“support wind energy as an abundant, readily accessible resource ….”
The biggest problem with renewables is unreliability. I've analyzed it. Storage to get firm power, i.e., 99.97% available, would cost at least four times total USA GDP — every year — forever. I'm submitting a paper based on http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html to Springer Energy Systems. Maybe they'll print it.
None of these four agencies should be eliminated. They merely need to be managed properly. There is too much heat, e.g., in eliminating the Dept of Education. DOE should be monitoring/evaluating the performances of individuals and designated cohorts in all States. The NAEP is a sufficient monitor, BUT the metrics being applied are next to useless. They are, in fact, misleading.Subtractive differences (of "passing" percentages or scores) must be replaced by a specific set of "ratio" metrics. The 20-percentile to 80-percentile range must fit a Gaussian (bell shape). To much "tail" in the 0-20% range indicates that poorly performing students are dragging down everyone else and are still not receiving enough attention. A "cutoff" in the 80- 100 percentile range means that these students are not being sufficiently challenged (or may have abandoned the public schools). With three-tier differentiation, adjustable annually by the principal for the lower 20%, the mid 60%, and the top 20%, an assigned teacher can handle the spread of demonstrated capabilities, and special attention can be given to the lower and higher 20%. This message has been preached, to no avail, at the State and Congress levels for 30 years. ... William T. Lynch, PhD ... .. bandglynch@gmail.com
These agencies have been "competently" managed for a very long time. The problem is that the aims of the competent managers have been to expand government authority. The next "competent" manager with those same aims will put them right back where they were last year, citing Supreme Court decisions that gave them the authority to undo what Wright and Zeldin and RFKJr are doing. Overturning the Chevron Doctrine (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo) was an important step. A more important one would be overturning Wickard v. Filburn, which gave the government free rein to interpret anything they do as justified by the Commerce Clause. If John Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury gets to the Supreme Court, and they decide according to what the Constitution actually says, not what some of them wish it said, maybe Wickard v. Filburn will be undone. Read https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/in-the-aggregate . Then read Andrew Naoplitano's "Theodore and Woodrow" to understand how the current trajectory got started more than a century ago.
In regard to the HHS and the hundreds of thousands of American lives, which were lost...It was thanks to the Obama Administration and Fauci providing American dollars to fund the Wuhan Lab. They created Covid-19, which Big Pharma was waiting for with open arms to provide its money-making, death-dealing 'vaxxes.' Senator Obama also promised labs in Ukraine, American taxpayer monies to fund labs, too(saw the video). All these labs work on providing more dangerous diseases to inflict on humans. They should be put out of existence.
Barbara: There is truth in that. However the most problematic issue is that the FDA, CDC, etc. purposefully did not follow Real Science, and instead did what was political science.
I look forward to your words of wisdom from every printing. After over ninety years on this planet I have never been more astounded by the ominous changes and discoveries occurring from the depths of the oceans to the hight of the cosmos. This portends greater challenges never faced before. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be controlling AI, rather than it controlling us.
Growing up ‘Common Sense’ was an often used analogy by adults for making sound and logical decisions. Until recently we rarely heard it used in government circles. I’m wondering if younger generations have the same connotation of its meaning as it once had? After enduring the prostitution of the words “Climate Change” by government authorities for the past 30 years I’m a bit leery when a word or phrase is used that can mean something different than its original intent. Now, with the specter of AI, it raises this kind of question and many others.
I was lucky enough to start in a one room school where I could hear the entire curriculum at the time. Grade 8 was enough for a completion certificate and correspondence was available for those planning higher education. As the teacher’s kid, I heard a lot of coaching to examination as the government was shutting down the early completion certificate after WWII.
We learned the classical definition of common sense; that reality is complex but orderly and because it was corollary to Relativity, that definition was the closest to truth that science had so far approached. Rationality was defined as the mental competence required to understand cause and effect and the hierarchy of evidence. This is the definition of rationality that led to the American experiment.
Dana: Common sense, etc has been taken over in our K-12 schools by Leftist (e.g. Woke) ideology. Critical Thinking is specifically discouraged (e.g., in NGSS). This has been almost entirely done by the States. A leadership DOEd (if done right) could make a world of beneficial difference.
