Gratitude

Here is an appropriate TED Talk for today. Enjoy!

What Went Wrong at healthcare.gov

Until healthcare.gov is fixed, the Obama administration is being very careful what they say about why the website failed. There will be plenty of time to assign blame after the website is working, but that is not stopping critics from painting the worse picture possible. The critics focus on the testimony from the website contractors, CGI and QSSI, that the system was extremely complex and only two weeks were scheduled for end-to-end testing, but no one raised a red flag. So they conclude that everyone involved must have been incompetent.

Before rushing to judgment, we need to take a closer look. What we call the healthcare.gov website is actually three major systems, the user interface, the data hub and the marketplace. The user interface, what you see in your web browser, was working three months before the October launch. It was developed in just 90 days by a small company called Development Seed. They used the open source approach favored by today's most technically saavy startups. In early July, Obama demoed the user interface in this video. The video showed that the website provided a clean and simple user interface where people could get background information before they bought insurance in October. The user interface was considered a tremendous success and may have given Obama the impression that the rest of website rollout would be equally successful, and he could focus on other things, like the threat of a government shutdown and the debt default.

To actually buy insurance, healthcare.gov had to get data from hundreds of insurance providers and several federal agencies like the IRS and Social Security. Many of the existing databases were build on older technology and presented special integration problems. On top of all that, data access had to be in realtime while the user waited. The network which provided this access, called the Data Hub, was the most complex part of the system and probably received the most management attention because of all the players involved. The use of the Data Hub had to be well documented so the state health exchanges independent from healthcare.gov could access the same data. The complex job of developing the Data Hub was performed by QSSI and it worked when healthcare.gov launched. If it didn't work, none of the independent state exchanges could function.

What actually failed at healthcare.gov was the marketplace, the part which connected the user interface to the Data Hub. The two parts of the marketplace QSSI's EIDM and CGI's FFM were proven systems from other CMS programs. What broke these systems was the unexpected large number of users shopping for insurance. Users first had to register with the EIDM. so it broke first. QSSI was able to fix the EIDM in a few days, but then the overload problem passed to the FFM which has performed sporadically. More testing would not have revealed the problem if the tests were conducted at the anticipated maximums. They only discovered the true maximum number of users after they went live.

Before putting the blame on CGI, it should be noted that CGI also did the health exchanges for six of the states not on healthcare.gov, including the much praise exchanges of Kentucky and California. The FFM could have worked well if the number of users were in the expected range. Since CGI won the FFM contract, many more states decided to use healthcare.gov. Once the number of users passes a certain threshold, the FFM would have to be redesigned. CMS could have allowed for the possibility of much more users just to be safe, but that could have significantly increased the cost and deplete the reserves in their budget. They needed sufficient reserves to cover unexpected problems after the launch that could have happened anywhere besides the FFM. Given the likelihood of Congress allocating more money, CMS management had to take reasonable risks. Balancing risks is what all management does and sometimes things don't work out.

healthcare.gov Hearing

Here are the testimonies of the healthcare.gov contractors for Congress. Note that QSSI is located here in Columbia, with offices on Governor Warfield and Little Patuxent. They have been name prime contractor to fix healthcare.gov. Normally, I would be glad that a local company is playing a major role in what could be the most visible software project ever. However, QSSI was bought out by United Health Group, the largest health carrier in the US, after QSSI was awarded the contract for their part of healthcare.gov. This was clearly a conflict of interest but it was not mentioned in the House hearings.

Possibly the lowest point of the hearing was Joe Barton's claim that healthcare.gov was not HIPAA compliant, and got push back from Frank Pallone. Move the time slider near 01:09:58 to see Barton; Pallone responds six minutes later. Our Congressman John Sarbanes has his say near 03:04:28.

Obama on healthcare.gov

While we were talking, Obama defended the ACA while promising to get the website fixed. What made the news was that a diabetic pregnant woman behind him almost fainted. Obama turned around and steadied her until help arrived. No doubt conservative media would use this incident to criticize Obama. But see for yourself what really happen here on CSPAN. The woman in a red dress over Obama's right shoulder start to get dizzy 25 minutes into the video.

The woman tweeted that she was okay.

