Christmas Fish
10 hours ago
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Ain't nobody here but us mushrooms
I try to keep my ear to the ground to hear what's coming my way. It's what a prudent prepared person tries to do. In recent months events have been moving fast and much of it in secret.
Take everything from the Trump presidency for example. There are all his personal problems that everyone knows about so I won't elaborate. Love him or hate him, there is much uncertainty because all the important stuff is happening in secret.
One of the big threats we have to watch for is the chance of war. Frankly, I'm not sure how serious things are with N. Korea, China, or even Russia over Syria. The point is, there is movement in the world's flash points and the average Joe lacks the intel to know what's up. One can only hope those in power have the intel and aren't just guessing their own selves.
Even simple things like health planning is up in the air. With the senate working in secret, it makes me just a tad nervous. When you are doing good things, you want everyone to know. When doing something massively unpopular, you work in secret. With that in mind, I'm guessing I won't like what comes out of that body of politicians.
It's a normal fact of life that we have to make decisions without knowing all the information. If you want to know everything, nothing will get done. We learn what we can then we take our chances. Lately I feel the ratio of knowledge to guesswork has gotten way out of balance. It makes me just bit anxious, not knowing which way to jump.
-Sixbears
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As a Weather Forecaster with 25 years in the Air Force, one of the problems we had to address with new forecasters is getting them to know when to pull the trigger and commit to a forecast. In the last ten years the amount of information available (at least in garrison) has become so vast that you could literally research and never find an end point. While the same can be said of political and world news, there is one difference, environmental data is very seldom "false news" or information knowingly altered to lead astray. While the political and world news is full of such stuff. The trick is to be able to spot the bad and value the true. I agree that much of what happens in this realm is not knowingly exposed to the public at large, I believe that enough is exposed to proved the careful observer enough data to make intelligent forecasts. With one caveat, It is a principle of forecasting that the global warning folks ignore: If your forecasts continually fail, then either your data is false (rarely happens), or your assumptions or formula are flawed (this is what usually happens, in weather and politics). People were so shocked when Trump won, yet for those who simply followed where the data led, instead of where the polls (misleading data) tried to push them.
ReplyDeleteMSG Grumpy
Good comment. One should never be afraid to question basis assumptions. What worries me is not what I get wrong, but what I get right. It's like nobody hates the weatherman when the day is nicer than expected. They aren't happy when a bad weather prediction is spot on.
DeleteBack at the height of the Cold War the data that is so useful to understanding our political and world events were labeled: "EEFI's" - Essential Elements of Friendly Information. These are the unclassified tid bits that when gathered together can reveal sensitive and meaningful information that would never knowingly be allowed to be revealed. We were given many examples of simple bits of information that could be used to compromise the mission, such as work schedule changes, preparations that are out of the norm and many others. In today's political and world affairs puzzles we could notice those things that change for no apparent reason as a possible "EEFI". Such as a political party that either changes an action, such as dropping an investigation or political talking point, or suddenly begins an investigation or new talking point with no indication as to why. One of the flags that mark "EEFI's" is changes on the political landscape.
ReplyDeleteMSG Grumpy
Thanks MSG Grumpy. Good insider info on how the intel process works.
DeleteJust curious - did you feel the same way when the Affordabe Care Act (2300 pages) was being created in total secrecy in the White House and we had to "pass it to find out what is in it"? Wasn't that a surprise for those who wanted to keep their insurance policy, keep their doctor and save $2500/year. This can only improve things and most certainly cannot make them worse.
ReplyDeleteI worried that big insurance had too much influence behind the scenes. What came out proved I was right. In short, yes, I was concerned then too.
DeleteIt appears that neither party is going to fix the problem. It's will get worse before it gets better.
Regardless of our own personal concerns, I think it's hilarious that the dems are all upset because the republicans have stolen a play from THEIR playbook. They simply HATE it when they get treated like they treat others.
ReplyDeleteThey all steal from each other's playbook. Different sides of the same coin.
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