Go see In a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
for the ultimate in Madonna jokes.
Just sayin'...
Meanwhile, I have the Mother of All Stiff Necks today. Worst "crick in my neck" I've ever had. Typing hurts.
See ya.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Looked Like This To Me
Unfortunately, I have to say Madonna is several years younger than I am...
Confidential to the current crop of entertainers: if you get asked to be the half time act at the Super Bowl, it pretty much means your career is over.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Why Hit the Catholics Now? Part II
Perhaps it's best summed up by a story most of us have heard:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"
Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." - George Orwell
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
My Turn
The Rules:
-
1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave the award
3. Pick five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.
- Improved Clinch - John, the erudite submariner, a guy with some very interesting perspectives.
- No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money - as you might gather, tends to track legal 2A issues the most.
- Gun Free Zone - Miquel down the state in South Florida. I really admire Miquel because he goes after the crazy anti-gun folks relentlessly. It takes a lot of dedication.
- American Mercenary - currently home, but just back from Afghanistan. Real insights to that area, and good instructive articles on defense and other tactics.
- Borepatch - he has the most followers of these five, but I visit several times a day. Great security insights (he's a pro, after all), and historical insights on a wide variety of things. Not to mention the weekly country music.
Monday, February 6, 2012
New Little Sunday Afternoon Project
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
I was going to write about how the BLS (Bureau of Lies and Stupidity) cooks the unemployment numbers, but Peter, Bayou Renaissance Man beat me to it, with a long, excellent overview. Go read.
Friday afternoon, I got stuck in a waiting room with a TV tuned to CNBC, the perma-bull network. The market had been closed for half an hour, and the buzz was about how fantastic the numbers are: the market hasn't closed this high since (whenever). Here we have a network of financial commentators and they went for 20 minutes without once comparing the stated numbers corrected for inflation. Finally, one commenter said, "in a QE world, stocks will be going up" - in other words, the larger quantity of dollars created forces prices up. The term for that we use in flyover country isn't "in a QE world", it's inflation. If John Williams at Shadowstats is right and the year over year inflation is running around 11%, when measured how it originally was measured, that 12,862 closing on the DJIA would have been 11,587 - much less worthy of song.
Friday afternoon, I got stuck in a waiting room with a TV tuned to CNBC, the perma-bull network. The market had been closed for half an hour, and the buzz was about how fantastic the numbers are: the market hasn't closed this high since (whenever). Here we have a network of financial commentators and they went for 20 minutes without once comparing the stated numbers corrected for inflation. Finally, one commenter said, "in a QE world, stocks will be going up" - in other words, the larger quantity of dollars created forces prices up. The term for that we use in flyover country isn't "in a QE world", it's inflation. If John Williams at Shadowstats is right and the year over year inflation is running around 11%, when measured how it originally was measured, that 12,862 closing on the DJIA would have been 11,587 - much less worthy of song.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Coming Revolution in Micro Production
H/T to Arctic Patriot in an email to me, pointing out this article on MIT's Technology Review e-zine: Why 3-D Printing Will Go the Way of Virtual Reality. The author has one good point:
Stop for a second. Look around you. Everything you see that didn't grow out of the ground was made by someone. In the case of your computer, the molds have to be made to cast the plastic, which has to be made from chemical feed stocks. Metals have to be mined, refined, cast, and machined. The first articles of anything made of metal are made by the most advanced machinists, called tool and die makers. The next are manufactured on a model created by these folks. You don't have to look too far to see various things sold as better because they are "CNC Machined", but CNC (Computer Numerical Control of machining) doesn't assure anything other than lower amounts of scrap for the company that makes them and possibly a more consistent product
Machining is a subtractive process. You start with either a casting, which is shaped to minimize the machining operations, or from "billet"; metal plate, bars and sheets produced in standard sizes. Either way, you then "remove everything that doesn't look like" what you're trying to make: you subtract it from your starting piece. It's not unusual to remove more metal than remains in the part you created. In comparison 3D printing is an additive process. The two processes compliment each other, and there are things that can be made in the additive 3D printing process that can not be made by subtractive processes.
The first machines were called stereolithography, and made parts by shining a laser on fluid that polymerized into a plastic where the laser hit. A few thousandths of an inch below the top of the fluid was a platform that the plastic was formed on. The platform is lowered and layer by layer the object is created. The result was usually a thin, translucent, plastic shell model of your object.
from the 3D guys, a whimsical creation: a "frozen" splash on the table of an SLA machine.
More recent 3D Printing has become a dry process, or a drier process, as the current machines deposit layers of plastics that are fused together, or extrude thin streams of plastic. The big issue that has to be resolved for 3D printing to have an enormous impact is the materials they use, and progress is being made. Scientists have 3D printed implantable veins - almost two years ago. MIT has printed solar cells. Don't think that what comes out of the printer has to be the final item. For example, almost all mass produced jewelry and hundreds of precise ("jewel-like") mechanical items are made by lost-wax casting, where a wax mold is carved or molded, and then used as a master to cast a piece. The models that come off the 3D printer can be used in place of the wax and cast. There are service bureaus that will take your computer file of a 3D model of a piece of jewelry, 3D print a mold, and return a cast and polished piece of jewelry to you. The same lost wax casting technology is used by dentists and in many other places; these will also likely go to 3D printing.
