Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Over 200 strangers...
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Where the wealthy Americans live...
Another stands out for its association with a large number of people who make their living by taking from their fellow Americans: Washington, D.C. It's the largest concentration of wealthy areas in the entire country.
That pretty much sums up my problems with our government right there...
Progressive bubble in action...
Progressive bubble in action... Yesterday I drove “down the hill” to have lunch with a couple of friends (at Siam Nara, most excellent!). On the way there, I listened to NPR for a while, until I heard this: an interview with a business reporter for NPR in Texas, opining on why businesses were starting to relocate from China to Texas – in particular, why Texas more than any other state.
That report twisted himself into pretzels to avoid giving the real reasons: Texas' business-friendly regulatory environment, low taxes, and large number of well-educated and willing workers. Instead he cited things like climate (and he lives there!), the Houston seaport, and proximity of natural gas production. It's clear that the reporter had either never talked with an actual business decision maker, or had ignored everything he heard. Doesn't fit the narrative, you know...
I turned off the radio.
That report twisted himself into pretzels to avoid giving the real reasons: Texas' business-friendly regulatory environment, low taxes, and large number of well-educated and willing workers. Instead he cited things like climate (and he lives there!), the Houston seaport, and proximity of natural gas production. It's clear that the reporter had either never talked with an actual business decision maker, or had ignored everything he heard. Doesn't fit the narrative, you know...
I turned off the radio.
Quote of the day...
Governor Jerry Brown ought to be canonized as the patron saint of hopeless environmental causes.Hah!
Iran's nuclear marathon...
Iran's nuclear marathon... Bret Stephens, writing at the Wall Street Journal, on why the French had to be the adults at the bargaining table with Iran (an excerpt):
... But it's mainly an example of failing up—the Washingtonian phenomenon of promotion to ever-higher positions of authority and prestige irrespective of past performance.2016 sure seems like a long way away, doesn't it?
This administration in particular is stuffed with fail-uppers—the president, the vice president, the secretary of state and the national security adviser, to name a few—and every now and then it shows. Like, for instance, when people for whom the test of real-world results has never meant very much meet people for whom that test means everything.That's my read on last weekend's scuttled effort in Geneva to strike a nuclear bargain with Iran. The talks unexpectedly fell apart at the last minute when French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius publicly objected to what he called a "sucker's deal," meaning the U.S. was prepared to begin lifting sanctions on Iran in exchange for tentative Iranian promises that they would slow their multiple nuclear programs.Not stop or suspend them, mind you, much less dismantle them, but merely reduce their pace from run to jog when they're on Mile 23 of their nuclear marathon. It says something about the administration that they so wanted a deal that they would have been prepared to take this one. This is how people for whom consequences are abstractions operate. It's what happens when the line between politics as a game of perception and policy as the pursuit of national objectives dissolves.The French are not such people, believe it or not, at least when it comes to foreign policy. ...
Not only inane, but willfully fraudulent...
Not only inane, but willfully fraudulent... Steve McIntyre notes a scientist's scathing indictment of nutrition research. Much of what that scientist (Edward Archer) has to say about nutrition science applies directly to climate science, which I'm sure is Steve's unstated point. From Archer's editorial in The Scientist:
Don't miss Steve's last line – it's a hoot!
Perhaps more importantly, to waste finite health research resources on pseudo-quantitative methods and then attempt to base public health policy on these anecdotal “data” is not only inane, it is willfully fraudulent… The fact that nutrition researchers have known for decades that these techniques are invalid implies that the field has been perpetrating fraud against the US taxpayers for more than 40 years—far greater than any fraud perpetrated in the private sector (e.g., the Enron and Madoff scandals).Ouch. Certainly that applies just as well to climate science.
Don't miss Steve's last line – it's a hoot!
Faster than Legolas!
ObamaCare debacle update...
ObamaCare debacle update... Because what would your morning be without it?
26 year old Katrina figures out ObamaCare is screwing her.
Surprise! Obama administration stonewalls investigation into ObamaCare web site disaster.
Time to start considering ObamaCare's worst-case scenarios. Because, you know, those are starting to look like the likely scenarios...
3% - that's how close not-so-close the state ObamaCare exchanges came to their enrollment target numbers. Sheesh.
Hope is all that ObamaCare has left. So says Megan McArdle, as she lays out some of the possible scenarios over the next few months. It ain't purty...
I just enrolled for COBRA extension through next July, when my eligibility for it runs out. That means I have great health insurance (my former employer's plan) through that time. At this point I have no idea what comes after that ... but I'm hoping that something will have settled out of this mess before then...
26 year old Katrina figures out ObamaCare is screwing her.
Surprise! Obama administration stonewalls investigation into ObamaCare web site disaster.
Time to start considering ObamaCare's worst-case scenarios. Because, you know, those are starting to look like the likely scenarios...
3% - that's how close not-so-close the state ObamaCare exchanges came to their enrollment target numbers. Sheesh.
Hope is all that ObamaCare has left. So says Megan McArdle, as she lays out some of the possible scenarios over the next few months. It ain't purty...
I just enrolled for COBRA extension through next July, when my eligibility for it runs out. That means I have great health insurance (my former employer's plan) through that time. At this point I have no idea what comes after that ... but I'm hoping that something will have settled out of this mess before then...
Facing the reality of stage 4 colon cancer...
He and his family could use the support and prayers of all of us. A donation to his fund-raising effort would be appreciated, I'm sure...
Dog Goldberg...
Monday, November 11, 2013
What big projects has the government ever done well?
What big projects has the government ever done well? And in less time than ObamaCare had for their website? Here are four well-chosen examples – well-executed despite having huge bureaucracies associated with them. Of course, these “projects” had, like real leaders associated with them...
Yay, IRS...
Yay, IRS... Just think: the ObamaCare bureaucracy will be hundreds of times bigger than the IRS. From Reason's Hit & Run blog. The lede:
Here's the good news: the Internal Revenue Service believes it's not handing out quite so many billions of dollars to identity thieves as it used to. Yay, IRS. Your government at work: hectoring you about your supposed obligation (and even delight!) to cough up the goods to Uncle Sam while handing out free money to con artists. And the feds are still doing their best to prove that crime does pay. The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says the latest figures have the IRS paying out $3.6 billion in bogus tax refunds in 2011.Oh, goody. Every time I mentally estimate the federal bureaucracy's impact on my future healthcare ... I start wondering what other options I have for a place to live...
Mark Steyn's 2001 Veteran's Day essay...
