PhD-itis

If you have never heard of this disease, I'm not surprised. PhD-itis is also known as Doctor's Disease. Simply put, it's the delusion that many graduates of doctoral programs catch once they become a noted expert in their chosen field that they are then experts at every field they choose to undertake. Expert surgeons with no business training try to run corporations. Internists undertake real estate ventures. Neurosurgeons believe they can be President.

More than anything else, it is a disease of arrogance and hubris. Arrogance in their belief that they are brilliant at everything. Hubris in their feelings of superiority.

Career politicians have a specialized form of this disease. They equate their mastery of one particular speciality, election campaigns, as mastery of all details of life. You see this today, November 2015, after the Paris attacks, as a host of Federal Congressmen and State Governors, issue calls for the halt of the Syrian Refugee resettlement program. They take one isolated piece of data, the fact that a stolen passport was found at the site of one of the Paris attacks, an ISIS propaganda video claiming that ISIS would sneak attackers in with refugees, and a complete lack of any knowledge about the existing Syrian Refugee vetting process, and issue proclamations about the Syrian Refugees harboring ISIS spies. It is way too early to know if finding a stolen Syrian passport is really indicative of an ISIS spy having been smuggled in with the refugees. It is also way to early to determine if ISIS really has the capability to smuggle attackers in with the refugees. And how can Congress people, much less than state governors, really determine that the vetting process is not adequate? Have any of them even looked at the process?

I am so sick and tired of politicians who can't think past their ideologies. I'm tired of a person like Paul Ryan, an expert at Tax Policy, suddenly deciding he's now not only a foreign policy expert but also an expert at vetting refugees for national security risk. A great example of PhD-itis!

This syndrome allows individuals to practice their xenophobias and hate and religious and social dogmas under the guise of knowledge and expertise that they just don't have.

Why in the world should politicians be able to set the medical standards for a medical procedure? Why should a physician tell the business world how to run a medical insurance company?

We have had a few renaissance men and women, but are they the rule or the exception?

A Raise Thank Goodness!

I got a raise!

I was bummed out last summer. First, I was hit by my dentist with a proposal for $18k in dental work. Then, my audiologist told me I needed new hearing aids at $8k. In addition, I had several prospective clients that fell through, so I was temporarily "on the bench". While I was still being paid, the lady I was dating did not take any of those as an indicator that I was a good provider, and dumped me. She said that all the men in her life had had money problems, and she didn't want that any more.

I found an inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics online. Crank in income and year and adjust that to the current. I found out that my current 2015 salary was almost identical in purchasing power to my starting salary in IT in 1985. No wonder I was having problems paying my bills. I wasn't getting anywhere!

My phone rings off the hook all the time from recruiters, which I ignore, generally. From 2010 through 2014 I was doing contracting work, and I was constantly looking for new contracts, so my resume seems to be everywhere. And there are a number of recruiters that will see that one keyword they are looking for and want to plug you in somewhere. So normally I don;t bother. But in September I decided to talk to one, and I wound up interviewing with another consulting firm. I finished the interviews and then things went on hold as they waited for their client to approve a Hadoop project.

I am very lucky to be in an area of IT that is booming. Big Data in general and Hadoop in particular (along with NoSQL and Enterprise Search) are doing well, and there is a known skills shortage in those areas. It is a major limiting factor in the implementation plans of a number of companies. That's what is keeping my busy in consulting, as regular employees of the company try to ramp up their skills. SO I have seen a good deal of interest.

Finally the consulting firm made me a very generous offer: A 45% base pay increase, a smaller bonus (10% vs. 17.5%), a management title, Solutions Applications Architect Senior Manager vs. Senior Consultant, and a lot less travel.

I was very conflicted. When I joined my current company, I intended it to be my last position. It's a small firm, less than 100. I know the Senior management; the CEO went to Notre Dame (he was a couple of years behind me). I didn't want to leave, and I didn't want to start over.

So I called the CEO and outlined my salary concerns. We had a good talk, and I verified that my company wanted to keep me. They countered with nice incentives, and I was happy to be able to stay. Not quite as good as the new offer, but the company is superior, and the raise will help my financial situation.

It won't get me that lady back, but I no longer want her. It's tough to find out someone cares more about your wallet than you, but better sooner than later. There's 7 billion people in the world and half of them are women. Plenty of fish in the ocean!

Turn Over Collecting IRS Back Taxes to Private Debt Collectors?

I really can't believe the shit that Republicans in Congress come up with sometimes. The latest really blows my mind.

