We often get vegetables from neighbors. They have gardens and can't eat all of the tomatoes, peppers, etc. themselves. This year though, a neighbor has planted a specific variety of pepper just for us. The Bhut Jolokia, one of the world's very hottest.

In 2000, India's Defence Research Laboratory (DRL) reported a rating of 855,000 heat units (SHU) on the Scoville scale,[8] and in 2004 a rating of 1,041,427 units was made using HPLC analysis.[22] For comparison, Tabasco red pepper sauce rates at 2,500–5,000,

The first one, pictured here, was picked a bit green:



Kind of fun! I'm interested in seeing just how hot these things are. But really, what is one supposed to do with them? Can we cook with them? I'm afraid just one would overpower a pot of just about anything.

How can a baby, born in the northern hemisphere, have a spiral of hair that goes clockwise?



It's simple, really. Babies develop head-down in the womb!

Serving the best in Asian and Engrish cuisine. I think I'll pass.

John McCullough was an icon of local TV news - JSOnline

Good bye John McCollough. Milwaukee's anchorman is gone.

Not mincing words...

Mark Steyn - National Review Online

For some time now, I've found Mark Steyn tiresome. He tries too hard to be funny, and misses way more often than he hits. He is a good analyst and would be better off with fewer of the strained attempts at jokes and more straight-line writing.

EU guilty of "wilful neglect" as UN says 10,000s have died in Somalia's famine - Telegraph

In two regions of the war-torn country, largely off-limits to international aid workers, technical criteria had now been met to officially declare famine, said Mark Bowden, the head of the United Nations operation for Somalia.

The announcement came as Oxfam accused “several” European governments of “wilful neglect” in failing to fund the estimated £650m needed to save more than 11 million Somalis, Kenyans and Ethiopians from starvation.

So, the aid couldn't have gotten in anyway...but it's STILL YOUR FAULT!!

It’s Time To Kick Farmers Off The Federal Dole - Doug Bandow - The Politics of Plunder - Forbes

In a new paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Barry K. Goodwin at North Carolina State University observed: ”a large share of agricultural subsidies goes to a small segment of society that tends to be wealthier, less financially leveraged, and of higher income than the nonagricultural sectors of the aggregate economy. Moreover, farmers do not generally face more risk than business owners in other sectors, nor do farms fail more often than other forms of business. In fact, farm businesses rarely fail.”

In short, Uncle Sam is playing reverse Robin Hood.

I've long held that first-world agricultural subsidies (which make up the biggest chunk of the EU budget, for example) are not just economically stupid, but immoral. The best way for the poor of the world to make a little money is through farming, but they can't compete with government subsidized and protected farms of the first world. At $60 billion a year, this would be an easy cut from the budget.

Trains cost Wisconsin taxpayers millions - JSOnline

There is so much wrong here!

In the beginning I was drawn to the fact that it reads more, much more, like an editorial or an opinion piece than a news article, but in the end it was the barely named presence of Amtrak that got my attention.

I think I got really riled up when the article mentioned that the state of Wisconsin was supposed to pony up the money for...

While some of those figures could change, it appears the state eventually could spend $11.7 million on a temporary maintenance base, up to $60.1 million on a permanent maintenance base, up to $10.2 million on train shed upgrades at the downtown Amtrak-Greyhound station, $6.6 million on signal upgrades at the station and at least $10.4 million on new locomotives - all costs the federal government would have paid.

So, what exactly does Amtrak, you know, the business this is all subsidizing, pay for?

Apparently not for their own maintenance facilities and, shockingly, not their own TRAINS either! Why the &^%$ does the state of Wisconsin have to buy the locomotives for the quasi-independent, quasi-federal business Amtrak? If WI buys them, does the state get to keep them? Can they put a big "Owned by the people of Wisconsin" sign on them? If WI puts up the money, does Amtrak pay leasing fees? Or is this a beneficent gift from the taxpayers of Wisconsin to the behemoth and boondoggle that is Amtrak?

But let's take this a step further. This is happening in Wisconsin; should we assume that it is also happening in the other 50 states? How may other states are buying Amtrak their trains, building their lines, and building their facilities? How much money are states pouring down into the black abyss of Amtrak? What does Amtrak actually do on its own, except run the system others have bought for them--essentially managing the passengers and employees (badly.) Why not outsource their contribution to a management company, and keep the trains and tracks in state hands? It would probably be much more efficiently run and cost a whole lot less.

Amtrak is perennially broke, to the tune of billions of dollars; this despite heavy federal subsidies. What I never have heard before--or noticed before--is that it also apparently relies heavily on state subsidies as well.

And that's not even getting into the whole freight rail versus passenger rail problem. (One is extremely efficient way of moving its load, the other isn't and makes the other less efficient by tying up their rail lines.)

“Paradoxically,” the psychologists write, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”

From: Can a Playground Be Too Safe? - NYTimes.com

Is anyone really surprised by that?

This guys been driving me nuts for years. At least he does seem to have a real passion, but you do get the idea that he's a bit of a publicity hound and jumps in to take credit for everyone else's discoveries. 'Real Indiana Jones' sacked as keeper of Egypt's heritage - Telegraph

Social networking sites like Twitter were flooded with inevitable jokes, from "the Curse of the Mummy strikes" to comments such as "Zahi Hawass to no longer appear in every single TV special on Egypt". Some were simpler, saying, "Please take your hat with you."

Dr Hawass was popular among journalists, visitors and for a time Egyptians themselves for his flamboyant style and unchallenged commitment to promote Egypt's treasures and to use them to attract tourists.

Where is the money being made online? This list shows where google makes its money.

What Are The 20 Most Expensive Keyword Categories In Google AdWords? | TechCrunch

Biggest surprises: Apparently, lawyers aren't attorneys. And who knew "cord blood" was such a money maker. I thought that was pretty much bogus and outdated these days anyway.

I've decided I'm posting too much to Facebook that could also be posted here. So, I downloaded a Firefox ap which will make it easier to do both.

This article points out the importance of small startups and the way the government has been acting to suppress their creation. The whole Bruce Bartlett theme is a bit dumb, but the core of the article is good.

A Decline In U.S. Startups Through the Eyes of Bruce Bartlett - John Tamny - Political Economy - Forbes

Though Reaganomics is 30 years old, Bartlett made a point that likely remains true today that “the largest proportion of important new inventions are still the result of individuals working virtually alone, rather than by big corporate laboratories.”

