It is Math Again (part X + 1)

 Musk's first "transparency reports" should stir the pot quite a bit

From this article:

""Since January 2020, over 11 million accounts were challenged for violating the COVID-19 information policy, 11,230 accounts were suspended, and 97,674 pieces of content were removed.""

"As you can see from the numbers above, that process of “removing or annotating” moved forward at a colossal pace. Threats and warnings were issued to tens of millions of accounts. Thousands were suspended and countless tweets were deleted.  (emphasis mine)

To have "tens of millions" of accounts you need to have at least 20 million.  11 million is just a little over 1 x 10 million accounts.

Twitter has about 237 million users.  11 million is a little over 4%.  Now these are not who published 1st party tweets, but might have forwarded information.

11,230 accounts suspended is about .005%  of all the total accounts. Or about 1 out of every 21,000 accounts.

Now Elon Musk thinks that 20% of Twitter accounts were bots, Twitter claimed 5%

Even taking Twitter's numbers, that would be 11,850,000 - over 11 MILLION accounts!

Hmmm - could be a coincidence but similar to the number of accounts challenged.....

It's Math again.

Politics does not reward success - It's broken, how do we fix it?

 People like to compare the elections to the Super Bowl.  The Democrats and Republicans squaring off to see who will come out victorious.  But there is a difference.  After the Super Bowl, the two teams don't stop to see how they can make the seats better for the fans, work on building a new soup kitchen, or helping build up the stadium security.  No, they immediately start work on how to defeat their opponent next year.  Wait - maybe it has become the same.  Immediately after this election, the loser starts trying to figure out how to beat the winner.

In today's climate, with about a 50/50 split (more on that in another post) there is no downtime, with the 24/7 cable and Internet cycle, you can bombard people with news you want them to hear.  So as soon as the election is over, the game starts anew, with each "team" trying to make sure the other "team" does not gain any yardage.  One does not want the other to have ANY success.  Pass a bill that makes people's lives better - not on my watch if I don't get credit for it.  Help the environment? - not if it will make it harder for me to get elected next go around.  Stabilize the economy to make things fairer for all - not if my constituents do not get all they can.

Everything is viewed as a win/lose situation. Points to be scored and held for future use.  Blocking is allowed (Gee the football analogy is getting stronger).  One party's success is lauded over the other - if they can get any at all.  This results in the smartest people NOT getting elected. Those that go end up being mere placeholders for the powers that get them elected, and we wonder why they get nothing done.  If someone tries to work for the other side, they get lambasted by their own party; not exactly the environment of bipartisanship.  

So what is an answer?  I don't think term limits is the answer.  It has some potential benefits.  When you know you are term limited, you are not a s fearful of making impartial decisions as you know you will not have to face any repercussions.  But soon our government will be replaced by ignorant place holders - cannot have any free thinkers in power.  Increasing or reducing pay for elected officials will no have much effect.  A third or fourth party will dilute some of the money and force alliances - even if temporary - in order to get things done.  Has our focus become so destroyed that we can only handle a two party system?

A radical idea would be just to register people as voters.  Not Democrat or Republican, not Liberal or Conservative, no classification of any kind.  We are all independent.  Then we need an informed voter. Standardizing basic websites for each candidate can be a starting point - devoid of party affiliation.  No, you can still have your party site and ads - this is not trying to stifle free speech, just cut through the fluff and bull*&^%$.  Sort of a simple resume.  That way you would know if the person running was a TV star, or a career politician.  It could be run by a third party so the government could not get involved.  Consumer Reports or the League of Women voters - does not matter, as long as it is is a s simple, standardized and as neutral as possible.

Do I expect to see something like this in the remainder of my lifetime - no.  But I put it out there as a starting point.  The demand has to come from the voters.  Make your voices heard long before Election Day.

2000 Mules - a closer look

 The movie 2000 mules claims there were shenanigans in the 2000 election that threw the vote to Biden.

Note the following:

While they say there might have been up to 400,000 votes, they do not claim that these were illegitimate or have any proof that they were.

They base their study on cell phone records and find that there was high traffic near some drop boxes.

They have not provided any evidence to law enforcement for action.

So let's see how this scam would have been pulled off.

