Everyone is making predictions and since this is my blog and I can do what I want, here is mine!
It really does come down to Ohio this year because I feel Romney will win Florida, Virginia and Wisconsin and although Romney has put forth a great showing in Michigan and now Pennsylvania, I don’t think he’ll win those two traditionally blue, union-strong states.
Romney wins by a nose – I’ve highlighted the questionable wins for Romney in red.
I’ll post my scorecard after the election.
Natural disasters always bring out the vilest people in society, like looters, who seek to capitalize on the misfortunes of others but sometimes they bring out the crazy elements of our society who wish to link a particular event to their conspiracy theories.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg came out this week to do just that – They think Hurricane Sandy and the floods caused by its tidal surge are linked to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).
“New York governor Andrew Cuomo and mayor Michael Bloomberg both pointed to climate change as the culprit for Sandy’s ravages as they addressed the scale of the destruction on Tuesday morning.”
“At a press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, Cuomo said he had told President Obama that ‘we have a 100-year flood every two years now’. “
“He added: ‘There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement. That is a factual statement. “
“Anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality.”
“Bloomberg echoed the sentiment, saying: ‘What is clear is that the storms we’ve experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the world are much more severe than before.”
“When the governor was asked if officials were contemplating building a levee in the city’s harbour, he replied: ‘It is something we’re going to have to start thinking about.”
“The construction of this city did not anticipate these kinds of situations. We are only a few feet above sea level.”
Sigh.
Here are two graphs that should hopefully bring the Sandy/AGW theories back to reality by using real data.
First, Hurricane strikes are not correlated with CO2 – From Steven Goddard’s Real Science blog:
Second, While the NY Governor states that Manhattan is only ‘a few feet above sea level’, the ocean level has risen by only a few centimeters over the past 20 years, not meters! 5 cm of ocean level increase is not enough to flood NYC’s subway system.
I guess the Governor forgot that NYC flooded from a hurricane surge in 1821 and I don’t think we were driving SUV’s then.
“Water levels in the city’s financial district reached a record 13.88 feet (4.2 meters), the highest the area has seen since the hurricane of 1821, which only brought 11.2 feet (3.4 meters) of water ashore.”
Our elected leaders should spend their valuable time addressing the problems in their areas of responsibility and not using a natural disaster to spread the false gospel of the AGW cult.
Real Clear Politics latest update shows Romney still holding, if not widening, his surge after the debates.
Romney’s chances look even better when you look at the independent surge in the latest Pew Research Poll and I’ve copied the data from that poll into a spreadsheet below.
Notice that in early October, Romney had a lead over Obama with regard to independent voters 46% to 42% but that gap widened at the end of October to 48% to 42%.
The petulant Obama isn’t playing well with independents and according to the recent Rasmussen poll in Ohio, Romney has a 2 point overall edge there (50% to 48%). To make matters worse for Team Obama, they now have to expend valuable resources (and money) in Blue states like Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
The Federal Government is a big believer in Rule #9 in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals which states:
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
And it’s not just confined to Liberals either. I’m sure you remember this speech George W. Bush delivered in 2008 during the financial crisis and right before Congress ‘had’ to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP):
“The government’s top economic experts warn that without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold:”
“More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically. And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.”
“Fellow citizens: We must not let this happen.”
I hate to break the news to you but in the years after TARP was passed more banks failed, the stock market continued to drop, 401k’s reduced in value, home values plummeted, foreclosures rose, businesses found it harder to get credit, more business closed their doors and millions of Americans lost their jobs.
I’ll concede that some of the TARP money was paid back but we still have banks that are too big to fail and there is no guarantee this crisis won’t repeat itself. Are we really better off now, long term, by bailing out these financial institutions? I say no.
Obama’s economic team also participated in this adherence to Alinsky Rule #9 in early 2009 as they presented this chart to make the case for the $787 billion stimulus that ‘had’ to pass to keep the unemployment rate below 8%:
I don’t think I have to tell you how unsuccessful that program was. Here is the updated chart with the latest BLS unemployment data:
As a Free Market Capitalist, I was against both of these measures because I felt the only way we can get out of these long term crises is to let the market adjust in the short term, take our lumps and move on to a brighter, long term economic situation. When governments intervene to lessen the pain of a short term market correction they either fail to solve the problem or make it worse.
Romney was right that we should’ve let Detroit automotive companies go into bankruptcy, retool and emerge better in the long run but instead we borrowed money and added to our national debt to prop up these companies and their poor business decisions like keeping sweet heart union deals.
And we aren’t done. Now the latest scare tactics from the Federal government tell us that we are approaching a Fiscal Cliff and if we don’t act our economy will tank.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t get too worked up about it.
The 3rd Quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate (2.0%) was announced today and as expected, the “growth” is anemic and completely in line with what we would expect from Obamanomics. Keep in mind that the economy should be booming by now after coming out of such a deep recession and we see that countries who adopt Free Market/Small Government approaches have actually seen GDP growth rates in the 4-6% range. Red State gives a great summary of the latest GDP report and shows that some of this GDP growth came from increases in government spending (which came from the Military):
“Real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment increased 9.6 percent in the third quarter, in contrast to a decrease of 0.2 percent in the second.”
It should also be noted that GDP figures are constantly updated and adjusted as this WSJ article reminds us:
“Beware of revisions. Today’s release is based on incomplete data, and will likely be revised in the months ahead. Those revisions can be substantial. For the first quarter of 2011, for example, the Commerce Department initially estimated a 1.8% growth rate. After revisions, that rate now stands at just 0.1%.”
What it means for the Election
One of the major policy differences between Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama is their stance on tax rates for the wealthy and what those tax rates mean for the economy and GDP. Obama thinks that having the rich ‘pay a little more’ will stimulate the economy and reduce the deficit while Romney is in favor of stimulating the economy by reducing corporate tax rates and promoting a pro business agenda that will benefit all socioeconomic groups.
I’ve shown before how raising taxes on the wealthy will not reduce the debt because we have a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem but I’ve not seen data to address the effects on GDP from higher/lower marginal tax rates on the wealthy.
