the Healthcare Summit

I find it both amusing and disconcerting to hear the President "moderating" the "discussion" since he has a vested interest in the outcome - passage of the 'compromise' bill.

The Democrats are obviously starting from the position that their bill is a starting position when, in fact, the only reason they are sitting at that particular table is because the 'compromise' bill is unacceptable to the American public. Period. End of story.

The Republicans are, yes, sitting there with props (such as the 2400 page 'compromise' bill) but they are, at least, addressing the individual issues. They are trying to keep the Overton window from being dragged left to encompass the Democrat's 'compromise' bill.

All that aside, I am not hearing a discussion that addresses the issues. Some of the most salient points are being ignored.

First, we need to know what insurance is, so let me see if I can define it:

• Insurance is an economic device utilized by individuals and organizations to protect themselves against the risk of realizing unforeseen and extraordinary financial losses.


• By purchasing an insurance policy from an insurance company, an individual or organization can transfer the financial risk of a potentially devastating loss to another party, the insurer.


• Essentially, insurance allows individuals and organizations to pay a scheduled and affordable fee - a premium - to an insurance company today, and, in turn, the insurance company makes a promise to protect that individual or organization financially if they suffer from a specified unforeseen and devastating economic loss in the future.

It is important to understand insurance is an economic device and not a right or a social entitlement. It is a business and can only function as a business. Medicare is not insurance. Medicare and Medicaid are social entitlements. They are bankrupt and are in the process of bankrupting the country at various levels. If Medicare and Medicaid were private businesses they would have long since failed and gone away.

Once you accept the difference(s), you have to accept the reality that health insurance is completely separate from Medicare and Medicaid. By lumping them together in a single bill (whether it is all three of them or just health insurance and Medicare) you are socializing health insurance - making it into an entitlement and removing it as an economic device. Health insurance will no longer be a business, it becomes a government controlled social program.

As it stands, the 'compromise' bill is cover for the Democrats and their desire to:

• remove health insurance from the business environment and converting it to a social program;
• use the premise of healthcare reform as cover to alter (I did not say reform) Medicare and Medicaid.

Toyota in the hot seat

I've been watching the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings and I'm afraid Toyota is in more than the hot seat.

Before I excoriate Toyota, let me say that I have owned a Toyota vehicle for personal use since 1983. I don't lease, I buy .. in fact, I buy and hold. I have had my current vehicle for almost 12 years and have absolutely no regrets. That said, Toyota blew it - BIG TIME!

My background is computers and programming control systems. Suffice it to say I've been working with computers since the late '70s and I programmed control systems for 13 years. Based on the testimonies I heard this morning, Toyota has had a problem with their Electronic Control System (ECS) for years.

We used to call them AFEs (another f'ing engineer); kids who just graduated from college and knew everything there is to know about their (brand new) profession. They were tasked with the unenviable job of writing code for or designing systems that they truly didn't understand. This isn't really a problem in and of itself in, say, an accounting system, but when you are interfacing with the real world... oh boy.

Think of airplanes. For years, when 'fly by wire' first arrived on the scene, experienced pilots bemoaned not having "control" of the new planes. There were no "real" control systems; everything went through a computer. If you wanted to bank right, you turned the yoke to the right, the computer control system received the signal and then the computer sent the proper commands to the related physical systems to accomplish the turn. The yoke wasn't physically attached to anything but the computer. If the computer failed the whole thing would be nothing but a flying stone. That is why there are backup systems (3 in the Shuttles as I recall).

There are (probably) no backup systems in (Toyota) cars. I don't know this for sure since I am not into cars, but it makes sense since cars are a consumer item and the idea is to cut production costs so as to maximize profit. No, I am not saying that is a bad thing, that is just the way it works.

Anyway, my bet is that some AFE somewhere back up the line (if I understood the testimony I heard this morning, somewhere back as far as 2000) wrote at least part of the code that is currently used in the ECS. Because of it's age this code was and has been considered 'mature' and 'functional.' Oops. It probably has an intermittent bug. Happens all the time.

Since reverse engineering is costly and problematic, nobody ever bothered to test and verify the old code. Worse, since it was considered 'functional,' nobody ever rewrote it. (At least not until recently- ergo the 'flashing' of the ECS.)

Now, I know none of this for sure; I am speculating. It is, however, an 'educated' guess based on years of experience crafting, writing and troubleshooting control systems. If it was me, and I was working for Toyota and hearing about these problems for the first time it would come down to this:
1. Can I reliably reproduce the problem mechanically?

2. What is the common denominator between the various vehicles?

In the final analysis Toyota made a series of assumptions and you know what that means.

CPAC Keynote speech

If you haven't watched this then you should. If you have watched this then you need to watch it again. It speaks for itself.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4881432