Mark Steyn's 2001 Veteran's Day essay... It's an excellent piece that I'd not seen before, as I didn't know about Mark Steyn in 2001. Here's a sample:
Actually, most Americans are already "aware" of their veterans, it's the elites who need reminding — like the chaps at The New York Times and other big papers who carry (by my estimation) less than a tenth of the military obituaries Britain's Daily Telegraph does. True, NBC's star anchor, Tom Brokaw, has found himself a lucrative franchise cranking out books about "The Greatest Generation" — the World War Two generation — but Brokaw's designation is absurd and essentially self-serving. The youthful Americans who went off to war 60 years ago would have thought it ridiculous to be hailed as "the greatest". They were unexceptional: they did no more or less than their own parents and grandparents had done. Like young men across the world, they accepted soldiering as an obligation of citizenship, as men have for centuries. In 1941, it would have astonished them to be told they would be the last generation to respect that basic social compact.
They understood that there are moments in a nation's history when even being a teenager is about standing up and declaring who you are by wearing a uniform. When we — their children and grandchildren — ennoble them as "the greatest" and elevate them into something extraordinary, it's a reflection mainly of our own stunted perspective.
The Montana ranchers wanted to see this for themselves!
The Montana ranchers wanted to see this for themselves! Via my mom:
Nancy Pelosi called Harry Reid into her office one day and said, "Harry, I have a plan to win back Middle America in 2014!"I think this is actually quite unrealistic. There's no way those ranchers would have missed the real meaning...
"Great Nancy, but how?" asked Harry.
"We'll get some cheesy clothes and shoes, like most Middle Class Americans wear, then stop at the pound and pick up a Labrador retriever. Then, we'll go to a nice old country bar in Montana and show them how much admiration and respect we have for the hard working people living there."
So they did, and found just the place they were looking for in Bozeman, Montana with the dog in tow, they walked inside and stepped up to the bar.
The Bartender took a step back and said, "Hey! Aren't you Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?"
"Yes we are!" said Nancy, "And what a lovely town you have here. We were passing through and Harry suggested we stop and take in some local color."
They ordered a round of bourbon for the whole bar, and started chatting up a storm with anyone who would listen. A few minutes later, a grizzled old rancher came in, walked up to the Labrador, lifted up its tail, looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked out.
A few moments later, in came another old rancher. He walked up to the dog, lifted up its tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and left the bar.
For the next hour, another dozen ranchers came in, lifted the dog's tail, and left shaking their heads.
Finally, Nancy asked, "Why did all those old ranchers come in and look under the dog's tail? Is it some sort of custom?"
"Lord no," said the bartender. "Someone's out there running around town, claiming there's a Labrador Retriever in here with two assholes!".
A disabled Iraq war veteran needs a suitable home...
A disabled Iraq war veteran needs a suitable home – his town provides...
Life with animals...
Life with animals... So this morning I was doing all my morning “animal chores”. There are quite a few, and I'm on my own (Debbie is in Indiana helping care for her mom, who is recovering from a fall and broken leg). We have an ancient cat that needs special care, nine other cats (some of whom also need some special care), four dogs that need walking and attention, and the hummingbirds that we feed.
As I was mixing up another batch of “hummingbird juice syrup” (concentrated sugar syrup with a little color), I heard a sound out in our hallway. It's a sound that any cat owner knows well: that special “pre-retching” sound that immediately precedes the forcible, high-velocity ejection of either a hairball or a partially-digested meal (cats do this a lot for some reason). I knew I had only seconds to act, and that the best I could hope to do was to move the cat to an easy-to-clean surface before the mess erupted.
So I ran into the next room, and quickly located the cat. It was Maka Lea, our sweet little guy with psycho-motor problems, who has no idea he's handicapped. But that's not why I located him quickly. What gave him away was the four dogs. All four muzzles were within an inch of Maka Lea's mouth. The four dogs and one cat were arranged in a perfect five-pointed star, all heads at the center. Doggie tails were wagging, and doggie faces were excited about the “treat” they knew was immediately forthcoming.
Sure enough, before I could get there, Maka Lea blew chunks (of the partially-digested cat food variety) at high velocity. Very little of this hit the ground – four attentive dogs with their amazing tongues and gaping maws made a very efficient and hyperactive collection system. What few tiny particles escaped and hit the carpet were soon dispatched by multiple passes of eager canine tongues. The dogs' initial expressions of pleasure and satisfaction soon turned to disappointment, when they figured out that their warm food dispenser was empty.
Maka Lea walked (to the extent that his form of locomotion can be called “walking” – it's really more like wobbling) to the water fountain and had himself a nice drink. He looked quite happy, even pleased with himself. The four dogs headed back to their doggie beds, happy for the unexpected treat, but disappointed that there wasn't more.
I can't even find the spot on the carpet where this happened...
As I was mixing up another batch of “hummingbird juice syrup” (concentrated sugar syrup with a little color), I heard a sound out in our hallway. It's a sound that any cat owner knows well: that special “pre-retching” sound that immediately precedes the forcible, high-velocity ejection of either a hairball or a partially-digested meal (cats do this a lot for some reason). I knew I had only seconds to act, and that the best I could hope to do was to move the cat to an easy-to-clean surface before the mess erupted.
So I ran into the next room, and quickly located the cat. It was Maka Lea, our sweet little guy with psycho-motor problems, who has no idea he's handicapped. But that's not why I located him quickly. What gave him away was the four dogs. All four muzzles were within an inch of Maka Lea's mouth. The four dogs and one cat were arranged in a perfect five-pointed star, all heads at the center. Doggie tails were wagging, and doggie faces were excited about the “treat” they knew was immediately forthcoming.
Sure enough, before I could get there, Maka Lea blew chunks (of the partially-digested cat food variety) at high velocity. Very little of this hit the ground – four attentive dogs with their amazing tongues and gaping maws made a very efficient and hyperactive collection system. What few tiny particles escaped and hit the carpet were soon dispatched by multiple passes of eager canine tongues. The dogs' initial expressions of pleasure and satisfaction soon turned to disappointment, when they figured out that their warm food dispenser was empty.
Maka Lea walked (to the extent that his form of locomotion can be called “walking” – it's really more like wobbling) to the water fountain and had himself a nice drink. He looked quite happy, even pleased with himself. The four dogs headed back to their doggie beds, happy for the unexpected treat, but disappointed that there wasn't more.
I can't even find the spot on the carpet where this happened...
Sunday, November 10, 2013
In diddly squat pose...