This, of course, is the US federal government today.



We can barely pay our finance charges!

Once in a while, I leave a comment on someone's blog. I've been doing this long enough that occasionally I will run across something I wrote some time ago but don't remember well:

Burning fossil fuels has increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in a measurable way. By itself, this would lead to increased temperatures through the greenhouse effect. Unless other human activities or natural negative feedbacks have fully offset the effect, the bottom line is that the Earth is warmer now than it would have been otherwise. Increased CO2 is evidence of AGW. Sure, let’s discuss the amount of AGW and its impact, but let’s not question the reality.

Suppose T(t) represents the temperature T of the Earth at t years in the future. Suppose we have no way of accurately modeling or predicting T in future times; it may be warmer, it may be colder, suppose we just don’t and can’t know. That doesn’t preclude science from predicting that with increasing CO2, future temperatures will be something like T(t)+C(t), where C is some positive function of time. It is not necessary to have a fully working accurate predictive model of the Earth’s temperature in order to be able to predict that increased CO2 will mean an increase in temperature above what it would otherwise be.

It's often strange reading these comments. I wonder to myself "did I really write that?"

A massive cheating scandal is rocking the Atlanta school district. A widespread and systematic effort to cheat on standardized tests has been uncovered. It included teachers, principals, staff, and superintendents. In some cases, they literally erased the kids' answers and replaced them with the correct ones.

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.

Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.

You can see the gains in this chart I posted several months ago, where Georgia raised its scores on the national test NEAP dramatically:

Click to embiggen.


It should also be noted that Georgian schools s*^%! If you line up all the states according to their various NEAP scores, Georgia would come in between 33 and 40 just about every time. They do a little better with English Language learners, where they rank around 20, even breaking into the second quintile with a rank of 17 for 4th grade math proficiency.

They s(%& even with the cheating scandal. Atlanta makes up just better than 4% of the population of Georgia. If the scores from the APS system are bogus, that means Georgia did even worse than everyone thought.

What a simple way of saying it:

Professor Epstein characterizes Obama’s economics as “primitive” and explains: “First, it is not possible to gain more money for the public treasury by taxing heavily those practices that are efficient for a firm. Putting a special tax on corporate jets will cut corporate profits, leaving nary a dime to fund the worthy causes that the president promotes.

Efficiency is the hidden driver that government seems to want most to ignore. Renewable energy sources are less efficient; government doesn't care. Overwhelming pro-union and other work rules (such as mandated paternity leave) make companies less efficient; government doesn't care. Picking winners and losers by bailing out, waivering, or taxing some and not others, reduces efficiency; government doesn't care. Arcane and overly-complex tax law reduces efficiency; government doesn't care.

Every time government doesn't care about efficiency, it pushes down on the economic brake pedal.

Mussette Wade, 37, hoped to buy Minnesota Lottery tickets at a Minneapolis gas station. But the state shutdown prevented her from doing that. "I usually buy scratch-offs once a week when I get paid," she said. "It's just something I leisurely do."

Can you spell "STOP"?



Wow! Very good, sweetie. Can you do it again?



Nice! How about "MAP"?



Daddy is as proud as she is.

Weather in Nashville continues to impress. Today, a hail storm




The bad news is our cars have numerous little dimple-dents in them. The good news is that our mileage will no doubt go up. Golfball effect from golfball-sized hail. With the price of gas and all, it might be a blessing!

Headline today on the British Daily Telegraph:

The UN has left us to die, say fleeing [__________]

Fill in the blank:

A) Bosnians
B) Sudanese
C) Syrians
D) Rwandans
E) All of the above....and then some.

Just swatted a bug that was on my kitchen wall, and was surprised by the resulting bright green flash of light.

A firefly! There are a lot of them around our house.

The cicadas are pretty much gone now though.

Lower Saxony's agriculture minister says initial tests have confirmed that locally grown beansprouts are the likely cause for Germany's E. coli outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened hundreds.

Time to irradiate! Seems like a no-brainer to me, but it has that scary "rad" word in it.

And General Francisco Franco is still dead.

Nothing exciting. We seem to be holding onto the 1 million jobs created since the start of the year, but no new ones are showing up.

I posted this comment over at National Review:

Here is my crude take on this. The income tax system is responsible for covering public debt _plus_ intragovernmental debt. This is why these two obligations are combined. The Social Security and Medicare program tax systems are responsible for their unfunded entitlement obligations _minus_ intragovernmental debt. This is because the intragovernmental debt for the most part represents the money that the income tax system owes to the Social Security and Medicare tax systems. The government as a whole is responsible for public debt plus unfunded entitlement obligations. This is the sum of the obligations of all the tax systems, and is clearly independent of intragovernmental debt. So whether or not you think intragovernmental debt is important depends on what you are looking at.

Symbolically:

IncomeTaxDebt =PubDebt + IntraGovDebt
EntitleDebt =UnfundEnt - IntraGovDebt
TotalDebt =IncomeTaxDebt + EntitleDebt
=(PubDebt + IntraGovDebt) + (UnfundEnt - IntraGovDebt)
=PubDebt + UnfundEnt

By the way, I liked the Captcha I got:



but there are two "a"s in Klaatu. Everyone knows that.

I am seeing more and more single handle shower controls which allow for temperature regulation, but which have no facility at all to adjust the flow rate! They are either on full-force or off. Sleek! Modern! Idiotic!

h/t John Cook.

A video taken during the recent terrible Japanese tsunami:



Just horrible.

h/t The Reference Frame

Here is a figure from some notes I am reading:

My understanding of it is that we have a stiff cube-shaped frame, say made out of wooden dowels or thick wire, fixed in space. In the center of the frame we have a ball, attached to the corners of the frame with 8 rubber bands.

The claim is that if we rotate the ball 360 degrees around the vertical axis, and hold it there, we would be unable to untangle the bands without moving the ball. However, if we rotate the ball 720 degrees around the vertical axis and hold it there, then we could get the bands back how they were when we started.

Wow. Can you see in your head how this works? I'm tempted to build one. It seems weird to me. At what degree of rotation does this untangling become possible? Supposedly it's more than 360 and less than or equal to 720 degrees. How about 719 degrees? How does this magically jump from "not possible" to "possible" as we continuously rotate the ball?

