Ego or not Ego

To be a president you have to have an ego.  What motivates it is another story.  Here are the presidents I remember in my lifetime:

Kennedy: Altruistic - driven by family pressure to be great
Johnson: Driven by fate - did not like Kennedy but felt he had to continue his work
Nixon: Driven by losses and a bit narcissistic - will hang on til last second
Ford: Not enough ego - fate put him there
Carter: A nice guy who really  thought niceness could win
Reagan: Another altruistic guy who I believe really thought he knew best
Bush 1: His turn - not egotistical enough
Clinton: A wheeler dealer - narcissistic but practical (knew when to fold them)
Bush 2: a bit of a puppet of Cheney and the GOP - toward the end was finding his swagger.
Obama: the chosen one - altruistic - the professor

Before we come to Trump

H Clinton: My turn -I worked and slaved my but off- put up with crap and should be rewarded.  Being first woman she would want to leave a legacy though.

Donald Trump - I am the best - but unlike Mohammed Ali -more talk than results - golden boy with opportunistic tendencies - everything revolves around me - willing to throw anyone under the bus if it makes him look good.   Not sure he really cares about America - just that he is best for America no matter what. a Realty TV show in the White House.

That is why I did not vote for him - not that Hillary was much better - but being the first woman would have forced her to be a better president.

Trump does not care - except about himself.

Scoutworthy

President Trump

A Scout is:

Trustworthy,         20%
Loyal,                   20%
Helpful,                40%
Friendly,               30%
Courteous,            20%
Kind,                    20%
Obedient,             10%
Cheerful,              20%
Thrifty,                 15%
Brave,                   10%
Clean,                   10%
and Reverent.       20%

Not much of a Scout

Predictions and Hindsight

There is a lot of speculation on if the Russians "stole" the election for Trump.  I will jump in and give you my thinking and let's see if it turns out to be true.

First we start with the fact that then businessman Donald Trump is an astute student of humanity.  His entire life has been that of exaggeration, boasting, confronting and intimidating.  He knew going into the primary that he could not best the other candidates on political knowledge and world affairs so he did not even try.  He played right to people's fears, anxiety and selfishness.  His Twitter account and use of right-wing media such as Fox (even when it seemed to be against him he was still using it for his advantage.  No conspiracy theory was off the table, no claim too outlandish, no correction unchallenged by turning back on the accuser.

Once he became the Republican candidate, people thought he would become more mature, even headed, and maybe even calm.  That did not work - enter Kellyanne Conway.  As per his previous persona, he doubled down with items like Hillary Clinton should be locked up, President Obama started ISIS, and that the election was already rigged against him.

Then a curious thing happened.  Social media became the method by which many people got their information.  Why read a newspaper when the news comes right to your phone.  Why search Google when your friends are all sending you news on Facebook.  Twitter allowed people to send rumors around the world before Politifact or any other fact-checking organization could respond.

People tend to believe what they want to hear and when they are bombarded by the same thing over and over and it becomes the truth - even if there is no shred of evidence.

Now enter the Russians.  I do not know their reason,  Maybe President Putin was mad at Hillary, maybe he wanted to help Trump, maybe he just wanted to mess with our minds.  Hacking the Democrats provided no information that would last more than a 24 hour news cycle.  Hacking the election machines was too daunting as it would only affect a small percentage of the votes.  So they hopped on the Trump bandwagon and started flooding social media with fake stories and unsubstantiated claims.  The fact that 100% of these were anti-Hillary just fueled the fire.

Now we have a perfect storm of two entities trying the same tactics and feeding off each other, and perhaps there was no direct collusion, just the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Hillary Clinton was too slow or incapable of taking the fight back as she would always be firing from behind.  Even the statement that the Russians were interfering, normally a statement that would infuriate any American, was not looked as just another feeble attempt to change the focus from Clinton's "crimes".

So we had the perfect storm. One that fooled the pundits and the polls.  One that gave now President Trump the thought he had a mandate that he did not have.  Now that he is in office, he is finding that the real world in Washington does not work like the campaign trail.

The silver lining in this debacle?  If, and I believe it will be, it is shown that the Russians did play a part in upsetting our election process, people will come to the realization that they cannot blindly believe anything they hear.  They will be come the ultimate cynics.  This will be the beginning of a new era where people actually think and research what they hear.