Right now, with a hobbyist-level 3D printer, you could print things like plastic plates, forks, cups, and other pieces of the "cheap plastic consumer stuff" we buy in bulk (I have no idea how cost-effective that is, ignoring the cost of the printer). Industrial grade printers have been extremely widely adopted in manufacturing. As resolution and materials improve, the 3D printer will be more able to print things that the owner can assemble into an item they'll use around the house. 3D printing is already a billion dollar industry, and there's no reason to think it's going to fade and go away.
But the notion that 3-D printing will on any reasonable time scale become a "mature" technology that can reproduce all the goods on which we rely is to engage in a complete denial of the complexities of modern manufacturing, and, more to the point, the challenges of working with matter.A columnist on Tech Review does a good job of arguing against this viewpoint using regular printing as a model. In my view, it simply comes across as this year's version of the famous quote (attributed to IBM's president Thomas Watson), "The world will never need more than four or five computers". It's simply too myopic.
Stop for a second. Look around you. Everything you see that didn't grow out of the ground was made by someone. In the case of your computer, the molds have to be made to cast the plastic, which has to be made from chemical feed stocks. Metals have to be mined, refined, cast, and machined. The first articles of anything made of metal are made by the most advanced machinists, called tool and die makers. The next are manufactured on a model created by these folks. You don't have to look too far to see various things sold as better because they are "CNC Machined", but CNC (Computer Numerical Control of machining) doesn't assure anything other than lower amounts of scrap for the company that makes them and possibly a more consistent product
Machining is a subtractive process. You start with either a casting, which is shaped to minimize the machining operations, or from "billet"; metal plate, bars and sheets produced in standard sizes. Either way, you then "remove everything that doesn't look like" what you're trying to make: you subtract it from your starting piece. It's not unusual to remove more metal than remains in the part you created. In comparison 3D printing is an additive process. The two processes compliment each other, and there are things that can be made in the additive 3D printing process that can not be made by subtractive processes.
The first machines were called stereolithography, and made parts by shining a laser on fluid that polymerized into a plastic where the laser hit. A few thousandths of an inch below the top of the fluid was a platform that the plastic was formed on. The platform is lowered and layer by layer the object is created. The result was usually a thin, translucent, plastic shell model of your object.
More recent 3D Printing has become a dry process, or a drier process, as the current machines deposit layers of plastics that are fused together, or extrude thin streams of plastic. The big issue that has to be resolved for 3D printing to have an enormous impact is the materials they use, and progress is being made. Scientists have 3D printed implantable veins - almost two years ago. MIT has printed solar cells. Don't think that what comes out of the printer has to be the final item. For example, almost all mass produced jewelry and hundreds of precise ("jewel-like") mechanical items are made by lost-wax casting, where a wax mold is carved or molded, and then used as a master to cast a piece. The models that come off the 3D printer can be used in place of the wax and cast. There are service bureaus that will take your computer file of a 3D model of a piece of jewelry, 3D print a mold, and return a cast and polished piece of jewelry to you. The same lost wax casting technology is used by dentists and in many other places; these will also likely go to 3D printing.
Right now, with a hobbyist-level 3D printer, you could print things like plastic plates, forks, cups, and other pieces of the "cheap plastic consumer stuff" we buy in bulk (I have no idea how cost-effective that is, ignoring the cost of the printer). Industrial grade printers have been extremely widely adopted in manufacturing. As resolution and materials improve, the 3D printer will be more able to print things that the owner can assemble into an item they'll use around the house. 3D printing is already a billion dollar industry, and there's no reason to think it's going to fade and go away.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Why Hit the Catholics Now?
This has been bothering me, in the "this just don't make sense" way. Why does the administration go after the Catholic church, one of the largest institutions in the country, in an election year when any conventional wisdom has to say they're on the ropes? Are they supremely confident, naively stupid, or maliciously evil? (It's possible to be any combination of all three!)
Back in '09 some Catholic groups were big supporters of Obamacare. They got their 30 pieces of silver in savings for Catholic hospitals and charities - fewer uninsured. They accepted taxpayer funding of abortions to get that silver. Now they're being ordered to provide contraception, another violation of church teachings. (Confidential: if you're a Catholic leader who advocated for this, while emulating Judas Iscariot goes a bit far, it's a good principle - the industrial equivalent is resigning).
I'm not Catholic and don't really understand their doctrines, Ann Barnhardt is a better source for that, but when the US government starts forcing their religion (a secular fundamentalism) on churches it gets my attention. The feds do everything short of calling in the SWAT teams and shooting dogs if some kid so much as sings Silent Night at a school function, but it's fine for them to shove their morality on people who are opposed to it? After observing this since Roe v Wade was passed, I've come to the conclusion abortion is sacred to the secular fundamentalist, perhaps their only sacrament. They have no higher goal than ensuring abortions for everyone - especially if they're paid for by people who find it morally reprehensible. Bookworm Room puts it this way:
But, again, why now? Why in an election year? I can only offer some hypotheses. First is that they think the membership of the Catholic church doesn't care that the government is doing it; that the membership is much less doctrinal than their leadership. Second: they are so contemptuous of people of faith that they want to ruin them, and that means break down that faith. As a weaker example, Obama's campaign speech in the national prayer breakfast yesterday, where he tried to say that Jesus wants the rich to pay higher taxes, quoting a well known verse from Luke - 12:48 - and in a stunning two-fer, got both the economics and the theology wrong. A necessary conclusion from 2 is that they want to hurt the people of faith so badly, they don't care if it hurts their election chances. Approximately 22% of Americans self-identify as Catholic; does the administration think they can throw away the votes from half of them? A quarter? All of them?
