INDIANA "ANTI-GAY LAW"

Like so many people, I was originally shocked at the thought of Gay Marriage, but as time went on I thought, "Well here is a group of people fighting to get into an institution where heterosexual people aren't doing very well."   So I changed.  It also occurred to me that at least these people are not out to get your daughter pregnant.  So my viewpoint changed completely.  I don't recall just what year my change occurred, but maybe in 2001.  I came to think that some small percentage of people are born with their mental wiring different from most.*  Because it has been found to be so difficult to change this wiring, it is probably hard wired.  As to the question of can homosexuality be acquired, I think it is probably so.
For example I have heard of women who became lesbians because of a or repeated  failures in heterosexual love, including a book of the bible (Ruth**) regarding the love of Ruth and Naomi..  Perhaps some men suffer from a similar problem.

So now Indiana has passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was signed by the governor Mike Spence presumably based on Christian religious teachings.****  Unlike somewhat similar laws passed by 20 other states, the Indiana law permits discrimination of gays by for-profit businesses.***  What surprises me is that the Republican governor and the state legislature are surprised that there is a big uproar over this difference.  I guess many (not all) Republicans just talk to each other with similar opinions and seem to be continually surprised at the uproar over their views.  Recall the Republican politicians who claimed that women who are raped are protected from pregnancy, or, if they get pregnant, it is God's will.

Although there are a number of factions in the Republican Party, the religious right seems to dominate today, a matter that concerns me.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/06/wiring-of-brain.htm.  For a contrary view see: http://www.euro-tongil.org/swedish/english/ehomo2.htm
** http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/ruth_naomi.html
*** http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_homosexuality.htm
**** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/26/indiana-governor-mike-pence-anti-gay-bill_n_6947472.html

SOLAR ENERGY UPDATE (March, 2015)

I still believe that solar energy is a booming industry and eventually that solar energy will be the common roofing material on houses and probably on buildings as well.  The innovation of having solar panels on the top of automobiles is interesting as the car will be recharged while you are at work of shopping during the day (sunny days anyway).  Here are a few things from an article in Motley Fool.*

* http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/28/10-things-everyone-should-know-about-solar-energy.aspx?source=ihpsitota0000001&lidx=5

"...SIGNING LEGISLATION REPEALING EVERY WORD OF OBAMACARE,”

“Imagine in 2017, a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare,” the Texas Republican said Monday during a speech at Liberty University in Virginia.*

This quote is among the many "Imagine" statements made by Sen. Ted Cruz's candidacy speech for the Republican nomination for president.  He has said it before, of course, and in fact he led the way to shutting down the government in an attempt to abolish the ACA in 2012.  There are even conservatives who wonder what Ted Cruz is FOR. Well, is he for repealing the right of students to be on their parents health plan to the age of 26.  Is he for letting insurance companies refuse health insurance to people because of preexisting conditions.  Is he for letting insurance companies changing things they insure during mid-contract.  These and others are things he is FOR.


Well let the record show that Obamacare has survived for five years in spite of such attacks.  The problem is that Obamacare does need reforms (It should be single payer, for one example) and Cruz's attacks only serve to delay honest reforms. But Cruz does not want a good ACA.  He wants no control of medical practices at all.


Suppose Cruz is elected president and repeals Obamacare, what does he do next?  Will he get rid of Medicare D, or emergency rooms having to take all comers?**  Or because these liberal initiatives were made by Republican presidents are they all right, even though they are not paid for?


* http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/23/white-house-scoffs-ted-cruzs-obamacare-repeal-vow/
** Ronald Reagan signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires hospitals to serve patients in urgent need, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, which allows individuals to keep paying for coverage if they lose their insurance. In addition, with almost no support from his own cabinet, Reagan added catastrophic care to Medicare toward the end of his presidency, though the provision was later repealed. ..... George W. Bush pushed for and signed the expansion of Medicare to include prescription drug coverage. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/05/julian-castro/julian-castro-says-seven-presidents-barack-obama-s/)

"NO DRAMA OBAMA'S" TEMPER TANTRUM?

Has it really happened?  Senile Sen. John McCain says Obama should get over his temper tantrum on Netanyaho.  Are we really seeing "No Drama Obama" showing some emotion at last?  Well listen up to how Obama talks about the comments of Netanyaho on the Iran talks.*  It could put you to sleep, but he sounds perfectly calm and rational to me.

There is something about the Republicans who seem to feel that since they won so many seats in congress that the president, who is of the opposing party, should just roll over and play dead.  They seem to be furious that Obama even seems energized.  So as a result, the Republicans won't do anything.  What else is new?

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/21/obama-iran-deal_n_6905634.html

WILL THE REAL NETANYAHU STAND UP?

So the Prime Minister of Israel used to say he was for a two state solution with the Palestinians, then in the election he said there would be no two state solution if he was re-elected, and now says that a two state solution is preferred.  The news media seems to be confused on apparent turnarounds, but they shouldn't be.  It is clear to me that he is saying that he is for a peaceful two state solution, but it won't occur on his watch.  Well, the record shows it didn't happen in his first six years as Prime Minister so I suspect he is right.

I was shocked by Netanyahu's statement during the election that Arabs were being trucked in by the bus load.  Can you imagine an American presidential candidate saying such a thing about our minorities to scare his base to vote?

I have long felt that Israel has no intention on giving up the West Bank.  My thought is that they plan to take over the West Bank one settlement at a time.  Actually an individual settlement doesn't take up that much room; however, there are the highways that are disruptive to the Palestinians.

SCOTT WALKER FOR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, said what many believe to be a faux paus at the CPAC meeting.  Walker said with regard of groups like ISIS, “If I can take on a 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.”