Well I can hope.

Is it the method or the results?

When you were in school, you not only got credit for the right answer, but for "showing your work" which was to make sure that you did not just guess or cheat.

Both were important but in the end, if you showed you knew how to get the right answer, but did not get the right answer, you really did not know how to get it - did you?  Either that or you made a stupid mistake.  (My hand is up for that - a painful lesson.)

Now to today.  Let's start by establishing a truth.  A "leak" must be true by definition.  You cannot leak something that is not true - it is just something that is made up.  I cannot leak that President Trump is really 5 foot 5 inches tall, no matter how seriously or how widely published it is.

So to Representative Trey Gowdy.  Here is what he said in response to Senator Charles Schumer's comment that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, be removed from that position. Note, the details of the events are not essential to the point I am going to make.

"I wish Senator Schumer and some of the other Democrats would be interested in the authenticity and reliability of the underlying data [rather than] the means by which it was acquired," Gowdy said.

Now, Let us go back a few weeks to when Rep Gowdy was asking FBI Director James Comey about if the leak on former national security adviser Michael Flynn was being investigated.

Gowdy asked Comey to also assure the American people that the FBI is investigating the leak which led to the resignation of Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn over communications with the Russian ambassador.

"I can't," Comey responded. "But I hope people watching know how seriously we take leaks of classified information. But I don't want to confirm it by saying we're investigating it. I'm sorry I have to draw that line, I just think that's the right way to be."

Gowdy shook his head in response. He said he wouldn't argue, but that he and Comey agree the release of classified information is "most definitely" a crime.

He then asked Comey to "seek authority from whomever you need to seek authority from" to assure the American people that the leak is being investigated.

Okay - which one is it - in the first case the that fact but not the method is important, in the second, the method and not the fact is more important????

Hmmmmm.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/27/trey-gowdy-chuck-schumer-devin-nunes-intelligence-wiretap-info-white-house

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/20/gowdy-presses-comey-whether-flynn-leak-will-be-investigated

The Technique of Diminishing Exaggerations

This was Charles Krauthammer on Fox News Network 3/22/2017

“There appears to have been, for sure, um, illegal, if not illegal improper, unmasking of Americans,” the conservative pundit added. “We know that’s so because of the Flynn the unmasking.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/23/krauthammer-hesitates-to-say-nunes-revelations-vindicate-trump-we-are-in-the-dark-video/#ixzz4cAHBApqd

I have corrected the quote in the bold section, to better represent what Charles said and to give some inflection to this.  

In my mind, this is the Rush Limbaugh technique of Diminishing Exaggeration.

This usually goes like this:

1. Everybody is doing it
2. Most people are doing it
3. Many people are doing it
4. I heard about a guy who did it.

Look at his statements

1. There appears to have been,
2. for sure
3. illegal
4. if not illegal, improper

So he starts out by saying that there is an appearance.
Then he says it is for sure (definite)
Then he says it is illegal,
then he says it may not be illegal but improper.

A fair statement should have been:

There appears to be improper unmasking of American citizens

We do not have enough information to go beyond that.

But the words that will be picked up by people who have a bias are:

“There appears to have been, for sure, um, illegal, if not illegal improper, unmasking of Americans,” the conservative pundit added. “We know that’s so because of the Flynn the unmasking.”

Hmmmmm....

"All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
Paul Simon from his song "The Boxer"

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/paulsimon390928.html

Wikileaks and morality

It is interesting about the discussion regarding the in and out of Wikileaks as it pertains to the current administration.

Here is the bottom line - Wikileaks is neither evil or good, in the traditional sense.

Wikileaks is amoral,  it does not care what it releases, it feels that EVERYTHING musty be exposed, no matter who it hurts.

That does not make it evil, but it makes it wrong.

The right of free speech is not absolute, it is always constrained by humanity.

The First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Just because Congress can make no law respecting an establishment of religion, does not make every religion right. 

Just because Congress can make no law abridging the freedom ............of the press, does not make the press always right.

And just because Congress can make no law abridging the freedom of speech, goes not make all speech right.

