Malcolm Cutchins: Forecasters keep blocking weather maps

I have several New Year’s resolutions to suggest: 1) for TV weather forecasters — I will not stand in front of the weather maps this year; 2) for radio and some TV stations, and those who prepare material for them — we will repeat the exact same advertising spots only 1,000 times this year instead of the usual 10,000; and 3) for political and football-coach analysts — we will only tell what is true.

One more suggested resolution, for 30-plus- year-old football coaches — I will no longer call time outs an instant before the opposing 18-to-19-year-old non-pro kicker executes a field goal try. (It is interesting to note that the Utah head coach did not call a timeout an instant before an Alabama field goal try in the Sugar Bowl, unlike his opponent’s head coach had done in a prior game.)

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Recently, Canadian author and cultural commentator Mark Steyn reported that a Canadian citizen (covered by Canada’s socialized medical system) who was expecting multiple births was unable to get a place in a maternity ward, not only where she lived, but anywhere in Canada. She came to Montana to a town of 50,000 in order to receive medical services. Talk about a modern day version of “no room in the inn.”

Steyn further noted, “If you think medical care is expensive now, wait until it’s free …  There are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than in all of Canada.” In Britain’s socialized medical care system, cancer patients do not receive significant care like they do here in the U.S. “until the cancer metastasizes” (spreads elsewhere in the body). Obese patients are refused various types of needed surgery as a matter of routine.

As we look forward to 2009 and beyond with many citizens hoping for better healthcare, the impending financial problems with Medicare and Social Security will be another hurtful reminder of poor government policy gone awry. If we add more welfare (disguised as “tax cuts”) and continue to print huge sums of bailout money to these unsolved financial problems, the future damages both to individuals and to our country’s economy may far exceed what we have seen in 2008. Could these be federal government Ponzi schemes where citizens invest (through taxes) to eventually find out there’s nothing there?

Bernie Madoff will likely go to jail for his Ponzi rip-off of $50 billion from investors. Unfortunately, those mostly responsible for our much larger current financial mess, Senators Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and earlier promoters of poor loan policy, will likely retain their power and even be hailed as heroes by many Democrat-friendly reporters. Why, they are even being assigned other financial systems to “fix.”Ironically, $50 billion may be “small potatoes” in comparison to the real costs of un-fixed perennial federal programs.

Choices that are made that are wrong (not based on sound principles) are not harmless. They will come home to roost and hurt the one who made the choice and many others around him.

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.