reached the magic age, and while I was still making a reasonable income $1800 a month in non=deductible premiums was still a large hit. As to why I only cost Kaiser $400 a month until August 6, and they needed $1800 from then on, no one ever explained that in a way I could understand. So I thank all of you for paying some of my medical insurance bills. Of course the law also continued to collect self-employment taxes just in case I made some money.

I don’t know the solution to the health care dilemma, but I do know this: if you put more money into a system, the prices will rise. Make it easier to get home loans and home prices will go up, and if continue to inject more money into the system prices will spiral, and there will be ads on the radio for courses on how to flip houses in forty days. Eventually there will be a bubble.

Make it easier to borrow money to go to college, and college prices will rise. Continue to inject money into the education system and costs will spiral.

Inject more money into public schools, and the result is Pennsylvania where only 40% of the students in the system can read at a satisfactory level – which is pretty damned low – while 99.5% of the teachers are rated as satisfactory or above; and they get $110,000 a year in salary and benefits. Inject more money into that system and the results will not change except that it will cost even more.

There is in economics an elementary principle called the law of supply and demand. If you increase demand – there is more money available to buy the goods – then prices will rise. In theory supply will then increase to bring about equilibrium, but if there are restrictions in the supply – credentials needed before you can supply that demand – then it’s a bit more complex. The demand for credentials will increase. That raises the prices. Those with the credentials will now want more, and –

Well, you get the idea. It’s not complicated and everyone understands it although many political leaders pretend not to. The get better at sincere speeches, though. Apparently the voters believe them.

And they never catch wise.

Over 60 killed in Kenya, and it took days to retake the shopping mall. Either the terrorists learned a lot in the past few years, or more likely, India is just better at some things than Kenya. Either way, we may come to need the otherwise dangerous and generally unneeded SWAT teams that proliferate like mushrooms in the United States. Even the Department of Agriculture has a SWAT team, presumably better to arrest stage magicians who have an unlicensed rabbit in their performances. Of course it’s legal – at a federal level anyway – simple to bit the rabbit’s head off in the performance, in which case no federal law has been broken, but to be sure we need to pay legions of bunny inspectors.

And now we can debate raising the debt ceiling. The US can possibly survive on the trillions it already collects. Have to inject more money into the government system. Which will of course raise the prices…

Obamacare exemptions

Re: Federal employees’ "exemption" from Obamacare– Federal employees are NOT exempt from Obamacare; they have met the requirement to have insurance, in exactly the same way that anyone subject to employer-provided insurance has met the requirement. Same goes for congressional staffers, for that matter. Let’s punish only those responsible, please! 🙂

Paul Barner

There is a Congressional staff whose sole job is to show Congresscritters and their staffers how to get the maximum subsidies that are guaranteed to them in Obama Care. Those subsidies allow them to have the insurance they want. It’s just a matter of figuring out how.

I am sure you have an agency whose job it is to tell you how to maximize our subsidies.

In other words, Congress’s health-care premiums will not rise, but yours may. Members of Congress will be able to afford to keep their health-insurance plan, but you may be kicked off yours. They will be able to afford to keep their doctors, but you may have to find a new one.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, a Republican from Florida, recently put forward legislation—aptly named the James Madison Congressional Accountability Act—which would end the special exemption. In the Senate, Republicans David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Enzi of Wyoming have also introduced legislation to end the exemption.

In response, several Democratic senators have reacted by drafting legislation that would punish anyone who votes for Sen. Vitter’s plan by permanently blocking an exemption from them and their staff, even if Mr. Vitter’s law doesn’t pass. It doesn’t get more vindictive and petty than that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579080921594857770.html

Bill Bennet

Or see http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358550/congresss-exemption-obamacare-john-fund

And in fact there have been Presidential exceptions granted, some of those not being in the law but inferred as part of presidential power. I do not think anyone in Congress will be inconvenienced by Obamacare; while many outside it will lose theirs (consider the recent Trader Joe actions)**. But your faith in Congress may be justified. Many journalists say it is.

Certainly there is political posturing, but it is also clear that the nation wants Congress and their staffs to experience the same effects of the laws as the citizens must experience; and it is clear that no such thing will happen with Obamacare.

We not only have to pass the law to see what’s in it, we have to life with it a while to see what’s in it. And there will be many more surprises.

** Note: Trader Joe’s formerly had health insurance for part time employees, but in preparation for the upcoming Obamacare TJ management has eliminated health insurance benefits for all part time employees.  They will offer about $500 a year with which the part timers can purchase whatever they can get on the new exchanges.