The inspiration was a recent Steve McIntyre post, and the cartoonist is Josh. Steve posted the cartoon as well.
As usual, click on the thumbnail to embiggen...
Up in arms...
THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERSIt's an interesting premise, attractive for it's simplifying potential, and the accompanying map (at right) has it's own fascinations. But I don't think it stands up under even a cursory critical examination.
If the premise was accurate, you'd expect to find relatively homogenous gun laws within each of the areas delineated on his map – the elected officials in those areas should reflect the views of their respective electorates. I found no such thing; instead, the best correlate to gun laws seems to be population density (which matches my own subjective experience).
The Guardian (a U.K. paper!) had the single easiest source of information I found, in a very nice interactive graphic. Some other good sources, with much more detail, are here, here, and here. I don't know a good way to visualize data as complex as these, but it's clear on browsing through it all that there isn't any “shape” to the data that resembles Woodard's map...
Tesla fire...
Tesla fire ... from the owner's perspective. Tesla has published a letter from the owner of the latest Tesla to make the news because it caught fire. Here's the end of it:
I am thankful to God that I was totally uninjured in any way from this impact. Had I not been in a Tesla, that object could have punched through the floor and caused me serious harm. From the time of impact of the object until the time the car caught fire was about five minutes. During this time, the car warned me that it was damaged and instructed me to pull over. I never felt as though I was in any imminent danger. While driving after I hit the object until I pulled over, the car performed perfectly, and it was a totally controlled situation. There was never a point at which I was anywhere even close to any flames.You'd never get this side of the story from the news – this isn't nearly as exciting as promoting the idea that Tesla's cars are likely to roast their passengers. It's just another example proving the point that news organizations aren't about news, they're about attracting eyeballs to advertising – more like entertainment than purveyors of truth or fact...
The firemen arrived promptly and applied water to the flames. They were about to pry open the doors, so I pressed my key button and the handles presented and everything worked even though the front of the car was on fire. No flames ever reached the cabin, and nothing inside was damaged. I was even able to get my papers and pens out of the glove compartment.
This experience does not in any way make me think that the Tesla Model S is an unsafe car. I would buy another one in a heartbeat.
Juris Shibayama, MD
The final toast...
Thinking about Doolittle's Raid always sends shivers through me. The courage of these men is almost frightening to contemplate. I salute them...
Viva la France!
Apparently the other representatives there would, including John “seared into my memory” Kerry. They were all ready to make the agreement.
There's a bit of irony here, as Kerry is a well-known francophile. In this case, he seems to be even more French than the French!
I'm hoping that Fabius keeps his pugnacity and his backbone, and doesn't cave into the appeasement sentiment. The sanctions against Iran are causing them enough pain to get them to the bargaining table. A few more months of sanctions might get them seriously to the bargaining table...
Tax cuts are like sex...
Tax cuts are like sex; when they are good, they are very, very good. And when they are bad, they are still pretty good.I could hang with this guy :)
Evans’ law of inadequate paranoia: No matter how bad you think something is, when you look into it, it's always worse.
Liberals don't care what you do as long as it's compulsory.
One of the things that happens to you when you get old, really two bad things, one of them is that you lose your hearing, and I forget what the other one is.
After wage and price controls, Watergate was like a breath of fresh air.
His writing reminds me a bit of Ann Coulter. More quotes at the link...
Aging animals...
Debbie and I have a little animal geriatric ward of our own. We have a 22 year old cat (Tippy) who's struggling and needs lots of care – he's got pancreatic problems, so he's on a diet of “chicken shakes”: roasted chicken breast blended with no-sodium broth. We have another cat (Bootie) who's about 21 years old and doing ok, and two ancient field spaniels (Mo'i and Lea) who are both doing just fine. We lost our oldest cat (Pana) earlier this year...
Some perspective on the ObamaCare debacle...
Some perspective on the ObamaCare debacle... Via reader and Lawson Valley neighbor Marisa S.:
Yup.
March 21st 2010 to October 1 2013 is 3 years, 6 months, 10 days.As she says: “This says it all...”
December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945 is 3 years, 5 months, 1 day.
What this means is that in the time we were attacked at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered is not enough time for this federal government to build a working webpage.
Mobilization of millions, building tens of thousands of tanks, planes, jeeps, subs, cruisers, destroyers, torpedoes, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, ammo, etc.
Turning the tide in North Africa, Invading Italy, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Race to Berlin - all while we were also fighting the Japanese in the Pacific!!
And they can't build a webpage.
Yup.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
A prayer...
A prayer... Via my mom, who hasn't been near a church in a long, long time, so this must be from someone else:
In church I heard a lady in the pew next to me saying a prayer. It was so sweet and sincere that I just had to share it with you:
Dear Lord, This has been a tough two or three years. You have taken my favorite actor Patrick Swayze. My favorite musician Michael Jackson. My favorite Blues Singer Amy Winehouse. My favorite actress Elizabeth Taylor. And now my favorite singer Whitney Houston.
I just wanted you to know that my favorite politicians are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.
Amen
Profound thoughts...
Profound thoughts... From a collection my mom sent me. This is one of her favorites. The rest I'm saving for a slow day...
Cosplay...
ObamaCare debacle update...
ObamaCare debacle update...
Another unforced error. Obama's announcement freezes the individual healthcare market. That's my source for insurance!
ObamaCare champion...loses her healthcare policy. Schadenfreude alert!
If only Stalin knew ... code. Obama's revealing “tells” in his “apology”.
ObamaCare encourages divorce. Is there anything ObamaCare can't do?
The ObamaCare IT is a security disaster. Not just the website, though it is definitely a big part of the problem.
ObamaCare is causing a surge in MediCare enrollments. If that keeps up, the already-shaky economic underpinnings for ObamaCare will completely disintegrate. There's a long, complex story there with a simple summary: your taxes are going up. A lot.
The Rise of the ObamaCare Scams. As if ObamaCare weren't bad enough all by itself!
Another unforced error. Obama's announcement freezes the individual healthcare market. That's my source for insurance!
ObamaCare champion...loses her healthcare policy. Schadenfreude alert!
If only Stalin knew ... code. Obama's revealing “tells” in his “apology”.
ObamaCare encourages divorce. Is there anything ObamaCare can't do?
The ObamaCare IT is a security disaster. Not just the website, though it is definitely a big part of the problem.
ObamaCare is causing a surge in MediCare enrollments. If that keeps up, the already-shaky economic underpinnings for ObamaCare will completely disintegrate. There's a long, complex story there with a simple summary: your taxes are going up. A lot.
