Open letters to Gov Scott and Senator Rubio on healthcare

Mr Scott,

I understand that you are not a fan of what is referred to as Obamacare. I don't know the specific reasons for your dislike, but I would assume it has something to do with it infringing on the healthcare business, where you spent a large part of your career. But whatever the case, you and I both know it helps people in Florida.

I realize you resisted expanding Medicaid in the state, but you fought to keep the equivalent of the Low Income Pool. I don't claim to understand your rationale, because it's still federal money, but nevertheless, you saw the need to help the people in this state. You worked with Mr. Rubio and others to ensure that there was money available for people who needed it, and so public hospitals could stay open and provide services.

When the last round of "repeal and replace" came about, I read with some interest that you again reached out to Mr Rubio to get an amendment waiver so that Florida could retain some federal money, and continue to help low income people.

And now the latest bill sits in the senate. The sponsors and leadership there have made clear that it's "all or nothing," and no amendments will be considered. As it stands, the block grants that have been laid out would reduce the contributions to Florida by a number in the billions. I've seen various estimates ranging from $3 billion in year one to over $30 billion in 5 years. Whatever it actually turns out to be, the number is enormous and there is no way Florida could cover the shortfall, unless you raised taxes.

I don't see how you can turn a blind eye to those less fortunate, after you worked hard to get LIP (or a similar program) money. And after hearing your compassion for Floridians during Irma, it would seem almost cruel to turn around and recommend that Mr. Rubio accept this legislation; people will suffer without access to affordable healthcare or public hospitals.

I would hope you will confer with Mr Rubio and tell him this bill is not good for Florida, and that he should vote no.

Look, I understand that the ACA is imperfect, and needs some work. But I don't believe this is the answer, and it will adversely affect millions in our state. I would hope we - all of us, regardless of party or office, or even ordinary citizens - can work on something better.

Thank you.


—�—

Senator,

I have heard you are still undecided on your vote for the latest round of "repeal and replace" for obamacare. Though I think we can be honest and just call it repeal because there isn't much in the way of replacement.

I imagine that one step in your decision making will be to consult with governor Scott and other politicians, which I think is useful. But allow me to throw a couple of thoughts out there as a resident of Florida.

Mr. Scott resisted expanding Medicaid in the state, but he fought to keep the equivalent of the Low Income Pool. You helped him to keep a similar program, ensuring that there was money available for people who needed it, and so public hospitals could stay open and provide services.

When the last round of "repeal and replace" came about, I read with some interest that you and mr. Scott agreed that the money should still be available to Florida, and that you worked on an amendment waiver so that Florida could retain some federal money, and continue to help low income people.

On this latest bill, mr. McConnell has made clear that it's "all or nothing," and no amendments will be considered. As it stands, the block grants that have been laid out would reduce the contributions to Florida by a number in the billions. I've seen various estimates ranging from $3 billion in year one to over $30 billion in 5 years. Whatever it actually turns out to be, the number is enormous and there is no way Florida could cover the shortfall, unless the state raised taxes.

I don't see how you can turn a blind eye to those less fortunate, after you worked hard to get LIP (or a similar program) money. But there's another thing: I got your messages after Irma; you were working hard for the people in our state, to make sure they had the resources they needed and access to essentials. To turn around a few weeks later and simply undercut people's access to healthcare would seem almost cruel ; people will suffer without access to affordable healthcare or public hospitals.

Of course, I should also mention that many groups, from doctors, to veterans, to seniors, to advocacy groups have all said this plan is bad, and are opposed to it.

And finally, I wanted to call attention to the "Kimmel test" and mr Kimmels assertion that this legislation fails that test. Senator Cassidy thinks that it does not fail because he interprets it differently than mr Kimmel. And this a key point: he wrote it with something specific in mind, and interprets it one way. Others interpret the wording another way. If it's that unclear, then surely it's possible that there will be more questions, and it will lead to uncertainty and have unintended consequences.

That's not good legislation, especially if it affects nearly every American - even those with employer-sponsored plans may be among said consequences - and 1/6th of the economy.

It should not go forward like this. Take time to work through the details and come up with something better, and which actually is clear & concise, and keeps Florida in the red with the low income folks.

I would hope you see this bill is not good for Florida, and that you will vote no.


Thank you.

On this date in history: jump the shark

okay, I missed it by a day. But 40 years ago, the infamous scene where fonzie literally jumps a shark aired on tv.

