Post Analysis - The Presidential Race of 2020

 I went back and did a Google Search around the 2016 election looking for the term "stolen election".  The majority of hits coming from Democrats right?  No, the majority were coming from Republicans BEFORE the election, especially by then candidate Trump, about how the election was about to be rigged and stolen from him.

The majority of Democratic complaints involved voter suppression, including the 300,000 people claimed to be stopped from voting in Wisconsin.   In fact people at the time were claiming it was a Republican program to disenfranchise voters.  This program the "Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program" was suspended in 2019.    Hold that thought.

The President claims to be successful.  Well in this case we agree.  He is so polarizing that he actually roused  the biggest turnout in history.  In this sense the Democrats maybe lucked into picking the best person.  By picking Joe Biden, they picked the person that would cause the least amount of controversy.  He was not Black, or Gay, or a Socialist, or anyone that the  Republicans could focus on.  He as "Sleepy Joe" the same way a muscle car that was dressed up as stock would be called a "Sleeper" at the dragstrip.  And while social media was the avenue of  "Conservative" information prior to the 2016 election, it was the same social media along with word of mouth, that spread the anti-Trump meme.  I will apologize if I snoozed many of my Facebook friends, not because of pro-Trump listings, but of the incessant anti-Trump posts.  But this convinced me that Trump had "released the Kraken", the group of voters who might sit at home and lament the election of someone they did not agree with.  The very language that the President used, backfired on him, not just to rouse his base, but to also rouse the opposition.  It was not so much that Joe Biden won, it was that the President lost.  He alienated and insulted so many people that they were tired and just said "Your Fired".

Now, did the Democrats do things better this time?  Did they make sure that people who were shut out from the election vote?  Did the elimination of the "Crosscheck" program bring more voters into the system?  Did they do a better job of making sure that the people had the right credentials?  Did the mail in ballots find a way legally around the blockade that the Republicans set up before? If we could analyze each person we might be able to quantify this.  For now, and after the latest Supreme Court Decision (or lack of a decision), it looks like it will be time to end this battle and prepare for the next one.

Now voting by mail will not go away.  In fact I predict it will increase with out problems.  I believe within 10 years, we will be voting electronically from the safety of our houses, with blockchain security and faster election results than ever before.  There is the chance of reduced anonymity.  That is to be worked out, but no more so than the lawn sign or bumper sticker on your car. Most voting started out as public proclamations, maybe we will go back to that.  But for now what we have is the best system and hats off to the legions of workers who volunteer to keep it that way.

PS - At this time we will not have to deal with this, but if the Texas suit was heard it might have led to the end of the Electoral College.  Yes it is in the Constitution but it has been amended before and will be amended again.  If you are not in a swing state, your vote basically does not count, or has a much lesser value.  If you are in a Democratic State or a Republican state the same applies.  Maybe some day we will find the balance between raw vote and the Electoral College, but not today.

What's the Use?

 I have found arguing with people does not work - their beliefs are so tied with their being that if they let them go they destroy themselves.

Now some beliefs are relatively harmless - like if you are a Patriots fan or believe Ford makes the best trucks, but some are dangerous, like Democrats are going to take away my guns, or that our elections are rigged.

Now I am working on some ideas of my own - egotistical?  Maybe.

Some things we can do:

1. Expand fact challenging (not fact checking) Ask people to show you the facts rather than telling them what you think the facts are.

2. Treat conspiracy theory spreaders like criminals - have a nation wide social media ban - like a no fly list for serial offenders - they are really no different than terrorists of the mind.  This will require a BIG change to how we look at free speech - i.e. you have the right to free speech but I do not have to be an amplifier for you.  Twitter and Facebook are moving in this direction.  Of course if they move to a subscription based service, that eliminates any argument against it. Of course doing away with anonymity will help.  Getting rid of comment sections on news sites will also go a long way to more civil discussion. 

3. Or ditch social media all together - I stopped watching nightly cable shows a long time ago and an enjoying my evenings.  I snooze Facebook friends at the slightest political (not philosophical) post.

