My lady and I were discussing the upcoming holidays, wondering what we might do for entertainment. We realized that both of us had become a bit bored with the daily grind and are looking for something “fun” to do. I like having fun and so does she, but oddly enough we found it difficult to think of something that filled the bill. We thought of a lot of things to do, but few really sounded like “FUN” but instead were just something to do.

This got me to wonder what the concept of “fun” really means and what sorts of things trigger it. Most dictionaries associate “fun” with amusement, entertainment, laughter and such. Webster offers the definition of fun being: “What provides amusement or enjoyment specifically: playful often boisterous action or speech.” While these experiences seem appropriate, I think there is much more to the concept.

Years ago I created my company’s motto of “Do Good and Have Fun.” My company specializes in system safety engineering (related to product safety engineering). This seems like it should be a rather “serious” no-nonsense branch of engineering, what does “fun” have to do with it? It is easy to see how we are focused on “doing good things” by protecting people and the environment. The harder to understand is perhaps the “have fun” part. I don’t mean having fun as an amusement or boisterous distraction, I mean having fun by doing interesting, difficult and important things. For me, solving difficult problems is “fun” – and saving people’s lives by doing so is doubly fun. Doing excellent work while making the world a better place is what I was talking about. Perhaps I am thinking more along the lines of being fulfilled or a feeling of making a positive difference. To me, those things feel like “fun.”

That brings up the question of what makes something fun. I am not at all sure about the answers, so I am just going to throw some ideas out there to see where the topic might go. The following list includes a few of the things I believe can make something fun:

• Intellectual
  • Sharing ideas
  • Problem solving
  • Creation
  • Working with a team
  • Learning new things
  • Doing new things
  • Surprises
  • Being mentally challenged
• Esthetics
  • Seeing beautiful things
  • Hearing beautiful things (music)
  • Smelling pleasing odors
• Imagination
  • Sexual
    • Flirting
    • Fantasy
  • Daydreaming/fantasizing
    • Places
    • Activities
    • People
• Exciting
  • Scary
  • Fast action
  • Dangerous
• Accomplishment
  • Physical
  • Mental
  • Artistic
  • Communication
• Sensual
  • Touch (e.g., massage, snuggling)
  • Hearing
  • Sight
  • Taste
  • Body motion (e.g., dancing, hiking, skiing)
  • Eating
    • Taste
    • Smell
    • Texture
  • Temperature/humidity (warm south Pacific beach)
• Spiritual
  • Experiencing “other” worlds
    • Visions
    • Physical experiences
    • “Stopping the world”
    • Experiencing a feeling of “awe”
  • Experiencing nature

I am sure there are many more topics, and also sure that some of these are misplaced or mistaken. I created this list to help get away from thinking about “fun things to do” and instead consider what makes these things fun in the hopes that it will help me think of something to do. Obviously, some (perhaps most) fun activities contain multiple items on this list. For example, I like to dance. When dancing is really “fun” it includes listening to good music, moving my body in enjoyable ways, perhaps touching another person, maybe some flirting and a bit of fantasy. Put them all together and I am definitely “having fun.”

My goal with making this list was to help me identify activities that might end up being “fun” and those that are just amusing or filling time. That doesn’t mean I have to be accomplishing things all of the time, it is alright to just be entertained and amused, being playful is a good thing. However, it seems that there are levels of having “fun” and some of the most enjoyable are deeper and get closer to the heart of the idea of being a “good” person.

I wrote the first draft of this blog a week or so ago, and decided to just let it sit for a bit to see if it is worth posting. I find that the ideas included in my short list of “fun” things comes up several times a day. I find myself pausing for a moment to check in with myself, asking myself if what I am doing meets any of the items – and if not, is there something I could do to change my “moment” to be funner. It turns out there usually is something that I could do, and making whatever I am doing more fun actually makes a difference. It helps remind me that life can be made more beautiful, enjoyable and important just with a thought. Nothing has to change except for our view.

I began writing this blog several weeks before the last election thinking that perhaps I could help clarify some considerations I had been hearing from a few of my friends. I found the noise and confusion leading up to the election distracted me from finishing the blog, and afterward my politic will seemed to have drained away. I am finally getting interested in the topic again, so am going to give it another try.

I had been noticing that the MAGA crowd were bringing up the question of policy differences between the two presidential candidates. I keep running into Trump supporters who say things like, “I can’t stand Trump personally, but his policies are what are important.” I have begun to wonder just what that means, and whether the people who say that have any clue about his actual policies.

I wonder just what they mean when they use the term “policy” in this context. Wikipedia includes a statement that; “A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol.” My copy of Webster’s dictionary includes the following definition; “A (policy is a) high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures esp. of a governmental body.”

I think both of these get to the core of what is meant by a Presidential candidate talking about their proposed “policies” behind their promised actions. A policy in this context includes goals (intent) as well as something about acceptable procedures for achieving those goals. A policy isn’t just a set of actions that will be taken, rather it is a description of the goals or intent along with the procedures that will be used to implement those goals.

An interesting “policy” statement for the Presidential election might be grounded in one contained in the Constitution. Namely, ” We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” There it is in a nutshell, the statement identifies the goals and the procedures for meeting those goals and contained in the body of the Constitution (including the Amendments).

Given this meaning for the term “policy,” I wonder what Trump’s policies might be. He discusses a lot of procedures such as expel all of the undocumented people from the Country, but he doesn’t clarify why he might want to do that. What is the goal or intent? I can think of a number of possible answers, but haven’t heard which are driving the procedures. For example, perhaps the goal is to reduce the overall population of Country by getting rid of the “extra” people. Perhaps it has to do with prejudice against a particular race, nationality or origin. Perhaps it is because they depress wages by working for less that citizens are willing to work for. Perhaps it is because they drain the economy of the country by unfairly using limited resources. These might all be supportable reasons (except for the prejudice idea), but if so it would be more useful to state the goal/intent so that it is possible to consider whether or not the proposed solution works or if there might be better solutions.