With any freedom comes responsibility - if you do not accept the responsibility, then you cannot claim the right.

Spicer checks WH staffers' phones for leaks, vows more searches coming

Spicer checks WH staffers' phones for leaks, vows more searches coming.


Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers...

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0031055/quotes

Funny, that is not what you said last time....

Kellyanne Conway is currently the Counselor to President Trump.  I find it hard to cry too much for her lately.  She is decrying the media as being biased, liers and out to get the President.  Hmmmm.

In his first appearance before the press, Sean Spicer criticized the "media" for reporting that the bust of Martin Luther King had been removed from the Oval Office.  He used this as proof that the "media" was out to get him.  Here are the facts:

7:21 Zeke Miller tweets that the Churchill bust is back in the Oval Office
7:33 another reporter tweets that the MLK bust is gone, sourced from another reporter - not Miller (there seems to be no "Tweets" from Miller, but he might have said that in a press pool report.)
8:14 Miller tweets that the MLK bust is still there
8:41 Miller tweets that he has confirmed with White house aide that the MLK bust is in the Oval Office.

Now Miller claimed the bust was obscured by a door and a secret service agent.  I did not believe that until I saw this:

Can you see either? 

MLK bust is on the left - Churchill is on the right.  (actually, this might have been taken earlier and the bust on the right might be Lincoln.  The picture above MLK sometimes shows the Statue of Liberty.)

Now this is sloppy reporting if they noticed that the  Churchill bust was there and did not ask the aide if the MLK bust had been replaced.  But if Miller thought he saw it with his own eyes, then he would not have asked.  So let's assume he was looking for a gotcha moment and screwed up, then apologized.

Let's compare this to:

On Wednesday November 2, 2016, FOX News anchor Bret Baier announced that according to unnamed sources, the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton which “will continue to likely an indictment.”

This was picked up by then Candidate Trump and blasted out over many conservative websites.

This was amplified on November 3, even while other news outlets were debunking the claim.  Even Baier himself walked back the claim on Thursday but that did not stop people on Friday from repeating the claim, 48 hours later.

Baier even apologized. - even though he did not fully back down.

How does this relate to Ms Conway?

“The damage is done to Hillary Clinton,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC’s Brian Williams on Friday.  (11/3)

Funny, this was 24 hours, not 2 before a correction was made.  There was no apology to Ms Clinton by Brett Baier as was demanded by Sean Spicer from Zeke Miller to Donald Trump.  In fact Ms Conway doubled down and stood by the report even after it had been walked back.  There was no backing down by candidate Trump, he doubled down also.

For President Trump, Ms Conway or Sean Spicer, to express outrage at bad reporting is the ultimate in hypocrisy, seeing as "Alternative Facts" such as the FOX News report, helped him win the election - but they saw nothing wrong with it.

1/30/2017


Sources:
http://www.snopes.com/mlk-bust-oval-office/
http://morninganswerchicago.com/2017/01/21/reporters-jump-chance-report-fake-news-mlk-bust-removed-oval-office/
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/03/bret-baier-serving-mouthpiece-unknown-sources-fbi-stories/214269
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-claims-evidence-fbis-clinton-foundation-probe-impressive/story?id=43282736
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/conway-on-fox-clinton-indictment-story-the-damage-is-done.html
http://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour-with-Brian-Williams (

The True - False Fallacy

I propose there is a theory that we subscribe to that if something is not true, it has to be false.

Now you say of course if A=1 and B=2 then A+B cannot equal 5.

But if I said that A is between 1 and 5 and B is between -3 and +3,  then A + B could be anywhere from -2 to +8 and still be correct.

So if we take two statements:

1. All people unemployed and on welfare are lazy.

2. Businesses eliminate jobs due to government regulation.

At first you may say that they are unrelated and you can hold that each statement may be true or that each statement may be false.

The problem is that in saying that a statement is either true or false, you then limit yourself to possibilities between the two.

For example, there might be reasons other than government regulations, why companies lay people off.  Automation, cost cutting, lack of sales, etc.  These people who are laid off are not lazy if they lost the job not due to anything they did or did not due.  The skills that they had may not be valuable anymore in the workplace. Therefore there are people who are unemployed and on welfare who are not lazy, just do not have the skills to ind a job.

