Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The Big Brother Inspection Kerfuffle

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My parents helped me buy my first car but that was entirely self-preservation on my mom’s part. See, I had had a Triumph motorcycle. She was driving behind me as we returned from the shop when an oncoming car cut a little into my lane as I drifted a little toward the centerline and just tapped my foot peg a little.

BAM.

It didn’t break my foot. I didn’t drop the bike. It did bend the footrest. And, of course, it proved I was invincible. And immortal. To everyone but my mom.

The long and the short of this story is that not much time passed before I was in a Triumph with four wheels instead of on a Triumph with two.

How Our Car Looks Before InspectionThat first car was a sad, 8-year old Triumph TR-3A with side curtains and a cast iron 1991 cc four-cylinder tractor engine that allegedly produced 100 horsepower, and standard disc brakes. Although it had just 50,000 miles, it was a tired, little car. My dad and I built new side curtains for it using Chuck Weiler’s miracle Hypalon™ fabric. The Standard-Triumph Motor Company sold only 74,800 TR3s in all its flavors. Only some 9,500 of the original 58,000 3As built survive today so I really wish I still had that little car.

But it probably wouldn’t pass inspection in Vermont today.

Speaking of passing, SWMBO got out of state last fall before her “sticker” came due, saving us that $40. It was well and truly expired when she got back, though.

Vermont’s new “Automated Vehicle Inspection Program” (AVIP) has “integrated electronic data collection and management into” the state’s inspection process. Inspection regulations have not changed but drivers may notice fewer inspection garages. And higher prices.

Ya think?

Vermont inspections typically cost between $35 and $50 last year, up from $20-25 a few years ago when the state last forced mechanics to buy new gear, first one OBD-II reader, then another.

Gerald, the neighboring mechanic, gave up the business this year.

“It was too expensive and too intrusive,” he said.

AOL Commissioner Robert Ide expected some of the smaller stations like Gerald’s would throw in the towel.

How Our Car Looks After Inspection“Some” mechanics will need to offset the $1,500-2,000 cost of new equipment, including a tablet computer with a camera to photograph your license plate, VIN plate, underbelly, and any repair that needs to be made, that uploads all that vehicle data to the state. The system will also make the inspection take longer to perform. Mechanics have to charge by the hour.

“I wonder if the data collected includes the onboard GPS readout,” my friend Dean “Dino” Russell mused. Dino is a roofer here in the middle Keys. Dancing about on roofs all his life has made him the most physically fit man in the Home Depot; it also gives him an overview of the conspiracies of everyday life.

“No, it doesn’t,” Mr. Ide said.

Motorists will be able to access their own vehicle’s inspection history and the history of other vehicles, identified by the Vehicle Identification Number. Only vehicle information relative to safety and emissions inspections will be made available.

“Uh oh,” said Dino.

Vermont contracted Parsons Corp., a huge engineering services firm out in Pasadena, to provide the equipment, networking, maintenance and support, and a technical support hotline for Vermont mechanics. Parsons is the sole suppler for ruggedized tablets and auxiliary stuff like printers. The inspection stations are required to pay $1,624 for each tablet, additional for other hardware, plus a small fixed fee for each inspection. How much the entire contract costs the state was not immediately available.

“Yeah, sure. Competitive bids with a governmental RFQ, so they know they will pay too much,” Dino said. “And there is a ‘street price’ so the bids will all be close enough to choose the ‘right’ vendor.”

The average age of the cars and trucks we drive has risen once again, now to now 11.6 years, as we keep them longer and longer. My (topless)(white) car is 17-years old. SWMBO’s “new” car celebrated its tenth birthday last fall. Registrations for light vehicles in operation in the U.S. hit a record 264 million.

“I wonder if the state is just flush and wants to share with a favorite business, kind of like the Exchange debacle, or if there’s a bigger motive,” Dino wondered.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Like a back door ‘clunker’ program.”

G. Stone Motors does say the new Inspection program “will eliminate older vehicles.”

The cars and trucks we drive are better made than my Triumph was. Back then, that 8-year old car with was 50,000 miles was down to its last owner before getting recycled into washing machines. Last year, I sold my now-17-year old white truck to a neighbor when it had almost three times that mileage. Some rust. Runs good. He drives it to Daytona every other weekend. Pulling a trailer.