While the Republican Presidential Candidates are talking about radically modifying the tax code and even eliminating the IRS, the Republicans in Congress have added a provision to the Highway Bill which would requirethe IRS to turn over its back tax collection duties to private debt collectors. You know, those people that call you up at all hours of the day and night, send you threatening mail and email, and, in general, harass you unmercifully when some company decides you owe them money. Since they do so on a contingency basis, they have a considerable interest in extracting anything they can out of you for their cut. Imagine just how excited those people would be to get to collect (and take a cut of) the big sums that some people owe in back taxes.

The private debt collection industry generates the most complaints to the Federal Trade Commission of any industry. Now, as part of the Highway Bill, Congressional Republicans want to sic them on individual Americans, many who are just struggling to get by, thanks to the Great Recession, the hollowing out of the middle class, Income Inequality, and all of the other economic forces making it hard to get by.

And what about all those big corporations that don;t pay any income tax? What about the pharmaceutical companies that do research in the U.S. but then transfer the intellectual property to Ireland so they can book all the profits their instead of here in the U.S.? What about the Silicone Valley tech giants that register their search patents overseas to do the same? The ones that are begging for another one-time exclusion so they can pull all those overseas funds back home tax free. Why aren't the Congressional Republicans sending private debt collectors their way? Why are they so insistent on cracking down on taxpayers?

For that matter, just how far can you trust the Republicans that profess, on one hand, to make things fairer and simpler with their flat taxes and simplified tax codes and IRS abolishment? Could it be that what they really want is to abolish the IRS, a government function (collecting government taxes seems to me like a government function) and replace it with a for profit business? One more case of privatization?

I'm sure the next step is for some Republican to suggest that we privatize the whole Federal Government. Why not? Let's have a for profit (mercenary) military. Let's have a business take over our hydrogen bombs. Let some other company (Marriott?) "optimize" the use of our National Parks. Yield management at Yellowstone!!!

Come on! Some things just aren't meant to be turned over to business. There are some things Government needs to do. Stop with the whole "Government is the problem" kick.

You Believe in Less Government and Less Regulation? Here are the Consequences

Americans believe in capitalism and the free market economic system. The Republican Party is in ascendency, and a whole host of presidential candidates are scrambling to be the one to cut the most government and rescind the most regulations. So let's look at one small system that has some regulation, and see what the consequences could be if we removed what little regulation there is.

In August of 2003, power lines in Ohio, sagging due to high voltage and high temperatures, brushed against trees and failed. Hot summer, common occurrence, recoverable, right? Except in this case, attempts to reroute around the failure, coupled with additional segments of power lines grounding out in the same fashion, also failed. This led to a domino-style failure (cascade) that ended with over 50 million people in 8 states and southern Canada being without power for two days in the hot August weather. Eleven people died and the costs to restore power were $6 billion. Failure analysis by the Department of Energy (one of those agencies to be abolished), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Canada's Department of Natural Resources showed that company after company (the electricity grid is a composite structure run by many private companies) had "failed to adhere to industry's standards". Why? Because there was no government mandate to do so. Simply put, the concept that businesses will do what is necessary to prevent a failure or to do what's right even when not required by government is fallacious.

And we instinctively know that. The concept that a company or a business, when competing with other businesses, will voluntary assume costs to meet safety standards when not required by government is ludicrous. What chemical company will clean up its pollution if not required to, but will instead dump it in the river and let everyone else deal with the problem. Economists call that externalities. We know that that is true because countless rivers and the Great Lakes were in serious trouble prior to such governmental regulations as the Clean Water Act. Yet we are giving serious attention to presidential candidates who want to rescind or cut that particular piece of legislation.

In the case of the electric grid, minimal requirements were put in place for companies to meet standards to prevent another major grid failure. But companies have not done the same to prevent a cyber attack. Why? One factor is that the only entities that are really good at monitoring and fighting cyber attacks are in the government, and the government (read DoD) is prevented from collecting information about cyber attacks from private business.

Another factor is the deregulation of the electricity industry. Twenty years ago, the industry was made up of a few bug companies that owned the whole cycle, from generation to distribution (the grid) to market delivery. Thanks to deregulation, the industry is characterized by separate companies producing the power, distributing the power, and delivering the power. No entity has responsibility for the whole job, from production to delivery. So there is no vested interest in the generator or the deliverer to protect the distributor and the grid.

Now you have a bunch of small or medium-sized companies taking parts of the system. And the costs for cyber protection become a greater part of each companies fixed costs. And what is the industry model for everything now? Mean and lean. Cut costs. Protect shareholder values. That translates to poor to no cyber protection. Especially when the model is voluntary cooperation.