9/11

Here is a video that Gerry recommended a few weeks ago. I promised to post it today. The video commemorates the Manhattan Boat Lift, a little known event on 9/11. The video was made two years ago on the tenth anniversary.  I did not see it then and I thank Gerry for sharing it.

BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience

Robo-sourcing

The news of the day was Syria and we did get to it, but only after a surprisingly long discussion the loss of jobs to automation. Tim brought up the topic and referenced a 60 minutes story aired yesterday. We have discussed this topic before; here is an earlier blog featuring a TED talk given by Andre McAfee, who is also in the 60 Minutes story.

It is to the credit of the group that we paid attention to a story that will have a longer impact than yet another war in the Middle East. And we were talking about before the 60 Minutes.

I Have a Dream

We had a very moving meeting today as members recalled their experience during the March on Washington 50 years ago. The "I Had a Dream" speech is still relevant is with the power of the Internet we can experience again.

Here is the text.





8/28/13 Update:

Here is a link to Obama's speech on CSPAN.

Two Men Who Saved the World

Here is a link to the PBS "Secrets of the Dead" episode about "The Man Who Saved the World" which was talked about at our meeting. This happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when a Russian commander of a submarine fleet refused to launch his nuclear torpedo.

Yet if Googled "Man Who Saved the World" you may get this Wikipedia article about a documentary movie with the same name. This episode occurred in September 1983, when there was a report that missiles were heading to the Soviet Union.

These episodes during the Cold War were secret until the Soviet Union fell. What might have happened had the public known who close we came to Nuclear Armageddon?

Prisons and Bezos

Today we had two hot topics, prisons and Jeff Bezos. These topics may at first seem totally unrelated, but they are strangely tied together by what we discussed two weeks ago, the Inequity in our society. Bezos is the epitome of the American Dream. Not only is he a multi-billionaire, he is highly respected. Everyone in our group had good things to say about him and is company, Amazon. Yet, most Americans are getting closer to the other end of the spectrum, the prisons, due to widening inequity gap.

Jeff Bezos became rich because of his savvy business sense. Maybe prisoners just need lesson in business. Not so. Here is a TED Talk that says that prisoners are already good at business, out of necessity.

Palestine, Manning, Healthcare and a Motorcycle

Today we talked about several recurrent issues. Is there any hope for the Palestine Talks? Is Bradley Manning traitor? Are the Republican going to destroy healthcare? We are dishearthened when we view theses issues from the top-down, as institutional problems. But there is another way to see these stories, from the bottom-up, as a people issue. The Palestine problem is the story of people of different cultures who need to get along. Manning was a young idealist who was trying to do what was right. The Healthcare crisis is about people needlessly suffering because of a broken system.

Here is a TED Talk about a young idealist Israeli doctor trying to improve the healthcare with a motorcycle. At first is seems like another feel-good story about how a young mind improves healthcare. If you stay till the end you will see the connection to Israeli - Palestinian relations.

Inequity

The big topic of today was inequity and how the current trends are making it worse. The stock market has recovered but the new technology is eliminating more and more jobs. There seemed to be no solution. As Lowell remarked, it was making us all depressed. But here is a TED talk which says that job elimination by technology is great news. Do you agree with the speaker?

Does Skin Color Matter?

The Zimmerman verdict has touched a nerve in the group. For the second week racial issues dominated the discussion. And yes there is a TED Talk about skin color. The conclusion is that skin color does matter, but not in the way you might think.

Education of Women in Afghanistan

Before we got to the hot news story of the week, the Zimmerman Trial, we spent a lot of time on a question raised by Dory, would the money we spent on Afghanistan have been better spent on the education of women. I was surprised at the amount of interest on this topic, and the group had to be steered to other news. The topic one women education to bring stability in the third world actually gotten serious attention, but not by mainstream media. However, this topic has gotten much attention at the TED website. Here is just one of the talks.

If you had more to say about women education as foreign policy, before we got steered to the Zimmerman Trial, here is your chance. Just add your comment to this blog post. You don't have to limit your comment to the TED talk above.

