First Blog

The Clinton-Trump debate has come and gone.   It seemed Trump was baited mercilessly.   He fell for it completely. What a mistake.   She prepared; he did not.   She did seem scripted; he ad-libbed mostly stuff from his stump speeches, and poorly.   But on the security issues, both were dismal.    Both demonstrated a total lack of knowledge, detailed or general on national security of all kinds.   Here, we can excuse Trump as simply being ignorant.   But Clinton, also ignorant, should understand from experience the gravitas of computer security and hacking.   But her delivery was rehearsed and delivered with no apparent personal understanding. Both said security was big and important, but neither have a clue on what to do.   "We will get top people to fix it," was the extent of their answers.   Hint. Already, the top people the government has ARE working on it and failing.   Corporations usually give short shrift to the costs of better security.   Us everyday folks d

On politics. Invoke science and you gain advantage.  It does not matter if the argument is valid, much less true. Mostly, the arguments are so complex that few can question the findings. For some interest groups, everything, that is every single thing in life, is political.  Family, industry, and religion issues, all are political. Let me note the very far left believes exactly this.  For them, all is politics. They say, "We must have faith in our leaders."  This is the mantra of the unthinking servant to the master. This gives the masters license to the excesses of power. The truth is maligned and distorted to the lessons of the masters, toward their control and containment of all thought. On God. Can there be a unified theory of religion and science?  This has been debated forever.  What is stunning is that no substantive progress has been made. Let me fill in a few details. The god debate never ends.  It probably never will.  Partly, this is becaus

Doubling down. Theory, ideology, faith, whatever it may be, we see now in current affairs the intransigence of public and scientific players the willingness to persevere with a policy or theory, of some position despite the evidence it  seems not to be working. The remedy is not to revise, readjust, or relegate the program or  position, but to double, even triple, down upon it.  It is true, they argue, we just haven't given enough time or resources to fulfill its benefits.  It doesn't matter the topic, ranging from health care, to green solutions, to capitalistic markets, adherents will not let go.  Their theory is correct, they contend, we just need to persevere along this path. Persistence is the by-word of all too many.  This country, founded greatly upon William James' concepts of  pragmatism, has reversed course to pure belief.   Now this leads us to an conundrum.  It is seemingly impossible to let go, reverse course, or reformulate.  Remarkably, this is a partic