Another example that might be worth considering has to do with overturning Roe v. Wade. Why was that done? Once again, I can think of a number of reasons – but they haven’t been stated in ways that I find compelling (or even believable). It might be a moral issue of some sort, perhaps a moral issue about killing unborn “children” (even at the risk of killing the mother). That sounds really forceful and is hard to muster an effective challenge to, but it is really the reason or is it just a powerfully sounding argument? During my long drive through the southern part of the USA I heard that the moral issue isn’t really the reason. I was told that the real reason is most abortions and other types of fertility control measures are used by white people, therefore reducing the number of white births – allowing the population of non-whites to grow faster than the white population. Soon whites will be the minority, and this is not tolerable. Those who told me that said they use the moral argument because it sounds good, but they are actually worried that the Country will be overrun and ruled by non-white people. I was told that is why they don’t take into consideration the resulting deaths and bad outcomes that were common from botched amateur abortions before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion.

I am aware of many of Trump’s proposed solutions, but don’t know much about why he is proposing them (what his policies are). Examples include;

• Make abortions difficult, expensive and time consuming
• Remove all “illegal” people from the country
• Eliminate taxes on tips
• Impose huge import tariffs
• Replace experienced professionals from government posts, replacing them with unqualified “yes men”
• Reduce taxes on the rich
• Eliminate the Affordable Care Act
• Reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits
• Complete the boarder wall
• End birthright citizenship
• Ban U.S. companies from investing in Chinese companies, and ban Chinese companies from investing in U.S. companies.
• End taxation on overtime
• Reduce corporate tax rates
• Cut car insurance rates by 50%
• Withdraw from the World Health Organization
• Abolish the educational department
• Provide $10,000 a year to home schoolers
• Create a new credentialing body for teachers
• Abolish teacher tenure for k-12
• Enable prayer and other activities in public schools
• Stop funding colleges that engage in censorship (as defined by Trump)
• Pardon participants in storming the Capitol January 6th
• Create a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden
• Impose death penalty for selling drugs
• Encourage stop-and-frisk policing
• Require proof of citizenship at polls
• Require only paper ballets
• Required all votes to be counted on election night
• Cut off federal funding for NPR
• Pull out of Paris Climate Accord
• Prevent further development of off-shore wind development
• Lower energy costs by 50% within first year
• Promote research and development of vertical takeoff flying cars

There are many, many other things that Trump has promised to do, but these are things to do – they are not policies. For example, take his promise to lower energy costs by 50%. How might that happen and why? What policy is he implementing? Would this mean that it is now the policy that the Federal government to manage and force the petroleum industry to cut prices at their loss, or does this mean that it is now the policy of the government to subsidize gas prices in order to maximize the burning of petroleum? Is this a call for the Federal Government to take over (nationalize) the petroleum industry so the government can control prices? Is he trying to funnel tax money to the petroleum industry by decreasing gas prices thereby increase gas use? What policy could possible be driving this sort of action, and how might that be implemented? What problem is he trying to solve?

What he seems to be doing is agreeing to the “wish lists” from his “base” so he can get into power and have sufficient control to turn the Country into something like a dictatorship. His base wants lower prices, higher income, lower taxes, less competition with “those” other people and a chicken in every pot. He has articulated very few actual policies, just a bunch of rather odd and disjointed action plans.

Harris hasn’t done a much better job at articulating her “policies”, but she did describe numerous policies (goals/intents) along the lines of improving access to affordable health care, working toward reducing the global warming risks, protecting labor, improving public education, restore access to family planning, ban corporate price gouging on critical items such as food and groceries, roll back tax cuts on wealth, increase capital gains taxes on high income people, sign the bipartisan border security act, require Supreme Court Justices to comply with ethics laws, etc, etc.

I got tired listing all of the promised actions from both. What I am trying to point out is that Trump doesn’t seem to have much of a policy beyond gaining power and enriching the rich. Harris also didn’t specifically state her policies, but I can easily make the connection between each one of her promises and the higher policy statement contained in the opening line of the US Constitution. While she didn’t make a clear and specific link to the Constitution, it is easy to do so. Many, perhaps most, of Trump’s promises don’t seem to be aimed at implementing the highest level policies of the United States. His policies seem to be personal rather than in support of “we the people.”

Last night’s debate was a big disappointment to me. Yes- Kamala was awake, engaged and almost “Presidential,” but she failed to delivered what I need (and I believe most viewers wanted to hear). I believe she seriously flubbed an opportunity that will not return and very likely will cost her the race.

I suppose I should mention Trump’s performance. It was a mixture of pretty good points embedded in his normal circus show of lies, stupid comments and insults. The thing is, almost nobody who is “on the fence” cares at all about the lies, stupid comments and insults – in fact they find them kind of fun and entertaining. What they care about are the rather sparse statements of what he plans to do if elected. I only heard four things that he plans on doing, (1) get the abortion question out of the overview of the Federal Government and instead leave it up to the States, (2) put a 20% tariff on imports from some countries (at least China, maybe more), (3) cut taxes even more for the rich (increasing the deficit by $6 trillion dollars), and (4) end the war in Ukraine in one day by talking to the two sides. He didn’t provide any details about any of these statements including details about things like what would happen to the USA economy should he implement broad 20% tariffs, how he would manage to stop the war in Ukraine in a day, or any of the other things he “promised.” (Actually, he promised almost nothing; he mostly just ranted, insulted and said many amazingly stupid things.)

However, the facts that Trump says nothing of substance or that he just makes up outrageous lies and insults has no impact upon the election. Those that are appalled by his antics still won’t vote for him, those that find his antics to be funny and “down home” heartwarming will ignore them. What he said or did will have zero impact upon the election. However, Harris’s influence has a potential impact because there are many people who are sitting on the fence but would like a better choice. My friend who pleaded for me to give him a reason to NOT vote for Trump is a case in point. I wanted her to give me details that I could then discuss with my friend as the reasons for not voting for Trump. Unfortunately, in my view she failed to provide that.

Harris said that she would do a handful of things: (1) Get something like Row V Wade reinstalled, (2) Create an opportunity economy, (3) impose the bi-partisan immigration reform bill that was killed in Congress, (4) increase use of diverse source of energy to decrease reliance upon foreign oil, (5) work on charting a course toward a two-state solution while maintaining our support for Israel, (6) create opportunities in the countries where the immigrants are coming for in order to stem their desire to come here, and (7) not take guns away from Americans.

