Issue 196 School Breakfast and Lunch October 31, 2013

Currently we have a school lunch program in the United States and it has expanded to breakfast as well. The goal is to provide some of the poorer families with the means to feed their children on the cheap without harming the parents’ pocket book. But I have a question or two.

First Question: Why are we using our tax dollars going to the federal government to pay for this? Our property taxes should already be more than enough to pay for a free lunch for all the students in a given public school, let alone a breakfast. So why on earth are we all paying for that again? It makes no sense that we as citizens have to pay twice for the same thing. On top of that, where the heck is the money that is supposed to be going toward our nations children? It is obviously not going to them. That is because it is going towards the ever growing bureaucracy for public education. Our money is spent more on crap and waste then on the school children themselves. Just look at the school parking lot and you can see how well the administrators are paid based on the number of luxury cars in the lot. We have a major problem in our schools and it is not about the schools getting enough money.

Second Question: Why is the federal government involved in this in the first place? As I have already stated, the money going toward the schools are more than enough to pay for kids lunches and breakfasts. On top of this, local governments should be able to take care of the citizen’s welfare within their own districts. Yet the federal government comes waltzing in with their one size fits all standards to make a mess of things. Not to mention the school lunch program is already a mess with it suffering over a million dollars worth of fraud this year alone. If the feds are getting involved would it not be better to say, if you enroll in this program that you as a school need to reform. If the money is going directly to the parents, would it not be more appropriate to have this be included in the welfare package as local governments and the schools in our country are too incompetent to manage their money effectively?

Conclusion: I am making this issue short because this program is a load of bull. How can you run this program and not tell these people to manage their money properly in the schools so that parents will not have to worry about feeding their kids at school. Hell, if public schools were managed correctly then there would be no need to sign up for this ridicules program that is wasting our tax dollars due to both fraud and mismanagement at the federal and local levels of government. We don't need more government, what we need is a government that actually works.

Issue 195 You've been had! October 30, 2013

Wondering what I mean by the title? Well, the reason that you have been had is because the politicians are limiting our choices and we do not even realize it. Let’s go over a few examples.

Candidates: Political parties nominate candidates and then we are supposed to vote for which one to run in the general election. Problem, those candidates are generally chosen by the party leadership. So when you had Ron Paul on stage with Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the like, you did not realize that there were other viable candidates running within the same party. For instance have you heard of former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson? He, like Ron Paul is a libertarian. But unlike Ron Paul, he believes in abortion and the full legalization of drugs. However, we could not hear him speak as he was shut out of the debates because the Republican leadership did not like him and his ideas. It had nothing to do with the electorate within the Republican Party saying they did not want him, but the party leaders. It happens at the local level to. Those in charge restrict those who are running to a select few and make rules that hinder or prevent other candidates from running for office. This was the case with Democrat Jack Mcloy in my district. The Democrats wanted Mrs. Currian over him, and prevented him from running by bringing him all the way up to the New York State of Appeals Court. He was disallowed to run because his petition to run and compete in the primary against Currian was not stapled in the way stipulated by law. Yes, a simple error in where to place the staple is what kept him from running for office. This is how choice is limited in politics.

Food: We are being limited here too. They took salt off the tables in New York City even though only 30% of the people in NYC should not ingest salt. Everyone else was fine. Trans fats were removed even though the majority of people health wise were unaffected by it. Genetically modified crops are banned in some places, but should it not be up to the individual to choose if they should eat a GMO crop or not. Heck they arrest people for eating and selling raw milk even though the risk of any sort of bacterial infection is negligible. People have the right to choose what they want to eat.

Products: Again we become limited by government. In this case, products like toys, games and such face bans for silly things. One silly thing is lead on the drive shaft of an ATV. One problem, the reason it was banned was because they feared people ingesting the lead. If you or your kid was liking a drive shaft from an ATV or any product in general then you may have a problem. What’s more, patent laws also hinder our choices. Do not get me wrong, I am all for patents, but not when they are abused. They let companies like Mattel or Hasbro take out patents, but when a competitor with a similar product comes out they get to sue and shut that company down. The products may be similar, but they are not the same, nor do they have the same brand. Again, choices become limited.

