Shoo's Blog

Income Equality Strikes Again!

2012-01-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

Well, income inequality has become news yet again. And that somehow it all started to be the fault of Ronald Reagan. Actually, he is largely at fault. Let's go ahead and blame him.

What is missing from these articles about income inequality is a very important fact. Those evil rich people are not the same people as were the rich 20 years ago. When people write about this, it always sounds like there are classes of people: the rich were always rich, the poor were always poor, and the middle is doomed to always be the middle. That is not how it works.

What really happens is that people get rich, but sometime thereafter their income levels off. Then other people become even richer. If you just barely made it into the top 1%, or top 0.1% of wealth, if your income stagnates, pretty soon enough other people become richer and knock you down. Well, down in terms of percentile, but you may still be getting richer.

What about the poor? IRS statistics indicate that of the people that were in the poorest 20% of the population 30 years ago, 95% have moved up to the middle class or even the rich. Isn't that exactly how it is supposed to work?

The poor have incomes and wealth roughly at zero. You have to start somewhere. Few of us get to start out in life millionaires. Eventually we become wealthier, maybe even make it into the top 1%. In order to get there, we have to pass the ones who are already there. For every person who gets into the top 1%, some other person gets knocked out. Did they get poorer? No, the bar to be in the top 1% just got raised.

So really, all the income inequality increase shows is that now it is possible to be far richer than it used to be, and lots more people are becoming rich. So go ahead and blame Reagan.

Solar Powered

2011-12-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

I briefly mentioned in my last post I installed solar for my house. I actually signed the contract almost a year before I got it installed, but needed to wait to deal with financing. I needed to refinance my house first, and that took awhile to get my ducks in a row. Once the financing was in order, nearly a year had gone by. This had two important benefits. First, by signing when we did, we qualified for a much higher rebate from Edison (the state, really) that we would of had we waited. Furthermore, prices on the solar panels dropped during that year.

Since I already had a signed contract, my contractor, Swan Solar, didn't want to rework the numbers, because then we would have a new contract and I would get the much lower rebate. So instead, they just gave me more panels and kept the contract the same. So instead of 21 panels, I got 28. These guys really took care of me.

My solar system is grid tied. This means during the day, I send power out to the electric company, and then at night, I am drawing power from the grid. That way I don't need batteries or other form of power storage. Unfortunately, it also means when the grid is down, so am I. I need a completely different inverter if I want to run off the grid entirely. It also means I have an electric bill.

Due to the tiered nature of electric billing, it is not really cost effective to completely eliminate your electric bill. For low usage, electricity is so cheap, it works out in your favor to have a bill. So, we targeted having under $50 electric bill per month once my solar system was installed. Unfortunately, that was all planned before I decided to buy my electric car, so the significant extra electric usage from the electric car would add to my usage. Fortunately, we overbuilt the system. Net result: electric bills in the $1-$2 range.

It's nice having such a low bill. On the down side, it pretty much negates the threat to make my son pay the electric bill if he doesn't turn off the lights in his room.

My Nissan Leaf

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

I purchased a Nissan Leaf just before Memorial Weekend this year. Now that I have had it a few months, I can now say with some authority how well it works.

First, why an all electric car? Many people have expressed skepticism and think I am crazy for buying it, so let me explain. I drive to and from work every day, and then usually have a few errands to run, like picking up kids and taking them to soccer practice or something. My daily use is generally under 70 miles, so the electric car works out great for my normal usage.

Prior to my electric car, I drive a Ford Expedition. I was spending about $400 in gas per month, plus another $1500 or so a year on maintenance. I have over 110,000 miles on it, so it is a sure thing maintenance costs will rise. Normally, since it is 7 years old, I would trade it in for a new car. A really use my Expedition, hauling stuff, family vacations, Boy Scouts, but those uses are pretty minimal. So paying $700/month for a new one plus gas plus maintenance is a lot. What does my leaf cost me? $550 per month plus maintenance costs of about $150/year. So I am spending about $565 per month on my new car, instead of spending $525 per month driving my Expedition, which I already owned. So basically, my new car is costing my $40/month and saving me a lot of wear and tear on my Expedition.

Electric costs? Well, that is tricky, and I don't rightly know. I had solar installed about two weeks before my Leaf, so it is hard to judge how much the electricity really would cost if I didn't have solar, but it seems like $50 per month is a reasonable estimate.

People worry about the range of electric cars and how practical they are. When I got my Leaf, I put a car cover on my Expedition and didn't take it off for 4 months. I went everywhere I needed in my Leaf. On a couple of occasions, I needed to travel farther, so I traded cars with my wife for the day. Very simply, the electric car is working perfectly for me, but it isn't for everyone. If you are a two car family, odds are good and electric car can be one of those two cars and it will work out great. It would simply not be practical for your only car.

So how do I like it? I love it! My wife drives a Mercedes C class: she likes driving the Leaf better (as do I). I think they are unattractive on the outside, but I have outgrown the car as an extension of my ego thing. It is a commuter vehicle, plain and simple. It is surprisingly roomy comfortable and roomy on the inside, handles very well. I love the quiet, People tell me it sounds like a spaceship when I drive up.

For years I have heard and read self-righteous Prius owners complaining about everyone else polluting the environment, even though they are too, just at a lessor rate per mile. It's amazing: I see some of these people actually violently angry at people who have the audacity to drive an SUV. Many of those Prius drivers then commute great distances (a 9 mile commute in my Expedition uses less gas than a 50 mile commute in a Prius). Nothing against the Prius or their owners, just the self righteous ones. So my favorite part of driving a Leaf is that now I can shake my fist and yell at them for polluting the planet.

Hopelessness and Patience

2011-12-07T08:38:00.001-08:00

I haven't been blogging much in awhile, mostly because of a sense of hopelessness. I have experienced and so understand on a much deeper level how entrenched people are with their own beliefs. They simply ignore evidence, no matter how glaring, that their position is wrong and latch onto anything, no matter how stupid, that their position is right. Weighing the evidence and making a rational decision is apparently a trait that is incredibly rare in humans.

Let me give an example. The top 1% of income earners in the US now pay, as a percentage of their income, more than at any time in history. They pay more than they did when the incremental tax rates were 90%. They pay more of the total tax burden than at any time in history. This was true in 2008, even before Obama took office. Yet, many clamor for yet even higher taxes on these people. Many, even in this class clamor for higher taxes. Yet none of those rich people asking to be taxed higher are willing to just write a check to the IRS for what they think they should be taxed. Look at Warren Buffet. He complains that his taxes are too low while at the same time has a tax dispute in the millions of dollars that has be running for years. WTF? Do any of you that want higher taxes really believe the government will make better use of your money than you can? That society would be better off with yet another school lunch program rather than more jobs?

Here's another easy example. Look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One said teaches that the other are pigs, sub-humans, and deserve death or worse. The Palestinians repeatedly say they want to push the Israeli's into the ocean and kill all Jews. The other side simply wants to live in peace. Israel has many Arabs living in Israel that enjoy full citizenship, and some even serve in their Parliament. Palestinians have a history of terrorism against the Jews long before the modern Israel was formed. Yet a huge percentage of the US and world population cannot distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in this conflict. Worse, they think Israel is the bad guy.

I have a word for people that cannot figure these two things out. Morons. Or as Lenin called them, Useful Idiots. Of sure, they will spout off all kinds of various arguments, that all boil down to irrelevancies. For instance, out pop the statistics on income inequality. As if that matters at all. I don't care how much money Warren Buffet has. So what if people can become insanely rich? That probably means I will be paid better for my work. Or on the Palestinian conflict, they will pop out with Israel did this or Israel did that. Mistakes and bad things will happen in war. Even the good guys do bad things sometimes. But you can never lose track of who is good and who is evil. Look at 9-11: we were treated to videos of the Palestinians dancing in the streets because of the slaughter of 3000 innocent Americans. Ever see Americans or Israeli's doing that?

Anyway, now we come to patience. I have not been arguing here, because there is no point. Nobody is going to change their mind. Facts are apparently irrelevant. So I wait. Soon, in the next few years, reality will make clear the truth in both of these matters. Some of the idiots will recognize how wrong they were, just as I did sometime during the Reagan years.

Who Will be The Republican Nominee?

2011-11-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

The field is consolidating. Most observers say Romney is a shoo-in at this point. It seems likely, but you never know this early. There are enough Republicans unhappy with Romney that someone else could pass him, as Herman Cain has in many polls.

To be clear, Herman Cain would probably be my 3rd choice for Republican nominee. I mostly like him for the entertainment value the election would have. However, if he surrounded himself with the right advisers, he could be a fine President.

Interestingly, Newt Gingrich is moving up as people are giving him a 2nd look. I have always liked Newt. He is clearly the smartest and most knowledgeable man in the field. I would love to see him debate Obama. However, if he became the nominee, we would draw Palinesque hate from Left and the media, probably making him unelectable. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. He would be our best nominee, on the basis of qualifications, in my opinion.

Perry is a joke. Cooked. Done. He excited many early because they were looking for anybody but Romney.

Romney is an interesting case. Many in the Republican base see him as too moderate. In 2008 he was the conservative choice instead of moderate McCain. His moderate/liberal past doesn't bother me a lot. I seem to recall we once elected a former Democrat and someone who was once pro-choice, but Reagan seemed to have made Republicans happy anyway. Romney has been running a very effective, nearly flawless campaign. That says good things about him. All he needs to do to win the base is select a VP the base loves. Newt would do the trick nicely.

Herman Cain Smeared?

2011-11-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

Well, now we know how Herman Cain is going to be attacked, sexual harassment allegations. With 4 or 5 women coming forward, it really makes him look bad. Could there really be a conspiracy with that many women involved?

There are many unanswered questions. The two women who have come forward have a troubling history. Bialek, the one who retained Allred, sounded far too scripted, using too many legal buzzwords. Having Gloria Allred by her side did not increase her credibility. Herman Cain said he was willing to take a lie detector test. I wonder if Bialek would be willing to? Despite the flaws of lie detector tests: if Cain came away clean and Bialek was measured as lying, game over. Or vice versa.

I think Ann Coulter might really be onto something with her latest column. It is a troubling coincidence that all the women come from Chicago. That apparently Herman Cain was only a sexual predator during his 3 years with the NRA. Really? That seems appallingly hard to believe.

I want to believe Herman Cain is innocent, and if so, I want his innocence proved and the plot exposed. That would be immensely gratifying.

Innocent or not, I have concluded I would prefer Herman Cain not be the nominee. Over the past couple of weeks, he has proven to be too much of a novice to be President, in my opinion, though he would clearly be a better choice than the novice in office now. And my main reason for liking him still stands: a black Republican running for President would cause the Left fits.

Finally Out of Iraq!

2011-10-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

So Obama is fulfilling a campaign promise to pull us out of Iraq. It is no surprise that all the Lefties are cheering and the Righties are jeering. The Lefties claim we never should have been in the war so its great we are finally out. Well, the first part is arguable, but I respect that position. It's the second part that is troubling.

People on the Right, claim that us leaving will all the country to destabilize, and embolden Iraq. The beauty about this, is that it is testable. We are going to withdraw. We will see what happens. Of course, the Lefties will blame the resulting chaos on Bush anyways.

A little history lesson is in order here. Consider Vietnam. We left Vietnam, South Vietnam fell, and millions were massacred. Now consider Korea. We stayed in Korea. We still have 30,000 troops there. Last I checked. North Korea is pretty prosperous. Check out all the places we have troops stationed around the world. These are almost all places enjoying peace and prosperity. Places like Germany and Japan. US troops have that effect: countries don't go messing around with countries that have active US military bases.

Another forgotten fact. Everyone says we lost the Vietnam war. We didn't lose it. We negotiated a peace, just like we did in Korea. The only difference was that with Vietnam, we left the country instead of leaving troops stationed there to guarantee the peace. The North Vietnamese reneged on the peace accords, and invaded the South. The only troops we had there were the ones working the US Embassy.

Here is my prediction. After we leave Iraq, Iraq will increasingly destabilize, and Iran will help. History will record we lost the Iraq War. Lefties will of course blame Bush.

I especially love the derision people heap on Bachman and others for their stance on this. No, we were no in Iraq for land, or oil, or treasure. All we wanted was a peaceful and prosperous Iraq, and a lasting US troop presence to insure the stability of Iraq and to be a check on Iran.

Well, at least we will have a nice new case study.

Herman Cain for President!

2011-10-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have pretty much been ignoring Herman Cain, and pretty much all the Republicans other than Romney and Perry, mostly because it looked unlikely that any of them had much of a chance. However, recent polls are showing Herman Cain right up there with the leaders. This is a huge.

So I have started listening to what Herman Cain is saying, and I like what I am hearing. No doubt we will find some things we don't like about him. To be sure, there are plenty of legitimate concerns about both Romney or Perry, though I would unhesitatingly support either against Obama.

Herman Cain has a very compelling biography. He was born a poor. His Mom worked some menial job and his Dad worked three jobs for the family to get by. He is a poster child for the American work ethic, having worked himself up the ladder of success. And he is black.

His blackness cannot be understated. To have a black Republican running for President may do more for black people than all social programs ever devised. He has a different message for the black community than what has been peddled by Liberals and Progressives for years. It's the same message Bill Cosby has been giving. Herman Cain is living proof that there are no barriers to success for black people who possess good character and a strong work ethic. Perhaps with is Presidency, we can put the final nail in the coffin of racism and forever end the endless racism smears Conservatives get from the Left.