The Rise of the ObamaCare Scams. As if ObamaCare weren't bad enough all by itself!
European anti-Semitism is on the rise...
European anti-Semitism is on the rise... A survey of European Jews is the source for this assertion.
I saw a little of this on several of my trips to Europe, most especially when I traveled outside the major cities (as is my wont). A couple of times (once in France, once in Italy) store clerks asked me if I was Jewish (I think because of my blond hair and beard, and my extra-large sized Scotch nose probably contributed). In Italy, I queried the business associate I was traveling with – an Italian – about why someone would even ask such a thing. He explained that had I replied in the affirmative, the store clerk would quite likely have asked me to leave the store, as they would be “ashamed” to have a Jew be seen there. If I had refused to leave, most likely the clerk would refuse to serve me. He went on to say that the local Jews (this was in Milan, and there is a local Jewish community there, with a number of synagogues) all knew which shops and restaurants they were unwelcome in – and that there were a lot of them.
Any Jew with even a cursory knowledge of 20th century European history should be very worried about this. There are plenty of places they could go without such problems and their attendant risks...
I saw a little of this on several of my trips to Europe, most especially when I traveled outside the major cities (as is my wont). A couple of times (once in France, once in Italy) store clerks asked me if I was Jewish (I think because of my blond hair and beard, and my extra-large sized Scotch nose probably contributed). In Italy, I queried the business associate I was traveling with – an Italian – about why someone would even ask such a thing. He explained that had I replied in the affirmative, the store clerk would quite likely have asked me to leave the store, as they would be “ashamed” to have a Jew be seen there. If I had refused to leave, most likely the clerk would refuse to serve me. He went on to say that the local Jews (this was in Milan, and there is a local Jewish community there, with a number of synagogues) all knew which shops and restaurants they were unwelcome in – and that there were a lot of them.
Any Jew with even a cursory knowledge of 20th century European history should be very worried about this. There are plenty of places they could go without such problems and their attendant risks...
Syrian activist wants Assad to win...
Syrian activist wants Assad to win... Because the alternative is an Islamic state, as the revolution has been taken over by al Qaeda. The Middle East is such a muddled mess that it's rare for me to know who to root for. The only real clarity I have is with respect to Israel – the rest of the countries there are so screwed up that I'm not optimistic about a “solution” ever being found...
Chinese time-lapse photography compilation...
I've never been to mainland China, and I don't know if I'll ever go – but some of the scenes here tempt me. What I see here is at loggerheads with the China of my mind, which is formed by childhood impressions and an extensive reading of Chinese history through Nixon's visit. The change in China within my own lifetime is stunning; nearly beyond belief. When I was young, millions of Chinese died of starvation and privation, thanks to Mao's personality cult. Now billions of Chinese are prospering, and yearning for more. It's one of the world's most heartening stories, and it's still unfolding...
The Drift Toward Despotism...
The Drift Toward Despotism... Yesterday I linked to an article about a horrible police stop in Deming, New Mexico. Today Mark Steyn used that same incident as the lead to his piece The Drift Toward Despotism:
At a time when over 4 million people have had their health insurance canceled, it’s good to know that some Americans can still access prompt medical treatment, even if they don’t want it. David Eckert was pulled over by police in Deming, N.M., for failing to come to a complete halt at a stop sign in the Walmart parking lot. He was asked to step out of the vehicle, and waited on the sidewalk. Officers decided that they didn’t like the tight clench of his buttocks, a subject on which New Mexico’s constabulary is apparently expert, and determined that it was because he had illegal drugs secreted therein. So they arrested him, and took him to Gila Regional Medical Center in neighboring Hidalgo County, where Mr. Eckert was forced to undergo two abdominal X-rays, two rectal probes, three enemas, and defecate thrice in front of medical staff and representatives of two law-enforcement agencies, before being sedated and subjected to a colonoscopy — all procedures performed against his will and without a valid warrant.Now go read the whole thing...
Alas, Mr. Eckert’s body proved to be a drug-free zone, and so, after twelve hours of detention, he was released. If you’re wondering where his lawyer was during all this, no attorney was present, as police had not charged Mr. Eckert with anything, so they’re apparently free to frolic and gambol up his rectum to their hearts’ content. Deming police chief Brandon Gigante says his officers did everything “by the book.” That’s the problem, in New Mexico and beyond: “the book.”
Getting into the spirit of things, Gila Regional Medical Center subsequently sent Mr. Eckert a bill for $6,000. It appears he had one of what the president calls those “bad apple” plans that doesn’t cover anal rape. Doubtless, under the new regime, Obamacare navigators will be happy to take a trip up your northwest passage free of charge. That’s what it is, by the way: anal rape. The euphemisms with which the state dignifies the process — “cavity search” — are distinctions that exist only in the mind of the perpetrator, not the fellow on the receiving end.
ObamaCare debacle update...
ObamaCare debacle update...
Only 22% of uninsured Americans intend to buy insurance on the healthcare exchanges. What a success!
ObamaCare is running out of bullets. Megan McArdle on the dearth of rabbits left for Obama to pull out of his hat...
The ObamaCare dozen. The debacle is starting to get Democrat incumbents worried about their re-electability. Seriously worried. Time to get out the popcorn!
Only 22% of uninsured Americans intend to buy insurance on the healthcare exchanges. What a success!
ObamaCare is running out of bullets. Megan McArdle on the dearth of rabbits left for Obama to pull out of his hat...
The ObamaCare dozen. The debacle is starting to get Democrat incumbents worried about their re-electability. Seriously worried. Time to get out the popcorn!
Mystery symbols, demystified...
This morning I stumbled across a table of mathematical symbols on Wikipedia, which I've now bookmarked as a useful resource...
40 maps that explain the world...
GOCE is falling! GOCE is falling!
N2YO has a nifty real-time tracker. As I write this, GOCE is 108 miles high, and will pass almost directly over my head in about an hour (screenshot at right; the little red dot is where I live)...
Great newspaper corrections...
Great newspaper corrections... The traditional newspaper correction notice is (or at least, used to be) something of an art form – for some reason, most especially in the British press. The Listener, out of New Zealand, has collected some of the best. Here's one example, from the London Sun:
In an article on Saturday headlined ‘Flying saucers over British Scientology HQ’, we stated ‘two flat silver discs’ were seen ‘above the Church of Scientology HQ’. Following a letter from lawyers for the Church, we apologise to any alien lifeforms for linking them to Scientologists.Hah!
