Obama spoke for an hour. H managed not to say anything of substance in all that time. Obama is a master of the modern political speak, smooth words, motherhood and apple pie, nothing anyone can disagree with, but never a number, never a fact, never a promise of real action. Pablum, meaningless pablum. And that is all we have gotten out him for the last eight years.
Politicians spoke better in the old days. "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal." " The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." "We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds... We shall never surrender." In eight years Obama never said anything in that class.
Trump is a better public speaker than Obama. He can stir the emotions of the crowd, and talk about concrete things, a wall, a tariff, taxes. After listening to Trump, there is no question in anyone's mind where Trump is coming from and where he wants to go.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
What Seventeen Intelligence Agencies?
Several times this month, the MSM has stated that all seventeen US intelligence agencies support this or that. Seventeen? Do we really have seventeen different intelligence agencies? I know of CIA and NSA and DIA. And I guess the National Reconnaissance Office (surveillance satellite operators) counts. But does the FBI count as intelligence? They are supposed to be police. What about Secret Service? They are supposed to be presidential bodyguards and federal anti counterfeiting police.
Anyone know of the other thirteen intelligence agencies? Like what their names are and what they are supposed to be doing with my tax money?
Somehow I feel that we could shut down five or six such agencies, and save money and improve our knowledge of what's going on in the world. Certainly CIA's record over the years has been so bad as to make me doubt anything coming out of CIA.
Anyone know of the other thirteen intelligence agencies? Like what their names are and what they are supposed to be doing with my tax money?
Somehow I feel that we could shut down five or six such agencies, and save money and improve our knowledge of what's going on in the world. Certainly CIA's record over the years has been so bad as to make me doubt anything coming out of CIA.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Victoria on Masterpiece Theater
It was on PBS at 9PM last night. A beautiful costume drama. The costumes were really good, upper class Brits all dressed up for court. The story picked up with Victoria's accession to the throne at age 18. She has very firm ideas about who is in charge, she doesn't defer to her mother, her mother's boyfriend, prime ministers, and other members of the aristocracy. Nice acting, a good watch. It ran for two hours which is a little long for me, one hour episodes are more to my taste. Anyhow I plan to watch it again next Sunday.
Replace Obamacare with What?
So what does the Trump administration do to replace Obamacare? Remember that the country was doing just fine up until Obamacare was rammed down our throats. Most Americans get health insurance thru their employer. That's a strong incentive to get a job, which is not a bad thing. I , and my family, enjoyed company health insurance for nearly 50 years. It's decent healthcare and the government ought to encourage it any way they can. And when you turn 65, you are eligible for Medicare which is also pretty decent.
So the Obamacare thing was only of interest to the self employed, the unemployed, and such. I don't understand Obamacare, I doubt that anyone does truly. I think Obamacare offered to pay part of private health insurance premiums for low income people. And for various reasons the premiums have skyrocketed and the deductibles are so high that the insurance is mostly worthless unless you are hospitalized.
So what to replace Obamacare with? I can think of the following possibilities.
1. Uncle takes care of everything, like Medicaid or Medicare. Doctors and hospitals just send all the bills to Uncle Sam. Tempting but VERY expensive.
2. Uncle subsidizes low income people to purchase private health insurance. Subsidies might range from just making health insurance premiums deductible on income tax, up to cash payments from the US treasury to either the insurance company or the patient.
3. We pass a law requiring health insurance companies to sell the same insurance they offer to large corporation employess to the general public, at the same price charged to corporations.
4. We make a real effort to bring down medical costs, which are outrageous. Allow duty free import of medicines from any reasonable first world country (Canada, Germany, Japan, and company). Clamp down on malpractice suits. If we cut medical costs in HALF, our medical costs would be the same as every other country in the world. America spends twice as much on medical care as any other first world country. And our citizens health is no better than other countries.
5. Something else?
The Republicans need to put their heads together and decide which of these options they will take. Right now, I think every Republican has his own ideas and none of them agree on much.
So the Obamacare thing was only of interest to the self employed, the unemployed, and such. I don't understand Obamacare, I doubt that anyone does truly. I think Obamacare offered to pay part of private health insurance premiums for low income people. And for various reasons the premiums have skyrocketed and the deductibles are so high that the insurance is mostly worthless unless you are hospitalized.
So what to replace Obamacare with? I can think of the following possibilities.
1. Uncle takes care of everything, like Medicaid or Medicare. Doctors and hospitals just send all the bills to Uncle Sam. Tempting but VERY expensive.
2. Uncle subsidizes low income people to purchase private health insurance. Subsidies might range from just making health insurance premiums deductible on income tax, up to cash payments from the US treasury to either the insurance company or the patient.
3. We pass a law requiring health insurance companies to sell the same insurance they offer to large corporation employess to the general public, at the same price charged to corporations.
4. We make a real effort to bring down medical costs, which are outrageous. Allow duty free import of medicines from any reasonable first world country (Canada, Germany, Japan, and company). Clamp down on malpractice suits. If we cut medical costs in HALF, our medical costs would be the same as every other country in the world. America spends twice as much on medical care as any other first world country. And our citizens health is no better than other countries.
