In this exciting episode we examine the K.G.B. prediction that the United States of America will be broken up and sold off or joined to other countries.
Why this is purely bogus should be immediately obvious to anybody with a bit of Economics. After all, how many countries could afford to even take on a portion of our National Deficit. California alone is something on the order of 42 Billion Dollars in Debt. That is more than the National Income of some small countries.
Needless to say, I don't doubt that almost every other country in the world would love to see this happen to the arrogant Americans. To my fellow country men I say, "We are Americans and we need to follow one of our greatest traditions of helping out in a time of Crisis, but those we need to help out most at this time is ourselves. Perhaps it is time to return to our Pre World War isolationism, but this time with a weather eye out on world events. We need to strengthen our infrastructure, become energy independent, take our National Defense from where we are today and pull it into the future. It is time to redefine ourselves as a Nation."
Sadly though, unless our back is to the wall, be it terrorist or national disaster 'We the People' cannot stand unified for long and that may be our downfall.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
History is old news, so why bother.
History isn’t just a grouping of words that tells us about past events; it is also a guide book to solving future problems. I am not saying that every contingency is covered by History, certainly not the ‘what do we do if the Large Hadron Collider generates micro Black Holes that gobble up chunks of Europe.’ Although, it might give us ideas from other world changing events like Krakatoa or Pompeii that we could use.
The Point is that History, is like a bag of tricks for a magician, or point 0 on a reference line, it gives you a place to start and ideas from similar situations, or even better it might tell you what not to do, thereby reducing the time to find the correct solution.
Perhaps it is time for the President to not only have a Scientific Advisor, but also a History Advisor. The important thing to remember about history though, is there is always more than one side, so whoever the person was, would have to not only know history, but love it enough to seek the whole picture, not just that written by the winners.
The Point is that History, is like a bag of tricks for a magician, or point 0 on a reference line, it gives you a place to start and ideas from similar situations, or even better it might tell you what not to do, thereby reducing the time to find the correct solution.
Perhaps it is time for the President to not only have a Scientific Advisor, but also a History Advisor. The important thing to remember about history though, is there is always more than one side, so whoever the person was, would have to not only know history, but love it enough to seek the whole picture, not just that written by the winners.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
You've sunk my Pirate Ship or Leave no Survivors
The Somali Pirates are turning into quite the Bugaboo, oh what, oh what are we to do? Come on, it isn’t Rocket Science. It isn’t a difficult question to answer and once again History provides an Answer. I am beginning to wonder what use it is to record History if nobody is going to pay attention to it.
The answer isn’t even that far in our past. It is called a Q Ship. A Q Ship is a trap; it is the poisoned cheese that kills the rat. In this case it is a nice, juicy boat that has hidden weapons. Take a Yacht, a small Tanker, a Cargo ship or anything else these people have attacked and you mount weapons on it that are disguised as deck hardware or that are on elevators and can be raised to the deck level or higher. I have a few ideas about the set up.
My perfect Q Ship would be a Yacht, with a 30mm GAU-8 Avenger in the Bow and Stern, on Elevator Turrets, capable of -10 degrees deflection to +30 degrees and able to rotate up to 120 degrees off center line. I would add in a couple Mk 19 40mm Grenade Launchers or Metal Storms Fire Storm in a 12 Barrel Configuration. Actually the Fire Storms would be perfect for a first strike type set up, in which they reside in an open well amid ships and can fire from the well. They don’t make much noise when they fire and there isn’t much smoke. This would allow you to lock on with radar, feed the Fire Storms the coordinates and select a fire pattern and the number of rounds. Press the initiate button and a second or few later you have any where from1 round to possible a couple hundred in an arcing trajectory about to blanket an area.
If they didn’t give me a GAU-8, I would be just as happy with a Quad Mounted set of M242 Bushmasters. They would give you a bit more range, but a lower rate of fire.
Last but not least, because you are bait, you need a steady crew that can handle small Arms. Since we are dealing with materials destruction, I would mix in some Barrett M98 .50 cal Rifles, some SCAR-H 7.62mm and for the up close and well not quite so close the AA12 Combat Shotgun with mixed Shot and for giggles a supply of FRAG 12 rounds.