What I wanted to hear from Harris is a tiny bit more about these things. I wanted her to explain that Roe v Wade removes restrictions on abortions earlier than 24 months, but allows States to determine the policy after that. I wanted her to tell me how her “opportunity economy” would work without increasing inflation by handing out free money to families and small businesses – is that all she has in mind?? I wanted her to mention what she means by “diverse sources of energy.” I want to know how she will make that happen. I wanted to know how she intends to bring industry back to the USA (or even if that is her intent). I wanted to know how she intends to bolster the economies of southern countries without inflaming corruption as has been the case so many times in the past. I wanted to know how her approach to a two-state solution would work any better than what happened in the past. There are more things that I wanted to hear about – but instead much time was squandered by both sides throwing mud at each other. I don’t think Harris needed to throw much mud – everyone is aware of the negative things about her opponent. Rather than waste time throwing mud I wish she had briefly outlined how should would accomplish things, not just offering vague areas that need work on.

One of the really big problems that I noticed with Harris’s discussions came when she was asked if the economy is better or worse than when she came into office. She didn’t answer that question, and I think she should have done so in a factual and forthright way. She didn’t hide anything by avoiding the question, she just buried herself. Her answer was she is going to promote an “opportunity economy” by giving a $6000 child credit and making “substantial” tax breaks for small businesses. By saying these things she made it clear that she agrees that the economy got much worse during her term as VP, and that she has no plan about how to change that. It would have been far better to admit it, explain why it happened, and tell us a bit about the actual path forward. A $6000 child credit and tax breaks for small businesses isn’t going to cut it unless there are a lot of other things to go along with it.

My overall opinion was that she put on a better, saner and more positive show. She did a better job of pointing out a few areas that need improvements… but she didn’t give me any substantive answers to take back to my friend to help he understand why he shouldn’t vote for Trump. My friend already knows about the personality issues, he wants to know how Harris will make his life better. Inflation is killing him, how is that going to be brought under control. It is good enough for inflation to be stopped, it needs to be reversed or incomes have to be increased otherwise everyone will experience a real, permanent decrease in their quality of life. If it is not possible to provide a plan for fixing this problem, at least describe why the problem is so intractable and what tools can be brought to bear on fixing the problem. A little education might be useful to bring clarity into the real nature of the problem.

And…. a really big missed opportunity was for Harris to point out that running the County is not a one-person show. It is a very large group effort, and that specifically her office is not just her dictating but instead considers the wisdom of many of the nation’s brightest and most experienced individuals that have deep understanding and experience in their respective fields of expertise. She isn’t just a person, she is the sum total of a whole lot of people from the Cabinet and important agencies on down. She needed to point out that she is a “manager” bringing the combined efforts of the best and brightest to assist the Country in finding a better path forward. She could point out that Trump does exactly the opposite, he fires the best and brightest and fills those positions with people loyal to him rather than the Country. Harris needs to get the monkey off of her back and make sure we know her job isn’t to do all of those wonderful things, her job is to put together a coalition of smart people working together to find solutions, and that this coalition needs to include both Democrats and Republicans to achieve success for the whole.

I am glad that Kamala was not an embarrassment – but I don’t think she did what it takes to change the minds of those that don’t embarrass easily. She needed to answer the question of, “What about the policies?”

After yesterday’s adventure of attempting to listen to Trump’s Aug 8 Emergency Press Conference while wading through his 162 lies (averaging an impressive rate of one lie or falsehood every 23 seconds) I decided it was perhaps time to look into the proposed policies, as outlined in the Project 2025 book – all 887 pages of it. I did this in part because of questions that I have been getting from some of my “conservative” friends about how the policies of Trump differ from those of Harris. Their comments usually go something like, “Sure, his personal ethics and presentations are disgusting, but his proposed policies are great.” First off, I have heard almost nothing about Trump’s proposed policies from Trump, he just spits hate, insults and vitriol when he speaks, and he doesn’t seem to write more than a few rather incoherent words at a time in his tweets. In his speeches he very seldom stays on topic long enough to describe any part of his proposed policy (assuming he even has one). Given that his utterances are just looping “stream of consciousness” rants about anything, and nothing – we have to look elsewhere for what he might actually attempt to do once in office. The far right present their “Mandate for Leadership the Conservative Promise 2025” (i.e., Project 2025) as the definitive description of changes that will be implemented once he is back in office. He says he agrees with them, hence I assume that document represents his “policies.”

I wonder how many of my conservative friends have read or understand the contents of this huge policy statement? I wonder if any of them have any actual knowledge of its contents beyond “it must be great” because it is endorsed by Trump and the conservative talking heads. I should confess that I also haven’t read all of it, I could only stand looking at it for three hours before I became totally disgusted with the insanity of what I was reading – similar to my actually only listening to about half of the 64 minutes of Trumps emergency press conference before I just got disgusted and tired of wasting my time listening to a moron blathering on about nothing meaningful. In both cases, I did my best to “skim” the material to make sure I wasn’t missing something valid that I might agree with.

I found the Forward section in the Mandate to be quite interesting because it describes many of the problems facing us in the United States today, problems that we are all concerned about. They discuss issues such as poor and unaffordable medical care, problems caused by the wildly unequal distribution of wealth, problems with the wealthy getting too much control and political power, problems with vastly unequal educational opportunities based upon race and address – the thing that they didn’t mention was that almost the entire set of issues they were discussing where the direct result of Republican actions. They are correct, all of those bad things exists – and they almost all exist in large measure because the “Conservatives” created them or blocked actions to solve or mitigate them. Conservative should read this and say to themselves; “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We can all agree that there are many injustices that should be righted, there are many holes in our support for the less fortunate among us, homelessness is a serious problem, deaths from drug overdose is a huge issue, and we squander money where we could be making real improvements. We need to work hard toward fixing these glaring problems. However, it is not at all clear that the suggestions offered in the remaining 850 pages or so would do much more than exacerbate the existing problems. We agree with some of the problem identification; we disagree with how to find the best solutions.

