WA-Boom!

Who’s that hiding behind a building?

Let’s take a closer look.

Oops.  It may have gotten away.

There it is.  My.  It looks like a 747 over Seattle. That’s not so unusual.

But which 747?  Why, it’s Air Force 1.

 

Since I grew up in NYC, the announcement that the President is visiting results not in excitement, but in eye rolling.  The traffic hassles of dignitaries can be real pain.  But it doesn't happen all that often in Seattle, so folks will line the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of the President. And they did just that on 2010-08-17.

The day was not without its adventure.  At about 1:50 in the afternoon, I heard what sounded like two loud explosions in the city.  I saw no smoke out the windows, and though it might have just been a truck.  But then Twitter burst with activity.  About 15 minutes later, the consensus emerged on line that the sounds were sonic booms.  More details here.

Apparently, while the President was at an event, someone in a float plane (who didn’t check airspace restrictions prior to taking off) violated the Seattle airspace restrictions.  Two fighter jets took off from Portland, and zipped up to Seattle at near maximum speed to intercept the potential threat.  It turned out to be nothing, but it certainly added some extra excitement to the day.

At the end of the day, the President took off from BFI, heading north out over Seattle.  The plane turned right over the Green lake area (I think) and headed east to Ohio.

I got a few pictures of the aircraft through what I later realized was a really dirty lens.  The hazy skies and thin clouds also made photography challenging.

Regardless of who the primary passenger is as any given time, I’ve always found Air Force 1 to be one of the most beautiful birds to ply the skies.

Healthcare Reform 01: Government sponsored health care

A key initiative of the Obama administration is to bring health insurance to the uninsured in one form or another. Whether this is the US finally coming out of the dark ages or the beginning of an apocalyptic slide into communism is a more complicated discussion than I have the energy to get into tonight.

But that won't stop me from opining on the topic.

Here are some assumptions I am starting with, and I think many people are likely to agree.

We already have socialized medicine.

Between Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, workers compensation, the VA, Federal employment benefits, and assorted other programs, the Federal, State, and local governments already provide millions of people with health care.

A person in need of immediate medical attention won't be denied care at an emergency room. Millions of people already use hospital emergency rooms for primary health care because they can't/won't pay to see a regular physician.

Socialized medicine is here today -- it's just delivered with terrible inefficiency.

We have some of the best medical technology in the world.

The medical schools and technology we have in the US create some of the best procedures, medical instruments, and medication. We have fantastic physicians and they are typically well compensated after years in their profession. Many other health care providers (RN's for example) are not as well compensated as we would like, but are still extremely talented.

The US pharmaceutical industry is a technological leader.

The US drug companies come under fire for their prices and for their defense of patents around the world. But the reason they are so often attacked for not sharing their products with the poor of the world is because they make such fantastic and innovative products.

Employers in the US have an extra burden they don't share with the rest of the world.

The primary provider of health care coverage in the US is the employer. Large companies provide coverage for employees. This cost, which is measured in the thousands of dollars, either depresses cash wages, or it reduces profits. Companies in other countries do not have to pay for health care for their employees.

Any health care plan we implement in the US must meet the following standards:

1. Preserve the health care technology leadership the US has
2. Keep and fairly compensate the skilled people in the industry
3. Make the system more efficient and less wasteful than the current system
4. Make health care affordable for those who currently can't afford it
5. Reduce the burden on employers

We don't have to get there in one step. And I've always doubted that health care reform will come from the Democrats. Not because I question their commitment, but because there are too many industries opposing it, and too many varied constituencies within the party to reach consensus on one plan.

The true impetus for health care reform in the US will not come from the left. It will come from the corporate interests on the right. Health care reform in the US will come when big and medium business decides it is time to shift the burden of paying f0r health insurance to someone else.

In the meantime, the tragic stories of individuals will provide headlines, but are not likely to result in a significant changes to the system.

A small proposal

In the interim, here's a way to tweak the system that may help lower individual costs and increase coverage. I am making up the numbers out of thin air, so bear that in mind.

Everyone should have a government provided health insurance program that features a $50,000 annual deductible. Above that amount, the Feds (taxpayers) would cover the costs.

This will mean the private health insurance providers can lower their rates to make health insurance more affordable since their losses will be capped.

This will also lower the costs for employers.

Most people don't spend more than $50K per year on health care, so there is still an incentive for individuals to look for ways to minimize their costs.

The pharmaceutical and hospital industry can continue to operate as they currently do. Doctors and pharmacists don't suddenly become government employees, so the local hospitals don't become the local DMV.

This plan addresses some of the concerns above, but it's not comprehensive. It's a simple plan that provides a step forward. And maybe it will break the current political log jam.

