To sum up Hillary's speech:

1) My history-making campaign was awesome. Everyone who voted for me should be proud.
2) Your lives suck.
3) Obama: at least he's not Republican.

Her complements of him sounded half-hearted at best. She mostly pointed out that she agrees with him on some issues and that he's a Democrat. She certainly did not retract from her criticisms of him: inexperience, etc.

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The Asterisk Next to China's Golds

Sure, China beat us in the gold medal count. That means about as much to me as Bonds' baseball records. If you cheat to get there, who really cares?

First, communism. When neither your athletes nor their parents have freedom to choose whether the kid begins training 8-16 hours per day at age 7 (instead of going to school and learning how to read), China gains an unfair advantage over countries with freedom (not to mention the inherent problems of slavery).

Second, crappy sports. Between ping pong, trampoline jumping, and badminton, China has 9 gold medals (19 total). If we loaded up the Olympics with sports like putt-putt, bowling, and fishing, the US would get some freebies too, but those sports are a joke.

Third, gymnastics. The girls are clearly underage. Now, despite documentation pointing out that the girls are younger, I have little doubt that Chinese government officials printed plenty of fresh birth certificates, drivers licenses, and CDL's for the girls on Friday morning that say the kids are 16 or older.

This is about as believable as a kid with cookie crumbs on his face, after being caught, washing his face off and then returning to deny that he ate any cookies. "See, you have no evidence now," China proclaims. But we really do, just look at the girls! How many 35 year old men have molested 12 year old girls and then sworn that "She said she was 18"? Maybe she did, and maybe she even wrote it down in crayon and signed it, but take one look at her for crying out loud!

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Doubt God's Existence? Be a Seeker, Not a Skeptic

FYI- This is my first religiously themed note (that I can recall), but it may not be the last (who knows?).

I have had a variety of discussions with agnostics about religion over the years. Out of my admittedly small and less-than-random sample, most have been skeptics. Ultimately, I find this unfortunate. Here's why.

A Websters Online definition appropriately describes a skeptic: "an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity." Incredulous means "unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true." A skeptic is critical of any evidence put forth in favor of God's existence as a matter of policy.

If one thinks God may exist, but is unsure (aka, is agnostic), this is the wrong response. In religion, the consequences of error could mean eternity. Thus, instead of mere skepticism towards any evidence that is presented, agnostics should be seekers. To seek is "to go in search of, to look for, to try to discover."

When it comes to God's existence, a skeptic doubts anything that they have not seen with their own eyes. Yet, in every other aspect of life, we observe evidence of events that we have not personally seen. In a jury box, we listen to witnesses account their experiences. That is because in a trial, we are seekers of the truth. We even desire to hear the less credible witnesses because we want to make a decision based on all of the facts. Why? Because of the consequences of making the wrong decision.

It would be unreasonable for a juror, before a single witness has taken the stand in a multi-million dollar trial, to say, "Well, I didn't see what happened, so I'll never know for sure," and refuse to vote. True, the juror may never know with 100% accuracy whether the Defendant harmed the Plaintiff, but the only reasonable option is to look at all of the facts and make a judgment based on probability.

Similarly, an agnostic should be eager to hear people describe their experiences with God. An agnostic, by definition, admits that God might exist. If God does exist, it seems likely that He would display Himself in some fashion. It would certainly affect an agnostic's view if God spoke directly to him or her. Why then is it irrelevant that millions of people claim that God has spoken to them?

To be sure, some of these people must be wrong because many of the testimonies conflict. Yet, this dilemma of conflicting testimony is not unique to religion. If we return to the trial example, the Plaintiff will argue that the Defendant harmed him or her, and the Defendant will deny it. Does this mean that you must reject the testimony of both? Of course not. You simply judge the credibility of each witness based on the evidence.

Finally, the seeker reads major religious texts; the skeptic simply assumes they are wrong. Again, the consequences of error are too great to make the wrong decision. To ignore potential evidence of God's existence is to effectively decide that he doesn't exist. It would be the same as a juror sleeping through a trial and voting Defendant, except the consequences are greater.

[Hat tip my father for teaching me the difference between seeking the truth and mere skepticism.]

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Don't Expand SCHIP

From Investor's Business Daily:

As passed by the House, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, will create a major new middle-class entitlement even as we face looming national bankruptcy from our $50.5 trillion (yes, you read that number right) in planned spending under Social Security and Medicare.

Today, some 6.6 million kids are covered under SCHIP, at a cost of about $25 billion over five years. The new bill raises that to 9 million kids covered, at a cost of $60 billion. It pays for it with a 61-cent hike in the tobacco tax.

Sounds good, except that tax will hit the poor hardest. And those it helps are not poor. Under the new bill, families earning $83,000 a year could be eligible. If this bill were targeted at the poor, President Bush and the Republicans wouldn't oppose it. But it isn't. It's a new, radically expanded middle-class entitlement.

That, by the way, includes families like the Siravos of New Jersey, profiled recently by Bloomberg News. The Siravos earn $56,000 a year, own their own home and drive two used cars. They also pay $9,000 a year to send their only child to a private school.

Yes, things are a bit tight for the Siravos, as with many American families. But should the working poor subsidize health care for the Siravos and other middle-class families?

And should those who, unlike the Siravos, send their kids to public schools but buy health insurance, now do the opposite?

