Just Guessing…

The apparent disagreement between the White House and Israel is PROBABLY just a pique over other matters.

I just finished the pre-printing final draft manuscript of a subject that I thought I really knew – only to find out that there were many levels of machination about which I knew nothing.

Here is a GUESS. The White house does not give a whit about 600 residences being built in a section of Jerusalem that even the Palestinians admit is a section that in any negotiation will still belong to Israel.

I suspect that the White House has its nose out of joint because Israel has told them that it intends to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities, and the White house STILL thinks that it can stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

It won’t. It can’t.

The White House is pouting because Israel can. It will.

It is a matter of Israel’s survival and they take that seriously.

Another Idol Falls

The debate on ObamaCare was instructive.

I had always thought of the Congressional Budget Office as the Gold Standard – until I learned that they most certainly are not.

It seems that the CBO must assume in their analysis that whatever is planned will happen – even if the Congress says they are going to do something that they will not, and cannot do.

As Mark Steyn said on radio today, if Congress says they intend to sell 2 acre lots on the dark side of the moon, they must factor that into the analysis.

In this case, the Congress was analyzing the PROMISE that Congress was going to CUT THE PAY OF DOCTORS!

Well, Congress may be crazy, but they are not stupid and they know that cutting the pay of doctors will drive doctors out of the profession – and when you are going to add 32 MILLION new patients you need more, not fewer doctors. Congress knew they were not going to cut doctor pay. The doctors knew they were not going to cut doctor pay. The people knew that Congress was not going to cut doctor pay.

More importantly, the CBO knew that Congress was not going to cut doctor pay.

But the CBO did their analysis on the promise that the bill was going to cut doctor pay.

And Congress passed the HealthCare bill to cut doctor pay – and PRPOMPTLY passed another bill un-cutting doctor pay.

Eureka! Congress got the CBO number they wanted as cover for this turkey – and promptly, within a day, pulled the tablecloth from under the CBO plate while still using the CBO numbers to support what they wanted to do even though a new analysis would show the program would cost more that CBO had predicted.

Then there is that ‘promised” $500 billion cut from Medicare – which is NEVER going to happen – but the CBO numbers remain, and are quoted.

This whole fiasco is such a mess. People who would cry ‘lie” if those numbers were done by a person, quote the lie as posted by the CBO as some magical, Papal Pronuncio

Well, perhaps the Papacy is not exactly the right group with which to equate honesty.

Perhaps This is a Different America — Post Democracy

As I have posted before, there is Global Warming – which either exists or does not and is independent of public opinion, and actions to counteract such warming (assuming it exists at all) and which is fully dependent on public opinion.

Without public support, there are no laws passed to “end global warming.”

That, at least was the theory before the Healthcars bill passed without public support.

I may have to reanalyze the subject – but in the past, pre-Obama, the government tried to do what the public wanted.

We may be in a Post-Democracy Era, where government determines what is best for us and government may try to continue to work against the will of the people. It has happened before in other countries.

Filed Under: If you can’t fool the Europeans, Who can you fool?

(Headline) Germans are losing their fear of climate change, according to a survey, with just 42 percent worried about global warming.

It seems the long and chilly winter has taken its toll on climate change sensibilities despite the fact that weather has nothing to do with climate.

The latest figure is a clear drop from the 62 percent of Germans who said they were scared of such changes just in autumn 2006.

The new survey, carried out by polling company Infratest for Der Spiegel magazine, showed a quarter of those questioned thought Germany would profit from climate change rather than be badly affected by it.

http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20100327-26163.html

A.B. 32 is a California Job-Killer

A Reporter from KFI-LA who participated in the telephone news conference writes on his Blog:

“Implementing AB-32 will not affect the California economy,” insisted Board chairman Mary Nichols during a telephonic press conference Wednesday.

“We have been able to conclude that, um, moving forward as we, as we planned to implement AB-32 will lead to growth and uh, and uh, energy savings for the California economy,” she said.

Reporters were not allowed to see the study before the conference began, and a public information officer cut-off one reporter who asked how much California’s economy could suffer.

Other studies predict AB-32 restrictions will cause catastrophic job losses, as traditional blue-collar businesses, such as trucking and manufacturing, will shut-down or leave California for states with less stringent environmental regulation.”

http://www.kfi640.com/pages/EricLeonard.html?feed=302903&article=6911300

Filed Under: The Law of Unintended Consequences surfaces faster if you are stupid!

 

“Because of the new health care law, Arizona lawmakers must now find a way to maintain insurance coverage for 350,000 children and adults that they slashed just last week to help close a $2.6 billion budget deficit.

Louisiana officials say a reduction in federal money to hospitals that treat the uninsured under the bill could be a death knell for their state-run charity hospital system.

In California, policymakers estimate they will have to come up with an additional $500 million a year to make necessary increases in payments to Medicaid providers.

Across the country, state officials are wading through the minutiae of the health care overhaul to understand just how their governments will be affected.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/health/policy/27impact.html

Filed Under: Democrats are the political party that is bad at math.

“AT&T Inc. said it would take a $1 billion charge against earnings tied to the federal health-care overhaul, joining a number of other companies in reporting an impact from the bill signed into law this week.