Licensing: Here too choices are limited. By having to be licensed to be a florist, a framer or other job, it limits the market of competitors. Thus it secures the positions of those already in the business with higher pay by making it near impossible to get a job in the field you want (and that's just framing pictures). Same goes for law and medical schools. Instead of being an undergraduate degree, it is a masters or a doctorates degree which is obviously much more money. As such it shuts out many talented students who would excel in those fields if it the education was more affordable.

Conclusion: Choice is one of our essential freedoms, but everything government and their crony capitalist buddies do limits those choices. There is a point in which we are over protected (such as from a florist who sells you a dead plant). Change is needed to be rid of many of our useless and harmful laws that do nothing but harm us. Time to change the system and stop having our freedoms reduced.

Issue 194 Health and Reparations October 29, 2013

Obama care has flopped on its opening day. It provides health care which is twice as expensive as many private plans. Not to mention, it cost over 600 billion dollars alone for the first year with it estimated to rise to one trillion dollars in cost within 10 years. Is there a better way to spend that 600 billion? Well, yes there is. By giving it back to the American people.

The idea: Instead of spending 600 billion dollars on 300 million people, why not just give everyone a health savings account. But not just any health savings account. Take the 600 billion and divide it up between each American citizen. With about 300 million U.S. citizens that means over 2 billion dollars approximately given to each individual American. This money could be used to buy any health care related purchase, including over the counter drugs, vitamins and even health insurance. Of course it would be restricted to health care purchases only to prevent the money from being abused. Not to mention, the money itself would not just be used for the individual alone. It would be used for the family member in charge, there children, their grand children and so on as long as the money holds out. At the same time, the money would act as reparations toward African Americans who had been enslaved or faced discrimination, along with reparations to the Spanish, Native Americans and all ethnic and racial groups that have suffered throughout U.S. history. Basically, pay them back by making it so that they never have to worry about health care for generations to come, especially as most people do not exceed a million dollars worth of health care related costs in their life time.

How it would work: It would work in the same manner as an electronic food stamp card. The card would automatically pay for anything related to health care at the register. So when you pay at the doctors’ office, use the card. At the pharmacy, use the card. If in the super market buying Tylenol, again use the card. But, say you are already a millionaire, then you would not have access to the cards money. Instead, it would act as a safety net for if you or your future family members should ever fall into poverty. Now, the money is shared. So when your mom turns 18, she gets access to the account. But then later she has you, so that when you turn 18 you too will get a card with access to that same account. This allows families to share the costs and eliminates the paperwork of giving newborns access to new billion dollar accounts. Remember, most people never spend more than a million dollars on health care in their life, so a billion dollars lasts an extremely long time. Also, the money in this account may be inheritable. So say you die, but have no next of kin, you can pass the money on to someone of your choosing. Also, say you did not leave a last will in testament, and have no next of kin. At this point the money is taken by the government and passes it onto everyone equally. So everyone gets the leftovers.

It’s also reparations: Yes that is right. Everyone who has entered this country has faced some form of racial, ethnic or religious discrimination at one time or another. As such, we currently provide programs like affirmative action to many ethnic groups and free health care to Native Americans on reservations. But, these programs have there costs and limits. By providing everyone with health care in this way, the government will not have to spend any money to help the sick for well over one hundred years. What better gift to give those who have suffered than the equivalent to free health care for them, their children and even their great great great grandchildren.