Geek: Say what?
Commodore PET ... web server?Now geeks of a certain age (those old enough to have used a computer in 1979 or 1980) will certainly recall the Commodore PET. It's a 6502-based all-in-one computer. The model 4032 (pictured) tempted me back then, as it was relatively inexpensive, decently constructed, and had a lot of software available. But the business I had back then was more or less locked into the Z-80 processor and CP/M “operating system”, so I never did take the plunge.
Back when the PET was made, there was no such thing as the Internet, web sites, TCP/IP (at least, not outside of ARPA), or even networks. So how on earth could there be a web server on a PET?
It turns out there is still a very active PET community, though these days it's more like a group of antique tinkerers. But to my surprise, there are still companies (tiny ones, I suspect) making new hardware for PETs – such as this internet modem. That's a bit like retrofitting a J-5 rocket engine onto a horse-drawn carriage – I'm sure the processor running that modem is many thousands of times more powerful than the PET's puny little 6502. The modem is running all the networking, including the protocol stack all the way up to HTTP. That means the Basic code to implement the “web server” is pretty simple:
10 open2,7,2,"listen:80"
20 open7,7,15
30 print#7,"n-s:2"
40 input#7,a,b$,c,d
60 if d=0 goto 30
70 print#7,"c-i:2"
80 input#7,a,b$,c,d
90 printb$
100 print#2,"<html>"
110 print#2,"<head>"
120 print#2,"welcome to a commodore pet 4032 web server!"
130 print#2,"</head>"
140 print#2,"<b>welcome to the"
150 print#2,"world's first"
160 print#2,"web server running"
170 print#2,"on a commodore pet 4032!"</b></html>Friday, November 8, 2013
Stay calm, dad...
Miniature couches and 5 day old puppies...
I'm not the only one...
I'm not the only one... Dr. Joy Bliss, writing at Maggie's Farm, shares my thinking about what to do with the American healthcare system...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... Today it goes to Ann Althouse, writing on her eponymous blog about the ObamaCare debacle:
It's like a medieval torturer complaining to his victim about how difficult it is to use pilliwinks while the thumbscrews are on backorder.Hah!
This doesn't make me feel any better at all...
This doesn't make me feel any better at all... And it certainly doesn't actually, like, do something about the problem:
President Obama said Thursday that he is "sorry" that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promise that no one would have to give up a health plan they liked.Enough with the apologies, keep-your-plan breath. Fix the damn thing, or lead the charge to get rid of it!
"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he told NBC News in an exclusive interview at the White House.
"We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."
Pink armadillos?
Depression rates around the world...
Pricing signals work!
Pricing signals work! Some years ago now, power companies started variable pricing on their electrical power. They charge more per kilowatt-hour during peak usage periods (like the hot afternoons), and less during off-hours (like early in the morning). This differential can be very large, 3:1 or more depending on where you live. Worse, the differential is increasing – power companies have “discovered” it as a source of price increases that can be sold as discouraging power use, making the greenies happy.
That pricing difference got people thinking about how to get around it. Who wants to buy expensive electricity, if they could get it cheaper? It's not like the expensive electrons are any shinier, or more glamorous – they're precisely the same, just more expensive. The issue is more of a problem for some kinds of businesses (like hotels), where they really have to use the electricity, and they use a lot more than homeowners.
The whole thing boils down to when you buy the electricity. If you could buy it at night when it's cheap, store it, and they use the stored power in the afternoon – why then you'd win, wouldn't you? That's exactly what these folks have done, at a scale that works for a hotel. There's no reason I can think of why something like this wouldn't work at a homeowner's scale, either – so I expect to see it one of these fine days.
Of course, then the power companies will have to come up with a new way to extract money from us. If they were actually unregulated and competitive, this would all sort itself out – but since they are highly regulated in all 50 states, the result will quite predictably be a big hairy mess. What precise flavor of a big hairy mess it will be, I don't know. But I don't think it matters all that much...
That pricing difference got people thinking about how to get around it. Who wants to buy expensive electricity, if they could get it cheaper? It's not like the expensive electrons are any shinier, or more glamorous – they're precisely the same, just more expensive. The issue is more of a problem for some kinds of businesses (like hotels), where they really have to use the electricity, and they use a lot more than homeowners.
The whole thing boils down to when you buy the electricity. If you could buy it at night when it's cheap, store it, and they use the stored power in the afternoon – why then you'd win, wouldn't you? That's exactly what these folks have done, at a scale that works for a hotel. There's no reason I can think of why something like this wouldn't work at a homeowner's scale, either – so I expect to see it one of these fine days.
Of course, then the power companies will have to come up with a new way to extract money from us. If they were actually unregulated and competitive, this would all sort itself out – but since they are highly regulated in all 50 states, the result will quite predictably be a big hairy mess. What precise flavor of a big hairy mess it will be, I don't know. But I don't think it matters all that much...
A deal with Iran?
A deal with Iran? I think how you feel about this possibility comes down to just one thing: whether you trust the Obama administration to lift sanctions against Iran only in exchange for verifiable cessation of Iran's nuclear weapons program. That's easy for me: not only do I not trust them, I fully expect them to do whatever it takes to get something they can publicly call a “deal”.
Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has a tendency to the histrionic side, but in this case I agree with him completely:
It is to humanity's shame that the only country Iran has threatened to destroy (Israel) doesn't have a seat at this table. The progressives would argue that including Israel would remove the possibility of a negotiated peace – which, to me, just confirms my fear that Iran is insincere...
Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has a tendency to the histrionic side, but in this case I agree with him completely:
Israel understands that there are proposals on the table in Geneva today that would ease the pressure on Iran for concessions that are not concessions at all. This proposal would allow Iran to retain the capabilities to make nuclear weapons. This proposal will allow Iran to preserve its ability to build a nuclear weapon. Israel is completely opposed to these proposals. I believe that adopting them would be a mistake of historic proportions and they should be completely rejected.The Israelis have been briefed on the status of the negotiations, so that's an informed assessment. The nations actually participating in the negotiations with Iran (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) all have a political interest in having a peace “deal” – which means anything that their public will accept as a lessening of the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. That's not at all the same thing as a deal that actually removes the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, which is what Netanyahu recognizes and is what worries me (and many others).
It is to humanity's shame that the only country Iran has threatened to destroy (Israel) doesn't have a seat at this table. The progressives would argue that including Israel would remove the possibility of a negotiated peace – which, to me, just confirms my fear that Iran is insincere...
