Allen Vaught copies constituient’s email

I sent an email about the primary election to my neighborhood association. 16 days later, my Democrat state legislator Allen Vaught sent an email about primaries to his constituents.

Guess where some of his email came from? Compare snippets:

Aren Cambre’s Jan. 31 email Allen Vaught’s Feb. 16 email
What is the primary? It’s where YOU choose who represents your party at the fall election. The primary is the election in which you choose who represents your party in each race during the November general election.
You don’t register with a party. … You just show up and vote in either party’s primary. In Texas, you do not “register” with a party; therefore, you may vote in either party’s primary election.
You must vote in the primary to participate in the party’s convention process. You must vote in the primary to participate in that party’s convention process…

Imitation is sincerest form of flattery?

Both the emails are below in full. You’ll notice my email clearly inspired the highlighted part of his email.

Aren Cambre’s Jan. 31 email Allen Vaught’s Feb. 16 email
Neighbors,Feb. 1 is the last day to register to vote in the March 2 primary. Verify your registration at http://dalcoelections.org/voters.asp

What is the primary? It’s where YOU choose who represents your party at the fall election.

These should clarify some misconceptions:

  • You don’t register with a party. Texas has no concept of “registered Republican” or “registered Democrat.” You just show up and vote in either party’s primary.
  • This doesn’t bind your fall vote. For example, if you vote in the Democrat primary, you can still vote for Republicans in the fall election.
  • You can vote in either party’s primary. Here’s where it can make a difference: If you believe that one party will win a particular office, then that party’s primary is when the race is effectively decided.
  • You don’t have to make a selection in every race. You can vote on all races, zero races (blank ballot), or anywhere in between.
  • You must vote in the primary to participate in the party’s convention process. In our precinct (2230), the Republican and Democrat precinct conventions generally start at 7:30 PM at the polling location.

Register to vote, and hope to see you at our polling location on March 2!

Aren Cambre, President
Lake Park Estates Neighborhood Association, Inc.
A 501(c)(4) nonprofit

 Dear Friends:Election time is upon us again and I would like to encourage you to vote. I have included some information in this email which I hope will help you cast an informed vote.

March 2nd is the Primary Election for both the Democratic and Republican Parties. The primary is the election in which you choose who represents your party in each race during the November general election. There are many candidates on the ballot all the way from precinct chairs to the Governor.

In Texas, you do not “register” with a party; therefore, you may vote in either party’s primary election. Regardless of which party’s primary you vote in, you may vote however you would like in November. You must vote in the primary to participate in that party’s convention process, which usually takes place around 7:30 pm directly after the close of voting on March 2nd at your precinct’s polling location.

Sample ballots for each party’s primary are located here: http://www.dalcoelections.org/march22010/index.asp.

For more detailed information on the candidates that you may be voting on please see the following websites:

Dallas County Republican Party         http://www.dallasgop.org/candidates

Dallas County Democratic Party        http://www.dallasdemocrats.org/election/2010/candidates

Dallas Morning News Voters Guide http://www.thevoterguide.org/v/dallas/race-index.do

You may vote early during the following dates and times:

Tu-F   Feb 16-19        8:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.

Sat       Feb 20             7:00 A.M. – 7:00 P.M.

Sun      Feb 21             1:00 P.M.  – 6:00 P.M.

M-F     Feb 22-26        7:00 A.M. – 7:00 P.M.

Early voting locations may be found on the Dallas County Elections website, located here:  http://www.dalcoelections.org/march22010/EVLocations.htm

Election Day is Tuesday, March 2nd from 7am – 7pm. You must vote in your voting precinct on election day. If you are not sure where to vote, more information may be obtained by contacting the Dallas County Elections Department (214) 819-6300 or by visiting their website at www.dalcoelections.org.

I encourage you to cast an informed vote because as you know, our democracy rests upon the act of voting.

Respectfully,

State Representative Allen Vaught

House District 107

USPS quadruple fail

USPS screwed up part of my son’s birthday. My mother sent him an overnight package, but USPS failed four times:

  1. Took 3 days to deliver the overnight package.
  2. Demanded a signature even though my mother marked the “WAIVER OF SIGNATURE” box and signed appropriately.
  3. Claimed to have left a notice (that I needed to pick up the package personally), but in fact declined to do so.
  4. Never re-notified me that the package was waiting. I finally found out because my mother asked me about it. I was able to call the local post office 2 hours before they would have returned it as undeliverable.

Go to http://usps.gov and check on package EH45 2451 528U S if you want to see this incompetence for yourself.

I say privatize and de-unionize the USPS and let it sink under its own massive debt. And deregulate first class mail delivery. Of course, Democrats will oppose this because government largesse and union intransigence are their job security.

In case you think I’m being vindictive, de-unionization would be the biggest gift we could give the USPS as it would create a competitive advantage over heavily unionized UPS and FedEx.

The Lancet, research, future of journals, and global warming

I am listening to a podcast of A Shot of Reality on NPR’s On The Media’s Feb. 5, 2010 show.

The host is interviewing Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, a British medical journal recently made (in)famous for feeding the vaccine/autism hoax.

The editor says The Lancet must be more careful in the future.

Translation: more of The Lancet‘s future articles will support the status quo. This will reduce hoaxes, but it crowds out legitimate alternative theories.