First you would need the names and ballots of legitimate voters.  Most voting records are public, but how could you be sure that the people you pick were currently registered and also had not already or were going to vote?

You would have to have people on the inside to overlook and duplicate votes, dead people voting, or other irregularities - massive amount of people voting from the same address.

Since most poll workers are pulled from both sides of the political spectrum and supervised by same, the odds of trying to steer  these ballots to a specific group of poll workers are not good, since the ballots are mixed in drop boxes with other ballots.

Then you would have conflicts of people who would have been disenfranchised - told they had already voted, and had their information verified. (Legal ballot and signature checked).  Every election there are some, but with 400,000 ballots alleged as fraudulent, you would think that a large number would show up, especially since you would not fake a ballot from party "A" since they would vote your way anyway.  So you would have to be submitting a ballot from party "B" or independants.  These people are more likely to speak up.

So the immense planning that would have to go into it and the shear number of people that would have to be in on the scam, with no one having come forward, makes it more likely that you will win the lottery than this could have been pulled off.

Most ballot stuffing crimes happen in small towns where a few people have control over the election process.  To do this on a national basis is like trying to butcher a cow with a scalpel - not worth the effort. 

There are Limits

 So Elon Musk has bought Twitter.  He believes in no limits on speech (maybe).

Here is my story:

Back in the late 1970's, I wrote a newsletter for my racing buddies.  It was drawn from influences like The National Lampoon and Monty Python, amongst others.  It was serious, funny, crazy, satirical, and most of free of moderation.  I would publish anything and encouraged people to send stuff in as I could not write the whole thing myself.  It's zenith was one morning at Bridgehampton race track; when all there, drivers, workers, officials, all sat around reading it instead of getting on with their business.  The silence was golden!

Then one day I got an submission from a friend.  I read it and in today's parlance, I was rolling on the floor laughing.  It was really funny. Then it hit me -  I could not publish it.  One of the stories would literally destroy a person, their reputation and maybe their life.  Just like Calculus, I had come up against a limit.  The words were truth, but I had to decide if this truth belonged in a publication that was supposed to be funny, when the end result would have been anything but.  This lesson at age 22 has stayed with me for 44 years.   To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, "There is a time to publish and a time to hold back".

I was talking about truth.  If Truth has its limits, how much more must a falsehood?  One of my favorite movies is Inherit the Wind.  At the end the Spencer Tracy character says to the reporter "You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something."  Free speech was meant to allow us to move forward, if it does nothing but push us back and destroy, what value has it?

Economics 101

 To look at all the moving parts in an economy, one way is to take a look from 10,000 feet.  This way we see everything.  Unfortunately, this view does not always allow us to come up with workable solutions to problems, as we can get lost in all the permutations. So let's stop and look at things from a different point of view - the beginning.

We start with a simple supply and demand chart. At any time, Consumers have so much money to spend.  At the same time, Producers have made a product that they wish to sell.  There is initially a negotiation as to the price the Consumer is willing to pay and the Producer is willing to sell at.  So far so good.  

Now we introduce multiple Consumers and multiple Producers.  Eventually, the price will stabilize on what the Consumers are willing to pay and that will force the Producers to sell at that price.  In a stable market, the Producers will work on their productivity to be able to make a profit at that price.  If they cannot, then they might leave the production of that item.  If the other producers can keep making the product at an increased volume, then the price is stable.  If they cannot meet the demand, then the shortage of items will cause the price to increase, as there will be more competition from the Consumers for the fixed quantity of items.  This may cause some Producers to either start or come back in to the market.   Eventually the system will balance out again as demand and supply find their balance.

Now, what if we add an external factor to the equation?  An example is the Government could increase the Producer's cost, by mandating working conditions or manufacturing conditions, such as environmental rules. This will skew the cost up and if it is a product the Consumer must have (food, gasoline, clothing, etc.) the price will rise.  Of course if the price rises too high or too fast, the Consumer may look for alternatives, like keep a  car longer, mending clothes,  or maybe starting their own garden.  Eventually, the price will stabilize again.

Or the Consumer, for whatever reason, decides they MUST have a product.  Think cell phones, Beanie Babies, or Starbucks coffee.  Then their increased demand will also push prices up.  But some of these increases in demand are only temporary - and the price will eventually stabilize.