The way a Q Ship works, is it picks a series of routes and it passes back and forth through the area. Eventually, it gets spotted and attacked. In this case the Pirates come into board, the Q Ship goes on alert, but doesn’t reveal until the pirates are well inside the kill zone. All weapons unmask and fire sequence begins. It does not stop until the boats are sunk and all the pirates are captured or eliminated.
For a boat that gets away, you have two choices either some kind of chase craft that is easily launched such as a couple of Wave Runners in 2 man configurations with XM307s on a swivel mount or a Combat UAV like the MQ-8B Fire Scout in an Hellfire configuration or the A160 in a combat configuration.
The important thing is never to leave a free survivor. Eventually they will run out of Pirates or they will learn to leave boats alone.
The answer isn’t even that far in our past. It is called a Q Ship. A Q Ship is a trap; it is the poisoned cheese that kills the rat. In this case it is a nice, juicy boat that has hidden weapons. Take a Yacht, a small Tanker, a Cargo ship or anything else these people have attacked and you mount weapons on it that are disguised as deck hardware or that are on elevators and can be raised to the deck level or higher. I have a few ideas about the set up.
My perfect Q Ship would be a Yacht, with a 30mm GAU-8 Avenger in the Bow and Stern, on Elevator Turrets, capable of -10 degrees deflection to +30 degrees and able to rotate up to 120 degrees off center line. I would add in a couple Mk 19 40mm Grenade Launchers or Metal Storms Fire Storm in a 12 Barrel Configuration. Actually the Fire Storms would be perfect for a first strike type set up, in which they reside in an open well amid ships and can fire from the well. They don’t make much noise when they fire and there isn’t much smoke. This would allow you to lock on with radar, feed the Fire Storms the coordinates and select a fire pattern and the number of rounds. Press the initiate button and a second or few later you have any where from1 round to possible a couple hundred in an arcing trajectory about to blanket an area.
If they didn’t give me a GAU-8, I would be just as happy with a Quad Mounted set of M242 Bushmasters. They would give you a bit more range, but a lower rate of fire.
Last but not least, because you are bait, you need a steady crew that can handle small Arms. Since we are dealing with materials destruction, I would mix in some Barrett M98 .50 cal Rifles, some SCAR-H 7.62mm and for the up close and well not quite so close the AA12 Combat Shotgun with mixed Shot and for giggles a supply of FRAG 12 rounds.
The way a Q Ship works, is it picks a series of routes and it passes back and forth through the area. Eventually, it gets spotted and attacked. In this case the Pirates come into board, the Q Ship goes on alert, but doesn’t reveal until the pirates are well inside the kill zone. All weapons unmask and fire sequence begins. It does not stop until the boats are sunk and all the pirates are captured or eliminated.
For a boat that gets away, you have two choices either some kind of chase craft that is easily launched such as a couple of Wave Runners in 2 man configurations with XM307s on a swivel mount or a Combat UAV like the MQ-8B Fire Scout in an Hellfire configuration or the A160 in a combat configuration.
The important thing is never to leave a free survivor. Eventually they will run out of Pirates or they will learn to leave boats alone.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Don't just complain, come up with an answer.
There has to be a better way to provide health care then the Obama plan. It is just not a viable solution to spend 11% to 15% of our G.D.P. (Total amount of money a country makes). There has to be better solutions that don’t directly involve our Government footing the bill totally, something that uses as much of the public as possible, after all this is a social issue, so make it a social answer.
The first thing you need to do is lower the cost of health care across the board. This in turn lowers the cost of insurance, making it more affordable for companies to give Health Insurance to their employees. The quickest way to do this is to lower the Doctors costs. Usually they have a fairly high cost just in Malpractice Insurance that they pass on to the consumer of their services. That would be you and me. To reduce the price of this alone what you would need would be a panel to decide if the lawsuit is justified. If it isn’t justified, it is sent back to the Lawyer with a Bill for the panel’s time. If it is justified the case carries forward, if a Doctor is getting hit with multiple suits, then he probably shouldn’t be a Doctor.