And what is the risk? Here's the risk:

We are a nation that is ever more dependent on just-in-time delivery for everything, from food to drugs to medical information to healthcare. A nation that is totally dependent on the Internet for people to do their jobs, schedule their appointments, navigate their cars, conduct their love affairs. A nation that is dependent on electricity for heating, cooling, cooking, and a million other needs. A cyber attack that caused the failure of the grid for six months would totally destroy our nation. It would result in the death of 8-9 of every 10 people in the United States.

If you think that is unduly alarmist, I refer you to the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. You can debate the risk from EMP but the results to the US from the loss of the grid would be the same, whether from EMP or from cyberattack. Total disruption of society, complete loss of law and order, rampant death and destruction.

Consider this: US cities have at most two weeks of food for purchase. Without electricity, the fuel in underground tanks at the gas station isn't going to be pumped to your car. The diesel isn't going to be pumped into the semi, so they won't be able to deliver any more food.

All this, because what we really want is to get rid of government regulation, stick to laissez-faire capitalism, and trust the companies to voluntarily do what is necessary to protect us. Really?

Lets Talk About Fascism

Fascism, you ask? For heaven sakes, why? Didn't we eradicate fascism during World War II? Didn't that die with Mussolini's black shirts and Hitler's goose stepping SS?

Well, maybe. How would you know if fascism was still alive? Could you pick out the signs?

Every form of government has been researched and studies by someone. All we have to do is google fascism and look for a study. Surely someone has boiled fascism down to the essentials! And here they are: Fourteen characteristics of fascism:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -- Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -- Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to 'look the other way' or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military -- Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism -- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and antigay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -- Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected -- The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -- Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -- Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -- Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses, and even forego civil liberties, in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -- Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions, and who use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections -- Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against (or even the assassination of) opposition candidates, the use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and the manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections. ¹

OK. Great!

Nationalism, flags. Like an amendment to make it illegal to burn the flag?

Disdain for human rights. Torture, summary executions, long incarceration of prisoners?

Enemies/scapegoats. Perhaps muslims?

Supremacy of the military. Didn't I hear the other night about how much we needed to expand military spending? And Rand Paul was creamed for talking about sensible military spending.

Rampant sexism. Male-dominated governments. Rigid traditional gender roles. Opposition to abortion. Thank heavens, not in America!

Controlled mass media. Censorship in wartime. The pentagon never does that! And we know that we have a free and open media here. Even if it is all owned by 6 companies.

Obsession with National Security. Fear as a motivational tool. Maybe after 9/11, but we got rid of the Neo-cons, right?

Religion and Government are intertwined. Hey, we've got separation of church and state. It says so, in the Constitution! Apologies to Dr. Carson.

Corporate Power is protected. Yeah, we make it hard on the corporations, with our high corporate taxes. Didn't I hear a bunch of proposals to cut, or even abolish our corporate tax structure?

Labor power is suppressed. Hey, we still have unions! I know, because I always hear about how they are destroying the marketplace. Scott Walker said so!

Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. Well, if you include scientists in their (maybe they are intellectuals) then I guess, maybe.

Obsession with crime and punishment. Not America. We only incarcerate those that need it. And thereby incarcerate more people than any other nation, even Russia!

Rampant cronyism and corruption. They don't call it crony capitalism for nothing!

Fraudulent elections. The use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries. Voter ID laws. Gerrymandering.

Now I'm not saying that America is a fascist state, or that Republicans or fascists, or even that the Republican party is a fascist party. I'm thinking, though, that the argument "It can't happen here!" is only so good as the people who can recognize the signs and MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T HAPPEN HERE. Because a recent poll showed that 34% of americans thought that the first amendment goes too far in guaranteeing free speech.² With a third of americans thinking like that, pretty soon we'll be voting all of our rights away.

^{1. Dr. Lawrence Britt Free Inquiry magazine, Spring 2003.↩}

^{2. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/34-say-first-amendment-goes-too-far.↩}

What Government Do You Want to Cut?

As a commenter said, more eloquently than me,

What government do you want to eliminate? I'm guessing they mean the government that works to keep planes from falling out of the sky or into each other, the government that works to provide a free education to all school-age children, the government that keeps melamine out of our food, the government that protects you from losing all your money if your bank fails, the government that connects our cities with freeways, the government that provides healthcare access to millions, the government that keeps parks and libraries open and free to all, the government that prevents utilities from charging you whatever they want, the government that stopped rivers from catching on fire and made smog alerts rare, the government that keeps food stores from labeling a 3 pound sack of onions as 5 pounds, the government that checks the quality of the water running in your pipes and the government that makes sure that when you flush your toilet, it doesn't just flow into the nearby lake, the government that helps make most places in this country safe enough to where you don't have to carry your gun to the grocery store in order to get back home alive, and the government that completes millions of other tasks every single day so that you can wind up with the discretionary time to sit around and wonder, on the government-created internet, likely using government-generated power on a government-regulated grid, in a building that was likely inspected by government inspectors to meet government safety standards, what the government does for you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's that government they were referring to.