4. Teach our children to think - easy with some - tougher for others.  The funny thing is that for the most part - the younger you are, the less you fall for fake news, but as you get older, even kids who grow up with technology start to fall back - so it may be a psychological not an intellectual issue.

5. Stop reading what Google and Facebook send you - start reading about what interests you.  By searching out knowledge for knowledge sake - you will wean yourself of the garbage that is force fed to you.

Of course I must be an optimist to believe any of this can come true.

As Pliny the Elder said (probably not Nelson Mandela)  "It always seems impossible until it is Done".

Seeing into the future

 This was a Letter to the Editor I wrote - It was published November 20 in the Waterbury Republican.

We wish we could see into the future, and science and engineering give us a method to maybe do that. It is called a control feedback loop. One you are very familiar with is the cruise control in your car. You set the speed for 65 mph and if you go faster the cruise control will let off on the accelerator and the car will slow down. If it slows down too much then the cruise control will accelerate and bring the car back to the set speed. There are many other examples, like the air conditioner in your house. Each has its own set point; the equilibrium it tries to maintain.

Humans as a group act like a control feedback loop. One example is the current Covid 19 crisis. At first, infections are low and people go about their normal business. As the virus spreads and more people get infected, people read about it in the paper or see it in the news; or unfortunately they might know someone who has gotten sick or died. They change their attitude and habits. Then the virus stops spreading and the numbers go down. After a while people go back to their old habits and the cycle starts over again; although hopefully, this time they respond quicker to the spike or enough people have adopted habits that keep the spike in check.

The set point of the virus is what we tolerate. For the healthcare industry it cannot be over the capacity to handle the patient load. If healthcare gets overwhelmed then it is no different than setting the cruise control on your car to 70 in a school zone. You will lose control and eventually crash. If this is the critical set point, then all others, economic, political or religious, must adapt to the set point. At some time a vaccine or improved medicine will allow us to return to a different set point. Until then, it pays us to pay attention to the numbers.

First Impressions

 Okay - writing this on Friday night - looks like Joe Biden is going to be the next President.

Now while the pundits  make their comments and all trash the pollsters I will throw in my 2 cents.

It was not a vote for Joe Biden, it was a vote against Donald Trump.  Your Fired!

If not for Covid, Trump probably would have won - maybe.  Biden ran the perfect race - kept his mouth shut, for the most part trashed the other side only on facts, and let the President put his foot in his mouth over and over and over - people grew tired of him.  They changed the channel.  They got what they wanted (tax cut and 3 Supreme Court Justices) and they decided Trump is too high maintenance.  

Now why do I say they did not vote for Biden?  People hate change - they like stability and what they know.  They are like the proverbial frog being boiled; if you change them slowly they don't notice it.  That is how they end up buying $1000 cell phones.   But they don't like sudden change.  That is why even though many conservatives voted for Biden, they also voted for their local Republican representatives.  They did not suddenly turn liberal - they just hated the guy who was running the show.

Now here is the problem.  After the yelling and the suing and the claims of fraud fade into reality, we will end up with a Democratic President, a Republican Senate (but the skin of its teeth) and a Democrat House (by the skin of its teeth).  They will still have to try and solve the trade imbalance intelligently, deal with the fact that the 1% IS killing the middle class, figure out how to handle automation taking people's jobs, understand and try to contain terrorism around the world, put some reigns on runaway technology like genetic engineering and social media (yes - runaway technology) while facing Climate Change and all types of inequality (racial, economic, educational, etc.) just to name a few problems.  In other words there is a lot to be done - change is inevitable.  If you just kick it down the road it just gets bigger and hungrier.  Oh, and did I mention Covid?  Instead of kicking its butt, we kicked it down the road - now we are paying the price.  Don't believe it is easy or that we are done with it soon either.

So if ANYONE thinks they have a mandate - think again.  If we don't realize that we are fighting the same issues and have to work together to solve them...well then we won't just be back where we started, we will be further behind...