Whether you support a woman’s right to have an abortion or not, surely anyone who is intellectually honest must see that it is morally wrong to make a religious institution fund it. To use an extreme analogy, this is the beginning of a continuum that ends with Jews being forced to dig their own mass burial pits before being lined upon along the edge of those pit and shot.This is an assault on all religions, all faiths. I will stand with the Catholic church.
But, again, why now? Why in an election year? I can only offer some hypotheses. First is that they think the membership of the Catholic church doesn't care that the government is doing it; that the membership is much less doctrinal than their leadership. Second: they are so contemptuous of people of faith that they want to ruin them, and that means break down that faith. As a weaker example, Obama's campaign speech in the national prayer breakfast yesterday, where he tried to say that Jesus wants the rich to pay higher taxes, quoting a well known verse from Luke - 12:48 - and in a stunning two-fer, got both the economics and the theology wrong. A necessary conclusion from 2 is that they want to hurt the people of faith so badly, they don't care if it hurts their election chances. Approximately 22% of Americans self-identify as Catholic; does the administration think they can throw away the votes from half of them? A quarter? All of them?
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Then and Now
The fantastic Michael Ramirez at IBD and TownHall.
Let me just say that one of the worst sounds in the world is water running in your house's pipes when you know everything is turned off.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Google, Internet Privacy and Anonymizers
Reference the new Google privacy policies...
If you want to search for things that you don't want associated with your ID, anonymizers will strip your IP address and make it much harder to track to you. For the moment, they are legal. A friend who's a software engineer wizard forwarded a link to Startpage. Startpage uses Google's search engine, but keeps you anonymous. They are upfront and honest about their privacy policies.
I'm not even slightly curmudgeonly about old technology; I definitely don't believe that older technologies are better because they're old, and I'm not afraid of new technologies. I take a skeptical view of the concept of the singularity, credited to Kurzweil or Vinge, when computer intelligence merges with human intelligence and the rate of increase in human ability goes exponential. It's not that I think it can't happen and not that I think it's a crazy idea, I just think it's too much like controlled fusion reactors. Controlled fusion has been "20 years away" for at least 40 years. These things have a habit of being much harder to do than the visionaries think.
That said, there are some fairly bright people who think Google is going too far, and use the term "Skynet" - as in Google is creating Skynet or will be Skynet by (2020, 2030, 2050, pick a number). I think it's worth paying attention to this with some portion of your brain. Shelly Palmer, who writes on technology for NBC/Universal puts it this way:
If you want to search for things that you don't want associated with your ID, anonymizers will strip your IP address and make it much harder to track to you. For the moment, they are legal. A friend who's a software engineer wizard forwarded a link to Startpage. Startpage uses Google's search engine, but keeps you anonymous. They are upfront and honest about their privacy policies.
I'm not even slightly curmudgeonly about old technology; I definitely don't believe that older technologies are better because they're old, and I'm not afraid of new technologies. I take a skeptical view of the concept of the singularity, credited to Kurzweil or Vinge, when computer intelligence merges with human intelligence and the rate of increase in human ability goes exponential. It's not that I think it can't happen and not that I think it's a crazy idea, I just think it's too much like controlled fusion reactors. Controlled fusion has been "20 years away" for at least 40 years. These things have a habit of being much harder to do than the visionaries think.
That said, there are some fairly bright people who think Google is going too far, and use the term "Skynet" - as in Google is creating Skynet or will be Skynet by (2020, 2030, 2050, pick a number). I think it's worth paying attention to this with some portion of your brain. Shelly Palmer, who writes on technology for NBC/Universal puts it this way:
The sky is not falling and this is not a sensationalistic FUD-mongering exercise (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt). It is an admonition that the time has come for learned colleagues to start a Socratic discourse about what parts of the Genie need to stay in the bottle, and what parts can be let out. Imperfect metaphor? I don’t think so.Anonymizers like Startpage are good for covering use of the the search engine part of Google. For those of us who use Blogger, it's not the complete answer. If we stayed logged into Blogger, it follows us to YouTube, follows us when we comment on each others' blogs, or other parts of the community. We're creating a digital shadow, a shadow that - unlike real life - lingers everywhere we go, forever.
This is a very complex problem and we are going to need very simple ways to describe it. Skynet can’t win – at least not in the world I want to live in. Let’s get ahead of this while it’s still just the subject of the occasional rhetorical blog post – because, no matter what anyone tells you, the world of big data is never going away.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Primary Day in Florida
The electronic counting is coming to completion, and I'm sure you're all hearing that Mittens has been declared the winner. You can rest assured I did not vote for him, but I'll leave that detail concealed.
As always, the lovely and wise Mrs. Graybeard and I have voted. In this case, I say wise because of this observation from years ago which I have quoted before:
Preparing for an election is like cleaning out the cat's litter box. It's a disgusting, revolting task that exposes you to all sorts of dirty, filthy things you'd rather never see, but if you don't do it, the job gets even more disgusting and revolting.Long time visitors will note that I hardly ever talk about day to day politics and especially not party politics. This is why. The last couple of weeks have been brutal with negative ads. I know they use them because they say they work, but I wonder if that's an artifact of how they measure. I want a candidate to tell me why I should vote for them, not why I should vote against their opponent. Whenever possible, I will vote against the one whose negative ad I hear first. Newsflash: don't get your information on any candidate by listening to ads on the radio or TV. Do your own research in advance. Write it down if you have to, or save a local copy to your computer - in this age of editing the past. It's better to keep a low level of attention at all times, so you can - hopefully - have some knowledge of the candidates well before the big day.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Is it Immoral to Kill? - Bioethicists
Dang, I got that punctuation all wrong - the question mark is in the wrong place. I should have written that as "Is it immoral to kill Bioethicists?"
