Thanks to a Scam

 

   I am alive today thanks to a scam of the pharmaceutical corporations.  The big dollar pharmaceuticals no longer need test tubes.  My drug costs Medicare $195,125.74/yr., or $534.59/pill/day.  It works just fine, thank you, it has kept me alive since 2019.  I have the presently incurable disease called chronic lymphocyte leukemia.  The drug Imbruvica, sold by Abbvie, is the maintainer of my existence.  But, why so expensive?  Well, the short story is the drug was developed by Celera, who sold the sales rights to it to Pharmacyclics for $3 million (hopefully a fair profit for a job well done).  Pharmacyclics sold to Johnson & Johnson for $975 million, multiplying the cost of the right to sell the product by 325.  Abbvie saw an opportunity there and paid $21 billion for the sales rights.  This purchase raised the cost of selling the drug by 7,000 times.  Too bad Medicare and I couldn’t have bought the drug from the developer, Celera.  Your feckless government is aware of this and your representative is ready to say, “I stand up for my voters and place them right behind me.”  The process described here will destroy Medicare.  It won’t be there for your children or your children’s children.  There is no reason to believe the pharmaceutical scam isn’t widespread and growing.  Greed above all.  “Gold rules!”  In the long run the pharmaceutical corporations are destroying their golden goose, in the short run they have unearned profits and extreme wealth.

   Is it the duty of your government representatives to protect the public from horrendous corporate greed?  In our free market economy it seems not.  When your government is employed by corporations, not voters, the democracy is no longer functioning.  Another example of our reaching this point is an 85%, bipartisan vote of our Senate to approve an annual military budget, 20 billion dollars larger than last year’s budget and larger than the next 10 nations in the world’s combined military budgets.  This is a military that stays home when Putin is marching.  We are willing to fight any nation in the world, if they don’t have nuclear weapons.  We proved that in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Putin tried to imitate our actions in Iraq in the Ukraine, but it won’t work in the long run, just as our adventures didn’t.  Putin has realized that we won’t fight if the use of Nukes is threatened and he becomes free to take any action.  This will be a problem for Russia and The US down the road.  Perhaps nukes were never a promise of peace for the future.  I guess it will be the task of thinking people to create a system of sustainable world peace.  We won’t do it with ever expanding annual military budgets and nuclear arsenals.  We also need to take a hard look at a Senate that can’t come up with other than a 50/50 partisan vote on healthcare, education or infrastructure but comes gleefully together for a gargantuan annual military budget.  Why do you think this is?

   “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw

  Cheers, Old Buz     4/24/2022

Iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

Lost in Translation

   A good friend of mine ends his emails with a quote from Confucius, “The essence of knowledge is having it to use it.”  My first reaction to the quote was the statement does not show wisdom.  It shows a misunderstanding of the word essence.  I understand essence to mean the deep meaning or root meaning of a word.  A basic meaning, found below a common definition.  Many words can be substituted for the word knowledge in this quote.  Try the words a hammer or a saw and the quote is equally inaccurate.  Confucius is honored with wisdom lasting over twenty-five hundred years.  To be fair to Confucius, he never spoke these words.  The words he spoke were in Chinese and therein lays the problem.  It is in the translation.  The Chinese translation for essence is benzhi and translating it back to English, the first word choice is nature.  The Chinese translation for knowledge is zhishi and translating it back to English, the first option is understanding.  Now we have a more reasonable quote, “The nature of understanding is having it to use it.”  Or, I might say, “Knowledge without understanding cannot be put to reliable use.”  The meaning of any translation is in the hands of the translator, be it written or verbal.

Remember this while reading a bible:

“The essence of a quotation is often lost in translation.” – Jesus of Nazareth (Spoken in Hebrew.)

Cheers, Old Buz     4/21/2022 

"To Russia With Love"

   “As you sow, so shall you reap.” – King James Version of the Bible, Epistle to the Galatians, 6:7.  This blog is probably the last place you would expect to see the Bible quoted.  But this concept is the essence of a properly functioning justice system.  That just system does not take place on our planet.  To the greedy goes the wealth.  To the selfish goes the power.  “No good deed goes unpunished.” – Satire, but too often true. 

  Each day on the news I see the death and destruction that the Russian military is bringing down on Ukraine.  The people of the Ukraine did nothing to earn this.  It is one man’s decision, Vladimir Putin.  He pretty much stands alone.  This is obvious from the photo of him at one end of a thirty foot table, with his advisors grouped at the other end.  There was no popular desire in Russia to annihilate a small neighboring country.  The resulting deaths are young Russian men and Ukrainians of all description.  War is insanity.  So in our imaginary just world, what should Putin reap?  The answer is fairly obvious.

