Obamacare Insurance Debacle'

Having been buried in academia since the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference in Santa Fe 2013, I surfaced from the sea of anthropological data and constructing my Timeline to look around at the political scene. 

The ‘Obamacare Insurance Debacle’ amounts to a raid on the available cash of the middle class economic brackets and the growth of the power of the insurance companies that will surpasse the Federal government that enabled it.  The all bets are off freeforall that is occurring is not benefitting the consumer because of the ‘mandate’ to buy.  Insurance is once again confused with health care.  Huge deductibles and copays prevent people from obtaining actual health care while they are ‘insured’, which looks good on paper but is actually twaddle.  

Now the IRS is forcing more revenue out of people, having obtained the power to tax the ‘uninsured’ and I do believe that this amount is scheduled to increase.  The Supreme Court ruled the Obamacare tax fine to be a tax.  Is there a guarantee that this tax will be spent on healthcare or is the $ up for grabs by powerful politicians? So the Democrats rammed through a massive tax increase and screwed up the health insurance setups and took away our rights to choose.  The rich got richer and the poor are now poorer thanks to the Democrats.  I think it’s time for a change to Republican leadership who would restore our right to choose whether to buy any insurance or not, conforming to free market principles that would bring the price down.  It’s un-American to be forced to buy something from anyone, private enterprise or the government.  The exorbitant price gouging on the part of the insurance companies would definitely cease. 

As for the chronically ill, they should expect to pay more for insurance because they use the service more.  Payment schedules can be worked out which are fair, without putting undue burden on the healthy.  Insurance should be available to them, but they should have to pay for it.  The same goes for drug addicts.  Why should non drug abusers be forced to pay for coverage of drug addiction?  We have lost our ability to pick and choose what plan is right for us.   Pregnancy coverage should be available for those women in breeding mode but why should the rest of us pay for it if we don’t want the coverage?  Pregnancy prevention should be cheap and available and not subject to religious rants about the evils of birth control.  Job creation is not even keeping up with population growth and it seems a good economic move to slow the population growth. 

It appears that the heavily subsidized are the few that are signing up for Obamacare.   I heard an intelligent man on TV saying that the existing Medicaid could have been expanded to cover these people with far less expense and manipulation of tax money.  Or how about sending funds directly to the institutions that treat these indigent people and skip all those insurance middlemen and bureaucrats?

Obamacare is not about health care:  Obamacare is about a huge money grab, a loss of rights for the individual and higher taxes for the middle class.

 

 

Syria and the Putin Connection

Syria and the Putin Connection

The dictator of Syria has a grassroots challenge to his authority and income.  He responds with death to anyone who supports the opposition.  War between the two sides ensues.  The dictator of Syria is losing control of areas important to his authority and income and so he responds with poison gas. 

President Obama has said that the use of ‘chemical weapons’ is a red line in the sand, which is a colloquialism for “a point beyond which such behavior will not be tolerated”.  The UN team determined that sarin gas had been used on the victims and the dictator of Syria is the one who had the means to deliver the canisters to the target. 

Even before the UN team investigated, Sen. McCain was calling for the bombing of Syria, with Sen. L. Graham on a leash behind him yapping for the same thing.  The press picked the ‘red line in the sand’ story to headline the news for weeks now, calling for bombing Syria and some of the most vociferous are calling for bombing of Iran, Hezbollah, and anybody else living and breathing over there.  

A press harried President Obama calls for bombing Syria, then asks for congressional support for his position, which was a wise move that averted the new war McCain and so many members of the press were slavering for.  I saw commentators who probably get out of breath walking to their cars ranting for our best young men and women to be sent to another war.  President Obama is criticized by the press for asking for congressional approval for military action in Syria, many of the same press who criticized President Bush for doing just that.  So many of the press are war mongering about Syria, I wonder why past massacres of people in Africa received no press attention….