Shut Out

2011-08-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

My daughter's new club team, which she started playing on during the Spring, has been struggling. Their defense has been fairly strong. They managed to tie the 1st and 2nd place team, but lost to many others, and managed to win only 2 or 3 games in the Spring.

After Spring, we recruited a few new players, some players left, so we now have a changed team. Last weekend they played 4 games in a tournament, losing 1 game to the 1st place team. The other 3 games they shut out their opponents, for 2 wins and a tie. Awesome work by the team as a whole, and of course Valerie, who played keeper and was instrumental in the shut outs.

Not So Loony Tea Party

2011-08-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

It seems the people in the Tea Party making the most noise about holding the line and doing no deal where probably in the minority, even in the Tea Party. Most people of the Tea Party persuasion actually understood the political realities and went along with the deal, which was probably the best we could do under the circumstances.

At least S&P wasn't fooled. They promptly downgraded the US credit. They announced the downgrade was because we weren't serious enough about cutting the deficit. Strangely, Democrats are now claiming the downgrade was the fault of the Tea Party, the group that wanted to cut the deficit the most. It will be interesting to see the contortions the media will have to go through to try and keep that spin going.

Tea Party Loons

2011-07-28T13:33:00.001-07:00

Until today, I counted myself amongst the Tea Party. I count them now as being political morons. To be certain, they are right on the issues. Government needs to spend less and gets its fiscal house in order. But now they are actively opposing Boehner's plan, and even calling to have him replaced because they are unhappy with his latest plan as not strong enough.

Not strong enough? The Senate has already said they won't pass it, and Obama has already said he would veto it. Can't the idiots drumming up the emotions of the Tea Party understand that the entire country will blame the Tea Party specifically and the Republican's in general for all the pain caused when no deal is done? Do they really think Obama is going to get the blame? Do they think the Senate Democrats and Obama will cave at the last minute and agree to whatever the Tea Party demands?

Heck, this is just what Obama wants! He would love to have no deal come August 2nd so he can blame Republicans for the continuing bad economy and everything else that goes wrong until the next election.

We are not going to solve the deficit in well fell swoop right here and now. Like it or not, both the Democrats in the Senate and Obama have veto power. We just have to accept the best we can do at the moment, and keep our eyes on the long term. Get a deal done now. Extract more in the upcoming budget fights, extract more in the next budget fights. Now we have a track record of fiscal sanity. Kill the Dems in 2012, taking the Senate and the Presidency.

Once the Republicans control all of Congress and the Presidency, then the Tea Party can really start having its way. By all means then hold the Republican's feet to the fire and threaten to remove the Speaker if they aren't bold enough to do what is needed. But not now. Don't blame the Speaker for trying to get the best deal he can under the circumstances. The deal the Tea Party wants is DOA in the Senate and for the President. Why don't you direct your anger at them? That's where it belongs.

Solving the Debt Crisis in 1 Day

2011-07-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

This really isn't hard to solve.

Have the President make a proposal.
Get the President, Boehner, and Reid into a room to negotiate it.
Cover the negotiations live on C-Span.
Nobody leaves until a deal is done.

Consumption Versus Investment

2011-07-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

Spending money can be categorized by roughly two different factors: consumption and investment. When you spend money on consumption, you destroy wealth. For instance, if you spend $50 at the bar drinking, you basically just destroyed some of your wealth. That is, you used to have $50, and now you have nothing but a hangover to show for it.

If, on the other hand, you are a contractor and spend $50 on a tool, you still have that $50 of wealth, albeit in the form of a tool worth about $50. However, this tool makes you more productive at your work, resulting in greater income. Voila, you have just created wealth through an investment. Not only is your asset still worth the $50 you paid for it, but you are generating additional income.

OK, now let's all understand that there are few absolutes on the consumption vs investment scale. For instance, that tool does lose value over time, and so is consumed, but it should give a return via increased income much greater than its cost.

This is the primary reason the rich are rich: they invest their income in items that retain value and/or generate additional income. Poor and middle class people tend to simply spend all their money on consumption. It's pretty much that simple.

Let's say we perform an experiment and give a poor person $50 million dollars. Will he grow that money, or will he spend it all and end up poor again. Luckily for us, we have already performed that experiment. We call them lotteries. When a poor person wins the lottery, the odds are overwhelming that he will be poor again in 5 years. This isn't the only case. Consider inheritance. When a family has a huge amount of wealth, that wealth has generally completely disappeared by the 3rd generation. In other words, odds are that Bill Gate's grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not manage to retain any of Bill Gate's wealth, even if he leaves it all to his descendents.

Wow! Congratulations Japan!

2011-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Japan for their first Women's World Cup Victory. What a great game they played. My only wish was that the US was knocked out earlier, because then I would have been able to wholeheartedly root for Japan instead of rooting for the US girls but not feel bad it was Japan that took it. Hats off especially to Ayumi Kaihori, the Japanese keeper: she was awesome in that shootout.

Lastly, curse you Ian Darke! Twice he started jabbering about US winning the cup when we were in the lead. Valerie complained both times about him jinxing us, and both times Japan came back with an answering score. I don't care if you are an announcer: earn when to keep your mouth shut!

Raising My Taxes

2011-07-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Between my wife and I, we make over $250K per year, putting is squarely in the "rich" camp and victims to-be of proposed tax increases. The cost of living is quite high where I live in California, so this amount is not nearly the wealth you might imagine if you live somewhere you can buy a house for $50K. Sure, we are reasonably well-off, but we aren't millionaires.

The first thing you have to realize about the proposed tax increases: politicians talk about taxing millionaires and billionaires, but the reality is the vast number of people they are increasing the taxes on are people like me: relatively well-off, but not really what people consider rich. I like to define rich as "you don't have to work a single day for the rest of your life while enjoying the lifestyle you want". People with boatloads of money, say Warren Buffet or those dreaded Hedge Fund Managers, don't really have taxable income, they get taxed at the capital gains rate of 15%, which nobody is currently proposing to raise. So, those new taxes are going to hit me, but not the demonized millionaires and billionaires.

There is also a proposal to raise the salary limits on social security taxes. Guess who that hits hard: me, but yet again, not those millionaires and billionaires.

I have seen many people argue that people like me can afford to pay higher taxes, that it really wouldn't hurt me that much. That is correct. In a sense. In the sense that I will still keep my house, keep our cars, and still eat well.

However, if you take an extra $10K from me, what happens? Well, that depends on what I was going to do with that money. If I was going to take my family on vacation in Hawaii, well, I can't do that now. Looks like car camping instead. I bet the airlines, the pilots, the flight attendants and everyone else involved would wish I bought those tickets. The people that work for the hotel I would have gone to would like to have my money I am sure. Ditto for the restaurants we would have gone to and the tour operators we would have paid to do fun things.

Now instead I might have sucked that money away into a retirement fund. Those investments I would have made with that money would be financing companies, helping them employ people, as well as enabling me to have a comfortable retirement.

I guess I could just tuck that money away in a bank. Banks don't make money on money parked in a savings account: but because I have that money there, they can now make more loans. I bet the business and individuals getting the loans will make good use of that money.

Or maybe I just make up that $10k shortfall by just spending less. Less eating out. No new TV. Put off some remodeling for a year or two. I bet the people I would have paid for those activities would have liked my money.

In short, taxing me more may or may not decrease my standard of living, but it certainly hurts many other people who will get paid less or even lose their jobs because people richer than them have less disposable income due to higher taxes.

Just Politics

2011-07-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

It is kind of an interesting political impasse we are at with the debt negotiations. Obama and Democrats are trying to force Republicans to agree to raise taxes. Why? Just to force them to renege on their no tax pledge and look bad in front of the voters. No other reason, really.

For the Republican part, they are not coming up with a list of cuts they want to make. Why? The fear Democratic demagoguery. They already met Paul Ryan's proposals to trim Medicare with ads showing him pushing old ladies out of wheel chairs. And of course, Democrats have already pulled out the Social Security scare card. So, the Republicans are asking Obama to come up with the cuts he wants, so he can't complain its all the Evil Republicans' fault. I can't say I blame them. Any cuts made will be endlessly demagogued and a compliant media is sure to find any and all sob stories they can about the suffering caused by any such cuts.

The facts are pretty obvious to anyone who cares to actually look at the numbers. We cannot solve the problem through increased taxes. It is debatable if increased taxes need to be part of the solution. It is beyond debate that cuts in the budget are needed. Let's get cutting.

Call

2011-07-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

So now Obama and Harry Reid are threatening if a deal isn't done by August 2nd, Social Security checks may not go out on August 3rd. I say cease negotiations and see what happens. Call his bluff. Money for Social Security is still coming in, and in amounts greater than we pay out. So, if they are not paying Social Security, it is because Obama has taken that money and decided something else takes priority. Let him explain that to the elderly.

The Absurdity of Raising Taxes Now

2011-07-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

Our President has now insisted that no deal can be made on raising the debt limit unless taxes are raised. This position is beyond absurd.

1) Until 6 months ago, the Democrats had full control of the government. If raising taxes was such a high priority, why did they not do it then? I'll tell you why, he wants to force the Republican's to raise taxes because most of them signed a pledge saying they won't. He knows that if they break their promise, they will face the wrath of the voters who put them in office.

2) No school of economics argues that raising taxes during a weak economy is a good idea. None. No nation has ever taxed and spent their way to prosperity. Even Obama agreed with this position late last year.

3) Taxes cannot bridge the spending gap. If you taxed all the "rich" at 100% of their income (assuming they don't change their behavior but keep earning the same amounts), you do not even come close to closing the deficit.

4) Since taxes cannot cover the deficit, whether or not we raise taxes, spending must be reduced dramatically. Must. There is simply no alternative.

The evidence is clear and unambiguous. The President and Democrats calling for raising taxes now are simply playing politics: if they truly thought that was a good idea, they would have done it last year when they held all the power. Anyone else arguing for higher taxes now is either being willfully blind or a useful idiot.

The Rapture

2011-05-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

You can't avoid hearing the reports of the prophesied Rapture tomorrow. The last article I saw on it said "even many Christians are skeptical". Many? Skeptical? More accurate would be about 99.9% of Christians think this is utter nonsense.

But just in case: Jesus is Lord! Praise be to God!

Did Torture Lead to Finding Bin Laden?

2011-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Many in favor of our enhanced interrogation techniques popularly known as "torture" leaped on the finding of Bin Laden as proof that torture works.

Others claim it proves it doesn't work, since Bin Laden was found after Obama took office. Presumably that means Obama immediately stopped all torture and got the information he needed, whereas years or torture under Bush failed to get it. Nice speculation, but the actual facts don't bear this analysis out.

None other than Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director and a Democrat who had gone on record in 2008 to say that water boarding amounted to torture and was wrong, said that these enhanced interrogation techniques led to the capture of Bin Laden. He also said we got information from a number of source imprisoned in other countries, carefully avoiding the questions of what countries and how the information was extracted. Read between those lines.

So, if you want to avoid actual facts and claim that torture doesn't work, go ahead. Heck, people still think Elvis is alive.

Does It Work?

2011-05-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

My own feelings on the "torture" techniques the US has used on terrorists can be boiled down to a couple simple questions. Does it work? And does it work better than other less objectionable methods? If the answer to both of these questions is not yes, then of course torture should never be allowed. If the answer is yes to both those questions, then I am in favor of this sort of torture in very rare circumstances.

Many, if not most, of those opposed to so-called torture do so on the basis it does not work. We have had several interrogators come forward and claim torture does not work, that other methods work better, etc. No question, these are experts in interrogation. However, not one of them is an expert in these other interrogation techniques. Can they tell me that the people they interrogate never lie or otherwise mislead them? Or course not. Anyone being interrogated (at least those who are guilty and have things to hide) will lie. Part of the art of interrogation is determining what is the truth and what is a lie.

So the idea that torture doesn't work because people will just lie is absurd. People will lie anyways, no matter the interrogation method. The basics of interrogation are the same either way, and a skilled interrogator will be able to tell truth from falsehood, and be able to make appropriate deductions based on the nature of the lie.

Another fun argument is that torture is chiefly good at getting false confessions. Well guess what, so are more normal interrogation methods. Police get false confessions all the time from people. But again, this argument is absurd. It is like saying a hammer is useless because they are only good for smashing thumbs and fingers and breaking people's bones. Sure, it can be used that way, but it is still the best tool for driving nails.

So, the reality is, us poor citizens not in the intelligence business are likely never going to know for certainty whether or not torture works. Those who would really know aren't saying, leaving the door open for people who don't really know to throw in their 2 bits on the subject.

My opinion is this. Everybody is different. Every situation is different. Torture probably works in some situations, and doesn't work in others, and works on some people better than others. A blanket statement that it either works or doesn't work can only be made by someone with the hubris of ignorance.

Arguing Like My Son

2011-05-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

My teenage son likes to argue. Go figure. What annoys me is when he starts arguing about things he has absolutely no real knowledge of, and just start spouting assertions based on basically nothing.

So it is with the debate over torture. About 99% of the people who speak up on this know really nothing other than their emotional reaction. They can bolster their emotional reaction with a ready supply of writings from other people who know next to nothing about it. Take this article for instance: Tortured Logic. The writer (a conservative) outright claims that the people who have been interrogating these terrorists essentially do it to get their jollies. This sort of assertion, completely lacking in any evidence, needs to be roundly condemned. What does he know about the interrogators? Nothing. Once he threw that assertion out there, I pretty much discarded everything else he said as questionable at best.

I really wish the people who know basically nothing about this would spend more time studying the issue than spouting off. People on both sides are trying to make a bright shiny line where there is none.