Nobody’s talking about how to inspect that TR-3A but I did learn that “the manufacturer or distributor of each device or lens designed to control lights on motor vehicles shall apply to the commissioner for his approval of the use of such device or lens in” Vermont. I doubt anyone has done that for a now-70-year-old British sports car.

SWMBO’s now-10-year-old American sedan passed.

$65.

For the record, Florida has no vehicle inspection. A fellow I know in Big Pine drives a 1910 Oakland Model 25 every day. There must be a lesson in there somewhere.

 

we’ve really stepped in it this time

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“Deja vu all over again.”

We all noted, back in 2009, that we’d really stepped in it this time.

Pundits have said that the new Administration’s need to stack accomplishments during the first 100 days is the reason for the rush to pass a health care bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Nicky Shaw and I talked about the two big issues in Washington before the 115th Congress left for their 97th vacation so far this year. “This Congress has been very busy,” she said.

Yeppers. They codified the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, passed a GAO access act, disapproved of an SEC rule, authorized the National Science Foundation to support entrepreneurial programs for women (I guess women weren’t allowed to be NSF entrepreneurs before that?), and passed a joint resolution to appoint a citizen regent for the Smithsonian Institution.

Oh, yeah. And they repealed ObamaDon’tCare and are about to cut the corporate tax rate.

“I’m all for dumping the Unaffordable Care Act,” Ms. Shaw said. “I know it’s politicspeak to say this, but it is unsustainable.”

We’ve covered that taxpayer-financed insurance bailout for seven years. She’s right. And that pullquote up there about the rush to pass? That’s from 2009.

I’m also all for dropping the corporate tax rate (I’m all for any drop in tax rates) particularly since corporate earnings are double taxed, once when earned and again by the shareholders when received as dividends (corporations may not legally deduct their dividend payments). Here’s some background on business taxes

In 2014 the United States had the third highest general top marginal corporate income tax rate in the world at 39.1% (consisting of the 35% federal rate plus a combined state rate), exceeded only by Chad and the United Arab Emirates. Shareholders of most corporations are not taxed directly on corporate income, but must pay tax on dividends paid by the corporation. However, shareholders of S corporations and mutual funds are taxed currently on corporate income, and do not pay tax on dividends.

Despite what the tax-and-spend crowd tells you, it’s not the just the Kochs and the Soroses who get those dividends; retired geezers and all the still-working-soon-to-be geezers get the dividends on more than $25 trillion in retirement funds alone. “Trillion” with a “T.”

Hmm, if corporations are people (viz. Citizens United) then they are taxed without representation. I’m thinking corporate income tax is unconstitutional if they are taxed without representation and we shareholders should revolt. And, bonus, we can blame the Democrats for the income tax! See, the Democrats first called for income taxes back when the whole idea of it was still unconstitutional.

During the two decades following the expiration of the Civil War income tax, the Greenback movement, the Labor Reform Party, the Populist Party, the Democratic Party and many others called for a graduated income tax. The Socialist Labor Party advocated a graduated income tax in 1887. The Populist Party “demand[ed] a graduated income tax” in its 1892 platform. The Democratic Party, led by William Jennings Bryan, advocated the income tax law passed in 1894, and proposed an income tax in its 1908 platform.
In 1894, Democrats in Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff, which imposed the first peacetime income tax. In 1895 the United States Supreme Court, in its ruling in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., held a tax based on receipts from the use of property to be unconstitutional.

Do ya feel as if we’ve been here before?

Do ya remember electing a President who promised “change”?

Same Old Stuff, Different Day
No matter how you dress up the typeface, the “UnAmerican Health Care Act” is just the “Unaffordable Care Act” in a new TV costume. No health care reform there. No matter how you dress up the characters, the “Tax Cut” is just the 4,037 or 70,000 page tax code in a new TV costume. No tax reform there.

And the only actor who has changed in this play is the guy at the top.

Passing a health care bill in the first 100 days. Why was it critical in 2009 and critical in 2017? Back then I thought even Congress would rebel if they actually read the bills. Turns out that was wrong this year, too.

Passing a tax cut in the first months. I had hopes for tax reform. This year, it looks like that was wrong, too.

“Maybe We the People should revolt instead,” Ms. Shaw said.

And there you have it. Since corporations are people and they buy their representation, that means We the Overtaxed People are no longer represented and that’s the hook to use.

 

The Science Isn’t Wrong

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But it ain’t right, either. Mayday! Mayday!