That's the problem — SCHIP's expansion sets up perverse incentives, such as encouraging those with private insurance to dump it in favor of subsidized care. This isn't just talk. According to health care economists David Cutler and Jonathan Gruber, for every 10 children enrolled in SCHIP, six drop their private insurance.

There are other problems. For instance, far from being "about the children," SCHIP already covers 670,000 adults. The new law will increase that. Thanks to loopholes, illegal aliens are eligible too.

Add it all up, and SCHIP's costs will be much, much higher than the $60 billion forecast — just as happened with Medicare.

Ironically, a Republican-controlled Congress created SCHIP in 1997 to help the poor — those up to 200% of the poverty level.

But Democrats, along with many state governors, now want to expand that to up to 400% of the poverty rate — or $83,000 for a family of four. That's upper-middle-class, not poor.

This is a very bad, very cynical bill, disguised as an effort to help children. If it becomes law, spending will soar and we will have taken another foolish step down the road to a poorly run, expensive and inefficient nationalized health care system.

President Bush would be right to veto it.

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Corporations Are Evil

Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, explains the modern problem of anti-market bias:

People tend, for example, to see profits as a gift to the rich. So unless you perversely pity the rich more than the poor, limiting profits seems like common sense. Yet profits are not a handout but a quid pro quo: If you want to get rich, you have to do something people will pay for. Profits give incentives to reduce production costs, move resources from less-valued to more-valued industries, and dream up new products. This is the central lesson of The Wealth of Nations: The “invisible hand” quietly persuades selfish businessmen to serve the public good...

Collusion aside, the public’s implicit model of price determination is that businesses are monopolists of variable altruism. If a CEO feels greedy when he wakes up, he raises his price—or puts low-quality merchandise on the shelves. Nice guys charge fair prices for good products; greedy scoundrels gouge with impunity for junk. It is only a short step for market skeptics to add “…and nice guys finish last.”

Where does the public go wrong? For one thing, asking for more can get you less. Giving your boss the ultimatum “Double my pay or I quit” usually ends badly. The same holds in business: Raising prices and cutting quality often lead to lower profits, not higher. Many strategies that work as a one-shot scam backfire as routine policies. It is hard to make a profit if no one sets foot in your store twice. Intelligent greed militates against dishonesty and discourtesy because they damage the seller’s reputation....

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From DailyKos: "I Don't Support the Troops"

From DailyKos:

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this...

Until we have another draft, this is a volunteer armed services... You signed up, you get to go to the desert and risk being shot at by brown skinned people who don't believe the lies you've been told. A war of aggression is immoral, period. If you believe in God, you can damned well be sure you are going to hell for your participation in it. The only troop I support is the man or woman who refuses to be deployed so that they can make the middle east accessible to profiteers who don't give a flying F about morality or democracy. Or a soldier's life...

I am sorry but supporting the troops means supporting this illegal war.

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Fred on Hillarycare

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Healthcare Utopia?

John Stossel on universal healthcare:

One basic problem with nationalized health care is that it makes medical services seem free. That pushes demand beyond supply. Governments deal with that by limiting what's available.

That's why the British National Health Service recently made the pathetic promise to reduce wait times for hospital care to four months.

The wait to see dentists is so long that some Brits pull their own teeth. Dental tools: pliers and vodka.

One hospital tried to save money by not changing bed sheets every day. British papers report that instead of washing them, nurses were encouraged to just turn them over.

Government rationing of health care in Canada is why when Karen Jepp was about to give birth to quadruplets last month, she was told that all the neonatal units she could go to in Canada were too crowded. She flew to Montana to have the babies.

"People line up for care; some of them die. That's what happens," Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of The Cure, told "20/20". Gratzer thought the Canadian system was great until he started treating patients. "The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting. ... You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! You just have to wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! You just gotta wait six months."

Michael Moore retorts that Canadians live longer than Americans.

But Canadians' longer lives are unrelated to heath care. Canadians are less likely to get into accidents or be murdered. Take those factors into account, not to mention obesity, and Americans live longer.

Most Canadians like their free health care, but Canadian doctors tell us the system is cracking. More than a million Canadians cannot find a regular family doctor. One town holds a lottery. Once a week the town clerk gets a box out of the closet. Everyone who wants to have a family doctor puts his or her name in it. The clerk pulls out one slip to determine the winner. Others in town have to wait.

It's driven some Canadians to private for-profit clinics. A new one opens somewhere in Canada almost every week. Although it's not clear that such private clinics are legal, one is run by the president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Brian Day, because under government care, he says, "We found ourselves in a situation where we were seeing sick patients and weren't being allowed to treat them. That was something that we couldn't tolerate."

Canadians stuck on waiting lists often pay "medical travel agents" to get to America for treatment. Shirley Healey had a blocked artery that kept her from digesting food. So she hired a middleman to help her get to a hospital in Washington state.

"The doctor said that I would have only had a very few weeks to live," Healey said.

Yet the Canadian government calls her surgery "elective."

"The only thing elective about this surgery was I elected to live," she said.

Not all Canadian health care is long lines and lack of innovation. We found one place where providers offer easy access to cutting-edge life-saving technology, such as CT scans. And patients rarely wait.

But they have to bark or meow to get access to this technology. Vet clinics say they can get a dog or a cat in the next day. People have to wait a month.

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