The charges relate to prescription-drug benefits for retirees. Companies that provide this benefit, as AT&T does, receive a federal subsidy, plus they can deduct the value of this subsidy from their taxes. The health overhaul cancels the deductibility of the subsidy.

It’s for that reason that companies are taking a charge against earnings. They “have a stream of tax benefits that they are losing way out into the future,” said Roland McDevitt, director of health-care research at benefits consultant Towers Watson.”

Comment: AT&T will make up for $1 billion in losses by hiring more people? Sure they will! (This is what passes for “liberal logic(sic)”

The Law of Unintended Consequences

The Healthcare Bill belongs entirely to the Democrats.

It is theirs, and the benefits and costs are entirely theirs.

Caterpillar and John Deere have each announced that they will take $100 million and $150 million write-downs because of the added costs of ObamaCare. Other businesses are factoring in their potential costs, and the problems will be available for all to see.

If anyone thinks that is an incentive to hire further or faster, they don’t understand business at all.

And not just taxes will go up – prices will go up, and problems will arise in profits as insurance companies are required to insure “burning houses” without offsetting income from those risks – causing tightening belts, and consequently, layoffs in that industry. You can see on this board that is the intent, with government slowly taking over the diminishing insurance industry.

Then will come legislative “fixes” – and the number of fixes necessary for a 2,700 page bill will be extraordinary as the “Law of Unintended Consequences” becomes more apparent.

Meanwhile, liberals will want to add 12-20 million illegal aliens to the cost side without offsetting income to pay for the hoard.

Good luck with that!

Democrats are the political party that is bad at math.

Updated 2009 Report on California “Education(sic)”

I understand that in this economic crisis, school districts are laying off teachers, but can anyone tell me why we keep California teachers at all? Of course, the problem is not all the teachers’ fault – but it is ALL their responsibility and I have not heard of the powerful teachers unions – the most powerful unions in the state – calling for reforms to solve the academic problem.

Analyzing the 72-page federal report of periodic testing from the U.S. Department of Education (called the National Report Card) is an exercise in reality. The current report tested reading and math skills in 50 states, D.C. and the Department of Defense schools overseas.

The good news is that California scored higher in Fourth Grade reading than Louisiana and New Mexico.

The bad news is that California scored lower than Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia…well, everyone else.

The Eighth grade reading results were terrible: We TIED with Louisiana and beat ONLY Mississippi.

In math, we tested 45^th at the Fourth Grade, and  46^th at the Fifth Grade among all states!

California has a disproportionate number of “English Learners” – and that holds back our test scores, but that is the fault of the very state and federal governments that also run the schools!

It is NOT the fault of the students who attend the schools – who pay academically for the existence of English Learners by being held back while the “Learners” try to catch up.

It is not the fault of the parents, who pay for the schools – schools which have the HIGHEST paid teachers in the nation!

The study notes MANY “excuses” for those who wish to excuse poor performance. The percentage of students who get subsidized lunches in each state, for example, shows some states have students from poor economic situations in disproportionate numbers. The statistics are broken down for states that have different percentages of disabled. The statistics are also broken down for male, female, and several racial groups (White/Black/Latino).

Parents, however, are interested in the general climate in which their children learn – and the final standings take into account ALL of those factors.

Rationalize if you wish. The final numbers are the final numbers. We don’t rationalize scores in baseball, football, or business bottom lines as to the racial/economic makeup of the employees or the customers in determining success or failure.

Taking into account all of the factors – as you would in any other sport or business – California FAILS.

The education establishment tries to stop everything from being measured, or the measurement publicized.  The government education establishment believes it hurts the “self esteem” of the students at the bottom end, it certainly hurts the teachers and administrators at the bottom end, and California is at the bottom end!

Why California parents pay top dollar for bottom-level academic performance is a mystery, but perhaps in this era of limited tax money it is time to seriously examine this failing government education turkey!

(Private and Catholic schools in California scored the equivalent of 20+ states higher than public schools in reading.)

Click to access 2010458.pdf

Rationalize All You Want…

Well, yes – California has a disproportionate number of “English Learners” – and that holds back our test scores. That is the fault of the very state and federal governments that also runs the schools!

It is NOT the fault of the students who attend the schools – who pay for the existence of English Learners by being held back academically while the “Learners” try to catch up.

It is not the fault of the parents, who pay for the schools – schools which have the HIGHEST paid teachers in the nation!

The study notes MANY “excuses” that are available to those who wish to excuse poor performance: The percentage of those students who get subsidized lunches in each state, for example, is an indication that some states have students from poor economic situations in disproportionate numbers. The statistics are broken down for states that have different percentages of disabled. The statistics are also broken down for male, female, and several racial groups. (White/Black/Latino).

Parents however, are interested in the general milieu, the general climate in which their child must learn – and the final standings take into account ALL of those factors.

Rationalize all you wish. The final numbers are the final numbers. We don’t rationalize scores in baseball, football. or business bottom lines as to the racial/economic makeup of the employees or the customers in determining success or failure.

Taking into account all of those factors mentioned above as you would in any other sport or business – California FAILS.