Killing is Just Fine, But Not Torture

2011-05-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, virtually everyone seems to be just fine with killing Bin Laden. He was unarmed. We could easily have taken him alive. It is pretty clear that the President ordered Osama to be killed and not captured.

On the other hand, the debate over whether it is OK to torture terrorists to get information has heated up again.

So my question is this: if you believe it is OK to simply kill Osama without even attempting to capture and/or try him for crimes against humanity, and you are also opposed to any form of torture, how do you reconcile this rank hypocrisy? Last I checked, murder was consider a more heinous crime than torture.

Is It Really Torture?

2011-05-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

The main reason there is a debate about torture in the US is because the interrogation methods being used, like water boarding, are not really considered torture to most people, or at least the vast majority that favor these interrogation methods. Unfortunately, the word "torture" has a pretty vague definition. My kids consider listening to my music "torture", just as I consider listening (or looking at) Lady Gaga pure torture. I think most everyone would agree that such forms of torture ought not be illegal.

On the other hand, methods like water boarding, sleep deprivation, and prolonged exposure to heat or cold, all methods routinely called "torture" by opponents, are all things that we do in training our elite special forces. They volunteer for this stuff.

When the average person thinks of torture, they are thinking of physically maiming people. All the methods we have used cause absolutely no physical damage. This is an important distinction. Important enough that many do not really consider that torture. However, all these techniques do involve a physical component. The idea is to make them so physically uncomfortable that they start talking.

The interrogation techniques used by law enforcement do not generally involve physical coercion. Oh, police have been known to put on handcuffs to tight, leave people in cold rooms, etc., but generally the approach to getting information is more purely psychological and not physical. That too is an important distinction.

You Might Be a Redneck If...

2011-05-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

You throw a catfish on the ice during a hockey game.

Are the Birthers Right?

2011-04-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have never put much credence in the birther's point of view. As I said before, even if he was born in Kenya, he was born to a mother who was an American Citizen (and a natural born one at that). In my mind, that makes him a natural born American citizen, regardless of where his mother was when he was born.

After Obama's release of his long form birth certificate, one would think this issue would be pretty much put to bed except for the crackpots. Then this article pops up: Birtherist Response Highlights Racial Undertones of 'debate'. In my experience, when someone pulls the race card on the flimsiest of pretexts, that is a sure sign their arguments are very weak.

Why on earth did Obama wait to pull this out until now? And why now? To discredit Trump? Really? And now apparently questioning the authenticity of this newly produced document is racist. Something smells here...

Luck

2011-03-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Valerie noted that soccer keeper's tend to be very superstitious, including herself. "Being superstitious is good luck," I told her.

War Again

2011-03-23T20:26:00.001-07:00

Our President has launched us into a new war. It is kind of early and we don't have a lot of good information about what our goals are, and what the plan really is, so I have a bunch of scattered thoughts on the subject.

The fact that we know so little is bad. The President should really have made much more clear what is happening before we went in. We knew what was going on with Iraq and Afghanistan months in advance.
Some argue we shouldn't be involved in another country's civil war. I disagree with that as a general principle. Consider: we would still be part of the UK if France hadn't gotten involved in ours. We should consider involvement if: 1) we can help insure victory to the side we are on, and 2) the side we support will be our friends when it is over.
The ones on the Left that are already complaining about the war are complaining that it is again a war for oil. In their view, the only legitimate wars are the ones where we have absolutely no national interest and are just going in for humanitarian reasons. This is craziness: there would be no end to the wars we could be fighting for humanitarian reasons only.
This war was launched without any sort of consultation with Congress. That is a horrible precedent. The executive branch should only launch war without consulting Congress when there is simply no choice. Obama has had plenty of time to consult with Congress before taking military action.
I have heard some on the Right complaining that we are letting France and England lead this war. Personally, I think that is fine. Europe has much more to gain and lose than we do. I would like to see them lead, and us to play a supportive role on this one.

Why Are Nuclear Reactors Unsafe?

2011-03-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Back in the seventies I did some learning on nuclear power plant design and safety. One thing that stuck with me was that the control rods on the power plant went in upwards. The reason for that design was so that, in the event of some catastrophe, the rods would simply come out of the reactor, as power was required to keep them in place. It seemed a very natural and sensible fail-safe. Apparently, all reactors are not designed that way.

Now granted, my knowledge and memory on this is over 30 years old, and I am no expert in nuclear power plant design. Perhaps what I was told 30 some odd years ago was really a design that was never implemented. 3 Mile Island certainly didn't work like that. I suspect the design was dropped as "safety overkill". However, had it been successfully implemented in the reactors in Japan and 3 Mile Island, we would not now be worrying about reactor meltdowns and countries would not be considering cancelling additional nuclear power plants.

Which is It?

2011-03-01T16:24:00.001-08:00

I have seen dueling claims: the top 1% in the US pay 27% of taxes, and the top 1% pay 40% of income taxes. So, which is it?

It is very clear that the top 1% of income earners pay about 40% of all income taxes. Straight from the US Dept of the Treasury.

So, where does the 27% come from? I especially like "the top 1% has 40% of the wealth but pays only 27% in taxes". This is totally true, and incredibly misleading. Let me explain how misleading it is.

First, to arrive at 27% of taxes, you have to include all Federal Government revenues. This includes corporate taxes, duties, and social security, in addition to income taxes. So, when you say 27%, you are including what people save for retirement (Social Security), as well as what corporations pay.

OK, now the 40%. If you look at the charts on wealth distribution, you see what the top 1% hold, what the top 5% hold, all the way down to the last person. No where is included corporations. They hold a lot of wealth. A whole lot of wealth. Maybe more than everyone else put together. I tried to find out the real figures, but it was quite difficult. Everyone likes to quote wealth as a percentage, and nobody likes to use numbers. By all means, find out and post it.

But the point is, you are excluding corporations to make that 40% figure look large, and then including taxes that individuals don't pay to make the 27% look small. Social security should either be left out, or if you really want to, let's call what we put into our 401K's a tax and include that.

And the last thing: that 40% is wealth, not income. Our tax system is based on income and not wealth.

Here is a nice link to factcheck.org on this topic. I especially like this quote: "The share now borne by the top 1 percent is the highest it has been since 1979, the earliest year for which CBO has figures. And surprisingly, it is larger than in 2000, the last year of President Bill Clinton's administration".

Income Inequality....Again

2011-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Once again income inequality and the distribution of wealth are in the news. So let's perform a little experiment.

Suppose at some idyllic time, everyone had exactly the same income and no wealth. Every year, everyone's income increased 3%. Every year, everyone who managed to save some money earns 5% interest/investment income. Most people, like 99% of them, save only 1% of their income. We'll call those people Everhyone Else. But, 1% of the population saves 10% of their income. For sake of argument, let's call them the Rich. The die is set, let's see how the game plays out.

After 1 year, the Rich have merely 9% of the wealth, while Everyone Else has the other 91%. Of course, there isn't much wealth yet.

After 10 years, the Rich now control almost 28% of the wealth, and the average Rich person makes 12 times the average Everyone Else.

After 20 years, the Rich control 82% of the wealth, and have an income equal to 254 times the average of Everyone Else.

How horrid! Look at the "inequality"!

Some other important notes: the wealth of Everyone Else increased by a factor of 26 over this time. Their income doubled.

So, if I am Everyone Else, should I be happy that my income doubled and my wealth increased dramatically? Or should I be upset because because 1 out of 100 people are making lots more than me?

Note how the Rich got there. Did they cheat? Did they inherit their wealth? Did they win life's lottery? Did they earn it on the backs of Everyone Else? In this model, they did none of these things. They simply spent less and saved more than Everyone Else.

Here is an even more important thought. What if the Rich did not behave that way? How would that affect total wealth? Guess what...the total wealth after 20 years would be 1/5th of what it would otherwise be.

Superbowl Sucks

2011-02-06T16:47:00.001-08:00

I hate the Super Bowl. The game is uaually great. Then there competition for the best Super Bowl commercial. Can't miss those. So just when are you supposed to go pee?

Superstitious

2011-02-05T06:03:00.000-08:00

It is good luck to be superstitious.

Perspective on LIfe

2011-02-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

I begin this post with a quote:

In earlier times, people lived simply and serenely.
Sensitive to the flunctuations the constantly occur, they were able to adjust comfortably to the energy of the day.

Today people lead hysterical, impulsive lives.

The struck me as amusing because it was written about 2500 years ago by Lao Tzu.

SCP

2011-02-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

Valerie has been playing for soccer for SCP, that is the South County Premier Soccer Club, under the coaching direction of Duncan Love. After many years of soccer, I think I can say this was the worst soccer experience we have had, between both Kenrick and Valerie's soccer.

Valerie has been playing keeper. She is a pretty good keeper. She is not exactly ready to play on a gold club team, but she really gives it her all, and she was clearly better than anyone else on the team at keeper. The coaches took awhile to figure this out. She shared keeper duties with another girl for the first few games of the season. It was pretty bizzare, but I remember how, for like 4 games in a row, the other girl would be in goal for a half and not have a single shot on goal taken against her, and then Valerie would be in goal and it became a shooting gallery. The coach would praise the other keeper for having a shutout, as if it was an accomplishment to not have any shots taken against her. Of course, the coach never kept any statistics, so he had no way of objectively judging the different keepers.

In the fall season, the team won exactly one game. That was a game where the other girl that played keeper couldn't come. Valerie played an unbelievable game, shutting out the other team with at least a half dozen spectacular saves and a few routine ones in addition. Of course, Duncan Love wasn't around to see that game.

Finally, the other keeper had a complete breakdown during a game and the coaches finally figured out that Valerie was the right one to be in there. Weird, because every parent on the sideline knew who should be in goal. Of course, most of them saw the team play the previous Spring where they went undefeated, in large part due to Valerie's goalkeeping where she was the primary goalkeeper.

In my opinion, Duncan has no clue how to evaluate goalkeepers, or any other girls on the team for that matter. I remember one game where they took 6 shots on goal and scored twice (once on each goalkeeper). We lost 2-0. Duncan's analysis was that we were right in that game except for a couple goals the keepers should have saved. Well it is true that both those goals were saveable, but on the other hand, I was keeping statistics. They shot 6 times on goal. We shot 0. I would not say goalkeeper was the issue when your team is taking 0 shots on goal, and any coach that says so is clearly a moron.

Pretty much the final straw was at a recent tournament. Valerie blocked a shot, but could not hold on to it. She scrambled to get to the ball, but another attacker kicked it in. Duncan pulled her out after that for the entire game. Now really, a midfielder got beat and allowed the attacker into the backfield, a defender got beat and allowed a shot, and then another defender failed to cover an attacker in the box, but according to Duncan, it was all the keeper's fault. He put in a guest player at goal the rest of the game. That same guest player, in the next game, allowed a goal, and then when Valerie was in goal, committed a foul in the penalty area for a penalty kick. That didn't get her taken out.

So, when Valerie got an invitation to try out for another club team, we jumped on it and Valerie is not their starting keeper. That was the team that was the victim of our one win last fall. They want on to win some games and finished much higher in the rankings than Valerie's team did, so they are not really worse. I like this team a lot better. The coach is a young lady of 19 who played at the club premier level and is great with the girls. She was very pleased with Valerie's abilities and most importantly, her coachability. I think this team will really help Valerie improve her game, as she wants to be a good player, play on the high school team, and play in college as well.

Freshman Wrestling

2010-12-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Football being over, Kenrick started wrestling. He started later than most wrestlers his size, since he was playing football, but he has a few advantages. First, he has been training, off and on and haphazardly, but training nevertheless in martial arts since he was about 6. Part of the training involved grappling, which he always loved. He also got involved in the summer wrestling program for the past two summers, giving him some experience. And of course his Dad has no shortage of wrestling experience.

It's pretty cool having him wrestle. He is wrestling for El Toro High School, which is where I went to high school, and my name is still in the wrestling records. His coach was on my wrestling team when I was there, and the dad of the boy who is probably the best wrestler on the team was a year behind me and also on my team.

So this week Kenrick had his first matches. At a 16 team tournament Saturday he lost his first match 4-1 against another Freshman who clearly had a year or two experience. He then proceeded to pin his next two opponents for a 3rd place medal.

Tuesday night was a 4 way team tournament. Kenrick had a bye and pinned his two opponents. The team came in 2nd, losing to the first place team 38-36.

Thursday was another 4 team tournament. Kenrick narrowly won his first match 7-6, then pinned both of his next two opponents. The team also won first place.

So, after his first week of wrestling, Kenrick has a 7-1 record, a first place trophy, a first place medal, and a 3rd place medal.

Some have said he is going to be a good wrestler like his dad. He is actually doing far better than I did as a Freshman. If he keeps this up, he could definitely exceed me, which is of course what every dad wants from their kids.

Wikileaks

2010-11-29T10:11:00.000-08:00

There can be a fine line between divulging state secrets, and whistle blowing. If the government is doing something clearly illegal, then I am generally happy to have that exposed. Though there are rare times when secretly performing an illegal action may be necessary and appropriate. All governments do it to some degree or another, and everyone in the highest levels of government understands this.

So along comes Wikileaks today dumping a huge pile of State Department documents. In this case, they are not exposing wrong doing or anything remotely unethical. They are exposing the inner workings of the State Department strictly for the reason of embarrassing the US. Things are being published such as internal memos with frank assessments of other world leaders, which are embarrassing both to us and to those leaders.

Whoever is running Wikileaks needs to understand that what they are doing is illegal, unethical, and very very dangerous. People are likely to die as a result of information being leaked this way. Whoever is doing this has demonstrated that they are clearly an enemy of the US. If I was in charge of things, whoever is posting this information would suffer from some sort of tragic accident. The same for any who try and succeed them and publish similar leaks.