Of course there are also many parts of the “forward” that do NOT align at all with my more liberal view of the world. This book was created and supported by the Heritage Foundation, an extremely influential think tank promoting far right conservative agendas. When they talk about “family” they really mean more government funding for Christian schools while cutting funding for public schools. When they speak of family values they actually mean eliminating all rights for LGBTQ individuals, and outlaw family planning and abortion rights. When they talk about reduction of taxes, they mean reduction of taxes to the very rich while eliminating or reducing value for the rest of us. When they speak of reforming government they mean firing existing merit based employees and replacing them with “loyal” political appointments.

Once I managed to grind my way through the Forward, I was faced with more than 800 pages of details, often very high level recommendations, interspersed with very detailed specific changes including things things like curriculum changes aimed at eliminating any references to ideas or considerations such as “black matters,” “woke”, “LGBTQ,” or considerations of the current impacts of past transgressions (e.g., slavery).

It sounds like they are proposing a total rearrangement and realignment of all government agencies. They are proposing a new set of “agencies” that rule over existing semi-independent agencies with the intent of making them all political positions based upon loyalty to the “administration” (President) and the President’s interpretation of the Constitution. They are promoting changes that give the President complete control over loyalty based hiring and firing decisions impacting individuals deep within the agencies, allowing complete control over the staffing and actions of government employees. They are hoping to create a vast new system of government totally under the control of the President, answering to no one else – and with no requirements that positions be filled with those who are qualified for the job as long as they are loyal to the President.

What could go wrong with this??? How anxious would the Heritage Foundation be in supporting this approach to governance if, accidentally, Kamala Harris wins the election?

There are so many horrors outlined and described in this tome that it is impossible for me to respond in anything like a comprehensive and meaningful way. It would take for more than 900 pages of response to discuss the likely impacts of all of the recommendations for “small” changes such as moving the placement of the FBI from its current position to one completely under the oversight and control of the President. Has anyone contemplated the impacts of these recommendations should they be implemented? Each of their “simple” recommendations open up topics that would take many pages for an adequate response of why it would be a very bad idea. The overall proposal is set up to create a whole new class of oligarchs at the beck and call of the new dictator/President. Good idea – we should all feel better knowing that Trump would be free to implement any action or rules that he wants without oversight or control – enforced by his finger being on the “Big Red Button.”

I know it sounds like I am overstating the dangers of their “Mandate for Leadership.” Perhaps I am. I can only recommend that you get it (it is freely available to download) and check it out. When doing so, think about what impacts might be generated by implementing their thousands of recommendations for changes to the government and legal system. For you conservatives, I suggest reading it from the point of view of what happens should these changes be made and a liberal gets elected. Would that be such a perfect world for you? Would you really like all of the proposed changes if leadership was to become liberal instead of conservative? Perhaps it is a good time to consider what you are asking for.

I have been out of connection with “the world” for the past week because I was attending an International System Safety Society Summit and Training meeting (it used to be called a conference until political correctness raised its ugly head and we had to name is something less controversial – but also less clear). Upon getting back to the news I find that Trump held an “emergency” press conference on August 8th. I guess I was a bit behind since it happened before my trip to the Summit but I didn’t hear about it until now.

I’m not sure of the nature of the emergency, perhaps he was lonely and just needed to have someone to talk to – or perhaps he realized that this election thing might not be as easy as he thought. In any case, the week following that press conference the more thoughtful news sources started talking about it. For example, NPR presented the results of a fact checking exercise they did on the material. They found that he lied 162 times in the 64 minute talk (on the average of one lie per 23 seconds). That means that on average the speech had many more lies than truthful statements. It wasn’t a lie now and then, it was an fact accidentally being included now and then. I watched a little bit of it until my patience ran out – I couldn’t stand listening to his lies. However, I was fairly impressed with his ability to create a running non-stop flow of complete vitriol, hate speech and lies. It was an impressive feat of running off at the mouth while saying nothing at all.

I wonder how many people saw the event. It was a press event therefore I assume it was just a few dozen at the most. Perhaps it was televised live, but if so I missed it. Rather than being a rally of some sort, it was clearly intended to get media coverage. It was not meant to be “seen” but rather it provided talking segments to be reused. Since it was promoted as a Q&A back and forth session, there should have been an opportunity for the press to push him on a few of his lies – they didn’t do that. I don’t know if it was possible, but it seems that there could have been a split screen showing him speaking versus a “real time” fact checking. A short delay would have made this possible. His lies were so glaringly obvious, and trivial, that an immediate feedback should have been possible.

As it was, all of his statements went unchallenged, even though all of the big broadcast companies were present. The challenges didn’t come for almost a week, and then they did so on news channels that are probably seldom viewed by his “base.” Those of his base that watched the performance undoubted sucked it up whole cloth believing ever word. The real information wasn’t presented until days afterward and on channels that only speak to those that already are convinced that Trump is mostly a vindictive, habitual liar. He doesn’t say ANYTHING with forethought, knowledge or wisdom – it is just a stream of consciousness that is intended to sway his base.

We all know all of this, even his base knows all about it. What’s missing? I wonder if whats missing is a press that has the guts to tell the truth in a timely and clear manner. It is the press’s fault that his based didn’t get the lies pointed out to them, it is the press’s fault that he is allowed to make wildly false and insulting claims UN-challenged, it is the press’s fault that he has any sort of appearance of sanity, compassion or anything else required to run our country. They treat him as a wonderful gift of constant “news” – he is a blessing to them because there is always something sort of new to say, always video feed to show and always controversy to cover. If they were doing anything close to their “charter” with the American People, they would all being discussing his lies, discussing not only what he said that was wrong but clarifying with what is the real situation. The lies are so great and obvious that they are just plain false facts, regardless of the many more incorrect opinions. Truth is truth, it is not subject to opinion.

We are seeing controversial and contentious politics being maintained by the press because it is controversial, eye catching, and emotionally challenging – and hence “newsworthy.” In short, we are being played the fools. Both sides of the public are being played the fools supporting a failed press system. Once Rupert Murdock and his ilk took reigns of the media, the meaning of “news” became ratings to rake in advertisement dollars rather than the sacred duty to provide the information and understanding that is critical to the success of this experiment that we call democracy.

