Category Archives: Clarkgriffithblog.com

Articles on sports, politics and law issues.

An Important Article on the Canadian Health Care System; The Pipes proviso | Power Line

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This article is from Scott Johnson at Powerlineblog.com. His experiences and mine are similar with regard to Canadian Health Care. Mine include meeting Canadians seeking treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and listening to Canadians lament their own conditions.
This post is included here because it is becoming obvious that Obamacare was designed to fail by its own weight and to destroy the US health insurance industry, leaving us with a Canadian/UK style National Health System. We must be properly informed now because Obamacare was forced upon us without even being read, to find out what was in it. As bad as it is now, it only gets worse as we edge towards the single payer system.
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Scott Johnson: here
When our oldest daughter was in second grade her best friend was a classmate who was the
daughter of an ophthalmologist from Canada. He devoted much of his practice to treating
Medicaid patients at the county hospital.
The family moved to Ottawa at the end of the school year and we traveled to visit them. We
had lunch at a deli near his office, close by the Parliament building. Speaking about his
practice, he said he had a six-month waiting list to see patients for basic treatment, and that
once he saw them he was unable to provide anywhere near the same quality of care to his
prominent Canadian patients as he had to indigent Minnesotans. The necessary equipment
was simply not available.
This was twenty years ago, but the experience has stayed with me and I doubt the situation
has improved in the meantime. Here I turn to our friend Sally C. Pipes, the president, CEO,
and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute . PRI is a non-profit
think tank based in San Francisco that’s dedicated to advancing opportunity for all people
through free-market policy solutions. Steve Hayward is a fellow of PRI.
Sally is the author, most recently, of the Encounter Broadside pamphlet The Cure For
Obamacare . The pamphlet is only the latest product of a long career warning us off
nationalized medicine and promoting constructive health care reform. You might say this is
her moment.
Sally testified this past Tuesday at a hearing held by a Senate subcommittee this week on
Canada’s single-payer, “Medicare-for-All” system — a system with which she is intimately
intimately familiar as a student of health care policy and a native of Canada. Her testimony is
posted here and worth reading in its entirety. Here Sally draws on painful personal
experience to give an example of several of the flaws of the Canadian system:
I’ve seen the failures of Canada’s system firsthand.
A few years ago, my mother suffered from severe stomach pain and suspected
that she might have colon cancer. Her primary-care doctor ruled out that
possibility following an X-ray. When she asked about getting a colonoscopy,
she was told that she was too old; there were too many younger people with
serious symptoms who were already on a six-month waiting list for the test.
Within four months, she had begun hemorrhaging and lost 35 pounds. After
two days in the emergency room and two in a “transit lounge,” she finally got
a colonoscopy. Sure enough, she had colon cancer. She died two weeks later.
Who knows how much more time we could have had with her, if her doctor
had been committed to treating her cancer early on?
Here in the United States, there are some limited, Canada-style single-payer
experiments underway. The Veterans Administration’s health system is the
most notable…
Canada’s system is the destination to which the American left want to deliver us. Please check
out Sally’s testimony if you have any interest in the issues.

Malaysian 370, Where is the plane?

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Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was just over an our into a flight to Beijing when its transponder stopped sending positional and identifying signals. Some radar images from sources in Indonesia and Malaya indicate the plane may have changed course west and over flew Indonesia. The plane was fueled for a six hour flight.

This morning, a story was leaked that said the Rolls Royce engines sent reports to Rolls Royce for four hours following the last transponder ping. This allows the plane, from a position over the Straits of Malacca, to fly to Pakistan, for example, or deep into China.  The engines would only ping if operating; They would not ping from the ocean floor.

This leads to the thought that the plane has been hijacked and is sitting on some airport between Norhwestern Pakistan and Northeasten China. Adding to the mystery is the presence on the flight of passengers flying on one way tickets with stolen passports, a reason to suspect nefarious purpose for boarding the flight.  Indonesian sources have reported that radar images of an unidentifed plane overflew that Island near Penang.  The timing, radar image and absence of a transponder report are consistent with the theory that this was MH 370.  Of great significance is that no wreckage has been found. Planes are full of stuff that floats, but nothing has been found.  It is, therefore, very likely that the plane is on the ground, in one piece. We will find out soon.