Shoo for Minister of Internal Security!

Noted

2010-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

My daughter injured her knee this weekend playing soccer. Nothing that won't heal with a few days rest, but she asked me to write a note to her PE teacher. Here is the note I wrote:

Valerie injured her knee playing soccer this weekend. Please excuse her from any activities which may aggravate the injury.
--Bob Shoemaker
P.S. She loves pushups! :P

Impeachment?

2010-11-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

I watched some of MSNBC on election night, purely for amusement value. I know, I am the reason they had twleve viewers instead of the normal 11...

Some blow hard on MSNBC said that when Nancy Pelosi took over as house speaker, she took impeachment off the table, and he was demanding to know if John Boehner was going to take impeachment off the table.

Impeachment? For what? Nobody except perhaps a few fruitcakes holding signs have called for Obama to be impeached. I have never seen a single column, even from the most rabit right wingers, calling for Obama's impeachment. So really, what was that about? Yeah sure, and we'll take hanging off the table too. Sheesh.

California Loses!

2010-11-03T08:46:00.001-07:00

While the Tea Party and some semblance of sanity reigned across most of the rest of the nation, here on the Left Coast and the People's Republic of California, Democrats elected a clean slate. I guess Californians are still pretty happy with things. We nearly lead the nation in unemployment, but what we want is apparently the same bad government we had, but more of it. We passed the proposition that allows us to pass a budget with a mere majority instead of a 2/3rds vote, so basically, Democrats will have total say over what happens in this state. They own it, lock, stock, and barrel.

California unions have once again won a huge victory. Sort of. What all these Socialist idiots fail to realize is that raising taxes will not increase state revenues. It will only chase out even more businesses and wealthy people. With even larger unemployment, tax revenues will decline, no matter how much wealth we try and confiscate from the rich.

Our new attorney general has promised to crack down on those evil out of state oil companies and other major pollutors. I hate pollution as much as the next guy, but we will be even worse off without jobs and gas to drive to work. If I were the oil companies, I would shut down operations in California and dismantle the refineries and watch in amusement as Californians struggle. The oil companies may soon have no choice. Additional regulations will force them to raise prices even more, and Democrats and the media will blame the oil companies for the high prices.

Well, it is going to be a fun few years. Fasten your seatbelts.

Cautiously Optimistic

2010-11-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

Elections look promising. Gridlock is far better than what we have had so far.

I was really stumped on how to vote by the Aceves/Torlakson race for School Superintendant. One, Torlakson, is supported by the teachers unions and practically everyone else living on the taxes I pay. The other is supported by the LA Times, the Green Party, La Raza Roundtable, and a host of other liberal groups. Torlakson said he led the effort to ban junk food on school campuses, so that tilted me to Aceves. But sheesh, what choices.

Then we have the Governor's race. Jerry Brown is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster. Meg Whitman is totally inexperienced, and has a strong possibility of being like the Governator, except Whitman has bigger balls than Arnold, so there is a chance she will actually start to restore some sanity to California. I am pulling the lever for Meg, but very unenthusiastically. Actually, a Brown victory may be the best thing for California in the long run. Perhaps the huge lurch to the Left Brown will take will be enough to wake up California to perhaps some conservative sanity as much of the rest of the nation has awakened. As goes the Nation, so goes California?

Basically, I am pretty optimistic about the direction of the country as a whole, but pretty much resigned to continued insanity for the state of California. Can we trade governments with Texas?

How to Win the Same Sex Marriage Issue

2010-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem with the same sex marriage issue is religious freedom. Most religions teach that homosexuality is a sin. Most also recognize that all people are sinners and so welcome homosexuals into their church. After all, liars, gamblers, adulters, and every other sort of sinners are also welcome. But there is a big difference between toleration and condoning. A church performing a marriage is clearly condoning that relationship.

Of course, nothing in the current debate over same sex marriages says that churches will be forced to perform those marriages. But that is what will come, immediately after same sex marriage is allowed. Lawsuits attempting to force churches to perform marriages will be launched, along with legal efforts to legalize polygamy.

I agree with those that want to separate the marriage issue from religion. We already have domestic partnerships in California. Let that be the standard. All marriages are domestic partnerships, and marriage completely loses any legal standing whatsoever. That way, the government is totally out of the "marriage" business.

Lacking that, the other way to win the issue is to clearly guarantee the right to religious freedom to not perform marriages. That way, the Catholic Church will not have to perform same sex marriages, but other churches can.

Marrying Whomever You Want

2010-08-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

It is truly amazing that people are framing the same sex marriage issue as a fundamental right to marry whomever you want. Actually, what is amazing is that some smart people feel this is a valid argument. OK, then, smart people. What is special about the number 2? Should 5 people be able to all marry each other. What if a man wants to marry their sister? How about their Mom? Is that OK? If not, then why doesn't the same "constitutional" logic hold? After all, you would be denying those who want to commit incest the right to marry whomever they please. If you say yes, you can marry all those people, you are at least being consistant, albiet a clueless moron.

If you decide that the age-old prohibition against incest is valid because of the obvious problems with inbreeding, then how about if a man wants to marry his Dad?

At the base of the decision this judge (who just happens to be gay) made is that gender just doesn't matter. By his reasoning, any laws that distinguish between the genders is unconstitutional. So, a man now has the right to go into the women's bathroom. If you are a woman and don't like that, you are clearly androphobic. Women can go topless, just like men (one of my personal favorite causes :P). Same sex prisons...got to go.

A Week at Home

2010-08-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I returned from the Philippines Sunday night and spent what free time I had preparing to take some Boy Scouts with me to Yosemite. Lots needed to be done in dealing with the final logistics, shopping for my food and last minute equipment and supplies, and, most importantly, taking time out to see Pagent of the Masters.

For those not in the know, Pagent of the Masters is sort of a performance art where they replicate famous (and not so famous) paintings on stage, using real people. I was somewhat disappointed that the real people were confined to being people and that the rest of the paints where stage prop. Now that you know what it is, you have no need to experience it.

Whenever people told me I should go see it, I always wondered why? I have heard what it is, and it excited me about as much as seeing famous painting replicated using bottle tops. Ingenious, yes. Enlightening? Inspirational? No. I know people that go to see that thing every year. I always wonder why. Does it make you feel "cultured"? Or do you honestly enjoy it. I can't complain about the people that honestly enjoy it...it is simply not to my taste.

Nevertheless, I am very happy I went. First off, my wife has been bugging me to take her off and on for years. I figured I could not lose. Either she would be very happy (always a big win). Or, she would realize it was just kind of dorky and never need to go back. It was a complete victory for me: she was happy we went, and having seen it, doesn't feel the need to go back ever!

It was even more of a fantastic victory in that I got to spend the evening with Steve and Anne-Marie, Mike Frieze and his girlfriend, Byron and Paula. It was truly a nice evening with friends.

Thank you Anne-Marie for setting this up.

What I Have Been Up To...

2010-08-09T11:08:00.001-07:00

This long lag in blogs is not due to having nothing to say, on the contrary, my life has been a whirlwind for the last 4 weeks and I simply have not had the time to sit down and blog.

This phase of craziness began with a trip to the Philippines for work. Half an hour from landing in Manila, my plane was suddenly diverted to Cebu. Why? Typhoon Hits Manila.

We sat in Cebu for 4 hours, and then were able to fly to Manila. It was a little surreal. We landed in Manila, and everything looked perfectly normal, and dry. No sign a typhoon had blown through. It was only after leaving the airport that I saw some trees blown over. Turns out lots of trees blew over, along with a lot of billboards, severing power lines all over the city. It took a couple days to restore all the power. That night, I saw lots of businesses running on candlelight. Fortunately, my hotel has its own generator, so I was largely unaffected, through the typhoon did delay the start of my work there for a day as most of my team could not make it into the city.

The death toll from the typhoon were largely fishermanm caught on the ocean by surprise (the typhoon was expected to make landfall far north of Manila).

Thus began an extremely busy week in the Philippines. By day I worked with my team there. At night, I spend time working with people in California. And we were in the process of opening a UK office, so I was trying to handle stuff in the UK. Very fun trying to work in 3 time zones. I came back exhausted and with a thoroughly confused body clock.

Fixed

2010-07-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

While perusing some blogs and comments about the World Cup, I was surprised at the number of people who believe sports are fixed. All professional and top level college games are fixed so the insiders can make money gambling. Any gambling on any sports competition is taken as evidence that the game is fixed.

So, by this logic, apparently the only professional sport that is not fixed is professional wrestling. Nobody bets on that because it isn't fixed.

Backwards World

2010-07-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it seems the world is totally backwards. Take this as an example: Justice Department Sues to Stop Arizona Immigration Law.

Here we have the Federal government suing a state because they dare to enforce Federal laws. Last time I checked, the Federal government could in fact change their own laws. Perhaps they should do that, rather than sue a state because the state wants to actually enforce them. Maybe instead they should be suing the other 49 states for not enforcing them?

FIFA Uses Referees for Cover

2010-06-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have witnessed some of the really bad referee calls are probably cheered by this: Blundering Refs Dropped from World Cup. I am actually more dismayed than pleased.

Sure, they got rid of Koman Coulibaly, the referee from Mali who made the notably and inexcusably bad call against the US in the match against Slovenia. He deserved to go.

However, they also removed Uruguay’s Jorge Larrionda, who was the center ref in the England-Germany match and notably denied England their second goal in that match. The problem I have is that call was not his fault. As a center ref, there is absolutely no way he could tell whether that ball crossed the line. That is not his fault: he was in the proper position, and it is his assistant referee's job to be able to tell if the ball cross the goal line.

The assistant referee is supposed to be either: even with the 2nd to last defender (usually the defender farthest back who is not the goalkeeper), or even with the ball, whichever is closest to the goal. When a shot is fired from 20 yards out, there is no way any human can keep up with the ball and follow it to the goal. That AR was positioned exactly where FIFA says he should be, but from his position, it is likely that there is no way he could tell with certainty if the ball crossed the goal.

So, if that blown call was anyone's fault, it was the assistant referee's fault. And it probably wasn't his fault either. The fault is really FIFA's, because by the standards and guidelines they set, it is impossible for any referees, no matter how good, to accurately make these calls. FIFA just royally screwed Jorge Larrionda, just to make it look like they were taking action.

Some of these referees were bad, and deserved to go. In other cases, the problem is really FIFA's own rules and guidelines. Their solution? Blame the refs.

So what can FIFA do? Obviously they could implement any number of technologies to validate when goals are scored. Another alternative that I haven't heard anyone mention is to change the offside rule in such a way that the assistant referees can stay on the goal line during an attack. Think I'll have to write a whole new blog entry for that.

Gandalf Goes to the World Cup

2010-06-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to FlyingVan for giving me this link...I got a huge laugh out of it and decided everyone who reads my blog deserves to see it.

Go to youtube.com and search for this video, or anything else vaguely having to do with the World Cup and check out the little soccer ball button on the right hand side of the playbar on the videos. Vuvuzela madness indeed.

Woot!

2010-06-23T11:54:00.001-07:00

USA scored a very exciting second goal in the the first minute of added time against Algeria, for a 1-0 US victory. Yes, that's right. It was the second US goal, but the only one that counted. The first one occurred early in the game when the US player was declared offside. A video review showed the player clearly onside, making this yet another case of a "scoring while American" foul.

Seriously, I saw no evidence of bias. An offside call that close gets blown occaisionally, and it was very close. The center ref was terrific. He made a couple questionable calls, but all in all seemed very fair, wasn't handing out yellow cards for everything. Realistically, it is a rare game that there won't be a couple calls you can call into question given slow-motion video review.

Still, it was a great game by the US, with the win putting them in first place in their group and advancing them to the elimination rounds. Congratulations also to the British, who won their game against Slovokia and also advance. I wonder what the odds of the US and UK meeting in the finals? (right now, US is 80-1 against winning the cup, UK 11-1)

While of course I would love to see the US win, there is no realistic expectation they will even get close to the finals. I kinda like Argentina this year.

FIFA Rant

2010-06-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

It is hard to imagine worse refereeing than we have seen in some world cup games. US was robbed of a goal by a referee making a phantom foul call just as the US was scoring a goal. Nobody can figure out what the foul he was trying to call was. At the same time, the Slovakians were clearly fouling US player. One of them literally had a bear-hug on a US player. The only foul we could see the US guilty of was attempting to score a go-ahead goal while American.

Some have opined that this is an example of bias against America or crooked refereeing. Maybe. But having watched the entire match, I thing it was really an example of poor refereeing. This guy was handing out yellow cards for plain, ordinary fouls. There are conditions for handing out a yellow card, such as being reckless, not merely careless. For the life of me, I can't figure out why he called a handling call early in the game against a US player after the ball bounced off his face (he didn't head it, it literally hit him in the face) and hit his arm. He not only got a foul, the referee gave him a yellow card! Now, he cannot play in the next game.

Unfortunately, on the goal in question, the referee blew the whistle before the ball was kicked into the goal, so there is no choice but to disallow the goal. But really, Americans are used to fair play. We want to see fair refereeing, especially on such an important play. Soccer really needs to institute some sort of instant replay system, at least for important calls like this. I wouldn't want the game stopped constantly to review calls, but perhaps allowing teams 2 challenges each or something would result in better refereeing and fairer results. The last thing anyone should want is games decided by bad calls.

According to the match report, the referee called a foul against Edu, though for what he did not say. There was no offside, as many have commented about. Bradley was not even in the play, so if he was in an offside position, it was not an offside infraction.