Great education and an engaged, moral, ethical press are the keys to our success – democracy cannot survive without these two pillars of society, which are shabby at best and getting worse as they interact with each other. A strong and well funded free press is critical to our success, as is the presence of an educated public. Even when we have mediocre (that is a complement) news coverage, it has gotten to be only about 1/3 of the viewing time – the other 2/3 is made up with terrible (super low quality, boring) advertising. I believe that advertising should be banned during “the news.” It has gotten to the point where I find it almost impossible to “watch the news” because there is so little of it, there is so little of importance shown, and it takes so long to wait for the mountains of ads between brief, non-informative bits of “news.”

While I am totally disgusted with Trump and his followers, in many ways I give them a “pass” – his followers are doing the best that they can given the information they have. Generally, I find his followers to be interested, compassionate and interested in the things that I am interested in. However, their “knowledge” comes from a failed news system augmented with a corrupt “social media” echo chamber – and it is getting worse.

I trust that you watched at least a little bit of the DNC this week.  What did you think?  I thought they knocked it out of the park! 

As the week went along I began to wonder if they weren’t overdoing the “inclusion” part to the point that I am now somehow “excluded,” but when all was said and done I thought the constant reminder that everyone is included was fine with me.  It seemed that most of the presentations were by “blacks” (or however they should be called), minorities, women and LGBTQ people – with a smattering of regular white guys thrown in when time allowed.  I started to worry for a bit, but finally relaxed with it and got to the point of saying to myself, “of course they are wanting to flood the time with their story – this may be their opportunity to shine.”  Good for them, all of them – it doesn’t diminish me in the least.  So I just listened to what they all had to say and was pleased with the message.

I found that I got up this morning feeling excited and optimistic – and somehow refreshed about the political future (of the world) for the first time in years. It feels like perhaps there is a sliver of a chance that some of my big concerns might actually get addressed. (A few of my big concerns are related to education, balancing the economy, protecting the environment, becoming energy sustaining, etc. I guess they are all related to my belief in my profession of System Safety – find the problems and solve them.)

Kamala’s policy statements were of necessity brief and quite general in nature, but not so general as to lack substance.  I think my favorite agenda items fit nicely into what they talked about all week, and that she outlined during her rather amazing speech.

I was pleased that they talked about many of my “favorite” topics such as improving schools, creating opportunities for those on the bottom, reigning in the acceleration of the transfer of wealth to the very rich, fixing the border/immigration problems, actually making inroads on the climate and environmental problems, solving the woman reproductive rights debacle, international affairs – and on and on and on. They talked about it all, and did so in ways that made my head nod in agreement. The week was filled with policy positions, goals, and philosophical positions that I believe can actually work. It was mostly just “common sense” actions to achieve the goals that 99% of American’s want (and need). We don’t disagree with each other, we just think we do.

I would have liked to hear more specific details about how to accomplish, and afford, all of the things they were proposing. However, there is time enough for that – and it feels like there is room in all of that for MY ideas about how to move forward. Not that anyone is ever going to hear my ideas, or act upon any of them, but I feel that if I were to be heard my thoughts would be accepted as valid and important. Hopefully everyone will end up feeling that way – that is how important dialogues come about, everyone’s ideas are important and a part of the discussion. I felt that my ideas would be listened to, as well as the ideas from my conservative rural friends. I think Kamala laid out an invitation to us all to get together with “the other side” (from all sides) and talk to find out what we agree upon and how to get those things done. Let’s take her up on the challenge and find the agreements – I am pretty sure we actually have almost universal agreement on all of the important goals and desires, we just don’t have agreement on how to get to them. If we talk we just might find that the combination of our views actually contains the seeds of the solutions that we seek.

Here’s hoping for a better future.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped in to a local bar to chat with some of my “blue collar” friends. I enjoy the atmosphere and discussions concerning with these friends concerning more “down to earth” topics of life’s problems. This time my small group of friends were all wearing brand new MAGA hats! I already knew that they are pretty “conservative” folks, but was a bit surprised by a couple of them that were so proudly wearing these hats. They all know me well enough to expect some push-back from my rather liberal point of view. However, I was so surprised about this turn of events that I was speechless (an unusual condition) and just listened.

Things quickly settled down when they realized they were not going to get much of a response from me. The friend sitting closest to me said he had decided to vote for Trump. I just shock my head in disbelief, and mumbled something about being disappointed in his decision. He then surprised me by asking me to please convince him why that is a bad idea. Hum?? I was rather startled by this request – I think he was seriously asking me to help him form a position for not voting for Trump that makes sense to him, and perhaps one he can discuss with his friends when I am not there. It was an invitation. However, I was so taken by surprise by the request that I just said the reasons included just about everything Trump says and does, then I ordered another beer for the two of us and changed the subject.

Two weeks later I continue to ponder the invitation. I realize he wasn’t asking a high level big question, he was asking for detailed specific instances that he can understand. It wasn’t enough for me to point to Trump’s overall behavior, his habit of lying, his insulting and degrading comments, or the insanity of many of his proposals. My friend was asking for something much more nuanced and specific.

As I ponder his request I keep wondering what he thinks will get better with Trump in office. What might be my friend’s specific problems, issues, concerns that are so important that he is willing to overlook Trump’s rather obvious problems? I haven’t had a chance to go back to ask about this – I hope to in a few days. I think my best approach to responding might be to take a small number of examples of problems and compare likely outcomes and solutions offered by Trump’s Republican followers versus the Democrat’s approaches.

Perhaps I have an example that might help clarify the differences.

A few weeks ago I was notified by my insurance agent that the homeowner’s insurance for my “cabin” (actually just a house) in Northern California will be canceled in September because of the high risk of wildfires in that area. I have been searching for an insurance company that will sell me coverage – so far I have had no luck. It appears that I may end up with an uninsured summer house located on a large recreational lake. There are several thousand homeowners in a similar position around this lake, and millions more throughout California.

