What is an Employee These Days?

 One of my first jobs was a paper-carrier for S.I. Newhouse and the Staten Island Advance. It was the early to mid 1950s and you were told exactly what to do. Namely get to the paper drop location before 4PM and deliver all papers no later than 6PM. In addition you collected $0.3 per customer per week for the paper and you paid SI and his folks $0.25 per customer per week. Collections were your problem. I had 120 customers so for my 2.5 hour per day times six days, 15 hours, I could collect $5.00. That was $0.33 per hour. Fail to comply meant you were terminated. I started when I was 11 and worked until 14. Paid my way thru High School. No Government debt relief then.

In those days, and through the 1990s one was employed to perform a task and if you disliked you work, the company, the boss, the office etc you quit. I did that a few times. Starting in the 2000s a new generation of employee started to emerge. One who felt their opinion was just as valuable if not more so than the company or boss or customer. They felt they were supreme and that anyone who differed would be opposed without consequences. I see this now everywhere.

The NY Times discusses terminated employees at Google. Google fired several employees and the Times seems to feel this is anathema. In fact it is Google's own fault. They created this over the top environment where any opinion is as good as any other. This strategy can backfire and it has. The result is predictable, terminations.

The Gross Incompetence of Public Health

 In late 2020 I wrote an article on vaccines and variants. The key point is that COVID is akin to Influenza from a Public Health perspective. Namely there will continual variants and new updated vaccines will be necessary. I even suggested that we could get a step ahead. 

The previous Administration did a Herculean job in developing the vaccine and in establishing its distribution. Some of the early disasters were in states like New Jersey where our benign Governor allowed tens of thousands of deaths in nursing homes and when the vaccine became available he sent it to prisons, drug addicts, and the Press before those most vulnerable. Of course he never took the credit for the mass collection of deaths.

Now we have updated vaccines for the Omicron variant. Simple process, just took this long to get through the current Administration. However these current cast of characters have apparently deliberately allowed for the destruction of the infrastructure for the distribution of the new vaccines.

As the NY Times reports:

Having shifted much of the rollout to private sites, though, states have been promised FEMA reimbursements on a relatively modest $550 million in vaccination spending so far this year. Last year, that figure was $8.5 billion. And while providers are supposed to vaccinate everyone for free, with or without insurance, the federal government ran out of money this spring to offer reimbursements for shots for uninsured people, making it more difficult for them to receive boosters. Sonya Bernstein, a senior policy adviser for the White House Covid response team, said federal spending to support vaccination efforts was being held back by a stalemate in Congress over the administration’s request for billions of dollars in additional pandemic aid. Republicans have said that additional coronavirus spending could be covered with funding already approved by Congress, an assertion that some state health officials say is false.

It appears that we have gone from bad to worse in the current Administration. In my opinion the staff associated with COVID in the White House may meet the needs of the Administration but not those of the country.

How many more will dies because of these characters? They may make New Jersey look competent!

The Arrogance of the Entitled

 The NY Times has a headline:

You Want an Electric Car With a 300-Mile Range? When Was the Last Time You Drove 300 Miles?

Well for years I drove back and forth twice a week to MIT/Harvard from New Jersey. Or from New Jersey to DC. It was 250 miles each way and through heavy commuter traffic. Why drive? Trains are unreliable and would take six to sever hours each way. A plane is equally unreliable and you need transport at the other end. 

I got a fantastic amount of work done and created tons of valuable stuff. I averaged 1,000 miles per week. Then if I were to go to my home in New Hampshire it is 400 miles each way.

So despite the uneducated arrogance of the entitled elite, even me with my doctoral degrees etc drove to create value for this nation. As do the millions who do this daily, electricians, carpenters, plumbers etc. 

Perhaps one should get out of their limos or Ubers and see what makes America work before destroying it.

Now the real question unanswered is how much energy is used to charge these vehicles? From ocean wind farms, to rural solar arrays, we have a grossly ineffective network for power interconnection. There are multiple single points of failure. If one of these points is compromised, as is all too often the case in JCP&L territory then we get stalled cars everywhere!

Just some thoughts.

Just a Thought

 With the new push for electric cars I considered what may happen if one runs out of battery. Unlike a gas driven vehicle where you can get a gallon of gas to get to the pump, here you need a truck with a generator, gas powered most likely, to charge you up. Nice new business idea as these EVs drop dead in heavy traffic.