Are the scales lifting from their eyes?
Are the scales lifting from their eyes? Pro Publica has an article up detailing the travails of dedicated progressives who are being surprised by having their healthcare policies canceled, with equivalent replacements either not available or much more expensive. If we get enough of that, the progressives will blow up ObamaCare! Wouldn't that be a hoot?
Care to guess who's on the hook?
That scheme is an intentional feature of ObamaCare, a huge transfer of wealth from younger folks to older folks. But it depends – it absolutely depends – on lots of young people signing up for policies. But what if they don't sign up? What if they choose to pay the fine tax instead? Will the insurance companies be stuck with paying for all that medical care for older folks, without receiving the premiums from younger folks? That's worth worrying about, because early indications are that young people are staying away from ObamaCare in droves.
Well, it turns out that the insurance companies are covered for this risk, by the “reinsurance” that's part of Obamacare. The money for this comes from the government – which means us, the less-than-half of Americans who still pay income taxes. We are on the hook. Of course.
When I think of ObamaCare, I think of a giant steamroller with spiked rollers, bearing down on me relentlessly. Continuing the analogy, there's some hope that its engine will break down, or that voters will blow it up – but meanwhile, it's chugging steadily toward me...and it doesn't look like any fun to be crushed beneath those rollers...
I've been to Deming, New Mexico...
I've been to Deming, New Mexico... Stopped there on a cross-country drive for gas and a burger. But I won't be going there again. What happened there earlier this year reads like a horror story about some place like Turkey in the '50s – but it happened right here in America...
Patent and copyright trolls?
Patent and copyright trolls? Usually they're a cause for anger and frustration, but this is funny! Popehat's on it, too, naturally...
Thursday, November 7, 2013
And yet another flying pig moment...
And yet another flying pig moment... Oh, yeah, those aerosols – those danged things really are making our models inaccurate, climate scientists say...
Flying pig moment...
Flying pig moment... “Stop the war on drugs!” says Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil. Now, I'm not an admirer of either of these men. But I find it remarkable that such thoroughly conventional leaders are arguing against the war on drugs. Could this thinking be going mainstream amongst their peers? If so, what a positive change might be wrought!
Geek: Fourier transforms...
I haven't had occasion to use Fourier transforms for years now, but early in my career they were an important part of two engineering projects I undertook. One was a TTY-on-telephone decoder for the deaf, the other a radio-teletype decoder for ham radio. These are both “frequency shift keying” (FSK) systems, and both subject to much noise and distortion (though of different kinds in the two cases). In both the challenge turned out to be primarily one of tricky optimization, trying to compute the Fourier transform well enough to suit the need in near-realtime on the microcomputer hardware of the day. That hardware typically didn't have multiply or divide (it had to be written in software), and that was the big challenge. I recall those projects as being chock full of too-clever tricky hacks, things that would be much frowned on these days – but they worked, thanks to the underlying idea of a Fourier transform...
Geek: shell scripting style guide...
Geek: shell scripting style guide... From Google, the first style guide for shell scripting that I've ever seen, or even heard of...
Continuous learning...
Continuous learning... Dave Jilk has a great essay on how accelerating technological change necessitates continuous learning, and how that impacts folks as they age. The essay is generalizing, and I'm sure Jilk would be the first to agree there are plenty of exceptions to what he's describing. What he calls "continuous learning" is what I'd call "my hobby", and I'm going to declare myself an exception – one of quite a few that I know – to his rule about how older people handle technological change. But in the more general case, what he writes rings very true...
Smaller asteroids are more dangerous...
Great balls of fire!
Great balls of fire! I can't believe I missed this – several sightings of large meteors over Southern California skies last night. My only consolation is that the peak of the Taurids should occur next week, and be even better than last night...
Sketches of soldiers...
In these days of ubiquitous cell phone cameras it may be hard to imagine how precious these sketches must have been to the soldiers' families. My six years in the Navy during the '70s gave me a taste of it – long months at sea made snapshots of loved ones incredibly valuable to their owners. Many a salty sailor possessed a prized collection of pictures of their loved ones – invariably worn and wrinkled from long hours of handling. I'm sure the reverse was true as well.
I've often reflected on how our modern communications capabilities have eased the burden of separation for our soldiers and sailors. Nearly all of our troops have access (even if intermittently) to high speed Internet connections – which means they can regularly use email, texting, Skype, FaceTime, and so on to stay in touch with their families...
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Quote of the Day...
Quote of the Day... From Alex Tabbarok, writing at Marginal Revolution:
Did Obama spy on Mitt Romney? As recently as a few weeks ago if anyone had asked me that question I would have consigned them to a right (or left) wing loony bin. Today, the only loonies are those who think the question unreasonable.That's a damned fine question, sir!
Remove the warning labels!
My mom sent me a collection of these things; I've saved the rest for use on slow days...
Statistics Done Wrong...
Statistics Done Wrong – the woefully complete guide. With a title and subhead like that, how could I not like this web site? I'm no statistics expert, not by a long shot – but I need to understand some statistics when I'm evaluating articles or papers on things like climate science, evolution, or medicine. So my review is from the perspective of a consumer, not a practitioner. I dove into four topics; I haven't yet read the whole thing. Two of those topics were on facets I understand reasonably well, and I thought they were covered very well (and with light humor, too). The other two of them were on facets new to me, and I learned some valuable things. So I've bookmarked this as a resource...
The site is written by Alex Rienhart, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon in statistics. From his web site:
The site is written by Alex Rienhart, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon in statistics. From his web site:
If you’re a practicing scientist, you probably use statistics to analyze your data. From basic t tests and standard error calculations to Cox proportional hazards models and geospatial kriging systems, we rely on statistics to give answers to scientific problems.
This is unfortunate, because most of us don’t know how to do statistics.
Statistics Done Wrong is a guide to the most popular statistical errors and slip-ups committed by scientists every day, in the lab and in peer-reviewed journals. Many of the errors are prevalent in vast swathes of the published literature, casting doubt on the findings of thousands of papers. Statistics Done Wrong assumes no prior knowledge of statistics, so you can read it before your first statistics course or after thirty years of scientific practice.
ObamaCare is a disaster for Democrats...
ObamaCare is a disaster for Democrats... Lots of people are thinking that, including myself and Peggy Noonan. From her latest blog post:
And so it may be. But I'm still shaken that an awful, slimy candidate like McAuliffe can actually win an election, and I'm afraid it portends more such awful outcomes. Also, there's my other little problem: the opposition candidates are (for the most part – Tea Partiers and libertarian-leaners excepted) very hard to distinguish from their progressive Democrat opponents...
