The subject of much talk, and a blizzard of disinformation. The real choices facing Congress are three, Raise taxes on all Americans, raise taxes on higher earning Americans, or don't raise taxes on anyone.
Does anyone think raising taxes on everyone will get the country out of Great Depression 2.0?
Does anyone think raising taxes on people who have serious money to invest is going to get us out of Great Depression 2.0?
Keeping everyone's taxes where they have been for the last 10 years is better than any kind of tax hike.
Even better would be to cut taxes. Worked for Bush. Might even work for Obama.
Of course raising taxes helps pay the vastly increased spending of the Obama administration.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What to fear in Korea
The current Shoot-Ex on the Korean border is a sign of weakness of the North Korean government. North Korea is attempting a power transfer to the third member of the Kim family. This guy, Kim Jung whats-his-face is a perfect zero. Nobody knows anything about him. Whether he has the stones required to run the nastiest dictator ship ever is unknown. North Korea is dirt poor, unable to feed its people, and yet maintains a humongous army, builds nukes and missiles. There has gotta be a LOT of unhappy campers up there. The rifle carrying privates in the North Korea army all come from somewhere, have family that is going hungry, and might not obey an order to fire on civilians. Nobody really knows.
In short, North Korea could come unglued, overnight. The army and police stop obeying orders, and what little national economy they have comes to a stop. People start dying for lack of food and water.
In this case, South Korea would be under enormous pressure to do something. Lot of South Koreans still have kin living in the North and they will demand their kinfolk be saved. So the South Korean army will drive north in trucks full of food and water and peace flags waving from bumper mounts. If it were just up to the Koreans, things would settle out, the north would become part of the south. But the Chinese won't like this.
China likes having North Korea. It gives them a border shared with a pliable client state. It lets them poke a stick at the Americans and get them all hot and bothered, at little cost to themselves. The idea of having a pushy economic rival, who is hand in glove with the Americans, on their border is anathema to China. To prevent this, the Chinese will send in peacekeepers.
Now we have the People's Liberation Army and the South Korean Army cruising around the same turf. The possibility for nasty shooting incidents is very great. We don't want to think about escalation. The PLA is very big and formidable, but so is South Korea, and the South Koreans have that American connection. A lot of Americans, like myself, have been to South Korea over the years, and brought back very favorable impressions of the Korean people. The Koreans have been loyal and faithful allies for 60 years. The US government would be under great pressure to back up the South Koreans. And that could lead to hostilities between the US and China, which is not a good thing.
I don't know just how to avoid a catastrophe here, but I can at least see the dangers involved.
In short, North Korea could come unglued, overnight. The army and police stop obeying orders, and what little national economy they have comes to a stop. People start dying for lack of food and water.
In this case, South Korea would be under enormous pressure to do something. Lot of South Koreans still have kin living in the North and they will demand their kinfolk be saved. So the South Korean army will drive north in trucks full of food and water and peace flags waving from bumper mounts. If it were just up to the Koreans, things would settle out, the north would become part of the south. But the Chinese won't like this.
China likes having North Korea. It gives them a border shared with a pliable client state. It lets them poke a stick at the Americans and get them all hot and bothered, at little cost to themselves. The idea of having a pushy economic rival, who is hand in glove with the Americans, on their border is anathema to China. To prevent this, the Chinese will send in peacekeepers.
Now we have the People's Liberation Army and the South Korean Army cruising around the same turf. The possibility for nasty shooting incidents is very great. We don't want to think about escalation. The PLA is very big and formidable, but so is South Korea, and the South Koreans have that American connection. A lot of Americans, like myself, have been to South Korea over the years, and brought back very favorable impressions of the Korean people. The Koreans have been loyal and faithful allies for 60 years. The US government would be under great pressure to back up the South Koreans. And that could lead to hostilities between the US and China, which is not a good thing.
I don't know just how to avoid a catastrophe here, but I can at least see the dangers involved.
The existential meaning of Standard Time
NHPR is having a fine time discussing a book about time. As you may or may not know, once upon a time each town and city kept its own time, 12 o'clock was when the sun crossed the zenith. Since the moment of local noon changes from place to place, the time would be different between Boston and Salem and Lexington and Hartford and every place.
Railroads needed time tables, both to let passengers and shippers know when to be at the station, but also to prevent head on collisions on single track lines. Creating an accurate time table is difficult enough (how many minutes to travel from East Overshoe to West Gumstump) but to then compute a time correction to account for the fact that East Overshoe is a few minutes ahead of West Gumstump, is just too much to keep straight and get right. Plus, what keeps the train on time is the train crew looking at their pocket watches, all set to railroad headquarters time. Train crew needs a time table with uniform times, the time indicated on their watches.
And so, the railroads met and carved the US up into the four time zones we still use. Then the station clocks were set to railroad time, and timetables printed in railroad time and that was that. Pretty soon passengers and shippers (nearly everyone) found it convenient to set their clocks to match the railroad clocks.