In this case one of the solutions is better education and retraining.  However, either one of the statements by themselves will not lead to this conclusion; only by assuming they are not strictly true or false.

Now there are people who are on welfare and are lazy, and some people might lose jobs due to regulation.  If these cases are the majority of instances, you deal with them differently than if they are a small subset. If most people on welfare are lazy, then you look for ways to tie welfare into motivation, rather than education.

For example, let us look at the statement "If you car burns oil, the engine is defective".
If your car burns a quart of oil every 3000 miles, you tend to just add oil and accept that.  On the other hand, if you car uses a quart of oil every 50 miles, you rebuild the engine or buy another car. The solution is different depending on the degree of the problem.

Ford got into trouble with the Pinto, because they calculated that the design of the car could result in fatalities, but that the cost of the fix would be more than the cost of the lawsuits.  On the other hand, some people said that even one death was too much.  So if you had to design the car so that nobody ever, could get killed in the car, the price would be so high that nobody could afford it.  Neither solution is reasonable.  Ford should have spent built the car to a higher standard. and not just calculated a cost, once they were aware of an issue.

So instead of looking at a statement that it is EITHER True or False, accept that there may be cases where the statement contains a degree of truth and make decision related to the degree.

1/29/2017

How do I get through to people?

Trump expresses his great financial ability and knowledge.

He "lost" $916 million in 1995.

The money is not lost, It is not around here waiting to be found.

The crazy thing about this is that are winners and losers in this deal.

The winners are the guys who got paid.  These people may feel that they were taken care of.  Someday favors may be called in.

The losers are the people who did not get paid and will not get paid.
The losers are the people who no longer have jobs, but cannot claim their lack of income as"losses".
The losers include the government who does not get the tax income for the next years.

And remember, Trump was able to take this business deduction because people like him made donations to the politicians, who wrote the tax laws.  The average person does not have the ability to change the tax laws, so cannot deduct the excess medical bills, the damage to his house not covered by insurance, or the loss in his 401K due to manipulation of the stock market.

These deductions go to people who say, without them they would not take risks.  Except the game is rigged to prevent the risks from being risks at all.

Don't send a Thank you e-mail.

I get enough e-mails that I don't need a seperate one just to say thank you.

Include it in you next e-mail to me.

2 Years And What Has Changed

A quote from the May 2015 issue of  "Fast Company":

Stow your iPhone
"I try to hide, go dark.  It's a great ritual to unplug for three hours and delete five apps on my phone-so I can stop.  Phones are designed to be addictive."

John Maeda, Design partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers

Brain Strain

A local pastor forgets the menu at a church event he set up.  A radio DJ says Labor Day when he means Memorial Day.  A TV weather man says July instead of June.  A National News show gives the wrong winner of a NASCAR race.  Isolated incidents?  Normally I would say yes, but I wonder if something bigger is afoot.  Electronics are rewiring our brains.  Smart phones, tablets, instant messaging, e-mails, web pages, blogs (even this one?) and videos are affecting the way we think.  For example, we don't know how to spell anymore, we wait for the computer to correct our spelling.  We don't remember phone numbers, we rely on the look up in our smartphones. (Of course we have so many more to keep track of, how could we remember them all.)  We zone out to an overload of videos, rather that letting out brains relax and rebuild after a long day.  We make more mistakes, waste more time, get less sleep.

How do we fix this?  We need to step away from the electronic devices and let our brains recover.  We need to find other ways of work that help our brains, not tax them.  As I come up with more ideas I will publish them, but for now I need to go for a bike ride...

ChrisZ

Surprise, Surprise, Suprise

"Due to doping allegations at the time, SCA initially refused to pay Armstrong $5 million in bonus money that Tailwind Sports, the owner of Armstrong's U.S. Postal team, had promised him if he won a sixth Tour title in 2004. Tailwind Sports took out insurance coverage with SCA."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/07/us-usa-armstrong-lawsuit-idUSBRE91615Y20130207

Okay - let me get this right - One company waives 5 million dollars in front of someone and then is surprised that this person may have cheated to win.  Hmmmmm.

