Voting Present on Libya

So let the truth be told. So far things have worked out pretty well for BO in Libya. The removal of Kadaffi seems to be at hand and this was done at a reasonable cost with regards to the financial investment and without the cost of US servicemen's lives. Most importantly, it was done by the citizens of the country who sacrificed their own lives for a future that they will orchestrate and not by a foreign entity. The people have sacrificed their own blood and appear to be winning and have too much skin in the game to let things slip away. A superior formula compared to Iraq where the US changes the regime and is stuck planning the Iraqi people's future. So kudos to BO.

But not so fast. Lets not forget that Iraq was looking real good until the destruction stopped and the construction was to begin. The real test in Libya is what happens now. I suspect it will be as much of a quagmire as Iraq and Afghanistan are presently. Whether it be Islamic fundamentalists, Kadaffi loyalists, this tribe or that tribe, violence will be a mainstay of all of these dictatorless territories. In that area of the world, in that culture, disputes are resolve by violence NOT by discussions. When will we finally learn this and stop transposing our values on other cultures. Additionally, who knows if and when Kadaffi will be caught. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a few tricks up his sleeve for just this occasion. As a result, as quick as Bo was willing to accept credit for the initial triumphs in Libya he will be just as quick to blame someone else for the inevitable future quagmire that will be Libya.

On this Libyan episode BO as usual voted present. He wanted to be in on the success but he also wanted an out if and when things turned badly. This again demonstrates his personality perfectly. He will not commit to anything without the possibility of blaming others if his plan fails. So he opts not to have plans or lead in any specific direction. He calculates his language in such a way that he can later deny having said certain things or claim he was misinterpreted or taken out of context. He plans in advance his escape plan.

I think this exemplifies why we have too many lawyer politicians. I think they learn in law school the power and calculation of language, how to pick words and formulate their semantics so that they can reverse their positions in the future. Compare the speech of lawyer politicians like BO, Clintonx2, Bachmann to nonlawyer politicians like Ran and Ron Paul ,Howard Dean, Tom Coburn (btw, all MDs). The approach to a problem is completely different and I believe stems from their training in their respective professions. The MDs assess a situation pick the best option/plan and institute that plan of action with conviction. The lawyer, on the other hand, is trained to defend whatever postion he is being paid to defend. He is not trained to pick a position and defend that side with conviction. In fact, he is trained to be able to defend both sides. The doctor puts himself in a postion where he can be wrong but uses his best judgement to present his strongest position (ie. leadership). Whereas the lawyer schemes to create a position or a lack of postition where he can never be wrong or blamed which results in lack of leadership. Perfect case in point, voting present. It is amazing how the different formative training of a physician versus a lawyer translate into distinct leadership qualities and ability, or the lack thereof.

Escape From Reality

I've been a little lazy during these dog days of summer getting the blog out and I am on vacation next week so I wanted to get a few thoughts out before I left. I think the true winner of the Iowa straw polls was BO. If you have stock in Michelle Bachmann I would sell now because this is the peak of her popularity. It is all downhill from here. By the way, which of her advisers tells her to scream a platitude very slowly in a monotone voice to finish off every paragraph of her speeches. She gets a huge applause when she shrills "BO will be a one term president". But seriously lady, you show a lot of enthusiasm but there appears to be a significant intelligence gap between you and the other candidates. Speak to us like we are intelligent and not like we're a bunch of morons. BO is the winner because Bachmann is unelectable.

I seriously fear the entrance of a third party candidate into the race which will certainly favor BO and ensure his re-election. The GOP is going to nominate a conservative right winger who will go up against the far left BO. Someone will come up with the bright idea to split these two extreme positions and go after the huge middle. Maybe it will be Bloomberg or Giulianni or Jeb Bush. But in any case BO has a solid third of the electorate who will vote for him regardless of anything he does. Of the remaining two thirds, this will be split amongst the three contenders almost ensuring BO's re-election. The third party candidate will not care that he/she is ensuring BO's victory only to have his/her ego stroked. If they truly cared about the future of the country they would put their efforts into electing the candidate nominated by the GOP.

Moving to another part of the world, Syria is a powder keg waiting to blow. Bashar Assad is all-in to use a poker terminology. He has gone down the road of no return and he will either survive as a dictator which is unlikely or die. My fear here is as he goes down which is eventual he will take as much as he can with him. This means Israel too and it wouldn't surprise me if he instigates Israel in a last attempt to divert attention away from him and rally the Arabs against Israel. He will use all his fire power in his control and all the fire power given to him by Iran. He will direct it at the protesters in his own country but also at Israel. It is very dangerous when you have a madman with nothing to lose and his finger on the button of scuds with chemical weapons aimed at Israel. It is like cornering a caged animal.

On these uplifting notes I am going to escape reality for a much needed vacation with my family. I am so excited to spend a week together until we all go our separate ways next week. Even as it appears that we are heading into frightful and terrible times all around the globe it is these times with the family that makes life so precious, enjoyable and worth living.