Benefits: This basically makes government programs like Medicaid redundant. It eliminates the need for financial assistance for the disabled, for seniors, and any other form of medical based assistance. Companies would be able to drop health coverage without fear of making their workers bankrupt due to medical bills. Heck, even the idea of a single payer system becomes redundant, as if needed, after the money runs out another 600 or more billion can be raised to provide health care to all. So why spend 600 plus billion a year when you can just spend it once. Also, those who see the opportunity to extend the life of their money can still buy health insurance to make it last even longer. On top of this, as more people will be able to pay for treatments out of pocket, cost will go down as there will be no need for insurance or government to act as the middle man to pay for the medication or treatments. No longer will the most expensive of treatments be out of reach.

Conclusion: You get the idea. Spending all that money on such a small population of people is ridiculous. In fact, the websites for Obama care cost well above 600 million. That money alone, given to us would be sufficient for many seniors health care needs. So it really does not make sense to spend all that money until you realize that most of that money is not about us, but about the government workers, and compliance costs with the laws. So what’s better, pay once to give the nation health care for about 100 years, or spend up wards of 600 billion to 1 trillion dollars every single year? I think this choice is simple.

Issue 193 Obama Care Good points October 28, 2013

Yes there is a good point to Obama care, otherwise known as the Affordable care act. Well, there are two in total, but they come at a cost. So let’s get to it, the only provisions that would survive if Obama care is ever overturned or replaced.

Ban on lifetime limits: A life time limit is a set amount of money a health insurance company is willing to spend to pay for your health care expenses. Life time limits for typical Americans before the law were approximately one million dollars. Now this was not a negative. In fact most Americans never reached the million dollar mark in their lifetime. Well that was until the costs of health care increased due to inflation and other factors. Soon Americans with the most severe diseases and conditions would meet that limit. This meant diabetes patients, AIDS patients and those who suffered the most debilitating of physical and mental malformations would exceed that limit and thus be dropped by their health insurance companies. All this was due to cost increases in health care (which Obama care did not solve at all).

But, the lifetime limits were good under certain conditions. It was a form of rationing health care that prevented two things. One, it prevented free loaders from overburdening the private health insurance companies. Let’s face it, the insurance companies act in a similar manner to a ponzi scheme. They pool all of the money from the premiums together (save the money to pay their workers, taxes and expenses) and then dish it out to pay for health care. But, just like a ponzi scheme, if too much is taken out then the system collapses. The result is less money to go around meeting demand. This all would have been solved if health care costs have been addressed properly (aka, make it so we do not need the insurance companies). But now we face a financial risk of the health care companies denying coverage more to ration care more efficiently.

Ban on discrimination of pre-existing conditions: Pre-existing conditions have been the bane of many Americans who suffer from debilitating diseases. If you have diabetes, AIDS, cancer or any other disease prior to getting health care, then under the original system the insurance companies might have denied you as a customer (though this was not always the norm if you could pay). The result was the poorest Americans with pre-existing conditions having to use a government sponsored health plan to help pay for treatments. Problem was that the government plans are twice as likely to deny treatment as a private plan. So to stop this, Obama Care banned all forms of discrimination with respect to pre-existing conditions.

However there is a problem with this. Women who typically pay a higher health care cost when they are younger due to them being likely to get pregnant, would no longer have the ability to have their rate reduced once they hit menopause. People who stay healthy by exercise despite their health conditions cannot have their rates reduced. This ban on discrimination also banned positive discrimination. So discrimination that would have saved people money is not allowed. Also, because there is a ban on this form of discrimination, everyone else's costs with respect to premiums, and co pays will rise. The reason is because you no longer can charge more money to a person with a pre-existing condition, so to compensate everyone else must pay more.