Of course, the opposite can happen also.  If a product can be made less expensively, the price charged could go down and hopefully the lost profit will be made up by higher volume.  If a Consumer is no longer willing to pay a price for an item, the quality Producers may leave the market to the lower quality Producers.  If the Consumer is satisfied with the inferior product, then the situation will stabilize at the lower price.  The only way the quality of a product will increase is if the Consumer is willing to pay for it (see Mercedes Benz, Rolex watch, or Sirloin steak).

The Government can mandate features, and it can mandate a minimum quality (see food regulations, car standards etc.)  but Producers will just make products to the minimum standards, unless the Consumer is willing to pay more.  

So far we looked at the relationship between the Consumer/Producer and the Government.  Next time we will throw in some other ways the supply/demand chart can be disrupted.

Say Again?

 

Bannon predicts Attorney General Garland, FBI Director will be impeached

He predicted that Garland and Wray would be impeached and that Republicans would win the House in the upcoming midterm elections.

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/22/steve-bannon-merrick-garland-christopher-wray-impeached-2023

Trump taps Christopher Wray to head FBI

President Donald Trump will nominate Christopher Wray as the next director of the FBI, he announced on Twitter on Wednesday, the day before ousted FBI Director James Comey is to testify at a high-stakes Senate hearing.

“I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow,” the president wrote.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/trump-fbi-director-nominee-christopher-wray-239238

Trump FBI Pick Christopher Wray No Stranger to Crisis

"He would be very difficult to impeach given his background," says attorney Kurt Kastorf, who worked with Wray at his current law firm, King and Spalding. "He would be fairly difficult for Democrats to drag through the mud, and he's a genuinely qualified and good attorney."

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-06-27/trump-fbi-pick-chrisopher-wray-no-stranger-to-crisis

Reality Sucks

 At the beginning of the Covid Pandemic, New York officials did not move fast enough.  While eyes were on the West Coast, the virus entered the NE from Europe and struck the elderly and compromised.

At the same time, Florida officials were laughing at New York - but what is the reality?

As of September 19, 2022

Florida has passed New York in deaths per capita, although neither is close to the top:

per capita deaths as of 9/12/2022

So when either side brags about their response, look past to the reality before making any judgements.

What student loans?

 There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about college and student loans.

From my experience, here are some of the truths and myths about the current state of education.

1. Fact - Not everyone is cut out or should go to college.  Students who want to explore a career in the service industry - Construction, mechanics,  food preparation, etc., should consider alternate schooling.  For those with the idea of owning their own business; community college courses in business would be cost effective.

2. Fact - if going to college, you should be aware of the average salary of graduates with that degree, not just the highest potential.  Many generic degrees are not worth the loans taken out - specialist degrees are usually more valuable, but again you need to look at the job market 5 years down the road.

3. Fact - an Ivy League or Major College probably will not teach you much more than what you will learn elsewhere.  However, the pressure and the connections you make may put you ahead of someone who goes to a different school.  Maybe unfair, but real.  A liberal arts education at an Ivy League school will get you a better starting salary and more connections, but remember the return on investment may take a decade or more when considering loans.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2018-09-10/how-much-is-a-liberal-arts-degree-from-the-ivy-league-worth

4. Fact - There are loans and there are loans - just like the subprime loan scandals of the 2000's, you can get hooked on loans with high interest - remember, any loan in the beginning is mostly interest up front.  The fact that many loans are deferred until you get out of college just postpones the inevitable.  Start putting money away to pay off the loans as soon as you can.  Even that part time cafeteria job will help.

4. Myth- Student loan forgiveness programs benefit the wealthy.  The reality is that the wealthy do not have student loans.  Do you think the son or daughter who are heirs to the Johnson and Johnson or Frito Lay empires had any student loans?  When you can afford $400K Mercedes and Porsches, do you think 50K a year in tuition is a burden?  The logic is that loans go to the people who cannot afford college without them.  Unfortunately, these are the same people who do do have the connections to get into good jobs.  So even after getting out of college, the majority with a degree and student loans, still have a tough road ahead.  There will always be exceptions; however, you have to look at the numbers.