Losing fire insurance has severe economic impacts of these homeowners. Most homeowners in California have mortgages with banks, they don’t own their homes outright. The loans from banks require that insurance coverage be maintained to protect their assets. If insurance coverage lapses, then the banks want to be paid off, or they will foreclose on the property. That means that because insurance companies are refusing to write fire insurance millions of homeowners are at risk of losing their homes and the value represented by these homes. Even if a person owns their home outright, the sale value plummets without the ability to obtain a bank loan. That is a disaster for the individuals, and the economy of the State.

There is a new fire insurance plan in California that is available for a few of these homeowners for a mere 300% – to 400% increase in rates for vastly reduced coverage. It is called the California Fair Plan, but is nt a “State government” plan, it is a commercial plan available in the state. So far there are about 350,000 of these policies sold but the restrictions for obtaining coverage for things such as hours of occupancy per year that about a million homes are still uninsured. The demand for these high prices plans has overwhelmed the insurance company, resulting in limited availability to those who need to take this “last resort” approach to saving their home.

Where did this problem come from??? It started about 120 years ago when large timber companies began managing the forests for maximum profit. These companies cut the old growth forests, planted new monoculture forests of identical trees (Monoculture is the cultivation or growth of a single crop or organism, or a culture dominated by a single element.) spaced too close together to enhance the yield while decreasing the harvesting costs. At the same time, the timber companies demanded fire protection from the government to protect their investment. The fire protection was provided as requested, was successful – and resulted in the creation of highly flammable, unmanageable forests.

At the same time that the forests were being transformed into plantations, homeowners were being enticed into building new homes in the beautiful, but highly fire prone, forests. These homeowners depended upon bank loans, which depended upon the availability of low cost fire insurance. If there had been no fire insurance, there would have been very little building in these fire prone areas. The creation of the current fire problems in California came about by a combination of inexpensive fire insurance, mismanaging forests to maximize logging profits, and the current high temperatures associated with global warming. However, the current problem is NOT the outcome of global warming, it is the outcome of too much profit taking from our natural resources.

Now that the risks created by these practices are being experienced as loses, those insurance companies that profited for many years are leaving the homeowners to pay the price. Millions of citizens were enticed into purchasing homes in hazardous areas based upon their belief that the fire services could protect their property, and that if they failed to do so, their savings were protected by the insurance that they have been buying for decades. Now insurance rates have risen by as much as ten times in the last two years, and fire insurance is often unavailable. These homeowners are now at risk of losing their homes along with their entire investment.

What does this have to do with Trump and his “conservative” followers? They are set upon eliminating regulations with the expectation that business will “do the right thing.” Businesses are not capable of protecting or enhancing the common good, they are only capable of reducing their business risks while maximizing profits. It takes government policies, regulations and agencies to protect the common good, and it takes regulations to ensure the protection of individuals from excesses of business. My expectation is that the conservative approach to the insurance emergency is to let the chips fall where they might. If homes are foreclosed and bought up by the banks and investors for pennies on the dollar, that is just the way that money flows. My expectation is also that the “liberal” side of politics will work to find ways to project homeowners, while minimizing future high fire risk situations. The liberals aren’t likely to succeed completely these two goals because of the conservatives blocking their actions – but they will work toward making it better for the common good rather than just better for the super rich.

There are millions of analogous situations where decisions need to be made in favor of the common good versus the good of large businesses. The opposing parties are very clear about these differences. Conservatives claim that businesses make the right decisions about things like the environment and social needs while liberals observe that they don’t often make such generous decisions. For some odd reason, many of the supporters for Trump’s proposals are the very people that will be hurt the worst by the current proposals such as are outlined in “Project 2025” and during Trump rallies. I think much of the emphasis on social issues (such as abortion rights, undocumented immigrants, etc.) are intended to distract many people from Trump’s real goals of concentrating power and wealth into the hands of a few.

I can’t miss the opportunity to talk about last week’s Presidential debate. In preparation for writing this blog I decided to go back and re-watch the event. Biden started off in good shape – he was engaged, thoughtful, wide awake – and correct. However, after about two or three minutes something happened to him. He became pensive, he started looking down at his note pad rather than directly into the camera, and he seemed to be concentrating on how he might best respond to the insane lies flowing from Trump.

At first it looked to me that Biden was the poster boy for dementia. His slack face, open mouth, drooping eyes all reminded me of some of my loved ones as they sank into dementia and away from reality. However, when it was his turn to speak he looked bright and fully aware, supporting the important things he said. Other than difficulties with his speech resulting from a severe childhood speech impairment (stuttering) that he largely overcame during his adult life, he spoke well and thoughtfully. His demeanor was definitely subdued, especially in contrast with Trump’s bombastic outpouring of lies and insults. However, Biden was NOT having difficulty with thoughts, memory, or understanding. He was just taking his time and considering what he said before he said it (unlike Trump’s approach to speaking).

It would be quite helpful if Biden would release medical information concerning what happened to him. It clearly wasn’t a case of progressive dementia that slowly gets worse over time – it appeared to be caused by his trying to figure out how to effectively deal with Trumps aggressive use of made up information. There was not time in the format for him to identify or correct the torrent of mis-speak from Trump. It would have been interesting if there could have been a real time fact-check to flag Trump’s made up facts. It now easily be done after the fact so that we can more confidently identify the falsehoods from both sides at the point where they were made. However, this is all “water under the bridge” at this point, few would take the time to go back and watch it again looking for lies. I think it might be important for Biden to release information about his health and cognitive state to put the concern of his having dementia to bed. Those of us with aging parents recognize the signs of dementia, and this was not that. He is sharp, coherent and correct most of the time, but tends to think deeply before speaking – given the appearance of not “being with it,” when in fact he is deeply engaged with the issues at hand.

Now what do we do? What is the reasonable path forward? For one thing, the world’s medical experts need to evaluate President Biden to figure out what happened, and what the likely future situation might be. There are a number of doctors offering their opinions of his “condition” ranging from “not-dementia” to possible early Parkinson disease. So far I have seen no opinions that point to anything of immediate concern in the next few years. Perhaps there will be times where he can call “time out” for a while (we could all use a little of that). He has plenty of qualified aids, staff and advisors to support him, no President can do the job by themselves.