All this colorful history was too much for NHPR to cover. They bloviated about the deep inner meaning of standard time, the existential meaning of local time, the blessedness of having no time at all and other poetic subjects.
Railroads needed time tables, both to let passengers and shippers know when to be at the station, but also to prevent head on collisions on single track lines. Creating an accurate time table is difficult enough (how many minutes to travel from East Overshoe to West Gumstump) but to then compute a time correction to account for the fact that East Overshoe is a few minutes ahead of West Gumstump, is just too much to keep straight and get right. Plus, what keeps the train on time is the train crew looking at their pocket watches, all set to railroad headquarters time. Train crew needs a time table with uniform times, the time indicated on their watches.
And so, the railroads met and carved the US up into the four time zones we still use. Then the station clocks were set to railroad time, and timetables printed in railroad time and that was that. Pretty soon passengers and shippers (nearly everyone) found it convenient to set their clocks to match the railroad clocks.
All this colorful history was too much for NHPR to cover. They bloviated about the deep inner meaning of standard time, the existential meaning of local time, the blessedness of having no time at all and other poetic subjects.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
How many gallons does an electric car use?
Dunno. Word has it that Chevy Volts are piling up at the factory but they cannot ship them until EPA issues a mile/per/gallon sticker. Which seems kinda dumb. Plenty of Volts are gonna go to people whose daily commute is less than 20 miles, at which, if they plug in every night, they never need gasoline. Assuming the Volt's battery-only range lives up to Chevy's advertising.
But we have to have a gas mileage sticker in that window.
But we have to have a gas mileage sticker in that window.
Clueless Clinton
Hillary was on the Sunday pundits and the subject got around to Gitmo. Hillary was all in favor of civilian trials, but she never mentioned the real reason we want to give a terrorist a trial.
We do trials to convince the rest of the world that good old whats-his-face is a nogoodnick and deserves what he got (or is about to get). We have a number of problems here. First problem, so much time has gone by that memories have faded and anger has cooled. We should have tried 'em all back in 2002.
Second problem, US judges are mostly from another planet and might well turn them all loose on a technicality.
Final problem, most of the Gitmo "detainees" are not guilty of crimes in the ordinary sense of the word. They are guilty of bearing arms against the United States, on foreign soil no less. If they were fighting for a recognized government they would be prisoners of war. Few Americans, jurors or military officers, are willing to convict people for fighting for a cause, even if the cause hasn't achieved the status of a legitimate government.
The final problem is these "detainees" are clearly dangerous. Over the years we have released a couple of hundred of ones that looked less dangerous. Something like a third of the released terrorists went right back to terrorism and got caught by the Americans a second time, in Afghanistan, doing terrorism.
In my estimation, the least bad option is to just keep them in Gitmo til they rot. I fear US judges will bungle civilian trials, and military tribunals will go easy on them.
We do trials to convince the rest of the world that good old whats-his-face is a nogoodnick and deserves what he got (or is about to get). We have a number of problems here. First problem, so much time has gone by that memories have faded and anger has cooled. We should have tried 'em all back in 2002.
Second problem, US judges are mostly from another planet and might well turn them all loose on a technicality.
Final problem, most of the Gitmo "detainees" are not guilty of crimes in the ordinary sense of the word. They are guilty of bearing arms against the United States, on foreign soil no less. If they were fighting for a recognized government they would be prisoners of war. Few Americans, jurors or military officers, are willing to convict people for fighting for a cause, even if the cause hasn't achieved the status of a legitimate government.
The final problem is these "detainees" are clearly dangerous. Over the years we have released a couple of hundred of ones that looked less dangerous. Something like a third of the released terrorists went right back to terrorism and got caught by the Americans a second time, in Afghanistan, doing terrorism.
In my estimation, the least bad option is to just keep them in Gitmo til they rot. I fear US judges will bungle civilian trials, and military tribunals will go easy on them.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Can they hide enough explosives to bring down an airliner?
Good question. I remember the aircraft that took a direct hit from an air-to-air missile and still flew back to base. It was a heatseeker that locked onto the engine flame and flew right up the tailpipe before exploding. Blew the back of the plane to shreds, but the engine kept running (good old P&W J75) and the single hydraulic system remained unpunctured.
Then there was the Boeing 737 that lost the entire roof of the cabin, from the cockpit right back to the galley. It landed safely.
My point is that Boeing airliners are extremely rugged and can shrug off a pound of high explosive. Can terrorists hide enough explosives in shoes or underwear or body cavities to actually damage an airliner? I doubt it.
Think about that as you do the electronic strip search or endure the TSA groping.
The real reason terrorists have not succeeded in hijacking an airliner since 9/11 is passengers. Now, post 9/11, passengers know that allowing anyone to take control of the plane means that they are all dead. And so, some misbehaving persons have been treated quite roughly by passengers. One case involved a fire axe applied to the perp's head, another involved so much duct tape that the perp suffocated.