So a serious look at the problem involves:

1. The cost of College
2. Who Should go to College
3. How should we pay for it
4. Should the Government be involved.
5. Should more businesses include College as part of their training

Until these are looked at we are just kicking the can down the road

Change - Can we?

 Previously I wrote a post on why people resist change. 

I have now looked at it from a different way and want to modify my first post slightly.

Not - why can't people change, but why people will not even consider change.

Using the rule of 3's, I will look at the following:

1. What am I afraid of?
2. Am I wrong?
3. What will convince me?

Notice the word "fact" or "truth"  does not even enter into these.

Fear - I wrote about fear as part of the process of change.  Here I put it first as an obstacle to consider change.  Instead of saying to someone "why will you not change?"; maybe the better first statement is "what are you afraid of?"   By addressing this fear first, it might be easier to move to #2.

Am I wrong?  If you cannot admit that you could be wrong, you never consider anything other than your side of the argument.  Science is based on "Here is my idea, prove me wrong."  But if no proof is good enough to accept as proof, no one will ever change their mind.

What will convince me?  If you can get to the point where you can admit you can be wrong; and this could be by degree, it does not have to be all or nothing, then who do you listen to?  What research are you willing to do on your own?  What expense are you willing to put out to get the information?

Most people are more interested in staying the course rather then charting a new one.  Or at least verifying they are on the right course.

I find this discussion is a good starting point:

There Are 3 Kinds Of Truths In The World - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Awesome

 I subscribe to a service called "Spot the Station".

This tells you when the International Space Station is visible above you.  

Of course you cannot see the space station, but what you see is the sun's reflection off the station.  Thus it has to be dark where you are, and the space station has to be in the sun's light.  

Usually, you watch it streak across the sky like a plane, but there are no blinking lights and it really moves fast.

Tonight it was very late - 10:44 pm and the text said it would come from the NW and leave to the NW.  Now this was strange as how could it leave from where it came?  And it would only be visible for 3 minutes.

So I was out there and picked it up but it seemed to be going from NW to NE.  But then it just vanished!

What had happened it the reflective light from the sun was eclipsed buy the Earth as the Space Station went around the Earth.  What was so bright was still there, just not reflecting the Sun.  

A wonderful example or proof, that the Earth is not flat. 😊

Awesome.

Let's do the numbers

 People are have lots of ideas, but are not good with Math. This makes the Florida controversy more critical, but that is for another day.

Would you like to have  a 5% tax break or a 10% tax break?  The 10% of course.  What about someone who makes a million dollars?  Well they don't need 10%, lets give them just 5%

Okay - if you make $50,000 a year (assuming after adjustments) you will get $5,000 back. Great!

Now the person earning 1 million a year at 5% will get back - $50,000.

Wait - that is the same as you make all year!

Now a person making 10 million a year at 2.5% would get back  $250,000.

Don't be mislead by percentages, do ALL the math.

Who moves and why - Musk and Twitter

 Elon Musk tweeted a meme about how the left has moved more to the left, and he has moved more to the right.  

Elon Musk tweets meme about America's political polarization as the left goes farther left.

Well in 2008, the first year in the meme, he was broke - sunk all his money into Tesla.  At the time over 150 million.  Remember 2008 - the world was in a depression, people were scrambling to save capitalism.  His actions were a typical entrepreneur - all in on his vision.  No problem with that - just remember that 90% of startups fail, an no-one hears about them..

In 2012, he says he moved closer to the center while the left kept moving left.  Maybe because they saw the bailout of the big companies, no banker got punished, and yet millions of people lost their homes. Hmmm.

In 2021 he says he is more to the right and the "left" is even more to the left (of course the "left" and "right" are never defined - it seems to be the extreme right and extreme left).  Maybe after 4 years of Trump and the destruction of virtually all they stood for, they dug their heels in - no compromise.  BTW- now he is worth 21 BILLION dollars.  Hmmm again.

""For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally," Musk tweeted Wednesday. "

Why should it upset anyone?  If his goal is to  'authenticate all real humans' on Twitter, then the platform would no longer be left or right, but just a representation of real people.

"If the goal is to ensure that every account is tied to a flesh-and-blood person, the platform will need some way to verify they are real. One possibility is an expansion of Twitter's existing verification program. Currently, to receive a blue check on their accounts, users have to supply a link to an official website that they're affiliated with, an official email address or a government-issued form of identification. Musk could stop short of requiring identification but require that users use their real names."