The referee, of course, has made no comment on this call, or even indicated what the foul was that he called. And after such a contentious call, the response from FIFA...crickets. Note to FIFA: you want a US audience, then man up and make a comment on this.

My Take on Karate Kid

2010-06-17T13:44:00.001-07:00

Let me start by saying the new Karate Kid movie is fantastic. Jaden Smith has amazing talent. I was amazed by his acting abilities, and his athletic prowness was equally amazing. For some reason, this version made a deeper emotional connection than the original did for me, which is kind of weird, because when I look at it objectively, I believe the original was a better movie. Here are some random comments in no particlar order:

The whole take off the jack/put on the jacket in replacement for wax on/wax off was just plain dorky. The could have come up with something better, as they have in dozens of random kung-fu movies.
I love Jackie Chan, and he was good in his role. Nevertheless, Pat Morita was much better. I appreciate Pat's performance all the more now.
Early on, it was practically a scene for scene translation of the orginal, though they deviate later on. It had a slight touch of the feel of a cheap copy, but again, this went away later in the movie.
The kung-fu was ridiculous. Of course, that is par for the course in this sort of movie.
The ending was better than the original. I always said the original should have ended, maybe even as the credits were rolling, showing the Cobra Kai students waxing cars and painting fences.
I am looking forward to seeing Jaden Smith's next movie.

AYSO Rant

2010-06-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

My son has completed his last season of soccer ever (or so he says). My daughter is now playing soccer at the club level. This means my services to AYSO are no longer required, so I will be retiring.

I have mixed feelings about my experience as an AYSO referee. Let me first say the referee training, the mentors, the referee staff in general have been terrific and very supportive.

The first problem with AYSO is that referees are always the ultimate authority, no matter how stupid or wrong they may be. For instance, my daughter's team played their final game of the Spring season against another undefeated team. The referee that was in charge of the game was a 14 year old girl with the absolute minimum of training. With a game that competitive, I would hope to have a more experience referee, but no, we had to put up with an inexperienced referee with only a minumum knowledge of the rules. I have had other experiences with referees being way out of line. Bad calls or going to happen, and we can just tolerate that. But actively aggrevating the spectors is totally unacceptable. Unfortuntely, there is absolutely no recourse. Nobody watches over the referees to see how they do on the field. One day of training and the become judge, jury and executioner on the field.

The worst part about AYSO refereeing is the fans and the coaches. In general, these people have no idea what the rules are, and have never watched a professional or college level game. This does not prevent them from loudly expressing their opinion on every single call or no-call. Soccer is not like most sports. Just because a foul occurs, does not mean you call it. A referee has to make a judgement call as to whether the foul resulted in an advantage, and look at the subsequent play to determine if calling the foul would be worse than not calling the foul. If a player fouls another player and takes the ball, then that is an easy foul to call and you can blow the whistle instantly. If a player fouls a player, but the fouled player retains the ball, or passes off to a teammate and they have a good attack going anyway, it may be better to not call the foul. These sorts of distinctions are lost on spectators and coaches, who for some reason feel every little thing should be called, unless of course it is against their team.

As everyone on the soccer field should know, soccer is not a non-contact sport. That of course, doesn't prevent people staying stupid crap like "you have to protect the players". Really? I should blow the whistle and stop fouls before they ever occur? The worst is girls games. If somebody's little girls is knocked over, people want to see red cards, maybe a jail sentence. And of course, if their little girl is injured, it is clearly the referee's fault for not preventing it.

The funny thing is, this sort of crap seems to only happen in AYSO games. In AYSO, coaches and parents want to see every little push and shove get called a foul. These people need to watch the World Cup. On the other hand, it probably won't help. I can see these people watching it and commenting on how bad the referees are for not calling all those fouls, never once occurring to them that maybe they need to learn about how the game was meant to be played. I have been to a few club level games no, and the coaches and fans were far more knowledgeable about the game and nobody was yelling at the referees.

As I always tell people upset with the referees: if a referee can't learn how to ref in AYSO, then where are they going to learn? You have to cut them some slack. Nobody yells and the coaches every time they make a mistake, yet most coaches feel no inhibitions to yell and scream and second-guess every single call a referee makes. And it is the coaches who generally set the tone. If the coach is yelling about every call, his sideline is soon yelling about every call. If the coach is respectful, the sideline tends to be respectful.

It's not always bad. The last game I refereed was a hotly contested game, with three very difficult calls to make on goals. One was a ball that may or may not have crossed the goal line, two involved collisions with the keeper. We (the ref team, I was assistant referee and made 2 of those 3 calls) made the correct call all three times as confirmed by some other refs on the sidelines. The coaches were respectful, and afterwards, the ref team for the next game came and told us we had their vote for best ref team ever.

Nevertheless, that last game was the exception to the rule. Most games seem to involve at least one coach who doesn't have respect for anyone. I don't need the BS and am so happy I will not be refereeing any more AYSO games.

Another Ordeal

2010-06-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Kenrick and I spent the weekend at Ordeal for Order of the Arrow where we achieved the "Brotherhood" honor. While this Ordeal was pretty much like the last one, our roles were different, making the experience different. Kenrick and I were both "Elongomats", which basically meant we were in charge of a small group of kids going through their first Ordeal. This had its own particular challenges. For instance, one of challenges in Ordeal is that there is a long period of silence. Some of these boys would die before they stopped talking. And since they would not allow me to paralyze the kids' larynx, I had to find alternative ways of making them stop talking.

Unqualified

2010-05-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

I don't know much about Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Kagan, but I know enough to know she should not be confirmed. Her politics do not really matter: it is understood that Obama is going to nominate a Liberal. The problem is that she is totally unqualified. She has never been a judge.

It doesn't really matter how brilliant she may be. Look, Kobe Bryant is a phenominal athelete. That doesn't mean we should put him on the Olympic Hockey Team. He has no experience playing hockey. Somebody that has had absolutely no experience being a judge does not belong on the Supreme Court. That is not the place for on the job training.

I know there are many who have served on the Supreme Court before who were not judges. They probably didn't belong there any more than Kagan does.

Mother's Day

2010-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Mothers Day for me began Saturday night as my wife wanted me to make her crepes in the morning and souffle after dinner, both of which required chilling the batter overnight. Up at 6 am to make preparations, and then prepare breakfast. Of course, laundry needed to be done, so part of my day was occupied with that. Off to Church with the wife, a visit to my Mom's grave, and then back to prepare lunch. A little time off for me while Pam was out shopping, and then preparing dinner (steak, be her request, corn on the cob, and asparagus). Finishing off dinner with a souffle that miraculously turned out fine, despite some various deviations from the cooking instructions.

After dinner we cleanup, working with my daughter, and then a much needed Jacuzzi, followed by a shower. It was now nearing 11 pm and I thought I might be done for the day, but nope...massage was still on the list. Finally in bed just before midnight.

June 20th. Father's Day. Payback :D

Obviously Racist

2010-05-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

A recent poll found 52% of Hispanics support stronger immigration enforcement to encourage illegals to go home, while 34% supported some form of legalization instead. Those Hispanics are obviously racist.

Illegals in Arizona

2010-05-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

I love the new Arizona law that allows law enforcement to actually enforce our immigration laws. Not because I necessarily believe it is a good thing, but because I want to find out if it is a good thing. Some critics have made some decent sounding arguments: like the presumed greater reluctance of the immigrant population to talk with law enforcement. That argument is central to the sanctuary city policies around the country. Well, now we will get a chance to see if that argument really holds up in practice.

Most critics of the policy are reduced to outright lies are lame allegations of racism. For instance, our own President said legal residents would have to worry about being stopped while going to the store for ice cream. This is a lie. Nothing in the law gives the police authority to check anyone's immigration status unless they are being stopped for commission of another crime.

Lots of critics are foaming at the mouth about "having to show your papers", just like Nazis. Imagine this horrifying scenario: you are stopped by the police for speeding, and then the policeman asks to see your drivers license! OMG! We are in a police state!

In reality, whenever the police stops you, they always ask for your id. If you do not have id, and they suspect you of committing a crime, you are going to jail. This is true no matter what color your skin is, and no matter where you are in America. All this new law adds is that, if they suspect you are in the country illegally, they may also proceed to prosecute you for that. But they don't just deport you immediately. There is a process. Early in that process they will discover, if you are in the country legally, that yes, you do have proper papers and merely forgot to have them on you. No big deal. The reality is, you are not going to be arrested for being in the country illegally if they were not going to arrest you anyways.

Many people have expressed concern about how officers will identify suspected illegals, asserting they would have no way other than the color of the skin. Really? How about this: can't speak English. I can identify someone who can't speak English with my eyes closed. Stopped for a crime, can't speak English, has no id of any kind: off to jail. I have no problem with that.

I have seen some complain that they only go after Hispanic illegals, not European or Asians, and this amounts to racism. Well, in Arizona, 95% of illegals are Hispanic. I am sure if someone is white but only speaks Slovenian you will pretty much be treated the same way.

This new law is really a relatively minor change in enforcement methods. The hysteria about it exhibited by its critics are much ado about nothing. With the boycotts and all the other attempts to squash this, are they worried it won't work, or worried that it will?

Let's see how it works. If it works, it should be replicated around the country. If it doesn't, it should be repealed.

Subic Bay

2010-04-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

I spent much of my time in the Philippines in Subic Bay. For some bizzare reason I cannot fathom, it was decided to travel during Holy Week (the week before Easter), which is the busiest travel season in the Philippines. Hotels were booked, so we ended up staying in a really cheezy hotel in town.

The landscaping at this place was dying, the rooms were about 40 years old, and the casino was closed. On the other hand, we did have a decent meeting room in the hotel, and the Internet connection was good except for a couple hours one day, allowing us to get a lot of work done. In fact, even at the high Holy Week rates, it was cheaper staying in Subic Bay and having a meeting room than being in Manila and renting a meeting room there.

Subic Bay was once a large Naval Base for the US. After WWII, we got a 99 year lease, which the Philippine government then broke in 1994. The politicians of course waxed poetic about how wonderful it was to return all that land to the Philippine people. The reality was that the wealthy and well-connected were able to acquire some prime land to build resorts and mansions, and the working class people lost lots of jobs. The Subic Bay economy went down-hill ever since.

The area we stayed in was in the Freeport area, near the docks. Instead of palm trees and mangroves, we would see cargo ships and docks. Not exactly my ideal location, but we had little choice.

Of course, the trip wasn't all work. We dined together as a group most meals, enjoying various restaurants in the area.

My Dad accompanied us on our various outings, and did some touring on his own while we worked.

One afternoon we went to a place called "Treetop Adventure". One of the good things the Navy did while it was there was make a preserve out of huge tracks of rainforest. The Treetop Adventure had cables running through the forest, so we could cruise over the forest and see things from forest canopy.

We also did a hike through the rainforest, where our guide told us a lot about the rainforest and demonstrated many survival techniques.

Not So Plain Manila

2010-04-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Been a busy two weeks, as my lack of blogging probably indicates. It started on Saturday the 27th of March with a flight to Manila. I was joined on this trip by my Dad (well, step-father actually, but he claims to remember when I was born, so close enough).

The first two days we spent in Manila. Our flight landed at about 5 am Monday morning. We got to our hotel, checked in, cleaned up, had breakfast, and then I took my Dad on a tour of the nearby malls. After lunch I had to work while Pop recovered from the travel.

The second day was really great: we spent half a day doing a city tour. We paid about $30 bucks each for a 3-4 hour tour. We came back 5 hours later. Manila is an interesting city: it is really 17 different cities that kind of just grew together into this sprawling metropolis. Each has it's own city government, and there is some sort of council covering the entire metropolis.

We saw the American Cemetery: a huge cemetery from WWII of American's and Filipinos who died in that war. There was also I huge memorial for those MIA, listing all of their names. We saw the monument to Rizal, who is to the Filipinos somewhat like George Washington is to Americans. We went to Intramuros, which is the old walled city dating back to the 1500's, complete with an old Spanish Fort. All along the way, we learned a great deal about the various parts of the city, it's history, and it's people.

It was my third trip to Manila, but my most enjoyable one by far. Knowledge gives you a much better appreciation for a place.

Born to Run

2010-04-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading the book Born to Run. That book hot me on so many levels and so deeply, I just had to write about it immediately.

When I was young: teens until maybe 22 or so, I was a great athelete, a wrestler. Even though I would run regularly as part of my training, I always hated running. I was constantly fighting off shin splints and a host of other aches and pains.

Then came 20 some odd years of office work and relative lethargy. Sure, I practiced martial arts, and got quite good at it, but it was really about skill and not so much about being in good physical shape. I grew to obesity and have been fighting off and on to get my weight down ever since.

This book may well be the last piece of the puzzle for me. In the last few years, I have been plagued by foot and ankle problems. Just pains, but debilitating pain nevertheless. The book hooked me at the beginning when the writer asked the same questions I did: why do we need these fancy shoes and arch support? Weren't we evolved for bare feet?

So I got myself these cool shoes, so I could run practically barefoot. I went on my first barefoot run using the concepts I learned from this book and another running book a read a could years ago, Chi Running. The result? Ran three miles without stopping. I haven't been able to do that for over 20 years. I felt great when I finished. I wasn't tired at all, but I was starting to feel some small aches in my feet. After being coddled in shoes all those years, I figured I should stop and make sure I don't overdo it my first time out. I didn't slow down that entire three miles. In fact, after a mile, I sped up. I sped up again after 2 miles. And again after 2.5 files. That speed was a little too fast: my feet were taking too much of a pounding, so I eased off. I'll work my way up to that speed soon, I am sure.