“The science is fixed,” Science Friday host Ira Flatow keeps selling^H telling us.

In the “Robot Sadism” episode of Science Friday, associate producer Christie Taylor went to JPL to find out how to build a wheel that lasts.

In 2013, rover operators had noticed a gaping hole in Curiosity’s left front wheel as it moved across the Mars landscape. After some investigation, they realized “it wasn’t just one little mishap that caused a puncture or one particularly awful rock,” said engineer Patrick DeGrosse. “It was just the first symptom.”

Mr. DeGrosse is a member of the Tiger Team that tests copies of Curiosity’s wheels here on Earth.

Size of a Football Field on EarthIn the Mars Yard, a not-even-football field-sized test track in Pasadena, a test rover demonstrated whether the wheels slip or get bogged down or can climb a rock. (Do click the pic to see.) “Physics equations can’t tell you any of that,” Ms. Taylor said about the myriad of tiny interactions with the surface of Mars.

“You don’t sit down at your computer and draw up the complexity of sand grains and rocks and what all those friction coefficients are and how they tumble over each other when a wheel hits them. We’re just not at that stage yet,” Mr. DeGrosse said.

We’re not?

And yet, the science is fixed! We can map the earth and the GPS in our car will always direct us to the next location!

The science is fixed! We can cure the common cold!

The science is fixed! The sun’s corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface and we don’t yet know why.

The science is fixed! 70-95% or humans are right-handed but we still cannot describe why we use one hand instead of the other.

The science is fixed! The planet Saturn has a massive, continuous hurricane up near the pole. Earth’s hurricanes are powered by warm ocean and wind down as they hit land or cold water. Saturn has no oceans and is really cold. Huh.

The science isn’t wrong. But the political and lay interpreters ain’t right, either.

And that’s the lesson for today.

 

Doctoring the New Millennium

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“Hi, Laura, what are my choices?” I asked.

This is my personal health care story. Sadly, there is scant pathos, little conflict, and no resolution.

Although I moved to South Puffin more than a decade ago, I have maintained my medical ties to North Puffin and even to Canada because it takes a lot of effort to break in a new doctor.

I’m an engineer, so I usually know a lot more (and can hash out even more) than a doc figures on. I’m also very much a minimalist, meaning I will opt in for a procedure only if it fits my own idea of “value added,” not if it is merely “doctor’s orders.”

All that does not make me the best patient.

Anyway, we met “Dr. Bob” when we first moved to North Puffin. We were a young family then and he was about our age. We’ve all kind of grown up together. His kids and ours knew each other in school. SWMBO married his daughter. Mrs. Dr. Bob and I have done some artsy stuff. Dr. Bob acts in the hospital’s bi-annual Cardiac Capers. And, with the exception of the time I cleaved my finger with the chainsaw and the other time SWMBO broke her leg, Dr. Bob has treated pretty much everything that ailed us. He understand what it takes to treat me. He gets it.

Primary care is an onging conversation, not a brisk look at a chart and tap on the knee.

The connection is even deeper. Just before we bought our house, we were driving around, seriously lost, in North Puffin. We stopped to ask directions of an older gent walking along the road and told him we were house hunting. Mr. Smith told us where we were. He told us a bit about the area. He told us he had lived there all his life so far. He was 96. He didn’t tell us that his lovely, brick, farmhouse with barn was for sale.

First, check the insurance.
Then, do no harm.

A couple of months later, we bought a different lovely, brick, farmhouse with barn on the lake and a fellow I worked with bought Mr. Smith’s home. Then he sold the Smith house to Dr. Bob and Mrs. Dr. Bob.

Getting back to health care, Dr. Bob is a couple of years older than I and he has retired. Ah hah! I thought. I can transfer my primary care (what we used to call the G.P.) down here.

Side story. Dr. Bob told me my increasing snifflinesss [<==technical medical term] is an allergy and I should find a specialist. I talked to a nurse at a sprawling medical practice in Vermont about an hour from North Puffin. I’m looking for someone to do allergy testing and they have three. The nurse told me two of the docs there are Peds only. The third allergist there as well as the one doc in Puffin Center don’t have the greatest reps. In fact, Dr. Bob won’t send patients to the one allergist in Puffin Center.
I asked a friend if she knows anything about an allergist in South Puffin or even the one in Key West who also has offices in Palmetto Bay and South Miami. Turns out the Marathon guy is the doc who admitted he sexually battered a patient in Illinois and then got sued by an employee he groped and pointed a handgun at. He also does weight-loss workshops. That’s worse than the Puffin Center guy.

