Father's Day
Happy Father's Day to my Dad. In a society where fathers are becoming more and more absent, I'm realizing what a great blessing from God my Dad was to me and my siblings. I would not be half the man I am without him in my life.
Iran
On the one hand, I understand why everyone in the West is upset with the Iranian government for how they're handling the recent election and the post-election protests. It is not right to have a vote and to say that people are electing the next president (sort of a #2 leader in the country) and then rig the vote to ensure that one man is guaranteed to win. The handling of the protests also is quite wrong. Opening fire on peaceful protesters and generally trying to stifle the voice of the opposition is wrong on every level.
On the other hand, I'm also not surprised at what is happening. It is quite in keeping with the nature of dictatorships, such as the one in Iran, that elections are rigged or manipulated as needed to establish who the powers-that-be want as legitimate. Protests are, of course, squashed as quietly as possible. And when quite calming doesn't work, there's always the aggressive tactics that we're starting to see. China has used such an approach for years, and we're seeing something similar in this situation.
These protests, I fear, are going to do very little, unless the military refuses to obey the Ayatollah's orders and organizes a coup to throw him out. That is not likely to happen.
I'm disappointed in the response of our President to this whole situation. He seems to be convinced that he can negotiate with Iran and have good relations with them. They have clearly indicated the opposite, and even if they started being nice to us, I fear that it would only be a part of some elaborate deception on their part. They do not trust the United States and have not ever since they deposed the American-backed Shah in the 1970s. No amount of playing nice now is going to change how they see us. We are seen as an evil country, and that is not going to change as long as Iran remains a theocracy.
Health Care
I am scared at what I'm hearing about the health plan being proposed by the Democrats in Congress. To force every American to carry health insurance is not going to do anything to address the real problem in the health care industry: spiraling costs. These spiraling costs result from many factors, one of them being the addiction of American medicine to technology for diagnoses and another being the fear of malpractice suits if every avenue isn't exhausted. Congress can't do much about our technology-obsessed society, but they can do something about the malpractice suits. There needs to reform in how medical malpractice suits are handled. I don't have any specifics because I am not knowledgeable enough in law or medicine to know what to suggest, but I do know that there are some proposals that could work. I would far rather have that than be trapped into a government-run health care program, which will be the eventual outcome of a program such as the Democrats propose.
Weather
Central Kansas had some brief tornado touchdowns yesterday, a brief burst of late-season tornadoes. Tornado season is nearly over for Kansas for the Spring. As the summer progresses (it technically began today), the middle atmosphere is going to become too warm to allow for thunderstorm development on a regular basis, hindering the development of tornadoes.
That's All, Folks!
I have no more random thoughts to write right now. So there!
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