Born to Run wasn't just about running. It was about our human ancestory. It was about our connections to each other as humans. It was about being a better person. After finishing it, I have a profound feeling of compassion for my fellow man, and a sense that I have learned something deeply important about myself. I can't promise anyone else reading it will feel the same, but I encourage everyone to give it a read.

Brilliant Global Warming Journalism

2010-03-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

I just saw this article on Yahoo: Island Disappears Into Sea.

According to this article, India and Bangladesh have been arguing over this island for 30 years, and now rising sea levels due to global warming have made the island disappear.

Also, according to this article, sea levels have risen .2 inches per year since 2000, and .12 inches per year in the previous decades. Some quick math using the numbers from the article indicate the sea level has risen 4.4 inches since the dispute over the island started.

OK, so we are to believe that India and Bandladesh have been having a dispute over a small chunk of land that rose a mere 4.4 inches above sea level? It will be interesting to hear what the reality is on this one.

Tree of Liberty

2010-03-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

A large chunck of liberty died yesterday. My health care plan? About to be illegal. Never mind I really liked it and it met my family's needs nearly perfectly.

Some thought the political theater was dramatic. I was nothing but sickened by the entire process. We are in very frightening times now. The Dems know that their time is up in the 2010 elections, so look forward not just to this health care monstrosity, but cap n trade, immigration reform with blanken amenesty, and any number of other things they can think of. This is going to be one ugly year.

Stock market is up to today, led mainly by pitchfork, torch, and ammunition manufacturers.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants" -- Thomas Jefferson

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it." -- H L Mencken

There is one bright spot. One of the first provisions to take effect is that everyone is going to be required to buy health care. This means all those twenty somethings who voted for Obama and do not have health care are going to be hit hard in the wallet. A small measure of justice, but it is at least something. When states made a law forcing you to buy care insurance, the courts said that was OK because driving was a privilege, not a right. Now that the government is requiring health insurance, does that mean living is now a privilege and not a right?

Related?

2010-03-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

A recent AP article about the attempt to pass the health care legislation ended with this sentence: "The United States is the richest country in the world and the only industrial country that doesn't provide health care for all its citizens."

I have heard that stated many times, the implication, of course, being that we are so rich we should be able to provide health care to everyone. Did it ever occur to these genious journalists that maybe those two facts are related? That one of the reasons why the US is wealthy is because we have so far refused to saddle our government and economy with a health care benefit that will bankrupt us as surly as it is bankrupting the rest of the world?

Hello! Heard of Greece?

Bloom Energy

2010-03-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

This company recently made big news: Bloom Energy.

The came up with a way of generating power my sending natural gas, or various other gases, over some kind of silicon chips. The power generation is much more efficient than current methods, and is already cost-effective for larger installations. They claim that within 10 years they will have a unit the size of a breadbox that can power an entire home. If it can power your entire home, would it not be able to power an auto?

Naturally, the gas needs to be consumed in some sort of chemical reaction. Reports are that emissions are extremely low: but so far they haven't published exactly how low. Still, this is a remarkable advancement in power generation. Rumor has it that there are a few other companies developing similar systems.

Funny: here is a breakthrough product that can seriously change the entire landscape in power generation. How did this happen without huge government subsidies like wind and solar get? This illustrates one of the problems with liberal thinking. They think the only research done is done by government subsidy, and only government can force the use of green technologies. Note to liberals: there is HUGE money to be made in developing cost-effective green energy. Hand me energy that is cheaper than current energy sources and green to boot, and I will buy in a heartbeat, as will everyone in the world. This huge market is why vast amounts of venture capital are poured into energy R&D every year. And trust me, the guys pouring their own money into this are much more likely than government bureaucrats to be able to idenyify promising new technologies.

I never heard of these guys until a couple weeks ago. I hope there are dozens of other innovative energy sources being developed that I don't know about.

How to Improve the Winter Olympics

2010-03-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

Having watched a fair amount of the Winter Olympics, I was struck by how much could be done to improve the various sports involved in it. Here are a few ideas:

Biathlon: I think GM Dave had the right of this. Allow the contestants to shoot each other if they don't mind taking the miss on their target. Of course, real bullets would be bad. I suggest paintballs.

Luge, bobsled, etc: need better track designers. How about the guys that do Six Flags. Some corkscrews and loops would greatly add to the entertainment value of these sports.

Ski jumping: they need flames, a giant pit of fire they jump over.

Moguls: add the rifle from Biathlon. No stopping to shoot: just one shot at each of 5 targets as they are going down the hill. Again, paintballs, just in case they miss the target and hit one of the fans in crowds behind the targets. For true entertainment value, it should be a fully automatic paintball gun and you get a second shaved off your time for every hit on a target.

Speed skating: needs to take some inspiration from rollerball.

Curling: everyone does shots after each end. Actually, I find it hard to believe that isn't how it is normally done.

Hockey: they should let the players bash into each other and smash each other into the walls. Oh wait, nevermind. Hockey is perfect.

Ducks Win the Gold!

2010-02-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the Ducks, wearing the uniforms of Canada, for winning the Olympic gold medal in hockey. 3 of the top Canadian players play for the Ducks. In all seriousness, it was a great game, and both the US and Canadian team were great. The Canadian team owned the overtime to win the game.

I have mixed feelings on this one. Nice to see the Canadians win their sport in their Olympics. Certainly they enjoy their win more than the US would enjoy the win. On the other hand, the US team was the better team for the entire tournament, including their victory over Canada a week earlier. Kind of a shame for them to get beat, just barely, for the gold by a team they already beat.

Supreme Ignorance?

2010-02-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I recent poll by the Washington Post found that 80% of Americans are opposed to the recent Supreme Court ruling that said corporations and unions can freely spend money to elect candidates in elections. I find this pretty fascinating. Clearly our public schools have done a poor job of educating.

I am as upset as anyone else with the amount of special interest money involved in politics. However, I am not ready to scrap the Constitution. Let's analyze.

First, I think we all agree with freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is pretty worthless if you don't have the right to let your speech be heard, whether it is by printing your own flyers, posting billboards, or making commercials. The idea that some have that using this right during a political campaign is in some way bad is pretty absurd: in fact, the entire point of having the right to free speech is to affect politics.

Next, the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of association: we can form and join organizations at will. This freedom lets groups like the Boy Scouts, the ACLU, Code Pink, the NRA, and even unions and corporations exist. These are all examples of perfectly voluntary associations.

Combine these, and you merely have people pooling their time, effort, and/or money to express free speech. So, if you are opposed to the Supreme Courts ruling, which of these two fundamental constitutional rights would you like thrown out?

I think this poll exposes not only constitutional ignorance, but a basic part of human nature. Everybody loves their freedoms, but most people are only too happy to restrict the freedoms of other people whose lifestyle or ideology is different from theirs. Those who truly support freedom for all are in a huge minority.

Of course, if you really want to get money out of politics, you need to get the government out of our lives. When the government is in the position of rewarding and punishing through tax dollars, those affected will spend money to prevent being punished or to be rewarded. When businesses don't have to worry about the government regulating them out of existance and know they can expect no windfalls from the government, then they will not spend money on lobbying. Same is true of all organizations.

Biden Claims Iraq

2010-02-11T16:48:00.000-08:00

Joe Biden has claimed Iraq to be one of the great achievements of the Obama administration. As near as I can tell, Obama simply continued the policies of Bush in regards to Iraq. Was there any difference in policy that made any difference whatsoever?

Time Travel

2010-02-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would clue you guys into this little group I found. Note: I found this before Lee. The date on my post proves it!

Time Travel Forum

Sun Signs

2010-02-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently my last post was somewhat of a hit. Lee posted a link Linda Goodman's Sun Signs. I was surprised to find that online: if memory serves, it looks like the entire description of each sun sign is there.

No one in their right mind believe that everyone born under a certain sun sign has pretty much the same personality. Those into astrology recognize this, and have all sorts of explanations for various planetary influences. For instance, if you are a Virgo but Jupiter was in Leo on your birth, then you have some sort of Leo influences, blah blah blah. The point is: the one word descriptions you find are grossly insufficient. Who isn't "stubborn" at times, or "friendly" at times?

On the other hand, Linda's descriptions go into more depth, covering a lot of nuance and variations. So, take a read over her description of your sign, and take a look at a couple others. We'll perform a highly scientific experiment. Post your experience. Does your sign description match your personality better than any other? How accurate is it? Does a different one really match you better?

Astrology

2010-02-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

My buddy Flying Van posted about someone he met that was somewhat into astrology. Let me be clear: the daily astrological forecasts you see are total bunk, and most people that are seriously into astrology are also seriously in need of mental help.

Most people, however, are not so serious about this stuff. Take my wife: she loves to visit fortune tellers, and has a mild belief in astrology. This is probably pretty typical of a lot of people.

When we started dating, I saw she was reading an Sun Signs by Linda Goodman. It just explained about the various astrological signs and their attributes. She was reading it to try and get some insight into me, being a Scorpio.

So one day I am browsing in the book store, and on a whim decided to check out the astrology section. Linda Goodman also has a book called Love Signs, which discusses which signs do best with other signs in relationships. According to the book, Scorpio is a perfect match for Cancer, my wife's sign. I bought her the book.

I also took a look at Sun Signs and read the description of Scorpio. I was shocked. It fit me so perfectly, I couldn't believe it. There was information in there that people that have known me all my life don't quite understand about me. Turns out, I am apparently an archtypical Scorpio. Similarly, my wife is an archtypical Cancer.

So now I think perhaps there is something to this astrology stuff. I know, not everyone born under the sign of Scorpio is just like me, but the astrologers cover all kinds of variants based on other influences. I also think some people are more closely in-tune with their inner nature than others. But what is clear is that the description of Scorpio fits me perfectly, and no other sign, even considering variants, fits me much at all.

Obama Will Be Great

2010-02-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

With a Nobel Prize under his belt, Obama is the sort of American adored by European intelligensia. I now realize that with the sort of goodwill he is capable of promoting, he will be an outstanding ex-President. The sooner he takes on that role, the better.

The SOTU Address Made Me Hopeful

2010-01-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

I loved the SOTU address. Not because I agreed with anything Obama said. In fact, I could take issue with virtually everything, said or unsaid. I just love that he doesn't want to change course. We aren't going to rethink health care: no, he just has to explain it to us better so us stupid people would understand. In fact, he isn't going to give up on any of his Leftist policies.

Love it. Sensible Democrats see the tidal wave coming. The rest are going to be standing there in November wondering what hit them. And these are the same people who think they are so much smarter than the rest of us.

Avatar: My Take

2010-01-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

Avatar was a stunning and enjoyable movie, though trite. Hollywood loves to tell the story of evil corporations destroying the environment, and they love the myth of the noble savages in tune with the environment. They have told this story countless times: so long as you don't mind seeing that story yet again, it is a good movie.

I find it hilarious how so may rave and use it to make political points. Note to all you freaks: it is just a movie. Reminds me of when the global warming fanatics were raving about The Day After Tomorrow. It is even funnier all the people who get depressed because the world of Avatar is not real. Get a grip!

I love the myth of the noble savage. Hollywood has been in love with that story for years too: primative people living in peace and in tune with nature. The reality is that primative peoples rape their land, barely scratch out a living, and go to war with their neighbors all the time. There are some primatives, like their shamans, who do have a close relationship with nature, but in general, primative peoples are just simply barbaric and primative.

When I first heard about the movie Avatar, I thought it was going to be like Avatar: The Last Airbender that my kids watched. Too bad: that would have been a far cooler movie.

Why I Love Liberals

2010-01-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

The best part about Liberals (or Progressives, or whatever they want to call themselves) is their immense capacity for self-delusion. After huge warning signals from the past couple of elections, they spun it and confidently deluded themselves that it had nothing to do with them and their agenda. Already the results of the Massachusetts is being spun, mostly blaming it on a bad candidate or bad campaign.

It's really quite amazing. Some Progressives are saying this election is about health care. They are claiming they are losing because Democrats are upset the health care bill is not Progressive enough! Obama's falling support levels? Same thing: his policies are just not far enough Left to suit the public.

It will never occur to them that this is really a relatively conservative nation, and that Obama was elected as a backlash against Republican corruption, not to enact a far Left agenda. For some reason, Progressives feel they are the majority that have been held down by the rich Republicans.

If they keep up this self-delusion, the Republicans will be back in power in 2010 with the same ease the Democrats took over. Republicans don't have to do anything except not be Democrats. The best part of it all: you can tell Liberals exactly what is going to happen, and they will not act to stop it, because they simply do not believe it.

It's Insurance

2010-01-13T09:35:00.000-08:00

To be fair, I am not sure if Timmer meant this to be criticism, but it seemed that way to me in a blog post he made, commenting on my health insurance: "a buddy of mine is very pleased with his current health insurance. he pays $4000/yr and gets $1000/yr of services. seems like a great deal to him."

He then went on to compare to another friend who doesn't have health insurance, has saved hoards of money by not having it, so has a few acres of land and a house fully paid for.

This illustrates the typical confusion on the whole healthcare debate. It is health insurance, not pre-paid health care. I pay about $1.5k per year for homeowners insurance and get $0 in services. I pay almost $2k in car insurance and also get $0 in services. I have life insurance: thank God my family receives $0 in benefits. When you buy health insurance, you expect to get far less in services than you pay in. One nasty accident, one heart attack, one stroke, one case of cancer, and you can easily recoup the investment in health insurance. I hope I never need it much.