Reminds me of The Ransom of Red Chief

 This NY Times story is very reminiscent of O'Henry's tale. Wonder how much they would have to pay Michigan to get her back?

Individualism vs Proto Marxism

 Individualism, the understanding that in the body politic each person has their own individual rights and are held equally before the laws, found its start in William of Ockham in 1330s when he wrote amongst many treatises the Work of Ninety Days. Ockham set out to decry the then Pope's condemnation of the Franciscans. He resulted in establish several things. First, individualism, an extension of his critiques of Aristotle. Second the establishment of the idea that Kings ruled by Divine authority, and his absolute rejection of such a hierarchical schema of society. Third his abject rejection of Papal authority and the need for consular decision making. The Counsels led to the assembly of individuals to reach a concurrence, the Divine Right was non-existent since we were all equal, and the individual had rights descendant from Natural Rights and embodied in natural Law.

 Now as to how one may govern we see Montesquieu. His writings became the basis for our Constitution. The Bill of Rights embodied our individual freedoms and rights. The interplay between Constitution and Bill of Rights is a balance between the governing and the governed.

Now along come what appears to me to be the proto-Marxist theories from Harvard and Yale destroying the core of our individualism. In the NY Times the two authors it is noted state:

When liberals lose in the Supreme Court — as they increasingly have over the past half-century — they usually say that the justices got the Constitution wrong. But struggling over the Constitution has proved a dead end. The real need is not to reclaim the Constitution, as many would have it, but instead to reclaim America from constitutionalism. The idea of constitutionalism is that there needs to be some higher law that is more difficult to change than the rest of the legal order. Having a constitution is about setting more sacrosanct rules than the ones the legislature can pass day to day. Our Constitution’s guarantee of two senators to each state is an example. And ever since the American founders were forced to add a Bill of Rights to get their handiwork passed, national constitutions have been associated with some set of basic freedoms and values that transient majorities might otherwise trample. But constitutions — especially the broken one we have now — inevitably orient us to the past and misdirect the present into a dispute over what people agreed on once upon a time, not on what the present and future demand for and from those who live now. This aids the right, which insists on sticking with what it claims to be the original meaning of the past.Arming for war over the Constitution concedes in advance that the left must translate its politics into something consistent with the past. But liberals have been attempting to reclaim the Constitution for 50 years — with agonizingly little to show for it. It’s time for them to radically alter the basic rules of the game.

In my opinion this proto-Marxist  argument is simply: we know better than all of these others and it is our duty to tell them how to behave. Indeed it is an almost Stalinist pronouncement, on a centralized regime devoid of any historical context regarding the founding of our country. 

I have seen this type of pseudo-intellectual approach in many of the younger generation. Namely, one does not have to deal with any facts of historical constructs, one merely need have their own idea and if it is theirs it must be right. Any conversation with an older generation individual and one of these newer characters always entails the younger refuting the position of anyone else and suggesting theirs without basis just to appear to be smarter. In reality this approach demonstrates the gross lack of intellectual comprehension.

 

CDC, Gross Incompetence?

 Over the past two and a half years of this pandemic I have repeatedly stated that in my opinion the CDC was gross negligent and incompetent. Well guess what, they admit it. The NY Times notes;

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Wednesday delivered a sweeping rebuke of her agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had failed to respond quickly enough and needed to be overhauled. “To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes, from testing to data to communications,” she said in a video distributed to the agency’s roughly 11,000 employees. Dr. Walensky said the C.D.C.’s future depended on whether it could absorb the lessons of the last few years, during which much of the public lost trust in the agency’s ability to handle a pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans. “This is our watershed moment. We must pivot,” she said.Her admission of the agency’s failings came after she received the findings of an examination she ordered in April amid scathing criticism of the C.D.C.’s performance. The report itself was not released; an agency official said it was not yet finished but would be made public soon.

The CDC had no idea what to do from femto second one. Part of the problem is that we are dealing with Government employees, think Fauci. The other is the time constant of CDC responding to say 3 person outbreaks is months. A pandemic in the US, none.

The CDC does not need an overhauls, it needs a total destruction.