Then there was the Boeing 737 that lost the entire roof of the cabin, from the cockpit right back to the galley. It landed safely.
My point is that Boeing airliners are extremely rugged and can shrug off a pound of high explosive. Can terrorists hide enough explosives in shoes or underwear or body cavities to actually damage an airliner? I doubt it.
Think about that as you do the electronic strip search or endure the TSA groping.
The real reason terrorists have not succeeded in hijacking an airliner since 9/11 is passengers. Now, post 9/11, passengers know that allowing anyone to take control of the plane means that they are all dead. And so, some misbehaving persons have been treated quite roughly by passengers. One case involved a fire axe applied to the perp's head, another involved so much duct tape that the perp suffocated.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Stenting for fun and profit
Back on the 4th of November my plain old primary care physician, Dr Silva in Littleton took my EKG in the course of a routine office visit. His sharp eye noticed something unusual in the EKG. He followed up with a stress test and a gamma camera scan. I had not complained of anything, this was a straight check of standard tests. The stress test and the gamma camera pictures convinced Dr. Silva to refer me to cardiologists. Some days later I was scheduled for an angiogram down state at Dartmouth Hitchcock down in Hanover.
I double checked the appointment time a day or two in advance and was told that my 8AM appointment has slipped to 10AM. We showed up on time and learned that emergencies had slowed things down. It was 4 PM before they got me into the Cath Lab for the angiogram. Results were confusing. The angiogram showed six places that might need s stent. The angiogram was not unpleasant, they started off with a big Valium and followed it up with a lot of happy juice fed in thru an IV. Didn't hurt a bit, and I was VERY mellow thru out a two hour procedure.
There was some discussion as to the proper treatment, either a coronary bypass operation or a LOT of stents. They didn't feel it was fair to ask my opinion while I was still zonked out on happy juice. So I got admitted for over night. Next morning the cardiac surgeon (nice guy) pitched the cardiac bypass (open heart surgery) and the the stent guy pitched stents. I picked stents, 'cause the coronary bypass surgery involved sawing my breast bone in half and pulling up my ribs to access the heart. Whereas stents go in in a matter of hours and you can walk out of the hospital in a day. An hour or two later Dr. Kagan told me he had access to the OR that afternoon and could stent me if I was ready. I was ready, he slipped three stents into my heart that afternoon. They popped me back in a room on the heart surgery wing after the stenting and all looked OK.
Except my blood pressure cycled from 210/106 (scary high) to 140/70 (not too bad) over a period of hours. They were reluctant to let me out of the hospital with the 205/106 reading lest I keel over with a heart attack on the way to the elevator, which would reflect poorly on Dartmouth Hitchcock.
After two days of pills and blood pressure tests they found a blood pressure medication that worked and managed to release me this afternoon with a raft of new prescriptions.
I have to complement the Dartmouth Hitchcock people. They worked very hard to get me well, and they managed to make my stay pleasant. Nurse and doctors were patient oriented and did a good job. Much better than Mass General which was my last hospital stay some 30 odd years ago.
I double checked the appointment time a day or two in advance and was told that my 8AM appointment has slipped to 10AM. We showed up on time and learned that emergencies had slowed things down. It was 4 PM before they got me into the Cath Lab for the angiogram. Results were confusing. The angiogram showed six places that might need s stent. The angiogram was not unpleasant, they started off with a big Valium and followed it up with a lot of happy juice fed in thru an IV. Didn't hurt a bit, and I was VERY mellow thru out a two hour procedure.
There was some discussion as to the proper treatment, either a coronary bypass operation or a LOT of stents. They didn't feel it was fair to ask my opinion while I was still zonked out on happy juice. So I got admitted for over night. Next morning the cardiac surgeon (nice guy) pitched the cardiac bypass (open heart surgery) and the the stent guy pitched stents. I picked stents, 'cause the coronary bypass surgery involved sawing my breast bone in half and pulling up my ribs to access the heart. Whereas stents go in in a matter of hours and you can walk out of the hospital in a day. An hour or two later Dr. Kagan told me he had access to the OR that afternoon and could stent me if I was ready. I was ready, he slipped three stents into my heart that afternoon. They popped me back in a room on the heart surgery wing after the stenting and all looked OK.
Except my blood pressure cycled from 210/106 (scary high) to 140/70 (not too bad) over a period of hours. They were reluctant to let me out of the hospital with the 205/106 reading lest I keel over with a heart attack on the way to the elevator, which would reflect poorly on Dartmouth Hitchcock.
After two days of pills and blood pressure tests they found a blood pressure medication that worked and managed to release me this afternoon with a raft of new prescriptions.
I have to complement the Dartmouth Hitchcock people. They worked very hard to get me well, and they managed to make my stay pleasant. Nurse and doctors were patient oriented and did a good job. Much better than Mass General which was my last hospital stay some 30 odd years ago.
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