As for not having health insurance: this is a fine choice if have enough cash reserves to handle any health emergency. If you don't, you are taking a gamble, a gamble that is likely to pay off. Most people will not have need for any sort of major medical expenses. But it is a gamble.

As for saving enough money to own a home outright...so what? With the equity in my home, I could sell my house, even at these depressed prices, move to a rural area anywhere in the country and buy a few acres and a house outright. I could easily telecommute with my job, and my wife wouldn't have to work. In fact, I have proposed this a few times. Wife and kids veto it: they love our current lifestyle choice. But that's what it is, a choice based on a huge number of factors like outstanding schools and proximity to family and friends. Perhaps when the kids are grown and gone we will make a different choice. Or not. My wife has commented how much she like simplier rural life a few times: so perhaps there will be a change sometime.

Neither Catholic Nor Bushie

2010-01-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

I was once accused of being a bible-thumping Christian on a blog site after I invoked the word "God". Anyone that knows me knows I am definitely not any sort of Christian, though my wife is Catholic. Heck, I don't believe in God: at least not in the sense of the Christian view of God. What I do believe can probably be called God, for lack of a better name, and so I will sometimes invoke God in my writings, because that is far more understandable to most people.

I have a deep respect for any truly spiritual and religious person, of any religion. I see a lot to be admired in Christianity and Catholicism. I have several close friends who are Catholic, and I both respect and admire their faith. Unfortunately, Christianity seems to be under constant act by an increasingly secular society. I find myself defending it against an onslaught of slurs and misconceptions. Thus, a casual observer might sometimes construe me as a bible-thumper.

Similarly, over the years I have defended our former President, George W, against a similar onslaught of slurs and misconceptions. Ideas like "he lied us into the war" just don't seem to die, no matter how many times this is investigated. People find no end of reasons for criticizing him for the handling of the wars. Just a couple months ago there was a high level report issued about the mistakes that happened at Tora Bora and how we should have got Bin Laden then, which got the Left all riled about again about how "incompetent" Bush was. Oh my god: with perfect hindsight, we discovered a wartime decision was a mistake! Gosh, that is probably the first time ever!

As Georges Clemenceau said sometime very early last century: "War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory." If you ever studied the history of any war, you will understand that truer words are rarely spoken.

My take on Bush: he has been very unfairly maligned by those on the Left and their lapdogs in the mainstream media. No, he was not a great President and my many disagreements with him are a matter of record. But given the choice, I would still vote for him over Gore or Kerry: both of them would have made far worse Presidents.

The State of Climate Knowledge

2010-01-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

As many climate change supports have said, Climategate does not disprove their theories. And right they are: however, it does give it a serious black eye. Any intellectually honest scientists should re-evaluate the evidence. Here is my take on the current state of knowledge.

Let's begin with relatively undisputed facts: CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose presence in the atmosphere will cause warming. CO2 in the atmosphere has been growing over the last century. The temperature gain we should expect to see, considering the CO2 rise alone, is about 0.01 degrees: too small to measure. The direct increase in pressure from CO2 alone is not the only driver of temperatures. We have had a measurable increase in temperature over the last 100 years, approximately 1 degree. The change in the CO2 concentration has other effects, such as an increase or decrease in cloud cover. This is known as forcing or feedback. All the computer models assume that the feedback is positive: the small change in the CO2 drives larger changes, such as a decrease in cloud cover. The feedbacks are what really drive the larger changes in temperature we see in all the computer models.

Everyone agrees with those above facts. A major area of disagreement is in the feedbacks. There is no real evidence that the feedbacks are positive. In other words, the increase in CO2 could in fact drive increasing cloud cover, countering the temperature gains from CO2. The truth is that nobody really knows yet, and science has a long way to go to make any definitive conclusions about that feedbacks.

In the wake of Climategate, the temperature record at least from that source is thrown into great doubt. The famed "hockey stick" has been thoroughly rebuffed, to join Piltdown Main in the science Hall of Shame. The NASA climate data, similarly, has fallen under question. So far James Hansen has been ignoring FOI requests. This does not look good, to say the least.

Despite the fact that there is debate on the temperature data, I think we can definitively say the following: since 1998, the global temperatures have not increased. According to the wildest data from the alarmists, it has remained pretty much flat. If the skeptics prove right about the tampering with the data and the data gathering methods, it may have even been decreasing. Anecodotally, there appears to have been cooling over the last few years, judging from the harshness of the winters, the many cold weather records being set versus the far fewer warm records being set.

None of the computer models predicted that temperatures would or could remain flat for as long as a decade.

As many who believe in the whole Climate Change agenda will point out, there is a huge wealth of research that supports the global warming hypothesis. As I will show, almost all of it is hot air.

Receding glaciers: yes, glaciers are receeding, and far more are receeding than growing. This has been happening since the ice age ended. Is the recession speeding up? In some cases, yes. This is not surprising: we already acknowledge that current temperatures are higher than normal. In other words, this just confirms what we already know: temperatures are warming.

Artic ice extent: yes, artic ice extent has shrunk. Did we mention we already acknowledged temperatures have increased? Well duh. What people continuously fail to mention is that the artic ice extent reached a minimum in 2007, and has been growing every year ever since. Indications are it will be back to normal in 2010.

Polar bears: this is a stupid, non-issue, floated to get the fluffy animal lovers on board. The reality is that polar bear population has been increasing since the 1950s. There are multiple polar bear populations: only two have had a decrease in population, and those are the ones where the temperatures have decreased, not increased.

Spring coming earlier, Fall ending later: this is difficult at best to measure. For instance, a headline last year said spring came early to Britain. This was determined by interviewing a bunch of nature lovers. Uh, so they surveyed a bunch of people who believe in global warming and asked if Spring came early? This is more a result of successful propoganda than scientific research.

Frogs: we have been losing large amounts of frogs all over the world for a number of years now. At first, scientists had no idea why. They speculated on pollution, ozone. Then climate change was big, and they all agreed it was climate change. Without a whit of evidence. Now we know it is a fungus that is killing them off. Climate change? There is no measurable change in the climate in the tropics: what warming there has been has been entirely in the temperate and polar regions.

Lots of other evidence: there are boatloads of other "evidence" of global warming out there, that I categorize into two categories. Some are merely offshoots of the warming we already know that has occurred, like melting glaciers. The other category is spurious speculation without a lick of evidence: like frogs dying off because of climate change.

When you really examine the science, the evidence for man-driven climate change is really very scant, especially considering the boatloads of money spent on it. We should of course continue to research. The scientific community needs to get off its agenda, and start showing some true intellectual honesty. We should definitely not consider any action whatsoever based upon this science until such time as the science is much more credible.

There and Back Again

2010-01-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

Right after Christmas, my family took off for Houston to visit with my wife's family. All 5 of her siblings were there, all but 1 staying at her parent's house. We had 16 people staying at the house, 19 people for dinners. My wife and her sisters did most of the cooking: my wife was so tired upon return, that she took a 4 hour nap when we got home.

It was a great visit. I got to see all my nieces and nephews on that side of the family. They are all much younger than my kids, ranging in age from 1 to 8. Kenrick and Valerie get along well and played with all of them. They also monopolized my computer for almost the entire time.

Didn't do a lot more than visit while we were there. We did do the mandatory trips to the Downtown Aquarium and to the NASA Space Center. Add of course we had to shoot off almost $500 worth of fireworks. All the kids were old enough to enjoy that! Even the 1 year old sat and watched and said "Wow!".

All in all, it was a great, relaxing visit. I hope we have many more.

Holiday Greetings

2009-12-24T08:53:00.001-08:00

To all my liberal friends and acquantances, I wish you all happy holidays, unless of course you do not celebrate any holidays this time of year or believe that these holidays are either capitalism at its worse or only for religious nutters, in which case I still wish you a happy New Year, free from all religious or other intolerant notions.

And for the rest of you, a heartfelt merry Christmas! I wish I could take the time to personally see each and every one of you during these holidays. May yours be filled with the warmth and cheer of family and friends.

The End of Freedom

2009-12-20T09:37:00.000-08:00

We have been slowly losing our freedoms, under administrations of both parties, but never so fast as we are about to if this health "reform" is enacted.

My family currently has a catastrophic health insurance plan that costs me $344/month. I love it. I get to go to practically any doctor I want. I get to decide if I want to see a specialist. The first 3 doctors visits per year for each family member cost only $30 for the visit. There is a $5000 deductable, after which everything is 100% covered. I cannot remember anyone in my family every needing more than 3 doctor visits in a year. A "comprehensive" package would cost about $750 per month. So, I save about $400 per month, which is about $4800...approximately what my deductable is. Under the new health care "reform", my plan would be illegal. I would be forced to pay the $750 a month or face jail. Well, really, I only face a fine: the jail happens if I refuse to pay the fine. But, I will have no choice: my current plan will dissappear, and the only plans available will be the ones that meet the new government guidelines.

And let's not forget the government will now be setting guidelines on standards of care. Once bureaucrats are involved, there is no end to the problems they can cause. Sorry, no mammograms before age 50. Yes, we can treat that disease, but it costs too much and isn't worth it for someone your age. Higher premiums for being above BMI targets? Higher premiums for gun owners? The list is endless. With the government so involved in our health care, anything that affects our health will become a valid area of regulation in our life.

And let's not forget the intrusions into our privacy. Civil libertarians went apeshit over the wiretapping program and the Patriot Act. Personally, I didn't think losing the freedom to call Al Qaida without the Feds listening in was much of a loss. On the other hand, the new healthcare bill will allow the government access to my medical records and my bank account. The silence from the left on the loss of this privacy is deafening.

With my body being regulated and controlled by the government, what use are other freedoms?

Not So Burgled

2009-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

Over the 17 years I have lived in this house, people have snuck into our cars and burglarized them I think 4 times. Seems like about every 2 years we are hit when one of the other of us forgets to lock the cars. I have a very long driveway...long enough to park 6 cars end to end.

So, a few months ago after the last incident, I bought a motion detector for my driveway. Put the alarm for it next to my bed. It works great. No false alarms, only once has it gone off and I didn't know why...figured it was probably a coyote or something.

So, a little before 4 am this morning the darn thing goes off. I run downstairs and look out my window. A man in a hooded sweatshirt is walking down the driveway. I run, put on shoes, grab the phone, and open the front door. By now the man is at the neighbors house, checking the doors on their cars and shining his flashlight in the windows. I called 911, told them what was going on, and continued to watch the guy. He goes car to car around the culdesac. Across the street he finds one unlocked. Searches inside for about a minute. I am tempted to run up and trap him in the car, but 911 dispatch suggests that is a bad idea. Of course they are right. Who knows, the guy could have a gun.

He pops the trunk of the car, checks in there, then moves around the corner and starts heading down the street. I walked up to the corner and kept an eye on him, staying probably 50 yards away all the time. Finally, police lights show up down the street and I see the man slink away from the cars and into the shadows near someone's front doors (the guy that lives there was a former USC quarterback).

I flagged down the cop, and pointed out where the guy was at. The cop drew his gun, yelled at the guy to come out, which he finally did when I realized he was spotted. He was forced to lay facedown on the ground for a few minutes while we waited for backup to arrive. Once backup arrived, I went home and put on a jacket, then hung around until they were ready for my statement. It took quite awhile as I had to go over my story 3 times. They stayed in the neighborhood a couple hours checking on other neighbors. Apparently he tried to hide the stuff he stole before he came out, and they found some other neighbors that had been burglarized.

Most people only encounter police when the get a traffic ticket or when they show up after a crime has been committed and take a report, which goes nowhere. It was great to be on hand to see them efficiently deal with this guy. Feels good to finally catch at least one burglar, after all the times in my life I have been burglarized and no one was ever caught.

I love my driveway motion sensor.

Nice Speech

2009-12-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Let me first say I still think Obama was an absurd choice for the Nobel Peace Prize. I think the best action he could have taken would have been to decline the prize; of course, I cannot imagine any politician doing that.

That said, Obama gave a terrific acceptance speech, one I think every American should be proud of. I am sure some conservative talking heads will find some things to nitpick about, but he did a wonderful job of justifying the use of force when necessary, while praising non-violence as a solution when possible. He acknowledged the existence of evil and the need to combat it.

Something that has always driven my crazy about the pacifists out there that believe war is never right. Ever hear people say "it takes two to fight"? How about "Let's give peace a chance"? These are absurdities. In the first case, the choice is not often between fighting and not fighting, it is between fighting and getting beat up. Peace is always given a chance: but what do you do when the other side decides to invade? Peacefully surrender?

I have fundamental disagreements with our President, and have disagreed with virtually everything he has ever done. I will probably continue to do so. But in this case, he deserves all our praise.

The Fabled Northeast Passage

2009-12-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we were treated to a top news item that the fabled North East passage was open for the first time ever as a German shipping company successfully sent some cargo ships through it. Here is the press release from the German company: Press Release.

I remember reading this and kind of wondering, since I thought it had been used for years, but just chalked it up to another anecdote of arctic heating. Turns out, the entire claim was bogus. We have been shipping through that passage for decades, and journalists just uncritically accepted the claims in the company press relase and published it. I remember the article got top billing on Yahoo that day.

The article was debunked so quickly, that all the news agencies have pulled the story. I can't find it anymore by searching yahoo or google. Fortunately, reliable Huffington Post still has one: Northeast Passage Opens.

Leading up to the Copenhagen talks, we are seeing lots of ominous sounding stories about global warming, full of rehashed old news repackaged to make them sound new and ominous. Reminds me of the movie My Cousin Vinny where he shows how the prosecution tries to show the case is solid, like a brick (while showing a playing card), and the defense needs to show the jury how it is really flimsy, like a card.