Low-Fat Diet Bunk

Is the low-fat diet recommended by the Federal Dietary Guideline just a lot of bunk? A lot of people think so and just ignore the guidelines. But these guidelines apply to all Federal health programs and most State and private institutions follow them. The obese follow the recommended diet, only to gain more weight and eventually become diabetic. Obesity and diabetes has become a national crisis, affecting you even if you are perfectly healthy.

Here is a TED Talk which raises the possibility that the mainstream recommended diet has been wrong. Low-fat diets have long been challenged for a long time, but this movement has been growing in recent years. All previous TED Talks about diet, have extolled the virtues of low-fat. This is the first TED Talk which even hints that the low-fat approach was wrong.

If you go the TED talk webpage be sure to check out the TED conversation that I started. It encourages people to participate in the 2015 Dietary Guideline process which just got started last month.

SCOTUS Blog

The SCOTUS Blog was a big hit last year with the Obama Care decision. The blog got a facelift just in time for the big decisions of 2013. They even created a video to tell you all about the new features. So now you can get the scoop on the upcoming Prop 8, DOMA, affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act decisions at the same time as the media.

You can add you comments as the decisions are released over the next few days. The rest of this post will be about the Court's decision on DNA patents which was released last Friday. I dug into the details  found on SCOTUS Blog, largely because of the question raised by Ron during our meeting. At first, I thought that the decision was a good one, but I completely changed my mind after the investigation. So here is a summary of what I found.

Myriad Genetics claimed two patents; one for a DNA gene and the other for a cDNA gene, which was created from the DNA gene by removing the extraneous information. The patent for the DNA gene was denied because it was found in nature, but the patent on the cDNA gene was upheld because it was not. But upon a detailed investigation, it is highly questionable if cDNA is truly synthetic. For DNA to make protein, its information must first be transcribed to RNA. RNA naturally gets rid of extraneous information when it transforms into its messenger form. All that Myriad Genetics did was use the messenger RNA as a template to stamp-out the cDNA, a common procedure. The information content of the naturally occurring messenger RNA was identical to the cDNA. The cDNA was still declared to be synthetic because its chemistry does not naturally exist. Nevertheless during oral arguments, the judges said that cDNA patent might be challenged on the basis that it lacked originality.

When Clarence Thomas wrote the majority option, he upheld the cDNA patent strictly on the basis that it was technically synthetic and deliberately excluded any discussion that the discovery lacked originality. The decision was not only bad science, it was also bad law. Yet this was the exact decision that the Solicitor General had requested in his amicus brief. Was this a gift to the biotech industry?

The Myriad patents were going to expire anyway in 2015. So this case was really about setting precedent. It turns out that the cDNA patent was more valuable than the DNA patent since the cDNA version is needed in creating recombinant DNA, a high profitable process. So by using a legal slight-of-hand, the court removed that stigma of patenting natural DNA, while preserving the profits of the biotech industry by allowing patents on cDNA, even though it is directly derived from natural DNA.

Drug Trial Shenanigans

There was a lot of interest on drug trials today, no surprise. There was some concern that drug safety would be compromised if some drugs were allowed to be approved quicker. However, this assumes that our current system is satisfactory. Here is a TED talk which exposes the flaws in our current drug trials. It may be that we would be no worst off if the drug trails were performed quicker.

In a totally unrelated story, the tea kettle below was in the news this week. See if you can see what the controversy was about.

Here is the story. Can you see the resemblance?

Comedian In-Chief

Just in time for our Monday meeting, the White House Correspondence Dinner, has provided much needed relief. Just in case you missed it, you can see it HERE on the CSPAN website. The main video is Obama, you can find the link to Conan right below it.

Death Penalty for Boston Bomber

We spent almost the entire time at our last meeting talking about the Boston Marathon Bombing. We noted that Massachusetts has no death penalty but the death penalty is still possible because of Federal terrorism laws. But now that it appears that the suspect was not a terrorist, does it mean that he could avoid the death penalty?

