Pro-Choice II

The Struggle for Guadalcanal 

And when I Get to Heaven
To St. Peter I will tell
Just one more marine reporting, sir
I've spent my time in Hell

What if our universe is Hell?

We shave been taught that there are three domains: Heaven, Reality and Hell.  This is at odds with a belief that Heaven is where God dwells.  If we also believe that God dwells everywhere, including Reality, then there are only two domains, God's and the absence of God's.  Reality may then only be the interface where a choice is made to join God or join God's absence.  In that case, Reality is both Heaven and Hell.  The choices that are made in Reality detemine whether after life you enter Heaven.

If there are no choices in Reality, then no one can choose God and enter Heaven.  In Other Words, God must be pro-Choice, for every choice.

No Man is God

 

With God On Our Side

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war

And a powerful man on your side, such as Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk is NOT God.

It makes no difference whether that powerful man has views with which you agree, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, or George Soros.  A human is not, can not, ever be God.  A man may act like God, but if we also act like that man is God, then that is our mistake.  If as humans, we defer to powerful rich men, believe that they are on our side, then it is better that we pluck them out than let that cause the rest of us, our body, to stumble. 

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Matthew 5:29

The Election of a Speaker of the House II

 

Hey There Little Red Riding Hood

I'm gonna' keep my sheep suit on
Until I'm sure that you've been shown
That I can be trusted, walking with you alone
Awooh

MAGA Mike Johnson has been called Jim Jordan with a jacket and a smile by a Republican colleague.

While the speaker’s race has mercifully ended, the conservatives crazies have won.  The candidates desired by the Republican moderates, Steve Scalise and Mike Emmer, withdrew from the race when it became obvious that they would not get the crazies’ vote.  Mike Johnson was not opposed by Donald Trump precisely because he was one of the architects of Donald Trump’s election denialism.   That he was not well known by the public is no excuse for the moderates backing him. 

While the Senate and a Presidential veto may keep the bad bills passed by the House in check, but the Speaker's House still needs to originate among other things appropriation bills. Stopping bad bills can be expected, but no good bills can also be expected.  Humoring the “Freedom” Caucus is appeasing the ”Freedom” Caucus, and that is not so funny.  If the moderate Republicans voted against Jim Jordan, then they should also have voted against Jim Jordan with a jacket and smile, i.e. his sheep suit.  Don't we deserve someone who can actually be trusted, not someone who can deceive us into being trusted.

The Election of a Speaker of the House

 

Burning Down the House

Ah, watch out
You might get what you're after
Cool babies
Strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Watching the Republicans in the speakership disaster is watching them “Burning Down the House”!

Mike Emmer has joined Steve Scalise in withdrawing his name from the Speaker’s race after winning the support of a majority of the Republican Conference.  The problem is that while there are  two parties in the House, the Republican Conference is in fact a coalition of the “Freedom” Caucus and moderate Republicans versus a coalition of Democrats of all persuasions.  While the coalition of Democrats has remained firm, the coalition of Republicans has been anything but firm.  Since the job of the Speaker is to govern a coalition of the entire House of both parties, a Speaker who can not even win the support of a coalition of Republicans can probably not do the People’s business. 

Because the Speaker of the House is the third in line to the President after the Vice President, maybe the People are better served by no Speaker until a new House takes office in January of 2025 than having a Speaker who has the support of those who want to burn down the House.  Matt Gaetz is like the dog who chased after trucks only to catch a truck. That dog did not know what to do after he caught that truck. Matt Gaetz did not know what to do after he removed Speaker McCarthy.  The People should watch out because Matt Gaetz got what he was after!

Perfection is the Enemy of the Good

 

If I Can’t Have You

If I can't have you
I don't want nobody, baby
If I can't have you, uh-ho-oh-oh-oh

Love the One You’re With

And there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with

Dueling lyrics to show that "Perfection is the Enemy of the Good.”

Stating an absolute position sounds admirable, but it is limiting. “All, or nothing at all” means you will accept the absolute, perfection, or will accept nothing. Like teaching sex education to teenagers.

Should unmarried teenagers be having sex?  Probably not. 

Will teaching sex education make unmarried teenagers have sex? Probably not. 

If unmarried teenagers are not having sex, then do they need sex education?  Probably not.  But if they do have sex, then at least they will know what then are doing.

Humans are not absolutes. We can approach an absolute but can not attain that absolute. IOW, we exhibit exponential behavior. Saying that you will only settle for an absolute, IOW perfection, guarantees that you will attain nothing.  On the other hand, if you accept less than perfection, then you will attain something.

When disaggregating an Origin-Destination table, such as USDOT’s Freight Analysis Framework, or any matrix which is itself an aggregation, or expansion of a survey,  then there is one unique outcome that is related to that aggregation or survey, IOW is accurate. However, there are many possible outcomes, e.g. disaggregations, many of which are virtually identical and some of those are also the most numerous, probable.  That most probable outcome may not be ACCURATE, but it is available and can be solvable.   Or as statistician George Box famously put it, “All models are wrong, but some are useful”  A most probable solution may be wrong, but it may be useful.  Use the solution you can solve, e.g. love the one you’re with.