Here is the opening paragraph of the blog post that summarizes the question.
“What is the impact of taxation on growth? In theory, a country without taxation will have difficulty providing basic public goods such as roads and research that are fundamental for economic growth. However, many politicians and some economists argue that once basic public goods are provided for, increases in taxation have a negative impact on growth. According to this argument, this is especially true for taxes on the very wealthy, who are likely to save their income and channel that savings into entrepreneurship or other investment. Much of the argument over tax policy in the United States is focused on whether the rich should be taxed at a higher or lower rate than they are today. The argument in favor of higher rates is that income inequality is at extremely high levels and the government should focus more on redistribution and also that the rising national debt is also potentially harmful to growth. The argument against higher rates is that raising taxes on wealthy would disincentivize the people most likely to create economic growth and thus jobs. In a climate where jobs are scarce, the argument goes, this is a particularly bad economic idea.”
So that is the question – Do higher tax rates on the wealthy affect the GDP? Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of Economics knows that proving this with data is fraught with error because inputs to a Macro Economic model are much more complex that just income tax rates. Other influences such as financial crises, foreign economies, bubbles, commodities, government policy (i.e. Obamacare), etc. all play into the overall health of an economy and the author recognizes this as well.
“This debate, however, is largely based on ideology rather than evidence. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to figure out the impact of taxation on growth.”
But it’s still worth looking at the data to see if there is a strong statistical correlation between income tax rates on the wealthy and GDP and here is where the blog post continues.
“Nevertheless, looking at the raw correlation between top marginal tax rates and growth can be helpful for getting a rough sense of the likely impacts of higher taxation on growth. One recent paper by Pikkety, Saez, and Stantcheva looks at the correlation between top marginal tax rates and growth and finds the growth is higher when top marginal tax rates are higher.”
And here is the graph:
You can visually infer from the graph above that there appears to be zero correlation between tax rates on the wealthy and GDP. If you imagine the trend line isn’t there, you can see that GDP growth rate averages about 5% no matter what the top marginal tax rate is. The author goes through the statistical calculations from various time periods that shows there is not enough correlation (P-values are too high) to make a scientific statement and from the data on this graph I have to agree with him. Here is the quote from the blog post:
“While we cannot say that there is a robust significant positive relationship between tax rates and growth”
I agree with this statement and from this data I would conclude that higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy have zero effect on overall GDP. And if you remove the data points during World War II (1941, 1942 and 1943) where higher income tax rates yielded a higher GDP, then the correlation is even weaker. During that period of time our GDP was humming due to war spending and this had nothing to do with the higher tax rates on the wealthy because we were borrowing all that money to spend on the war.
But that doesn’t stop the blog author from making this odd conclusion:
“What does this mean for public policy? Given the large rise in inequality in the United States over the past 40 years, if the historical evidence tells us that it is unlikely that taxing the wealthy has a large negative impact on growth (and it might even have a positive impact), shouldn’t we increase rates on the wealthy from their current top rates of 35%?”
That seems highly illogical. If there is no statistical correlation between higher income tax rates on the wealthy and GDP then why raise taxes on them? I’ve already shown where the extra tax revenue will not decrease the debt so that must mean the only reason to raise tax rates on the wealthy is to redistribute the wealth to others. In other words, let’s steal money from a group of US citizens and give it to another group of US citizens even though it will have no effect on the overall US economy.
The goal of Economic theory is to prevent recessions/depressions and have positive GDP growth so if you determine that manipulating an input variable has no effect on the output then you should look for other input variables. The US economy is in trouble and the field of inputs that need to be manipulated is target rich so why waste resources on inputs that data proves will not affect the output?
Even without this data, the notion that a higher income tax rate on the wealthy has zero correlation with GDP makes sense. Ultra wealthy people will spend money on the things they want to spend their money on regardless if their income tax rate is 35% or 70%. They are very wealthy and have enough money to spend in the economy to live the way they want to live. The only ‘cutting back’ they’ll do is with their investments and they’ll restructure those to pay less taxes (capital gains vs. income) and this will have little effect on the economy.
All this talk from Team Obama about having the wealthy pay a little more is nonsense and meant to tug at the heart strings of the base of the Democrats. Let’s hope enough of the US voting public sees through this lie on November 6th.
Have you ever watched a football game where team “A” is destroying team “B” and late in the 4th quarter, with time running out, team “A” drives down the field and gets inside the opponents 5 yard line and there is still a little time left in the game. What does team “A” do? If it is a team coached by Nick Saban then they call time out and try and get one more touchdown but if team “A” is coached by someone else then they run out the clock and the quarterback ‘takes a knee’ (kneeling to signal the play over but allowing the clock to run out).
It looks like this:
Some people think taking a knee is wrong, especially in the NFL, and that you should play hard until time runs out because it is up to the other team to stop you. While I agree with that somewhat, I feel that taking a knee at the end of the game is even more demoralizing to the losing team than if you tried to run up the score with another touchdown. The message the winning team is sending to the losing team is that the level of competition was so lopsided that the winning team is taking pity on the losing team. The winning team is telling the losing team (and their fans) that they could’ve scored again but took sympathy on the other team because they were beneath their level.
That is exactly what Romney did to Obama during the 3rd debate this week. Romney knew the Benghazi debacle would continue to fester and he didn’t need to attack Obama on this. By Romney allowing those who still consider themselves journalists (like the Reuters article) to do the heavy lifting on Benghazi-gate, Romney sent the message that he knows victory is certain and instead of running up the score, he decided to show pity on Obama.
Obama was left looking petulant and trying to score points with zingers that later turned into duds while Romney appeared presidential and was seen as the adult at the table offering solutions to problems.
Do you need proof that Romney should be confident of victory? Look no further than this recent poll in the swing state of Ohio.
This poll has Obama leading Romney in Ohio 49% to 44% but, as always with these polls, we need to dive deeper.