Chris

The Showman

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_JF1FCnIOg

Step inside, hello! We've a most amazing show!
You'll enjoy it all we know
Step inside! Step inside!

We've got thrills and shocks, supersonic fighting cocks!
Leave your hammers at the box
Come inside! Come inside!

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
See the show!

Left behind the bars, rows of Bishops' heads in jars
And a bomb inside a car
Spectacular! Spectacular!

If you follow me there's a speciality
Some tears for you to see
Misery, misery

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
See the show!

Next upon the bill in our House of Vaudeville
We've a stripper in a till
What a thrill! What a thrill!

And not content with that
With our hands behind our backs
We pull Jesus from a hat!
Get into that! Get into that!

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!
See the show!

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside

Songwriters: Greg Lake
Karn Evil 9 lyrics © Chrysalis Music, Music Sales Corp. O/b/o Leadchoice Ltd.

How do we fix this?

 Okay, no one is happy with the state of things in the country, much less the world.  So how do we fix this?

Well the first thing is to identify some of the issues that we can change and then - change them.  I would be boasting if I said I had all the answers, or even could properly identify all of the problems.  But let me take a swipe at it.

I think there are several problems we all can agree on.

1. We do not like the idea of politicians being in office for life.

2. We want everyone to pay a fair share of taxes.

3. We do not trust the Internet and Social Media - or do we?

First - the answer to #1 is term limits.  But how long would it take and would the results be worse than what we have now?

Second - who decides what is fair? How do you measure how you are doing?

Third - I am part of the Internet -this blog IS part of Social Media - should you even trust me?

In the next weeks I will review all these-  one at a time and make some suggestions.  

Let's see if you agree with any or all of them.

ChrisZ

Trolled Again

 Okay, lets look at this::
Goodyear - American owned company - 62,000 employees worldwide
Cooper Tires - American owned company - 9,000 employees worldwide
Firestone Japanese owned company (Bridgestone) - 40,000 employees
BF Goodrich - French owned company (Michelin) - ??? Employees
Uniroyal - French owned company - (Michelin) - 1000 employees
And you want to make America great again but picking on the only large American tire company.
Trolled again Mr President.
oh - by the way

WOODBURN, Ind. (WANE) — (March 2020)

Some 80 full-time jobs will be cut at the BF Goodrich plant in Woodburn, WANE 15 has confirmed.
The change will happen during the second quarter to continue with plans to stabilize the company’s production levels, according to a spokesperson with Michelin North American.

The layoffs have been evaluated over several months, and the company will work with the union to achieve the best result for all employees, WANE 15 was told.

Copyright 2020 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Like a Virus

The country, indeed the world is going through a change of epic proportions.  A cultural shift that will affect us for generations.  This is not unlike a World War, or the Internet revolution.  Our lives will be changed and some feel helpless in its wake.

Let's look at the virus.  It is small, unseen by the naked eye.  It invades the body without our permission, and once inside affects each person differently.  For some people nothing happens.  It is as if they have a natural immunity to it.  But the immunity may have come from a previous experience to a virus - the body recognizes it and fights it.  Others it affects their lungs, making it impossible to breath.  Still others it affects their sense of smell and taste , so they cannot tell the difference between good and bad food.  Many have fevers, which can lead to disillusions and nightmares.  A few will have a reaction where the body destroys itself trying to fight the virus. Sadly some are affected by blood clots and may have to have operations or sadly limbs amputated.  This particular virus hits the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions, the weak among us.  In the end, many of us who get the virus will survive, but all will have been affected.  Some day, hopefully soon, we will have a vaccine, which will allow out bodies to recognize the virus and battle it before it gets severe, and then we will be able to get back to normal, although it will not be the same normal.  Our world will have changed, just like it did after 9/11.