Megan McCardle responds to this graph:

"The effect of the graph is to make it seem as if we could, by simply refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts on high earners, cover virtually all of the Social Security shortfall that is going to be putting immense pressure on the budget deficit over the next century."

Her explanation of why this is wrong is presented as a 2200 word essay. She may well be right. But her opponents in this debate apparently have so much leverage that the contest was over before the debate began.

According to this on the BizJournal site, the upper midwest lost tons of jobs. Adding up the losses from: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the region lost 2,150,100 jobs in the last ten years.

Reading a Kindle by kerosene lamp



From a 3-day power outage we had several weeks ago.

Well, cicada time is in full swing down here. In the early evening, when it's hot, humid and still sunny, they are at their loudest. You don't want to be out on the front porch for long. It's so loud your ears start to bother you. Going inside you feel a relief and a slight ringing in your ears. The sound rises and falls as they sing out in unison, creating a wave-of-sound effect. It's pretty impressive.

If you shake a tree or bush, hundreds will take off into the air. There can be several thousand in a tree. Looking out across the street, you can see them flying around, as you might see bugs over a lake when the light is right. I have to shake myself off getting into our car, as it is quite likely that one or more will land on me on the walk from my door.

In general though, most of them seem to be pretty sedentary, and they are quite clumsy flyers and crawlers.

I wouldn't want it every year, but I am glad to have seen it.

I love the first lady interviewed in this Reason video from Los Angeles. The venue was a teachers' demonstration for more taxes to pay teachers more. As background, a Los Angeles Times project grabbed data on kids going in and coming out of teachers' classrooms. They calculated how much improvement kids made for each teacher. Uniquely, they named names. You could actually do a search for your kid's teacher.

The interview I love came about 30 seconds in.

Reason: How did you do on the Los Angeles Times value added rankings?

3rd Grade Teacher Murphy (with a smile): I sucked!

Reason: Really?

Murphy: Yeah!

Here's her ranking on the LA Times. She's below average in both math and reading for value added. And the charts for her ranking:

No, not that large family down the street. Brood XIX of 13-year cicadas:

Brood XIX (also known as Brood 19 and The Great Southern Brood) is one of 15 separate broods of periodical cicadas that appear regularly throughout the southeastern United States. Every 13 years, Brood XIX tunnels en masse to the surface of the ground, lays eggs, and then dies off in several weeks.

We are in the midst of their emergence now. Every morning on the trees you can see them, having crawled up out of the ground during the night. They molt, then fly up into the trees later in the day.

So far, it doesn't really seem all that bad. I had visions of swarms of these things everywhere, but in reality I haven't noticed them very much. You see them on cars and sidewalks, but you could walk for miles without stepping on more than one or two. They aren't all that loud now either. Perhaps that will change. They should be around for six weeks or so.

(source Wikipedia)
Here is a nice video from Nashville that gives you the idea of what's going on:


Here is David Attenborough (always great!) talking about 17-year cicadas. These look very similar to the ones we have, but seem to have a creepier whooping sound.

Twice before my brother has posted about the land use required to have an extensive solar energy option. It is enormous:

[ China and Nuclear Power ] [A modern solar plant in Portugal] occupies about 0.234 square miles of land, and is expected to produce about 20 gigawatt-hours per year. That works out to an average power output of about 2.28 megawatts. How much land would we have to cover with these panels to get 200 gigawatts?

200,000 / 2.28 x 0.234 = 20,526 square miles.

That's like covering all of Massachusetts 2.5 times over.

...

[ Solar powered reality ] [After a comment from me quoting Steven Den Beste on the land requirements to supply enough power to replace California's gas usage--which Den Beste pegged at 525 square miles ]

According to the CIA, the USA has 4,165,110 km of paved roadway. Let's assume that the average width of a roadway is 50 feet, just a guess. Suppose that instead of paving all those streets, roads, highways and expressways we paved a big square in the middle of the desert. How big on a side would that square be?

sqrt(4165110 * 5/8*5280*50)/5280 = 157.0078

That square would only be 157 miles on a side. Think how much effort it took to pave that much. Think about how much effort it would be to cover that area with solar panels.

Now today on Watts Up With That they point out that all of that land has property taxes levied on it:

Producing 225,592 kilowatt hours of electricity in its first year of operation, a solar farm in eastern Kalamazoo Coun­ty that went online in early 2010 has exceeded expectations.

Also exceeding expecta­tions is the property tax, said Sam Field, a Kalamazoo attor­ney and one of the owners of Kalamazoo Solar.

The $27,689 tax bill for the Charleston Township prop­erty means that the owners are losing money, even when being paid a premium price of 45 cents a kilowatt hour by Consumers Energy, he said.

“That Michigan property tax burden works out to a cost of 12.3 cents per kilowatt hour,” Field said. “That amount is more than the retail value of the electricity.”

Also:

For comparison, Field re­searched the property tax for the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert Township along Lake Michigan. He found that the annual real and personal property taxes for Palisades are just over $12 million or .2 cents per kilowatt hour.

Sometimes, after solving a problem, it seems to me there should be a symmetry argument that I missed.

You have a cup of coffee and a cup of cream. Put a teaspoon of the cream in the coffee and stir. Take a teaspoon of this mixture and put it in the cream. Is there now more cream in the coffee or coffee in the cream?

Neither. It turns out that they are equal. Should this have been obvious? Why? Is there a symmetry argument?

Ann says: Man! that took me a while to figure out. I forgot that the volume of the coffee before transferring back to the milk is (T + 1)/T. So in the end, each cup has 1/(T + 1) of the other?

I think that's right. If the spoon holds T cups, then in the end the coffee cup contains 1/(T+1) cups of coffee and T/(T+1) cups of cream. Vice versa for the cup of cream. You can stick in T=0 and T=1 and see that the formulas make sense. After doing the math though, it seems that there should be some way to see intuitively why the equality is there.

The original of this post disappeared in the Blogger Blackout.

[ Politifact ] Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wisconsin.

Moore began her remarks by referring to the keynote speaker, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and his new memoir, A Reason to Believe.

"I was thinking: How in the world can you believe, what reason would you have to believe in anything, when you had just elected a governor who says that Wisconsin was open for business and therefore closed to every single human being in the state," Moore said to applause.

This is someone who flatly and openly hates business. The logical inference from her comment is that Wisconsin should not be open for business, because businesses hurt people.