5. Something else?
The Republicans need to put their heads together and decide which of these options they will take. Right now, I think every Republican has his own ideas and none of them agree on much.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Routine Healthcare is pricey
The insurance company sent a summary of my healthcare expenses for 2016. Grand total for the year, $1338. All I did this year was two routine doctor's office visits, and one visit to the eye doctor. That's $446 per visit, each visit taking about an hour of my time and half an hour of the doctor's time. That's $14.86 per minute, $223 per hour. Anyone remember Brer Rabbit bragging that he was making a dollar a minute? That's cheap compared to medical care these days.
Totally routine visits, just checking up. I had no complaints, the doctor's scheduled the visits, twice a year for my general practitioner, once a year for my eye doctor.
God only knows what it would cost if there was actually anything wrong with me.
Totally routine visits, just checking up. I had no complaints, the doctor's scheduled the visits, twice a year for my general practitioner, once a year for my eye doctor.
God only knows what it would cost if there was actually anything wrong with me.
US Army deployment to Poland
The US Army has deployed a brigade (3500 men) to Poland to deter Russian agression/invasion of Poland. The MSM have been talking this up as a big deal.
I'm not impressed. Back in WWII the Germans and the Russians fought it out in this part of the world, deploying armies of a million men, or better. Somehow I don't find a mere 3500 man brigade all that imposing. A 15000 man division would be more like it. Do we have a division that we could deploy, or is 3500 men our utmost?
I'm not impressed. Back in WWII the Germans and the Russians fought it out in this part of the world, deploying armies of a million men, or better. Somehow I don't find a mere 3500 man brigade all that imposing. A 15000 man division would be more like it. Do we have a division that we could deploy, or is 3500 men our utmost?
Friday, January 13, 2017
F35 Program, Progress and Problems
Aviation Week had a two page article on where the F35 program stands now. For openers, Lockheed and the Air Force after lots of negotiation, were unable to agree on the terms of the contract for the next batch of aircraft (Low Rate Initial Production lots 9 and 10) . The Air Force finally issued a contract, without Lockheed's approval, on a take it or leave it basis. The F35 A model, the Air Force model is now down to $100 million each. The first ones built way back in 2007 cost $250 million each. That's not too bad, although the last F22's procured were only $80 million. The two other variants of the F35 cost more.
And the ground based software is late. The Automatic Logistics Information System (ALIS) software isn't ready yet. We didn't have anything like ALIS back when I was pounding a flight line. It apparently handles the paperwork, recording each maintenance action, what failed, what was done to fix it. We flew combat in Viet Nam and did all that stuff with pencil and paper.
And the on board software crashes. Maybe every ten hours the pilot gets a blue screen of death and has to reset the system. Aviation Week claims this is not a safety of flight issue, the plane still flies with the computer crashed, but in combat to have to reset the computer to make the missiles launch or the gun fire could ruin your whole day. Software is up to block 3F, which is supposed to have code to launch all sorts of different missiles and bombs. Except the 3F software is having trouble handling the AIM 9X Sidewinder missile. Which is strange, Sidewinder worked off the Korean War era F86 Sabrejet. You would think if the pre computer vacuum tube F86 could handle Sidewinder, the all solid state and heavily computerized F35 could too.
The article said nothing about the F35 gun, which a year ago was inoperative due to lack of software support. Let's guess that the block 3F software was successful in getting the gun to fire. They also said nothing about the 5.6 G limitation imposed by the engines. Last year it was found that more than 5.6 Gs caused the rotating parts of the engine to bend enough to let the compressor blades hit the engine casing. This caused an engine fire resulting in the loss of an aircraft last year. Since they didn't say anything about an engine fix, I think the services are living with the 5.6 G limitation, hoping that air to air missiles will pull the necessary G's to nail the enemy fighter. The ancient F106 could pull 8 G's any old time.
And the ground based software is late. The Automatic Logistics Information System (ALIS) software isn't ready yet. We didn't have anything like ALIS back when I was pounding a flight line. It apparently handles the paperwork, recording each maintenance action, what failed, what was done to fix it. We flew combat in Viet Nam and did all that stuff with pencil and paper.
And the on board software crashes. Maybe every ten hours the pilot gets a blue screen of death and has to reset the system. Aviation Week claims this is not a safety of flight issue, the plane still flies with the computer crashed, but in combat to have to reset the computer to make the missiles launch or the gun fire could ruin your whole day. Software is up to block 3F, which is supposed to have code to launch all sorts of different missiles and bombs. Except the 3F software is having trouble handling the AIM 9X Sidewinder missile. Which is strange, Sidewinder worked off the Korean War era F86 Sabrejet. You would think if the pre computer vacuum tube F86 could handle Sidewinder, the all solid state and heavily computerized F35 could too.
The article said nothing about the F35 gun, which a year ago was inoperative due to lack of software support. Let's guess that the block 3F software was successful in getting the gun to fire. They also said nothing about the 5.6 G limitation imposed by the engines. Last year it was found that more than 5.6 Gs caused the rotating parts of the engine to bend enough to let the compressor blades hit the engine casing. This caused an engine fire resulting in the loss of an aircraft last year. Since they didn't say anything about an engine fix, I think the services are living with the 5.6 G limitation, hoping that air to air missiles will pull the necessary G's to nail the enemy fighter. The ancient F106 could pull 8 G's any old time.
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