Experience as a guide

It is said that any successful CEO can move to a new line of endeavor completely foreign to his experience and, after learning the details of the new line of activity, do well at it. This seems to be true in some cases but not in others.

Fourteen US Vice-Presidents have become president. Of these, several are considered outstanding--Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson--and the rest are considered to have been more or less average. Thus being vice-president, as the office has been operated up to modern times, has not led automatically to a better presidency. Forty-two different men served as president and twenty-eight of these had no direct experience of the office (were not vice-presidents) until they were inaugurated. The twenty-eight men who had no direct presidential experience did just as well or better on average than the fourteen who served as VPs.

These observations apply directly to the present situation in the Democratic primary race. Hillary claims that her governmental experience will allow her to be a more effective president than Barack Obama. But the historical record as shown by the success of presidents with vice-presidential experience does not bear out this argument. Both are likely to be as successful or unsuccessful as their talents, politics, and chance dictate. The success of either will not be based primarily on their prior governmental experience but on themselves and on factors largely beyond their control.

Believing that Hillary will be a better president than Obama based on her governmental experience is wishful thinking.

Nader and 2008

John McCain and Barack Obama have both endorsed Instant Run Off voting. In this voting scheme you vote for your favorite to win the election and also for your second and third or more choices. If your first choice doesn’t win, this candidate is dropped from contention and your second choice is added to the vote count. This process continues until a winner is found.

Many people agree with Nader’s analysis of the present state of the US political and corporate climate. But we will not vote for Nader because of the danger that wasted votes might elect a Republican. Nader’s belief that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans is clearly and bull-headedly wrong. The Democrats may be not much better than the Republicans but that’s what elections are all about. You try to elect the best candidate, because there are no perfect candidates.

Nader apparently has not come our for IRV but it would be to his advantage to do so, since his supporters could vote for him without fear of ruining the basic election. Whether Nader comes out for it or not, NY State (and other states) should implement the scheme as fast as possible. Maybe some of it can be done in time for the 2008 election.

Health Care 01; Those with no insurance

One way to improve the health of those with no insurance is to set up a special health group. The health group would function something like the microfinance system that's been so successful around the world. Anybody could apply to the Group for financial aid for any health problem, preexisting or new.

If the applicant had no insurance and no significant resources, he would be allocated enough money to begin medical treatment. Payment would be made by the Group to either a doctor, a medical group, hospital, or directly to the applicant if he needed to buy prescriptions or have similar expenses.

If the applicant had inadequate insurance to cover his problem, he would be provided with the additional amount of money needed for his treatment. People with adequate insurance (as determined by the medical treating group) would not be eligible for help from the group.

Any financial help extended to any applicant would be recorded but the applicant would not be required to make any payment, immediately or in the future.

If the applicant regains health and begins to make money, the possibility of repayment arises. If the applicant makes enough to pay income taxes, one of the best ways for such payments to be made would be for the IRS to grant special treatment to those who receive aid from the group. Suppose the applicant had an IRS bill of $500, and suppose he owed $1000 to the Group. Provide that in such a case the IRS would rebate 10% of his IRS bill to the health group. Thus $50 of his IRS tax would go to the health group and $450 to the IRS. The applicant would also be free but not required to make payment to the Health group at any time.

Over time, the Health Group would receive money from donations, from repayments by recipients and by payments from the IRS. The initial funding would come from initial donations.

How much would be needed to set up such a system? Assume a community in which 10,000 people have essentially no health insurance and little resources if a medical problem arises. Assume that an average payment of $1000 per eligible applicant is made. This would be a total advance of $10 million by the Group. In any American community having 10,000 medically insolvent people you are likely to find a number of multimillionaires, and possibly a billionaire or two. A fund drive of the right sort should be able to raise adequate funds fairly easily.

What else is required? Somebody to lead and champion the project.

Comment on a book: “America Alone” by Mark Steyn

There are a lot of moderate Muslims but Islam, the Muslim religion, is not moderate. Mr. Steyn cites the case of Iman Abdul Raoulf, a member of the the Afghan Ulama Council, and said to be one of Afghanistan’s leading moderate clerics. Iman Raoulf said this about Abdul Rahman, who was on trial for his life for the crime of converting from Islam to Christianity: “We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die. Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into pieces.” Rahman’s life was saved, but only through international pressure applied to Afghanistan.

The US now has many mosques since Islam is growing here as well as in most of the rest of the world. Souleiman Ghalli founded a mosque in San Francisco based on “the emergence of an American Muslim identity based on compassion, respect, dignity, and love.” Then one of the imans hired by the mosque, Safwat Morsy, urged California Muslims to follow the example of Palistinian suicide bombers. When Safwat Morsy was fired for these hateful preachings that went against the spirit of the mosque, he responded by suing the mosque for wrongful dismissal and was awarded $400,000. Further, Safwat Morsy was popular at the mosque (this is someone who advocates suicide bombings), and his group forced Mr. Ghali off the board of the mosque and out of any further role in its operation. That’s what happened at one moderate mosque.
Mark Steyn says the “moderate Muslim” is not entirely fictional. But it would be more accurate to call them quiescent Muslims, analagous to the moderate Germans of the 1930s, who were also quiescent until Hitler needed them for his war effort. And if 99% of Muslims turn out to be quiescent, that still leaves 1% of over a billion Muslims, or something like ten million who are prepared to be martyrs.

Global Warming and the Ten Year Window

Recent consensus in the scientific community about global warming is that the world has about a 10 year window of opportunity to prevent a catastrophe. But doing something effective is going to take political will, political leadership, and money--lots of it. What it comes down to is that all the rich countries of the world are going to have to raise taxes to get enough money to get the job done. The carbon-based economy of the world has to be replaced by renewable energy sources such as safe nuclear (possibly based on pebble technology) power plants.