Racism is not unlike the virus.  No one is born a racist - the disease has to come from outside our body, but once inside, it takes over.  Some are immune.  No matter what someone says, or does, they are strong enough to see through it and fight it off before it takes hold.  With others it affects them in different ways.  Some it might manifest itself as hatred and violence, like the body fighting itself.  It destroys the person from within and takes massive effort and help from outside to cure it, if it can be cured.  For others it creates fear and ignorance.  These persons do not outwardly show any signs, they are asymptomatic - but they spread the disease without even knowing it.  They also do not see the virus around them; since they cannot experience it.  The cure for them is education and empathy.  Still others get the disease of racism, feel its destructive power and recover from it.  They see how it ruins peoples lives and society and hopefully can now admit the problem and work to solve it.

With the Covid virus, all our lives are affected.  We are quarantined, many stores closed, people have lost jobs and loved ones, we have to wear masks which is uncomfortable and what was normal is now changed.  With the uprising, which seems to be around the world, we are seeing a similar change.  Statues are being torn down, brands are being renamed, stories from history are being rewritten, mostly for the truth.  What was normal has been changed, the comfortable, uncomfortable.  People hate change, but that is what is happening.  All this could have been done already, many have been talked about for years if not decades.  Like the pandemic, it has gotten to the point where we feel like we have to deal with this problem once and for all.   The price for waiting so long is there will be collateral damage, there will be an over reaction.  This is not unlike ignoring a health problem - it will not go away by itself, it will just get worse to the point where a good limb gets cut off, or a body organ it damaged beyond repair.

The sad reality is there will be a vaccine for the Corvid Virus, but not everyone will take it, or maybe it will not work for everyone.  The same will be true for racism.  Many will think that we can eradicate it in one fell swoop, but that will not happen.  It will always be with us as it is based in the sin of pride.  And as long as humans are alive, there will be some who are not able to be cured.  For the rest of us, we will have to continually work to control it - to fight it, to contain it.  It will take a continuous effort or like the virus, it will mutate and come back.  Progress is not something that can be bought and put on a mantle to display.  It is a process where we dedicate part of our energy to fixing the problem.  The good news is that if we all work together, the load will be small.

ChrisZ

Why the Statues have to go.

Imagine you are the son or daughter of an American soldier who fought in WWII.  You are visiting Germany on a holiday and fly into Berlin airport.  There as you enter the airport you are greeted with a large statue of Nazi leader Hermann Göring.  What would your reaction be? (1).  Or if you visited Japan and found them honoring a Kamikaze pilot attacking Pearl Harbor?  You would probably be disgusted and wonder what the people where thinking? (2)

Statues were designed to honor and memorialize a person or event.  Thus we have the statue of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima.  Or the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor.  Or it might be a religious statue like the Pieta; Mary holding the crucified Christ.  The statue is usually there to give pride, encouragement and memories.  Well what if those memories represent failure, cruelty and hatred.  The toppling of statues is a well known tactic in war to demoralize the enemy.  But sometime is it the enemy - as the toppling of the statue of Stalin,torn down on October 23, 1956 by enraged anti-Soviet crowds during Hungary's October Revolution.

What the statue represents is also important,  It might have been commissioned for one reason, but then takes a life on of its own.  The reason the Civil War Monuments have to come down is practical as well as emotional.  It has already been 75 years since the end of WWII.  It has been 155 years since the end of the Civil War.    Even figuring 25 years between generations - it is over 6 generations since that war ended - why are we still fighting it?  Maybe because it was not about slavery - it was about power.  Now ask 10 historians and you will get different answers - political, economic, moral; but even Lincoln said; if he could save the nation without ending slavery he would.  And he abhorred slavery - maybe not as much as John Brown, but personally he did.

So maybe we keep fighting the Civil War because there was no clear victory.  The slaves were free but for what?  There was little money or economic support - most were free in word only.  It was 100 years later that they were still fighting for equality in housing, education and voting rights.  All the lives that were lost on both sides and we keep fighting, 155 years later  - when does it stop?

So in the goal of reconciliation and the ability to move forward, we need to tear down the statues and declare victory.  Not to dishonor the men, but to erase the memory, like cutting out a cancer.  The history will be taught in schools - not with regret, or boasting.  This was a terrible time in our country.  The Founders, as great men they were, kicked the can down the road when it came to slavery.  Are we strong enough as a country to stop the can and say no more? Here is where it stops; and start to build a new future.  That would make America great and the shining beacon to the world.

