Team America? Team Freedom? No, Team . . . May 16, 2005March 2, 2017 THE BUBBLE Thanks to Greg Lawton for this recent story from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Snippet: . . .what has been knocking Jon Orens for a loop is the intensity of the housing demand. ‘No model, no pictures, just floor plans and a quick tour of a windowless building piled with bird poop, and we end up selling 123 of the 144 units at $350 to $400 a square foot,’ Orens said. ‘We keep raising the prices to discourage investors, but they keep coming,’ he said. ‘An investor looks for three things: rent to cover the mortgage, appreciation, and depreciation. When we tell them that the rent won’t cover the mortgage, they tell us that two out of three isn’t bad.’ GNUCASH.ORG Paul Rightley: ‘You used my message Friday but included the wrong URL for gnucash. Being a part of the free software world (that is free as in speech, not as in beer), the correct URL is www.gnucash.org since it is not out to make money (just keep track of it). Unfortunately among many there is a perception that free software must be inferior to software that you must pay for. In many cases this is not correct.’ ☞ But this is not for amateurs (like me). I couldn’t even tell whether it would run on a Windows PC. That wasn’t one of the Frequently Asked Questions. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE – YOUR ANSWERS Dan Schaeffer: ‘Oh! I know what’s different about that family! The parents have been together for more than 20 years! That’s so unusual these days!’ Tom Reingold: ‘I live in the Maplewood, South Orange area of New Jersey. We have so many gay couples raising children here that it is no longer an eyebrow raiser. I am still very heartened, but my kids are so used to it that they ask me why I make note of it at all. It’s just a part of the landscape for them, and I’m happy about that. And I’m not gay.’ Ann Hartzell: ‘Thanks for the great day brightener – loved those pictures of such a happy family. What is the deal with this country, anyway? OK – just one voice from Savannah saying ‘right on.” Chip Ellis (age 43): ‘Seeing how happy Laurent, Joe and the kids look and the fabulous trips they have taken, I have one question — Do they want to adopt me?’ FORTUNATELY, OUR GOD IS BIGGER THAN THEIR GOD You might think a religious war is exactly what we should all want to avoid. It didn’t work well in the Twelfth Century, and it may have even more terrible consequences today. In case you missed this editorial in Saturday’s New York Times: Separation of Church and Air Force Whatever is ailing the Air Force Academy, and the academy has had its share of ailments over the years, campus pressure on cadets to adopt a particular set of religious beliefs will not cure it. Last year, academy officials promised to do something about widespread complaints of unconstitutional proselytizing of academy students by evangelists whose efforts were blessed by authority figures in the chain of command. An authorized investigation by the Yale Divinity School and local news reports documented numerous instances of pressure on cadets to adopt Christian beliefs and practices. Such pressure came from dozens of faculty members and chaplains, and even the football coach, with his “Team Jesus Christ” banner. One chaplain instructed 600 cadets to warn their comrades who had not been born again that “the fires of hell” were waiting. Pressure to view “The Passion of the Christ” was reported, extending to “official” invitations at every cadet’s seat in the dining hall. Nonevangelicals complained of bias in the granting of cadet privileges and of hazing by upper-class superiors, who made those who declined to attend chapel march in “heathen flights.” The cure for this blatant abuse of God and country should be obvious. But it turns out that the academy’s remedial program of religious toleration is running into resistance. The Air Force’s chief chaplain expressed displeasure at the object lessons dramatized in a multidenominational educational videotape. “Why is it that the Christians never win?” the chief, Maj. Gen. Charles Baldwin, demanded to know after watching the give-and-take of instructional encounters. General Baldwin had segments cut out on such non-Christian religions as Buddhism, Judaism and Native American spirituality. Capt. MeLinda Morton, a campus chaplain charged with helping to fix the problem, was thoroughly disheartened by the response. She warned that the altered video program would do little to cure what remained “systemic and pervasive” proselytizing. The captain, a Lutheran minister, was removed last week as executive officer of the chaplain office. Right now, it is hard to believe that there can be true reform from within. It is time for the higher chain of command to deproselytize this institution of national defense. Tomorrow: What’s Wrong with These Nobel Laureates?