But the next presidential election is going to see the Republican candidate pledging “No new taxes”, and the Democratic candidate chiming right in. (What--raise taxes and save the world but lose the election? No way!) Maybe this could be prevented by demanding that all candidates--Republicans, Democrats, and others--sign a pledge that they will not rule out new taxes that are designed to fight global warming.

It should be possible to get a few candidates to make such a pledge, just to get the ball rolling. If nothing else, get some total outsider to make such a pledge. Those that pledge can then accuse those who won’t make such a pledge as hypocrites at best, not to mention cowardly and incompetent to be a national leader.

IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Everybody--including Russia and China--apparently believes that nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands is a bad idea. Iran with nuclear weapons would destabilize the region, lead to more countries going nuclear, possibly serve as a source of supply to terrorists, and could lead to a nuclear exchange or two. But Iran continues to build centrifuges, which turn out the stuff that nuclear weapons are made of. So how can Iran’s nuclear project to build bombs be halted?

First, the UN must make it clear, if it has not done so already, that Iran must not--is forbidden--to build nuclear weapons. The resolution must be clear and must be agreed to by all the nuclear powers, including Russia and China. With the resolution in place, the International Atomic Energy Agency should demand that Iran open its nuclear facilities to completely unhindered inspections. Assume that Iran lets the inspectors in and they find that Iran clearly has a bomb making program. In this case International Atomic Energy Agency should be given the power to halt and then dismantle the program. The centrifuges would be removed from Iran or destroyed on the spot.

If Iran balks at the inspections, this can be considered clear and convincing evidence that Iran is probably in violation of the UN mandate against building nuclear weapons.

The next step should be “Inspection By Force”. In other words, the International Atomic Energy Agency has the right to enter Iran and inspect its nuclear facilities without Iran’s permission. Sovereignty in this situation, as in war, has no validity.

“Inspection By Force” means that a small armored force would drive up to Iran’s border and announce its purpose of inspecting Iran’s nuclear program by authority of the UN resolution. If Iran refuses to admit the inspection force, the force should attempt to enter anyway, up to the point of an exchange of gunfire. Assuming the force consists of armored vehicles, and no large weapons are brought to bear, no bloodshed should occur. If gunfire starts, the force should halt and attempt to hold whatever position it has attained. If it appears that annihilation may occur, the force should return to Iran’s border and remain there.

Psychological and diplomatic means should also be used. First, all the nuclear nations should agree on a “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons”. Iran should be induced to pledge something similar, such as, “In the even that Iran develops nuclear weapons in the future, it agrees to the No First Use pledge”.

Then a second agreement should be signed by all the nuclear powers to the effect that all of them will retaliate against any country that uses a nuclear weapon, regardless of whether it has agreed to the No First Use pledge or not.

The two agreements would effectively lead to the trivialization of all nuclear weapons, including those of the US and Russia. In actuality, nuclear weapons have not been usable since the end of WWII. The use of nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945 showed the whole world what these weapons can do. No country has dared to use one since that time, leaving terrorists as the only likely users. In a sense, the world is lucky to have the examples of the Japan nuclear bombings to look back on. If these examples did not exist, would the US and Russia have been as cautious as they actually were during the Cuban missile crisis? Would some other crisis have lead to a nuclear exchange? The human race does not seem able to learn really important things by applying logic and common sense. We seem to need a horrible example to drive home the point. We’ve had two applications of nuclear bombs . We don’t need another one.

Microwave tests of food?

Recent reports on the internet have claimed that food cooked in microwave ovens is being altered in the process of cooking. The only research in this area seems to have been that of Swiss investigators Hertel and Blanc, who published their work in the early 90s and were then theoretically gagged by Swiss authorities. Meanwhile, it is reported that the Russians ban all microwaved food.

Nevertheless, people in the US have been using microwave ovens to cook and heat food for many years, and there appears to have been no significant bad effect that has been brought to public notice.

It would be interesting to see the results of a few scientific tests. A few ordinary foods like sugar and salt (separately and then together) could be microwaved and then tested to see if any new chemicals have been created, or existing chemicals destroyed or modified. Further tests could be done on more complex food components, such as starches and alcohol, and then on actual foods. A few tests if this type would go a long way toward setting the facts straight. The biotech labs of many companies and colleges could probably do the tests with little advance preparation.

Does anyone know of any real research in this area? If no tests have been done, the following types of tests should be performed.

To test the effect(s) of microwave cooking on food you need a microwave oven and a spectrum analyzer, assuming the spectrum analyzer can detect any changes that occur in the food. The test sequence would be approximately as follows:

Test 1:

Step 1. Get some very clean water and boil it on a stove to volatize any gases dissolved in it. Then get its spectrum to see what impurities it has, if any.

Step 2. Let the water cool to room temperature and then microwave the water to the boiling point and boil for about a minute.

Step 3. Let the water cool and do another spectrum test.

Step 4. Compare the spectrums of before and after the microwaving. If the microwaving did not affect the water, the two spectrums should be the same, assuming impurities have not been affected.

Test 2:

Add some sugar to some water from step one and let it dissolve. Then repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 of the water plus sugar.

Test 3:

Add both salt and sugar to some water from step one and let them dissolve. Then repeat steps 2, 3, and 4.

Further tests:

Other tests can be done in the same manner using other basic food components such as starches and fats and then actual foods such as milk, meat, etc. Food tests would be more complicated because you would now have to compare meat cooked in the microwave oven to meat cooked in a regular oven.

The tests on simple foods could be done in any biotech lab with a microwave oven and a spectrum analyzer. This might be a good project for some biology grad students.