I've been saying for a while now that the FDA, CDC, and NIH are too corrupt to reform. We need to shut them down permanently and fire all nearly 50,000 employees of those three agencies. Ditto for Dept of Ed. When Carter formed it back in the late 1970's, US was number one globally in education. Today we are way down on the list at number 32 or 33. State and local governments were doing a far better job with education before the Dept of Ed came into being. That federal bureaucracy has Failed. Shut it down!
Every one of these federal bureaucracies is a power grab, stealing rights and privileges from state and local governments and from the people. America, Land of the Free! How did we ever think it would be a good idea to give a bunch of unelected career bureaucrats thousands of miles distant the power to tell me what I can and cannot buy in my local drug store?!
Pima: I understand your view, but regarding the DOEd you are confusing correlation with causation. 95% of the problems we have in our K-12 education system have been caused by STATES. Getting rid of DOEd will not solve one iota of those. Giving iK-12 ncompetent States more power will make the situation MUCH worse.
we'll have to agree to disagree then. There is an axiom regarding power that I believe is true: Consolidation of power, concentration of power, always and everywhere becomes corrupt. That principle alone is reason enough to abolish all federal 3 and 4 letter agencies and return the power they wield back to state and local governments or to the people. I believe that's what US Founders had in mind. They wanted a small limited federal government with most of the powers of government reserved for the states or the people.
Pima: First, not all axioms are true. Critical Thinkers do not rely on axioms to decide the best course of actions.
Second, thank you for making clear that you are not just against DOEd, you are against ALL federal agencies.
Of course once they are abolished, the power you fear would be focused in State agencies. Then you will be advocating to get rid of them. So what would we be left with???
I'm saying that the more centralized the power, the more concentrated the power, the greater the tendency for that power to become corrupt.
Consider the FDA. What if instead of the FDA at the federal level we had an FDA-like entity at the state level for some states and no FDA-like entity for other states. How much more difficult would it be for Pharma to capture a couple dozen state FDA's than for them to capture ONE federal level FDA? What has happened with the FDA and CDC is a classic example of concentrated power always becoming corrupt. Could Pharma corrupt FDA's at state level? Of course, and they would try, especially the ones of the larger states. But it would be more difficult. Also, there is the possibility that the voters might pay more attention to what's going on in their own backyard than they do regarding what's happening in thousands of miles away in Washington.
Right now, with the level of corruption we have at the FDA and CDC, I believe we'd be better off to shut them down, even if we didn't replace them with anything.
All four agencies were put in place due to out of control activities in a number of different states. For instance, the EPA was thought to be necessary due to pollution in large cities while there was actually no problem in over 95% of America. So, in my opinion, EPA was over sold to America. Our government has to treat everyone equally. So, a small business in Zebulon, NC had to meet the same discharge standard as a polluter in Cleveland, Ohio.
To me, a much better solution would have been for Congress to demand the states get control over their specific situations rather than to set up an elaborate federal structure and then subsidize the whole thing with our tax dollars.
The same thing is true with education, energy, and DHHS. Once federal tax dollars are offered, the recipients are forced to meet federal demands to keep being funded. So, politicians can use the power of coercion to drive all sorts of nutty ideas, and they do it every time!
Meanwhile, the public is clueless. All of this happens at the federal, state, and local levels and bureaucrats at each level learn how to play the funding game to their benefit but not to the benefit of the tax payer. And, when there is not enough tax payer revenue, our Congress merely votes to take on more national debt to fund the craziness. A state can brag about balancing it’s budget because the imbalance is paid at the federal level.
We do not need any of the agencies you list. A very small group in Washington can monitor the various areas of interest and report to Congress. Mainly all of this is up to local authorities because they know what is happening in their area specifically.
Politicians are lazy and hate to make decisions that might be controversial. They love to pass the buck to a higher level especially when the higher level kicks back real bucks to fund their lack of decision making. That is how we end up with a $37.6 Trillion national debt. This is really quite simple if we just pay attention. But, who has time for that?
