Competition

Proponents of the public option are continually talking about the merits of competition. Adding this new player, the government to the health insurance field is supposed to lower costs.

What is competition is it two equals vying for dominance or at least victory? Or is it as reformers would have you believe just adding another player.

A couple of analogies to consider. When my son was young he was hospitalized often for asthma. After work I would go and spend time with him. The hospital on the children's floor had video games for the kids to play. My son liked the sports games hockey especially. He would beat me regularly O.K. always. Now why did he beat me, no I didn't let him win. Some of it was that he was better at video games. Mostly though it had to do with incomplete instruction. You see he would tell me just do this and this but would leave out how to pass or go faster. Basically he laid out the game so he couldn't lose.

I like to play basketball in the driveway. When the kids were high school age we would play 2 or 3 on one. This kept the games competitive for the most part. However the one day my son invited a kid from the H.S team over He was 6'7. No matter how we split players this kid destroyed the competitive balance.

So is the public option adding competition or just taking over the game.

Haiku #15 Thanksgiving

Contemplate my life
Good wife, good job, and good health
Cause to be thankful

Happy Thanksgiving all.

Global warming/good,bad ,real?

As cap and trade legislation and it's cost become more visible people are questioning the so called truth of AGW(man made global warming). I'm not a scientist so I won't claim that I can prove the fallacy that is AGW. Instead I would ask if things are getting better or worse in our environment.

Growing up I first lived in an inner ring suburb of Cleveland Ohio and then a little further out but still the suburbs. The animals we saw were squirrels and raccoons,mice and moles. We were amazed after we moved further out and saw a possum or skunk rarely.

As an adult I live in an area that is a blend between suburbs and farm land. Twenty years ago when we first moved here we would see the occasional deer. Lately the deer have become more and more prevalent. Last year there was a story of of a women in the downtown area who killed a deer with a shovel.

Last week when I was out for my daily run I saw something I've never seen before at least not in Ohio. Standing along side the road there was coyote. As I approached it retreated closer to the woods and watched me pass.

So why the litany of critters. I believe it is a testament to the health of the environment. Some of it can be attributed to location but the increase in sightings in my mind means there are more animals to be seen. More animals appear because the winters are lighter allowing them to survive but also because the general health of the environment is better. Air quality and drinking water are both less polluted.

So I ask two questions is this a sign that whatever global warming is happening is good or bad. Secondly have any of you noticed similar results in your part of the country?

Why

Thursday evening watching the local news they did a story about the opening night of the new Twilight movie New Moon or Twin Moon or something. Teenage girls longing romantically for vampires. They showed a line at the movie theatre that had formed four and a half hours before the first showing. The first show started at eleven.

Now you might think the why is why would anyone want to watch this film but you would be wrong. My question is why would they have a first showing at eleven on a school night. After all the audience is predominantly teen girls. There was a time when civic responsibility would have dictated using Friday for the first showing.

Alas I think common sense loses out to trying to milk a buck out of the consumer.

Interpretting the Bible

I read an interesting article this morning Jesus the Capitalist .

The article talked about people who used Jesus or the Bible to argue politics. The premise was that people have preconceived idea then go looking for scripture to back it up. To me this is a problem with interpretation of any work. If we read only one sentence from a book or even one book by an author can we truly know their message.

To me context and of an individual verse and in connection with the rest of scripture is the key to understanding.

Jesus should not be used as bludgeon to coerce people in public policy debates. Public policy should be argued only on the basis of weather it is going to provide for a healthier city, state or nation.

Happiness

I saw a poll this morning listing the states in order happiest to least happy.Utah was happiest, I live in Ohio we are #47.

It got me thinking I always assumed happiness was in our mindsets. That by simply thinking positively we can will ourselves to be happy. Oh I know sometimes this won't work but in general if we start with a smile it pushes us in the right direction.

So now I read this poll and it tells me here in Ohio being happy is tough. Can data like this be self fulfilling?

What the heck I'm going to go ahead and be happy anyway.

Neutrality

A couple of days ago John posted about how people live their lives. Categorizing themselves in several ways based character development in role playing games. These categories included 9 character traits from lawful good to chaotic evil true neutral being in the middle.

Coming home from work Wednesday Dennis Prager stated if you are neutral in regard to something that is evil you are actually evil.

The Bible tells us in Matt 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. This would lead me to believe that everyone has an opinion. You can't be for a free market economy and Cap&Trade they are diametrically opposed.

My question is can any one be truly neutral. We can claim to be neutral but is this just being afraid to express an opinion. When we say we don't want to pick sides aren't we saying either we can't decide which side has more merit or we don't want to offend.

I think we would be better served by our leaders if they strove less for neutrality. For while being neutral in regards to political opinion might not be evil it certainly serves bad policy.

Money

Leading up to Tuesday's elections several stories got me thinking. Two separate school unions were demanding raises between 2-4 percent. The one demanding 4 percent was offered 2 and was indignant, threatening a strike. There was also a deluge of letters to the editor in our small local paper debating the merits of a new school levy.

The thing that struck me was the tone institutional type people take when discussing money. Institutional people in my eyes are people who have never worked in the private sector government workers,school employees and such. whenever institutional people discuss money it's as if they think it's in unending supply.

Society might be better served if public employ could only be had after 5-10 years of private sector work. Having to create something in order to earn a pay check helps give perspective to what money really is a token representing work or service done.