New V.A. Dental Lab Contract is Bureaucratic Comedy

The Veteran’s administration dental programs are known for slack and under quality work. U.S. dental labs that process dentures, partial dentures, crowns and other products for the V.A. need sign a five-year contract for that work. The new contracts are a complete 96 page joke that few dental labs are likely to be willing to sign. The Federal Government seems to be against small business.

The trouble is that the contract criteria seems to have been written by an aloof, uncomprehending bureaucrat without a clue about the state of U.S. dental labs. There are just 3000 or so remaining because much of the work was offshored to China that uses fast courier services like Fedex for quick turnaround. Most of the U.S. dental labs are small operations with one or four employees.

Obama era changes put 250 U.S. dental labs out of business. Now it appears that Trump era changes are set to put more out of work in an effort to force corporatist (Mussolini invention) consolidation on U.S. dental labs so a few large labs subordinate to global plutocracy can take over. Democrats are as guilty as Republicans in building up neo-socialist corporatism.

https://www.amazon.com/Unconscious-Civilization-John-Ralston-Saul/dp/0684871084

The new contract has a zilllion conditions that many or most U.S. dental labs couldn’t comply with if they wanted too. For instance…

Each lab must have two fully qualified and certified technicians.

Each lab must be open 7:30 to 4:30 every day

Each lab must be located within 30 miles of the V.A. in some states like that might not work because of distances that need be traveled without dental labs near a V.A.
Dental labs must drive to the V.A. themselves to pick up models or provide courier service

Fedex and other pro courier services are not allowed

Lab contractor must have full digital construction capability (though the V.A. may not themselves)

Denture repairs must be completed within 4-6 hours the same day, picked up and delivered by the lab

Only federal holidays may be taken by the lab- no vacations

etc.

The stuff goes on for 96-pages.

It would be a good idea for the V.A. to use credit cards and pay for piecework at the same rate as ordinary dentists. It would be simpler and far more efficient to pay for what they need, The V.A. should deliver their own work to dental labs and pay for it when complete- that way dental labs actually would get paid for their work. Maybe V.A. work could be done by civil dental labs with a 10% discount off person-on-the-street price.

It seems to me that the federal government has moved over the years toward transferring costs to the civil sector with user fee increases while cutting taxes on the most rich (who now have a lower tax rate than the middle class).

China is Disgusting in Support of Censorship and Civil Repression

The Chinese reaction to a simple tweet of support for Hong Kong protests against cruel and unusual authoritarian laws that would arrest and relocate victims in Hong Kong to distant mainland judicial venues for incarceration and possibly torture is getting worse; they have demanded that Daryl Moore- the offender in Houston Texas, be fired. Plainly President Trump should find some spot in his administration to place potential Ambassador Moore should he want to delegate some of his N.B.A. duties and serve the people of the United States more directly. Maybe the KC Chiefs should hire Colin Kopernicus to replace Patrick Mahomes while he is injured.

https://qz.com/1730643/china-asked-nba-to-fire-daryl-morey-for-hong-kong-tweet/

The Chinese authoritarian government is swelling in its maleficent desire to repress free speech and civil dissent globally in accord with its prosperity dumped by Apple Corp and other western investor. Those people will sell out anything for a profit in fulfillment of Lenin’s comment that the capitalists will sell us the rope communists will hang them with. The proper place for despotic oriental servility is China- not Houston Texas; remember the Alamo.

Determinism and Free Will

Free will and determinism, or pre-determinism exist in different paradigms that aren't mutually exclusive in actualization. That is there are theological and cosmological paradigms as well as the practical actualization of will.

  One may plainly think and then act upon the thought on a practical level. One has a few degrees of freedom of motion to act, and some freedom to think (if the boom box isn't too loud and you are trying to make some complex calculation), few degrees of freedom to move if bound and gagged.   If God is omniscient then he knows everything in every possible Universe and configuration, so in that sense it is necessarily pre-determined for God, and the will of people though free is pre-determined or determinate and not free to be other than what it must be.  

Tegmark’s Level 4 or 5 Universe has a different paradigm; every universe that possibly can exist does, and each though any individual has switches his consciousness to the static universe corresponding to the thought he has. The physical Universe don't change in their dimensional configuration, it is the thought that changes corresponding to the right space-time coordinates in each possible Universe. That is the past, present and future of every Universe already exists.

That is something to think about with such great complexity in stellar evolution for example. Maybe the complexity problem can be resolved with quantum computers, or since the foundation of Tegmark’s Universe is pure, abstract math (maybe built up like Leibnitz’s monadology or strings). A pure math Universe is closer to being like a Universe of Universes existing within the mind of God constructed with protocols of spirit.

On Totalization impacting free will.