An interesting story broke on Friday that I'm sure relates to the implementation of Obamacare. BioEdge, an online news source for Bioethics, reports on a paper "Is It Morally Wrong to Take A Life?" The actual article is on the Journal of Medical Ethics, but I can only show the abstract. BioEdge excerpts the journal article, though.
Note that these are not "nobodies" that no one will listen to: this is from the National Institutes of Health and Duke University. Because they're unwilling to accept any historical standards of right and wrong, they feel free to define their own standards. This has happened before in history: the eugenics movement that culminated in the Nazi holocaust comes to mind, but Margaret Sanger's American eugenics movement that tried to sterilize and eliminate children from blacks, minorities and the disabled was cut from the same cloth, only a more modest cut. Her organization is, of course, known today as Planned Parenthood.
I'll bet the underlying reason for this is Obamacare, which is going to force the government to decide who gets what level of care. Sarah Palin famously talked about death panels that will decide who gets treatment and who dies. Under the Whole Lives system (link to pdf), which was developed by another group of bioethicists, the chances of you getting treatment for something are poor for babies and old people, peaking, instead, for young adults in the first half of their careers. The system was developed by a group including presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ezekiel, and is encoded in Obamacare.
As I wrote once before:
Notice that according to these ethicists, "The only relevant difference between life and death is the existence of abilities", and since anyone who refuses an outside, existing standard may set their own, I'd like to mimic them and set my own standards for ethicists:
I have a set of partial differential equations that need to be solved using the Method of Frobenius, could you do that for me? No? How about a set of three simultaneous ordinary differential equations in three unknowns: can you solve them for me? Don't have that ability? Maybe math isn't your strong suit. Can you run a lathe and turn a part to better than five tenths (.0005") accuracy? No? Can you run a fishing boat or set a trotline? Do you know how to analyze the stresses on a bridge? Can you grow a crop of vegetables? Build walls? Don't have many abilities, there, do you, skippy?
You may load one in the chamber, gentlemen. Using their own standards, the answer to tonight's question is apparently "no, it is not immoral to kill bioethicists".
An interesting story broke on Friday that I'm sure relates to the implementation of Obamacare. BioEdge, an online news source for Bioethics, reports on a paper "Is It Morally Wrong to Take A Life?" The actual article is on the Journal of Medical Ethics, but I can only show the abstract. BioEdge excerpts the journal article, though.
Is it morally wrong to kill people? Not really, argue two eminent American bioethicists in an early online article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, of Duke University, and Franklin G. Miller, of the National Institutes of Health believe that “killing by itself is not morally wrong, although it is still morally wrong to cause total disability”.Skipping ahead to the money quotes:
Rendering someone totally and permanently incapacitated is just as bad as taking a life, or so they contend. Killing totally disabled patients does them no harm.What an interesting world medical ethicists live in if weeds and humans are equivalents! Folks, if you've heard the term "slippery slope" before but were never sure if you'd seen one, read that last couple of paragraphs again. That's a Teflon slope covered in grease.
“Then killing her cannot disrespect her autonomy, because she has no autonomy left. It also cannot be unfair to kill her if it does her no harm.”
Nor, they say, is life “sacred”. The only relevant difference between life and death is the existence of abilities – and a brain-damaged person no longer has these.
“[I]f killing were wrong just because it is causing death or the loss of life, then the same principle would apply with the same strength to pulling weeds out of a garden. If it is not immoral to weed a garden, then life as such cannot really be sacred, and killing as such cannot be morally wrong.”
Note that these are not "nobodies" that no one will listen to: this is from the National Institutes of Health and Duke University. Because they're unwilling to accept any historical standards of right and wrong, they feel free to define their own standards. This has happened before in history: the eugenics movement that culminated in the Nazi holocaust comes to mind, but Margaret Sanger's American eugenics movement that tried to sterilize and eliminate children from blacks, minorities and the disabled was cut from the same cloth, only a more modest cut. Her organization is, of course, known today as Planned Parenthood.
I'll bet the underlying reason for this is Obamacare, which is going to force the government to decide who gets what level of care. Sarah Palin famously talked about death panels that will decide who gets treatment and who dies. Under the Whole Lives system (link to pdf), which was developed by another group of bioethicists, the chances of you getting treatment for something are poor for babies and old people, peaking, instead, for young adults in the first half of their careers. The system was developed by a group including presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ezekiel, and is encoded in Obamacare.
In this system, it's acceptable to let a 70 year old, die while giving care to a 25 year old, because their life is worth more to the collective - excuse me - worth more to society. To paraphrase their quote, "it's not discrimination to deny care to the 70 year old and give it to the 25 year old. Everyone who is now 70 was once 25 and the majority of those who are 25 now will be 70 some day". In other words, "we can screw you now because we didn't screw you earlier; and if we're not screwing you now, wait until you're 70 and then you'll really be screwed."The implications are obvious: if a twenty-something needs a liver or kidney transplant and a suitable donor person below 10 or over 50 (judging by Emanuel's chart) is available, these ethics standards say go ahead and kill the kid or kill the grandma and get the working "unit" back to work so "it" can make money and pay taxes to the mighty Fed.gov hydra.