   The obvious solution needs to take place within Russia.  If it comes from the United States or any other nation, it may well precipitate a world war.  More unnecessary deaths of innocents.  Russia needs to put their own mad dog down.  Hopefully a person of greater wisdom would replace him.  They couldn’t possibly do worse.  With a satellite guided surgical drone strike by the US this could easily be accomplished, but again, that isn’t an ideal solution.  No, a Russian patriot needs to step up and save their nation.  The Russian action in Ukraine has already gone way too far.  No reparations can repay that little nation adequately.  But Russia can try.

  I have stated in an earlier blog that “There are no perfect solutions in this imperfect world.”  All that we have available to us is the best solutions.  The killing of a human being seems never to be justified, but in this case it may be the best solution to halting an unpopular insanity.

  To the Russian Avenger (hero), “Put on your cape and off to the sky.” And if you die, it will not have been in vain.  Long live Russia.

Cheers, Old Buz, Patriot of the Planet        

 

Dear President Vladimir Putin,                                                                                   March 26, 2022

You have lived a good life, but your recent decisions have cost countless innocent lives.  Stand up for Russia and lie down.  In your brave act of suicide with honor, you will save the life of a Great Russian hero, your would-be assassin and perhaps you will save the world.

Sincerely, Old Buz   iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com 

2 Political Parties

   Abraham Lincoln is known for the quote, “No one can fool all of the people all of the time.”  That fact is obviously why we have two political parties.  I am watching our US Senate hold confirmation hearings on the Biden nomination for a Supreme Court Justice, Katanji Brown Jackson.  My first reaction to the questioning by the Republican Senators was, “These men are racists!”  The subject matter of the questions seemed both unfair and irrelevant and pointed me toward that conclusion.  But I hadn’t thought it through.  These Republican Senators had little racist reaction in their confirmation hearings or votes on Clarence Thomas.  They wouldn’t even consider the appointment of Merrick Garland, a well-qualified, white, Democratic president’s nomination to the Court.  Their ill-conceived actions appear to be purely partisan.   Democratic Senators are more than capable of the same error.  Senators of both stripes act in the same manner and are equally ineffective in their outcomes.

   Our Senate is capable of rare bipartisan action.  They recently came together for an 85% approval of an annual military spending bill that was twenty billion dollars larger than the previous year and for a larger amount than the next ten military nations in our world, combined.  I know, I have mentioned this in a previous blog, but I think it bears repeating.  Our Senate is bipartisan when it comes to egregious military spending.  This is a problem for funding education, healthcare and infrastructure, some things that the citizens of the country benefit from.  The question becomes, what is required for the US Senate to come together in a non-partisan manner?  This question was answered by a very wise man, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” - George Bernard Shaw.                                                                                                                                                   

 This short tour would indicate that our Senate is a poorly designed, ineffective legislative branch of government.  The Wyoming teacher is much better represented than the California teacher.  The Senate is not related to population.  It is the state itself that is equally represented with two senators, regardless of the state’s population.  This fact alone destroys the concept of one citizen, one vote (equal representation).  Can you fix the inherent problems of the Senate?  Yes!  Get rid of the US Senate.  Call the House the Legislature and go to 4 year terms for its members.  While you are on a roll … outlaw political parties (puppeteers), lobbyists (bribery organizations) and political action committees (more of the same).  What would be wrong with an honest functioning government?  Could we live with that?  

Cheers, Old Buz     3/23/2022

curmudgeonsanonyous.com 

Son of God

   My mother was a married Jewish virgin and my father was The Lord of Israel.  Do you have faith in what I have just written?  You have no reason not to believe me …right.  After all, you are reading revelation not hearsay written from a story told a hundred years before.  And you Jews, stop laughing, you have your stories of Passover, Noah’s Ark and the first woman from the first man’s rib.  The point here is that there may be valid reasons to doubt religious tales and most of us do.

   We are seeing the fact that this belief in biblical “history” is generally doubted.  I am yet to see news of any group attempting to pray Putin out of Ukraine.  I think that most folks don’t believe that God actually injects Himself into human affairs.  They like to believe He does, but I don’t think they are being honest with themselves.  It is more effective to send anti-aircraft missiles to the Ukrainians than sending them God.  My nephew, a very intelligent man and an avid sports enthusiast, has told me that if he has a problem too large to handle, he turns it over to Jesus.  It is a good thing that he didn’t choose a career in the military, but then it is a good thing that I didn’t either. 

