Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Another “Aid Package,” Another Tax | Newsflavor
It’s ironic that the 26 Billion “aid package” to the states is mainly to protect the highest paid civil servants on payrolls with the highest city and state deficits, highest union and pension benefits, and by some standards the least deserving, compared to others with real needs for food, (this aid includes early termination of food stamp benefits for hundreds of thousands); shelter- homelessness due to foreclosures and evictions is way up, and others.
It is supposedly paid for with termination of tax breaks for corporations doing business overseas, and the above-mentioned early termination of food stamps.
Forgetting the obviously skewed vote-buying of teacher, police and fire, and civil service union and other special interest constituencies, it also prolongs the unnecessary economic imbalances that stop free-market, normal economic cycle corrections that have always led to better results in the future, by eliminating waste and improving productivity. (Question: When does most violent crime occur? Answer: At night. Question: when do most police work- day shift or night shift? Answer: Day shift.) See anything wrong with that equation?
The free market system works best in the private sector so when demand slows down,or revenues don’t support a given level of staffing or production, firing and layoffs occur. Unfortunate as they may be, they continue until demand picks up along with revenues.
Public Sector jobs like Police, Firefighters, and Teachers have become, in some cases overpaid, and in most cases so over-benefited, that they are breaking the bank in many states and cities, to the degree of a one hundred percent or higher salary and overtime premium ( for less education), more when ridiculous early-out, and overpaid pensions and easy-to-get disability benefits are included. ( Example:Cop is on 100 percent disability-at $75,000 year plus medical, yet goes sky diving, mountain climbing, golfing, fishes on his own boat, and more).
The free market system is not being allowed to operate as it should.
How much better it would be if this “aid” package were directed at small business creation and financing, which creates over 60% of all the jobs in the U.S., and funds from unused Stimulus Funds and TARP unused and already repaid funds were also included. Then, you might have stimulus that would encourage jobs AND repay the taxpayers..productively. As it is now, these funds are being re-tasked for programs and contracts that primarily benefit union and public sector jobs.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Guns. Love Them or Hate Them, We Need Them | Socyberty
Courtesy Wikipedia Images Baltimore Sun Main News July 30 Page 2. “Lawsuit challenges Md.’s (Maryland’s) Gun restrictions.” The article details a lawsuit by Second Amendment Foundation supporting Maryland resident Raymond Woollard as a person with legal “standing” regarding restrictions on Permits for Handgun carry. Recent Supreme Court decisions virtually barring States and Cities from unnecessarily restricting gun ownership of any kind prompted the suit against Maryland’s requirement that Woollard demonstrate that his Carry Permit was needed as a “reasonable precaution against apprehended danger.” Woollard had been robbed in a home break in, and his family threatened. The man who robbed him was convicted, and moved less than three miles away after his release. Wollard feared revenge among other reasons, and sought a Carry Permit. TRUE IRONY IS THAT RIGHT NEXT TO THIS COLUMN was another, larger in fact, about the burial and mourning events of a twenty-three year old Johns Hopkins researcher, stabbed (while on his cell ’phone with his mother)by multiply-arrested and convicted drug and assault felons.(The article didn’t note whether they were on probation, but should have). Would the twenty-three year old have defended himself with his own weapon, if he had a Carry Permit? What would we be saying if he had done so? Would Pitcairn’s parents, co-workers and friends have thought less of him for defending his life? Would we have offered that justice was served, or at least that a murder was prevented? The point is that our criminal justice system is reactive instead of pro-active, meaning that justice is served after the fact, if at all. (over 60% of assaults, rapes and robberies are never solved, and less than four-in ten of the murders are ever solved). Baltimore has the fifth highest violent crime rate per thousand population of all major U.S. cities, some with millions more in population. It seems that modern society is helpless in the face of crime. Frontier justice in the form of traditional and active self-defense is necessary, a premise which seems to be lost. If permitting and licensing (including proper training through authorized Police and gun dealers and Certified Instructors) were mandated for anyone seeking a Carry Permit (no restrictions except for guns and rifles maintained within a home or business), even included in a high-school senior curriculum, as part of the graduation process, it could help. It certainly would offer better results than the “basket weaving” and other “fiber-fill” courses schools now allow, and prepare people venturing into the real world with the means to defend themselves. Would there be mistakes? For sure. Would the results be a thousand percent less frustrating and demoralizing than reading about home owners and students, professionals and everyday Citizens being raped, robbed and murdered?For sure.
Image via Wikipedia
If you believe that survival is a Citizen’s right which is founded in the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable Right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for everyday Citizens, in the face of relentless crimes of violence, then having widespread Carry permits would force criminals to think twice, even three times about assaulting anyone. I, for one, would feel much better about having the opportunity to defend myself, than I would having loved ones and relatives read my Obituary and Murder article in the newspapers. Oh, and the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest” would turn today’s weak and uniformed into trained and ready to defend themselves and their property. That’s an outcome that might rid the streets of cities of violent criminals faster than our inept system of criminal justice could ever do. Certainly, the recidivism rate-re-offending violent criminals-would drop. Even if modern society and the justice system had every tool and resource available, which they have had, and whose cost continues to rise inexorably, we would still need to revolutionize the system into one in which Citizens can defend themselves, their family, and their home, and be treated with respect for doing so. The Founder’s considered Personal Rights and Responsibilities the foundation of the American Spirit and in fact one of the primary reasons for America’s creation. Self-defense fits the definition admirably.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Iran Becoming Middle East Leader by Default | Socyberty
Arnaud De Borchgrave’s column of June 14 in Newsmax (http://www.newsmax.com/blogs/deBorchgrave/id-80?s=al&promo_code=A44C-1) is too encouraging of military intervention by far. He also notably offers that the U.S. military would be the one who plans and carries out the strike(s), rather than say, a coalition of NATO/UN or even Pan-Arabic forces(Saudi Arabia? Hint, hint). A military strike, however, must not only take out multiple nuclear facilities, it must neutralize Iran’s military counter-measures, and it’s retaliatory capabilities.