Are academic journals even relevant? Whatever relevancy they have is mainly because the research community is clinging to an outdated model. And let’s don’t forget these wickedly expensive journals have their own fiscal incentive to perpetuate themselves.

Research is living and constantly evolving. Why then rely on a content delivery method that can only create frozen, dead documents? Where corrections require new, frozen documents? This is silly.

Some say if we don’t have journals, we effectively lose the peer review process because respected academics aren’t the gatekeepers. Hardly. Wikipedia’s not perfect, but it shows that a completely open model, that even allows anonymous editing, can produce highly reliable information. Services like the Educause-sponsored academia.edu show it shouldn’t be hard to limit involvement just to the research community–not to the “select few” researchers but the entire community. This increases veracity by at least an order of magnitude.

Richard Horton said that Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the originator of the fraudulent research, was respected politically and academically for years, and his words were taken as “gospel truth.”

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Doesn’t this sound like James Hansen, Al Gore, IPCC, etc.? All of whom deliver polemic research so political, agenda-driven, and error-full that people are stating to question the scientific basis of global warming?

Jack Wheeler’s ignorant health care reform proposal

I just found out about some Jack Wheeler dude who writes for To The Point, an “oasis for rational conservatives.”

He claims that a Republican senator asked for his health reform proposal. Too bad it’s remarkably ignorant.

Here’s my off-the-cuff analysis I shared with some Republican activists:

This is a colossally ignorant proposal.

“There are an estimated 10 to 20 qualified applicants for every vacancy available in U.S. medical schools.” Hogwash! Having known several applicants to medical schools, there are plenty of spots for qualified applicants. Even if many don’t get in, the simple answer is there isn’t enough capacity, so of course med schools are going to choose the best and brightest. I want to see more evidence of some conspiracy before I buy into this. Otherwise you’re diluting the quality of doctors.

I know some people at a major 4 year university who would love a med school partly because of the tidal wave of research dollars. But setting up a med school, especially when your university has no attached hospital, is so incredibly difficult as to possibly derail the rest of the university’s agenda.

“Why is there no shortage of chiropractors?” Because very little of chiropractic is medically proven. I prefer spending money on things that work, and I’ll best most Americans are the same way. I support your right to purchase ineffective treatment, but I oppose proposals like this that would legitimize it.

“For an average stay in a hospital, fifty to seventy-five percent of the charges are due to administrative costs.” No freaking way. One of his few concrete examples is “big, expensive” computer systems that are disproportionately expensive for little firms. As an IT professional, I can say this is categorically false. True, larger firms could have lower per capita IT costs, but that’s how almost anything works with efficiencies of scale.

“Three: Eliminate State Mandates and Regulatory Barriers on Health Insurance” Supposedly conservatives believe in the 10th amendment. Now reversing this stance? Sorry, can’t have it both ways. If you don’t like the policies, fight it on the state level. Don’t propose a whole new federal program.

“Four: Give Health Care Providers A Tax Credit For Charity Work [people who don’t/can’t pay for medical services]” Huh? Since when can’t businesses deduct losses?

“Restore the 100% Deductibility of Health Care Expenses” We already have that for the most part. Premiums are not taxed, and FSAs and HSAs fill in most the rest of the gap. It’s not perfect, but it covers a lot of the expenses for smart planners. And any amount spent over 7.5% of your income is deductible.

“Six: Reduce Malpractice Insurance Costs” Wow, you’ve unearthed 1% of health care expenses! WAY TO GO! (Note: it is a legitimate issue, but it’s not going to do much.)

“Seven:  Repeal the Kefauver Amendment” Most stupidity. This will legitimize ineffective drugs and drive up health care expenses for everyone. Say “hello” to insurance rate increases so it can pay for Dr. Simpson’s Healing Tonic snake oil!

“Eight: End the FDA’s War on Nutritional Supplements” The war is against quackery, like Linus Pauling’s vitamin C megadose hogwash or harmful supplements like ephedra.

Research is increasingly questioning the benefit of vitamin supplements. Also, our bodies are programmed by millions of years of evolution. The vast majority of us run fine on a balanced diet. There is no supplement concoction that makes a night-and-day difference in quality of life for the vast majority of humans who eat a reasonable diet.

Furthermore, he is using a straw man argument. There is no FDA campaign against vitamins C and E and selenium, but yet he invokes exactly that concept in the next paragraph.

“Nine:  Remove Government Restrictions Regarding the Importation of Foreign Drugs.” Guess where much of their drugs come from? There’s a reason it’s called “RE-importation.” And there’s not an infinite supply. If we seriously pursue this strategy, all that will happen is countries will prohibit drug exports to the US to preserve their cost structures. We need to instead examine and address problems with US drug policy that allows a 2-tiered system where we pay far more for drugs than the rest of the first world.

So let me loop back: should we allow importation of safe, effective drugs? Yes. Should we say it’s the fix to our excessive prescription drug costs? Heck no. We have to address the problem at its root.

“Ten: Allow the Purchase of Non-Controlled Medications Without Prescriptions” OK, this is about the dumbest idea in the stack. A great example is everyone will then start taking antibiotics without cause, and we’ll end up with a sicker population and more multidrug resistant bacterial infections. Oh, and health care costs will go up.

This is remarkably ignorant from a guy who claims to have a PhD.