This is the mindset of the loony left. Where is Pat Moynihan where you need him? I believe he once said that the Democrats had to come to terms with the fact that you can't be pro-employee without being pro-employer. Apparently, such thinking is dead and mouldering right along with the much-missed Moynihan.

Moore is undoubtedly someone who wants lots of public services and lots of taxes, but doesn't understand that it takes productive people and businesses to pay those taxes.

It's the therefore in Moore's comments that really gets me: you're pro business? Therefore you must, you simply MUST, be anti-human.

NPR is doing a series on financial literacy among young Americans. They started with two pieces on college loan debt today. In the introduction to one piece was this comment about college graduates:

For many of them, life's first big decision will be how to pay off college loans.

Ahem, their first big decision should have been whether to take the loans out in the first place!

Again and again I see the contents of the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds referred to as "money" or "cash." Here, for example. Another one here, for example:

Social Security, financed through payroll taxes, has enough money in its trust fund to pay full benefits through 2037, according to its 2010 trustees report.

Good grief. There is no money in these trust funds. There is no cash in these trust funds. The trust funds contain special government bonds, not money to pay out to beneficiaries. All the cash that has been collected through Social Security and Medicare taxes has been spent already. To get the money to pay beneficiaries, the government will need to use taxes, borrowing, or printing.

Who knew? Arthur Treacher's is still around. It seems it has been absorbed by Nathan's.
You can see one in NYC on google maps.

A while back I mentioned Groupon, saying among other things that I really didn't understand what the benefit was to retailers.

I am happy to report that I am not the only one.

President Obama wants to make all companies seeking government contracts to disclose the political contributions from every single employee. Much has been said about how this would allow the government to pick political allies for contracts while shunning companies loaded with the other party.

Much less has been said about the chilling effect within each company.

How many people share the political views of their bosses and the owners of their company? How many people want their boss to have to compile a list of all of his employees' political contributions and have that sitting in front of him when it's time to decide on layoffs, promotions, and assignments?

I know I do not want my boss knowing my political persuasion, because it will automatically diminish me in his/her eyes. The thinking would be: How can you possibly believe and support that! I thought you were smart, like me!!! Now I find out your a stupid, idiotic, twit!

No thank you! Disclose is an abomination!

Charges of arson in the Pizza Man fire.

Feras Rahman, 27, of Milwaukee, was indicted on counts of arson resulting in injury, arson to commit mail fraud, mail fraud and lying, according to the indictment. The fire caused more than $3 million in damage.

Rahman was the owner of the Black and White Café, a counter-service restaurant, which opened next door to Pizza Man in January 2009.

If he's guilty, I hope they throw the book at him.

Ann says: I believe it was always known to be arson, they've just taken this long to figure out who to charge with the crime.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you... it's community organizers advocating on behalf of people living in "food deserts." These are urban regions where the nearest grocery store is a mile or more away, or rural regions ten miles from a grocer.

The idea here is that obesity, which strangely correlates with lower income, is due to the lack of healthy food choices in certain neighborhoods. Advocates call for zoning laws that will keep out fast food restaurants from such places. It seems rather paternalistic to me. It's hard for me to believe that people eat at McDonalds because no Whole Foods is nearby.

The USDA has an interactive map showing "food deserts" across our nation. It's pretty interesting. Vast swaths of Nashville are included.

I was particularly struck though by one large neighborhood in Milwaukee. It's centered along Capitol Drive between the Milwaukee River and I-43. It runs south to Keefe and up to Hampton.



Ummm... ok. So I guess Piggly Wiggly and Aldi don't count as grocery stores? Not wholesome enough perhaps?




Ok, but what is the explanation that accounts for Outpost Natural Foods not counting? It's a giant natural food store smack dab in the middle of this "food desert." This doesn't inspire confidence in the USDA's assessment of the problem.



(h/t wmbriggs.com)

So, here's this month's employment graph (click to embiggen):

Just to review, the shaded areas represent the time between elections, so Obama was elected in November, 2008. The vertical red and blue lines represent the swearing-in of the president in January of 2001 and 2009. The red blue series is the Household data. This is created by a telephone survey of real people. The blue red series is the Employer data, created by polling large employers. The unemployment rate is determined from the Household data.

Analysis: As you can see the two lines went in opposite directions this month. According to Employers, we've added almost a quarter of a million jobs last month. According to Households, we lost 190,000 jobs.

The line on NPR this morning looked at the Employer's data and said: We have lots of new jobs! When asked why the unemployment rate, now standing at 9%, went up, they looked at the Household data and the number of people who have entered or reentered the job pool, and said: More people looking means more unemployed. However this seems to me to be mixing apples and oranges. If you look at the Household number for the number of people looking for jobs, it seems to me you should also look at the Household number that says we lost close to 200K jobs this month. That's how the unemployment rate is calculated.

However, looking at the numbers, it appears that NPR pretty much flat-out lied. Remember, the question was: Why did the unemployment rate go up when jobs increased? and the answer was: Because more people entered and reentered the labor force. They also specifically said that it was actually a good sign, because more people looking, means a good mood change.

So what are the real numbers--which NPR never mentions?

                        March    April      Change
Civilian Labor force:  153,406  153,421     15,000
Employed:              139,864  139,674   -190,000

So, looking at those numbers, what would you attribute the increase in the unemployment rate? The 15K increase in the number of people looking for work? Or the 190K decrease in the number of jobs?

A former aid of Hillary Clinton was on The Factor today, and reminded me of something that Hillary said about Pakistan back in November of 2009. Here is something I posted about it, from November of 2009:

Hillary Clinton, during her recent trip to Pakistan:

"Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002," she finally asserted when challenged about Washington’s tough prescriptions for Islamabad. "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."

The US Secretary of State also took a swipe at the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, telling the senior journalists, "If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together" then "there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment." She said she was "more than willing to hear every complaint about the United States'' but the relationship had to be a "two-way street."

At one point during the exchanges, when a journalist spoke about all the services rendered by Pakistan for the US, Mrs Clinton snapped, "We have also given you billions."

Well done Mrs. Clinton! How refreshing to hear an American diplomat dishing it out rather than just standing there and taking it. Finally, someone in power has the nerve to tell the truth.

Strange now that she is going out of her way now to tell us how useful Pakistan was in the capture of Bin Laden. It doesn't seem to me to ring true.