Let’s first take a look at the overall results of this poll:
You’ll see from the partisanship columns that those who identify with Democrats are 37% (273/742) and those who identify with Republican are 28% (206/742) so this poll has a D+9 sampling bias. Ohio is a true swing state and if you think the characteristic of a swing state is a 9 percentage point advantage to one party then you are sadly mistaken. Obama won the 2008 presidential election in Ohio by only 4.5 percentage points and that was with a totally different political climate than we have in 2012. To think that the D/R advantage in Ohio would be twice what it was in 2008 is wishful thinking for Leftists.
Another part of the Time poll shows independents moving overwhelmingly in favor of Romney.
Ohio Independents are favoring Romney over Obama 35% to 23% and this is huge in a swing state.
Romney has to be privy to internal polls that show this same swing in Ohio and this is my guess as to why Romney was so confident in the 3rd debate and backed off on attacking Obama on Benghazi.
Without Ohio, Obama doesn’t have a chance to win a 2nd term and if you look deeply into this latest poll you can understand why Romney took a knee.
Two more weeks and this Obama nightmare will be over.
Leftists are all atwitter about Obama’s big zinger last night in the Foreign Policy debate:
OBAMA – “But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works.”
“You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”
How cute! Obama’s debate prep team probably spent hours going over this with him and salivating at the opportunity to use this zinger to ‘get’ Governor Romney. Success!
Not so fast…..
There was a great tweet last night from @Bccohan that shattered the myth about horses and bayonets by providing 2 links showing how horses and bayonets are still used in our military.
In this link we see a memorial was constructed to commemorate how a group of Green Berets used HORSES to lead the attack in Afghanistan in 2001 (emphasis mine):
“The U.S. special operations teams that led the American invasion in Afghanistan a decade ago did something that no American military had done since the last century: ride horses into combat.”
In this link we see that all Marines get BAYONET training as a recruit (emphasis mine):
“From 500 yards, every Marine is accurate with a rifle. Attach the OKC-3S Bayonet, and the weapon becomes just as effective in close combat situations. Also a Marine’s multi-purpose fighting knife, the OKC-3S is the weapon of choice when shots can’t be fired. Every Marine receives bayonet training in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) and on the Bayonet Assault Course in Recruit Training”
Maybe someone will ask Obama if a platoon of Marines with bayonets on their rifles would’ve prevented 4 US citizens from being murdered in Benghazi.
There is also one more interesting little mistake Obama made in his attempted zinger. In the Navy, Submarines are not called ‘ships’ but instead called ‘boats’ and anyone who has spent time talking to those in the Navy would understand that. Perhaps President Obama is the one who hasn’t spent enough time with our Military.
Nice Zinger Obama. I hope that gives you comfort in January when you are moving out of the White House.
Apparently the United States has turned into a 3rd world dictatorship that requires the United Nations to monitor voting locations to ensure the process is fair.
“United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.”
So what exactly caused civil rights groups to believe that Conservatives are attempting to suppress votes?
“Civil rights groups have complained about what they say are subtle efforts of intimidation. They point to a billboard campaign in swing states such as Ohio warning voter fraud is a felony punishable by up to three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine.”
Here is a picture of the billboard from an NPR article:
So this is what the US nanny state has come to – A billboard that merely reminds people that voter fraud is a felony is considered attempted voter suppression. Give me a break! We all know that the only people who are upset with this billboard are those who are hoping for voter fraud to push their candidate to victory. Citizens who have no desire to commit voter fraud will not be affected by this billboard, will not give it more than a few seconds thought and will not change their voting plans in November.
How silly is the ‘logic’ employed by people who are upset with the billboard shown above? It’s easy to show by using a similar style billboard.
Anti drunk driving billboards are currently on display in almost every large metropolitan city in the US and they have the same goal as the voter fraud billboard. What is the goal of billboards that tell people that driving drunk is a crime? These advertisements are meant to remind people that local police are out in force to crack down on this illegal activity and hopefully some individuals will get the message and take a cab home when they’ve had too much to drink. Are these billboards intimidating sober drivers and scaring them to the point where they are afraid to drive to the grocery when they haven’t had a drop of alcohol to drink? Of course not! The only people offended by the anti drunk driving billboards are those who participate in this illegal and dangerous activity.
Is this an equally offensive billboard to Leftists? It’s probably racist too!
If extra independent observers were requested to monitor polling locations because of such known illegal activity as when the New Black Panthers intimidated voters in 2008 then I could see a justification for that but doing this over a billboard that is just stating the laws that are on the books is ridiculous.
And who gave the UN authority to do this in the first place? Just another reason to kick the UN out of our country as this sad organization has shown time and time again how useless they are. We should stop funding for them immediately, pull out of the organization and tell them to find a new home.
Obama did so horrible in the first debate that he had nowhere to go but up and he did improve so at worst I would rate this debate as a push. But on the issue that is most important to voters, the economy, Romney nailed it every time tonight. Obama kept promising how he was going to move us forward or something and Romney reminded people that Obama has had 4 years and we have a pitiful recovery from a deep recession.
The best part of the debate happened after a response to a question about what Obama has done to earn 4 more years and read the transcript below for the question and Romney’s rebuttal to Obama’s rhetoric. The video clip of this portion should be run in advertisements from now until November 6th!
QUESTION: Mr. President, I voted for you in 2008. What have you done or accomplished to earn my vote in 2012? I’m not that optimistic as I was in 2012. Most things I need for everyday living are very expensive.
ROMNEY: I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years haven’t been so good as the president just described and that you don’t feel like your confident that the next four years are going to be much better either.
I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years.
He said that by now we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work.
I wasn’t the one that said 5.4 percent. This was the president’s plan. Didn’t get there.
He said he would have by now put forward a plan to reform Medicare and Social Security, because he pointed out they’re on the road to bankruptcy. He would reform them. He’d get that done. He hasn’t even made a proposal on either one.
He said in his first year he’d put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenges. Didn’t even file it.
This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he’d do. He said that he’d cut in half the deficit. He hasn’t done that either. In fact, he doubled it. He said that by now middle-income families would have a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It’s gone up by $2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is passed, or implemented — it’s already been passed — if it’s implemented fully, it’ll be another $2,500 on top.