Back to a sense of where we are. You know where we are? It’s as if it’s 1964 and the administration has just passed landmark civil rights legislation and the bill goes into effect, and everyone looks—only immediately it is apparent that it makes everyone’s life worse! It doesn’t help minority groups – it makes their lives harder and less free! And it does real, present and intimate damage to the majority.Contra my earlier post today, this is the hopeful element in McAuliffe's election yesterday. He was expected to win by a much larger margin; instead, Cuccinelli came very close to beating him. The politicos are reading this as a giant, flashing warning signs for Democrats in the 2014 election cycle.
It’s as if it’s 1937 and they launched Social Security, only rich coupon-clippers on Park Avenue immediately started getting small monthly checks, and 67-year-old dust bowlers in tarpaper shacks started getting monthly bills.
It’s the biggest governmental enterprise that hasn’t worked since the earliest beginnings of the U.S. rocket program, when they kept trying to send rockets into space and they kept falling, defeated and groaning, into the ground. Only the rockets were still unmanned, so those failures never hurt anybody!
ObamaCare is a practical, policy and political disaster, a parlay of poisonous P’s.
And it is unbelievable – simply unbelievable – that the administration is so proud, so childish, so ideological, so ignorant and so uncaring about the bill’s victims that they refuse to stop, delay, go back, redraw and ease the trauma.
And so it may be. But I'm still shaken that an awful, slimy candidate like McAuliffe can actually win an election, and I'm afraid it portends more such awful outcomes. Also, there's my other little problem: the opposition candidates are (for the most part – Tea Partiers and libertarian-leaners excepted) very hard to distinguish from their progressive Democrat opponents...
“Fuck these guys!”
“Fuck these guys!” So says Brandon Downey, a member of the Google security team, on seeing the evidence that the NSA had been listening to Google's replication traffic. Now his colleague Mike Hearn joins him in the sentiment:
I now join him in issuing a giant Fuck You to the people who made these slides. I am not American, I am a Brit, but it's no different - GCHQ turns out to be even worse than the NSA.Yes, thank you Edward Snowden. And...thank you Google security team...
We designed this system to keep criminals out . There's no ambiguity here. The warrant system with skeptical judges, paths for appeal, and rules of evidence was built from centuries of hard won experience. When it works, it represents as good a balance as we've got between the need to restrain the state and the need to keep crime in check. Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason .
Unfortunately we live in a world where all too often, laws are for the little people. Nobody at GCHQ or the NSA will ever stand before a judge and answer for this industrial-scale subversion of the judicial process. In the absence of working law enforcement, we therefore do what internet engineers have always done - build more secure software. The traffic shown in the slides below is now all encrypted and the work the NSA/GCHQ staff did on understanding it, ruined.
Thank you Edward Snowden. For me personally, this is the most interesting revelation all summer.
McAuliffe wins, we all lose...
McAuliffe wins, we all lose... By that, I mean that the simple fact that such an overtly unsavory and suspicious character could be elected – no matter who his opponents were – means that we're all at a higher risk of having an oppressive and tyrannical government shoved down our throats. His election is as incomprehensible to me as Pelosi's serial wins with high margins. I ask myself “How could such a thing be?”, but I have no answers. Do you?
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Can you figure out how he did it?
I'm the President? No way!
Obama, the man who claims to not know a thing about the terrorist threats in Benghazi before the U.S. consulate attack, nothing about the IRS’s harassment of conservative-leaning political groups, nothing about his signature healthcare overhaul leading to millions of people losing their jobs and current insurance plans, who knew nothing about Healthcare.gov being a completely dysfunctional embarrassment, who didn’t know about the Affordable Care Act causing Americans premiums to explode, who knew nothing about the National Security Agency’s ramped domestic spying, who knows nothing about the nearly 1,000 civilians who have been killed in his targeted drone strikes, who knew nothing of the NSA’s spying on close U.S. allies now has admitted to why he knows so little about the mammoth country he oversees —he didn’t know he was overseeing it!Oh, if only! Read the whole thing...
Maybe the young folks aren't quite as gullible as Obama assumed...
Maybe the young folks aren't quite as gullible as Obama assumed... First we hear that ObamaCare premiums are significantly higher than our old healthcare premiums. Now we hear this:
But on the other hand, if the young folks aren't being taken in by the pile of bullshit that The One and his progressive acolytes are handing out ... well, that's actually kind of a good thing...
Insurers say the early buyers of health coverage on the nation's troubled new websites are older than expected so far, raising early concerns about the economics of the insurance marketplaces.On the one hand, I hate to hear about my premiums going up even more than I already thought they would.
If the trend continues, an older, more expensive set of customers could drive up prices for everyone, the insurers say, by forcing them to spread their costs around. "We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we're not seeing that right now," said Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual of Ohio, the state's largest insurer by individual customers. "We're seeing the population skewing older."
But on the other hand, if the young folks aren't being taken in by the pile of bullshit that The One and his progressive acolytes are handing out ... well, that's actually kind of a good thing...
UTA Flight 772...
A “flock” of hope?
A “flock” of hope? My mom lives in a small community outside Charlottesville, Virginia. This morning she voted at her local polling place, which happens to be in a church. She wrote me about the experience:
I just want to share a self administered grin I had this morning... The local papers and TV news have been touting the fact that today's vote in Virginia is a referendum on ObamaCare. Well there was a very large (and I do mean large) flock of vultures over the church where I vote this morning, and I am thinking it is a sign that "it" is about to be killed or is killed and just now beginning to stink??? Anyhow, I smiled going in to vote...I love my mom. Don't you? :)
love and hugs, mom
India launches a rocket to Mars...
My own indelible impressions of India were formed way back in the '70s, when I made a brief visit to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and New Delhi. Those impressions were of abject poverty, overwhelming infrastructure problems, and a people struggling for survival – the very opposite of the kind of nation that could do something as grand and advanced as launching a robotic exploration mission to Mars.
But they've done it – in just 40 years, they've gone from the hopeless-looking mess that I saw to a member of the top tier of nations. Like all nations, they have plenty of problems – but the magnitude of their improvement in that time is simply stunning...
Aluminum wire sculptures...
The artist is Seung Mo Park. Story, pictures, artist's web site.
White House smears cancer survivor who lost her policy...
White House smears cancer survivor who lost her policy... And the web fights back.
Despicable behavior, politically motivated. Don't any of these jerks care about their country and its citizens?