What’s Wrong with This Picture? May 13, 2005January 18, 2017 CASABLANCA Rick Schulz: ‘The correct quote is: ‘My health. I came here for the waters.’ ‘Waters? What waters? We’re in a desert.’ ‘I was misinformed.” WHAT’S GNU? Paul Rightley: ‘Will Galway mentioned gnucash in your May 4th missive. Recently, Intuit told me to upgrade to the latest version of Quicken or I would lose the ability to perform online updates. This upgrade added no important features, but deleted the ability to import QIF files. This really chapped my hide so I switched entirely to gnucash at the beginning of 2005. I have a relatively complex financial situation that gnucash handles well. Of course, all of my computers at home run Linux, so I may be considered a freak.’ WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? A friend of longstanding gave me permission to link you to his family photo page, in case you’re interested. (Click here.) Sharp-eyed readers will notice something unusual about this family. But is there any question, looking at the faces in these photos, that it is a family filled with love and happiness? That the girls, still in school, are soon to embark on vibrant, productive lives? Maybe I’m reading more into the photos than is really there, having known the two dads and their two daughters from the start.* But to me, this is a family anybody would want to cheer on. *My favorite story concerns their language skills. Joe is American, Laurent French, so the girls grew up effortlessly bilingual . . . except that the housekeeper was Spanish and the girls were not allowed to watch TV when they were younger – only Spanish-language Disney videotapes. So they grew up effortlessly tri-lingual. And one day long ago – here is the part I love – they came home from a play-date all excited, shouting, ‘Daddy! Papa! Penelope’s TV speaks English!’ WHAT’S RIGHT AT THE DNC Some of you are Republicans, I am pleased to say. (Few things are more impressive or constructive than the willingness of a reader to consider the views of someone with whom he generally disagrees.) But for those who’ve invested in the Democratic Party, here is a progress report I wanted to share. Dean Brings New Style to DNC By SCOTT SHEPARD, Cox News Service Friday, May 06, 2005 WASHINGTON * Subway-riding, penny-pinching Howard Dean has brought a new style to the Democratic National Committee since taking over from the high-rolling Terry McAuliffe. The changes at the top of the Democratic Party are more than cosmetic, however. Dean is reaching out to new voters, in new ways, just as he did as a pioneering * though unsuccessful * candidate for president in 2004. Dean, the political outsider in last year’s field of Democratic White House hopefuls, is loosening the Beltway’s noose on the Democratic Party to a degree that is surprising activists and party officials out in the states. “They’re saying this is the first time someone in his position seems more interested in really winning elections, instead of courting rich donors and protecting the party’s Washington players,” said Craig Crawford, a political analyst for MSNBC and CBS and a columnist for Congressional Quarterly magazine. “Dean may be the first grassroots Democratic leader since Andrew Jackson let the mob trash the White House for his Inaugural,” added Crawford. McAuliffe was a smooth operator, even by Washington standards. Often with an entourage and a limousine, he moved naturally through the capital, from the salons of Georgetown to the lunch crowd at the Palm. McAuliffe was very much at ease with the well-heeled of the city. And with his unusual fund-raiser skills, he restored the party to fiscal soundness and brought it into the computer age with expanded voter and donor lists, even as he built a new party headquarters. Dean, on the other hand, is more likely to be found eating lunch at his desk at the DNC on those rare days that he is in Washington. Twenty days out of the month, he is on the road, his “Red, White and Blue” tour aimed at resurrecting party organizations in Republican strongholds. If he’s not bumming a ride with someone else, he’s walking to events in Washington, or riding the city’s subway, buying his own $1.35 per trip ticket. The “Red, White and Blue” air tour is strictly coach fare, the party chairman always carrying his own luggage. And rather than the glitzy, big donor events McAuliffe preferred in raising money for the party, Dean continues to raise funds for the party through the Internet, the way he did during his presidential campaign, tapping small donors in unprecedented numbers. “It’s a different approach than what’s been done in the past,” said Laura Gross, Dean’s longtime spokesperson. In terms of style, “I don’t think it’s any secret that Governor Dean is pretty low-keyed on stuff that like,” she added. Gross hastened to add, however, that since Dean took over as chairman of the DNC on Feb. 12, “we’ve been building on the success of Terry McAuliffe.” Dean, though, faces a very different challenge than McAuliffe did in 2000. Having reached financial parity with the GOP, the Democratic Party now faces the hurdle of restoring state parties in the South and the West, regions that are increasingly Republican. And so far, Democrats are happy with what they see in Dean. Fears of a “loose cannon” at the helm of the party have all but disappeared, even among party leaders in Southern states. “Howard Dean is doing a great job,” said Georgia Democratic Party Chairman Bobby Kahn. “He’s been focusing on the nuts and bolts of building the party. This is no surprise. I saw him do the same thing when he was chairman of the Democratic Governor’s Association.” Just as he promised in his campaign for the DNC chairmanship, Dean has focused most of his attention on raising money for cash-strapped state parties and in recruiting candidates to challenge Republicans, even in GOP strongholds. “You have to show up,” he repeatedly tells Democratic audiences. “It was the right hand-off at the right time,” Jennifer Palmieri, a former DNC press secretary, said of the transition from McAuliffe to Dean. McAuliffe rebuilt the national party infrastructure, and Dean is using that infrastructure to rebuild the state parties. Moreover, Palmieri said, in Dean, the party has “someone who is ready to kick the table over and doesn’t accept the premise that we have to play on the Republicans’ turf.” Pollster John Zogby cautioned, however, that the occasionally flaring of Dean’s partisanship * in recent weeks, he has described Republicans as “evil,” “corrupt” and “brain dead” – could undermine his efforts at restoring the Democratic Party’s fortunes. “Democrats can get only so far by being not the Republicans,” Zogby said. “A populist, highly partisan message guarantees 48 percent of the vote. To win, one of the parties is going to have to find and recreate the middle in American politics. For the Democrats, that means new ideas.” Scott Shepard’s e-mail address is sshepard@coxnews.com. Wanted: A volunteer who can computer-paint me a good donkey decal. Please me-Mail me if you don’t mind taking a stab at this and I’ll tell you more.