So warships converge on the Eastern Mediterranean and other areas, all in anticipation of a showdown over bombing Syria, a crisis manufactured by President Obama and the press manipulating national policy.  Fortunately, President Putin of Russia has the common sense to defuse all this war talk and to work towards a diplomatic solution to the enforcement of a ban of chemical weapons.  As a trading partner with Syria, President Putin has leverage over what power the dictator of Syria actually has over the future of his nation.  Assad is free to make his own decisions and any member of the press who reports that Assad is Putin’s boy is lying.   Assad is totally responsible for his own decisions, including the use of poison gas.  I suspect that President Putin does not want the use of poison gas anywhere in the world, including Syria as a means to prop up a failing regime.  I applaud Vladimir Putin’s common sense in defusing this phony crisis. 

President Obama is shown to be inexperienced for creating crisis situations with loose comments and threats.  Yes, threats!  Drawing a red line in the sand is an offer to fight, just like on the playground where one kid draws a line in the dirt and dares another kid to cross it.  He is also foolish to respond so much to goadings from the press and he allocates too much power to the war mongering press.  Certainly, the images of gassed people were horrible, but the response to the atrocities should not be more death of innocents, inevitable if Syria is bombed.  A diplomatic response is preferable, and I hope that President Putin’s offer to mediate is successful.  Too many people have died. 

The sector of the war mongering press has been forced to publish surveys of the American people, who do not want a war solution to the violation of the chemical weapons ban by the Syrian government.  Congress is suddenly aware that the majority of their constituency does not want more military involvement in the Middle East.  The time for peace is nigh. 

Corruption in Public Life

Corruption is an issue.  By corruption, I mean the subversion of the goals of Democracy  and Republicanism to preserve the freedoms and not inhibit the economy, without allowing the capitalists to damage the world in a blind pursuit of profit at any cost.  The mission is perpetuation and sustainability of our economy and thus our way of life, while assisting those in need.  This mission is the primary mission and the long term planning required is ongoing and intense.   So far as we can plan without the intervention of unforeseen events.....

The necessity of flexibility is seen as a survival tactic in politics and biology due to the unpredictable sequences of events that do appear, given the  histories of the worlds.  For a political system to be so encumbered with debt that flexibility in response to changing conditions is limited the system will eventually dissolve as it struggles with reality.  It's like the wave of revolutions that swept across the nations the past few years.  The finding of the future successful path is difficult, as some seek it through religion and others seek it through politics and economics.  A unified approach based on the secular Golden Rule would be enough to bring peace, but some of the world persists in the dark behavior that appeared after the great flood as the prior civilizations disappeared, leaving tattered bands of desperate humans to rebuild civilization.  The great religions of today appeared during these times, all proving to be a successful method of survival, all passionately defended by their believers.  Judging from the number of wars occurring today, the survival value of such behavior is questionable. 

My issue today is corruption, which brought down the Roman Empire and the Greeks who would kill Socrates, and other nations corrupted by prejudice and greed like Hitler's Germany, and some of the other bloody dictators of the 20th century.  The weakness of the Romanovs, the ravages of Stalin, the senseless wars over property and water rights.  Corruption caused the downfall of many and the deaths of many. 

Right now a huge issue is the IRS scandal, where they were targeting non-profit political adversaries of the administration, even narrowing it down to those without lawyers in order to shut them down.  This is damaging to the credibility of the government, particularly at a time when the IRS is planned to be used to collect for Obama Care, which is certainly a new tax on the populace.  So now taxes are political?  The health care charges will be administered politically?  That's like the local supervisor getting tax break on her property, one not available to others.  This is serious corruption.  This is      

I mentioned prior civilizations that were destroyed.  Evidence is mounting that about 11,650 BP, a comet or asteroid hit the Earth, which caused a tsunami that caused a permanent sea level rise as the ice age was ending, which was about the time of the disappearance of Atlantis, according to Plato.  A comet hit the Earth around 6,000 BP and the island of Thera exploded about 4000 BP, all of which were devastating to the world. 