Notice that according to these ethicists, "The only relevant difference between life and death is the existence of abilities", and since anyone who refuses an outside, existing standard may set their own, I'd like to mimic them and set my own standards for ethicists:
I have a set of partial differential equations that need to be solved using the Method of Frobenius, could you do that for me? No? How about a set of three simultaneous ordinary differential equations in three unknowns: can you solve them for me? Don't have that ability? Maybe math isn't your strong suit. Can you run a lathe and turn a part to better than five tenths (.0005") accuracy? No? Can you run a fishing boat or set a trotline? Do you know how to analyze the stresses on a bridge? Can you grow a crop of vegetables? Build walls? Don't have many abilities, there, do you, skippy?
You may load one in the chamber, gentlemen. Using their own standards, the answer to tonight's question is apparently "no, it is not immoral to kill bioethicists".
Sunday, January 29, 2012
My Five
The latest meme is what five guns would you get if price were no object. While we've done this before, I think that one was more bounded by reality.
1. Barret M82A1 Yeah, I said last time that there isn't a range over 600 yards that in the state that I know of. But if price is no object, .50BMG semi auto? Don't even have to think twice.
2. Wilson Combat Classic 1911 This was in my list last time. Still love it.
3. A Palma Rifle. Here I'm not sure what to go for, but thousand yard shooting with .308 sounds like fun to me. I'm sure custom is the way to go, but I don't know who to go to. I'd try this Savage 18532 at least to get me started.
4. A full-auto Uzi SMG. Only shot one once, but it was fun.
5. A Winchester Model 1894, but not a new one - I'd like one as antique as possible, but I think it needs to be 30-30.
Let me confess some dumbness - I only became aware of Palma competitions a couple of months ago, when someone posted a link to Anette Wachter, the 30 Cal Gal, and I saw that extremely high-zoot rifle of hers. So I went and read up on it, and it sounds like a good hard challenge. Let's face it - if we wanted simple hobbies, we'd collect stamps, right? No stress, no chance of things blowing up in your face, no chance of someone else's ND punching a hole in you: just buy stamp, put in book.
1. Barret M82A1 Yeah, I said last time that there isn't a range over 600 yards that in the state that I know of. But if price is no object, .50BMG semi auto? Don't even have to think twice.
2. Wilson Combat Classic 1911 This was in my list last time. Still love it.
3. A Palma Rifle. Here I'm not sure what to go for, but thousand yard shooting with .308 sounds like fun to me. I'm sure custom is the way to go, but I don't know who to go to. I'd try this Savage 18532 at least to get me started.
4. A full-auto Uzi SMG. Only shot one once, but it was fun.
5. A Winchester Model 1894, but not a new one - I'd like one as antique as possible, but I think it needs to be 30-30.
Google's New Privacy Initiatives
OK, fellow users of Blogger/Blogspot - which includes Gmail and Picassa by default, probably along with all the other Google services, what do you think of the new privacy policy they're mailing around?
Do you think they're trying to force us into their Google+ social network, or do you take the more paranoid view that they're trying to enable even more detailed tracking and monitoring of us? Or are they just being efficient and kind and helping us do things we didn't even know we wanted to do? The fact we can't opt out of it kinda makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This is the only Google service I still use. Never use it for search. Never use it for maps. Never have gotten the Google Earth bug.
Years ago, 1999, Scott MacNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems famously said, "You have zero privacy, anyway. Get over it." (started a firestorm, that, but it might well have been prescient). You have all the privacy of the grains in a sandbox. No particular grain stands out above all the rest, and you don't notice them, but if anyone wants to put a particular grain under a microscope, they can learn everything they want to know about it. You don't have privacy, you have anonymity.
I know we're paranoid, but are we paranoid enough?
Users of surveillance drones and satellites will notice smoke coming from my backyard. Remote sensing units will swing into service to determine if another clandestine meth lab has started operating. Chemical sensors will sniff the trail and decide it's a mix of hickory, oak, charcoal, and pork butt. The sensors will not be disappointed; they can't feel emotions like that. They will simply move on to the next target.
Do you think they're trying to force us into their Google+ social network, or do you take the more paranoid view that they're trying to enable even more detailed tracking and monitoring of us? Or are they just being efficient and kind and helping us do things we didn't even know we wanted to do? The fact we can't opt out of it kinda makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This is the only Google service I still use. Never use it for search. Never use it for maps. Never have gotten the Google Earth bug.
Years ago, 1999, Scott MacNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems famously said, "You have zero privacy, anyway. Get over it." (started a firestorm, that, but it might well have been prescient). You have all the privacy of the grains in a sandbox. No particular grain stands out above all the rest, and you don't notice them, but if anyone wants to put a particular grain under a microscope, they can learn everything they want to know about it. You don't have privacy, you have anonymity.
I know we're paranoid, but are we paranoid enough?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Life on Planet Broke
I wanted to comment on the SoTU address by the Hawaiian Kenyan, but I find it's hard to beat Mark Steyn at turning a phrase. Mark posts The State of our Union is Broke at National Review Online.
It's amazing the whole Buffet Rule nonsense has been dredged back up, like the zombie that is, as if increasing taxes on the richest few people in America would matter as much as a fart in a mitten (to borrow a quote in a comment at Sipsey Street). I have this nasty habit of being grounded in reality, and while I've talked about this before, let's hit the bullet points.