We Like Ike May 12, 2005March 2, 2017 CAN YOU PAY FOR THEM WITH WOODEN NICKELS? Jimmy Murphy: ‘One of my professors told us that Dutch is actually the closest modern relative to English. By the way, I was picturing you in a nifty pair of wooden sneakers (Treeboks?).’ B.J. Segel: ‘If you want to buy wooden shoes in Holland, go to a hardware store. People use them to work outdoors and in the fields, so that’s where they sell them. At least that’s where I got mine, but that was about ten years ago.’ Ed Weglarz: ‘You write . . . Turns out that the only wooden shoes in Holland are the ones they sell at the airport gift shop. . . . You have to get out of the airport! If you toured Zaanse Schans in Zaandam, Holland, you’d get a delightful taste of an old-timey village where they have a shop dedicated to the manufacture of wooden shoes. We went there in 2003 and really enjoyed the tour!’ CHEAP READS James M: ‘There has been, for several years, a web site called Bestbookbuys.com. Fetchbook.info is just a copy. BestBookBuys has lots of cool things like a wishlist. Lists multiple books if the name is the same. Lists different formats. Sorts by pub date, sales, or alpha sort. You can even select just textbooks and sort by subject. Then when you find the one you want, select the format (hardback, paperback), then go to the price matrix listing vendors. Enter your zip code for more accurate shipping costs. Also offers music, video, electronics etc. Fetchbook.info does have one neat feature: an e-mail price alert.’ CHEAP RIDES John Leonarz: ‘My 2001 VW Golf TDI (Turbo Direct Injection) diesel is giving me 45 mpg – with the air conditioner on. I regularly get 500 miles on an 11 gallon tank, about half on the highway. The engine is so efficient that there is not enough heat generated in the first five miles on cold mornings to moderate the cabin temperature.’ Vince Savidge: ‘My friend gets 53+ MPG in his hybrid Prius. Hybrids are a viable answer to fuel economy. The US needs to make a better hybrid.’ WE LIKE IKE Remember moderate Republicans? (Remember Bosco? Rotary phones?) On the off-chance you’ve missed this quote . . . “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954 Actually, the whole thing is interesting. W.? NOT SO MUCH May 9, 2005 The New York Times The Final Insult By PAUL KRUGMAN Hell hath no fury like a scammer foiled. The card shark caught marking the deck, the auto dealer caught resetting a used car’s odometer, is rarely contrite. On the contrary, they’re usually angry, and they lash out at their intended marks, crying hypocrisy. And so it is with those who would privatize Social Security. They didn’t get away with scare tactics, or claims to offer something for nothing. Now they’re accusing their opponents of coddling the rich and not caring about the poor. Well, why not? It’s no more outrageous than other arguments they’ve tried. Remember the claim that Social Security is bad for black people? Before I take on this final insult to our intelligence, let me deal with a fundamental misconception: the idea that President Bush’s plan would somehow protect future Social Security benefits. If the plan really would do that, it would be worth discussing. It’s possible – not certain, but possible – that 40 or 50 years from now Social Security won’t have enough money coming in to pay full benefits. (If the economy grows as fast over the next 50 years as it did over the past half-century, Social Security will do just fine.) So there’s a case for making small sacrifices now to avoid bigger sacrifices later. But Mr. Bush isn’t calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he’s calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now – which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits. This accomplishes nothing, except, possibly, to ensure that benefit cuts take place even if they aren’t necessary. Now, about the image of Mr. Bush as friend to the poor: keep your eye on the changing definitions of “middle income” and “wealthy.” In last fall’s debates, Mr. Bush asserted that “most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans.” Since most of the cuts went to the top 10 percent of the population and more than a third went to people making more than $200,000 a year, Mr. Bush’s definition of middle income apparently reaches pretty high. But defenders of Mr. Bush’s Social Security plan now portray benefit cuts for anyone making more than $20,000 a year, cuts that will have their biggest percentage impact on the retirement income of people making about $60,000 a year, as cuts for the wealthy. These are people who denounced you as a class warrior if you wanted to tax Paris Hilton’s inheritance. Now they say that they’re brave populists, because they want to cut the income of retired office managers. Let’s consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses? Suppose you’re a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn’t get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won’t cut your Social Security benefits. Suppose you’re earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal. Suppose, finally, that you’re making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner! I’m not being unfair. In fact, I’ve weighted the scales heavily in Mr. Bush’s favor, because the tax cuts will cost much more than the benefit cuts would save. Repealing Mr. Bush’s tax cuts would yield enough revenue to call off his proposed benefit cuts, and still leave $8 trillion in change. The point is that the privatizers consider four years of policies that relentlessly favored the wealthy a fait accompli, not subject to reconsideration. Now that tax cuts have busted the budget, they want us to accept large cuts in Social Security benefits as inevitable. But they demand that we praise Mr. Bush’s sense of social justice, because he proposes bigger benefit cuts for the middle class than for the poor. Sorry, but no. Mr. Bush likes to play dress-up, but his Robin Hood costume just doesn’t fit.