The world has changed.  The sea levels have been rising for 18,000 years and have suddenly risen more in the last few decades, a phenomena labeled global warming.  Whether this acceleration in polar ice cap melting is human caused or not is a topic of discussion with little action taken either way.  I guess we will learn if this is non adaptive behavior or not.  The configuration of land was vastly different 18,000 years ago, with shallow equatorial seas extending across the oceans, forming land bridges and island chains in places that are now submerged under 450 feet of ocean water.  Millions of acres of land was once habitable but is now submerged like Krishna's city and Atlantis and Yonaguchi.  Those civilizations had 35,000 years in which to develop.  Are we going to last that long? 

I recently read a book, Uriel's Machine, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, an impressive 466 pages long and indexed.  Uriel's Machine posits the idea that the early writings in our current civilizations were an attempt by survivors of the flood to educate the people in the celestial arts in order to perpetuate the knowledge necessary for successful agriculture.  The megalithic culture of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa built observatories like Stonehenge at strategic points, all evidence of an earlier, high civilization that existed before the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago.  This is an interesting theory that is backed up by interpretations of ancient documents and scientific evidence.  Other interpretations are possible, but I lean towards reading ancient writings as fact embellished by the telling.  The Megalithic Culture HAD to be of long term duration, if the celestial knowledge demonstrated by the  observatories were of human origin. 

Other writers think the pyramids at Giza are far older than previously thought and that they demonstrate a technical use rather than a religious use.  Perhaps during the last warm period 60,000 years ago, a civilization developed as is ours in the temperate zones, but died out as glaciers covered the land and obliterated most of the remains some 25,000 years ago.   Is monumental architecture featuring huge blocks of precisely cut stone standing on Holocene sands?

What does this have to do with corruption in public life?  The Holocene Civilization endured until natural disasters overcame it, submerging it beneath the seas all over the world, and leaving little trace in the 'temperate' areas of the world.  Maybe Krishna fled to the Andes bringing his harem of mtdna haplotype B with him or the distribution pattern of haplotype B indicates it could have spread from the Andes to Asia.  Evidence at Tiahuanaco and Puma Punku and other Andean sites indicates a prior civilization to the Incas and others now living there.  Whatever it was that took them out, it probably was not something they had control over. 

The Judeo Christian Bible blames sin on the deluge and the destruction of civilization to be rebuilt by the chosen ones but the real reason for the deluge was a strike from outer space.  Now the Megalithic builders knew how to sight in something approaching the Earth on a collision course and the Book of Enoch described a comet or meteorite hit that rained burning rocks down on everybody and made the sea crazy and killed many.  Again, they had no control over it even though they could see it coming. 

Now if we can get by all the corruption and declare the Golden Rule the law of the land and stop killing each other in the name of religion, maybe we can begin to take care of our planet.  All nations should allot money and personnel to set up an early warning system to detect asteroids and comets on a collision course with Earth.  Set up a means to deflect or destroy threatening astral bodies headed our way.  The issue of corruption in public life remains, as the mission of governments should be perpetuation and sustainability of the economies, while assisting those in need.  At this time, the whole world is in need of protection from preventable natural disasters like asteroid and comet strikes and if corruption gets in the way of achieving these goals, then it's time for a change.     

 

The secular Golden Rule:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

 

Responsible Capitalism II

                                    Partial Solar Eclipse      Arizona

All governments do make work projects.  In ancient times, the use of surpluses created more population, which then must be employed creating, building, inventing, philosophizing....  What are our current make work projects?  I view a good make work project as one that has a chance to create something new, like the USA government funded research into computer technology after World War II, which with the help of world scientists has developed into our electronic communications and data storage and manipulation systems.  Wow!  What a return! 

Our government has built dams, bridges and highways, that benefitted agriculture and the growth of cities, a real boon for people and was money well spent that generated tax income and provided a living for people.  This was money well spent in the past but much of this infrastructure needs to be maintained, rather than expanded.  We need new make work projects. 