As I've done before, I like Steyn's conclusion so much, I'll use it here. (I did say to RTWT)
Hey - I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitress! Go read.Had I been asked to deliver the State of the Union address, it would not have delayed your dinner plans:
“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”
It's amazing the whole Buffet Rule nonsense has been dredged back up, like the zombie that is, as if increasing taxes on the richest few people in America would matter as much as a fart in a mitten (to borrow a quote in a comment at Sipsey Street). I have this nasty habit of being grounded in reality, and while I've talked about this before, let's hit the bullet points.
- The whole issue is pure hypocrisy, and Warren Buffet is stinking hypocrite himself. The real tax rate Buffet is paying is closer to 50% than the 15% the president quotes. That's from 35% when it was regular income and 15% as dividend earnings. Our tax code is written to encourage investing in businesses by taxing your capital gains at less than the ordinary income rate. Whether or not that's a good thing, and I believe it is, is completely independent of raising tax rates on millionaires and billionaires (where millionaire has been defined as earning more than $250,000).
- The tax rate is different from the percentage of income you pay as tax due to our "progressive" tax system. The rates are a step function; for the first step of income, you pay a lower percentage tax than on the last dollars you earn. Over 97% of the population pays less than 12% of their gross in taxes. In fact, about 50% don't pay anything, and some make more in government benefits than they pay, leading to a decrease in lifestyle if they work harder and earn more.
- If fed.gov took every penny of the combined wealth - not just their income - of the Forbes list of the Richest 400 in America and reduced them to paupers, you'd end up with $1.5 trillion, which is not quite enough to pay for one year of our deficit ($1.56T). (source)
- If fed.gov took every single penny of income from everyone who earns over $10 Million per year, you'd get $240 billion - enough to run the government for 18 days. If they took every penny of income from everyone with an income of over $250,000, the money would be gone in under 200 days. It wouldn't pay for the current spending programs for a year, let alone add all the programs they want. For a refresher, watch Bill Whittle's excellent video.
But maybe for 2012 a whole new Forbes 400 of Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs will emigrate to the Hamptons and Malibu and keep the whole class-warfare thing going for a couple more years
As I've done before, I like Steyn's conclusion so much, I'll use it here. (I did say to RTWT)
There are times for dreaming big dreams, and there are times to wake up. This country will not be going to the moon, any more than the British or French do. Because, in decline, the horizons shrivel. The only thing that’s going to be on the moon is the debt ceiling. Before we can make any more giant leaps for mankind, we have to make one small, dull, prosaic, earthbound step here at home — and stop. Stop the massive expansion of micro-regulatory government, and then reverse it. Obama has vowed to press on. If Romney and Gingrich can’t get serious about it, he’ll get his way.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Across the Universe
Not this version.
I stumbled across an interesting piece of legalese yesterday, that apparently has been making its way into all sorts of places. I have the Weather Channel app on my iPhone, and have been using it for over 2 years. There was an update the other day, I installed it on Wednesday night, and promptly forgot it. Turned it on yesterday and was greeted by a new EULA, a Terms of Use and Privacy Policy that you must agree to before you can see the forecast. Admittedly unusual for me, I started reading it a little ways, and was soon floored by the amount of legalese there was. I swear there must be well over a hundred iPhone screens of text to read. But one thing jumped out at me. Regarding using their "services", anything you post:
... will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary and will become the property of TWC throughout the universe. (emphasis added)Throughout the universe? I pointed this out to the ever curious and master of Google-fu Mrs. Graybeard and after some amazement and puzzling over the wording, she soon showed me it's been going on for a while. In fact, they often say "throughout the universe in perpetuity".
Experts in contract drafting say lawyers are trying to ensure that with the proliferation of new outlets -- including mobile-phone screens, Twitter, online video sites and the like -- they cover all possible venues from which their clients can derive income, even those in outer space.All I can say is: across the entire universe? Did anyone get Klingon Chancellor Gowron's opinion on that?
Thursday, January 26, 2012
A Little Techie History
A friend passed this on to me, and I think it's a fun read - particularly if you don't know anything about the history of radio.
CAR TUNES
Radios are so much a part of the driving experience, it seems like cars have always had them. But they didn’t. Here’s the story.
SUNDOWN
One evening in 1929 two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.
Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios – Lear had served as a radio operator in the U. S. Navy during World War I – and it wasn’t long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.
SIGNING ON
One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago. There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a “battery eliminator” a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity, more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.
Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin’s factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker’s Packard. Good idea, but it didn’t work – half an hour after the installation, the banker’s Packard caught on fire. (They didn’t get the loan.)
Galvin didn’t give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked – he got enough orders to put the radio into production.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix “ola” for their names – Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.
But even with the name change, the radio still had problems:
A: When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.)
B: In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio – the dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions.
HIT THE ROAD
Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression – Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorolas pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B. F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to “Motorola” in 1947.)
In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed the first handheld two-way radio – the Handie-Talkie – for the U. S. Army.
A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II. In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200. In 1956 the company introduced the world’s first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world’s first handheld cellular phone. Today Motorola is the second-largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
And it all started with the car radio.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO….
The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin’s car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950’s he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.
Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he’s really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet; the world’s first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)
Edit 18222 EST: Dat ole typo generator that puts them in after I hit "Publish"
CAR TUNES
Radios are so much a part of the driving experience, it seems like cars have always had them. But they didn’t. Here’s the story.
SUNDOWN
One evening in 1929 two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.
Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios – Lear had served as a radio operator in the U. S. Navy during World War I – and it wasn’t long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.
SIGNING ON
One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago. There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a “battery eliminator” a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity, more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.
Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin’s factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker. Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker’s Packard. Good idea, but it didn’t work – half an hour after the installation, the banker’s Packard caught on fire. (They didn’t get the loan.)