De Rekening May 11, 2005March 2, 2017 Sorry to have missed yesterday. I somehow disturbed the forces of the Universe and the day just . . . disappeared! (Yet according to the London Daily Mail, as I switched planes at Heathrow this morning, it did not disappear for everyone. Rape, greed and gossip ran rampant; a BBQ fork was plunged through a fellow diner’s heart; and, on the brighter side, it was reported that a daily dose of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fish oil capsules made the seven-year olds at Little Heath Primary School in Potters Bar, Herts, smarter and better behaved. After three months on the capsules, the best of the students jumped three years in reading comprehension.) Turns out that the only wooden shoes in Holland are the ones they sell at the airport gift shop. A better bet is the $7.50 price of admission to the Anne Frank house – extraordinarily well done. (Meanwhile, on a related topic – Anne died at 16 in a concentration camp a month before the liberation – this new exhibit from The Shoah Foundation is just a click away.) Amsterdam has a homo-monument – pink stone leading down to a canal, where any number of folks had tossed bouquets. That’s not my slang for it, that’s actually what the street sign says: Homo-Monument. Dutch strikes me as eminently learnable. My favorite phrase? We have ‘the check,’ the French have ‘l’addition,’ the Italians have ‘la comte’ (sì?) – the Dutch have “de rekening.” As you know, I am afraid we Americans will one day have de rekening, also. You don’t borrow $700 billion a year without consequences. (But in case the world doesn’t end, consider American Express [AXP – $52.50]. If you pick your own stocks, it could be a good core holding. They are supposed to be selling their financial advisory arm. The credit card business that will remain could get a boost now that banks are allowed to offer Amex without retribution from Visa and MasterCard.) Gays can freely marry in Holland – as they can throughout the United States. (An openly gay man can marry an openly gay woman in every state in the Union.) But the Dutch take it one step further and allow gay people to marry the people they love. Something about – if I got the translation right – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” There are those who believe American gays want “special rights.” Ironically, the only special right American gays have – exemption from military service – is a special right they don’t want. And may not always have. USA Today editorialized April 28: “Let gay soldiers serve openly . . . The policy is particularly irrational at a time when the Army and National Guard are struggling to meet their recruitment goals. . . . many of the arguments cited a dozen years ago to justify the policy seem outdated . . . When Britain decided five years ago to allow gays to serve openly, military officers predicted that conflicts would break out between gay and non-gay cliques. But that hasn’t happened. Gays should be able to serve openly in the U.S. military, as well. If they engage in sexual harassment or misconduct, they should be punished – just as heterosexual soldiers are punished . . . The current policy lacks common sense . . . The supply of soldiers didn’t dry up when the British army dropped its gay ban. And there’s no reason to believe America’s MTV generation would act any differently if Congress junked this archaic law.”
Gas Mileage and Fascism May 9, 2005January 18, 2017 There are no Brussels sprouts in Holland. Brussels, it turns out, is not in Holland. Like Rick, who moved to Casablanca ‘for the waters’ (‘but, Monsieur Rick, we are in the desert – there are no waters’), ‘I was misinformed.’ There is hail, however. And then the next minute it’s sunny (but breezy) and then a light spritz, sunny, cloudy, spitting rain, sunny clear blue skies, cloudy . . . all this in 20 minutes. There are licensed coffee shops that do sell coffee, but that’s not why they need licences. The nicest, nicest people, all of whom speak English. Gets dark around ten at night. You can almost see the North pole. Now, back to business. As usual, I learn more from you than you from me: GAS MILEAGE Peter Kaczowka: ‘Wind resistance is proportional to the square of an object’s velocity. (Simple explanation: if you go twice as fast, you hit twice as many air molecules, each at twice the speed; hence four times the resistance). (70 * 70) / (55 * 55) is 1.61; so wind resistance is 1.61 times higher at 70 than at 55, not double. Still, wind resistance is the main drag on a vehicle at high speeds, which is why a large vehicle cannot get good highway mileage. In general, hybrid autos get no better highway mileage than efficient non-hybrids. I recently drove from Massachusetts to Florida (not using the air conditioning) at an average 75 mph and got 41 mpg in my 2002 Saturn SL1 with manual transmission. It’s EPA-rated at 40 mpg highway. I bought it used because Saturn no longer makes a model with that high mileage. We don’t need hybrids; we need Detroit to stop making large and overpowered vehicles. The Saturn SL1 at 100 horsepower is more powerful than the 80 horsepower VW GTI that I owned 10 years ago. The GTI was considered fast at the time. Oh – and my SL1 was $12,500 new; compare that to the Prius.’ ☞ Go, Saturn! But for stop-and-go city and suburban driving, which I have to assume accounts for most of the gasoline consumption, we need hybrids. Los Angeles freeways alone must account for 80% of the nation’s gasoline consumption, with the Long Island expressway accounting for the rest. Not to mention that one spot on Storrow Drive where ‘if you lived here, you’d be home now.’ Noah Young: ‘Hybrid cars are great, but why not just cut out the fossil fuels altogether and spend WAY less on a car that will last much longer? Visit biodiesel.org . . . and Google ‘diesel straight vegetable oil‘ and discover the world of filling up at restaurants.’ CHEAP READS Noah Stern: ‘Fetchbook.info lets you to enter a title, author, ISBN or key word and then surveys many websites to see who’s got the book, presenting the results in ascending price order.’ FASCISM There are a number of characteristics of fascism . . . this site suggests 14. One is a sort of merging of corporate and state control. Not to suggest that Halliburton has any special ties to the White House, or that industry is now writing its own regulations, or any of that liberal claptrap. Still, I was bemused to see this over the weekend: EXCLUSIVE: White House caught peddling corporate invitations A source just emailed me a message being sent out officially from the White House urging people to attend corporate sponsored events that trumpet the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Specifically, the White House is using taxpayer resources to urge people to attend events being put on by Fedex, Citigroup, and Western Union to promote this corporate-written free trade deal (you can see the official invitation being blasted out by the White House on my site in Word format – notice the corporate logos). Most brazenly, the White House asks that invitees RSVP directly to the White House – as if there is now no distinction between these corporations . . . and the White House. It’s one thing for the White House to lobby for an awful trade deal like this. But it is a whole new low to have taxpayer dollars being used to directly promote corporate-sponsored events, essentially eliminating the line between business and government. One of the characteristics of fascism is doubtless to bully and berate anyone who raises the specter of fascism. So just bear in mind that if you start sending me bullying e-mails berating me for this item, well . . . don’t. I have enormous faith in America and Americans. We will not go fascist. But it never hurts for true patriots to be vigilant. Tomorrow: the search for Prada wooden shoes. (Actually, tomorrow may have to be an Andyday, for logistical reasons.)
Astonishing May 6, 2005March 2, 2017 Off to Europe to see just why Brussels sprouts are no longer available on my supermarket shelves. Next week’s posts may be erratic or heavily accënted. My Boeing 777 was tugged back from the gate in the traditional way. According to Borealis, “We have completed our side of the WheelTug contract. The next round of the testing process will take some time, and any announcements about the results will be made either by the Boeing Company, or jointly by Boeing and Chorus Motors plc.” I live for this day. Unless the news is bad, in which case – keep hope alive! – I live for perpetual postponement. Astonishing thing: My Blackberry works in London. Astonishing thing: A few hours ago, when I wrote the rest of this, I was in Miami. Now I am in London. Kings, sheiks, popes and even the great Genghis Khan himself (not to mention Croesus) could not have imagined such a thing. Astonishing thing: The train from Heathrow zips into Paddington station in 15 minutes. Cabs are waiting to take you to the Scotch Shop to pick up the key your friend left you to his flat. Astonishing thing: It’s sunny! I am so astonished, I am going back to sleep. Tomorrow: Amsterdam! INTERESTING. WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER? Kathi Derevan: “I recently saw one of my favorite authors, Jane Smiley, interviewed at UCLA. She has expressed her disdain for the free market economy, and was asked did she not profit greatly from it, as she is a very successful writer. Her comment was close to what I would say if I could have thought of it – that she would rather be middle class in a country with a thriving middle class than rich in a country where only the rich thrive.” ☞ We are thriving, alright. My marginal federal tax bracket is now 15%. (Like many of the most fortunate, my income derives from dividends and capital gains, not wages.) Our maid’s marginal bracket is higher. Even so – and astonishingly (this is really astonishing) – the Republican Party works to widen the gap still further. It fights to eliminate the estate tax on billionaires, while fighting, also, to make sure the minimum wage (adjusted for inflation) falls ever lower. Even more astonishingly, they claim Jesus as their guide. THE EXIT POLLS DO NOT DEMONSTRATE THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN Yes, efforts were almost surely undertaken to suppress the Democratic vote. Yes, reforms cry out to be made. (That anyone would accept voting machines without an auditable paper trail may be the most astonishing thing of all.) But as to whether the 2004 exit polls prove a stolen election, click here for further persuasive argument that they do not. Even some strong critics of the election agree. One small snip: “I believe your election was inexcusably riggable and may well have been rigged,” writes Liddle. “It was also inexcusably unauditable. I am convinced that there was real and massive voter suppression in Ohio, and that it was probably deliberate. I think the recount in Ohio was a sham, and the subversion of the recount is in itself suggestive of coverup of fraud. I think Kenneth Blackwell should be jailed. However . . . I don’t believe the exit polls in themselves are evidence for fraud.” ☞ Yesterday, the DNC announced formation of a National Democratic Lawyers Council to formalize the network of 17,000 volunteer lawyers and law students who helped restrain abuses last time. Separately, smaller groups are working to push for systemic reform. Stay tuned. The next sound you hear on this page, if the Dutch know from wifi, will be the clicker clacker of little wooden feet. Have a great weekend.