The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. He keeps saying, “Look, I’ve created 5 million jobs.” That’s after losing 5 million jobs. The entire record is such that the unemployment has not been reduced in this country. The unemployment, the number of people who are still looking for work, is still 23 million Americans.
There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.
How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about the growth of the economy? It’s growing more slowly this year than last year, and more slowly last year than the year before.
The president wants to do well. I understand. But the policies he’s put in place from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank to his tax policies to his regulatory policies, these policies combined have not let this economy take off and grow like it could have.
You might say, “Well, you got an example of one that worked better?” Yeah, in the Reagan recession where unemployment hit 10.8 percent, between that period — the end of that recession and the equivalent of time to today, Ronald Reagan’s recovery created twice as many jobs as this president’s recovery. Five million jobs doesn’t even keep up with our population growth. And the only reason the unemployment rate seems a little lower today is because of all the people that have dropped out of the workforce.
The president has tried, but his policies haven’t worked. He’s great as a — as a — as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That’s wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn’t been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That’s what this election is about. It’s about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve.
The only part of the debate where I felt Romney made a severe stumble was on the last part of his response to the Benghazi question.
ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
Obama actually did use the phrase “act of terror” to describe the Benghazi attacks during his statements in the Rose garden the day after. It came in paragraph 10 of the transcript:
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”
It should also be noted that from paragraph 4 of the transcript from the Rose Garden, Obama made reference to the video.
“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
So Romney got that detail wrong and I think he should have focused on Team Obama pushing the video for days after the attack, even though they knew it was a planned terror attack. He’ll have to walk this back over the coming days and refocus the discussion on what actually happened. This is a softball that should be hit out of the park and Romney can’t afford another misstep on such a damaging issue for Obama.
It was a push and the debate performances won’t move the needle on the polls in favor of Obama. We have one more to go and as long as Romney delivers like he did tonight, Obama will not be able to recover from his disastrous performance in the first debate.
Or did she? From CNN:
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm around the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she is responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.”
“I take responsibility” for the protection of U.S. diplomats, Clinton said during a visit to Peru. But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened in the attack that left four Americans dead.”
This is refreshing to see some accountability from Team Obama but this doesn’t mean they are off the hook for telling the American people who is responsible for the lying they did weeks after the murders when they kept repeating the meme that these murders sprung from a protest (that never happened) over a movie (that nobody has ever seen).
We must always be skeptical when a Leftist steps forward to show accountability because there is almost always an ulterior motive and we need to explore that.
It could be that Hillary Clinton is demonstrating the characteristic of great leaders who take responsibility in times of disasters that are obviously caused by poor leadership. Generals bear the responsibility of the dead soldiers they sent into a battle that was poorly planned. CEO’s accept responsibility of disasters that happen due to safety violations that were overlooked by management. Coaches accept responsibilities for their teams’ worst defeats due to his inability to prepare the team for the game.
It’s not that the leader was directly responsible for these disasters (generals don’t fire weapons, CEO’s don’t work on the assembly line and coaches don’t actually play in the games) but they man up and accept the responsibilities that come with leadership. This is common knowledge for anyone who has ever led a team at work – The performance of the team is a direct result of the way you prepare your team and the culture you set that will guide them in their decision making. If a leader doesn’t take safety or regulatory compliance serious then the team won’t either and disasters are almost certain to occur.
Obama made a comment earlier this year that would make us believe he also shares this characteristic of a leader:
“Well, here’s what I know, we were just talking about responsibility and as president of the United States, it’s pretty clear to me that I’m responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you.”
So if Obama is “responsible for folks who are working in the federal government”, then he, not Hillary Clinton, is responsible for the murders of 4 US citizens in Benghazi. I don’t know about you, but as a leader of an organization, if there was a disaster that happened on my watch I would be ashamed if someone who reported to me stepped up and accepted ultimate responsibility when I was silent for weeks. Make no mistake about it; this is exactly what just happened when Hillary Clinton accepted responsibility for the disaster in Benghazi.
So why did Hillary Clinton do this? Was she told to take one for the team? They certainly needed someone to throw under the bus since the Vice President said during the VP debate that Obama didn’t know anything about the need for increased security. From the CNN piece:
“The Obama administration has been heavily criticized after Vice President Joe Biden said during last week’s vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. After the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.”
“Clinton said President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions.”
Maybe that is the reason but I think Clinton is too savvy to be forced into the role of scapegoat and I think she had another reason to accept blame. I think Clinton was privy to Team Obama internal polling that showed how bad Obama’s passing-the-buck tactic was working with the American people and she saw an opening to get a head start on the 2016 presidential race. She will come out of this crisis as the only person who acted like a leader and she knows Obama will lose big in November and this is her chance to start building the foundations for a 2016 run.
No matter the reasons for Hillary stepping forward and taking bullets for this debacle, the big loser in this is Obama. Oh, and there is a foreign policy debate on Tuesday. Popcorn!
Over the coming months, the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, will be in prime time viewing position and you should go outside and brave the cold nights to see this beautiful planet. Even if you don’t have a telescope, binoculars will reveal some of the planet’s detail and will allow you to see the four major moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – as long as they aren’t positioned behind the gas giant.
You can go to Sky and Telescope’s weekly viewing guide to help you find Jupiter in the night sky and you can even use their website to determine the locations of Jupiter’s moons and the famous Red Spot (Sky and Telescope will require you to register but it’s free and well worth it).
As you will see from the pictures below, Jupiter will be easy to locate this year because it will be close to two well known star constellations – Orion and Taurus. The Orion constellation (the Hunter who is shooting a bow and arrow) is one of the more prominent winter constellations that is most recognized by the belt of Orion, the three stars in a row, and the very bright orange star Betelgeuse. The Taurus constellation is dominated by the prominent “V” that has Aldebaran as its brightest star and is also a well known winter constellation.
Right now, Jupiter is inside Taurus, almost in the middle of the extended “V” and the picture is shown below (which was obtained by taking a screen capture from the Star Seek Pro iPad app).
Here is where Jupiter will be located in December and you can see it is moving out of the “V” of Taurus:
My favorite planet to view is Saturn due to its spectacular rings but Jupiter, because of its size and closer proximity, offers better details in both binoculars and telescopes. Below are some photos of Jupiter I’ve taken through my telescope and I hope this whets your appetite to go outside this winter and look up!
