First Blog

Kathleen Sebelius may be the new heroine of the right.  That's right! How's that? A cogent argument can be made that HHS Secretary Sebelius, foreseeing the possible economic disaster resulting from the ACA(Affordable Care Act), decided to sabotage the bill by appointing totally incompetent officials (e.g. Marilyn Tavenner) to oversee its implementation and by approving an equally incompetent software firm to write the massive code. One can claim her work and aims were achieved with the emergence of a non-functioning website, riddled with problems, often not working, and with no data security provisions in place.  These conditions persist, though the website now seems to work - but only after millions more were expended to correct the errant code. Additionally, there are thousands of pages of sometimes contradictory regulations required to implement the 2000 page bill.  It is certain an army of administrators, operatives, and lawyers will feed off these regulations for gener

We are residents in a silver bullet society.   We believe just about any problem has a simple pinpointed, highly targeted, definitely focused solution.    The problem complexity is irrelevant.   The overarching simplicity of the solution neutralizes complexity, creating a silver bullet solutions environment.   This is not to say the proposed solution is cheap or even simple, but it is single-minded and simple to comprehend.   It is easy to sell.   It is believable to the uninitiated, to the gullible, to the willing expert, and to the inexperienced.   It is simplistic and makes promises of a total resolution of the problem.    It comes to, “To solve problem X, just do Y.” The silver bullet paradigm compels believers to accept simplistic, often expensive, solutions.   It resolves problems, not by study and consensus, but rather by fiat, by denying alternatives, by denying study, and by rejecting alternative views.    Such solutions often address a symptom of the problem, and

A. If you try to squeeze too much blood from a turnip, you'll end up with a truly pissed off turnip. B. If what you crave most in life is politics, you will surely receive it. C. What is the most resilient substance on earth?  Kids.  It seems that no matter how terrible the parenting, many kids grow up just fine.  There is a counterpart for good parenting. D. I like the dawn - the dawn of a bright day.  I think because dawn is a state of becoming.  It is fleeting and changing and harbors good things to come.   From Marcus Aurelius (121-186 AD) we have "Each day provides its own gifts ." E. Ok, you have a piece of bread.  You want to make toast.  For my toaster, it takes about three minutes, golden brown and tasty.  The question is at what point does the bread become toast.  Certainly before the three minutes elapse, but certainly now right away.  But when?   F. We can count - better than ever - but are rapidly forgetting what to count and why, what is worth coun

I am so disappointed in LinkedIn.  It has apparently sent invitations to people not even in my email contacts, but apparently to contacts of contacts. I have tried everything to turn this off.  To me, it is inconceivable that this bodes good will to LinkedIn members. I have never invited anyone to "join" my network.  Yet I constantly receive invitations.  And now I am making the same - all my without consent - all without my knowledge.  To me, this is an errant business decision by LinkedIn.  What possible good would this be to irritate their members?  Henceforth, I will never accept invitations from anyone I do not personally know.  I am debating on whether to withdraw from LinkedIn altogether. On a sour note, this seems to be symptomatic of  the global institutional invasion of our personal information and lives. It is so pandemic many do not even respond any more.  Our phone calls, emails, Facebook, twitter information is all recorded and stashed in some cloud of mem