The next thing to do is look at Prescription drugs and to deal in as many generics as you can. Induce the companies to either sell the drugs at a reduced rate or to allow another company to produce a generic. Possibly through tax breaks.
Now you need to figure out insurance for the people without. We could create something I would call a Flex Card plan. This allows the person to use a special clinic or Hospital. The flex card is used to pay for the services. At the end of the year the person with the Flex card has their Tax return invested into the Flex Plan. This would work pretty much like standard insurance does now, where the younger and healthier people would probably be covering the older and those with poor health.
The next part is the Special Hospitals and Clinics. These would be staffed with a few Senior Doctors, but for the most part they would be staffed with 3rd and 4th year Medical Students and Nurses, as well as Nurses and Doctors that have just graduated. The new Doctors and Nurses would agree to work at the Hospitals and Clinics for a Period of time based on the amount of Loans they have. This would basically allow them to pay off their Loans in half the time, while making a decent wage.
The question then is, aren’t you still losing money from these new Doctors and Nurses not repaying their loans? Well the answer to that is yes, but are we losing it in the same quantities as what is proposed by Obama? With this you would be losing around 10 Billion Dollars per year (figured as 25,000 Doctors (outside large figure) times 300,000.00 Dollars (high outside figure) + cost of training Nurses). Half of this figure would be recompensed through the work residency program. Half would be forgiven, can’t have a stick without a Carrot. Double this amount because you still have to pay these Doctors and Nurses a decent wage, not what they will make once their debt is paid off and they are in Practice for themselves, but still decent. Add in another 21 Billion in building or opening new clinics, plus maintenance for current buildings. Add in 1 Billion is Utilities. Add in 30 Billion in Pharmaceutical spending based more upon a revamped system like Canada uses. Add this up and you have 72 Billion Dollars. Now we add in 25% more because I am sure I haven’t thought of everything and you come up with 90 Billion Dollars. Add in another 25% to cover the difference between the Tax Return income from the Flex Care members and the final total comes to 112,500,000,000.00 (One Hundred, Twelve Billion, Five Hundred Million Dollars)
The Obama plan calls for 4% of our Gross Domestic Product or mathematically 13,800,000,000,000.00 * .04 = 552,000,000,000.00 or Five Hundred Fifty Two Billion Dollars. I have seen the actual costs once it is all said and done that it will fall much closer to being between 11% to 15% of our GDP or 1,518,000,000,000.00 (One Trillion, Five Hundred Eighteen Billion Dollars) to 2,070,000,000,000.00 (2 Trillion, Seventy Billion Dollars)
I am sure I have forgotten something along the way and some true numbers would have to be crunched. The numbers I arrived at were derived from research I could locate on the Internet based on the year 2007. Where I couldn’t directly locate a number I pulled a number from something I figured would be close, for instance the cost to build and maintain new clinics I took from the amount spent by the Armed Services in New Construction and Maintenance. Knowing the way Military projects work, I would be willing to bet that Civilian Contracting could come in cheaper.
In closing based strictly upon my research of something like what we will call the Flex Plan versus the Obama Plan, we come up with the Flex plan being approximately 439,000,000,000.00 Dollars cheaper than his estimate or 1,405,000,000,000.00 cheaper than the lowest true cost estimation. One thing that would need to be looked into is how you keep companies from tossing their health plans over to let the Government shoulder the full burden, but that is a topic for another time.
The first thing you need to do is lower the cost of health care across the board. This in turn lowers the cost of insurance, making it more affordable for companies to give Health Insurance to their employees. The quickest way to do this is to lower the Doctors costs. Usually they have a fairly high cost just in Malpractice Insurance that they pass on to the consumer of their services. That would be you and me. To reduce the price of this alone what you would need would be a panel to decide if the lawsuit is justified. If it isn’t justified, it is sent back to the Lawyer with a Bill for the panel’s time. If it is justified the case carries forward, if a Doctor is getting hit with multiple suits, then he probably shouldn’t be a Doctor.