From Wikipedia:

The phrase jump the shark is based on a scene in the fifth season premiere episode of the American TV series Happy Days titled "Hollywood: Part 3," written by Fred Fox, Jr.,^[5] which aired on September 20, 1977. In the episode, the central characters visit Los Angeles,  where a water-skiing Fonzie (Henry Winkler) answers a challenge to his bravery by wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, and jumping over a confined shark. The stunt was created as a way to showcase Winkler's real-life water ski skills.^[6] However, the scene also was criticized^[who?] as betraying Fonzie's character development, since in an earlier landmark episode, Fonzie jumped his motorcycle over fourteen barrels in a televised stunt; the stunt left him seriously injured, and he confessed that he was stupid to have taken such a dangerous risk just to prove his courage.

For a show that in its early seasons depicted universally relatable adolescent and family experiences against a backdrop of 1950s nostalgia, this incident marked a turn.^[opinion] The lionization of an increasingly superhuman Fonzie, who was initially a supporting character in the series, became the focus of Happy Days. The series continued for seven years after Fonzie's shark-jumping stunt, with a number of changes in cast and situations.^[7]

On Marc Maron’s WTF podcast Ron Howard talked about the first time the phrase was used by Happy Days co-star Donny Most: “Donny’s reading it and he kinda looks down, then says ‘what do you think of the script?’ and I shrugged and replied ‘people like the show, it’s hard to argue with being number one’ and he looked up and said, ‘he’s jumping a shark now?’. That was the first time I saw that phrase bracketed, before it was even done, you’ve got to give props to Donny Most.”^[8]

The phrase "jumping the shark" was coined in 1985 by Jon Hein's roommate at the University of Michigan, Sean Connolly, when they were talking about favorite television shows that had gone downhill, and the two began identifying other shows where a similar "jump the shark" moment had occurred.^[9][10] Hein described the term as "A defining moment when you know from now on … it's all downhill … it will never be the same."^[5] In 1997, Hein created a website to publish his current list of approximately 200 television shows and his opinions of the moments each "jumped the shark"; the site became popular and grew with additional user-contributed examples.^[5] Hein subsequently authored two "Jump The Shark" books and later became a regular on The Howard Stern Show around the time he sold his website to Gemstar (owners of TV Guide).

In a 2010 Los Angeles Times article, former Happy Days writer Fred Fox, Jr., who wrote the episode that later spawned the phrase, said, "Was the [shark jump] episode of Happy Days deserving of its fate? No, it wasn't. All successful shows eventually start to decline, but this was not Happy Days' time." Fox also points not only to the success of that episode ("a huge hit" with over 30 million viewers), but also to the continued popularity of the series.^[5]

Fonzie was not the first character to jump a shark. In the P. G. Wodehouse 1922 novel "Right Ho, Jeeves" Bertie Wooster's cousin Angela jumps a shark while water-skiing on the French Riviera. The event did not become a cultural reference, but was a major plot point in the novel, leading to, among other things, a broken engagement, a hunger strike and many midnight assignations in the garden.^[11]

Contact your senator

I just contacted my senators, along with 19 others, to ask them vote no on the latest version of healthcare. It's easy enough to get in touch. If you google "contact (senator name)" you'll be taken to their email form.  Just write a short note about why you oppose the bill, and make it personal if you can.  

If you need a little help, visit trumpcaretoolkit.org. 

And of course if you don't know your senators, just google that too.

Thank you!

Vicente. For presidente

this is an awesome video from Vicente fox.  He has my vote.  

What did we learn? Hurricane edition

Irma was noted to be the biggest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic. That was an "oh shit" moment if there ever was one. And it caused a lot of damage on the islands, which is quite sad and devastating to the places affected.

Then, when we looked again, there was another storm (Jose) that formed behind it. And shortly after that, there was another storm (Katia) that formed over Mexico. So the panic level rose - especially after Harvey had just devastated Texas.

As a native to Florida, I consider myself a sort of amateur meteorologist. I was studying the storm, and thought it would go through the keys and up the west coast of Florida. But the models were saying it would probably be on the east coast, which was odd, but I'm not going to risk my life on intuition, so I prepared based on what the models said.

I caught a little local news and they were talking about the dangers and honestly they managed to scare me a little. But I was still preparing the same way. Then I watched some national news, after people from out of state called to see if I was evacuating. Oh my god. The national news was practically screaming "you're all going to die!" It didn't help that the governor misspoke and said everyone should evacuate Florida, when he meant people should evacuate low lying areas and go to a shelter.