There are some real and extremely important differences between the two candidates once they get into office. These differences are not hypothetical, they are real – backed by real experience. Biden surrounds himself with the actual experts in the various fields that he has to deal with. He maintains access to the best, most up-to-date science, his political and social advisors are the most experienced and best in the world – and he pays attention to them. Trump, on the other hand, surrounds himself with people with essentially zero experience or understanding in their various areas of responsibility. They are “yes men” that agree with his every whim, and tell him what he has told them he wants to hear. When they have the audacity to disagree with him, he fires them.

On the other hand, Biden is truthful, honest, compassionate and smart. He knows and works well with leaders around the world, and within the halls of congress. Trump lies so often that it is apparent that he no longer recognizes it as a problem – his approach seems to be “why bother with learning the truth when all you have to do is make up the story that people want to hear?” He lies, insults, demeans, and attacks everyone that he sees might get in his way, and that appears to be just about everyone. There is no reason to know anything if you can change reality and the truth just by saying it is so. That might be almost acceptable if his goals were to support the Nation, Democracy and world peace. Instead, he has a very low intelligence, but thinks of himself as omniscient with the goal of making himself and his cronies wealthier and more powerful. He is a model for the story of “The Emperor has New Clothes.” We need the truth telling boy of the tale who points out the fallacy of the statements.

In the case of Biden, should he embark upon a dangerous and unwise path, his advisors have the credentials and authority to intervene. In the case of Trump no sure protections exist – he has made sure that there are no pockets of power that might inhibit his decisions and quest for power and money. Biden believes he is working for America and democracy, Trump is working for himself and his powerful cronies. He wants to concentrate as much power and wealth as he can, into the hands of as few as he can. He wants to be the emperor of the world.

Assuming I am correct and Biden is healthy enough for the job but looks bad on some occasions (such as during last week’s debate), what should the path forward be? The problem is that millions of voters watched his performance and judged him to be too compromised for the job. My initial reaction was that something (such as a stroke) had happened to him that caused his poor performance. In fact, this blog originally started with the opinion that he degenerated so quickly during the debate that it appeared to be a medical emergency situation and the debate should have been stopped so he could get needed emergency medical attention. Upon re-watching the debate I changed my mind – it appears that he was low on energy (exhausted), but what he said was coherent, to the point, and correct. If you just read the transcripts without the visual cues he was just fine and did a good job with the debate. (That is what people report that only read translations to other languages.) However, most people won’t take the time to go back and re-watch the event, or read it instead of watching it – they will maintain their initial reaction that he is incapable of doing the job based upon his appearance during that debate.
Should the Democrats take the chance that he can improve performance enough in the future to wipe out those initial impressions? Personally, I doubt that he can. Those images are seared into people’s minds. Can they depend upon enough people voting against Trump even though they don’t like the choice offered? Maybe. There are a lot of people that don’t really care what happens as long as Trump doesn’t get re-elected (I fall into that category.) Or will this cause many people to not vote (which is an effective vote for Trump in this election)? That is very likely.

It looks like the best solution is to quickly find a replacement, or at least do an extremely good job at showing how it really doesn’t matter much if Biden degrades even more over the next four years, he has sufficient high quality support to “get the job done” even if he is personally compromised. I believe that is the case, his presence or absence isn’t all that important as long as his aids, staff and advisors continue to do a good job – the position of President is normally pretty much as a “figure head” so it isn’t all that important. (However, Trump demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be a figure head position, the President can load the advisors, courts and agencies in ways that give him incredible power. That doesn’t usual happen, but it does in his case.)

It will be interesting to see how the Democrats change their approach over the next few weeks.

This morning I was telling my girlfriend about some of my experiences working as a system safety engineer on the Trident Missile System. After finishing my degree in engineering, I took a new job as a system safety engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space company in the early 1980’s. Lockheed’s job offer was the first time I had ever heard of a system safety engineer, or a safety engineer of any kind for that matter. I found myself transitioning from a small time general contractor in coastal Northern California to suddenly being involved in a huge, high-tech project involving the worlds biggest and most deadly weapon system! I was thrown from the kumbaya laid back liberal living in the back waters of California to the center of a massive new weapon system capable of destroying civilization as we know it! My rationale that allowed me to make such a transition was (and still is) that these things are so damned dangerous we better make sure they don’t accidentally cause mischief – either in the sense of a nuclear bomb, or more simply as in the form of non-nuclear accidents involved with their storage, transportation, maintenance, inspection, etc.

The discussion with my girlfriend eventually progressed to a discussion of what a “ballistic” missile with on-board guidance capability is. The important aspect of this is that a ballistic missile is guided only when it’s first launched. After that its flight is subject to the law of gravity. The design of these systems result in them being uncontrolled from outside sources once launched. They can’t be aborted, turned back, or redirected – basically they are “point and shoot” devices (it is actually a lot more complicated than that, but the outcome is the same). The idea is that you wouldn’t want the enemy to be able to highjack the system and neutralize your missiles – therefore outside control is not an option. Once they are launched, they will do what they have been programmed to do.

It is difficult to conceive of the size of our nuclear arsenal. It is truly horrific just considering the capability of the D5 (Trident II) nuclear fleet consisting of 14 submarines carrying up to 24 missiles each (currently limited to 20 by treaty). Each missile can deliver around 8 warheads. At the present time, the missiles are armed with “low yield” war heads comparable to those used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. However, those can be replace with warheads that are more than 30 times that powerful – each warhead.

That brings up the question of what prevents them from being launched at the wrong time? Not much. A single person (the President) has the authority to order a launch at any time. They can implement this command through a device that is humorously referred to as the “nuclear football.” The entire command and control system has been designed to allow an essentially unfettered access to this awesome power by the President. As far as I know, there are no official “checks and balances” to this authority. The reason for this is that the command must be implemented very quickly if it is to be carried out before the threat of incoming nuclear warheads from a hostile enemy destroy our ability to respond. Time is of the essence, and there is just barely enough time to set targets, arm, and launch our retaliatory missiles should we be attacked. This is the essence of our doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD).

Quoting from Wikipedia, “Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.” Since it is practically impossible to survive a massive first-strike, the strategy is to launch the “second-strike” before the first strike has occurred.