Though on the face of it the comment is silly, what the critics don't understand is that breaking a union makes a hero of a Republican candidate for president, especially if it is a Civil Service union it seems.  A large part of of Ronald Reagan's stature among Republicans was his breaking of the Air Controller's Union.  In fact the comparison of Walker to Reagan is ongoing now.*

I'm not surprised that Walker is now the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, and I wouldn't be surprised if he is successful.  A second notch in his belt is that Wisconsin just became a Right To Work state.  The weird thing is that the so-called disaffected white male worker who votes Republican goes along with this sort of things.  They really think that every man for himself allows them to individually negotiate a good  living.  So as the unions decline so do workers wages.

* http://humanevents.com/2015/03/06/attacks-on-scott-walker-remind-of-reagan/

IS INEXPERIENCE A REQUIREMENT FOR THE PRESIDENCY?

As I hear criticism of Hillary and Jeb as being too "old school" or whatever the words, it seems that being president requires that the successful candidate be inexperienced.  Consider George W. Bush (Bush-43) and Barack Obama who really had very little experience in the various aspects of the presidency, especially foreign policy, before becoming president.  And Bush-43 managed to not only get us into the quagmire of Iraq but preside over the greatest economic collapse of the country since 1929.*

Now look at the Republican candidates for president.  A number of them won't even have survived a whole term as Senator by 2016 (Marco Rudio-elected 2011, Rand Paul-2011, Ted Cruz-2013).  None of these will have completed even one term as Senator by the time of the 2016 election.

And then there is Tom Cotton, though not a presidential candidate yet, who has been a Senator for barely more than 2 mo. who managed to stampede 46 of his colleagues into sending a letter to the Iranian Ayatollah and create an international incident.  Even senile John McCain now has reservations about doing this.

Though I feel Bobby Jindal has no chance to obtaining the Republican nomination, he seems to want to be a candidate and is somewhat more experienced than those mentioned above having served two terms in Congress and now as governor of Louisiana.

I don't know how good a president either of Hillary or Jeb will be (You won't know until they do it if elected.), but at least they have experience relevant to running things.

* Many assume that everything in Iraq would be all right if only Obama had left 10 or 15 thousand troops there (presumably under Sharia law).  We did leave 10-20 thousand troops in Afghanistan after running the Taliban into Pakistan, however, and they came back stronger than ever.  So I have my doubts.  We'll never know.

WANT TO RELIVE THE 90S?

Do you want to relive the 1990s we are asked about Hillary and Jeb?  Well, yes.  Who wouldn't.  They didn't start out all that well, but certainly gathered steam and had the greatest stock market ever with 5 yrs of 20% or more gains (Yes, a bubble, but it went on for years.).  The Federal budget had positive cash flow for four straight years, once even without "borrowing" from Social Security.  There was lots of job creation.  We were even worried about paying off the Federal debt too fast! Remember that?

It had the only war won by air power alone without "boots on the ground" (Kosvo, remember that?).

The 90s had the only president (Bill Clinton) who didn't have a recession.  In fact, the only president who didn't have a recession in his first term, but added the second term for good measure.

There was only a low-level war in Iraq called "drive by shootings" where our aircraft would take out radar installations.  It began with president George H.W. Bush (Bush-41) kicking Saddam Hussein out of  Kuwait, but who was smart enough not to overthrow the Iraq government in the process.  We only had a silly impeachment proceeding and the usual silly attacks on a president (e.g. the travel office, Whitewater, commodity futures), but, granted, these sorts of attacks have seemed to get worse with time.

It was the only period when I felt prosperous.  My wife was yet to have a stroke, and we did a lot of travel.  Even my being fired by the government in Al Gore's Reinventing America crusade ended up being more of a blessing in that I was no longer involved in being a Civil Servant "political football."  Yes, I would take the 90s in a heartbeat.

HILLARY'S E-MAILS

So it turns out the Hillary Clinton kept her e-mails on a private server while she was Secretary of State, contrary to the rules.  It is said that she has turned over 55,000 (!) e-mails to the State Department for their review.  As one who was in the Senior Executive Service (SES) a long time ago, I think the controversy is overblown.  When I got out of my SES position, my hard copy records were to be turned over to the archives, but they were disposed of.  Frankly I was a bit disappointed in this.  There certainly was no effort to keep my e-mails.  I had kept some of them on floppies so I have some sort of a record that frankly, I only accessed once that I remember in the 25 yrs since the job.

But what I want to consider is the 55,000 Hillary e-mails  (and there is some thought that there may be more).  Let's see, she was Secretary of State for 4 yrs which comes to 13,750 e-mails a year which comes to 37.67 e-mails a day, including Saturdays and Sundays, or 1.57 e-mails an hour 24 hrs a day.  Let's say she worked 12 hrs a day so that comes to 3 e-mails/hour seven days a week or one every 20 min.  I don't know about you, but I find this to be incredible.  After all there must have been meetings of various kinds where she didn't e-mail.  These e-mails presumably did not involve classified information so classified documents adds to the total as do any letters.

I continue to be amazed at the number of e-mails and other records seem to be involved in government work.  Even on the "bridge-gate" scandal of Chris Cristie's governorship there were apparently thousands of e-mails and other documents:  The report relied on documents provided by the governor's office and interviews with 75 witnesses,^[148] including Christie and others from his administration, but no one interviewed had been at the Port Authority at the time of the lane closings.^[207] The interviews were not under oath.^[208] The report also was based on more than 250,000 documents, many of them emails and text messages.^[207] Transcripts of the interviews and the names of the interviewees were not released at the time the report was made public.^[146] It has been estimated that the tax-payer funded report cost more than $1 million.^[208] 

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_lane_closure_scandal