Note: These photographs are taken from my Newtonian reflector telescope that doesn’t have drive tracking so the photos are poorer quality than you’ll see with your eyes because I had to hold the camera with a steady hand and the telescope didn’t track the rotation of the Earth so I couldn’t use long exposures.
I’ll show a picture of my telescope first and then a few of the better pictures I’ve taken of Jupiter.
Jupiter with 2 moons visible
Jupiter with 4 moons visible
Jupiter with its 2 signature equatorial bands visible
Jupiter with its well know Red Spot visible in the top band (which is really the southern band but the picture is inverted due to the Newtonian telescope optics)
Jupiter is a beautiful planet to view and although you can see better images online or in books, there is nothing that takes the place of viewing this huge gas giant with your own eyes.
As if the Anthropogenic Global Warming cult could not go further off the rails, this latest AP headline proves that Team AGW is growing increasingly upset that Mother Nature is not validating their theories.
It was as recently as April of this year that AGW scientists said that MELTING ice in Antarctica was proof of man caused global warming.
“Antarctica’s massive ice shelves are shrinking because they are being eaten away from below by warm water, a new study finds. That suggests that future sea levels could rise faster than many scientists have been predicting.”
“The western chunk of Antarctica is losing 23 feet of its floating ice sheet each year. Until now, scientists weren’t exactly sure how it was happening and whether or how man-made global warming might be a factor. The answer, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is that climate change plays an indirect role — but one that has larger repercussions than if Antarctic ice were merely melting from warmer air.”
I covered this story here and showed how a recent study revealed similar warming periods over the past 2,000 years that caused Antarctica to see periods of ice melt. But now that the Antarctic Ice is growing, we now have Team AGW saying this seemingly counter intuitive data fits perfectly in their AGW models.
Here is the graph of Antarctic sea ice:
A few quotes from the AP story (with my comments interlaced):
“Shifts in wind patterns and the giant ozone hole over the Antarctic this time of year — both related to human activity — are probably behind the increase in ice, experts say. This subtle growth in winter sea ice since scientists began measuring it in 1979 was initially surprising, they say, but makes sense the more it is studied.”
So now humans have the power to shift wind patterns and this is the cause of Antarctic Ice growth? Why did they not predict this just 6 months ago?
“Loss of sea ice in the Arctic can affect people in the Northern Hemisphere, causing such things as a higher risk of extreme weather in the U.S. through changes to the jet stream, scientists say.”
So there is a higher risk of extreme weather in the US from recent sea ice melt? Not true.
Team AGW is desperate and upset that global temperatures have not cooperated over the past decade with their lies and now they are attributing any weather event to AGW. Their days are numbered and it is sad to watch them in their death throes as they continue to demean the once noble scientific profession.
So much for the pundits who said debate performance doesn’t matter – From Real Clear Politics:
From two of the latest four polls that I could access without subscriptions, the IBD/TIPP poll had a D/I/R sampling of 39%/30%/31% (D+8) and the Pew Research poll had a D/I/R sampling of 34%/31%/35% (R+1). This means that Romney is beating Obama in polls that are weighted in favor of a higher Democrat to Republican ratio than is expected in November based on this poll.
This is a devastating result for Team Obama and this shows what a turnaround Romney had with Independent voters after the debate. From the Pew poll, Independent likely voter support for Obama went from 45% prior to the debate to 42% after the debate and their support for Romney went from 44% to 46% and in a race this close, this move is huge.
Another interesting data point from the Pew poll came from a question to likely voters – “In politics TODAY, do you consider yourself Republican, Democrat or Independent?” Prior to the debate respondents said they considered themselves Democrat over Republican by 39% to 29% but after the debate that changed to 36% Republican and 31% Democrat (respondents said Independent 30% of the time both pre and post debate).
And when registered voters were asked the same question, there were similar results.
Of course Conservatives have been diving deeper into the polls for weeks warning people to not accept the headlines without looking at the polling sample to determine party identification but Leftists in the media were strangely silent about the large +D sampling in polls over the last few weeks. But now that the polls are showing Romney ahead, the MSM types like Chuck Todd were quick to tweet about political ID.
I guess I missed Chuck’s tweets about this poll that had Obama up 50% to 45% with a D+7 sampling.
Romney is starting to surge now that Americans are allowed to see the stark contrast between Romney and Obama now that the MSM filters have been removed during head-to-head debates.
Yes, the Left is so butt-hurt over the curb stomping Romney administered to Obama during this week’s debate that they have come up with a new theory about why this happened. And this one beats Al Gore’s altitude theory.
The latest theory is that Mitt Romney had a cheat sheet. Yes, you read that right. Never mind that it was obvious that it wasn’t a cheat sheet but a handkerchief and there is even a picture showing Romney using the handkerchief to wipe his upper lip. That didn’t stop some idiots in my Facebook Timeline from claiming they had found the reason for Romney’s debate success. I have dubbed these individuals ‘hankie truthers’ and will call them such when I see them on Social Media.
Here are some screen caps from the Facebook comments (names and pictures have been erased):
You’ll notice above that my comments (third one) try to point them to links showing how this meme has been debunked but they’ll have none of that!
To Leftists, there is just no way Romney could’ve beat The One in a fair debate fight. It was a cheat sheet! It was an unfair moderator! It was the altitude! Romney lied! Oh the Leftist tears taste so sweet.
Natural Born Conservative (@LarryMWalkerJR) has a great post explaining the economics of austerity and what effects Federal tax rates and Federal spending have on GDP and Debt.
You should go read the whole post and see how Mr. Walker destroys the anti-austerity proposals from Paul Krugman but here is a great summary that should entice you to read the whole piece.
Following the Austerity Matrix, it turns out that:
- Tax hikes lead to the fiscal cliff no matter what happens with spending. Why? Because tax hikes lead to private sector austerity, resulting in job and benefit cuts, which leads to lower tax revenues and less economic output. So tax hikes should be off the table. The only reason they’re still being discussed in the United States is because of Obama’s “fairness doctrine”, which if you ask me is total nonsense. Besides, raising taxes on 1% of taxpayers won’t change anything for the other 99%, where the main problem is the lack of opportunities.
