Good and Bad

Why some companies can do great things while others...

Google announced the purchase of 407 Megawatts of wind power from MidAmerican Energy (a Berkshire Hathaway company). Likewise, they've invested heavily in both wind and solar around North America. To date, they've poured more than $1,000,000,000 (with a "B") into renewable energy, not to mention their $2B Nest purchase which will inevitably evolve to a demand response / efficiency powerhouse. 

They didn't have to. They could have acquired cheaper power to drive their data centers. -- power derived from Coal and Oil and Natural Gas -- but they didn't. They chose the more expensive version because it is just better for the world (and their brand).

I guess that's why some companies are bad companies, most companies are good companies, but every now and then there comes a truly great company: a human endeavor with a mission to make things better for everyone. 

Gives one hope. 

That and they have a really good search engine. 

Vaccinations

Why is this a debate?

We know that vaccines just plain work for their intended purpose (80% efficacy for Chicken Pox, right around 100% for the others, including elimination of truly awful diseases like Polio). So what's the other side of the debate that drives all the heat and emotion? 

It's my understanding that the autism question has been asked and answered as not related by repeated studies since the initial falsified study. The toxicity of the preservatives has been studied by WHO, FDA, and Institute of Medicine and found to not pose a safety risk, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) rates have continued to rise since use of the suspected culprit (thiomersal / thimerosal) ceased. We know the Wakefield/Lancet/McCarthy thing has been refuted a few times now. We know that an army of acronyms have subsequently searched for a connection and found none.

I reviewed the side effects for MMR/MMRV, DTaP, Polio, Meningococcal, Varicella, and a couple others at the CDC's website, and I didn't see one that outweighed either statistically or otherwise, the benefit of not contracting the target ailment. So while I can appreciate the fear of the unknown in anything, including vaccines, I have trouble seeing how the benefit of 100% protection against highly contagious and life-threatening diseases that pose individual AND public safety risk wouldn't every time outweigh the possibility that there is some as yet unidentified problem with the prevention mechanism. 

Am I missing the other side completely? Is there another dimension of risk that the collective health establishment is hiding from us beyond the listed side effects? I'm asking about this in the context of today, after the understandable concerns from 10-15 years ago have been studied and addressed. I'm asking why there is a Measles outbreak in Canada, where that disease was eradicated 20 years ago. I'm asking why we're hearing of Mumps cases in the US where it was eradicated years ago. I get why we're hearing of Polio in war-torn countries like Iraq and Syria where basic medical care took a back seat to dodging artillery, but Measles in Vancouver where MMR is free? 

I've heard the arguments about skipping childhood vaccinations being a "personal choice." I've heard the arguments that the anti-vaccine community should be left alone as they intend no harm to anyone.  

The problem is the logic. It's not just a personal choice -- that decision affects other people. There are people who cannot get vaccines either because their immune systems are compromised or because they are simply too young (most doctors won't give MMR until a child is at least 12 months old). Those vulnerable groups count on others to be inoculated to create herd immunity / inoculation by proxy. 

The problem I have with the "well-intended" argument is that nobody of sound mind has the "intent" to do harm with communicable disease. Whether one group "intends" to harm the other is scientifically irrelevant. Intent isn't a vector, and lack of intent isn't an inoculation. I can intend to not give my next cold to my wife, but that intent and $2.50 will get me a cup of coffee and nothing more. 

I can find statistics on the efficacy of MMR and company. The numbers tell a story for me. I am still open to understanding the other side of the debate, but I'd like to see some numbers. I have trouble with nebulous assertions around unknown risk of undefined nature when compared to published facts (admittedly sourced through google, so feel free to correct). On the Pro-MMR side, let's just take the first "M" where I have seen: Near 100% immunity against a disease with a 90% infection rate and a 0.3% mortality rate in the US, closer to 20-30% in developing world. On the Anti-MMR side, I saw one citation of life-threatening reactions in <0.0001% of vaccinations. That's a .27% bad-outcome chance vs. a 0.0001% bad-outcome chance. No contest.

We all agree that the preservatives of 15 years ago have been both removed and shown as non-toxic and that the ASD connection is a fallacy, so that's not an issue and will be no longer discussed. 

There are also less severe reactions to both the disease and the vaccine that should be considered. For example, 1-in-6 (18%) chance of fever after vaccine vs 1-in-1 (100%) chance of fever after infection. 1-in-20 (5%) chance of mild rash after vaccine, 1-in-1 (100%) chance of rash after infection. 1-in-3000 (0.033%) chance of single-event seizure after vaccine, vs 1-in-20 (5%) chance of pneumonia after infection and 1-in-1000 (0.1%) chance of encephalitis (which can cause convulsions, brain damage, etc.). Are there other numbers I'm not considering?

With those types of numbers, the only case in which a parent would feel better off skipping vaccines is if they somehow believed their child was more likely to be the 1 in 100,000 than to be 1 in 2,700, and while math skills aren't what they used to be in North America, I still have a hard time believing there are too many parents who would make that mistake.  

Business

Some comments on business news today

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed SB 1456 allowing Utilities in Oklahoma to request to add a surcharge to utility bills for customers who opt for Distributed Generation like rooftop solar panels, local generators, or even personal wind turbines. 