Why The SAT Is Changed Again. It’s The Progressive Thing to Do.

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The College Board is changing the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT for the second time in ten years. The test is used to test scholastic aptitude and is used by colleges to rank students in the admission process. Some years ago, I read that the SAT was developed to level the field in such rankings and not allow socioeconomic status to overly influence admissions counselors. Now It is said that the modern SAT is “nothing more than a test of socioeconomic status.” We’re back to where we started! That students in certain socioeconomic groups who are the children of people who are smart and work hard also are also smart and work hard are just the sort of people who would score well on the SAT.   To the progressive mind, this is all unbearable. The solution is to make the test easier so that the scores skew higher. To do this, the test will no longer require an essay, and will not require knowledge of “difficult, lesser-used vocabulary words.” How about that!! I thought the size and range of vocabulary was an indication of verbal skill, one of the two areas rated by the test. So no perspicacity, or jejune on this new test and we no longer need to proceed with “alacrity, celerity, promptitude and dispatch,”  as H. Hall Katzenbach implored us to do in junior English. 

Gone as well are advanced mathematical concepts. So, how do you test math aptitude without testing math achievement and understanding?  Of course, as the test will include a lot of addition, the use of calculators may be restricted. That’s a good thing, but advanced mathematical concepts are where the wheat is separated from the chaff, but that’s the point. In the progressive mind separating the wheat from the chaff is not promoting social justice.  It is that distinction and achievement in scholastic aptitude should not be the way students are admitted to college as adherence to diversity goals should control the process.

The major progressive problem with the current SAT is that Asian students scored at the top, whites somewhat lower, and blacks and Hispanics at the bottom.  From my experience, no group works harder than Asian students and they deserve rewards, but that isn’t the progressive goal, diversity, so we need to even out the scores across all ethnic categories. (A student told me that he dropped a math course after the first class because he was the only non-Asian in the class.  Another student who took the ACT test and told me he took it because “it was easier.”) The SAT has lost a lot of market to the ACT so making its test easier is also a response to business exigencies. Dollars do count.

 

 

The most disturbing aspect of this is that the College Board says it simply wants to test what students are actually learning in high school. So hard words are out and advanced math is not taught anymore. So much for Common Core, which is designed by the new head of the College Board. This is the dumbing down of a nation and that is very sad. 

James Avenue, March 5,2014

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Here is a picture of James Ave this morning. Where is Spring?

“Fundamental Change” brings The End of the Pax Americana and the Monroe Doctrine, Too.

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A fixture of world history has been the possibility of the dominant military power to limit war in the world. The first such incidence of this was the Pax Romana based on the defeat in 146 BC of Carthage, its only competitor in the Mediterranean. See: Punic Wars here,  This continued to the fall of Rome in the fifth century and the ensuing Dark Ages. For the next 1200 years, no dominant power emerged until Britain was victorious over France in 1815 and the Pax Britannica followed for 99 years.

The Pax Britannica was based on overwhelming control of the seas by the Royal Navy. No threat to this dominance occurred until Germany launched a Naval program that threatened the balance that had occurred between the master of the heartland( See: Mackinder, Heartland Theory Here developed during the late 19th and early 20th Century, lead to a series of diplomatic alliances, the so called Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy and The Triple Entente between Britain, Russia and France. This led, because of the mutual defense aspects of these secret alliances, to the out break of World War I when the Russians moved against Serbia in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife.

World War I so weakened the Entente victors, that they could pose no threat to a rearmed Germany when the European part of World War II erupted in September, 1939.  The history of that war is not important here, but it is important to note that the United States emerged from WWI as a world power, but disarmed, so it could not take the place of the British absence on the world stage. Curiously, prior to entering WWI, America was such a poor military power that the Germans felt no fear of US intervention in Europe when it began unrestricted Submarine warfare in 1916. The huge American build up during the war was scraped almost immediately. This lack of American power lead to Hitler’s, who had no fear of American arms, declaration of War against the US in December 1941 after its ally, Japan, had attacked Pearl Harbor.