One Wonders Two Things (Hey! Today is 05/05/05! Triple nickels!) May 5, 2005March 2, 2017 But first . . . SIX-TOED DEMAND CURVES John Padavic: ‘I joined audible.com on your recommendation and would like to recommend one of its latest selections, Freakonomics. Maybe you read the New York Times Magazine article on the connections between Roe v Wade and the decrease in crime in the 90s. Freakonomics is about all kinds of interesting connections.’ ☞ Yes! I saw the author with Jon Stewart. PROPERLY INFLATED TIRES Brent Stapleton: ‘Since the wide-ranging topics on your website have now included hybrid vehicles, why not point your readers to greenhybrid.com? Good objective information not only on the cars themselves, but also how to improve mileage. I particularly recommend this page, which is written for the Honda Civic Hybrid but should improve results on any vehicle.’ ☞ One tip from that page: ‘Wind resistance roughly doubles between 55 mph and 70 mph.’ (So I never go more than 55 mph in a 35 mph zone.) And now . . . THE MINUTES FROM MI-6 You know MI-6. Mrs. Moneypenny’s outfit. Q’s outfit. James‘s outfit. Shaken, not stirred. Well, it seems the Iraq war was trumped up after all. Not to say we don’t all hope the Iraqi people will overcome the insurgents and learn to live together in peace. But in case you missed this: “Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.” Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would see those words in black and white-and beneath a SECRET stamp, no less. For three years now, we in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have been saying that the CIA and its British counterpart, MI-6, were ordered by their countries’ leaders to “fix facts” to “justify” an unprovoked war on Iraq. More often than not, we have been greeted with stares of incredulity. It has been a hard learning-that folks tend to believe what they want to believe. As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods. Well, you can forget circumstantial. Thanks to an unauthorized disclosure by a courageous whistleblower, the evidence now leaps from official documents . . . Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document. . . The discussion at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002 calls to mind the first meeting of George W. Bush’s National Security Council (NSC) on Jan. 30, 2001, at which the president made it clear that toppling Saddam Hussein sat atop his to-do list, according to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil, who was there. O’Neil was taken aback that there was no discussion of why it was necessary to “take out” Saddam. Rather, after CIA Director George Tenet showed a grainy photo of a building in Iraq that he said might be involved in producing chemical or biological agents, the discussion proceeded immediately to which Iraqi targets might be best to bomb. Again, neither O’Neil nor the other participants asked the obvious questions. Another NSC meeting two days later included planning for dividing up Iraq’s oil wealth. . . . ☞ And from the memo itself if you don’t have time to read the whole thing: C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. ☞ One wonders two things: How would history be different if then Governor Bush had told the electorate that within days of his Inauguration he would begin planning for war in Iraq? (Instead, his theme was a humble foreign policy.)* Why was there no mention of this memo on last night’s network news?** * I know, I know – President Gore would have surrendered to Al-Qaeda the way that other Harvard liberal, FDR, surrendered to Hitler or that other Harvard liberal, JFK, surrendered to Khrushchev. But you know what? I don’t buy it. I think President Gore would have taken seriously the CIA threats that Bush ignored – from his very first briefing, January 7, 2001 – and would have killed Bin Laden in time to avert 9/11 . . . or, failing that, would have gone into Afghanistan and killed Bin Laden before diverting 10,000 Special Forces to the Iraqi oil fields. ** I watched both NBC and ABC last night and the night before and neither one mentioned this memo. Much reporting on Paula Abdul, however.