In a society where we continually wrestle with the environmental and geopolitical impacts of our current energy strategy -- Hydraulic Fracturing, Air & Water Pollution from Coal and Oil, Fukushima recovery, Climate Change, Foreign Oil, the Oil Sands extraction drama -- and the high costs of changing course -- lost jobs, higher prices, shareholder returns -- why would we burden a promising yet nascent alternative approach to energy with an additional cost just as it has become economical enough to attain market success? It's one step forward and two steps back. 

I understand the utilities need to update their transmission and other facilities to deal with DG and net metering and all the associated complexities. I understand that the economics of their original rate cases didn't account for Distributed Generation so they need to make up for that, but even in the monopolistic, hyper-regulated world of the utilities industry, at some point regulators and politicians need to stop overtly obstructing innovation in favor of protecting the IOU shareholders. 

Darwinian economics must take over at some point, and giving the utilities a way to generate revenue from someone else's product that customers purchase specifically to avoid sending money to the utility in the first place is just plain backwards and defeats the principles of a market economy. 

SB 1456 effectively states that if you as a customer find a way to save $20/month on your electric bill through DG, then we are going to have you pay some of that savings back to the electric utility because they didn't plan for the possibility that you might not use enough of their electricity. What's next, charging customers for turning off their lights?

Obama's Legacy

Obama's Legacy

Every President -- even the bad ones -- are great human beings both astoundingly successful and influential and servants at their core. Some rise above the rest to the pantheon of greatness. Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Washington. 

From Reagan to Bush 43, recency polarizes esteem through partisan pollution of objective evaluation, and the focus of historical context has yet to fully resolve. 

Despite the red-shifting of currency, diligence mandates introspection for all of us, and inspection of the President. 

So, where does Obama fall on the spectrum of greatness? Will he be remembered as the man who 

• ended Iraq war,
• draw-down in afghanistan,
• provided healthcare for all Americans, 
• expanded gay rights, 
• ended torture, 
• oversaw the stimulus,
• saved the US auto industry,
• Killed UBL,
• supported the Arab spring, and 
• led recovery from the worst financial crisis since saddle shoes were formal attire, 

or will he be remembered as the man who 

• co-served with the least effective Congress in the history of the nation, 
• presided over the largest national debt in history, 
• allowed the Syrian conflict to rage on for years, 
• abode fast and furious and IRS targeting of conservative groups and NSA spying on Americans and Benghazi and Solyndra,
• launched more drone strikes in sovereign lands than Bush 43, and 
• presided over two of the largest security leaks in the country's history with Snowden and Manning? 

Geopolitics

The News

I've been overwhelmed with the urge to comment on everything in the news recently. Not wanting to irritate all my facebook friends with the more serious and opinionated fare, I have turned to the enduring form of blogging. I suspect nobody will read this, which is just as well.

Some thoughts and questions.

1.     Let's not bomb Syria. 

o   What Assad did was horrific, but a US-led bombing isn't going to help anyone or solve anything. 

o   Why does it have to be the US anyway?

o   I don't see a bomb run going well for US PR in the region or for Israel, so, what's the long game here? 

o   If Cheney were still President I'd wonder if it was a ploy to sell more military contracts.

2.    I love that an African American sits as President as we celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech. 

o   A concept lost on no one, but worthy of mention and celebration just the same.

3.    Can we stop this talk of impeaching Obama and repealing the Affordable Care Act? 

o   Honestly, it's playground politics. Knock it off. Stop playing to the basest of ego-driven emotions. You lost. Wait 4 years and try again.  

o   Are people actually getting votes by standing on a platform of reverting to 40 million uninsured Americans?

§  Do people really believe the argument that it costs more to insure those 40 million than it does to pay for their emergency healthcare when they show up at the hospital with no insurance? 

§  I assure you the hospitals and insurance companies maintain the exact same profits either way, so the money is coming from somewhere -- either from each of us in higher premiums or from each of us in higher taxes. Zero sum, kids. Move on.

o   I'm quite sure there will be much more on this topic in future posts

4.    Please stop it with support for Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. 

o   I often advocate nuanced interpretation over polarizing black and white, but I do believe some things are sacred and the end cannot justify the means in such cases: 

§  Torture is bad, and people who do it should go to jail

§  All people are equal, and people who violate that should go to jail

§  Government Secrets should be secret, and people who violate that should go to jail

o   I heard people calling in to NPR and lamenting the 35 year (8 until parole) sentence for Manning as too long.

§  The man released Secret material to parties not cleared to see it. 

§  That's illegal. 

§  That's not negotiable. 

§  Why is this a discussion?

§  He is not a "whistleblower." 

§  He is a criminal and arguably a traitor.

5.    I think there should be a FCC mandate on grammatical correctness during TV commercials and newscasts as well as any article associated with a reputable news source. 

o   If our children are going to learn from TVs, the folks on TV have certain moral obligations.

§  I just challenged myself to prove my point, I clicked on the main headline from cnn.com, and I didn't read past the first sentence before finding a grammatical error

§  (CNN) – The international effort to respond to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria begs the question: Why intervene now, and not earlier in the civil war?

1.     Did we really need that extra comma?

§  Fox News offered a slightly less problematic first sentence in its top headline story with the run-on

§  The rumblings on Capitol Hill are starting to get louder as to whether the Obama administration has a clear endgame for a military strike on Syria, as the likelihood increases of such a strike in response to last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack.

§  Washingtonpost.com apparently has proofreaders

Next time: More stuff.