(1) This is far from a made up story - there was a memorial to Göring and when it was found out it was taken down.

(2) Japan had a sinilar problem with its "Comfort Women"exhibit.

Too much Regulation or too little?

This was a statement from another forum:

"Over the last 30+ years we have averaged more than 200 pages of new Federal Regulations every calendar day. We don't need more regulations.

What we need are folks with above average intelligence, competency and lack of political agenda to interpret the results."

The last bit I agree with.  I disagree that we need less regulations.  I think it is inevitable that we need more.  Why?  Look what did not exist 30 years ago: (and I am sure I am missing many more)

Credit Default Swaps
Internet Hackers
Autonomous vehicles
Identity theft
E-commerce
True cell phones
Social Networking
Cryptocurrency
3d Printing
CRISPR gene editing
Automation of jobs
E-Commerce
Cyber warfare
Climate change (whether man-made or not)
Globalization
Green Technology
Retirement plans - like all versions of 401Ks
Artificial Intelligence

Now just counting the number of pages is of little use:

“A Congressional Research Service study found that in 2015, less than a third of total pages in the Federal Register were about rules and regulations, and the number of final rule documents published in the Register has declined since the ’70s. When you winnow down to “major” rules, it’s usually less than 100 per year.”

https://www.marketplace.org/2018/01/19/counting-pages-regulations-waste-time-and-paper/

So as the world becomes more sophisticated, as things change, we need rules to reflect this change.  Think of all the rules that did not exist before the automobile - rules about roads, traffic signs, car designs, driver's licenses, and all the bureaucracy that went along with it.

Today we still cannot decide if a web browser is still an essential part of an operating system....

So here are my guidelines for new rules: (and we will need a rule for these guidelines - see how crazy it becomes - I will use rules for laws and regulations)
1. They need to have a purpose that can be understood by the common man - and needs to be stated in the beginning - sort of like the Prime Directive for each rule or change.
2. They need to encompass or replace the existing rules so there is no duplication or conflicts.
3. They need either a sunset or review date - unfortunately this implies growth in government workers, as if there are more rules it takes more people to monitor them - which should be in the rules
4. There should be no unfunded mandates.  All decisions should be economically sound.

"What we need are folks with above average intelligence, competency and lack of political agenda to interpret the results."

This is the challenge - and one of the biggest obstacles is collective selfishness, which will be the subject of my next post.

ChrisZ

Have I learned this too late

Note - Links in this post are for information only and do not imply endorsement.

Sometimes in life you trust too much or don't dig enough.  That is my issue with chemicals we use every day.  I trust that the regulations are studied and enforced in a way that protects people and lets them make the decisions they need to protect themselves.

That is until I listened to a radio broadcast on TCE, a chemical that has been linked to fetal heart defects, and other diseases such as cancer.

TCE (tetrathloroethylene) is a chemical that is used in cleaning and degreasing.   It is at the center of the Camp Lejeune tragedy, where our military families were exposed to toxic drinking water from the 50's through the early 80's.  But it is not just here that there was a problem.  Since this chemical was used by dry cleaners, even in the town of Torrington, where I live, many wells were closed up and changed over to city water due to ground contamination (not just by TCE) from dry cleaning establishments.

How does it affect me and my friends?  I was/am an auto mechanic and racing mechanic.  I use brake cleaning chemicals, some of which might contain TCE or a derivative of this, perthloroethylene.  Now this is found in Chlorinated brake cleaner, which has been used for many years.  Recently, Non-Chlorinated brake cleaner has come on the market.  This does not have TCE in it, in fact Chlorinated brake cleaner is banned for sale in California.  My mistake was believing the only change in the product was the propellant, and not the chemicals itself.