Sincere congratulations and thanks to President Obama, our SEALS, and everyone else involved!



Awesome pic from the White House. Watching the attack unfold.

And Happy Birthday Mom!!

Traditional American comfort food with fake meat.

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion
• 1/2 large green pepper
• 1 12oz pack MorningStar Farms Meal Starters Grillers Recipe Crumbles (not the sausage flavored ones)
• 1 14.5oz can basil-garlic-oregano diced tomatoes
• 1 8oz can basil-garlic-oregano tomato sauce
• 2C macaroni elbows, uncooked
• 2C water
• 1t Italian seasoning, plus salt and black pepper

Directions:

1. Chop onion medium-fine, fry in 4 quart saucepan with a few tablespoons of oil on medium-high heat.
2. Dice green pepper and add to cooking onions. Cook until onions are translucent. Green pepper will probably not be fully cooked.
3. Poke hole in bag, and defrost meat substitute for a couple minutes in microwave.
4. Add meat substitute, and other ingredients except seasoning to pot. Include the juice with the tomatoes. Mix well. Simmer until macaroni is cooked and absorbs the water. About 20+ minutes.
5. When nearly done, add seasoning and salt and black pepper to taste.

I made this recipe up after reading several meat-based versions online. The ingredient amounts in those recipes were all over the place, with a majority calling for condensed tomato soup and very little herbs and flavorings. My version turned out pretty well (almost as good as mom's!), and even my three year old enjoyed it. It tastes like the classic hot dish would taste if made with lean beef and an eye for some flavor. I sprinkle some red pepper flakes on my serving for some added bite. Serve with traditional microwaved frozen peas!

A year ago I blogged in defense of the infamous Duke Lacrosse team accuser, stating that charges against her of arson and attempted murder were a case of "overcharging." I am happy to report that prosecution was unable to obtain a conviction on those charges.

Unfortunately, this same woman has now been accused of murder, for stabbing another boyfriend to death.

That's the trouble with the system. The cops bring the scum in off the streets, and bleeding hearts like myself put 'em right back out again!

I hereby express my opposition to President Obama's recently initiated kinetic peace reduction in Libya.

I was reading today about the moaning and gnashing of teeth on Capitol Hill over the prospect of a government shutdown. The building complex is all a quiver because there are 2,600 federal employees who work there--this does not count the staff of the elected officials. Capitol hill employs people as elevator operators, food service workers, cleaning staff, maintenance workers, tour guides, etc. There is a Capitol Police force too, but I don't know if they are included in the 2,600 count. Many of these employees, if they are deemed "non-essential," will be off work in a few hours if a budget agreement isn't reached.

Is there any other office complex in the country that employs that many people just to keep the building running? In one article I read, they quoted someone as saying that most make 30-50K a year. At $30K, that means the Capitol has an operation budget of $78,000,000 just on salaries alone--and that's at the low end of the estimate.

Think there's any bloat in that budget?

In the last few weeks, the post below and ones like it have been circulating around Facebook and the internet (see eg: here, in the comments here: , and here ):

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Their ranking on ACT/SAT scores:

South Carolina - 50th
North Carolina - 49th
Georgia - 48th
Texas - 47th
Virginia - 44th

Wisconsin is currently ranked 2nd. Welcome to the race to the bottom.

The statistics have become so widespread that they've been used by the Economist and Paul Krugman at the NYTimes has pulled similar data.

Rebuttals have pointed out that the SAT is a really bad way to judge educational achievement, since in Wisconsin in particular only a small portion of students—those heading for selective colleges—ever take it:

As it turns out, these ratings are bogus. For each state it adds the ranking for SAT scores to the ranking for ACT scores (and it's not even clear what year the data comes from), but it doesn't take into consideration the percentage of the population who take either test. The College Boards specifically warn against doing state-to-state comparisons for the SAT, because in some states all students are required to take the text, while in others only the best students do. Only 4% of Wisconsin students took the SAT in 2010, and since they tend to be the cream of the crop it's not surprising that Wisconsin does well (but third in the nation, not first). On the other hand, 69% of Wisconsin seniors took the ACT in 2010, and Wisconsin comes in 17th in terms of composite ACT scores.

A more thorough debunking of these statistics may be found here; among the revelations is the fact that the data is from 1999. The owner of this site is actually an advocate of "student organizing"; it is to his credit that he has the intellectual honesty to challenge claims that purport to back up his side of the argument.

So, since I like data, playing with data, and living in data, I decided to look at a much better measure of educational achievement—the “Nation’s Report Card.”

For a long time now, the US Department of Education has compiled NEAP scores. These are the results of exams given nationwide to a massive number of students. They show trends, and apples to apples comparisons can be made easily. The exams are given in Mathematics, Reading, Science, Technology and Engineering, Arts, Civics, Economics, Foreign Language, Geography, US History, World History, and Writing. The exams are given to both 4th and 8th graders. A pilot program has started to test 12th graders as well, but none of the states mentioned above are participants.

Iowahawk, the usually comedic web poster, took a break yesterday from satire to mine some of this data--he compared Texas and Wisconsin, with Texas coming out mostly on top.

As it turns out, I was already compiling data from this same source. I decided to focus on the two main parts of the NEAP results: Math and Reading. The reports for 2009 are available here: Math and Reading.

I looked at three categories of student for each grade level: 1) All students, 2) Students eligible for subsidized lunches—which is a short-hand way of looking at children in poverty, and 3) English Language Learners. I also looked at two levels of educational achievement: 1) students meeting basic requirements and 2) students testing as proficient. I took the 50 states and sorted them from best to worst and gave them their numerical rank (I gave states with ties the same rank.) The charts below show the numerical rank of each state with respect to the other 49. (Some students, such as people with reading disabilities, are granted special accommodations for the exam, I used those scores for the data below.)

It is clear that Wisconsin does quite well, especially in math, but the results are really not much to crow about. Wisconsin’s reading scores are actually surprisingly low. The best ranking for Wisconsin in math in any of the categories came in at a rank of 8—that was for 8th grade English language learners testing at the basic level. In reading Wisconsin achieved a rank of two for educating ELL students in 8th grade to basic levels. It should be noted, though, that ELL students do very badly overall.