I understand that they are trying to get people motivated to act. But that's a little over the top. And then there was a little douchebag of a radio host *cough* *rush* *cough* who was telling people the storm was a liberal conspiracy, which helps no one. And then he left his home in palm beach to flee, which shows what he's made of - he's spinning a storm as political to fit his whacked narrative.

Now to the main focus of what we learned. The forecasting models were very unclear at 5 days out. The storm was huge, and the entire state of Florida was in its path. Understanding the weather is tricky, and there are many variables. Surely forecasting has come a long way in 25 years, but it's still lacking in some ways. We have the technology and the ability to model and understand. If only we would spend more time and energy working on it. And then there's the money factor. They approved $15 billion in aid for Harvey, and undoubtedly will approve some for Florida, and other us territories for Irma and then for Jose. Plus the cost of sending in the national guard, search and rescue, the navy helping, etc.

How much would it cost us to better predict storms? How much would it cost to look for possible solutions to affect storms through some technology? (I have no idea if it's possible, but who's to say it isn't? That's what innovation/ingenuity is all about!) What would it cost us to invest in infrastructure and building technology to prevent these from being catastrophes? And what would it cost us to evacuate an area if there was a localized area that needed it? Probably less than the one time $15 billion investment.

Climate science is a real thing, and we need to take it seriously. Surely there is change in climate, since the industrial revolution. We can debate about the extent, and whether man has caused or accelerated it. But it's happening. Let's seek to invest in it and understand it. That's our best hope for the future.

Now, in looking over the history for both the European and U.K. Models I mentioned previously, they both showed a more westerly path throughout the 5 days, so I would argue they were more accurate. Perfect? Hardly. But better.

One last thing I'd like to mention is running from the storm. Years ago, there was a storm headed for Florida, and my mom wanted to leave. So we did, headed from south Florida up the coast. We wound up in Orlando which seemed safe. Except that the storm turned and hit us there, while leaving our homes in the south untouched.

For Irma, many people I know went to Tampa and Orlando, and a few went further north. And now the storm is bearing down on them as they sit in hotels.

This is the problem with forecasting and deciding to run - there's not enough information to go on, and people make relatively informed decisions based on their fight or flight instinct and listening to weather reports from breathless anchors.

We can do better. De-politicize climate science. Focus on doing better for society. Invest in infrastructure, and weather forecasting. See if there any ways to combat hurricanes, because there might be.

The 2016 election

As I've blogged about in the past, it seems apparent that Russia influenced our election.  I know some of you roll your eyes and think I'm a tin-foil wearing guy who is seeing things in the shadows.

But let me take a step back a moment.  For 60 or so years, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) has been locked in a battle of sorts with the United States to influence the world.  There was an escalation of nuclear arms, "the commie threat" era, glasnost, and an ever changing cast of characters.

And then we reached the 21st century.  W Bush made an effort to see Putin as an equal, and told us he wasn't evil. Obama took a different tone; and Hillary as SoS tried to reset relations, only to wind up antagonizing Putin.  

The Russians have their agenda.  Things they want.  Some of them are controlling interests in financially rewarding things (oil, real estate, etc).  Some are influence in other countries.  And the others are probably not as well defined, but rest assured that they want to set policy, rather than having the US always dictate it to them.

And the election cycle starts. It seems obvious that Hillary is going to be the Democratic nominee.  Putin has a distaste for her.  The Republican nominee is less well established.  But at that moment, it doesn't matter.  Putin sets his sights on destabilization.  If he can create enough "chaos" in the cycle, he can remove the biggest obstacle from his plan to set policy for most of the planet.

And, if he can destabilize part of Europe, then it gets even better.  Yes, there are other large players in the world, but he has good relations with China, and can exert some influence on the others.

As far as the US is concerned, it seems clear that Putin wanted to sow some discord.  If we actually look at what he did, we know he disrupted the process: he planted fake news, had bots on social media that did all manner of influencing public opinion, he hacked the DNC, and it appears as though he orchestrated some sort of vote hacking that caused us to question the outcome.  And he did it all while leaving what appear to be intentional digital fingerprints, so we would know he was engaged in our politics. 

On the last point about hacking the vote, I've been saying this for a while.  The numbers don't make sense.  Voting machines have been shown to be hackable.  The system is pretty generally broken, so it was unlikely we actually do anything to stop it or provide for any sort of manual backup....and even if we did, he left enough questions unanswered that we would have been mired in a different controversy and still left powerless.