The answer is absolutely not. Here is the complaint that is the basis for the Federal charges that was posted on the DOJ website. It states that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev violated two federal laws:

• 18 U.S.C. s 2332a(a) - Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction
• 18 U.S.C. s 844(i) - Malicious Destruction of Property Resulting in Death

Both laws include the possibility of the death penalty, but only the first is related to terrorism. The second law relates to bombings at sites which affects international or interstate commerce. Yes, it is the commerce clause of the Constitution which gives the Federal government jurisdiction in this case. The complaint filed at the DOJ goes to great length in describing how the bombing at the Boston Marathon disrupted commerce. A terrorist connection is not needed for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to get the death penalty.

The complaint also answers another question we had at our meeting. It states that at lest one person was killed from each of the two bombs. We now know that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was directly responsible for at least one of the four deaths that resulted from this tragedy and its aftermath.

Patents, More Harm than Good?

One of today's discussion topics was the upcoming Supreme Court case about DNA patents, which lead to the question if patents cause more harm than good. You can see the harm of patents by looking at the current patents war in smartphones. Here is a diagram of who is suing who:

Can you imagine how such a patent war in healthcare would affect your well being? But aren't patents necessary to motivate the hard work needed for innovation? Here is a TED Talk which addresses where innovation truly comes from.

Making Your Children Pay Your Bills

One of the items on Lowell's handout was overlooked, (BE AWARE, second to last item on the last page). There are laws which may make your children financially responsible for your medical bills. Here is an excerpt from this article in the Baltimore Sun.

The basis of the lawsuit is a so-called filial support law, which requires adult children to be responsible for the care of indigent parents. Twenty-nine states, including Maryland, have such laws, although they vary and can be overridden by other statutes. Maryland, for instance, bars nursing homes from saddling children with their parents' bills, but the filial support law can apply under other circumstances.

These laws have been rarely enforced, but with rising medical cost and tighter States budgets, States may have to start using them.

Odds and Ends

Here is a collection of links about topics, some that came up during our meeting, and some that didn't.

1) The origin of the Universe was covered in this previous post on this blog. In the Lawrence Krauss video, the Universe is a natural consequence of Quantum Physics.

2) Lowell found this interesting article on natural gas fracking. Unfortunately, it missed getting into his handout sheet. Fracking was also covered in this blog post.

3) Ken has kept us informed on MD politics. But occasionally he finds a local issue in a neighboring county that needs attention. Here is a link to a Montgomery County bill which grants special favors to a single company.

4) On this April Fool's Day we had a short discussion about asteroids colliding with the earth. Oddly enough, one year ago our blog had this post about an asteroid that past near the earth on April 1, 2012.

5) Finally, we talked about the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, aka Little Kim. We dismiss his rants as crazy talk, and pay more attention to his association with Dennis Rodman than his treat of nuclear war with the US. What is often missed is the terrible plight of the people of North Korea. Since the southern border is heavily guarded, many North Koreans are escaping north into China, which is creating China's own southern immigration problem. Here is a moving Ted Talk by one of those North Korean refugees.

A Suggestion to Address Violence in Our Society

Here are the letters that Hank wrote to Ben Cardin and Arne Duncan. I think they are self explanatory.


Letter 1:

Senator Ben Cardin

509 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC  20510

Dear Senator Cardin,

I would like to propose an idea that several of my senior friends agree would be a worthwhile endeavor: namely, mandate Anger Management classes for all elementary school children, with a follow-up reminder class in high school. This may provide a useful counter to bullying against youngsters and help diminish the need to settle arguments with guns when older. In fact, this may prove even more useful to reduce gun deaths than proposed laws limiting the size of ammunition clips. It may even save some marriages.

Letter 2:

U.S. Department of Education
Attention: Secretary Arne Duncan
400 Maryland Ave. SW
LBJ Education Building, 7W311
Washington DC 20202

Attachment: letter sent to Senator Ben Cardin

Dear Secretary Duncan,

1. The majority of firearm killings use small pistols not covered by any of the proposed restrictive gun/ammo laws.

2. Many killings also use knives or weapons other than firearms.

3. Many killings result from domestic disputes (and even some suicides are caused by domestic violence).

4. Therefore, I deduce that perhaps over 90% of all killings do not use the type of military type weapons or ammo that are contemplated being restricted.

5. Which leads me to the question: why does Congress and the Administration focus, seemingly exclusively, on perhaps 10% or less of the killing problem and ignore the remaining 90%? For purposes of this proposal I am ignoring other types of accidental deaths (e.g., by automobile).