  We patriots do hand our moral rudder over to the steering of our political leaders.  I understand that 2/3 of the Russian people believe that Putin has a just cause in Ukraine.  I would guess that 2/3 of Americans believed that we had a just cause in Iraq.  “United We Stand.”  Folks (you delusional 2/3),  Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction.  Sorry Dick Cheney.  There was no legitimate reason to bomb the crap out of that nation and then install a puppet government.  Do you see any relationship between President Bush’s actions and President Putin’s present efforts?  I see little difference other than it was our military then and it is Putin’s military now.

   Awareness Guide:

“See what is plain to see.  Doubt if you don’t.” – Daniel

Cheers, Old Buz    3/9/22

iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

A Prophylactic for Putin

 

“There are no perfect solutions to the problems of our imperfect world.” – Old Buz

But we do need a prophylactic to curb Vladimir Putin in his efforts to fuck the planet.  Given that the man is crazy, but has a finger close to a red button, a sizable conventional military and dictates to a very large population … it needs to be well thought out, but don’t expect perfection.

   Let’s start with the down side.  Putin needs a win for his ego.  Given the sanctions, the Ukrainian resistance and world opinion, this war is not going as planned for Russia.  We can’t create a no fly zone over Ukraine or use our satellites and drone force to destroy Russia’s tank force for fear of escalating to the planet’s nuclear ending.     Let the Separatist portions of Ukraine be an independent nation.  They have had a civil war going there for 8 years.  Let them separate.  Putin can call it a win and pull back his “Peacekeepers” while saving face.  Ukraine can end their expensive battle with the Separatists.  I am not proposing handing this new nation to Russia.  I am proposing a small independent nation that may unite with Russia, if they wish to, or simply be allied with Russia.  This already is the case de facto, but it needs to be official and recognized by The UN in order to stop the pain.

   Do not put an immediate end to the Western economic sanctions of Russia.  Oil and gas sanctions need to be added.   There need to be painful results from causing pain to another nation.  Putin needs to be unpopular in his homeland.  He has earned that.  The next step is for our CIA to dust off its Jack Kennedy Play Book and prevent any future action from Putin.  I have always held that “The end does not justify the means”, but in this case it feels like putting down a mad dog will save millions of innocent lives.  A CIA operative in Moscow could get it done and a compliant Russian Cabinet might well go along.  They might just seal the evidence in Russian archives for 75 years.  It is sloppy, but it worked once.  It can work again.  Consider it a gift to civilization.  The guy is a lunatic with power.  Sounds familiar?    But, there is no functioning democracy to remove Putin.

   In time the world can lift the economic sanctions on Russia.  Russia can help to rebuild Ukraine.  A Russia that accepts the responsibility for Putin’s actions can be forgiven, just as the world has forgiven Germany for Hitler’s actions and Japan has forgiven America for its nuclear assault on two civilian populations.  Humans forgive.  These are problem times for our planet and again, “There are no perfect solutions to the problems of our imperfect world.”  We can only do our best.

Cheers, Old Buz     3/6/22

Iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

Patriotism 101

    There is a lesson to be had from the Patriots of Ukraine.  I guess there are many, but we need to start with one.  It was reported on the news this morning that the prices for groceries in Ukraine markets have not risen during the Russian invasion.  The lines outside of the large suburban grocery markets are long.  The demand for food is high and the supply is short, but prices are not rising.  This tells you that high demand and shortages do not necessarily cause price increases.  Greed needs to be present.  That grocery store is not experiencing higher costs, so they are not punishing a war-torn nation with inflation.  Their wealthy appear to be Ukrainian Patriots.

   Turn your attention now to the CEOs of American Oil Companies.  According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2020, Russia sent less than one per cent of their gas and oil production to the US.  We send more gas and oil to Russia than they do to us.  So, even with a war in Ukraine, there is no shortage of fuel in The United States.  Our oil companies will create the illusion of “blow back” and shortage in order to raise the price at the pumps and their profits, but it just isn’t so.  The oil companies determine the price and supply. You and your government have no say in the matter.  The same goes for the pharmaceutical companies and each of those industries prove it every day.  Inflation is ruled by industry.

   It would be good for the US to sanction Russian fuel sales, not because it would hurt Russia, but because Europe would follow and this would cripple the Russian economy.  With this hammer over Putin’s head he may pull out of Ukraine.  He needs to know that an invasion of Ukraine or any part of Europe will cripple his nation’s economy and make Russia smaller, not larger.   We need to make that “Light on the hill” burn a little brighter.

Cheers, Old Buz     3/2/22

Iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com