I agree with the first 3 points, but need to ponder the 4th. During the history of the DOEd, how have our nation's schoolchildren benefited? Have test scores gone up since its' inception? Has our nation felt the presence of it as an overall benefit and protection? I see the teacher's union being the rot at the heart of it. What is left if the union is terminated, or is that even a possibility? Having our nations' children be subject to an across-the-board standard may NOT be in the best interest of the children. What works in a coal town in Virginia may not work in the heart of New York or suburban Vancouver, Washington. I believe states here may have their finger on the pulse of education better than the federal government.
FDR opposed public-sector unions, saying they resulted in two parties negotiating from the same side of the table against the absent taxpayer. Then Democrat New York Mayor Robert Wagner allowed them, quickly followed by Democrat California Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown. Über-progressive Wisconsin Governor Robert La Follette wanted them too.
Most local unions are a good thing, representing their members. When the Labor Department was formed, it explicitly carved out an exception to the Sherman Anti-Trust act for unions, so we got nationwide, even "international" unions negotiating with (i.e., extorting) companies, for the benefit of the union leaders and the politicians they bribe (or extort).
Ban public-sector unions, and subject "international" unions to the Anti-Trust Act.
Bonnie: 1) Yes, DOEd — LIKE ALL THE OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES — has done an inadequate job. 2) Most of the problems with our K-12 education system are the fault of the STATES, not DOEd. 3) No one is proposing a one-size fits all solution. Read the link I referenced: DOED would provide leadership. How things are done would still be up to each State.
I disagree. State and local governments were doing a far better job with education before Carter started the Dept of Ed in the late 1970's. At that time US was number one in education globally. Today we are not even in the top ten! We're way down on the list at number 32. Dept of Ed has FAILED. Shut it down and return education to state and local governments.
Pima: Yes things were better 50 years ago, but you are confusing correlation with causation.
What changed was not DOEd, but rather that Leftists decided to take over the K-12 school system, starting with curricula. Corrupt standards like NGSS soon followed.
DOEd had NOTHING to do with NGSS, and it was approved by 49 of 50 States.
Springer Energy Systems rejected it.
Personnel is policy. Clean house, and there might be a chance for change.
Yes that would be part of it.
“support wind energy as an abundant, readily accessible resource ….”
The biggest problem with renewables is unreliability. I've analyzed it. Storage to get firm power, i.e., 99.97% available, would cost at least four times total USA GDP — every year — forever. I'm submitting a paper based on http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Worse.html to Springer Energy Systems. Maybe they'll print it.
None of these four agencies should be eliminated. They merely need to be managed properly. There is too much heat, e.g., in eliminating the Dept of Education. DOE should be monitoring/evaluating the performances of individuals and designated cohorts in all States. The NAEP is a sufficient monitor, BUT the metrics being applied are next to useless. They are, in fact, misleading.Subtractive differences (of "passing" percentages or scores) must be replaced by a specific set of "ratio" metrics. The 20-percentile to 80-percentile range must fit a Gaussian (bell shape). To much "tail" in the 0-20% range indicates that poorly performing students are dragging down everyone else and are still not receiving enough attention. A "cutoff" in the 80- 100 percentile range means that these students are not being sufficiently challenged (or may have abandoned the public schools). With three-tier differentiation, adjustable annually by the principal for the lower 20%, the mid 60%, and the top 20%, an assigned teacher can handle the spread of demonstrated capabilities, and special attention can be given to the lower and higher 20%. This message has been preached, to no avail, at the State and Congress levels for 30 years. ... William T. Lynch, PhD ... .. bandglynch@gmail.com
These agencies have been "competently" managed for a very long time. The problem is that the aims of the competent managers have been to expand government authority. The next "competent" manager with those same aims will put them right back where they were last year, citing Supreme Court decisions that gave them the authority to undo what Wright and Zeldin and RFKJr are doing. Overturning the Chevron Doctrine (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo) was an important step. A more important one would be overturning Wickard v. Filburn, which gave the government free rein to interpret anything they do as justified by the Commerce Clause. If John Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury gets to the Supreme Court, and they decide according to what the Constitution actually says, not what some of them wish it said, maybe Wickard v. Filburn will be undone. Read https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/in-the-aggregate . Then read Andrew Naoplitano's "Theodore and Woodrow" to understand how the current trajectory got started more than a century ago.