6. I would like to suggest there is much more bang for the buck in attempting to diminish the perceived need for killing in the first place –which leads me to my suggestion that MANDATED classes in anger management be instituted in early grades of elementary school, with follow-up classes in high school for reinforcement of previously learned techniques. Hopefully this will lead to a mentally healthier society.

I hope my suggestion will bear fruit.

Three Books on the High Cost of Healthcare

Dory started a lively discussion on the high cost of healthcare by recommending the book, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father--and How We Can Fix It. This book blames high cost on the lack of market forces. While the author makes a good case, there is still some question if market forces work on life-or-death situations. But there are many situations in which there is time to consider treatment options. One situation is the diagnosis of heathy people with potential health problems, even though no symptoms have yet occurred. This is covered in another book mentioned in today's meeting, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health. Both books have drawn attention due the Time magazine article, Bitter Pill, by Steve Brill which was widely covered by mainstream media.

So why did the high cost of healthcare received so little attention during the Obama Care legislation? There was actually a popular book,  Money-Driven Medicine, which was release in March 2009 just in time for the healthcare debate which followed. There was a grassroots movement which tried to call attention to the cost issues raised in the book. A movie was released with the same name. There is still an active website, http://moneydrivenmedicine.org, where you can view clips of the movie. 

Maybe  Obama wanted to tackle one villain at a time. Rather than going after all the healthcare problems, he chose to focus first on the Insurance. Obama had always said that his bill was just a start. Maybe the nation is now ready for the next step, but with the gridlock in Washington, it is unlikely anything will be done soon.

World Court

There were some questions about the World Court in today's discussion about the Kenya Election. First of all there are actually two World Courts. The term, "World Court," normally applies to the International Court of Justice, ICJ, which deals with governments. But it can also mean the International Criminal Court, ICC, which deas with individuals. The Kenya case was against an individual, Uhuru Kenyatta, so "World Court" means the ICC in this case.

The question at today's meeting was how is a case brought to the ICC. According to wikipedia a case be opened as a result of a complaint from individuals or organizations for crimes in "States Parties." Crimes outside a state party, require a referral by the Security Council or a declaration by the state to grant the ICC jurisdiction. There was some question if the ICC had jurisdiction in Kenya. It appears that Kenya is no longer a State Party to the ICC, but the ICC had jurisdiction for the Kenyatta case. (Note, the United States and Israel have taken themselves out of the jurisdiction of the ICC.) 

Spotlight on Maryland

The first topic on Lowell's handout which covered Maryland bills on gun control and the death penalty was not covered in today's meeting. This is strange since these bills are attracting national attention. Fortunately, we have Ken to remind us of the importance of local issues.

Here is nice summary by Ken of currents issues pending in the Maryland legislature. (Note: this blog post has be updated from an earlier post with current news from Ken)

1) Firearm Safety (SB281/HB294)

 

Either bill could be sent up to the House floor at any time.  Sending up the Senate-passed SB281 would expedite the process.  It will still have to go through a barrage of amendments in the House.

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=sb0281&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

 

(2) Death Penalty Repeal (SB276)

 

The Senate passed SB276 27-20 with Senator Kittleman (LD9) voting YES and Senators Kasemeyer (LD12) and Robey (LD13) voting NO.  The House Judiciary Committee voted 14-8 almost immediately to send it unamended to the the House floor, where it could be acted on at any time now.

 

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=sb0276&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

 

(3) Offshore Wind Energy (HB226)

 

After House passage of HB226, the Senate amended and passed it 30-15. Senators Kasemeyer and Robey voted YES and Senator Kittleman voted NO. Final passage would require that the differences be resolved and this is expected.

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=hb0226&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

 

(4) Corporate welfare for Lockheed Martin ?

 

That’s what SB631 and identical HB815 are called by David Moon of the blog Maryland Juice.  Senate Bill 631 is on the Senate floor and ready for passage there.  House Bill 815 had a hearing on Feb. 28 in the House Ways and Means Committee on which Howard County Delegate Frank Turner (LD13) sits.

Here are the bills along with the Fiscal and Policy Note explaining them.