China, Science and US Wokeness

 In a recent Science article they note:

For the first time, China has slightly edged out the United States in the number of most cited papers, a key measure of research impact, according to a Japanese science policy institute. The milestone provides fresh evidence that China’s scholarship, known for its burgeoning quantity, is catching up in quality as well. “People are writing off China, [saying] they’re putting out a lot of stuff but it’s not good quality,” says Caroline Wagner, who studies science policy and innovation at Ohio State University, Columbus. “That’s just short-sighted.” Scholars disagree about the best methodology for measuring publications’ impact, however, and other metrics suggest the United States is still ahead—but barely. For the new report, Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) tallied the top 1% papers in terms of citations, a rarified stratum inhabited by many Nobel laureates. Many such elite articles have authors from multiple countries, however, which complicates the analysis. In one study, NISTEP used a method called “fractional counting” to divide the credit. If, for example, one French and three Swedish institutions contributed to a paper, France received 25% of the credit and Sweden 75%. Using that measure, China accounted for 27.2% of the most cited papers published in 2018, 2019, and 2020, and the United States for 24.9%. Next was the United Kingdom, with 5.5%; Japan was in 10th place. (U.S. researchers were still slightly ahead when NISTEP used a less fine-grained method that credits every country that contributed to a highly cited paper equally, regardless of how many of its institutions were involved.)

For anyone working in Biotech, we have noticed this explosive growth over the past two decades. This is nothing new. Part of the reason in my opinion is the Chinese have focus on results whereas in the US we have Academic Commissars who watch over our researchers to ensure equity etc.  US researchers have been pressured to conform, to have the proper cross section and to adhere to the dictates of their Commissars. In my opinion and in my experience I have seen this explode at MIT where a mass of proto-Marxists rule the roost. 

Now in China students must adhere to the CCP dicta. But that is more akin to a Catechism of old in Catholic Schools. In contrast the Commissars control and even destroy careers.

Cicero on Cataline, Things Never Change

  When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? 

When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? 

Do not the nightly guards placed on the Palatine Hill—do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men—does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place—do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? 

Do you not feel that your plans are detected? 

Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before— where is it that you were—who was there that you summoned to meet you—what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

Shame on the age and on its principles! The senate is aware of these things; the consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! aye, he comes even into the senate. He takes a part in the public deliberations; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks.

You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execution by command of the consul. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head

What? Did not that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio, the Pontifex Maximus, in his capacity of a private citizen, put to death Tiberius Gracchus, though but slightly undermining the constitution? And shall we, who are the consuls, tolerate Catiline, openly desirous to destroy the whole world with fire and slaughter? 

For I pass over older instances, such as how Caius Servilius Ahala with his own hand slew Spurius Maelius when plotting a revolution in the state. There was—there was once such virtue in this republic, that brave men would repress mischievous citizens with severer chastisement than the most bitter enemy. For we have a resolution ² of the senate, a formidable and authoritative decree against you, O Catiline; the wisdom of the republic is not at fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body. 

We, we alone,—I say it openly, —we, the consuls, are waiting in our duty.

Three Rules for a Spy, and Politicians I Guess

 Years ago when I ran around with folks in the "business" and I learned the three rules of a spy:

1. Trust no one, not even your mother/father

2. Put nothing in writing (now it would be email, text, etc)

3. Make sure you have a second exit, also plausible deniability

Now with the rush of our local Stasi  on the political powers that were perhaps they should have been trained in these three rules as well.

Vaccines

 I keep hearing people say that the COVID vaccine should prevent the disease. Words mean something. Prevent means what? Symptoms, carrier status, or just what.

Vaccines work by activating the adaptive immune system, B cells and antibodies and some T cells. One can still get infected and be a carrier after being vaccinated. Vaccines create antibodies that fight the disease when infected. Depending on your immune system you may get sick or not. You are still infected. Vaccines do NOT prevent infection. They mediate it when infected.

Given our grossly incompetent educational system we seem top spend more time on one's sexual proclivities than on basic biological facts. Pity.

US Government Information

 I have been trying to access PACER the US Government site for court records. What a nightmare. Like all Govt sites it must have been designed and operated by the lowest bidder. You cannot find anything and they charge you for everything! Whoever made this decision must in my opinion be grossly incompetent!