Galvin didn’t give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked – he got enough orders to put the radio into production.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix “ola” for their names – Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.
But even with the name change, the radio still had problems:
A: When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.)
B: In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio – the dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions.
HIT THE ROAD
Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression – Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorolas pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B. F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to “Motorola” in 1947.)
In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed the first handheld two-way radio – the Handie-Talkie – for the U. S. Army.
A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II. In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200. In 1956 the company introduced the world’s first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world’s first handheld cellular phone. Today Motorola is the second-largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
And it all started with the car radio.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO….
The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin’s car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950’s he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.
Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he’s really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet; the world’s first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)
Edit 18222 EST: Dat ole typo generator that puts them in after I hit "Publish"
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The Manufacturing Sector in the US. - Far From Dead
H/T to Bayou Renaissance Man for a link to an interesting piece in the Atlantic on manufacturing in America today. It's a long and complex piece on a complex subject, but it's worthwhile to RTWT. The story focuses on a company in South Carolina which manufactures fuel injectors and other complex, precise parts for the auto industry. We hobbyist machinists are never under time pressure in our projects; if anything, we shape metal to get away from thinking of those time pressures. In manufacturing, time is money and getting the job done right with minimal waste, then doing it better the next time, is the mantra.
If an engineer from 1975 had been put in suspended animation and brought back today, they could look in today's typical electronics box, like an iPod, or other toy, and not recognize a thing. There are some parts that haven't changed much, because the physics that rules them is so unforgiving that no better ways have been found, but it wouldn't be obvious for most uses. The size of components has shrunk dramatically and inexorably, such that most of them no longer have lead wires attached to them, but rather are tiny pieces that appear to be ceramic flakes (a part smaller than a red pepper seed, .040" long by .020" wide, is not considered small today). These tiny ceramic chips have metal plated onto their ends which are soldered to a circuit board. The only practical way to handle and solder parts like this in volume is with machinery, removing many of the semi-skilled workers in the work flow.
The National Association of Manufacturers says the US is the largest manufacturing sector in the world, with China number 2 and Japan at 3. Even if you swap the US and China, the manufacturing sector still produces a lot in this country. Kevin at The Smallest Minority ran a piece on Sunday about the manufacturing of iPhones. It focused on a New York Times piece that basically said the iPhone is made in China because it couldn't be made anywhere else; every part is made in a city less than 25 miles across. It feeds the illusion that it couldn't be made here because no such places exist in the US. I call bull crap on that. Too much is made of the wage differences between here and China or India and not enough is made about our advantages in high-tech. In the Atlantic piece the Standard managers are saying they won't go to China unless they save about 40% in the cost of the part, to cover the indirect costs, I'm sure.
I would argue the US' biggest problems are not our wage structures, but our regulatory and tax structures (link is to a pdf). As always, government is the problem. Our corporate tax rates are punitive - either the worst or second worst in the world (everybody, all together, corporations don't pay tax, they raise their price to collect the tax - or they get out of the country). Our regulatory processes have been made up as make work programs for lawyers and they look it. Still, while we may not manufacture ten million of this years' hot computer toy, we produce billions of dollars worth of industrial and other products. The NAM says that taken by itself, US manufacturing would be the 9th largest economy in the world.
I vaguely remember a Joe Biden quote that struck me with such force, it almost knocked me over. If Joe gets it through that titanium skull of his, anyone should get it. Over a decade ago, I believe, he said, "we have to be careful that if we really want to create jobs, we can't be too anti-business in our message".
I came to think of Standard Motor Products as an enormous machine that regularly scans every tiny part of every engine in every car on the streets of the United States to answer two closely related questions: What makes sense to manufacture here in the U.S., and what should be made in a low-wage country, like Mexico or China?I've worked in electronics manufacturing for virtually my entire adult life; first as an electronics technician, and eventually as an engineer. If there's one constant, it's the refinement of processes to run more automatically and require fewer but higher-level people. (I suppose the other constant since 1975 has been people telling me we don't manufacture anything in America anymore). I see the same trend in the Atlantic piece.
If an engineer from 1975 had been put in suspended animation and brought back today, they could look in today's typical electronics box, like an iPod, or other toy, and not recognize a thing. There are some parts that haven't changed much, because the physics that rules them is so unforgiving that no better ways have been found, but it wouldn't be obvious for most uses. The size of components has shrunk dramatically and inexorably, such that most of them no longer have lead wires attached to them, but rather are tiny pieces that appear to be ceramic flakes (a part smaller than a red pepper seed, .040" long by .020" wide, is not considered small today). These tiny ceramic chips have metal plated onto their ends which are soldered to a circuit board. The only practical way to handle and solder parts like this in volume is with machinery, removing many of the semi-skilled workers in the work flow.
The National Association of Manufacturers says the US is the largest manufacturing sector in the world, with China number 2 and Japan at 3. Even if you swap the US and China, the manufacturing sector still produces a lot in this country. Kevin at The Smallest Minority ran a piece on Sunday about the manufacturing of iPhones. It focused on a New York Times piece that basically said the iPhone is made in China because it couldn't be made anywhere else; every part is made in a city less than 25 miles across. It feeds the illusion that it couldn't be made here because no such places exist in the US. I call bull crap on that. Too much is made of the wage differences between here and China or India and not enough is made about our advantages in high-tech. In the Atlantic piece the Standard managers are saying they won't go to China unless they save about 40% in the cost of the part, to cover the indirect costs, I'm sure.