I couldn't have said it better.

Mate: Become the Man Women Want - A Book Reveiw

If you are a single man you may have been interested in the many books available that promise you more and better dates, more and better relationships, more and better sex. Many fall into two common genres: The Pickup Books by the members of the Pickup Artist Community (PUA) or the Woman Tells All (WTA) books. PUA books are bullshit and manipulative, and will leave you angrier than you started. The WTA books are simplistic - they are typically by one woman who claims to be letting you in on the secrets of the female mind. Well unless the author is Sybil, all she is telling you is about her mind. (And if she is Sybil, you don't want to know about hers!)

Mate, written by Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller, is far broader, deeper, and wiser. Tucker Max is an author and humorist who's books about his adolescent drinking and sex binges were written as humor, not as how-to. Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist from Stanford. Together they have written a book that gives solid advice on relationships for men of all ages and situations.

For those of you not familiar with your writer, I am a 57 year old single man living in the Austin area. I have been married and divorced twice, the first for 22 years and the second for 2 years. I have been single for 2 years and dating for 9 months. I received a BS in Chemistry (the physical kind not the relationship kind - drat) from Notre Dame and then studied medicine at the UTHSC San Antonio for 3 years before deciding on a consulting career in IT as a security architect. Having a technical background, I tend to favor and appreciate books that approach relationships from a medical, psychological, evolutionary basis.

And Mate does so in spades. Mate takes a 5 step approach to mating success. And from a scientific perspective, that is what dating, male-female relationships, and sex are all about, mating. As a single male, going out to hunt babes is exactly what males of all species have been doing for millions of years. Mate helps you understand how and why things happen the way they do so that you can shape your self, your appearance and your behavior for the best possible mating outcome. Mate explains the five principles of mating success:

• Making Decisions With Science (Not Bias)
• Account For The Woman's Perspective
• Own Your Attractiveness
• Be Honest (With Yourself And Others
• Play To Win-Win

The book then translates those five principles of mating success into a five step program:

1. Get Your Head Straight
2. Develop Attractive Traits
3. Display Attractive Proofs
4. Go Where The Women Are
5. Take Action

Some parts of the book were a complete eye opener for me. For example, in the section on the Second Principle of Mating Success: Account For The Woman's Perspective, the book gives both evolutionary and modern treatment of:

• why women evolved to have certain sexual concerns and preferences, given how prehistoric mating evolved;
• why women feel anxious and vulnerable to sexual harassment, stalking, rape, STDs, unwanted pregnancies and slut-shaming;
• why women seek different sexual experiences and relationships under different conditions with different guys, from hookups to boyfriends to husbands;
• why women value some key attractive traits in men, such as physical health, mental health, intelligence, willpower, kindness and protectiveness;
• why women value some key proofs of mate value in men, such as social success, material success, aesthetic style and romantic commitment;
• where women go to meet men, and how the supply and demand market works in these mating markets.

The authors do a great job of trying to help men understand why women behave the way they do in the mating market. And that is just Principle Number 2 of the 5 Mating Principles, and the mating principles make up the introduction. The 5 Steps make up chapters 1 through 21 of the book.

Chapter 17: Meeting The Woman You Want talks about where to go to meet women. And the authors start off with Bars and Clubs. Why? The standard place that men think they should be able to go to pick up women is a bar. And the authors explain why that is the worst place possible for men and women to meet. Women feel anxious and vulnerable about being molested. What do bars offer men? A set of drunken, sexually frustrated men, some looking for a fight, in a crowded, chaotic, noisy environment and a bunch of women, some irritable, some tipsy, anxious about being hit on by frustrated men and ready to reject them in a public display. And from the female perspective, women value their physical safety, the power of female choice, and social safety. What does a bar offer them? A dark, exposed environment with few places to hide; little protection from stalking or harassment; a jostling crowd of male strangers, many looking for hookups, with a bunch of female rivals and acquaintances to compete with who are watching who goes home with home to take note of and gossip about.

The idea that bars are great places for men and women to meet goes against all principles of human biology and psychology.

Chapter 15: Find the Right Mating Market lays out a methodology to determine the best mating market for you using OkCupid. That means country, city, neighborhood, school, job, etc. While you might not think about moving, might not be able to move, it might help you figure out your priorities. It will at least show you your options. And the chapter does a great job of explaining the mating market in terms of economic theory.

I heartily recommend Mate. It is, by far, the best dating book I have ever read for men. It will help men of all ages, from college to retirees. And the style is vastly humorous, without the science becoming overly technical. Unlike many dating books, this one covers all the bases and in depth in every one.