Despicable behavior, politically motivated. Don't any of these jerks care about their country and its citizens?
Adobe encrypted passwords instead of hashing them...
Adobe encrypted passwords instead of hashing them... That's bad, as in incompetent amateur level bad.
If you're not technical, here's the reason it's bad: with encrypted passwords, it's possible that a hacker could discover the encryption keys and recover all the passwords “in the clear” (as someone would type them). With hashed passwords, that's not possible – nothing the hacker could do would ever recover all the passwords – the best he could do would be to break into a few accounts.
For shame, Adobe, for shame.
I wonder how many other major companies doing something this stupid?
If you're not technical, here's the reason it's bad: with encrypted passwords, it's possible that a hacker could discover the encryption keys and recover all the passwords “in the clear” (as someone would type them). With hashed passwords, that's not possible – nothing the hacker could do would ever recover all the passwords – the best he could do would be to break into a few accounts.
For shame, Adobe, for shame.
I wonder how many other major companies doing something this stupid?
Sending humanitarian aid to North Korea is a mistake...
Let's hope they listen to her.
A 70-inch amateur telescope...
Story, slide show. Awesome, dude!
A professional analyzes the ObamaCare web site...
A professional analyzes the ObamaCare web site... Over at Ace of Spades HQ, a guest blogger who is a professional IT project fire-fighter (he comes in to analyze and fix IT projects that went horribly wrong, and has done this dozens of times) takes a crack at what went wrong with the ObamaCare web site. The piece is excellent...
6TB in a 3.5 inch form factor...
6TB in a 3.5 inch form factor... HGST (part of Western Digital) announced a line of new hard drives packing 6TB on 7 platters into a 3.5 inch form factor. The advance was enabled by their perfection of helium-filling the platter enclosure (given the small size of those molecules, that's quite a trick). The low density of the helium reduces aerodynamic drag on the rotating platters and moving heads, making the whole thing more efficient. They're also hermetically sealed, so they can even be liquid-cooled. The announcement says they're in general availability, though I was unable to find them for sale anywhere.
Every time I think we're about to write the epitaph for moving magnetic media, one of the vendors comes up with some new trick to extend hard drive capabilities even further. This drive holds just over 1 billion times as much data as my first hard drive – and that one was the size of a washing machine...
Every time I think we're about to write the epitaph for moving magnetic media, one of the vendors comes up with some new trick to extend hard drive capabilities even further. This drive holds just over 1 billion times as much data as my first hard drive – and that one was the size of a washing machine...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... I lost part of my morning tea through my nose when I read the sentence below, near the end of another excellent piece by Megan McArdle on the unfolding disaster that is ObamaCare:
Because of the Universal Law of Turkey Accretion, the quality and effectiveness of a government agency’s personnel are likely to peak very shortly after that agency is established.The lady has both wit and a way with words. I should have known better than to have slurped tea while reading one of her pieces, but somehow I didn't expect humor in a piece talking about why the ObamaCare web site is so awful. In fact, as I was reading her description of why large government IT projects almost always fail, I was nodding my head in agreement – I think she's got it exactly right, and as usual she's explained it in a way that non-technical people can readily understand...
Thoughts on aging...
Thoughts on aging... Sent to me by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous:
Q: Where can single men over the age of 60 find younger women who are interested in them?That last one has happened to me all too often, especially with respect to electronics and computer software. Having started designing electronics with vacuum tubes, and having first written software on machines with sub-megahertz clocks makes me prone to this :)
A: Try a bookstore, under Fiction.
Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When done, you have a place to live.
Q: Someone has told me that menopause is mentioned in the Bible. Is that true? Where is it?
A: Yes. Matthew 14:92: "And Mary rode Joseph's ass all the way to Egypt ..."
Q: How can I increase the heart rate of my over-60 year-old mate?
A: Tell him you're pregnant.
Q: How can I avoid that terrible curse of unsightly wrinkles?
A: Take off your glasses.
Q: Seriously! What can I do for these crow's feet and all those wrinkles on my face?
A: Go braless. It will usually pull them out..
Q: Why should 60+ people use valet parking?
A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.
Q: Is it common for 60+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is the problem.
Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.
Q: Where should 60+ year olds look for eye glasses?
A: On their foreheads.
Q: What is the most common remark made by 60+ year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: "Gosh, I remember these."
Strangers, but couples...
Monday, November 4, 2013
Progressives causing the problems they lament...
Progressives causing the problems they lament... Warren Meyer of CoyoteBlog has an interesting idea – that the public school (near-)monopoly is the reason why we have fewer middle-class neighborhoods these days. When he lays out his theory, though, it seems that there are at least two drivers:
1. The difficulty in educating kids by any means other than public schools (because either it's very expensive for a private school, or it's tremendously time-consuming to home-school).
2. The property tax funding mechanism for public schools in most states, that drives people with children to move to neighborhoods with good schools (generally ritzier and more expensive).
The combination provides a powerful set of incentives for people with kids to move to upscale neighborhoods, which then get even more upscale. I've seen this at work amongst people I know in San Diego; the quality of the schools is most definitely a major factor in their selection of a home location, and many of them struggle mightily to afford living there.
It's an argument for two things: getting rid of the public school monopoly (which would mean much more than just charter schools or vouchers, though both are a start), and democratizing the public school funding mechanism, so that good schools don't only occur in wealthier neighborhoods.
On the other hand, I suspect it would be even more effective to outlaw teacher's unions, reduce the public school bureaucracy by 80% or so, and pay teachers according to their performance instead of their time on the job.
I can dream, can't I?
1. The difficulty in educating kids by any means other than public schools (because either it's very expensive for a private school, or it's tremendously time-consuming to home-school).
2. The property tax funding mechanism for public schools in most states, that drives people with children to move to neighborhoods with good schools (generally ritzier and more expensive).
The combination provides a powerful set of incentives for people with kids to move to upscale neighborhoods, which then get even more upscale. I've seen this at work amongst people I know in San Diego; the quality of the schools is most definitely a major factor in their selection of a home location, and many of them struggle mightily to afford living there.
It's an argument for two things: getting rid of the public school monopoly (which would mean much more than just charter schools or vouchers, though both are a start), and democratizing the public school funding mechanism, so that good schools don't only occur in wealthier neighborhoods.
On the other hand, I suspect it would be even more effective to outlaw teacher's unions, reduce the public school bureaucracy by 80% or so, and pay teachers according to their performance instead of their time on the job.
I can dream, can't I?
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