William: TY for hitting the nail on the head.
In regard to the HHS and the hundreds of thousands of American lives, which were lost...It was thanks to the Obama Administration and Fauci providing American dollars to fund the Wuhan Lab. They created Covid-19, which Big Pharma was waiting for with open arms to provide its money-making, death-dealing 'vaxxes.' Senator Obama also promised labs in Ukraine, American taxpayer monies to fund labs, too(saw the video). All these labs work on providing more dangerous diseases to inflict on humans. They should be put out of existence.
Barbara: There is truth in that. However the most problematic issue is that the FDA, CDC, etc. purposefully did not follow Real Science, and instead did what was political science.
John,
I look forward to your words of wisdom from every printing. After over ninety years on this planet I have never been more astounded by the ominous changes and discoveries occurring from the depths of the oceans to the hight of the cosmos. This portends greater challenges never faced before. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be controlling AI, rather than it controlling us.
Growing up ‘Common Sense’ was an often used analogy by adults for making sound and logical decisions. Until recently we rarely heard it used in government circles. I’m wondering if younger generations have the same connotation of its meaning as it once had? After enduring the prostitution of the words “Climate Change” by government authorities for the past 30 years I’m a bit leery when a word or phrase is used that can mean something different than its original intent. Now, with the specter of AI, it raises this kind of question and many others.
Just a thought by a small town country boy.
Thanks for all you do!
I was lucky enough to start in a one room school where I could hear the entire curriculum at the time. Grade 8 was enough for a completion certificate and correspondence was available for those planning higher education. As the teacher’s kid, I heard a lot of coaching to examination as the government was shutting down the early completion certificate after WWII.
We learned the classical definition of common sense; that reality is complex but orderly and because it was corollary to Relativity, that definition was the closest to truth that science had so far approached. Rationality was defined as the mental competence required to understand cause and effect and the hierarchy of evidence. This is the definition of rationality that led to the American experiment.
Dana: Common sense, etc has been taken over in our K-12 schools by Leftist (e.g. Woke) ideology. Critical Thinking is specifically discouraged (e.g., in NGSS). This has been almost entirely done by the States. A leadership DOEd (if done right) could make a world of beneficial difference.
I've been saying for a while now that the FDA, CDC, and NIH are too corrupt to reform. We need to shut them down permanently and fire all nearly 50,000 employees of those three agencies. Ditto for Dept of Ed. When Carter formed it back in the late 1970's, US was number one globally in education. Today we are way down on the list at number 32 or 33. State and local governments were doing a far better job with education before the Dept of Ed came into being. That federal bureaucracy has Failed. Shut it down!
Every one of these federal bureaucracies is a power grab, stealing rights and privileges from state and local governments and from the people. America, Land of the Free! How did we ever think it would be a good idea to give a bunch of unelected career bureaucrats thousands of miles distant the power to tell me what I can and cannot buy in my local drug store?!
Pima: I understand your view, but regarding the DOEd you are confusing correlation with causation. 95% of the problems we have in our K-12 education system have been caused by STATES. Getting rid of DOEd will not solve one iota of those. Giving iK-12 ncompetent States more power will make the situation MUCH worse.
we'll have to agree to disagree then. There is an axiom regarding power that I believe is true: Consolidation of power, concentration of power, always and everywhere becomes corrupt. That principle alone is reason enough to abolish all federal 3 and 4 letter agencies and return the power they wield back to state and local governments or to the people. I believe that's what US Founders had in mind. They wanted a small limited federal government with most of the powers of government reserved for the states or the people.
Pima: First, not all axioms are true. Critical Thinkers do not rely on axioms to decide the best course of actions.
Second, thank you for making clear that you are not just against DOEd, you are against ALL federal agencies.
Of course once they are abolished, the power you fear would be focused in State agencies. Then you will be advocating to get rid of them. So what would we be left with???
I'm saying that the more centralized the power, the more concentrated the power, the greater the tendency for that power to become corrupt.