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&tab=subject3&id=sb0631&stab=01&ys=2013RS

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/fnotes/bil_0001/sb0631.pdf

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&tab=subject3&id=hb0815&stab=01&ys=2013RS

 

Here are the comments of the blogger:

 

http://www.marylandjuice.com/2013/03/outrage-md-politicians-urge-18-million.html

 

(5) Voters’ Rights Protection (HB220)

 

This anti-dirty tricks in elections bill is ready for House passage on the floor.

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=hb0220&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

 

(6  Fund transportation projects via gas tax increase (HB1515/SB1054)

 

House Bill 1515 is scheduled for hearing on Fri., Mar. 15 in the House Ways and Means Committee.  The identical Senate bill is still in the Rules Committee.  Here are the Administration-backed bills and an explanation of them by WJLA-TV:

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=hb1515&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?pid=billpage&tab=subject3&id=sb1054&stab=01&ys=2013RS

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/03/o-malley-releases-transportation-funding-bill-85896.html

 

(7) Medical Marijuana Decriminalization (HB1453)

 

House Bill 1453, sponsored by Del. Anderson of Baltimore City and others, would decriminalize marijuana use, possession, or sale and is scheduled for hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on Mar. 19.

 

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=hb1453&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2013RS

 

Ken Stevens

Medical Cost

We were all outraged about irrationally high medical cost as was explain in the "Bitter Pill" article in March 4 issue of Time magazine. Oddly, the author Steven Brill, does not have any medical background, but is known as the founder of CourtTV and the American Lawyer magazine. Apparently, the information was available to anyone who cared to look.

There is also a new book,  Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It, which is critical of the cost of health care in this country. The author, David Goldhill, is also involved with TV as the CEO of the Game Show Network. The book is based on his Atlantic magazine article,  How American Health Care Killed My Father.

So how come it took two TV executives to bring attention to high healthcare cost? Where were the healthcare professionals? It turns out that the call for healthcare reform has a long history, but was mostly ignored by the mainstream media. A prominent critic was Donald Berwick, who Obama wanted to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Republican opposition prevented his permanent appointment. This should have been a big news story, but received little attention. Maybe the importance of your issues are not enough, you need to know how media works to get attention.

There is now talk that Berwick will run for Massachusetts governor. If he wins the Democratic nomination his mostly Republican opponent would be Scott Brown, who was beaten by Elizabeth Warren in the last Senate race. That Senate race brought much needed attention to financial reform. So maybe the next Governor race will bring equal attention to healthcare reform.

How Good is You Internet?

We talked about Chinese hackers stealing our industrial secrets over the internet. Well, at least we still have secrets worth stealing. We are currently way behind other countries in affordable internet access, the key to information exchange which stimulates creativity in all fields. We may soon have to steal secrets from the Chinese and other countries which have invested in their information infrastructure.

In last week's Bill Moyers & Company, Susan Crawford reveals that other countries pay far less for much better internet service, and that our future industrial base may suffer. This is a long known problem, but does not have high priority on our political agenda. I guess we need to complain more about how bad our internet service has become. Or you can sign this petition on the White House website.

New Group Synopsis

This Friday we will be submitting a synopsis of the new discussion group that we are proposing. After that they will try to find a time slot for us.

Here is a first draft of the synopsis. Your comments are welcome.

Group Name: Zoom-In

Join a friendly discussion about a predetermined topic of interest. Topics may come from current events but are sufficiently complex to merit a more in-depth discussion. Participants will select the topics for future meetings, giving them the option to come prepared or just drop in to enjoy the discussion. Group members will help each other learn how and where to find the best sources for information.

Some ideas for topics:

• Climate Change 
• Heathy Living
• Modern Medicine
• Gun Control
• Drones and other robots
• Pleases suggest others

Gun Control

We spent over half the session talking about gun control. This was on the day after a Superbowl win by the local team. Who would have guessed that there was so much interest.

Bill Ramsey sent in this comment about States with Gun Laws:

You may remember the last discussion when I made the assertion (without any data) that Texas had a higher gun death rate than northern states.  I ran above search on Google and the first hit was http://www.statemaster.com/red/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000&b_printable=1.