And then comes the Trump factor.  Do I think Trump knowingly or wittingly colluded with Russia?  No, I don't.  I don't think he's smart enough to have considered that.  Some of the people around him surely were, and I think they helped dupe him into it.  

IMHO, his plan was to enter the race for president and be an antagonist, a sort of thorn in everyones side.  I personally believe that he was in it for the money.  He saw an opportunity to hold rallies, sell admission and trinkets, and fund raise.  And then when it was all over, he could walk away with real money he could use to self deal and enrich himself.

But he didn't count on Putin actually giving him a bit of an assist.  He was trying to get some business going in Russia.  And it appears that he was already indebted to some oligarchs.  So, when an opportunity presented itself, he enlisted Russia's help.  Maybe it was to get out of debt.  Maybe it was to get that elusive deal in Moscow.  Maybe at some point, he figured out that it was going to be treason-adjacent.  Or maybe not.  It doesn't really matter, because he became complicit by listening to those around him, taking meetings, and trying to get a deal done - in spite of sanctions currently in place.

And I think Putin saw him as a pawn in the big game.  Any of the other Republicans was a savvy politician who would have continued to try to promote US interests. Trump was only in it for himself.  So, if he could undermine the integrity of the election, why not take it a step further and try and help the hapless guy who who would make his work easier. 

We step off the world stage and argue about stupid shit.  

For Putin, its brilliant.  He takes us effectively out of the way.

For us, its problematic, and no matter what happens next, it will take us years, perhaps decades to return to a world stage, where we would still be behind the curve.

Make America Great?  Yeah, right.  Make us self-centered and make us fight among ourselves.  That's #winning.  

We need to find a way out from here.  Hopefully, the various investigations lead somewhere and we reset back 8 months and move on.

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain - Hurricane Forecasting

Setting aside whether you understand or believe in climate science, there is some basic science that is used to forecast hurricanes. I'll get to that in a moment.  But first, we have to understand that because of the general category of "politics" the National Weather Service is limited to some degree in its ability to accurately and reliably predict storms. 

As it happens, both the UK's Metrological group and a European weather group do a better job of tracking and predicting storms.  When you read up on the subject, you find that they put money into predictive tools, computers, satellites, and take CLIMATE SCIENCE seriously.  And over the years, their predictions have gotten better, since they appreciate the basis for hurricanes and climate-related patterns.

Now back to the hurricane predictions themselves.  There are many factors that impact storms.  Some of the more basic ones are: depth and temperature of water, surface conditions (such as barometric pressure), and other storms that may influence intensity or direction. There are other factors, of course, but that kind of gets it going.  And as an aside, the warmest waters and lowest barometric tend to be in the Florida straights (i.e., between Cuba and Key West), so all things being equal, that is the path a storm would take with no other influences.

The speed of the storm, and wind intensity are used to create a basis for the model along with these factors.  And many groups run their forecasting model against all of these variables and come up with a forecast.

And the Hurricane Hunter planes head into the storm to get accurate readings.  Yep, the coast guard sends planes into the storms to get readings on all of the factors in real time to share in order to formulate a prediction.

When all of these are aggregated together, they establish the bounds for where the storms will go.  For the 12-hour window, they mostly converge, so you have a small cone of movement, but as you move out 24-120 hours, this cone expansion significantly, because each of the model interprets data differently.

And because storms are moving 10-15 MPH typically, this makes sense.  It takes them time to cover large distances, and things can and do change in that 5-day window.

When you look at the map for Irma, the US-based models show it on a more northward path in the 5-day window.  The UK-based model has it near the center. And the European model has it further south over Cuba.  Historically, since the latter two have shown a higher accuracy its likely it will track further south.

But there are no guarantees, and we all have to remain aware and vigilant, and make storm preparation accordingly.

And here's the thing: we, as an affluent nation, should really take a hard look at our ability to predict storms. Since we bear the brunt of hurricanes, why is it that scientists across the pond can make better predictions that we can?  How does that make sense?  And we continue to try and chip away at climate science as a bad thing.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could predict - with some accuracy - where a storm will hit and how intense it might be?  In some cases, it may allow us to properly plan to open levees and dykes to move water.  In others, it might help with evacuation, or staging for quickly getting back to normal.

The modeling isn't all that hard.  The technology to do it well exists. We have bright people who want to do it.  We just need to take it seriously.