- Maintaining current tax rates can work, but only in conjunction with spending cuts. However, this only leads to slow growth, which is basically what we have now. Our current real gross domestic product (GDP) annual growth rate of 1.3% is not enough to change the trajectory of our ever increasing jobs deficit. If tax rates are maintained while spending levels are maintained or raised, we still wind up plunging over the fiscal cliff.
- The optimal fiscal austerity policy involves a combination of tax cuts and deficit reduction, which leads to rapid growth, or exactly what is needed following an economic crash. But, cutting taxes while maintaining or increasing spending levels only hurtles us over the fiscal cliff.
It really is that simple and let’s hope enough American voters understand this on November 6th.
Obama seemed like a tired and dejected shell of a man on the stage tonight and only the most partisan Leftist will disagree with the fact that Romney clearly won the first Presidential debate tonight.
The tone was set by Governor Romney in his rebuttal of Obama opening debate comments where he spewed the standard talking points of the Left. From the debate transcript:
“MR. ROMNEY: Well, sure. I’d like to clear up the record and go through it piece by piece.”
“First of all, I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about. My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class.”
And then again toward the end of the debate:
“MR. ROMNEY: Mr. — Mr. President, you’re entitled, as the president, to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts — (laughter) — all right? I’m — I’m not going to cut education funding. I don’t have any plan to cut education funding and grants that go to people going to college. I’m planning on continuing to grow, so I’m not planning on making changes there.”
That simple debunking was followed every time Romney spoke and it was clear that he was going to challenge every lie that Obama said. This ruthless attack of the President’s talking points seemed to take a toll on the President and toward the end of the debate he was even conceding some of Romney’s points in fear that he would be smacked down further.
Obama admitted that Romney’s plan would not end Medicare, which is a Leftist talking point”
“Now, in fairness, what Governor Romney has now said is he’ll maintain traditional Medicare alongside it.”
Here is Obama admitting that there is a panel of unelected officials who will oversee Obamacare (emphasis mine):
“It — when Governor Romney talks about this board, for example — unelected board that we’ve created — what this is, is a group of health care experts, doctors, et cetera, to figure out how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall, because the — there are two ways of dealing with our health care crisis.”
During the debate, Obama was no longer speaking in large auditoriums filled with supporters or in the White House briefing room filled with water carrying ‘reporters’ who lobbed softball questions at him.
This undressing of the emperor is what happens when the facts of Obama’s first term as US President are laid bare for all to see with no filtering from the Main Stream Media. It was a thing of beauty to behold and even MSNBC had to concede that Romney won.
This is the Romney that was battled hardened in the long Republican Primary that had numerous debates and those who agonized over that protracted battle should now see the wisdom in such a process.
Let’s hope the continued undressing of the emperor continues and the American people finally get to see what a failure the past 4 years have been.
Picture from PJmedia reader Linda White at http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/81026/
There are 5 weeks until the Presidential Elections in the United States and if you believe the Leftist Media and the poorly sampled polls, Romney doesn’t have a chance but I have faith in the American people to do the right thing on November 6th.
“Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” – Winston Churchill
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who still support fiscal/economic Conservative principles and are upset with the Keynesian and class warfare tactics of Team Obama. Americans are upset with the fact that since February 2009, the Unemployment Rate has been over 8.0% when Obama promised in 2009 that the $787 billion Stimulus would ensure we’d never go that high. Americans will not accept the fact that Obama added over $5 trillion to our Federal debt in just 4 years in office, crossed the 100% Debt-to-GDP ratio for the 1st time since WWII and caused our credit to be downgraded multiple times. Obama’s lack of fiscal leadership is evidenced by the fact that the US Senate (under Democratic leadership) has not passed a budget since the spring of 2009 and the President’s own budget this year received ZERO votes of approval in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who don’t want our nation’s healthcare system to turn into socialized medicine like they have in Europe. Socialized medicine doesn’t work and we have cautionary tales from other countries who have instituted programs similar to Obamacare – wealthy citizens bribe doctors to move to the front of the line, long wait times, people are seeking surgical care outside of their own country, 20% of the hospitals are failing financially and healthcare is rationed in favor of those who can pay privately. Americans know that even before Obamacare has been fully implemented, we have seen the cost estimates for the program have almost doubled, jobs are being lost and regulations are causing citizens to die due to delayed or denied treatment.
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who get upset when 4 citizens are murdered at an American embassy in Libya and Obama lied about what he knew, when he knew it and how he could’ve prevented it.
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who get upset that the President has remained silent as a filmmaker has been put in jail without bail because he made a movie that upset Islamic militants. The First Amendment still means something to most Americans and there used to be a time when we’d be in the streets rioting because one of our elected officials started acting like a dictator.
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who believe the Free Market is the best way to increase wealth for all socioeconomic groups and ensure a true economic recovery following a severe recession like 2008/09. There are enough people who despise Crony Capitalists like Obama and will gladly vote them out of office for trying to pick winners and losers by giving money to their large political donors (i.e. Solyndra, GM, etc.).
I still have faith that there are enough people in the US who understand math and want to tackle our real issues in an adult manner. American citizens are upset with the fact that over 90% of all tax revenues go to fund social Security, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment and Food Stamps. Americans know that Social Security and Welfare are on unsustainable paths and must be addressed now to make them viable for future generations and prevent them from overtaking our Federal budget. The only candidate who has been brave enough to talk about real solutions to these runaway entitlement programs has been Romney/Ryan and Obama is only concerned with demonizing those who wish to have adult conversations on these topics.
It’s real simple. In November we will choose to either continue down the path of Greece or get back on the path that made this country great. I know how I will vote and on November 7th I’ll have a clear conscience knowing I did all I could do to help provide a better future for my children.