Versus May 4, 2005January 18, 2017 VERSUS VERSUS VERSES The word versus is used more frequently than the word verses, which are both used a lot more frequently than ‘curses’ but not nearly so frequently as ‘nurses.’ Hearses, you may be relieved to know, is almost never used – the 73,138th most commonly used word out of 86,800 on the list, coming just before ‘jotter’ (if this site is to be believed) and just after ‘eetpu’ (which is why I have my doubts). The singular hearse, understandably, well outranks its plural, and rehearse outranks them both. (But could it possibly be true that the next most common word after rehearse is ‘endogenous’?) Good outranks evil, #116 to #3274, as it well should; in (#6) is far more in than out (#65); but getting to yes (#146) is a lot harder than getting to no (#51). The overused ‘very’ is somehow only #84. I outranks you, #11 to #14. (I does?) This is all derived from a British database, which may (and I stress may, #77) account for EETPU, a British labor union. Certainly it accounts for theatre (#1742) trouncing theater (#44,393). Funny folk, those Brits. (Churchill, #5664; Roosevelt, #13,660.) (Thanks to Bryan #8054 Norcross #70,185 for this one.) PRIUS VERSUS CIVIC Frank Schrader: ‘The Prius is a great hybrid, but Toyota is hardly a ‘green’ automaker. For a little background on that look here. My choice would be the Honda Civic hybrid. The last time I had my car serviced, that’s the loaner I got – and it’s a pretty nice car.’ MYM VERSUS QUICKEN AND MONEY Mike Mangino: ‘Do you own the copyright for Managing Your Money? If so, have you considered making the software available as an Open Source product? Those of us who are interested in something better than Quicken may be willing to support and improve it for free.’ ☞ Sorry – I don’t own the copyright and don’t have a copy of the source code. Mike Albert: ‘I used Quicken for about a year before installation of a required upgrade horribly broke my Quicken bill paying. I won’t bore you with all the details, but several payments that showed as paid in Quicken that were not. Other things went wrong too. My credit rating almost took a hit. I switched to MS Money, starting out with a figurative chip on my shoulder because of my bad Quicken experience, and ended up thinking it’s great. The help is marvelous, and I can configure it endlessly to make it look and behave the way I like. I can’t recommend it enough.’ Will Galway: ‘Those few of your readers who use Linux (this might also apply to Apple users with OS-X), might want to check out GnuCash. It’s free, developed by a community of developers. I can’t claim to have used it seriously, but it deserves a look. If any of your users DO start using it, maybe they can send you a further review.’ And finally, for the two of you who could conceivably still have any interest . . . MIRR VERSUS IRR (BUT EITHER WAY, IT’S STILL JUST $1 A BOTTLE) Daniel: ‘First, let me say that you are correctly computing the annualized ‘Internal Rate of Return’ (IRR) as 103%, which compounded weekly over a year gives an effective IRR of 177%. The problem is, what the heck is the IRR and does it mean anything useful? By definition, the IRR is the interest rate which, when applied as both the finance rate and the reinvestment rate, gives a net present value (NPV) of zero. In other words, if you borrow money at 177% to invest in your case of wine, and you invest all of your saved weekly proceeds (as you save them) at 177%, then you will break even buying wine by the case. But while I’m sure we can find plenty of folks willing to loan you the cash at 177%, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a place to earn 177% on your saved cash each week. (Click here for a lucid description of the limitations of the IRR.) Fortunately, our heroes at Microsoft have given us an alternative function, the MIRR (modified internal rate of return), which allows us to specify our cost of borrowing and our reinvestment rate when we plug values into Excel. If we assume that we’re financing this whole exercise from our checkbook with 0% borrowing cost and that we earn nothing on the saved cash, then we discover that the annualized MIRR for wine by the case is 55%, which compounded weekly over a year’s period of time gives an effective rate of return 73%. So, humbly, I submit that 73% is the practical, realistic answer; 177% is correct in a mathematical, hypothetical world which is not appropriate to this case (of wine).’ ☞ I’ll take it. Although I would guess we can do better than earning nothing on those saved dollars. We can, for example, earn perhaps 40% by buying other things in bulk, when they’re on sale. So perhaps the true rate of return falls someplace between these two. It’s still only $52 a year you save buying your wine (in our example) by the case; but if you change your habits to do a lot of your shopping this way – not just wine – it actually can amount to something meaningful, when compounded over a lifetime.
Surgery May 3, 2005January 18, 2017 WILL WE BE ABLE TO COMPETE? Marilyn Perry: ‘Re the Tom Friedman column yesterday, I work in clinical research at a top level university. Recently we had an opening for an entry level lab technician. We advertised for a student completing their second year of college majoring in biology or chemistry. This position is very flexible enabling the person to gain valuable experience while finishing school. Within a week, we had 30 applications and all but 1 were foreign students – all pre-med, all with 3.8-4.2 GPA’s. Where are the American students you ask? Well, I called the professor whom our top choice cited as a reference and was surprised to find out the majority of pre-med students in the top 10% are NOT American students.’ ☞ Is it possible that after decades of wealthy foreigners’ coming here for the best medical treatment, the flow of commerce may begin to reverse? It will be a long time before we go abroad for higher quality; but we seem already to have begun going abroad for lower cost. SAVE BIG ON SURGERY You may have seen this on ’60 Minutes’: Bumrungrad Hospital, a luxurious place that claims to have more foreign patients than any other hospital in the world. It’s like a United Nations of patients here, and they’re cared for by more than 500 doctors, most with international training. Bumrungrad’s not the only foreign hospital Americans are going to, either. But it sounds pretty good to me – like a five-star hotel with registered nurses instead of orderlies – and it saved one American $88,000 on the cost of a quintuple by-pass . . . $12,000 instead of an estimated $100,000. One would think long and hard before undergoing surgery far from home (or close to home, for that matter). But this just makes the point that the world is ‘flattening,’ in Tim Friedman’s phrase, and that binge drinking alone may not assure today’s college kids a bright future. (But kids! Don’t let this drive you to drink! You can make a bright future! Stay in school!)