On the Backs of Doctors

Once again we see the deficit will be reduced on the backs of the providers of health care in this country. In the recently passed legislation there will be a super-committee of 6 congressman to agree to 1.2 trillion dollars of cuts by November 23, just three months away. If an agreement is not produced by then there will be automatic cuts to various programs, mostly to defense and medicare. As I have blogged about in other posts, medicare is a failed system of providing health care. All medicare bills that come in get paid promptly without determining the need for the service or investigation for fraud and abuse. It is easier for the feds to borrow or print or tax money than to go after fraud. The government is unable and incapable to monitor for waste and it cannot use the allotted resources effectively and this leads to an enormous amount of funds that go down the toilet. Contrarily, private health care systems are much better at detecting fraud and abuse and are careful with each dollar spent and every test or surgery performed is reviewed prior to being pre-certified. This is in complete distinction to the government who pays now and asks later or usually never.

I have heard of a urologist that used to take a few biopsies when performing prostate examinations. The urologist got smart and decided to open a pathology lab in his office, hire a pathologist to read his biopsies, pay him a salary, and bill medicare directly through his office for pathology services. In essence, he would be taking a cut (no pun intended) for each biopsy performed. Once the pathology lab was up and going the urologist increased his number of biopsies from three or four to over ten. This is so abusive, not to mention how unethical it is for this doctor to puncture and damage a person just for his own financial benefit. But where is the government? Can't they see that the number of biopsies has increased three-fold when the billing was changed to this urologist? A private insurance company would pick this up in a second and question the bill. The government DOES NOT AND CANNOT effectively monitor where it sending its funds. This is just one example of fraud that is rampant in the medicare system.

So what the government will do is to cut fees to all providers across the board. Instead of using the allotted healthcare dollars more effectively they will just lower everyone's fees including the best caregivers as well as the fraudsters and wasters. This is government at its worst and where private companies demonstrate how infinitely more economical they are. I am so pissed off that since I play by the rules I get penalized whereas the unethical fraudsters get off clean and will make up the decreased fees by just taking a few more pieces of their patients prostate.

You will say I should turn these fraudsters in but WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT? We must turn this function over to private industry to save medicare. It's the only way.

Visiting Day

After a few years off I went to visiting day at my son's sleepaway camp. It was great to see him but I kept thinking about one of my ultimate nightmare events. A terrorist or a group of them come to a remote camp with weapons and starting to wipe out defenseless children. This scenario played out in Norway last week and demonstrates how lacking in security these camps are.

These camps are located in remote regions where hundreds of kids concentrate in a small area. The police forces in these rural towns are probably ill-equipped to handle any attack. There is unlikely any alert system in place to notify the outside world what is happening in these isolated locations so the terrorist would have plenty of time to do his thing before anyone knew. I doubt these camps are armed with any weapons to defend themselves. There is no fence to prevent entry into the camp and there is not even a guard at the front entrance preventing anyone from entering. This is a total recipe and invitation for trouble and is a perfect example of where we need to be proactive and not wait until disaster happens and be reactive.

Solutions include obtaining a security analysis from an expert to determine the best strategy to prevent and combat an attack. There must be a gate for entry not directly in the front of the camp but rather at the entrance to the final dirt road that leads to the camp. The camp must be equipped with alarms and systems to notify the authorities. The local police must be trained in counter-terrorism and be on patrol.

Finally, and most important the kids over a certain age must be trained in security and know what to do in the case of an attack. They must learn how to stand patrol and take shifts through the day and night to protect the camp. They should learn how to use and respect firearms. My son's camp has a paintball course with rifles and learn to use these guns with target practice and competing teams. They learn the critical safety instructions in using these "weapons" and plan strategies to overcome their opponent. I had the opportunity to talk with the head of the paintball activity who is an Israeli who just spent the last three years in an elite fighting force of the Israeli army. What a wonderful opportunity for our children to be instructed by these premier soldiers. Our kids get to have a taste of what it is like to defend themselves and a nation as well as to have exposure to someone who can satisfy their curiosity about the IDF.

If we think we can sit here in the US while our brothers in Israel do all the dirty work to defend the Jewish people and nation we are sadly mistaken and will lead to our peril. Enough with the heavy concentration in sports. We should know it is only a matter of time until the Jews are blamed and rounded up. What will a good jump shot do for us then? We need to be proactive and our children need to grow up in an environment where they feel the threats against them and the absolute need to learn self-defense.

Aryan Nation

I was toward the end of my work week last Friday and as usual the last patient of the week was late. He called to say he was lost so I couldn't leave and was forced to wait for him. Finally, he arrived and I had the intention of spending little time with him since he was delaying the onset of my weekend. As it turned out, I spent a long time with him as he had a very interesting story. It was not his medical condition that intrigued me but his bio. Lets call him Abdul.

Abdul was born in Iran and lived there for the first 17 years of his life. He moved to the US with his family in the late 1970s at the time of the Islamic revolution. He was schooled here, became an engineer and went to work for the State of NJ where he had a solid job as an engineer. Sometime in his 30s he decided to go back to Iran because he thought he could do better there but ultimately returned to the US. He described the situation in Iran but concluded that only by living there can one sense the oppression of the people by the government. He pointed out the growing resistance of the people to the mandatory Islamic laws.