Team Obama can rail on Romney all they like but they can’t escape the facts of the last 4 years. Democratic leadership has put our country on a disastrous path and Team Obama has ZERO successes to campaign on during this election cycle. Everything they’ve done to help the economy has been a disaster and Team Obama can’t blame Bush since they claimed ownership of the economy in February 2012 after a good jobs report. You can’t claim credit for the good and blame others for the bad because that tactic stopped being credible for most of us somewhere around 3rd grade. Leftists have nothing to run on so they focus on Romney’s dog, Romney’s tax returns, rape, abortions, Sandra Fluke and condoms. Really, that’s all Team Obama has and their only hope is to find enough Americans who are stupid enough to believe that garbage.
I have faith in the American people and I know that in November Team Obama will fail and Team Romney will succeed.
When the evils of the world get me down, I take comfort in the fact that this world is not my real home. I am a Christian and I believe that my Creator, Savior and Protector has a better place for my soul to spend eternity when my time on Earth is done and spending time worshipping Him, studying His word and doing His work provides the balance I need to deal with the evil in the world.
But I don’t have to wait for death to catch a glimpse of what Heaven will be like because Science has given me tools to glimpse what an amazing Cosmos has been created for me right now and if the current world, filled with evil, looks this spectacular then I can only imagine how much better my eternal home will be.
I’m an amateur astronomer and I love to get my telescope out and practice the simple act of “looking up” – peering into the eyepiece and seeing the wonders of the night sky. From my front yard and my 10” Newtonian Reflector, I can see not only planets and their moons but star clusters in our Milky Way and other galaxies that are millions of light years away.
Time constraints with family and job along with troubling weather and growing light pollution have prevented me from having what I call “star therapy” but fortunately I have images from large telescopes that are both land based and in Earth’s orbit to provide breath taking images to fill this void.
Earlier this year I wrote about a stunning picture from the European Southern Observatory (if you’ve not seen that picture, then go check it out here) and now there is an equally remarkable photo just released from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The picture is below and you can download the high resolution image here.
“The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004.”
“Hubble pointed at a tiny patch of southern sky in repeat visits made over the past decade with a total exposure time of two million seconds. More than 2000 images of the same field were taken with Hubble’s two primary cameras: the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, which extends Hubble’s vision into near-infrared light. These were then combined to form the XDF.”
“The Universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time. Most of the galaxies in the XDF are seen when they were young, small, and growing, often violently as they collided and merged together. The early Universe was a time of dramatic birth for galaxies containing brilliant blue stars far brighter than our Sun. The light from those past events is just arriving at Earth now, and so the XDF is a time tunnel into the distant past when the Universe was just a fraction of its current age. The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the Universe’s birth in the Big Bang.”
This picture looks like the HST took in a huge portion of our night sky but the picture below shows what a tiny area was covered to obtain this beautiful image:
The HST was fixed on this tiny location in the night sky for over 23 days allowing photons that have traveled almost 13 billion light years to hit the instruments and give us this amazing picture. From a pure science standpoint, this image has thousands of galaxies at various stages of their lives – Red ones are dying and White ones are new – and NASA scientists will use this data to gain more understanding on the life cycles of galaxies.
“Looking up” at our vast and beautiful Cosmos is why I call this act “star therapy” – It is, at the same time, a very humbling and empowering experience. When you look up, you discover that Earth is only a tiny blue dot that orbits an average yellow sun that resides in the suburbs of an average galaxy in a Cosmos that contains millions of galaxies. This is the humbling aspect but we should also be very proud that we happen to live on a planet that is conducive to life and therefore we should consider ourselves extremely privileged. By even conservative counts and observations, there are very few stars in our observable corner of the galaxy that even hint at the possibility of containing planets that may harbor conditions suitable for life as we know it (a planet that orbits a star in the habitable zone and containing Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen) and that should give us great pride in the fact that we are in a VERY exclusive club!
“Star Therapy” is good for all humans and it doesn’t matter what religion you practice or even if you believe in a Creator or not. What problems are you facing right now? How powerful do our world leaders think they are? Are the Presidential elections getting you stressed out? Why do we continue to war with each other over race, religion and socioeconomic systems? With life so precious in the Cosmos, why do we continue to kill babies or abuse children? Are there any issues you are struggling with that seem insignificant when viewed on a cosmic scale?
A large portion of the world’s population will die without ever peering through the eyepiece of a telescope, let alone taking an Astronomy class school. That is unfortunate because I feel that if everyone in the world could spend some quality time in “star therapy” then most of our big problems would seem small.
History has shown that the magnitude of an economic recovery in the US is proportional to the severity of the preceding recession and it is well documented that the anemic Obamanomics recovery has deviated from this historical norm. But are we being too harsh on Obama and his Keynesian economic principles? Was the worldwide recession of 2008/2009 so severe that no country could’ve rebounded to levels that matched previous recoveries?
Let’s take a look at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) numbers for GDP growth rate of other countries and compare them to the US. The full data can be obtained here and I’ll show the real GDP graphs for a few of the countries below.
Here is how the US GDP growth rate compared with the average of all 34 OECD countries:
From the above graph we can say that the real GDP growth rate for the US has equaled the average of the other OECD countries. So much for American exceptionalism!
It is the opinion of Conservatives that the US has experienced a poor ‘recovery’ because the Free Market has been muted under the Obama/Reid/Pelosi regime and if we could’ve allowed businesses to operate without excessive government regulation and high taxes then the recovery would have truly been at magnitudes far higher than what we have seen. To test that theory out, I’ll graph the GDP growth rates of the US compared with a country that has had the best recover (Chile) and a country that has had the worst recovery (Greece) to see if Free Market principles were causal in their recovery magnitudes.
Before I do that, let’s take a look at how these countries stacked up on a metric called the Index of Economic Freedom (IEF). The IEF was compiled in 2011 by the Heritage Foundation and the countries are ranked here and the IEF rankings of the US, Chile and Greece were 10th, 7th and 119th respectively.