People already shut down freedom of expression. Corporatism tolerates nothing in conflict with corporate interests preponderantly. The recent China-N.B.A. issue was a case in point; corporatism and communism each repress free speech. The Democrat Party and socialists tend these days to want to force things there way through any means legal or quasi-legal that work. Anyone antipathetic may find a kind of hate speech in any language-perhaps becoming easier with increasing power. Search engine stuff may be downgraded so nobody finds it; or the writer banned from social media platforms, an employee terminated, a web page closed down. Nothing new in the mill town wanting total political control to support its interests. The new thing is that the world is being totalized incidentally through global networking.

Impeachment Recall Campaign and Low Albedo

Democrats are still wasting time trying to impeach President Trump with a Soviet-style in camera secret committee inquisition while people are putting up heat absorbing asphalt parking lots and buildings. The least the fake environmentalist Democrats could do would be to pass a bill with tax breaks for high albedo construction including parking lots and roofs in order to help reduce global warming increase.

People in the north sometimes tear up perfectly good reinforced steel concrete parking lots to replace them with heat absorbing asphalt so they can reduce parking lot snow removal costs. That leads one to wonder- why not just asphalt over Alaska and Siberia too in order to increase heat absorption and make the world a nice room temperature of 90 degrees f (lol)?

https://earthsky.org/earth/atmospheric-co2-record-high-may-2019

A Note on Separation of State and Church

When government controls a religion and has a state religion history shows that it is bad. Because wicked people eventually take over governments, even if only for a while, it is better to have a separation of state and church. Adolph Hitler and Germany of the Reich era had an official church and people like Karl Barth left it, or wouldn't join it. Not even Christians agree on correct doctrine not uncommonly, imagine if President Trump, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders made the theological decisions as leader of the Church of America.

State churches aren't good for either Christians or secular citizens. I would say the Church of England is somewhat poor on theology and discipline. England led the way on homosexual marriage and the Anglican Church of Canada put a heavy price on native Canadian children. With a state church theological pursuit of truth is limited to what the state wants. The U.K. has religious pluralism though it has the Church of England. There are still Catholics and other protestants. I am not a fan of royalty or authoritarianism; some people are. 

The Roman Empire divided with the state church of the Eastern Empire at Constantinople. The schism led to the eventual sacking of Constantinople by crusaders and the later conquest by Turks and more war. I can easily imagine a different course of development for Christian history under different circumstances; the secular and political condition shouldn't really decide how Christians form ecclesiastically. I like a priesthood of believers church structure rather than a patriarchal structure.

 If government is able to influence religion that works badly for the church and freedom in general-even in the secular world. Sin in the world in Europe and North America would emerge as a certain percent of the population regardless of the relationship of government to the faith community. It was the government-the-US Supreme Court, that forced sin on the nation (homo marriage), reflecting elite desire for sin and populist sales.

Russia May Be Able to Support Kurdish Security

President Trump may have walked a tightrope in switching off support for Kurds, Syrian Christians and Alawi of Syria deftly last week. Americans were alarmed about the abandonment of the Kurds that appeared to occur overnight. 

It may be that Russia's entry into the Syrian ground game in a substantial way may offset Turkish aggression and defeat efforts from various players to make Syria a Sunni kingdom. A vast Sunni kingdom stretching from Africa to Europe would need to crush quite a few bodies to establish and undermine the security of Israel and others.

I have no idea what interest Russia has in Syria. Siberia and the North Shore is probably a much better place aesthetically.

Since Russia is no longer a Trotskyite communist nation aspiring to take over the world it might not be a bad thing to have Russia providing Syrian security at their expense instead of other foreign powers. The Shi'a have a problem with the Sunni now and then, and a secure somewhat neutral multi-religious Syria may  not be a bad thing at all concerning the suppression of sparks of sectarian conflict.

President Trump did not secure a lasting homeland for the Kurds in the region, yet the Syrians and Russians may provide part of one in exchange for the support of Kurds as Sunni themselves to defend against various Sunni elements that would like to destroy the Syrian government and establish a Sunni Syria. If the Kurds become victimized in mass then President Trump should assume responsibility in part and relocate those that care to move, to the U.S.A.

One must wonder what secret diplomacy occurred through unknown channels between Russia and President Putin. Apparently the Democrats hadn't any whistle-blowers listening in to the call.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/15/russian-troops-take-over-key-u-s-outpost-syria-after-withdrawal/3985962002/

Is There a Doomsday Clock for Global Warming?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a doomsday clock for nuclear war for decades. The minute hand has been at two minutes to midnight for several years too, I believe. The trouble with going full-tilt for panic too soon is that one can't get closer without resorting to Eleatic micro and pico-second intervals. If people establish a Doomsday clock for Global Warming it should not be at the panic place initially- give a little space to take note of worsening conditions.

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

Maybe these guys;The Union of Concerned Scientists have published a doomsday clock somewhere.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-warn-nine-climate-tipping-points-now-active-could-threaten-the-existence-of-human-civilization/

https://blog.ucsusa.org/peter-frumhoff/global-warming-fact-co2-emissions-since-1988-764

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/06/29/global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-set-new-record/#434893a743a9