Iran has the capacity to strike in and across the Gulf of Hormuz, and throughout the Middle East at U.S. and friendly country military installations and energy structures, to say nothing of Israel proper, their declared target. Nuclear weapon capability magnifies the threat capability a million-fold.
U.S. action would be a Declaration of War; everybody knows it.
De Borchgrave’s analysis is compelling however, and the refusal of influential Arab states to mutually condemn Iran and assert strategic leadership defines part of the problem. On one hand Arab states respect strong leadership and want the respect of the world community at large. By only paying lip service, if that, to nuclear non-proliferation, even though it is in their best interest not to be placed in a position of being bullied by Iran, they will wind up being led to revolution and destruction.When, not if, Iran asserts it’s leadership through the threat potential of nuclear weapons, energy resources will then become serious weapons in the Islamic Fundamentalist threat to the West. Iran could insist that Saudi Arabia, under threat of a nuclear attack, cut off any dealing with the West. Similarly, Qatar, Yemen, the Emirates, in fact any energy supplier to Western or non-Muslim countries could be faced with no-win choices.
Were Iran facing a unified Pan-Arabic coalition of condemnation and sanctions, we might have a different story.
Factionalism and tribal traditions including religion, are still the underlying dynamic in the Middle East.
Continually painting the West and other religions as the feared outsider intent on destroying Islamic values and Muslim society, unifies Middle East overt and hidden opposition to any Western strategic efforts to contain Iran.We must understand that Iran’s religious leadership, Ayatollah Khomeni in particular, sees Iran as the seat of Pan-Arabic history and culture, with Islam as it’s unifying political”glue, ” leading to a potential new Islamic Caliphate, reminiscent of the glory-day eras that have occurred multiple times in thousands of years.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the control Khomeni exerts through his religious leadership, which in turn defines the difference between Iran and representative governments of the non-Muslim countries.With religion the unifying and driving force of the political structures of the Middle East, it is unlikely that we can find a solution to any problems, absent a real effort to help create and support a Pan-Arabic strong coalition, willing to see the modern world in secular terms, and not in either/or religious terms.
Religion sacrifices itself to logic, faith not being subject to reason. That dynamic alone prevents satisfying religiously-driven policy with rationality.It seems the only long term solution is to assist the Islamic-motivated and controlled governments in transitioning to secular governments, where reason and rationality have a least a chance to prevail.
So long as religious values drive governments and subvert secular values, there is little chance that existing conflicts within, and external to, the region can be managed to successful conclusions.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
FDA Stands for Foolish Drug Authorization?
I have begun to wonder-actually for years now-why the FDA continues to approve drugs whose side effects are worse that the symptoms they are offered to relieve. Or worse, have fatal side effects potential for even treating allergies, or hives, or even minor discomforts.
The labeling required and the Disclaimers in advertising are designed to put the public on notice of side effects, but beg the question of why in the first place. I seem to remember a time when drugs were developed as cures.
When was the last time you saw a cure offered?Ninety-nine percent plus of FDA approved drugs offered today are for symptomatic relief, not cures.
And yet the number of life-threatening diseases and the millions affected by them continues to grow. The drug companies have sidelined and under-emphasized most of their research into cures, preferring instead to work on high-profit drug development for relief of symptoms.
Erectile Dysfunction?– a wonderful series of products, multiple drugs from multiple manufacturers, helping millions of men have satisfying sex. All came out within a year or so of each other, virtually same day in FDA approval terms.
Sleeplessness? Same story, multiple drugs. Ever wonder how they all show up at the same time?
I do.
Do the drug companies get together and sit around a table and say. “Let’s try to do something about insomnia. Or, how about Erectile Dysfunction? My wife wants more sex.”Cancer? Oops, sorry nothing yet. That is, we have chemotherapy, radiation. But the underlying cause, discovery and prevention is just not there, and it looks like forever will come first.
Arthritis? Many billions for symptomatic relief, no cure on horizon.
Alzheimer’s? Some symptom relief drugs being offered or in trials, no cure yet.
Drug companies emphasize that high drug prices are required to provide money for research and development of new drugs. If that were true, wouldn’t there be years when R&D costs would cause losses? Yet for most drug companies, their Return on Equity, Return On Investment, Gross Profits and Net Profits remain higher than any other industry, when viewed over a consistent period for the last twenty years.
Tax policies, using your tax dollars, help immensely.Why is most cancer research being conducted or sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, instead of at drug companies on their own dime? A cure would mean Billions, even Trillions in sales.
Here’s what really gets me. Causes are pretty well known for most diseases, some cancers.
Is it more profitable for drug companies to treat symptoms over a lifelong period as in Arthritis, or develop a cure for which the period of usage and profitability are much shorter?
Here’s something else I wonder. Would we have all these diseases without modern technology and the chemicals and accouterments that go with our standard of living?
If X-Rays can cause cancer and radiation from many things can cause cancer, why is there no discussion about the proliferation of radio waves and TV frequencies, which are just a shorter form of X-Ray waves?
How? Radiation causes cell mutations and free radicals to interact negatively with your cells. When it happens often enough, you get the big “C” Cancer. Sunlight is just another form of radiation, ergo Melanoma, skin cancer.
Since it’s unlikely that radio and TV stations and satellites will stop broadcasting, the need for a cure becomes all the more pressing.
What do you think?