He was going to Iran that evening with a stop in Frankfurt to visit family who moved to Germany from Iran and just had a child. He mentioned to me that these Iranian expat relatives are shying away from giving their kids Islamic names, rejecting the forced dictates of Islam and attempting to be more Western. He went on to say that instead of a Muslim name they were naming their son Aryan and had named their daughter Arya. This blew me away. Here they were rejecting the oppressive forces of Islam only to glorify another oppressive ideology, Nazism. Of course, the common thread of the ideologies is the hatred and annihilation of the Jews. It amazes how intense are peoples passions towards Jew hatred.

The name Iran comes from the word Aryan in Farsi and was changed from Persia to Iran in 1935. This was done to emphasize their connection to Aryan principles (ie. Jew hatred). I wanted to confront Abdul about changing one hateful, antisemitic ideology for another one but I bit my tongue and kept my mouth shut. If he only knew in just a few short hours I would be in a synagogue singing about the arrival of the holy Jewish Shabbat. Of course, I also wanted to finish a long and hard week of work and get the weekend started.

An Israeli Conundrum

I read a book over the last weekend that I highly recommend called Saving Israel by Daniel Gordis. He addresses a few issues that have bothered me for a long time regarding Israel. I was always perplexed with the question of why would a secular Israeli who has absolutely no ties to the Jewish religion and in fact mocks it would risk his life to defend the Jewish nation. The entire reason for the existence of Israel is to be a JEWISH homeland so why would this secular Israeli defend it if they negate their Jewishness.

Over the years I asked this question to Israelis only to receive answers which were unsatisfactory. They would answer that these secular Israelis are patriotic to their country as a Finn would be patriotic to Finland. Or they would say they have certain ties to the land and therefore risk their lives to defend it. But truthfully, Israel is located at the site of its ancestral birth which unfortunately places it smack in the middle of a terrible neighborhood. If these seculars see no value in Judaism and do not care about the history of the Jewish people then why would they care to live under constant threat to themselves and their families rather than a comfy house in LA with many other Israelis.

Mr. Gordis addresses this point in his book and states that this is in fact a huge problem in Israel. A large percentage of secular Israelis are attempting to dodge the draft as they see no value in risking their lives for a Jewish homeland. These draft aged teenagers cannot explain why they are defending a Jewish homeland. They have received zero education and exposure to the Jewish religion and as such it is not hard to understand why they would see no value in protecting its homeland.

Mr. Gordis goes on to say that the fault lies in the founders of the country. Trying to reverse the image of the Jew for centuries as a defenseless individual, they sought to create the new Jew as a powerful one who could defend himself. Trying to extend this metamorphosis, they also reversed the heavily ritual based religion as practiced in Europe and replace it with a nonreligious secular Jew who is not just apathetic to the religion but is antagonistic towards it. They view the religion as an old country custom which must be discarded. This is the genesis of the problems that Israel is now seeing. Secular Israelis who have no ties to Judaism and thus will question whether to risk their lives for the Jewish nation.

The Jews could not survive being stateless in Europe. Strong religion in the diaspora sustained us as a people for centuries, but without a state we were doomed. Now we have a strong state but with little religion and this may be equally unsustainable.

Universal Suffrage: Fatal Flaw?

Over the past two centuries the United States had amended its constitution and provided the right to vote to all its citizens regardless of color, sex, or religion. Originally, the right to vote was restricted to property owners or based on taxation. So we have gone from a period of severely restricted voting rights to one where there is almost zero limitation on voting rights. One doesn't even have to provide proof of identity to vote. It is clear to me that the pendulum has swung too far and this fact is reshaping the US into a country which was never intended by its founders.

Over half of the US population pay no income taxes, these are the takers. A diminishing percentage of the population pay the majority of the taxes, these are the makers. What incentive do the takers have to vote for representatives that would control the size of government or reduce the deficit or reduce taxation? Their sole motivation is to vote for candidates that will continue to use government as a mechanism to take from the makers and give it to them. What do they care if the government borrows endlessly? The bill will never come to their doorstep.

As the takers exceed half the population, their votes will ensure further government expansion and redistribution of wealth. They will continue to vote only for those candidates that will promise and deliver more and more handouts and that will take/steal from the wealthy to give it to them.

This is a flaw in our current democracy and one that will slowly lead to the continued demise in the economy, national wealth, and world status. This flaw was likely foreseen by the original founders of this country which is why voting rights were restricted to those who had a stake in the economy (land owners). Through amendments to the constitution, progressives have expanded voting rights gradually to all citizens. Although the intention was to be fair and not discriminatory, the unintended consequence results in a fatal flaw for this country.

Should someone who has absolutely no knowledge of politics, cannot read and is unable to even name the current vice president be allowed to vote? Is it fair that the vote of someone who pays no taxes and is completely on government handouts for food, shelter, etc. is exactly equal to someone who pays millions in taxes? Worse though is that there is no way to correct this flaw. It is unimaginable that voting rights would be restricted after having been granted. My only hope is that the takers do not vote in the same proportion as the makers.