Here is what I found:

4th Grade Math



For all students, and for these six states—remember Virginia, the Carolinas, Texas, and Georgia are used for the comparison because they do not allow their teachers to collectively bargain—Virginia, North Carolina and Texas are all better at getting kids a basic understanding of 4th grade math than Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the best of the bunch at getting kids to a proficient level, but 13 other states in the union actually do better than the cheese state, putting the dairyland in the second quintile. The percentage of Wisconsin students ranking at basic and proficient levels are: 85% and 45% respectively.

For students in poverty, Wisconsin gets a ranking near the middle of the 50 states: 22 for students reaching basic levels, and a better 19 for students reaching proficient. In Wisconsin 73% of students in poverty can do math at a basic level and 24% are proficient.

For English language learners, Wisconsin is well above the median for the 50 states with rankings of 14 and 13, however, among the six states presented here, Wisconsin actually does poorly, only Georgia does worse. In Wisconsin 66% of ELL students in 4th grade are at the basic level and 15% are proficient. The ELL scores, though, do have a caveat: not all states report these results. On this exam nine states did not report: Alabama, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Whether those states would change the rankings can not be known from this data.

8th Grade Math



For 8th graders, Wisconsin does well overall, getting more kids to the basic and proficient levels than the other five states, and makes the top ten for overall basic skills. The percentage of students scoring at basic and proficient are a respectable 79% and 39%. Texas shows itself to be very good at educating children in poverty, getting a basic rank of 3 (they are tied for third place with South Dakota and Massachusetts, and North Dakota and Montana do better,) and a proficient rank of 9. (Wisconsin’s scores are 60% of student in poverty achieve the basic level, 20% proficient.) South Carolina is again the best at educating English language learners, tying with Virginia for the number 2 spot at the basic level and getting the second rank for proficient as well. Wisconsin does well (45% at basic, 9% at proficient), but lags behind Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina—Georgia did not report these scores, neither did: Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming (16 states did not report ELL scores.)

4th Grade Reading



Wisconsin does surprisingly poorly on this exam. For a state that is said to have a good educational system, scoring below or at the median for reading among all students is not the educational beacon it’s been made out to be. Only 67% of Wisconsin 4th graders read at a basic level, only 33% are proficient. For students in poverty, the numbers are even worse. For the first time in the data I’ve looked at, Wisconsin falls into the bottom quintile of states, wracking up a pathetic rank of being the 42nd best (worst!) state in which to be a student in poverty. Of these six states Wisconsin is the worst at educating students in poverty (with SC tying at the proficient level.) In Wisconsin, less than half—only 46% of 4th graders in poverty read at a basic level, and only 15% are proficient. My own state of California is in the dead-last position, with only 38% of students reaching the basic level, and only 10% reaching proficiency. Again, South Carolina seems to understand how to teach English language learners, or their cohort of ELL students is different from the ones in other states. They have the honor of being at the top of the league in ELL. Wisconsin is better than Georgia among these six states, but is the second last in both basic and proficient ELL students. (Eleven states did not report their ELL scores.) Among ELL 4th graders in Wisconsin only 31% are at basic and 8% are proficient.

8th Grade Reading



By comparison to the other five states in this dataset, Wisconsin does well at educating students in 8th grade reading. However, with the exception of ELL students, Wisconsin still isn’t doing very well. Wisconsin has a 50-state rank of 19 and 15 for educating all students to the basic and proficient levels respectively. In Wisconsin 78% of 8th grade students reach the basic level of reading, and 34% are proficient readers. Again Wisconsin is below the national median at educating students in poverty to the basic level of competence (61% of students in poverty achieve basic scores), but does slightly better than the median at getting kids to proficiency (18%). The ELL exam is again hampered by the fact that not all states report these results; in this case nearly half (23) failed to report. Among Wisconsin’s ELL students in 8th grade, only 49% can read at a basic level and only 7% are proficient.

Conclusions: Don’t send your kids to school in Georgia! Georgia did poorly across the board, though in a couple categories Wisconsin actually did worse. Wisconsin comes in at being a better-than-average state for education, but not if you are a student in poverty. Of the 24 categories presented here, Wisconsin was the best of the six states in nine of them, Virginia: eight, South Carolina: seven (all ELL), Texas: four, North Carolina: one, and Georgia: none.

Does Wisconsin’s collective bargaining state shine above the ones without it? Not according to this data. Unlike the skewed SAT results, this shows these states doing some things well and some things poorly. None are shown off in a really good light, and Wisconsin’s reading achievement is surprisingly bad when compared to its reputation as a great state for education.

Update (4/8/11): Jay P. Greene posted a chart of gains and losses on these same tests. I highlighted the five non-collective bargaining states in red, and Wisconsin in green. These only show gains in the scores over time, not the actual scores:

Congratulations to India, world cricket champs!!

Not sure what's going on here, but it looks like 2621 Newton is getting hammered. Click to zoom.

What a rip-off "fancy" hotels are. It seems the more expensive the hotel, the more they try to nickel-and-dime you for every feature "lesser" hotels give you for free. Here at the Hyatt, we get one free breakfast, and internet access is $10 per day. Usually, we stay at places like Country Inn and Suites, where breakfast is free for all of us, as is internet access. It's also about 1/3 the price for a room.

Looking around the room here at the Hyatt, I'm wondering if it is really any better than Country Inn. Same yucky carpet, chairs and faux-finish desk. No fridge or safe like Country Inn. Maid hasn't been here yet and it's mid-afternoon. Loud air conditioner. Dirty dishes left in the hallway. Blah. I don't think a nice atrium is worth another $200 per night.

Even if I had enough money to stay at Hyatt whenever I wanted, I wonder if I would. Spending money is fine, if I'm getting something for it. But I don't like getting ripped off. Who does? Some people, it seems.

From Ron Radosh at Pajamas, discussing the left's infatuation with the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire story:

Look, for example, at the article by CUNY’s labor historian Joshua Freeman, writing in The Nation. Arguing that the fire took place “at a moment of radical challenge to the national structure of power,” Freeman sees an exactly parallel situation today. He writes:

“Today, as a cult of deregulation, a rabid ethos of unrestricted capitalism and the ability of firms to play workers in one country against those in another have seemingly sent us careening back in time toward a pre–New Deal regime of labor relations, there is less domestic opposition to sweated labor than 100 years ago (though low-paid workers overseas have been increasingly militant, evident in the fusillade of strikes in China). Periodic waves of moral outrage sweep across college campuses in antisweatshop campaigns, but as an organized force, labor has weakened to the point that the percentage of privately employed workers who belong to a union is now lower than in 1911.”