New times

Today the European Union standards agency announced a new initiative, as part of the ongoing G20 summit. Building on the nearly world-wide success of the metric system for weights and measures, they are ready to take the metric system to the next level.

The system will be phased in over the next several years. By 2016-04-01, all member states will need to complete the switch over to metric time. “The current calendar is a relic of Pope Gregory and the medieval Catholic Church. It builds on the Roman calendar developed by Julius Caesar. And just as we no longer use Roman Numerals to count, and we no longer use Feet and Hogsheads to measure distance, it’s time to get away from the chaotic math of the current clock,” said the chairman of the Greenwich Mean Time committee.

The new system will make it easier to tell and calculate time.

The base unit of the system will still be the day. The new day will be 10 hours long. During the transition, the metric day will be called an “mDay” in English. Once the transition is complete, the “m” prefix and archaic name will be replaced permanently with the new metric name. To make the conversion, 1 hour will equal .416667 mHours.

The term “hour” will be replaced with the “deciday.” There will be 100 minutes in an hour (or 100 Millidays).

The new week, the mWeek (after 2016, the Decaday) will equal 10 mDays. Each mMonth (or Hectoday) will equal 10m weeks (or 10 Decadays), or 100 mDays.

The mYear (or Kiloyear) will equal 10 mMonths (or 100 Decidays), or 1,000 mDays.

This chart may help:

New Term	Definition	Obsolete Term
1 Milliday	.001 Days	Minute
I Deciday	.1 Days	Hour
1 Day	1 Day	Day
1 Decaday	10 Days	Week
1 Hectoday	100 Days	Month
1 Kiloday	1,000 Days	Year

The problem here is obvious, and was discussed extensively in committee. The current year is 365.25 days. The new Kiloyear is equal to almost 3 current years (which total 1,095.75 current days). Naturally age restrictions in laws, licensing, retirement, and other documents will need to be adjusted.

It also means each year will have three summers and three winters. We will need more Holidays to adjust for the annual events.

The dates for each season and equinox will have to float. Protesters argued this is unnatural. “Comment peuvent-ils indiquer la Terre quand incliner?” shouted protesters in Paris. The committee chairman shrugged it off. “The dates on the calendar have always been arbitrary. Some years we adjust the year by as much as 15 seconds because of the inconvenient nature of the Earth’s slightly irregular orbit. This is the same thing.”

“We can’t let the arbitrary holidays interfere with the science of measurement,” he continued.

Nineteen of the 20 member of the G20 issued a joint statement praising the shift:

Not only will this change simplify time, it will provide a significant aid to the world economy. Manufacturing and scientific organizations will have a cleaner and more efficient measurement system. And it will be a significant boon to the watch and clock makers around the world during these troubled times.

President Obama declined to join in the statement. The President released his own statement later.

While we are pleased to see our European partners working so closely together to come up with new solutions to old problems, we don’t plan to impose this change on the American people. The American people have no trouble with the 60s and 7s that make up our calendar. Further, we don’t need to mandate this program.

The American people have always worked with partners around the world to build a world class economy and to help people from all walks of life achieve their true potential. The American people are thrilled to buy their soda in 2 liter bottles and their milk by the gallon. The power of American business is that it works with and respects the traditional culture of America, while still working with the rest of the world in the different measures they use. The people will use the units they prefer as we move into the next global age of economic revitalization.

Some European editorialist scoffed at Obama’s suggestion that this won’t be a problem for the US. “Didn’t the Americans lose a space ship because they don’t understand metric?” suggested the editor of the London Financial Times.

The Director of the US Bureau of Weights and Measures stated the US would work with others on the new calendar, but beyond providing conversion tables, would take few initiatives. “We still plan to keep our speed limit signs at 65 MPH. We don’t plan to change them to 249.6 KMpdD (kilometers per deciday).”

After the press conference, was overheard talking to a colleague about the issue. Apparently he didn’t realize his microphone was still open. “Not this crap again. What is this? 1977? I’m getting too old for this.”

The second will remain at 9,192,631,770 Cesium atom vibrations for now. The seconds in a Milliday will be defined by conversion tables. The standards body will discuss alternative definitions for the “second” over the next year.

There is still a great deal of debate over what to do with the yet to be implemented Decimilliday.

Whitehouse.gov

Just after noon today, the new Whitehouse.Gov website went online. The Obama administration wasted no time in getting the site up. There were no days of that silly picture of a construction dude doing road work on a yellow diamond with a caption reading, "Site under construction. Please check back in few days."

Of course, I should expect nothing less from a President who placed so much emphasis on using technology to promote his election during the campaign.

The site is clean and well organized. There's a mix of historic information and next generation communication tools. It's easy to navigate and seems like the kind of tool I'm likely to use more than once every four years.

There's even a blog on Whitehouse.Gov. I wonder when they're adding the Entrecard widget...