Military Deployment

The United States has not had a military draft (conscription) since the Vietnam War. The last conscription was in 1973. Perhaps it is our patriotism (or maybe because there are recurring recessions) that military continues to maintain its forces through volunteer enlistments. At present, the scale of US troops abroad is 247,000 people. Of those there are 42,000 in Europe, 25,000 in So. Korea and 47,000 in Japan. According to Wikipedia the U.S. military is composed of almost three million personnel, of which approximately half are reserve personnel. Of course all of this information is based upon the data on the internet.

There is little discussion in the press about the size of military force we need to protect our nation. There does not appear to be any discussion about the need to maintain a military force in any of those places listed above. I support a strong military to protect our nation. My questions are

1.Why do we need a substantial military force in any country that is friendly to us?

2.How big should our military be to protect our nation?

3.Should we have a compulsory draft to share the burden?

Incompetent Sunday Morning Talking Heads

Perhaps it’s the producers of the Sunday morning talk shows that are to blame for their uninformative guests and commentators. May be I have watched too many of these shows. No, neither of these explanations is correct. A scowling Brent Scowcroft (the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush) would regularly appear on Face the Nation and Meet the Press and avoid answering almost every moderator’s question. That was the failure of both the moderators and the producers.

Today’s This Week was an excellent example of a truly poor performance. Larry Summers (top economic adviser to President Obama) gave vague answers to every question put to him by George Stephanopoulos. Given Mr. Summers’ understanding of economics and the workings of government he should have been able to provide an understandable explanation to every question asked. Instead he fumbled through the entire 15 minute interview. Dithering Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was totally unprepared to answer any questions. The outstanding question being where is the Republican budget plan was answered with the idea that they did not have a plan but that the GOP will offer numerous amendments to the administration’s budget plan. The followup round table discussion provided little in the way of insights or ideas on where the government should go on any of the topics discussed.

The Sunday morning shows need people like Tim Russert as moderators. “Tim Russert, … was a gifted and cunning Sunday-morning interrogator who, while never quite disturbing his genuine persona or television’s conventions, used his outsized position on “Meet the Press” to rattle many more politicians than any of his on-air rivals did.” As David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker. I like David Gregory but he just does not have the authority needed to conduct this program.

There Could Be Khazars Living Next Door

This is kind of a fun thing. I read a rather unusual book many years ago by Arthur Koestler titled The Thirteenth Tribe. Mr. Koestler contended in the book that there was a nation on the Black Sea in the area of the Crimea during medieval times, perhaps between the 8^th and 10^th centuries, that converted to Judaism. It was a ploy to keep its neighbors from attacking. The country was surrounded by Christians to the west and north and Muslins to the south but did not want to adopt either of those religions fearing they would be attacked by those of the opposing religion.

To prove his contention Mr. Koestler sighted a variety of documents proving the existence of the nation of people called Khazars in a land called Khazaria. A news item from the AP today quotes a Russian archaeologist who contends he has found the capital of this lost land.

When I read the AP report I immediately recalled the book. The AP report quoted Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Middle Eastern Institute in Moscow. He said he believes the Khazar elite chose Judaism out of political expediency – to remain independent of neighboring Muslim and Christian states. “They embraced Judaism because they wanted to remain neutral, like Switzerland these days,”

If the theory is true it would explain the existence of blue eyed blonds among European Jews who also do not have the physical traits attributed to Semitic people. That probably explains my daughter’s blue eyes and the blond hair of a niece a nephew. We are not Jews. We are Khazars. Sounds like people from another planet in a new Star Trek adventure.

Honest Abe Was a Techie

It’s hard to believe but true. Abraham Lincoln was the techie of those times. He used and promoted telegraph. It’s all about looking forward to the next event. John McCain is a nice man with a background of service to his country. The problem is he is part of the past. If ever a nation was looking for a leader into the future it is now.

John McCain dwells on his service in Vietnam. I have 35 year old son who couldn’t care less about a war before his birth that was a total failure. John McCain says, “drill, drill, drill” in a world that is concerned with global warming. John McCain supports tax policies that benefit the rich. John McCain thinks that more free trade benefiting the wealthiest companies is good for America. John McCain opposes any form of universal health care. John McCain needs help in using a computer even as terrorists have laptops in their hideouts.

Is War With Iran Inevitable?

Is George W. Bush trying to get the U.S.A. into a war with Iran before he leaves office? That seems to be the implication of Seymour M. Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize writer for the New Yorker. I do hope that Mr. Hersh is wrong. He should be a guest on a Sunday morning interview show (Meet The Press, Face The Nation, or This Week) to discuss this article that was released on Sunday, June 29, 2008. You can read it at http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/29/9962/ .

Mr. Hersh was a guest on the Michael Jackson talk radio show this morning in Los Angeles. You can hear the interview at http://www.1260.am/programming/podcasts/ . No one wants a war but apparently Sy Hersh suspects that Bush and Cheney see this as a necessary event to protect America and the world. Shouldn’t we negotiate before we start to fight?

Kaiser Permanente

Both my wife and I have coverage at Kaiser Permanente. I am covered under their Senior Advantage plan at the same rate as Medicare Part A and B. That includes Medicare Part A and B, special rates for lab test other procedures and they provide low cost prescription drugs as well. My wife is not old enough to qualify for Medicare and we must pay the premium for the group in the age range 60 to 65. That amounts to $387 per month and we pay a $50 co-pay for each office visit. Her plan does not provide any drug plan thus many of her prescriptions are filled at Costco.

Talking to friends and relatives, I find many either love or intensely dislike Kaiser. I call it the McDonald’s of health care because they fill the needs of most people at a low cost. The nearby facility in Woodland Hills, California has a hospital, all the labs, urgent care, and doctor examination facilities for every imaginable kind of ailment. It is truly a “one stop facility” for all your medical needs.

There are doctors there that I do not like but there are many that are very good. When I collapsed at a party with vertigo on a Saturday night my wife took me to urgent care. They put me through a battery of test that included a brain scan at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning. They came up with the vertigo diagnosis.

What is wrong with Kaiser? They rarely send patients outside of their facilities for any treatment. They most likely will not send you to City of Hope, UCLA, Mayo Clinic, etc. The big advantage of a PPO is that you can go to those famed hospitals and the doctor of your choice.

The Death of Newspapers

Jon Fine’s weekly column in Business Week entitled Media Centric has been writing about the slow death of daily newspapers for the past two years. Here in Los Angeles we have seen the Los Angeles Times shrinking away along with its many smaller localized newspapers. The Orange County Register and the Daily News of Los Angeles have been the Times primary competitors. Sadly they too have been shrinking before our eyes.

The Daily News has had a 4 page opinion and editorial section every Sunday. It has featured some of America’s best columnists. Those writers have included Thomas Friedman, Richard Cohen, David Brooks, Bill O’Reilly, Maureen Dowd, and Thomas Sowell. Today they announced the shrinking of that section to two pages buried in the front section. http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_9661925?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com. Clearly we will see less of their writing in print in the future. Blame it on the internet. The Daily News only printed about one third of all the letters I submitted to their opinion page but it was always fun to know that my letters might appear. That is why I was motivated to start two BLOGS. They are https://coastcontact.wordpress.com and http://coastcontact.blogspot.com/ . The same items do not appear in both BLOGS. This entry is the exception.

Tell me again, this is progress, right?