Jeez.

Laura told me (remember Laura?) that their new medical director is an ER Specialist at our critical care hospital in Puffin Center but he’s the only doc listed on staff at the Federally Qualified (rural) Health Center Dr. Bob built. They have a nurse practitioner, two physican assistants, and a wellness counselor.

Doctor's OfficeMeanwhile, down here we find the 57-year old who diagnosed that I had either flu or pneumonia a few years ago. He treated for both. Either his treatment or tincture of time worked but it didn’t leave me feeling particularly confident. There are four other family medicine docs, two men and two women. Three are over 60 and the one with the most recommendations from neighbors is 69. That’s a year older than Dr. Bob. The youngest is a 54-year old. She’s not taking new patients.

So my choices seem to come down to one of a bunch of physician’s assistants or a doc who will likely retire tomorrow.

I don’t care if I have the pro from Dover for day-to-day stuff but I do care that I get the same person. Primary care is an onging conversation, not a brisk look at a chart and tap on the knee.

Is it too much to ask to see an actual doctor, let alone one young enough that I might not have to do this again for a couple of decades? I don’t mind training a newbie too much if they seem to be in it for the long haul.

Our dentist lives and works in Quebec. He was about 12, I think, when he bought the practice there, so I figure I can keep him at least as long as I can keep what’s left of my teeth.

Whew!

 

Headlining It

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As promised, President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that calls for a full review of the H1B visa program — that’s the highly-skilled immigration visa program — and include more language for government agencies to buy from US companies. The way different media players chose to spin it in the headlines is interesting:

NYTimes: Planned Trump Order Will Discourage Hiring of Low-Wage Foreign Workers
Recode: Trump will sign an executive order reviewing high-skilled H-1B immigration visas
USA TODAY: Trump to sign ‘Buy American, Hire American’ executive order
CNNMoney: Trump administration moves to combat H-1B visa fraud

The quoted headlines did come from the White House briefing. Each took a different fact and emphasized it.

That was yesterday. Today, the visa kerfuffle is forgotten in favor of a congressional seat up for grabs in Georgia.

CNN: Ossoff falls just short in Georgia special election
NYTimes: Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, Narrowly Misses Outright Win in Georgia House Race
WND: Republicans force runoff in Georgia race

It’s true. Jon Ossoff received almost half the votes. But that’s less than half the story.

From the NYTimes: “Jon Ossoff, a Democrat making his first bid for elective office, narrowly missed winning outright in a heavily conservative House district in Georgia on Wednesday, throwing a scare into Republicans in a special congressional election that was seen as an early referendum on President Trump.

“Ossoff received 48.1% of the vote, just short of the 50% threshold needed to win the seat, and he will face Karen Handel, the top Republican vote-getter, in a June runoff.”

[Blah blah Stuff about Mr. Ossoff blah blah]

From the NYTimes, paragraph #127: “As Mr. Ossoff faces Ms. Handel in a head-to-head race on June 20, it is unclear whether he will be able to sustain the success he enjoyed on Tuesday, in an 18-person field.”

Wait. What?

An 18-person field?

And that wasn’t the second lede?

Both sides shot themselves in the foot; Republicans just used a bigger gun. 192,084 people voted. In addition to Mr. Ossoff and Ms. Handel, the ballot included three candidates — Republican Bob Gray, Republican Dan Moody, and Republican Judson Hill — who pulled 28.4% of the vote between them. Seven other Republicans, four Democrats, and two Independents split the remaining 7,100 (3.7%) votes.

The real story here?

1. Democrats came close in a nationalized race about the first 100 days of Donald Trump, all in a now-tightly split district.
2. Out of state progressive activists led by the ultra-liberal blog Daily Kos pumped $8.3 million into Mr. Ossoff’s campaign; out of state conservatives did the same for the top three Republican contenders. $14 million was spent on advertising in the race, most of it fueled by that out-of-state money.
3. 18 people ran in what one consultant called a “bar brawl.”
4. CNN quoted Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas.

I had to read 11 different reports to assemble even that information.

The mainstream media takes the facts on the ground and “presents” them in a way that will rile their readers or at least get them to “click through.” And then they wonder why we don’t trust the news any more.