ChrisZ

Timing is everything

For some reason there is a push to reinstate the draft.  While it might be a good idea, it has missed its mark.  The time to do that was while we were in the middle of two wars in the early 2000's.  Right now, with fiscal problems and winding down the existing war, there is no money or time to train extra recruits.

One thing it would do is to spread the load of the military around and by that get more families involved.  Right now the military is almost an exclusive club, with may people not even knowing someone serving.  Out of sight, our of mind means most people do not care what is happening around the world.

My question is would the draft provide the best talent we need?  The job of the military has changed from quantity to quality and the training is more intense and costly today, would a draft provide us with better people as we tap into those who might not consider a military career?

My bottom line is if you want to put together a youth service program - great - just make sure you can pay for it.  But to re institute the draft at this time does not make any sense.

ChrisZ

Real Job Killing Policy

The real elephant in the room:

Help no longer wanted - Republican American 2/1/2013

The Republicans and Democrats can argue till they are blue in the face about whose policies are killing jobs, but the real answer is in the article - Technology.

In recent history, we have had a similar change in our society, during the Industrial Revolution, when people left farming to go work in the factories.  The problem this time is that there is no alternative for people whose jobs disappear as the new jobs are for robots!

Short term, both the Republicans and the Democrats know that increased taxes and government spending will ease the transition, but the question still is "What work will the majority of people do that creates value?"

This is the question we need to be asking - this will also be what drives government health care (even if run by private companies with will be highly regulated) or will we decide to accept 10+ unemployment as normal  and just keep paying people who cannot find work?  NOT!

Chris Z

We are wealthy

Standing on a street corner - watching cars go by, I realized we are a wealthy country.  The age, quality and condition of our cars shows that.  For the most part we have very new cars in very good condition.  The "rust buckets" and smoking junk I remember in my youth have pretty much been replaced by very efficient safe transportation.  But at what cost?  One of the reasons we are in the predicament we are in today is that most of these nice cars are on credit, borrowed against a future that is not materializing.    30 years ago, you borrowed for a new car, gambling in a sense that inflation would increase the value of your house, the wages your were paid, while making the dollars you paid to your bank cheaper.  However, with inflation at a standstill, wages frozen or dropping and house values plummeting, this system is no longer working.  My feeling is that the cars will start to fall apart, the air conditioners will stop working, cell phones sales will slow down... or maybe we are so addicted to these items that we will stop investing in the future to pay for the present.

ChrisZ

Achievement

Pros and Cons

Pro - You can be anything in life you want to be

Con - You cannot be everything in life you want to be

ChrisZ

Were's Woodward

40 years since Watergate - where are the investigative journalists?  Fast and Furious - surely someone in the press can work on finding out the truth.  Wall Street meltdown?  Why are we not flooded with stories from the inside.  Health care law - by now someone could have read it and told us what is in it.

People are lazy - why do I have to do all the work for them?

ChrisZ


PS - Here is one that is getting alot of flack: http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

Health Care Debate

I am watching a debate on health care and want to give you two things to think about.  When thinking about then remember virtually all health care is arranged through your work and private instance (like when you buy auto insurance) is virtually non-existent).

Preexisting conditions - this show compared preexisting conditions to a rickety old house vs a new house.  The proper analogy is you loose your house and the insurance company for your new employer refuses to cover you because you have high blood pressure or are overweight.  This would be like the auto insurance companies only deciding that you cannot have coverage after having an accident, whether it was your fault or not.  Having more people in the insurance pool is the purpose of spreading the risk around.

Keeping kids on insurance until they are 26.   The reason for this is not to soak insurance companies, but rather to insure a group that is not in the job place.  Right now, these people get thrown of their parents policy at 21 and unless they are able to get student insurance, often work part time or minimum wage jobs were they cannot get insurance.  Both of my children are are under 26 but have found a way to be insured, but if they were unemployed then how would they get coverage?  This is not free, the parents have to have them on a family policy and and pay extra.  Since young people have lower claims for the most part this is where insurance companies may be making more money - money that can balance out the older population.

So think twice when you here people talking about health care reform and how some of these changes are detrimental the people they are trying to help.

BTW: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/business/14health.html?_r=1

ChrisZ