AOC & HILLARY, BREXIT, BOEING, AND BEING LIBERAL: MARCH 2019 RANT

AOC & HILLARY
They've got their knives out and they are coming after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She only has another forty years or so of savaging to endure before she can truly understand how Hillary feels.


BREXIT
Is Bercow a hero or a villain? In my estimation, he's the adult in the room. Even if you believe that he is interfering, that interference demonstrates a level of competence that I haven't seen from May or Corbyn or just about anyone else in Parliament.

BOEING
From what I have read, since a plane may stall if it climbs at too steep an angle, Boeing put sensors on the 737 Max to automatically nose the plane down if the sensors detect what the sensors consider a dangerous climb angle. It may be that a single malfunctioning sensor caused two recent crashes. I repeat...MAY be. My reading further indicates that sensors automatically nosing down planes at takeoff is a known phenomena. Pilots are actually trained in the override procedure.

That training MAY give Boeing cover to blame the pilots for their design flaw, if that flaw is found to be at fault. 

To quote Tom Hanks quoting Sully, "Can we get serious now?" (If you don't know the scene that I'm talking about, search that quote on YouTube.) If you have to train pilots to handle a common design flaw, the designers, the manufacturers, and the FAA are the responsible parties whether or not the pilots were properly trained.

BEING LIBERAL
I thought that I was a liberal. I believe that a woman should have control over her own body. I believe in equal pay for equal work. And that color makes a difference in paintings but not in people. And that if the state imprisons people, the state should run the prisons in addition to collecting the garbage and owning and operating the turnpikes.

I know that single-payer healthcare leads to better outcomes.

I thought all of that makes me a liberal. I have recently discovered that I'm not a liberal. I am a neo-liberal. Why? Because I haven't given up entirely on capitalism.

Progressives tell me that I'm dead wrong. Capitalism is bankrupt. I should embrace democratic socialism. But here's the rub. I live in France, a country that damn near invented democratic socialism, on a continent with several democratic socialist governments. And guess what. Capitalism is alive and well. Entrepreneurship thrives. There's even a profitable and competitive supplemental health insurance industry to go along with single-payer.

So call me a neo-liberal. Just don't call me late for supper.

BONUS
Newt  Gingrich should sue Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for plagiarism. Gingrich co-authored the Contract With America, a document that contained reforms that were both politically and economically unattainable. The object of the exercise was to move his political party farther away from the political center and toward the fringe that he and his cohorts represented.

He succeeded. It took more than two decades, but Republicans have embraced that fringe.

Now comes AOC and the Green New Deal, a politically and economically unattainable manifesto designed to move her political party farther away from the political center and towards the fringe that she and her cohorts represent.

Those who do not study history don't realize that we have been here before...

  

AOC, FEEDING SWANS, VACCINATIONS, AND IQ: FEBRUARY, 2019 RANT

AOC UPDATE
AOC and her staff are pissed. AOC's boyfriend is NOT on staff, not even volunteering. He has a government email address and can access AOC's calendar. That's all.

I have questions. Do any of you have an employer who provides the same perk? The rationale is that it's OK for AOC's boyfriend to have access because all of Congressional spouses have the same privilege. That's how easily power seduces you. Everybody else in power does it. So why not AOC?

Why not? Because it's my dime that's paying for that email address, and the email addresses of all of the other Congressional spouses, and all of the other perks that people in government get that the rest of us don't, that's why.

SWANS AND LOONIES
From The Telegraph: The Queen's Swan Marker David Barber, Member of the Royal Victorian Order, said there is "no good reason" not to feed the swans bread and that many are underweight as a result of the ban.

First of all, I love the idea that the Royal Household has a Swan Marker (formerly Swan Keeper or Swan Master). What better use for tax money? But more importantly, be aware that swans (and ducks and geese) can and do eat bread without harm. Why is this a thing? Because some loonies started a movement to ban the feeding of bread to swans in England. They claimed that bread was not good for them, implied that it was actually harmful. The result? Underweight and starving swans. So by all means, bring lettuce and other veggies, birdseed and grains. And bread. In moderation, bread.

VACCINATIONS AND THE HERD
Speaking of loonies, let's consider folks who believe that childhood vaccinations cause autism. I understand that a parent with a child who has been diagnosed with autism wants answers. But I've searched this topic often, read a lot more about measles than I ever thought that I would, and I have failed to find credible evidence that links vaccinations with autism. Not one peer-reviewed study. I have, on the other hand, found plenty of evidence that the incidences of a deadly disease that had once been on the cusp of extinction is on the rise thanks to the anti-vaxxers. And contrary to their claims, measles is a killer. The fact that most survive is fortunate. But many die, especially infants.

The herd is in jeopardy.

THE ARMY AND THE 10%
While we're talking about intelligence, or the lack of same, consider the US Army. Did you know that our army leads the world in the field of intelligence testing? Has done for 100 years. Whoda thunk it? But it makes a certain amount of sense.

The army has a vested interest in inserting the right people into the right slots for the simple reason that lives depend on the ability of teams, from the front lines to the rear guard, to be led properly and function as desired. In order achieve that goal, the army has developed a rigorous testing regimen called the Army General Classification Test (AGCT).  Not an IQ test, the AGCT is sufficiently analogous so that an IQ score can be reasonably inferred from its results. And as a result of that testing, we know that the US Army will not accept a recruit with an IQ of less than 81 or so. Why? Because the army considers that anyone who tests below that number would a liability, would be incapable of being trained to reliably perform the most simple of tasks.

Think about that for a minute. An army is a miniature society that needs thousands of folks who can clean or cook or file or perform other such simple, everyday tasks. Tens of thousands. Yet the army has no place in it for more than 35,000,000 Americans, the 10% of Americans with IQs below 81. Why? Because, after careful analysis, the army has determined that those 35,000,000 cannot be trained to reliably clean or cook or file.

Those same 35,000,000 require food and shelter and therefore must find a way to earn money. And assuming that they can earn sufficient money, and even if they receive a guaranteed income, they must manage that money to their own benefit. How does an enlightened society deal with a growing number people incapable of self-care at the most basic level? Wouldn't shifting money to them as guaranteed income merely guarantee that predators get rich?

What happens if all of those 35,000,000 who are eligible to vote decide that voting would be a good idea?

The herd is in jeopardy.