---

These people are basically whining that all of the consequences that the right has warned them about at every step in their push for more regulation and more state control really are real. It’s like they’ve had their fingers stuck in their ears for the last six decades and are now stomping up and down in a tantrum, because the consequences are finally too big to ignore.

They wanted more-regulated workplaces with unions around every corner, work rules, and benefits galore. The right warned that this would make manufacturing less efficient, increase the cost of labor, and reduce the number of US jobs. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

They wanted tighter environmental controls on business, driving up the costs of raw materials, energy, production, and delivery. The right warned that this would make domestic manufacturing prohibitively expensive, drive factories overseas, and reduce the number of US jobs. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

The left wanted higher taxes on business, to the point where the US has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. The right warned that this would place domestic companies at a disadvantage, force companies to open and incorporate elsewhere, and reduce the number of US jobs. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

The left wanted laws on corporate financial reporting so stringent, that CEO’s of private companies are afraid to grow their companies by going public, because they face the threat of federal prison if their financial statements don’t meet with government approval. Instead, they are incorporating overseas, or forgoing the capital infusions of going big and public and staying small and private. The right said that this will drive corporations to other countries, stifle domestic investment, and reduce the number of US jobs. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

The left wanted laws nearly-nationalizing healthcare insurance, eliminating reduced-coverage and reduced-price options for lower-skilled and lower-pay workers, forcing many companies to either report massive losses on their books (to great hue and cry from the left), to go on bended knee to beg the government for a waiver like a supplicant before a tyrant (my high school physics teacher often pointed out that the definition of tyrant is one who rules arbitrarily,) or to dump their employees’ insurance completely. The right warned this would reduce the number of people who could afford health insurance, increase the costs to business, increase the cost of labor, and thus reduce the number of US jobs. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

The left wanted more taxes to soak the rich. No one should be that rich, they said. We have the money in this country to do everything our little hearts desire; we just need to take it from those bastards! But those bastards don’t have a safe in the basement filled with gold. It’s invested in stocks, venture capital start-ups, real estate, and the economy. Every time taxes go up on the investor class, the right says this will cost the economy capital for investing in new businesses. Businesses won’t grow, new jobs won’t be created. The left said, we don’t care, we want it anyway.

We’ve had sixty years of the left not listening or caring what the consequences were. Sixty years of the left making it harder to do business and create jobs. We were rich enough to take the hit, they countered. Surely, we’re a rich-enough country to provide all of this. But each law, each tax, each regulation makes it harder and harder to employ people. Sooner or later, the weight of all of it forces a collapse.

What our government and the left must start doing every time a new law is proposed is to ask themselves: will this help marginal employers create jobs, or will it help to destroy jobs? In other words, what are the consequences of each turn of the tax and regulatory ratchet, because sooner or later, the ratchet drives the bolt home, and we’re all royally screwed.

Update: As if on cue, this article appears today from "Ray Buursma is a Laketown Township resident":

You are either stupid or lazy. Maybe both.

Now, I’m not referring to your work ethic or job performance. [...] I’m addressing the way you view economics and employment.

In light of what I wrote above, that's a promising start, right?

[...Y]ou continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.

You knew that was coming, right? Here's more:

Did you demand your leaders address America’s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? [Oh, lord!] Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar’s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here? [Dude, we got a dollar's worth...in cold hard cash.]

[...] You made concessions to your employer and hoped that would stem the exodus of jobs, or at least yours.

He then goes on to praise unions to the sky. After a while, he lets off this whopper:

Does your company offer a pension plan, or do you now fund your own 401(k)?

Take an econ course, bonehead--either you fund your own retirement plan or you take the money from your kids after you retire. There is no other way. Where the h*&% does he think the money comes from? It comes from what a worker produces, that then gets sold, and the employer keeps part of it, and passes the rest to the employee in wages and benefits. Whether those benefits are a matching contribution to the 401K or some other program. The alternate is if you don't pay for your retirement out of your own productivity, but expect your employer to pay for you later. You get a nice big fat paycheck while you're working, but your kids get screwed, because the fixed benefit pension you enjoy is coming out of their pocket, not yours. Nice work if you can get it. Or does money fall from the sky?

I warned you I’d likely offend you, and I suspect I did. But once you overcome your anger, consider my analysis. Then, either wise up and do something about it, or resign yourself to a lower standard of living for the next decade.

I'm only angered by this guy's breathtaking stupidity.

Of course that's not all. I saw this article because two of my college friends linked to it on Facebook. College educated friends, of course. I reposted it as a form of bait. A junior high teacher of mine has since posted it as well--I don't know if she saw it from me or saw it on her own.

This is the world I grew up in and have lived in all my life, first in liberal Shorewood, Wisconsin; then at liberal Grinnell College; then in liberal Minneapolis; now in Los Angeles. Every single day supplies another reason to shake my head in dismay.

It is a beautiful Spring day here. When it's broiling hot this Summer, remind me how nice this Spring has been and how mild the Winter was.

Here's a big full moon, rising over our neighbors' house.

Beautiful!

A sight not seen, but once, in the last 40 years. Dad, without a beard:

What a surprise. I guess I was wrong... I didn't think it would take a whole week to happen.

A commenter on Instapundit:

Any other city in the world would have seen buildings flattened and the deaths of tens of thousands. To the best of my knowledge not one person in Tokyo died, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that some poor soul fell off a ladder.

Sound engineering, preparation, precaution, and technology saved the day. I could walk home last night secure in the knowledge that my kids, wife, and mother-in-law were completely safe despite experiencing the worst earthquake in Japanese history and the fifth-worst in the world ever.

He's absolutely right. If this quake had struck Los Angeles, much of the city would have been destroyed. Why? First this was one h&^% of an earthquake, but also because American engineering codes are not designed for the preservation of structures at all. As I was told when I was studying structural engineering, American codes are designed so that in a major earthquake the buildings fall down slowly.

Does that sound stupid? It isn't really as stupid as it sounds. Buildings in the US are designed for the preservation of life. If a building falls down slowly, the thinking is, then people will have a chance to escape. People live, the building doesn't. Billions of dollars in damage, but a low casualty and death count.

Japan has a much higher standard, both life and structures are supposed to survive.