Conclusion: Both of these benefits come at a cost. These benefits will inherently raise costs for health care on everyone. As a result, more people will only sign up when they are sick, and then drop coverage when they get better which will result in costs rising even further. What should have happened is a free market of health care where all insurance companies world wide would compete for your business. This competition alone would drop costs dramatically. Then allow for certain forms of discrimination that would allow insurance companies to reduce costs when certain conditions are met. Finally, those who cannot afford the higher costs for health care they need can be subsidized rather than forced onto a government plan that is more likely to deny coverage. But that is a perfect world scenario with the government (Federal and State) getting out of the way. It is due to government that costs have risen as much as they have. States allow only a select group of health insurance companies in creating a monopoly. The tax code incentivizes health insurers to focus on businesses, not individuals. States regulate what should and should not be covered which results in us all paying for coverage we do not need and most likely will never use. Those in the Federal government have made it worse by adding more rules and regulations onto a system that was already overburdened with useless laws. It is time for a change. We need the Free Trade of health care, where only catastrophic coverage is required to be covered, with us the people deciding what we as individuals need. This change alone will drop costs dramatically as approximately 50% of the health care costs alone are due to having insurance act as a middle man. This means all costs will drop by at least 50%. There are more changes that could free the system and make it work. But, we need to first vote in responsible people back into office who are willing to make that change in the first place.

Issue 192 Cloud Computing on the cheap October 25, 2013

Popular Mechanics has provided an interesting guide on how to create your own cloud based collaborative file sharing website. So let’s get right into it.

What to do first: You need to grab online memory for file storage. This memory is used to store any and all information that you need and/or want to share with the other members of a team. DropBox, Box, SkyDrive and Google Drive (listed in the article) give out free space for file sharing. Things like Facebook also provide a certain amount of space for all the information that you may want to share.

Next step: Now you need a group website. There are free templates that offer such a service like Moonfruit, and Weebly. The ones listed here can be used to make an entire website, so Popular Mechanics recommends sites like these being used to support a business or a movie.

If you just need to post text, videos, and photos, Popular Mechanics suggests using a blog type format. So things like Google Blogger and WordPress would be prime examples. Each one supports the ability to allow multiple authors, and have an administrative hierarchy. The WordPress site has a paid version that also grants even greater control.

Wiki's also count as a tool for cloud computing as anyone can add to it, or edit it. So they are to be used for knowledge based, community website or a private site or basically anything that requires constant changes. This format differs from a blog which uses a time line as it instead represents the last user’s way of thinking. Using Wiki's you can create dedicated sites to any particular topic. Wiki can be downloaded easily for free to your computer or server. Add-ons can be applied to allow the installation of various types of programs. Then all you have to do is grant people the right to edit and modify the pages. Popular Mechanics suggests that you can keep the information relevant by hosting group discussions while another person searches the site to look for errors, and maintain style and consistency.

Final Step: Once the site is made, you must find people who will help contribute to it. In the article it says to look for people with similar styles of writing or creative styling. From there you may branch off as the site grows. In general, an individual will take charge when needed to get whatever projects need to get done. So forcing yourself to be a project leader is not necessary.

Conclusion: There you have it, simple ways to share information. Such information may be specialized or be restricted to say music or photos. Other times it can be broad like an encyclopedia (like Wiki). The sky is the limit when it comes to topics or applications, so it is up to you to take advantage of the system. Google Blogger which we are on right now is free. So is Facebook, its competitor. Both have the capacity to share endless amounts of information, but it is up to you to decide what, when and how. Good luck in your own website building and endeavors.

Issue 191 3D printer update October 24, 2013

If you have read my blog since the beginning you will know all about 3D printers. But today is an update to how this fantastic technology is being used. So sit back and enjoy the read.

Recap: 3D printers use a form of manufacturing called additive manufacturing. It layers the material bit by bit to form the object. By bonding the material either via lasers, heat or even glue the object can be formed to your own specifications. The result can be a simple copy of say a mug, or a complex metal using a honeycomb type structure for strength. This manufacturing technique is being used by major industries and manufactures like Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. It has revolutionized manufacturing and production.

Update 1: The first major update is coming from the field of medicine. Schools are using 3D printers with human cells to make hearts, lungs and other body parts for students to practice on. Yes, you read it right. They are printing body parts for hands on practice for surgery. They are even able to print tumors so that students can practice extracting them.