At the conclusion of WWII, America was dominant at sea and Russia dominated the Heartland. During the post-war period, America increased its military power -until recently. It is now hard to imagine a situation in which the United States was thought of as too weak to act after 68 years of the Pax Americana, but we have that situation today.

Last week, Defense Secretary Hagel announced a reduction of force to a level below WWII. Remember, that was the time Hitler thought so little of us that he declared war, seemingly with impunity. He did so, by the way, so he could attack American shipping with his own unrestricted submarine campaign.without restriction, History does repeat.    

Close upon Hagle’s announcement, Vladimir Putin, announced that Russia had “issues” with the Ukraine, a nation of 46 million people contiguous with Russia. Putin has also seized the Crimea, Ukrainian naval facilities, and some report that he has demanded the surrender of Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea.  It is expected that Russian troops will invade the Ukraine to protect Russian speaking people there. Hitler, by the way, did the same thing in middle Europe in 1938. 

What is the American response?  There is Chamberlain like rhetoric, but what can we do? Our army is shrunken, the Navy is at a modern low level and we have virtually no ability to have an impact, anywhere in the world, over the Russians. Our self inflicted end to the Pax Americana now takes its toll. 

The toll to be extracted is not clear yet. However, Mr. Putin is seeking eight naval and airbases in warm weather areas. Three of those are Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, so the current administration is overseeing not only the end of the Pax Americana but the end of the coercive elements of the Monroe Doctrine, which involved our having the real ability to apply military force, if necessary.  

America and the world have been fundamentally changed in the last five years. History will write the verdict as to whether this change was worth the instability now present in the world.  

Minneapolis This Morning, OMG

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Still waiting for a hint of Spring.

Jackie Robinson’s Court Martial

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Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in America when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947,  (See: “Jackie Robinson’s Contribution to America” Here; He was charged and court martialed while an Army Second Lieutenant in 1944. He was found not guilty. An account of that court martial can be found Here;. It is from Real Clear History.

Robinson was a remarkable man for many reasons as this account shows. Of great interest is the fact that due to the charge, he was transferred from one unit to another and the one he was transferred from saw very heavy combat in Europe, including 183 days of constant contact with German forces following D Day. The unit he was transferred to saw only limited duty in the US. 

This article is well worth reading as it shows an important episode in this remarkable man’s life.. 

Volkwagon’s Tennessee Workers Reject the Auto Workers Union and Management!! This is a big _____ deal!!!

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The sea change that has occurred in labor relations is described below. In essence, workers have caught on the the fact that unions are for union management and Democratic candidates and do not benefit them. That means dues money goes to pay huge salaries to union officials and hundreds of millions of dollars go to Democratic campaigns.  Dues do not result in higher salaries, as many non-union plants pay higher salaries, don’t provide job security as forming a union may actually cost jobs. If this takes root nation wide, it will cause a major change in our politics and will result in a much better work place for workers who will not be subject to union discipline.  The growth in “right to work” states will be resisted in “non-right to work” states that force union membership on workers. Of course, this is so those compelled dues go to the Democratic governors and legislators. Times will change.  

The article follows, 

The United Auto Workers union suffered a crushing defeat Friday, falling short in an election in which it seemed to have a clear path to organizing workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.,” the Wall Street Journalreported Saturday. “The setback is a bitter defeat because the union had the cooperation of Volkswagen management and the aid of Germany’s powerful IG Metall union, yet it failed to win a majority among the plants 1,550 hourly workers.”

One cannot emphasize the magnitude of this loss. What it clearly spells out is the irrelevance of the old industrial unions in today’s world. They have become nothing less than reactionary institutions. It is no longer the heyday of the union movement, which once was necessary and helped create a middle class in our country in the 1930s and ’40s.