The next thing to do is look at Prescription drugs and to deal in as many generics as you can. Induce the companies to either sell the drugs at a reduced rate or to allow another company to produce a generic. Possibly through tax breaks.
Now you need to figure out insurance for the people without. We could create something I would call a Flex Card plan. This allows the person to use a special clinic or Hospital. The flex card is used to pay for the services. At the end of the year the person with the Flex card has their Tax return invested into the Flex Plan. This would work pretty much like standard insurance does now, where the younger and healthier people would probably be covering the older and those with poor health.
The next part is the Special Hospitals and Clinics. These would be staffed with a few Senior Doctors, but for the most part they would be staffed with 3rd and 4th year Medical Students and Nurses, as well as Nurses and Doctors that have just graduated. The new Doctors and Nurses would agree to work at the Hospitals and Clinics for a Period of time based on the amount of Loans they have. This would basically allow them to pay off their Loans in half the time, while making a decent wage.
The question then is, aren’t you still losing money from these new Doctors and Nurses not repaying their loans? Well the answer to that is yes, but are we losing it in the same quantities as what is proposed by Obama? With this you would be losing around 10 Billion Dollars per year (figured as 25,000 Doctors (outside large figure) times 300,000.00 Dollars (high outside figure) + cost of training Nurses). Half of this figure would be recompensed through the work residency program. Half would be forgiven, can’t have a stick without a Carrot. Double this amount because you still have to pay these Doctors and Nurses a decent wage, not what they will make once their debt is paid off and they are in Practice for themselves, but still decent. Add in another 21 Billion in building or opening new clinics, plus maintenance for current buildings. Add in 1 Billion is Utilities. Add in 30 Billion in Pharmaceutical spending based more upon a revamped system like Canada uses. Add this up and you have 72 Billion Dollars. Now we add in 25% more because I am sure I haven’t thought of everything and you come up with 90 Billion Dollars. Add in another 25% to cover the difference between the Tax Return income from the Flex Care members and the final total comes to 112,500,000,000.00 (One Hundred, Twelve Billion, Five Hundred Million Dollars)
The Obama plan calls for 4% of our Gross Domestic Product or mathematically 13,800,000,000,000.00 * .04 = 552,000,000,000.00 or Five Hundred Fifty Two Billion Dollars. I have seen the actual costs once it is all said and done that it will fall much closer to being between 11% to 15% of our GDP or 1,518,000,000,000.00 (One Trillion, Five Hundred Eighteen Billion Dollars) to 2,070,000,000,000.00 (2 Trillion, Seventy Billion Dollars)
I am sure I have forgotten something along the way and some true numbers would have to be crunched. The numbers I arrived at were derived from research I could locate on the Internet based on the year 2007. Where I couldn’t directly locate a number I pulled a number from something I figured would be close, for instance the cost to build and maintain new clinics I took from the amount spent by the Armed Services in New Construction and Maintenance. Knowing the way Military projects work, I would be willing to bet that Civilian Contracting could come in cheaper.
In closing based strictly upon my research of something like what we will call the Flex Plan versus the Obama Plan, we come up with the Flex plan being approximately 439,000,000,000.00 Dollars cheaper than his estimate or 1,405,000,000,000.00 cheaper than the lowest true cost estimation. One thing that would need to be looked into is how you keep companies from tossing their health plans over to let the Government shoulder the full burden, but that is a topic for another time.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Your right to belief in God, Karma, the Wheel or Nothing
There has been in recent times a fight brewing in the U.S. that strikes at one of the founding principles of our forefathers. These men came to this country to escape among other things religious persecution, yet this today seems to be something that is rearing its head among us.
I am talking about the battle between those that follow a religion and those who declare themselves to be Atheists. As an Agnostic, I am sitting in a unique position to observe this fight, although, the conservative in me wants to come down on the side of the religious. These two groups fight over things like Swearing into Office on a Bible, Swearing an Oath under God in Court, announcing in the Pledge of Allegiance that we are “One Nation under God”. The Atheist all take umbrage at each of those, screaming about the separation of Church and State, although that isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, or in the Bill of Rights.