When I started as a mechanic, back in the 70's, brake cleaner was not heard of.  We would wash down brake parts with Safety-Kleen solvent or even gasoline (not that that is probably any better as it had lead in it at the time....)  Brake cleaner first came out in gallon cans that we loaded into pressurized spray bottles; only after I had left the trade full time did the spray cans come into being.

It was a miracle product, where before you had to take something apart and clean it in a tank, now you just hit it with some brake cleaner and you were done.  There was no training or instruction besides the small print on the cans - and we know how good we are about reading those.

The other thing about Chlorinated brake cleaner is that when heated past 315 degrees Celsius (about 600 F)  it can produce a deadly gas - Phosgen - which can seriously hurt or kill you.  Think of the times you were heating a bolt and then hit it with a chemical, like a brake cleaner or something like WD-40, if it was red hot then it was definitely hotter that that.

Now, it is proven that Chlorinated brake cleaner performs better that Non-Chlorinated.  The question is how much better and is the difference worth your health?  That is for you to decide.  For most people, if they use the brake cleaner is a well ventilated area, and use proper protection like gloves, then you have minimized the risk.  However, that goes for ANY chemical that is man made.

For those who are using this product in a commercial setting I urge you to look at the information and either change what you are using or put in place safeguards and train for you and your employees.  For the hobbyist the same advise holds.

Now the previous administration was about to strictly regulate this chemical as California has done.  The current administration is rolling back regulations, specifically TCE.

Many chemicals have improved our lives, and to not balance the benefits vs the side effects would be foolish.  But we should demand transparency from our government and the manufacturers of these chemicals.

ChrisZ

Gaslight #1 - Roger Stone

The current level of gaslighting - trying to convince someone that a truth is false and a falsehood is true, has reached a point where someone needs to document it.  I decided there are personally, several ways to handle it.
First, I could ignore it - but I would not sleep at night.
Second, I could write letter to the newspapers and go out in public - maybe someday
Third - I could research and document the truth and let others decide.

For now I will do the third.

Roger Stone is no angel.  Past history is not supposed to influence a trial, but when he has a history of doing the very thing he is accused of - well I cannot see how it can't.

Some things to start out with:
1. No one denies the DNC was hacked.  The question was who did it.  The Mueller Report points to the Russians.  You can do your own research on this one.
2. No one denies John Podesta's email was phished, and that he inadvertently  was taken advantage of.  Again, you can find more information here.
3. This information was leaked to WikiLeaks

Note: I use Wikipedia for reference just the same as people used to use the Encyclopedia Britannica.  If you have a question, feel free to look at their source documentation, or search for your own.  Many times I have already looked at original documents and found that Wikipedia summarizes it.

4. The information from WikiLeaks was released in apparent coordination with negative releases about then candidate Trump, in what appears is an attempt to offset the negative release.

5. Roger Stone claimed to several people (Like Steve Bannon, Rick Gates (partner of Paul Manafort) and Randy Credico, that he knew when the leaks would be occurring.

6. Roger Stone threated Randy Credico if he cooperated with the government.

7. Stone was found guilty an the prosecutors recommended jail time based on Federal Sentencing Guidelines.  These are just a suggestion and the judge is a final arbiter of the actual sentence.

8. There is appeal process to very trial up to the Supreme Court.

9. The Attorney General has the ability to review recommenced sentences.

The problem in this case is that the President seems to have gotten involved AFTER the recommended sentence got out.  Then the Attorney General stepped in.  This gives the appearance of Presidential influence.

Now there are still a lot of questions:
1. Did Roger Stone REALLY have access to Wikileaks?
2. Was there a direct connection between the Trump campaign and the release of information - or was it just a happy coincidence.
3. Was the recommended sentence discussed and approved or did the prosecutors work on their own.

Finally -There is the question about the truthfulness of the leaked emails.  If they were not true, so many people would not have apologized and/or resigned.  There is some question about some emails being tampered with.  I am not making any statement on this aspect.  I am just sticking to the facts in the Roger Stone trial.

2/15/2020

Update - Mixed up John Podesta and Leon Panetta - been corrected - cmz