View 791 Tuesday, September 24, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

The weekend and Monday were devoured by locusts. Tomorrow I have an MRI that will take up much of the day. It’s an annual checkup thing, nothing to worry about, and I doubt they’ll find anything.

I watch with a certain fascination the slow dance of the Republicans toward confrontation. I don’t think anyone knows what will happen. Certainly I don’t.

My advice, such as it is, would be to let the Senate play with the Bill, but have ready a new House version that funds Obamacare, but takes out all the exemptions for Congress and its staffers, and also all Federal Employee exemptions. The Constitution forbids titles of nobility, and exempting a class from taxations and regulations is the creation of a nobility. It can’t be popular except of course on Capitol Hill.

Good article:

Bennett and Beach: The Hypocrisy Of Congress’s Gold-Plated Health Care

Special subsidies for Hill workers trample on the Founders’ code of equal application of the law.

By

• WILLIAM BENNETT

And

• CHRISTOPHER BEACH

As close observers of history and human nature, James Madison and the other Founders of the U.S. Constitution knew that the equal and unbiased application of the law to all people, especially elected officials, is essential to freedom and justice and one of the primary safeguards from authoritarianism and oppression by a ruling class.

And so, referring to the members of Congress, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 57: "[T]hey can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society."

Today, elected officials need to be reminded of these truths.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579080921594857770.html

Keeping the Smart Black Kids in their places.

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder seem bent on preventing smart black children from getting a good education. Perhaps they don’t know that’s what they are doing. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Perhaps. But there are advantages to having a community under class to organize.

Justice Department vs. Louisiana Voucher Kids

Eric Holder hauls out a 40-year-old civil rights case to attack minority school choice.

By

• CLINT BOLICK

School-choice programs have faced no shortage of legal challenges en route to their adoption in 18 states and the District of Columbia. But none of the challenges is so perverse or perplexing as the Justice Department’s motion last month to wield desegregation decrees to halt Louisiana’s voucher program.

As part of its efforts to boost educational opportunities for disadvantaged children, last year Louisiana enacted the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program. The statewide program provides tuition vouchers to children from families with incomes below 250% of the poverty line whose children otherwise would attend public schools that the state has graded C, D or F. This year, roughly 8,000 children are using vouchers to attend private schools. Among those, 91% are minority and 86% would have attended public schools with D or F grades.

Attorney General Eric Holder argues the program runs afoul of desegregation orders, which operate in 34 Louisiana school districts. By potentially altering the racial composition of those schools by taking minority children out of failing public schools, the Justice Department asserts the program "frustrates and impedes the desegregation process." It has asked a federal court to forbid future scholarships in those districts until the state requests and receives approval in each of the 22 or more cases that might be affected.

If successful, the Justice Department’s motion could thwart school choice—not just vouchers, but charter schools—in hundreds of districts across the country that are still subject to desegregation decrees. And it would deprive thousands of Louisiana schoolchildren, nearly all of them black, of the only high-quality educational opportunities they have ever had.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323808204579089093469535268.html

And it’s lunch time. More later.

View 790 Friday, September 20, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

I have two follow-ups on IOS 7.

More on iOS7 –

Hi Jerry,

Just a follow-up on my previous note. The performance issues do look to be limited to the iPhone 4: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/new-lease-on-life-or-death-sentence-ios-7-on-the-iphone-4/

Here’s a review on other old hardware: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/dont-let-me-down-apple-ios-7-on-the-ipad-2/

There are a number of bugs, including one rather severe security issue: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/19/apples-control-center-used-to-bypass-ios-7-passcode-lock

The largest issue I’m seeing is that a ton of applications aren’t compatible – either they don’t work, don’t work properly, or have annoyances.

So to add more nuances to my previous note, I would not recommend installing on an iPhone 4, think twice about an iPad2, and wait everywhere else for your apps to be updated, and Apple to release the first bug fix pack.

Cheers,

Doug

Hi Jerry,

I guess I am not one of the naysayers who always come out of the woodwork when something new turns up, but having completed the update of 2 iPhone 4s, 1 iPhone 4S and 2 iPhone 5s, along with an iPad series 3 and 4, I can, with confidence, state that iOS7 works well and is a worthwhile upgrade.