The only thing that those grand Articles mention is the freedom enjoyed by all to either practice or not practice as they believe, which is in the Bill of Rights and states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That is Article of the Third, (First Amendment) for anybody who wants to look it up. The actual phrase “Wall of separation between Church and State” was a line mentioned in passing, made by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists. This in turn was later interpreted (twisted) in Court since he was a founding father. I am sure he would be so proud.
Since we weren’t established as a Theocracy in which our rulers have to be priests, then I submit that we already have a separation of Church and State without recourse to the Courts having to be dragged into it.
The main fight seems to come from the Atheists that somehow believe they are being abused by references to God in just about any public place. Remember religious freedom was a founding principle. The most ridiculous of such fights was recent in which a father took umbrage at the Pledge of Allegiance and took it to court. Well sir, it is simple, nobody is making your child say, “One Nation under God”. That is your religious freedom in action. Your child and you were not lined up against the wall and shot, nor were you tortured, you were not even beaten by those around you. Amazing how religious freedom even provides for those who wish to believe in nothing, are free to believe in nothing.
The funny thing is, you could take an Atheist and place him in the middle of a group of religious people and he would be free not to participate, but if you place a person in the midst of a group of Atheists and he prays amongst them, I dare say they would take offense.
In closing I would simply say to the rabid Atheist grow up, if it bothers you, don’t listen and to those of the fanatic religions, I submit that you can’t force a person to believe and the more you push the more somebody will fight it. There was never any reason for this to have even come before a court other than pure childishness.
I am talking about the battle between those that follow a religion and those who declare themselves to be Atheists. As an Agnostic, I am sitting in a unique position to observe this fight, although, the conservative in me wants to come down on the side of the religious. These two groups fight over things like Swearing into Office on a Bible, Swearing an Oath under God in Court, announcing in the Pledge of Allegiance that we are “One Nation under God”. The Atheist all take umbrage at each of those, screaming about the separation of Church and State, although that isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, or in the Bill of Rights.
The only thing that those grand Articles mention is the freedom enjoyed by all to either practice or not practice as they believe, which is in the Bill of Rights and states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That is Article of the Third, (First Amendment) for anybody who wants to look it up. The actual phrase “Wall of separation between Church and State” was a line mentioned in passing, made by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists. This in turn was later interpreted (twisted) in Court since he was a founding father. I am sure he would be so proud.
Since we weren’t established as a Theocracy in which our rulers have to be priests, then I submit that we already have a separation of Church and State without recourse to the Courts having to be dragged into it.
The main fight seems to come from the Atheists that somehow believe they are being abused by references to God in just about any public place. Remember religious freedom was a founding principle. The most ridiculous of such fights was recent in which a father took umbrage at the Pledge of Allegiance and took it to court. Well sir, it is simple, nobody is making your child say, “One Nation under God”. That is your religious freedom in action. Your child and you were not lined up against the wall and shot, nor were you tortured, you were not even beaten by those around you. Amazing how religious freedom even provides for those who wish to believe in nothing, are free to believe in nothing.
The funny thing is, you could take an Atheist and place him in the middle of a group of religious people and he would be free not to participate, but if you place a person in the midst of a group of Atheists and he prays amongst them, I dare say they would take offense.
In closing I would simply say to the rabid Atheist grow up, if it bothers you, don’t listen and to those of the fanatic religions, I submit that you can’t force a person to believe and the more you push the more somebody will fight it. There was never any reason for this to have even come before a court other than pure childishness.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Democratic Handbasket to Hell
The Democratic Party is a left based party. This means it leans towards Socialist Liberalism. Those two words at their deepest meaning can be difficult to really understand, but we will give it a minor go to give you a point of reference.
Socialism is the belief or theory of a system in which everybody is responsible for everybody, everything is owned by everybody, it is share and share alike, no matter how little or much is put in by any person or group of people.