Of course there is more. 3D printer technology is able to print these organs so that they may be used for transplants. The research is still ongoing to make these organs fully functional, but the technology exists to produce Kidneys, Hearts, and lungs. They have even developed a way to make blood vessels which they hope in the near future can be scaled up to produce more verities of organs and other tissue. Right now they are using 3D printers to even make skin for skin grafts on burn patients. It is hoped that eventually they will be able to just spray on new skin directly into the wound using the printers.

Update 2: Cost is still an issue with 3D printers. As such, researchers want to develop alternatives to using plastics and metals for their 3D models. They have therefore turned to none other than paper. That is correct; paper has come to save the day. With home models starting at $300 and the inks used still be fairly pricey, the use of paper has dramatically cut costs. In this method, the paper is layered and cut as the 3D printer makes its model. Glue is used as a binding agent to secure the layers of paper together. The end result is a material that feels like wood.

Another piece of technology that is making it easy to manufacture objects with this technology is 3D scanners. These scanners can measure out an object in a similar manner to scanning a document into your computer. This cuts down on having to measure the object yourself, let alone wasting valuable time and material.

Conclusion: A lot is being invested into 3D manufacturing. There was even a man who used it to build parts for an entire car (which he assembled and drove). However, the ultimate goal is the creation of a replicator like from Star Trek. That is the dream of scientists who are developing this technology to its full potential.

All these updates are thanks to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines.

Issue 190 Online Education Advantages October 23, 2013

Online Education has a number of advantages over traditional classroom models. Here I will highlight some of those advantages.

No Bullies: Education done through a computer allows for the student to focus only on their work. There is no need to raise your hand in a classroom. As such, there is no peer pressure to answer correctly, or fear of embarrassment for answering wrong. It also takes the child out of the school environment which for some students becomes a nightmare as children can be very cruel to one another. But as this environment is now absent and is substituted for a home computer in most cases it eliminates the bullying entirely.

Flexible schedules: Because the education is online, a more flexible schedule can be made to accommodate activities outside of learning. So say your child has a dance recital in the middle of the day. Under normal circumstances, your child would miss a day of school. However, with at home online education that is no longer the case. Your child through online education can skip ahead a day if needed, or the learning program can be paused till your child returns. Thus it eliminates missed lectures and allows for parents to bring their children on trips or do activities that would have other wise cost their child a day or more worth of education.

Educational advantage: Students using online education have an advantage over typical students. Traditional students are constrained by a structure that prevents them from going ahead in class. So they are left to wait for other students to catch up. However, the online model eliminates that by allowing students to go as far ahead in their studies as they are comfortable with. So why stop at eighth grade math when your child can be free to go all the way up to 12th grade math and in some cases beyond. No more students waiting for peers to catch up and no more students who need extra time while feeling rushed and maybe even missing information because of it. Basically it is about moving at your own pace.

Parent/Teacher advantage: Whether at home or in a casual classroom setting, online education has a unique advantage over traditional methods. It tracks a student’s progress. Basically it allows for teachers or parents to see how far the child has come in a particular subject. Also, it allows for the teacher/parent to see where the child is struggling. As such, extra attention can be directed toward that student if needed to help them overcome their difficulties. This is all due to it being a monitored environment.

Direct learning: Instead of typical teachers, the online courses allow for lectures and information from specialists. In short, rather than a teacher, you could have NASA scientists helping your child learn about astronomy. Ocean biology can be taught by the top ocean biologist. And the list goes on. It gives students a major advantage when it comes to accessing knowledge.

Conclusion: Online education is an amazing resource, but there is a disadvantage. Some are saying that disadvantage is socialization with other kids their own age. But that is solved through play dates, and extra curricular activities like dance classes, karate and bowling teams. No, the main disadvantage is to students who need a classroom type structure. Online education is geared toward home schoolers and those students who are self motivated. It however, is not geared toward the students who need the authority of a teacher and a classroom setting to enforce a kind of discipline. So, traditional education will not disappear, but it will have competition thanks to school choice.