There are some features missing from the iPhone 4 but they should not come as a surprise and are described adequately by Apple on their web site, if you look for them. Bottom line is all users I have met with have loved iOS7 and found it to be a clean, easy and smooth upgrade. It tackles a number of usability issues and for those that dislike the thinner fonts, you can play with them. Lest you think I am some young bright eyed youth with excellent eyesight, I am 64 and all the people I know who did the upgrade are on the ‘wrong’ side of 50.

The one and only problem I have had, which is simply a matter of retraining my slightly older brain, is the delete is now a right to left swipe and not a left to right.

Great upgrade and a superb job by Apple.

Cheers,

Peter M. Jackson

I confess I have not been as active in updating my systems as I should have been, so it turns out to take a while to install IOS7 on my iPhone 4S. I may get an iPhone 5 mostly for the camera and the larger screen. Meanwhile I am jumping through the installation hoops. Apparently older IPhone 4 users might want to wait a bit on installing IOS7, but those with the latest will be happy with the new OS.

I’m still thinking about a new iPhone. I like the camera in the 4S, but the larger screen may be attractive. My vision isn’t what it used to be…

Of course the IOS7 installation did not work. See below.

I’ve been fooling around with hearing aids. They have one salutary effect, which is to keep my from talking so loud; I hear my own voice very loudly when wearing them. It’s a mixed bag as to what they do otherwise. I certainly hear KUSC better, and I can turn the TGV down a bit lower, but the comprehensibility isn’t all that improved; some people just talk really fast, fast enough that the subtitles can’t keep up with them, and neither can I. I’m still experimenting with them.

My hearing problems date from a long time ago, and my hearing losses are selective. Some people I understand very well. Some buildings have acoustics that allow me to understand what is being said. I have to confess that I haven’t understood three consecutive words of the homily since about 2009 when the full effects of the radiation therapy took effect – they seem to have added to the problems I have had since 1950, selective losses in certain frequency notches coupled with full hearing capability in other frequencies. And I always talk too loud. The hearing aids do help in keeping me from shouting at people when I didn’t intend to (usually; I rarely find any reason to shout). I haven’t tried public speaking with the things.

The problem is that I don’t use this Mac stuff much. At one time I was going to convert to Mac but Windows 7 came along and I wasn’t fleeing from Microsoft any more, and things got lax. With the Mac everything is very simple or else it is impossible, but this business of synchronizing and updating is going beyond me.

Now my attempts to install IOS7 run into the warning that I have unsaved apps that will be lost. I don’t know what they are and attempts to synchronize with iStore get references to a mysterious Summary Button that I can’t find, and while I am sure it is all very clear to habitual Apple users it is all very confusing to me. I’ll try to fight my way through it. I used to do this stuff all the time. Dammit I am smarter than the techwriters who have graduated from that school in which they are taught how to explain things so that they can prove to an expert that they have done it, but keep the explanation incomprehensible to normal sane people.

So I am at the state where I am offered a way to install IOS7 but I first must synchronize my iPhone with iStore. That ought to happen automatically but clearly does not. Now what?

I’ve taken the iPhone off the system and told it to update itself by wireless. The wifi here is strong. And my iPhone has now decided it is already updated and is verifying this and is now reduced to the white bitten apple and a tine progress bar.  This looks as if is going to take a while.  I find this disturbing.

And after about ten minutes it all appears unchanged. My iPhone shows a white bitten apple and what looks like a progress bar stuck at 20% with no sign of change. I am gong to go have lunch.

And I no sooner wrote that than I saw a tiny motion on the progress bar, so I suppose something is happening.  We can all hope.

It’s over half now. Something seems to be happening. Meanwhile it’s lunch time.

OK, it has installed. It’s beautiful. So far no problems at all and in fact it had me reset some stuff I had nearly forgotten anyway.  First impression, IOS7 is fine on an iPhone 4S. I will have more experience shortly. So far there is one major glitch.  IOS7 installs a 4 digit pass code to allow access to the iPhone after it has been on for a while. That adds no real security, and I hate it. Hate it.  But so far I have been unable to turn that “fracture” which was designed by arrogant twerps for use by sheep – there is no way to turn that feature off.  With Apple everything is simple or impossible.  I am hoping this is an exception. I’d rather have the old IOS than have to remember yet another number. 

Does anyone know how to turn off the pass code access feature?

HAN.  Settings. General. There is if you scroll a passcode thingy.  After entering the passcode a couple of times you will be able to turn off the pass code. Maybe one should not do that, but you can do it, so I feel better about it.