This list is full of paradoxes.  The worst (#1) is D.C. with 31.2 deaths per year per thousand people followed by #2 Alaska with 20.0.  Maryland is #22 with 11.5; Texas is #26 with 11.0; and all the “Northern” states follow Texas.  The lowest is Hawaii #51 with 2.8.

D.C. (worst) and Hawaii (best) have strict gun laws, as well as New York #46 with 5.1 (very good) as well as Maryland (mediocre).  Alaska (second worse) and Texas (slightly better than Maryland) have virtually no gun laws.  Draw conclusions from this, if you can.

 

It seems that those who favor stronger gun laws are careful to show that they are not against guns. Here is he photo released by the White House. Was this really necessary?

Name That Group

Here are the suggested names for our new discussion group. Please feel free to comment or suggest other possibilities.

1) Facts-R-Us : to emphasize that the group discussion will be fact based, over rumor or uninformed opinion.

2) Zoom-in :  that we will take a topic raised in the current events group and go into greater detail

3) Focal Point : that we will stay on a chosen topic known in advanced

4) Peer Review : that group discussion will be among equals, the group will decide the topic and process

5) Hindsight : that topics will have some history so we have the benefit of hindsight

6) Second Look : that we will discuss topics that probably already discussed in our Current Events group, but we can discuss them again with the benefit of preparation.

New Submissions:

7) In-Depth Review : indicating a more detailed, thorough, hopefully factual review of items of interest

New Discussion Group

Thank-you everyone for your show of interest in forming a new discussion group. The main concern seems to be schedule. We will need to coordinate that with the Bain Center management through the SPRING program. First we need to create a short synopsis of what our group will be about. If the SPRING program approves, we will get a time slot. There may schedule conflicts and we will work things out when the time comes. If we have a choice of time, you will have input before we decide.

Right now we need to create the synopsis. We do not have a deadline, but Norm, Ron and I will be attending a SPRING facilitator meeting on Feb 8th. It would be nice to have a first cut ready by then. Our new group needs to be open to anyone, so our group synopsis will be printed in Bain Center newsletter, along with the other the other SPRING groups. We need something that will make our group distinct and attractive. A good name for our group would certainly help.

We will be different from the Current Events Group in that the number of topics will be limited and known ahead of time. But we need something more to attract new members. For example, there is another Bain SPRING group, called the Trenders, which is an open discussion group with an emphasis on humor.

Please send me, either by email or by commenting in this blog, suggestions on what distinguishes our group and/or a possible name for our group.

3D Printing

Today we talked about 3D printer becoming so cheap that people can now setup small scale manufacturing plant in their homes. The home 3D printer print in plastic, but the advance 3D printers can print with living tissue. Here is a TED talk about how it may soon be possible to print a human kidney.

Healthy Diet

The fiscal cliff was the main topic of discussion at today's meeting. So why is this blog post about food? Simple, our diet determines our heath and healthcare cost will dominate the Federal budget as the boomers age. In our discussion, it was pointed out that the healthcare crisis will not be solved unless we improve the American diet. While we don't like the idea of the government telling us what to eat, there is one area where government guidance is welcome, school lunches. After all whose going to take care of the sick old people if the young people are also sick.

Here is a TED talk about what was wrong with the school lunch program. Talks like this, has inspired Michelle Obama to champion the new school lunch rules, which came into effect a few months ago. Unfortunately, with so much other news, we did not discuss the school lunch diet, even though is could have a profound effect on the nation's long term future.

So let me use this blog to open the issue. Was the new school lunch program rules an example of good government or bad government?

Over the Cliff

Officially we are now over the cliff. Even though the Senate passed a deal, (89 yea - 8 nay),  at 1:39am 1/1/13, the House has yet to vote. The deal makes middle tax cuts permanent and delays the sequester by two months, just about time when the Treasury runs out of money.

If the deal passes the House, we will have two months more of Congressional brinksmanship before we have to raise the debt ceiling. The real fight has just begun.

Like other tragedies, we can use this as a teaching moment. How has our political discourse become so toxic? Rather than vilify the people we disagree with, we can try to understand what underlies their beliefs. Here is a TED talk which tries to revive the lost art of democratic debate.