How different a situation existed in that bygone era. When Ford and GM workers tried to gain representation for collective bargaining, they were met with an onslaught of fierce opposition from the auto manufacturers. First there were the sit-down strikes in 1936 and 1937 at GM and Chrysler, and the brutal attack on workers by Ford management. They responded to organizing with the famous attack on the workers by company thugs, goons, and the local police, who cooperated with management. The culmination was the most famous event in modern labor’s fight to organize, the Battle of the Overpass at the River Rouge Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

In our own era, the workers at the Tennessee Volkswagen factory had the support and encouragement of Volkswagen for unionization. Both the UAW and the European IG Metall union convinced Volkswagen management to engage in talks with the UAW in the United States, and not even to propagandize against unionization among the workforce. As the WSJ article notes, “the election was also extraordinary because Volkswagen chose to cooperate closely with the UAW.” As a labor lawyer who previously worked for the leftist SEIU put it, “usually, companies fight” union drives.

So when a major corporation urges unionization and sides with the UAW, and the workers vote in a free NLRB-supervised election to not unionize, it is a very big deal indeed. Nationally, the decline in the strength of unions has had its effect on the UAW. During the heyday of the union, it represented 1.5 million workers; now, it represents only 400,000. If Walter Reuther were still alive, he would be stunned at the reversal of the fortunes of the union he worked so hard to build. Indeed, in Michigan — once the very stronghold of the union –the state has put into place a right-to-work law that allows workers to drop their membership in unions, including the UAW, if they choose to do so.

The other issue in the campaign was the effort of the UAW and Volkswagen to create what is called a “works council,” a committee composed of both union and nonunion employees who negotiate with management on day-to-day work issues that arise in the factory. Such councils are standard arrangements in German factories, as well as in other countries in Europe. They allow for settlement of issues in a manner that creates labor peace and promotes better conditions in the workplace, without the threat of a strike. But according to American labor law, they cannot be established unless an outside union like the UAW legally represents the workers.  Because Volkswagen wanted one, they chose to support the UAW organizing effort.

When it comes to wages, it turns out that at the Southern plant, a starting worker earns $19.50 an hour without a union, while his counterpart working in Michigan earns only $15.50 an hour. So wages do not compel a worker to support unionization. The foreign- owned plants, it seems, pay better than the American auto manufacturers.

Then there are the unspoken social issues, which I’ll discuss on the following page.

Workers voting against the union are most likely socially conservative, standing against abortion and for the NRA on the issue of guns. They know very well that union dues go to PACs (in fact a union creation) and left-leaning candidates .

So how does the union explain its defeat? It does so by saying it lost due to “outside interference.” The union said in a statement that it lost due to “a firestorm of interference and threats from special interest groups.”  What were these groups doing, in particular? The union is undoubtedly referring to billboards paid for by one of Grover Norquist’s groups opposing unionization. Signs! Does the UAW really think an anti-union billboard forced them to lose? A sign is hardly anything like attacking workers with billy clubs and rifles, which was standard fare in the 1930s. Those attacks created sympathy for the union cause. The union undoubtedly had its own signs and literature, which workers freely read.  As the union statement acknowledged,  “While we certainly would have liked a victory for workers here, we deeply respect the Volkswagen Global Group Works Council, Volkswagen management and (German union) IG Metall for doing their best to create a free and open atmosphere for workers to exercise their basic human right to form a union.”  (my emphasis)

Back in July of 1941, the CIO’s favorite singing group, the Almanac Singers (composed of many different people, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, Josh White and others), put out a famous album titled Talking Union. Its first verse went like this:

Now if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you
you got to build you a union, got to make it strong
But if you all stick together, boys, it won’t be long
You get shorter hours, better working conditions
Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore

It went on to say that “if you wait for your boss to raise your pay/We’ll all be waiting till Judgment Day.” Now the bosses pay unorganized Southern labor better than they pay Michigan’s unionized autoworkers, plant conditions are good, and every worker in the plant gets vacation. The old fight was won long ago, and no wonder Southern workers are now singing, “You can’t scare me, I’m not sticking with the union.” As another modern-day singer put it so well, “the times they are a-changin’.”

 

 

What Important Facts 26% of Americans Don’t Know

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https://clarkgriffithblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/national-science-foundation-science-survey-a-return-to-copernicus/

What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

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The antiwar movement disappears from time to time. John Hinderaker offers the following analysis of that phenomena. Link to the Powerline Article Here