Now here is the graph comparing GDP growth rates of these three countries:
Although Chile had to recover from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and survive a devastating earthquake in 2010, they still managed to triple the US GDP growth rate after the worldwide recession of 2008/2009! What is so magical about this country that allowed it to outperform not only the US but all other OECD countries? The complete story is here but here are a few key items (emphasis mine):
“Regaining its status as one of the world’s 10 freest economies, Chile continues to be a global leader in economic freedom. The economy benefits greatly from its solid foundations of economic freedom, which have been further strengthened in recent years. Recognizing the importance of limited government, the government has adhered to prudent public finance management practices that have kept public debt and recent budget deficits under control.”
“Contractual agreements in Chile are the most secure in Latin America. Courts are transparent and efficient. Property rights are strongly respected, and expropriation is rare.”
“Government spending is 24.4 percent of total domestic output, and public debt is under 10 percent of GDP.”
“The overall regulatory framework facilitates entrepreneurial activity and productivity growth. The time needed to start a business has been reduced to seven days from 22, with only seven procedures required. Bankruptcy is relatively cumbersome and costly. Minimum wage increases have exceeded overall productivity growth in recent years, but labor laws generally facilitate efficient hiring and dismissal procedures.”
Chile limits its government’s reach into private sectors, recognizes property rights, keeps its debt under 10%, balances its budgets, creates an environment that is conducive to entrepreneurial activity and has fair labor standards that benefits businesses and workers without the need for a huge union influence.
Now let’s look at why Greece has had such a terrible ‘recovery’ after the worldwide recession (emphasis mine):
“Greece continues to be challenged by a daunting debt burden and the severe erosion of competitiveness. Sparked by decades of overspending, a lack of structural reform progress, and endemic corruption, the ongoing sovereign debt turbulence must now be addressed in a climate of crisis and political instability.”
“The judicial framework is weak and vulnerable to political interference. Protections for property rights are not strongly enforced, and the rule of law has deteriorated. The law provides severe penalties for bribery, but enforcement remains lax. The problem is most acute in government procurement, where political influence and cronyism continue to play a significant role in the evaluation of bids.”
“The overall tax burden amounts to about 30 percent of GDP, and government spending has reached a level exceeding 50 percent of GDP. Chronic budget deficits continue, and public debt far exceeds the size of the economy.”
“The overall regulatory framework is hampered by government bureaucracy, and efforts to enhance the business environment have been sporadic at best. The process for launching a company is fairly streamlined, but licensing requirements remain burdensome. Labor regulations are restrictive, with the non-salary cost of employing a worker high and restrictions on work hours rigid. Monetary stability is weakening.”
Greece is burdened with huge debt, doesn’t value property rights, engages in cronyism, has tax revenues that are a significant portion of their GDP, engages in over regulation that stifles business and is ensnared with Union regulations that prohibit business.
There was a time when the United States business environment resembled Chile but now it is obvious that we are on a path similar to Greece. We have an election in November and this may be the last chance we have to change our course. Do we choose Obama/Reid which puts us on a collision course with the struggles that are facing Greece or do we choose Romney/Republican Senate which puts us back on a path that the US used to be on?
Elections have consequences!
There was a report on NPR that showed how close we are coming to being able to have your genome mapped in the doctor’s office and the whole procedure will be similar to getting your cholesterol checked.
This procedure is not even remotely ready for prime time and researchers are only mapping themselves at this point but the preliminary results are showing promise.
“When Michael Snyder, who chairs Stanford University’s genetics department, decided to become his own sequencing guinea pig, the results were dramatic — and shocking: Snyder learned he was at risk for Type 2 diabetes.”
“It didn’t seem to make sense: Snyder had no family history of diabetes; he wasn’t overweight. There was no reason he should get the disease. Still, just to be on the safe side, Snyder asked a colleague who specializes in diabetes to monitor his blood sugar levels. At first, she was skeptical.”
“The person doing the test said, ‘There’s no way you’re at risk for Type 2 diabetes.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t think so, either. But my genome says there’s something interesting about my glucose metabolism, so I think we should do this test,’ ” Snyder said.”
“So everyone was stunned when his blood sugar started rising — and then kept rising. Within months, it spiked. They had literally watched him become a diabetic in real time.”
“So in fact, my genome, then, did predict I was at risk for a disease, which, by following the various markers for that disease, I did discover I did get,” Snyder said.”
“Snyder jumped on it. He completely transformed his diet and kicked up his exercise. After about six months, his blood sugar gradually fell back to normal.”
This is great news, right? From this genome mapping data, doctors might be able to determine if you are at a higher risk of heart disease, breast cancer, type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol and prescribe medicine or life style changes pro actively to prevent future illness or early death.
“This is one of the big benefits doctors expect to get from sequencing: a whole new way to figure out which drugs work for their patients; which don’t; which are safe; and which are dangerous.”
“The doctors of the future, when you start to prescribe a drug for which you have a genomic variation that would give you a side effect, a flag will pop up and say, ‘Maybe you ought to, you know, consider another drug,’ ” says Robert Green, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School.”
Before you get too excited, there are a few downsides.
The NPR article pointed out that these test results are not without error.
“There are plenty of chances for bad or misleading results that could end up doing more harm than good. “Medical tests have the power to help,” Evans notes. But they also “have the power to confuse.”
The results might also keep you from getting Life Insurance increases as the results will be available to the Insurance companies.
“Federal law bans health insurance companies and employers from penalizing people based on genetic information, but the law doesn’t apply to life insurance or long-term care insurance.”
But the most troubling result of genome testing is giving you information that you don’t want to know. Does it make sense to tell someone they have a high likelihood of contracting a disease that has no known cure? One of the people who had their genes sequenced was James Watson who shared the Nobel Prize for his research into discovering the structure of DNA. It is interesting that before he volunteered, he had one request:
“When Watson was asked to volunteer for sequencing, he had one condition: “I didn’t want know its prediction for Alzheimer’s,” says Watson, who had watched his grandmother die from the incurable brain disease. “There’s nothing you can do to prevent it, so why would you want to know?”
With Genome mapping, we are getting closer to being able to tell a person how they will most likely die and when that will happen (excluding accidents of course). Is this something we should know? If this knowledge allows us to proactively prevent a disease, then yes but if we are told that we will most likely contract a disease, like Alzheimer’s, that has no known cure then maybe that information needs to remain a secret.
cosmoscon 