Because a strong earthquake can be so expensive with the loss of so many structures here, there has been some discussion as to whether the US should adopt Japan's philosophy. But most of the country's earthquake zone buildings were built to the life-only standard.

As with any talk about US, earthquakes, and death and destruction, we must not only consider California, but the bigger fault line: New Madrid--sleeping soundly in the middle of the country. Let's hope it doesn't wake up.

This from the USGS website:

The earthquake locations and magnitudes cited in NOAA tsunami statements and bulletins are preliminary and are superseded by USGS locations and magnitudes computed using more extensive data sets.

Do I detect a hint of friendly competition? Or something more?

Kevin Drum:

Tyler Cowen has put together a list of common mistakes made by left wing economists. I'm not an economist, but I'm left wing and I comment on economics, so close enough. So I'm going to go through the list and note where I stand on each of his items. I'm not going to explain things or justify myself, I'm just going to stake out my position in a sentence or two. Here are Tyler's 14 mistakes:...

9. Overly optimistic views of the fiscal positions of state governments. Since the states don't have the same tax-raising powers that the feds do, and since state government spending is favored, there is a tendency to see these fiscal crises as not so severe, or as caused by mere obstructionists who will not raise taxes to the required levels.

In general, there might be something to this. Right now, however, state problems are largely caused by drops in revenue, not out-of-control spending, and many state problems are indeed caused by obstructionists who will not consider tax increases in any way, shape or form. However, it's possible that I'm biased in my views because I live in California.

Hello? "Problems are indeed caused by obstructionists who will not consider tax increases"...like California?

California is one of the most heavily taxed states in the country. High property taxes, high income taxes, high car taxes, high sales taxes, high business taxes, high environmental taxes, high breathing taxes. And yet Drum calls out California's tax "obstructionists" as being at fault in our fiscal nightmare? How about the fact that, despite full knowledge of California's meltdown, spending has skyrocketed under Schwarzenegger. Since 2003 spending has increased by 40%. This despite the fact that Grey Davis was recalled in part because of the cost overruns of the state government. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats went right on spending for the better part of another decade. And Drum thinks it's the revenue side that's the problem?

How about tallying up the unfunded mandates--in particular the unfunded pension leviathan?

Overall the numbers look like this: California's state retirement systems have promised current and retired workers around $3.35 trillion in pension, health care, and other post-employment befits as of 2008 but have $2.35 trillion on hand to pay for them. Strictly looking at the retirement system, there were $454 billion in pension and benefits on the book in 2008, $59 billion was unfunded liability, that means that the fund had the assets to cover 87 percent of its obligations. [ Data originated with a Pew Center study.]

Sure, Drum. It's the revenue side that's the problem, not the insane amount of spending and promising to spend. California has been doomed for over a decade because the politicians can't help but spend our money, our kids' money, our grandkids' money, our great grandkids' money....

Run! Run for your lives!!!

Of course that's what everyone with five brain cells and the ability to do so is doing.

... before some judge declares the Wisconsin Senates's action re collective bargaining for public employees null and void. It's a sure thing, no?

I am mulling over the following, which I posted as a comment here.

I have a question about Iowahawk’s analysis. In his follow-up post he describes Simpson’s paradox…:

“Hitter B has a higher batting average against both righties and lefties, but Hitter A has a higher overall average by dint of facing a different mix of pitchers. Now comes the question: it’s the bottom of the 9th, two out, and you need a base hit. Who would you insert as a pinch hitter, A or B? The detailed data suggests Hitter B, irrespective of whether the pitcher was right- or left-handed. The overall average, in this context, is worse than meaningless – it leads you to exactly the wrong conclusion.”

If this is legit analysis, it opens a can of worms, I think. Suppose that instead of handedness, we had pitchers with and without some “X Factor.” Suppose we didn’t even know what the X Factor is. Suppose we didn’t even know what the proportion of pitchers in the league have the X Factor. But suppose some third party did know, and simply provided us with a breakdown of our two hitters’ averages against the two types of pitchers, and they formed a Simpson’s paradox. Would it still be “wrong” to put in hitter A? Is it better to put in B, because he is better at hitting against both X and not-X pitchers? Color me skeptical.

How stupid are science reporters? How about this from MSNBC:

"The images show that refrozen ice makes up 24 percent of an area known as Dome A, a 13,800-foot-high plateau roughly the size of California. Much of the sheet and refrozen ice lies atop an underground mountain range."

What is this, Jules Verne? Journey to the Center of the Earth? How can you have an UNDERGROUND mountain range???

THE HILL POLL: U.S. future depends on cutting debt, voters say
By Bernie Becker - 03/07/11 06:10 AM ET

Likely voters overwhelmingly believe deficit reduction is crucial to America’s future, but generally oppose raising revenue through tax reform to cut those deficits, a new poll conducted for The Hill found.

A full 95 percent of likely voters believe that lowering the debt is either very or somewhat important, the poll found

The other 5% seem to be all my friends on Facebook. I've heard: "When will people realize that socialism is the answer!!" and echoing Michael Moore's "There's no problem, we have plenty of money!!!" even before he said it, and "We can pay off everything if we kill the DoD, so what's the problem?"

I love this on Instapundit today

AT AMAZON, a sale on typewriters. They still make those? As with VCRs, I’m tempted to buy a couple just to hoard against the day when they don’t . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ben Samuels doesn’t like that manual typewriter link: “Geebus, Glenn – did you read the reviews??? They say it’s a worthless piece of Chinese crap. You’d have been better off giving readers the link to a used Selectric.”

I replied: “I didn’t think anyone would actually buy one. I mean, good God. Maybe after an EMP attack you’d want a manual typewriter, except how much typing would you actually do?”

MORE: The inevitable followup email:

I know somebody who knows a guy who can get you a great deal on a sturdy 40 year old model that can handle superscripting.

Courage,
Dan Rather

Heh. (Via Brian Gates.)

Something else caused by Climate Change: insanity.

Now I'm changing my life again. Today, underneath the solar panels, there's a new set of deadbolt locks on all my doors. There's a new Honda GX390 portable power generator in my garage, ready to provide backup electricity. And last week I bought a starter kit to raise tomatoes and lettuce behind barred basement windows.

I'm not a survivalist or an "end times" enthusiast. When it comes to climate change, I'm just a realist.

Does the Washington Post think this guy's thoughts are rational? Very sad.