It turns out that it isn’t quite as hard-and-fast as that sounds. There has been at least one instance where a launch from Russia was detected by our early warning system. Doctrine indicated that our missiles were supposed to be launched within approximately five minutes from detection. No checks and balances were in place, and everyone in the chain of command was mandated to carry out a retaliatory launch. However, the command was not launched in violation of the “rules” – the President at the time decided to wait and see because there was no build-up to the immediate threat of an attack. As you know (because you are still alive) that “launch” was a false alarm, it was a glitch in the early warning system. We dodged a bullet because those in command were willing to violate their orders. Lucky us. There have been other “close calls,” but since they have not been published in the open press they remain shadowy “rumors.” The point is that our survival depended upon having quick thinking, dedicated, highly trained, stable individuals in place at that moment who were willing and capable of making the “right” decision.

That brings me to the consideration of our current Presidential election. Who will be in charge of the nuclear football when the election is over? The question goes far beyond the stability and knowledge of the President at the moment of decision, but more critically – who is in place to support a quick and rationale decision? Since there are no effective means for implementing organizational controls, regulations, overviews or “checks and balances” – those checks and balances will depend upon those who are personally surrounding the President at the moment of decision. That is why it is so important to make sure that all of the President’s assistants are qualified for their jobs. This means the cabinet members, and the heads of the various departments (such as the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, etc). He needs the best and brightest at his side should such a decision need to be made again – or should the President decide to make such a decision on his own rather than in response to an active threat. The person in control of the Nuclear Football actually and truly has control of our nuclear weapon system – and the future of civilization. The President’s selection of close advisors can be expected to play a crucial part in assuring the stability, and safety, of our nuclear arsenal should the topic turn from “theoretical” to “real.”

Note: Just in case I might not have been clear, Trump represents the danger that I am talking about given his penchant for “shooting from the hip” without any apparent consideration of the consequences of his actions, his profound lack of understanding of much of anything, and his habit of surrounding himself with incompetent, inexperienced “yes men.” He intentionally isolates himself from those who might question or disagree with him – including his selections for the Supreme Court.

The catastrophe of being unable to obtain fire insurance has finally landed on my doorstep. I avoided the problem for a couple of years, but last week got the dreaded notice from my insurance company that my home owner’s insurance on my vacation home in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is being canceled because my home is in a high fire danger area. This is a bit of a problem because it leaves me without any insurance, and it also means that I can no longer sell my house because banks will not give a mortgage without insurance. Perhaps the best solution for me is to knock down my house and sell the bare ground. If I can’t insure the house I need to knock it down because I can’t accept the risk of having an uninsured property, and it looks like I can’t sell it – so the value not only went to zero, but about $100,000 below zero to remove the risk. Opps – there goes another $500,000 of my “retirement” fund.

This house is a problem because it is located in a rural community in the Sierra Nevada Mountains – which just happens to be in a forested area just like all of the northern Sierras. I have trees on my property, my neighbors have trees on their property which makes it a fire prone area. There is a risk of a forest fire – hence no more insurance. The community has a very responsive and well staffed fire department, enforces strict “fire safe” property management requirements to keep the ground clear and tree limbs at least 20 feet from the ground. The fire department makes frequent inspections to ensure fire safety and a defensible zone around homes – vigorously enforcing their rules and regulations. This is a very different situation from the practices of communities that burned during forest fires during the past few years. Sure there is a risk of a fire loss, but that is the point of insurance – to “share” individual risks across a large group of people.

After the initial shock of being denied insurance died down I looked around for alternatives. I found a company from another state that is willing to sell me homeowners insurance, without forest fires being included. That is a bit of a relief, perhaps I don’t have to knock the house down – I just need to accept the risk of losing the house from a wild fire. That might be a workable solution for awhile since I own the house outright and don’t have a mortgage or a bank to deal with. However, it will likely mean that the house remains unsalable (or at least, much decreased in value) because it is unlikely for a future buyer to obtain a mortgage.

It turns out that a group of insurance companies created an alternative “last resort” avenue for getting fire insurance called “Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR)” plans. The intent was to create a market for those of us that have been pushed out the insurance market and therefore face losing the value of our homes. Unfortunately, one of the requirements for eligibility for the FAIR plan is more than 50% occupancy. Since this is a summer home that isn’t practical for me. I am not positive what 50% entails, but if it means 1/2 of 365 days a year that means I am not eligible.

This is a problem that has been a concerned for some time – I suppose I should have sold my place as soon as it became evident that insurance companies are attempting to back away from the risks. I sort of understand their position – they are in the business of changing as much as they can and paying out as little as they can. Wildfires clearly are a significant, growing, risk now that we are more deeply entering into a era of global warming. Hotter weather, longer summers, less rain all contribute to added risk. Add the impacts from the past 80 years of extremely poor forest management practices by lumber companies and the fire departments and you get an extremely dangerous situation. During that period of time the forests in California have been transformed into extremely dangerous fire risks because of the practice of putting out all fires as soon as possible, coupled with clear cutting vast swaths of forests that are then planted with too many trees crowded too close together so that there are few natural fire breaks and the extreme underbrush ignites fires high in the tree canopy allowing fires to race through hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. It is not like the old days where there was a mix of plant species, trees were naturally spaced much further apart and the natives actively managed the forests to minimize fire danger while maximizing the productivity of the ecosystem (not in terms of board feet of lumber, but instead in terms of a healthy and useful environment).

So we are now to the point where decades of poor forest management practices have increased fire risks to the point where it is impacted home owners such as myself. I suppose there is something to be said for the idea that I (and my neighbors) have structures in areas that shouldn’t be built upon – it should all be left “natural” and open land. I almost agree with that idea, but once we have been allowed (encouraged) to build in these areas it is a little late to change course.

I don’t know of a good solution to this problem – I just know that it is certainly an uncomfortable turn of events. I would rather not lose a significant part of my planning for my “old age” because of what appears to be an imaged level of extreme fire risk. Maybe it will just turn out that the only ones that can afford to enjoy vacation homes in the mountains are those that can pay cash and afford to lose it should a wild fire burn their home to the ground. Perhaps that is fair.