Another Homicidal Maniac allowed to run loose

Flips out and kills six, seven, eight, or more college students in Oregon.  Before the bodies are cold, Obama is on TV bleating for gun control. 
  How about some nut case control?  Someone should have noticed that something wasn't right before he started killing.  Parents, teachers, relatives, friends, co workers, someone.  Some psychiatrists should have examined him, diagnosed him as a homicidal maniac, and committed him to a mental hospital. 
   Well that didn't happen.  Apparently it never does.  If someone else had been carrying, they might has stopped him.  Wanna bet the college forbade carrying on campus? 

What to read for light reading?

Long ago I used to read "mainstream fiction" and science fiction.  The mainstream drifted off course, yielding immense thick tomes with wimpy protagonists who whined a lot but never did anything.  Science fiction especially back in the John W. Campbell era was more readable.  Likeable protagonists had missions, set out to accomplish them, and usually succeeded.  The stories had life, often had thought provoking future societies, and the story moved. 
   Well they don't right science fiction much any more.  The really great golden age authors are mostly dead by now, and the few survivors are getting too old to write anymore.  The newer authors mostly try to do Tolkien style fantasy because they never took physics, chemistry, and biology in high school and feel they are to ignorant to do science fiction.  Fantasy, especially when you can invoke magic, means you can dream up anything you like, you don't have to know anything.  Trouble is, none of the Tolkien wanna-be authors have written anything nearly as good as Tolkien.
   At this time, I have started reading what the trade calls "Young Adult" books, mostly fantasies.  At least they have likable teen age protagonists, who have a mission, go out and do it, and don't whine. Rick Riordan's  stories of classical gods and goddesses surviving into modern times (21st century) are fun.  Phillip Pullman's stories set in an alternate earth are good.  George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones stuff is OK except he keeps killing of all the good guys and letting the bad guys flourish.  

Volkswagen, Who Dunit?

I wonder just who at VW was in on the emissions cheating software.  It could have be just a single programmer.  Despite code reviews,  only the programmer, usually a single individual, really knows what his code does.  I can visualize a clever programmer thinking up this scheme, and being so pleased with his cleverness that he slips it into production code, without anyone's knowledge.
   I can also see someone in middle management thinking up the scheme, and taking it to his boss for OK.  And I can see that boss going to his boss, right up the organization until the CEO's office is reached.  I can also visualize senior management, a bunch of bean counters, not really understanding what they were being asked to approve. 
   I can also visualize someone in engineering thinking up schedules of fuel injector settings vs engine RPM, in fact maybe three such schedules, full throttle acceleration, economical cruise, and "idle"  Idle being defined any time the car isn't moving.  And passing these schedules over to the programming staff, who codes them up without really understanding what's going on. 
   Or, someone in marketing, scheming to get into the US market with diesel cars, talks to some old buddy over in engineering or the software group about how to get the diesels to pass the much stiffer US emissions tests. 
   I wonder what really did happen.  And will we ever learn?

New TV Season

Last night was ABC.  I watched the Muppets at 8 PM.  Not great.  They were more entertaining on Sesame St, or in th various Muppet Movies.  In a half hour show, nothing much happened.  Miss Piggy took up with a live actor (forget his name) but she never really told off Kermit. Too bad, while raising three children I got to see a LOT of Sesame St, and the Muppets were a big part of it. 
  So, at 9PM I watched a Marvel Comic book show, Agents of Shield.  Meh.  Again nothing much happened.  So fair martial arts moves, one confused male rescue, but no resolution of his problems. 
   So back to Netflix for me.

Trump's Tax Plan

Not too bad, not too good.  I like the idea of just a few tax brackets, and lower rates all around. Scrubbing the "Alternate Minimum Tax" is an excellent idea.  Recalculating my taxes for "AMT" takes as much time as figuring them straight up on the first pass.  Scrubbing the death tax is a good idea.  Most small American businesses, gas stations, motels, barber shops, restaurants, stores, landscaping companies and the like, are owned by the individual who created them.  When this guy dies,  they levy estate tax on the entire business, often as bad as 20%.  Most of these small businesses don't have that sort of money, and if they do, they cannot afford giving Uncle 20% of the business in cash.  If the owner could pass the business down to an heir, tax free, it might stay in business and keep employing people.  As it is, death of the owner is death of the small business. 
I clicked out to the Trump website to read the whole thing.  There ain't much more to it than what The Donald gave out on TV yesterday.  It's short and vague.  Doesn't list the "loopholes" he plans to close.
   I don't like the notion of the bottom tax bracket being zero.  I think everyone should pay something, if only a few percent, to let them feel the pain of taxes.  Especially as the bottom half of the income groups is the one that sucks up more government bennies that the others.

Just how expensive are Emergency Room visits ?

Was reading a piece in the Journal about emergency room vists, and how expensive they are, and it's really too bad that so many people go to the ER when they feel ill.  It went on to say that as long as the emergency room is the only 24/7 medical facility, they are gonna get a lot of business.
  Been thinking about that.  Just how expensive is an emergency room visit, really?  Wanna bet the hospital takes the total cost of running an emergency room divided by the number of patients served?  Which is a cute statistic but it doesn't mean anything.  Like if zero patients came in the cost per visit is infinite?  If a zillion people came in the cost goes to zilch? 
   In actual fact, it costs money to run an emergency room whether anyone uses it or not.  The true cost when someone comes in, waits two hours, and leaves with a prescription for Amoxicillin, is pretty close to zilch.  particularly when the ER people spend most of their time doing paperwork about the visit rather than diagnosing and treating the patient.
   Accounting is important in any real business.  Accurate accounting tells management where the money is going to and coming from,  which management needs to know if it is going to work on reducing out go and increasing income.   Ideally the doctors and nurses would  fill out time cards, charging their time to each patient served.  Today they could use an app on their smart phones, just swipe the patient's wrist band against the phone and punch "start".  Punch "done" as they leave the patient's bedside. 
  

More thoughts on John Boehner

I'm listening to some pundit saying that Boehner didn't fight hard enough for something or other.  He was too ready to compromise.
   There speaks a pundit with his head wedged.
   Speaker of the House has just his own single vote.  To get anything passed, he needs to get 51% of reps to vote for it.  Which means that 51% has to like the speaker, trust the speaker, and go along with the speaker even when their constituents may not agree.  The speaker cannot go about offending people by constantly fighting over issues, he has to be seen as fair, unbiased, and trustworthy.  If he throws his weight around, he pisses people off, and then he won't have the votes next time he needs them. 
   Given the deep differences inside the Republican party, and the differences with the Democrats, I think Boehner has done the best that can be done.  There is only so much that oil poured on troubled waters can do.  I'm sorry to see him go.
   I wish his successor, whom ever that may be, the best possible luck.  He is gonna need it.