Are We Lagging Technologically? May 2, 2005March 2, 2017 But first . . . The two columnists I try never to miss: Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman. Somehow, I missed this March 27 Friedman column. In case you did, too . . . Geo-Greening by Example March 27, 2004 The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman How will future historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the history of the U.S. presidency. “Ah, Friedman, but you overstate the case.” No, I understate it. Look at the opportunities our country is missing – and the risks we are assuming – by having a president and vice president who refuse to lift a finger to put together a “geo-green” strategy that would marry geopolitics, energy policy and environmentalism. By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world. That is, we are financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars and we are financing the jihadists – and the Saudi, Sudanese and Iranian mosques and charities that support them – through our gasoline purchases. The oil boom is also entrenching the autocrats in Russia and Venezuela, which is becoming Castro’s Cuba with oil. By doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are also setting up a global competition with China for energy resources, including right on our doorstep in Canada and Venezuela. Don’t kid yourself: China’s foreign policy today is very simple – holding on to Taiwan and looking for oil. Finally, by doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are only hastening the climate change crisis, and the Bush officials who scoff at the science around this should hang their heads in shame. And it is only going to get worse the longer we do nothing. Wired magazine did an excellent piece in its April issue about hybrid cars, which get 40 to 50 miles to the gallon with very low emissions. One paragraph jumped out at me: “Right now, there are about 800 million cars in active use. By 2050, as cars become ubiquitous in China and India, it’ll be 3.25 billion. That increase represents … an almost unimaginable threat to our environment. Quadruple the cars means quadruple the carbon dioxide emissions – unless cleaner, less gas-hungry vehicles become the norm.” All the elements of what I like to call a geo-green strategy are known: We need a gasoline tax that would keep pump prices fixed at $4 a gallon, even if crude oil prices go down. At $4 a gallon (premium gasoline averages about $6 a gallon in Europe), we could change the car-buying habits of a large segment of the U.S. public, which would make it profitable for the car companies to convert more of their fleets to hybrid or ethanol engines, which over time could sharply reduce our oil consumption. We need to start building nuclear power plants again. The new nuclear technology is safer and cleaner than ever. “The risks of climate change by continuing to rely on hydrocarbons are much greater than the risks of nuclear power,” said Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network, a leading energy and strategy consulting firm. “Climate change is real and it poses a civilizational threat that [could] transform the carrying capacity of the entire planet.” And we need some kind of carbon tax that would move more industries from coal to wind, hydro and solar power, or other, cleaner fuels. The revenue from these taxes would go to pay down the deficit and the reduction in oil imports would help to strengthen the dollar and defuse competition for energy with China. It’s smart geopolitics. It’s smart fiscal policy. It is smart climate policy. Most of all – it’s smart politics! Even evangelicals are speaking out about our need to protect God’s green earth. “The Republican Party is much greener than George Bush or Dick Cheney,” remarked Mr. Schwartz. “There is now a near convergence of support on the environmental issue. Look at how popular [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, a green Republican, is becoming because of what he has done on the environment in California.” Imagine if George Bush declared that he was getting rid of his limousine for an armor-plated Ford Escape hybrid, adopting a geo-green strategy and building an alliance of neocons, evangelicals and greens to sustain it. His popularity at home – and abroad – would soar. The country is dying to be led on this. Instead, he prefers to squander his personal energy trying to take apart the New Deal and throwing red meat to right-to-life fanatics. What a waste of a presidency. How will future historians explain it? And now . . . THE BEIBEL TELLS ME SO Ed Biebel: ‘At a time when America is beginning to show signs that it is technologically lagging, is it really wise to deny the best and the brightest a seat at the table because they gave $250 to the DNC?’ ☞ As treasurer of the DNC I can tell you with complete objectivity: hell no. Here, from Time, is a bit of what Ed refers to: Sunday, Apr. 24, 2005 The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week’s meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates . . . have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry’s 2004 campaign. . . . And on the nerve Ed touched about signs we are beginning to lag technologically, I finally got a ride in a Prius – wow! I want one! (But because I drive only about 1,000 miles a year, it seems to me the best thing I can do environmentally is not trade my 1997 Grand Cherokee, bought used, cheap, from a neighbor who drove it 30,000 miles a year, for a Prius that someone else, who drives 20 times as far as I do, is on the waiting list to buy.) And did you see that Airbus 380? Wow! And what are we to make of the notion that our kids go to school 180 days a year, while our competition’s kids go to school 240 days a year? Can this bode well for our relative prosperity 20 and 40 years from now? Or of the more recent Tom Friedman column in which he quoted Bill Gates – ‘American high schools are obsolete . . . [E]ven when they are working exactly as designed, they cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.’ Friedman translated Gates’s comments this way: ‘If we don’t fix American education, I will not be able to hire your kids.’ And he noted that ‘neither Tom DeLay not Bill Frist called a late-night session of Congress – or even a daytime one – to discuss what Mr. Gates was saying. They were too busy pandering to those Americans who don’t even believe in evolution.’ Which perhaps brings me to the last bad sign of late – according to an NBC news poll, about 65% of us do not believe in evolution. Have I mentioned frequently enough that any equity portfolio should include international index funds as well as domestic?