The problem is even with real people, you could be lying.  One term that seems to be in the news lately is projecting.  That is, accusing someone of something you yourself are guilt of.  In psychology, it used to be an unconscious trait, but now it has ben weaponized like gaslighting.  How will Twitter handle this, or are they expecting the "Wiki" effect to police it?  How does that stop trolls?

Free speech does not mean unlimited speech.  The "free speech" responsibility comes BEFORE it is uttered.  I would say it has to be true (or as true and can be discerned) and put out in a positive manner.  We need a Hippocratic Oath for speech - first do no harm.  

But Twitter's philosophy is not free speech.  it is:

"Twitter is reflective of real conversations happening in the world and that sometimes includes perspectives that may be offensive, controversial, and/or bigoted to others."

The problem is that everyone's opinion is not equally valid.  And to police it at all is a losing cause.  So you need rules BEFORE someone posts, and that usually involves a moderator.  So I give Musk a chance to fix Twitter, he did launch and land a spaceship, but I think he will find that science and physics is easier that human interaction, precisely because it is NOT rocket science.

Are Supreme Court Nominations Political

 

In 2016, then President Obama was trying to nominate a person to the Supreme Court.  He was blocked in Congress. Candidate Trump said he would pick form a list of 21 candidates - all vetted through the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.  He even said he would nominate a candidate that would overturn Roe vs Wade, not because it is bad law, but because it is what he (Trump) believes in.

The first pick was Neil Gorsuch, one of those on the list.   When Justice Kennedy was to retire, Trump added 5 more to the list (of now 20) and on that was Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.  Some on the original list were certainly not as qualified, but that brings up an interesting question, what makes you qualified?  Is it just that you clerked for an existing justice?  Ivy League education?  Past rulings (if you were in a position for that?) 

What about age - since Supreme Court Judges normally serve into their 70's or more, should we not eliminate anyone under 55 in order to allow them to accumulate more knowledge and wisdom?

If Kavanaugh and Barrett were equal; in qualifications, it made political sense to put Kavanaugh in first, seeing as how this would have been politically appealing when Justice Ginsburg needed to be replaced.

In fact, sometimes you do not know the true ability of someone until thy have been on the court for a few years.  Many people who lauded John Roberts now criticize him, but maybe he has grown in the position an is able to lead the team - which it is - and act as a damper on some justices who might 

Former Preside Trump got to nominate 3 justices (should have been 2 but that is another essay)  but were these the best?  If Kavanagh and Barrett where some of the best, why were they not part of his list of 21, just a year before?  And if Trump had just looked at Conservative nominees, what about Liberal or Libertarian? Or maybe those with no political agenda -  would they not make the best judges?

So this argument about someone is not the best, is a non-starter.  We already know the person may not be the best, as the best person may never get in the mix.

So we end up with a qualified person, as we have learned from the previous nomination of Harriet Miers.  The person being nominated will be questioned on their politics, but not their credentials.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/01/how-the-federalist-society-became-the-de-facto-selector-of-republican-supreme-court-justices.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/19/trump-ill-appoint-supreme-court-justices-to-overturn-roe-v-wade-abortion-case.html

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/17/politics/trump-supreme-court-list/index.html

Just because it is in quotations -

 Boy - cannot believe over  year since I wrote in this blog.....

First on Fox: Lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to "infiltrate" servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House, in order to establish an "inference" and "narrative" to bring to government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia, a filing from Special Counsel John Durham says.

Fox news story  Clinton campaign paid to 'infiltrate' Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia: Durham

Well if you go to the original document

Durham filing of conflict of Interest

When you search this document, you find the words "inference" and "narrative"

However - you do not find the word "infiltrate".  Hmmm....

The fact that it is in "quotations" implies that it IS in the filing.  

Does not seem to be in the original filing either, where a crime is actually stated.

Durham original filing 9/1/2016

The conservative media has ben all over the NYT for their Palin accusations (Corrected, but I believe all corrections should be on the front page), but I wonder if they will print a clarification in this case.

To quote Steve Martin - "Nah....."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edIi6hYpUoQ