I see now that money could be used for military purposes in outer space.  We need a world militia out there, not a continuation of the hassling on Earth.  Why can't the world's military organizations contribute manpower and money to create an early warning system for asteroids and other dangers out there?  This early warning service cannot be religiousized or politicized or controlled by any other desire excepting that of to save the planet from another cataclysmic hit.  WE NEED TO COOPERATE.   

We need a world militia in outer space.  We need to establish world military outposts in orbit around Earth and on the Moon and on Mars.  Perhaps sensors could be located in orbit around Venus and in strategic places around the sun.  We are more naive than Aztecs waving hi to Cortez as he landed.  We need to protect ourselves. 

Maybe a lack of cooperation among groups will force a stronger economy to shoulder the burden of creating an early warning system, but a lack of total world cooperation will create problems for this project.  Sectarianism could cause failure of an important survival oriented initiative.  Can we quit fighting long enough to save our world?   

To counteract abuses of tax money spending, it is necessary to make sure that the voters retain the right to OK any debt incurrence, which would outlaw 'certificates of participation' that are nothing less than debt.  Gradually, the right of the voters to retain control over government indebtedness has been leached away here in Arizona, where debt remains supreme.  I think more debt has to meet some stringent criteria that would include solvency as number one.  Voting to 'raise the debt limit' on a Federal level is disgusting and a violation of the constitution.  The purpose of legislation is not to skip ahead of the law in a quasi legal runup of debt.  If the voter loses control of government debt, tyranny follows.   

Here in Arizona we have gigantic storm drains in a tiny town that has rain maybe every five years if at all.  The government sponsored union contract cost taxpayers $35 million on a dead end project that is not functional and that generates no income, but did give union construction jobs for a few months.  We cannot afford this kind of spending.  Here in Tucson, city politicians orchestrated the squandering of $230 million in tax money on expensive trips, architectural plans that were never built, and extended site preparation where nothing stands today.  This $230 million was supposed to fund projects that would attract people to the old town area.  Instead, a few self appointed elites skimmed off the money and now are raising parking rates downtown to raise more money. 

This is irresponsible government and certainly irresponsible capitalism, where the government forces taxes from the citizens and then squanders the money instead of returning it to the people in civic improvements.  It doesn't amuse me that big shots took free trips to Italy on taxpayer expense.  Now it's time to move on, they say.  Just forget we stole and got away with $230 million for them and their friends.  This is irresponsible because it causes a distrust of government and wastes precious resources.

To avoid decadence, we must maintain the infrastructure.  Tearing out good infrastructure to put in new is a waste of resources and that union tactic must be avoided.  Something that is hopelessly obsolete must be replaced.  Building more roads is counterproductive when you have enough.  It's time for the USA to recognize the limits to roadbuilding, as the Europeans have ages ago.   

As a nation and as a world we need to quit squandering our resources and focus on what is important.  On 31 May 2013 at 3pm where I live, a massive asteroid with a moon orbiting it passed by the Earth about 15 million kilometers away.  Today 1 June 2013 we are in the midst of a shockwave described on spaceweather.com

 "A G2-class (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm is in progress following the arrival of an interplanetary shock wave on May 31st. The source of the shock is not known; it might have been a minor CME that left the sun without drawing attention to itself."   

I've been following this asteroid which was first described as much smaller and on 30 May 2013 it was discovered to be twice as large and also had a 600 meter moon orbiting it.  This tells me that our detection systems are primitive and that research and development must be deployed to improve our detection systems.  We NEED to set up a defense system to prevent something like that asteroid from hitting the Earth again.  I think this asteroid set off that shock wave and the geomagnetic storm in progress.  It's obviously a traveling magnet.

 

We know so little.  We are like mice crossing the Interstate Highway and we don't even know how to watch for vehicles.