I would argue the US' biggest problems are not our wage structures, but our regulatory and tax structures (link is to a pdf). As always, government is the problem. Our corporate tax rates are punitive - either the worst or second worst in the world (everybody, all together, corporations don't pay tax, they raise their price to collect the tax - or they get out of the country). Our regulatory processes have been made up as make work programs for lawyers and they look it. Still, while we may not manufacture ten million of this years' hot computer toy, we produce billions of dollars worth of industrial and other products. The NAM says that taken by itself, US manufacturing would be the 9th largest economy in the world.
I vaguely remember a Joe Biden quote that struck me with such force, it almost knocked me over. If Joe gets it through that titanium skull of his, anyone should get it. Over a decade ago, I believe, he said, "we have to be careful that if we really want to create jobs, we can't be too anti-business in our message".
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
1000 Days
Today marks 1000 days - almost 3 years - since the United States Senate performed one of their basic constitutionally mandated tasks and submitted a budget. The last budget they passed was on April 29, 2009. Instead, they have worked by continuing resolutions and funding embedded in 1000 page bills - funding that is unrelated to anything actually being legislated. I don't need to, but will remind readers the Senate has been under the control of the Evil party since the 2006 elections. The stupid party controls only the House of Representatives, and only since 2010.
Wanna bet that gets mentioned in the SoTU?
Harry Reid (D. Uranus) is said to think preparing a budget is "a foolish idea" - in my opinion it's because he doesn't want to put all the stupid or corrupt spending in one easy-to-read place. Not enough camouflage - no place to hide. Investor's Business Daily puts it this way:
death spiral, debt ceiling is expected to be raised this weekend. They agreed to not stage a real revolt over the debt ceiling the last time we went through this. We don't call them the Stupid and Evil parties for nothing, you know.
I am no fan of Speaker of the House John Boehner, but I will give credit where due. I wandered into a room with a TV on Sunday and caught a few seconds of an interview between Boehner and host Chris Wallace. Chris was trying to press Boehner on the "do nothing congress" platform that Obama is running on. Wallace said in the current session they had only passed 80 laws and 20 of them were naming post offices or other meaningless things, so didn't this prove Obama right? Boehner asked incredulously, "The number of laws we pass is a measure of how good a congress we are?". Wallace sheepishly replied, "it's a measure", to which Boehner said, "Most people think we have way too many laws and think we shouldn't keep passing more". I was surprised, but credit where credit is due.
And, as of a few hours ago, it was still impossible to confirm the rumor that India and Iran have agreed to allow the sale of Iranian oil to be paid in gold, however that site observes that India doesn't have enough gold reserves to do that for long. The megatrend of the dollar slowly dying is undeniable, though. The BRIC countries developing their own basket of currencies or trading in their native currencies will only help bring on the death of the dollar.
Listen closely. Hear that sound? That's the death rattle of the dollar.
Separated at birth? Maybe Senator blob fish would publish a budget.
Wanna bet that gets mentioned in the SoTU?
Harry Reid (D. Uranus) is said to think preparing a budget is "a foolish idea" - in my opinion it's because he doesn't want to put all the stupid or corrupt spending in one easy-to-read place. Not enough camouflage - no place to hide. Investor's Business Daily puts it this way:
A published budget would be an election-year death warrant for Senate Democrats, because Republican Senate candidates would stuff its highlights into every mailbox they could.On a related note, you probably noticed a few weeks ago that the president has asked for the debt ceiling to be raised by another $1.2 trillion, again. If you're keeping score, that will raise the "on books" debt to $16.4 trillion dollars or approximately 108% of GDP. The House has voted against this, but it's purely symbolic and the
I am no fan of Speaker of the House John Boehner, but I will give credit where due. I wandered into a room with a TV on Sunday and caught a few seconds of an interview between Boehner and host Chris Wallace. Chris was trying to press Boehner on the "do nothing congress" platform that Obama is running on. Wallace said in the current session they had only passed 80 laws and 20 of them were naming post offices or other meaningless things, so didn't this prove Obama right? Boehner asked incredulously, "The number of laws we pass is a measure of how good a congress we are?". Wallace sheepishly replied, "it's a measure", to which Boehner said, "Most people think we have way too many laws and think we shouldn't keep passing more". I was surprised, but credit where credit is due.
And, as of a few hours ago, it was still impossible to confirm the rumor that India and Iran have agreed to allow the sale of Iranian oil to be paid in gold, however that site observes that India doesn't have enough gold reserves to do that for long. The megatrend of the dollar slowly dying is undeniable, though. The BRIC countries developing their own basket of currencies or trading in their native currencies will only help bring on the death of the dollar.
Listen closely. Hear that sound? That's the death rattle of the dollar.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Exclusive Preview: Obama's Fourth SoTU Address
Actually, I was going to write a satire about this, but have had too much to do tonight. Instead, I'll link to this excellent piece by Joseph Curl in the Washington Times: The Truly Dismal State of the Union. A taste:
$15 trillion dollars in stacked pallets of $100 bills - from two months ago when our "on the books" national debt reached 100% of GDP. For perspective, it took from the foundation of the USA until the last year of the George W Bush administration for the debt to reach $10 Trillion. In roughly 3 1/2 years, debt has increased by $5 trillion - 50%. At the current rates, on this date in 2015, just three years, the debt will be over $24 trillion an increase of $12 trillion - 60% from today's mind-boggling debt (from the DebtClock's Time Machine feature).
There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.Word.
This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt...
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