Consider the FDA. What if instead of the FDA at the federal level we had an FDA-like entity at the state level for some states and no FDA-like entity for other states. How much more difficult would it be for Pharma to capture a couple dozen state FDA's than for them to capture ONE federal level FDA? What has happened with the FDA and CDC is a classic example of concentrated power always becoming corrupt. Could Pharma corrupt FDA's at state level? Of course, and they would try, especially the ones of the larger states. But it would be more difficult. Also, there is the possibility that the voters might pay more attention to what's going on in their own backyard than they do regarding what's happening in thousands of miles away in Washington.
Right now, with the level of corruption we have at the FDA and CDC, I believe we'd be better off to shut them down, even if we didn't replace them with anything.
All four agencies were put in place due to out of control activities in a number of different states. For instance, the EPA was thought to be necessary due to pollution in large cities while there was actually no problem in over 95% of America. So, in my opinion, EPA was over sold to America. Our government has to treat everyone equally. So, a small business in Zebulon, NC had to meet the same discharge standard as a polluter in Cleveland, Ohio.
To me, a much better solution would have been for Congress to demand the states get control over their specific situations rather than to set up an elaborate federal structure and then subsidize the whole thing with our tax dollars.
The same thing is true with education, energy, and DHHS. Once federal tax dollars are offered, the recipients are forced to meet federal demands to keep being funded. So, politicians can use the power of coercion to drive all sorts of nutty ideas, and they do it every time!
Meanwhile, the public is clueless. All of this happens at the federal, state, and local levels and bureaucrats at each level learn how to play the funding game to their benefit but not to the benefit of the tax payer. And, when there is not enough tax payer revenue, our Congress merely votes to take on more national debt to fund the craziness. A state can brag about balancing it’s budget because the imbalance is paid at the federal level.
We do not need any of the agencies you list. A very small group in Washington can monitor the various areas of interest and report to Congress. Mainly all of this is up to local authorities because they know what is happening in their area specifically.
Politicians are lazy and hate to make decisions that might be controversial. They love to pass the buck to a higher level especially when the higher level kicks back real bucks to fund their lack of decision making. That is how we end up with a $37.6 Trillion national debt. This is really quite simple if we just pay attention. But, who has time for that?
I agree with the first 3 points, but need to ponder the 4th. During the history of the DOEd, how have our nation's schoolchildren benefited? Have test scores gone up since its' inception? Has our nation felt the presence of it as an overall benefit and protection? I see the teacher's union being the rot at the heart of it. What is left if the union is terminated, or is that even a possibility? Having our nations' children be subject to an across-the-board standard may NOT be in the best interest of the children. What works in a coal town in Virginia may not work in the heart of New York or suburban Vancouver, Washington. I believe states here may have their finger on the pulse of education better than the federal government.
I will be interested to see other comments.
FDR opposed public-sector unions, saying they resulted in two parties negotiating from the same side of the table against the absent taxpayer. Then Democrat New York Mayor Robert Wagner allowed them, quickly followed by Democrat California Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown. Über-progressive Wisconsin Governor Robert La Follette wanted them too.
Most local unions are a good thing, representing their members. When the Labor Department was formed, it explicitly carved out an exception to the Sherman Anti-Trust act for unions, so we got nationwide, even "international" unions negotiating with (i.e., extorting) companies, for the benefit of the union leaders and the politicians they bribe (or extort).
Ban public-sector unions, and subject "international" unions to the Anti-Trust Act.
Bonnie: 1) Yes, DOEd — LIKE ALL THE OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES — has done an inadequate job. 2) Most of the problems with our K-12 education system are the fault of the STATES, not DOEd. 3) No one is proposing a one-size fits all solution. Read the link I referenced: DOED would provide leadership. How things are done would still be up to each State.
I disagree. State and local governments were doing a far better job with education before Carter started the Dept of Ed in the late 1970's. At that time US was number one in education globally. Today we are not even in the top ten! We're way down on the list at number 32. Dept of Ed has FAILED. Shut it down and return education to state and local governments.
Pima: Yes things were better 50 years ago, but you are confusing correlation with causation.
What changed was not DOEd, but rather that Leftists decided to take over the K-12 school system, starting with curricula. Corrupt standards like NGSS soon followed.
DOEd had NOTHING to do with NGSS, and it was approved by 49 of 50 States.