Liberalism is the belief in a social philosophy advocating freedom of an individual or government from tradition or rules regulating economic, political or social values and guaranteeing an individual’s freedom and rights.
Either can be difficult to fully understand on their own and together it sounds a lot like Anarchy. The reality is the two taken to their ultimate form are almost mutually exclusive. A true socialist society creates a series of rules in which it assures all of their piece of the pie, no matter what. A true liberal society would be free from those rules. The two together sound almost like one of those logic bombs a high tech hero uses to destroy the evil A.I.
What I really wanted to get into though, is the theory that the Democratic Party is walking the tight rope of destroying our country from the inside out.
By its own mandate the Democratic Party supports socialist projects, which in this case means things like Welfare and Universal Health Coverage, both of which it keeps expanding to take in ever more people. The people that it takes in believe in these projects, they have to, after all it is paying their costs for housing, food and clothing. So, the more people it covers, the larger the Democratic base becomes, but not without a price.
Who is paying for all this? It isn’t like there is a magic bag with money coming out of it, nor is there a mystical cornucopia, unless you want to count the tax payer. Yes, that most magical creature, the tax payer, is being hunted to extinction as his check goes to pay for ever more social programs. This is not to say social programs are evil, but there should be a limit, or those that support these programs should gain recompense, but that is a debate for another time, back to the heart of the matter.
Why will the Democratic base destroy us? Well the Democratic Party will continue to grow (also another Blog down the road) and as it grows it creates more social programs, which in turn converts more people, but eventually somebody will have to realize the Tax base is being eaten alive through taxation to pay for these programs. The next question is, when they realize that the Democratic base is based upon people who expect these socialist programs will they save their party by continuing to support their constituency and killing the cow or will they deny their constituency, save the cow to harvest more milk tomorrow and possibly lose some of their support?
Understand that this is theory and like all theories it should be examined and thought upon.
In closing all I can say is: Moo moo moo. Which is cow speak for, Holy taxation Batman.
Socialism is the belief or theory of a system in which everybody is responsible for everybody, everything is owned by everybody, it is share and share alike, no matter how little or much is put in by any person or group of people.
Liberalism is the belief in a social philosophy advocating freedom of an individual or government from tradition or rules regulating economic, political or social values and guaranteeing an individual’s freedom and rights.
Either can be difficult to fully understand on their own and together it sounds a lot like Anarchy. The reality is the two taken to their ultimate form are almost mutually exclusive. A true socialist society creates a series of rules in which it assures all of their piece of the pie, no matter what. A true liberal society would be free from those rules. The two together sound almost like one of those logic bombs a high tech hero uses to destroy the evil A.I.
What I really wanted to get into though, is the theory that the Democratic Party is walking the tight rope of destroying our country from the inside out.
By its own mandate the Democratic Party supports socialist projects, which in this case means things like Welfare and Universal Health Coverage, both of which it keeps expanding to take in ever more people. The people that it takes in believe in these projects, they have to, after all it is paying their costs for housing, food and clothing. So, the more people it covers, the larger the Democratic base becomes, but not without a price.
Who is paying for all this? It isn’t like there is a magic bag with money coming out of it, nor is there a mystical cornucopia, unless you want to count the tax payer. Yes, that most magical creature, the tax payer, is being hunted to extinction as his check goes to pay for ever more social programs. This is not to say social programs are evil, but there should be a limit, or those that support these programs should gain recompense, but that is a debate for another time, back to the heart of the matter.
Why will the Democratic base destroy us? Well the Democratic Party will continue to grow (also another Blog down the road) and as it grows it creates more social programs, which in turn converts more people, but eventually somebody will have to realize the Tax base is being eaten alive through taxation to pay for these programs. The next question is, when they realize that the Democratic base is based upon people who expect these socialist programs will they save their party by continuing to support their constituency and killing the cow or will they deny their constituency, save the cow to harvest more milk tomorrow and possibly lose some of their support?
Understand that this is theory and like all theories it should be examined and thought upon.
In closing all I can say is: Moo moo moo. Which is cow speak for, Holy taxation Batman.
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