More on NASA Data

2009-12-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

In case you want to dismiss me as a nutjob for question NASA's data, read below: Hansen's NASA Boss Now a Skeptic.

Not only is he skeptical, he goes on to say how Hansen has modified the data, with neither an explanation of how he did or why he did, in order to fit their models.

This is pretty old news, but of course got scant coverage in the press.

NASA Climate Data

2009-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

With the CRU data totally invalidated, the other main source of climate data is NASA, under the direction of Climate Change fanatics James Hansen. There have been allegations over the years that the NASA data has been tampered with. Heck, he was caught doing it a year or two ago: "just a mistake" he claimed. Of course, the mistake just happened to make the temperature warmer, but heck, there was a 50-50 chance of that.

Like the CRU, NASA also adjusts the data. The exact algorithms and methods used are secret. There has been a FOI request for this information that is about 2 years old and being totally ignored. A lawsuit is being launched to force release of this information.

There have been plenty of people who have questioned NASA's data. Here is an example: NASA's Peculiar Thermometer.

Read the article. The raw temperature data is showing a cooling trend. The massaged data from NASA shows warming. There are also serious problems in that huge chunks of the planet have no instrumentation (like all of Canada and Africa).

Now that NASA's data is about to come under more scrunity, is there temperature data going to fall too?

How Climate Models Are Built

2009-12-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

I have long suspected how these wonderful climate models that are predicting global warming work. The recent release of the CRU source code hints that I am probably correct.

The problem with the CRU scandal isn't that a handful of scientists in one place were corrupt. They were in contact with corrupt and corrupting other scientists all over the world. What we are seeing is really the tip of the iceberg. Not that all or even more than a small percentage of climate scientists who believe in human induced climate change are corrupt: but it only takes an influential few to corrupt the entire system.

So, here is a simplified explanation of how I think pretty much all climate computer models out there work. First, they have a model that says CO2 drives warming, so that gets programmed in. Of course, it shows as CO2 increases, so does warming. That's what they programmed it to do. Next, the start loading historical data. It doesn't match the computer projections. So, they go about introducing "fudge factors". As in: from 1960-1974, if we multiply our calculated temps by 0.983, it is darn close to the measured ones. From 1975-1983, we multiply by 0.991, etc. So, year after year, as measured data does not conform with the model, they adjust the model some more. The model, however, is a complicated combination of reasonable climate modeling interspersed with fudge factors from years of adjustments.

It is a rare year that any of the climate models gets much of anything right. 2 or 3 years in a row by a single model is unheard of. But, they will tell you, they are awesome at predicting past climates. As usual, postdiction turns out to be much easier than prediction.

I hope some climate scientists are insulted enough by my assertion to prove me wrong. Publish your source code and data for all to see. So far, all these climate models along with the data they feed them are closely guarded secrets. Much like the CRU source code was until recently.

If we are going to trust our prosperity, our economy, and maybe the fate of the world on secret computer models working with secret data, we might as well go consult the Oracle of Delphi.

Goodbye Scientific American

2009-11-30T13:29:00.000-08:00

I have subscribed to Scientific American since I was in high school. I love to keep abreast of various fields of science, and always have looked forward to reading every issue.

It has bothered me for some time their uncritical acceptance of the anthropomorphic climate change hypothesis. Many articles are written as if global warming were a proven fact, on as solid ground as evolution or quantuum mechanics.

What has finally pushed me over the brink was their response to the release of email and source code from the CRU. The emails are pretty damning. The source code is absolute proof positive that what those researchers were doing were committing scientific fraud. The response from the Scientific American Editors? Spin, and minimization: Climate change cover-up? You better believe it.

I would expect a very different reaction. Perhaps some scientific objectivity. These guys are at the epicenter of the whole climate change engine. Remember the hockey stick? We now have the source code that proves what they did was fudge the algorithm to produce their desired result.

The whole climate change thing is not dead. Just because some researchers committed fraud does not mean all did, and there are mountains of research over the past 20 years. But for science's sake, at least admit the hockey stick is a fraud, and everything these researchers produced highly suspect.

So now that we have seen the code behind the famous hockey stick, I would love to see the code and data sets behind the various climate models. I suspect we will see more of what we saw at the CRU: a lot of fudged algorithms to make the models fit with historical results. Don't hold your breath though. To the best of my knowledge, no one has actually published the source code and data for the climate models, and without a brave whistleblower, who knows when that will happen.

So back to Scientific American. The same group also publishes Nature magazine, a similar magazine long known for its global warming cheerleading. I have a subscription renewal form for Scientific American sitting on my desk. For the first time in over 30 years, it is going to go unanswered.

Presidential Pardons

2009-11-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

Just like Clinton, who horribly abused the power of Presidential pardons, so now Obama has also issued a scandalously underserved pardon to the turkey "Courage". This thing is 45 pounds. If anything deserves to be killed and cooked for Thanksgiving dinner, it is Courage. No doubt Obama is getting hefty campaign contributions from the Turkey Producers Association and from PETA.

Instead of a pardon, Obama should have personally chopped the head off the turkey and showed the terrorists out there that we mean business, and we too can chop off heads. Instead, he once again demonstrated incomprehensable weakness and has made the country less safe. What an embarassment.

What's that? Every President for the last 30 years has pardoned a turkey on Thanksgiving?

Uh, nevermind.

A Really Slow Learner

2009-11-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

You would think that our President might have learned something from the outrage that came out when Obama bowed before the Saudi King. The official White House line was that he didn't really bow, but just had to lean over because he was taller than the Saudi King. Those that believed the White House spin were cleanly divided between those that watched the video and those that didn't.

The lesson is simple. Presidents do not bow to foreign powers. Period. Ever. It really isn't that hard a concept to grasp. But now, here is Obama in Japan:

It will be interesting to see how the spin develops over the coming days on this one. Right now they are saying he is just following protocol. Really? Since when? I challenge the entire planet to find a photo of the US President bowing before any foreign leader at any other time.

It gets worse: his bow is also wrong. In Japan, you do not combine a bow with any sort of touching, including a handshake. This is very basic Japanese etiquette. You would think if he was following protocol, he might have been briefed on this. Instead, he made himself look like a total fool.

Company Move to Las Vegas

2009-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

The company I work for is moving its headquarters to Las Vegas. Many people will be staying here, working for a subsidiary company, but the trading and financial companies are moving to and will operate out of Las Vegas. This doesn't affect me much: I will remain at the Southern California office.

Why are the moving? Taxes and regulation. We will save over $200,000 in company taxes with the move, and all the employees who relocate to Nevada will not have to pay California income tax. In short, it is cheaper to operate out of a second office in Nevada than to have everyone here in California. And that is taxes alone. Our business has a fair amount of regulations, which are much easier to work with in Nevada than California. So, California not only misses out on income tax from the company, but also on income tax from several employees, all because of onerous taxes and regulations.

This should also be seen as a lesson to those who want to tax those greedy rich bastards. It is relatively cheap and easy to move money and create companies in other countries, free from US taxation. If you try and tax the rich too much, it simply encourages them to move their assets and revenues off shore.

I am planning on launching a new company early next year. Odds are good I am going to incorporate it as a foreign company and avoid as much of the coming tax increases as I can.

Another Milestone

2009-11-09T11:58:00.001-08:00

I achieved another milestone yesterday, turning 30 in programmer years.

Grasping at Straws

2009-11-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

The liberal media have been portraying the Democratic victory in New York's 23rd district as a sign of the implosion of the Republican party and a huge upset victory for the Democrat. My local paper said they took a seat held by Republicans for the last 100 years.

OK, just a little reality check. First, in the last 100 years, that seat was held for 68 of those years by a Democrat, and 32 of those years by a Republican. Republican's held it for the last 16 years.

The ballots didn't really show a Republican running. Scozzafava was the Republican (well, sort of). When she dropped out, she left Hoffman, running as the Conservative party, as the opposition to the Democrat. Let's get real: if a similar situation happened in reverse, leaving a choice between a Republican and a candidate of the Green Party, would there be any surprise if the Republican won? While she dropped out, Scozzafava still got 5.5% of the vote: enough that if it went to Hoffman, as it no doubt would have, it would have been a Republican victory.

The playbook is the Scozzafava was a moderate being run out by the right wing fringe. The reality is that she was no moderate: she was a liberal, the very definition of a RINO. I could not find a single policy position where she supports the Republican principles. Contrast this to the Democrats ousting Lieberman over Iraq. Iraq was the only thing where Lieberman didn't toe the Democratic party line.

I don't know if liberals are spinning this, or actually believe what they are saying. I hope it is the latter. Let them delude themselves for another year. It's really hillarious: Democrats are claiming the GOP is falling apart, when in fact it is actually becoming revitalized and energized. If this trend continues, 2010 is going to be fun.

America's Image Abroad

2009-11-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

A newly released Gallup poll shows that, of people who want to leave their country, the US is the #1 choice. The poll was conducted from 2007-2009 and showed about 700 million people want to leave their country.

America was the top choice, followed by a 3 way tie between Canada, France, and the UK. The US was the preferred destination over all three of those countries combined.

So all you people that have been whining about America losing its standing in the world: who are you listening too? Sure, people in France will sit around the coffee shop and complain about ugly Americans, but when it comes down to it, the world prefers the US to France or anywhere else by huge margins.

Strong or Weak Dollar?

2009-10-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Our government and the Fed have been purposely devaluing the dollar. They have made no secret about it. Nowadays, I have seen nothing but commentary on how the weak dollar will help us by increasing exports, presumably leading to more jobs. I call this the silver lining in the cloud.

Think about it: if a weak dollar is so good, why not weaken it further. Just think how many jobs will be created when people can get paid $200k salaries for being customer service for foreign companies.

The answer, of course, is that a strong dollar is far preferable to a weak dollar. A strong dollar encourages foreign investment in the US, which creates jobs. It also means we can buy foreign products much more cheaply, increasing revenues to those US companies who sell them, and increasing the productivity of the US worker through the use of better tools and technology, further increasing the living standards of the workers, increasing their wealth, and increasing the wealth of the country as a whole.

Health Insurance Profits

2009-10-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

It is amazing to me how people demonize health insurance companies: their profits, and their lavish executive pay. Anybody every check the facts? Profits at these companies run about 5% of revenue or less. There are precious few companies that could run on such a slim profit margin. Executive pay? If the CEO took absolutely no payment, the company profits would surge from 5% to 5.001%.

I know: those insurance companies are evil for denying claims. Except it turns out the government Medicare program denies a far greater percentage of claims than any private insurance companies.

Unfortunately, to those inclined to demonize these companies, mere facts won't be very convincing.

A Visit

2009-10-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

I was driving home from fixing a computer malfunction at like 1 am this morning, and listening to one of my favorite radio programs, America Coast to Coast. Actually, I very rarely ever listen to is as it is on from like 11 pm to 4 am or some such. But for the unfamiliar, they have a wide ranging array of guests on the show ranging from total wack jobs discussing the aliens living amongst us to real scientists discussing scientific explanations for the paranormal. For instance, last night while driving into the office just after midnight, they had some guy explaining very matter of factly how we are all really aliens descended from the Atlantians and the bombing of the moon that NASA is going to do is really an attempt to open a portal so we can escape the Earth-moon system that we are imprisoned in.

On the way home, they had some paranormal researchers who go places and look for evidence of ghosts and other paranormal activity. They guys are the real deal: mostly they find normal, physical causes. But occaisionally, something unexplained happens. They were playing some audio clips where they believe they have captured ghostly voices. As I pulled into my driveway, they played one where a whispery, ghostly voice says "Leave me alone". It was pretty creepy sounding.

So, I get out of my car and wander into my house. It is dark, and I am feeling slightly creeped out, but really no big deal. I by the living room, where I could hear but not see the dog on the couch. My Dad had picked up some plastic glasses with flashing red LEDs on the bottom for the kids, and one of those was sitting on the fireplace. It suddenly turned on. I was 20 feet away from it, and the dog was like 10 feet away. I picked it up and could not turn it off, the switch apparently broken.

These sorts of electrically malfunctions seem to happen spontaneously on rare occaision. But right then, just after I walked in the door and was all alone done there?

My wife has told me a few times over the last months that she thinks my Mom is still around. Jeeze Mom: if you want to visit, knock on the door or call first.

Vertigo

2009-10-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

My wife has been suffering with dizzy spells for the last few days. She says she notices it the most when she lays down or gets up. Kind of weird: some dizziness when you get up is not uncommon for a variety of reasons, but dizziness when you lay down is kind of weird.

A co-working had a similar problem a few months ago, but much more severe. So, I gave her a call. She told me to google "benign positional vertigo". So I did.

I was expecting a doctor visit, a trip to a specialist, and some sort of drug to take for 10 days. Instead, I found everything we needed. Turns out some calcium crystals form in the ears and they jostle around when your head moves. A quick way to diagnose this is using the Dix-Hallpike test, which I was able to perform from just readying the description. The fun part is the cure: for that we did the Semont Maneuver. I had to perform it 3 times, and then a couple more this morning, but she seems to be totally fine now.

This has to be about the weirdest medical treatment I have ever seen.

Big Winner!

2009-10-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

I picked up the phone last night and was informed by the nice gentleman from The Gas Company's Energy Savings Program that my house was selected to win a free in home demonstration of energy efficient windows!

I laughed for probably a good 10 seconds, and then asked "So, I won the privledge of have a sales guy show up and try and sell me new windows?"

"Uh....if you haven't already replaced them..." was the reply.

I think the long laugh really flustered him.