Dial F

Fade out

2007-09-21T18:41:00.000-05:00

I've moved to a different blog, Letters In Bottles. Provided that works out fine, I probably won't be around here much. It was a fun.

In case you're wondering, I made 205 posts over 18 months and got 5,260 visits.

Thanks for reading.

Is it really mysterious?

2007-09-12T17:11:00.000-05:00

The headline on CNN's business page is The Mystery Behind Surging Oil... what's pushing oil to $80?.

Some short-term factors are plain to see. There's the big drop in crude inventories and a reported shutdown of nearly 200,000 barrels from Alaska's North Slope - a fourth of the region's total output - and a gathering storm in the Atlantic.

Yet at the same time, crude inventories, while declining recently, remain above average for this time of year...

Add to this the end of summer driving season and the rise of oil prices to eight times what they were in the late 1990s remains something of a mystery.

Perhaps the answer is in the other big headline of the day: No relief in sight for battered dollar.

The dollar is down across the board. The Euro is at a record high. If you're traveling, prices are brutal.

We import oil from other countries, so if the dollar is weak, then oil should cost more, duh. All imported products should be more expensive.

A weak dollar comes from two places: the Fed 'injecting' money into the economy, which reduces the value of a dollar, and our trade deficit with other countries, especially China, who now have lots of dollars so they value payments in dollars less and less against their own currencies.

Some more thoughts on the debate

2007-09-07T17:53:00.000-05:00

Remember that diner in which Fox News had a correspondent talking to average New Hampshirians that they cut to from time to time? Turns out that restaurant does breakfast and lunch and closes in the afternoon, apparently.

It's not that I thought that it was random people in the midst of a meal, there was a strange lack of food and it was 9-10:30 pm their time, but I never recalled them letting the viewers know that it was staged. Of course I figured there was some kind of casual screening--so many people showed up and they only let in enough people or only republicans. I think they tried to play it as normal as possible considering they could have had a few people in a room with a tv or the front row of the debate and do the same exact thing.

They did ask some good questions, thought. That one to Romney made him look like a deer in headlights.

The other thing that's been going around in my head is when Huckabee said that the Republicans should stick with their war plans even if it costs them elections. In comparison to Ron Paul, who as a republican is drawing Democrats and independent voters, that might be one of the strangest things I've heard lately. If some of the Republicans want to keep up their whatever in the face of public opposition and jettison those who disagree with them, then they're going to go the way of the Whig party within the next few election cycles.

I've only recently been able to start asking myself this: what exactly is there to win in Iraq?

Republican Debate, Activate!

2007-09-06T00:36:00.000-05:00

There was another Republican debate this evening, this time on Fox News. I'd say they put on a better debate than CNN (excluding the first question about Fred Thompson which invited a Republican "situation where people are stroking each other's ego without producing anything of value" (I didn't want to write out the certain two word phrase), by most of the candidates). First of all, there were three rotating moderators so no moderator seemed to be an active participant like Wolf Blitzer often did. Furthermore, they spread out the talking time more evenly amongst the candidates than it's been distributed so far in a debate. Fox also had a good format of podiums with a few 'average people in a restaurant' breaks to break it up. The CNN debates started with podiums and then went the candidates sitting in chairs, which seemed strange with a large group.

Back to the average people in the restaurant, they had some pretty good comments. One man called out Romney on saying that his sons are helping the country by getting him elected in place of joining the military. Towards the end, a college student directly pointed out how Rudy doesn't exactly jive with the whole 'family values' thing. Overall Romney was the one taking the most flak.

This debate was much more lively than past ones. The crescendo had to be the confrontation between Huckabee and Paul over the whole war thing. I walked back in from the other room and Ron Paul was talking about withdrawing completely right in the short term. Then the other candidates went through the various degrees everywhere from 'phasing out soon' to 'long term presence'.

Finally it got to Huckabee who was next to Ron and they starting going back and forth. (the Hippie Perspective posted on it) It must be dorky to say, but I realized that I had that exciting feeling in my stomach when Ron Paul started actively defending his stance on Iraq. Or maybe it was just the first time in these many months that we've actually had something similar to what happens at an actual debate happen amongst the presidential candidates. Or maybe someone was just saying what needs to be said.

Iraq is probably issue on which I agree with Ron Paul the least. I don't think we should drop everything and run. Huckabee, using the same words as I've used before, said that 'we broke Iraq and now we've bought it'. After screwing up that country and region even more than it was before, I can't see us just packing up. At the least, we should learn from our misadventures for the future and not interfere in future events. Paul made the point that Israel has enough weapons to take care of Iran themselves without us. That's the one thing we owe the world--not to go around messing up their stuff. Thinking about it, international welfare makes about as much sense as domestic and corporate welfare.

Here's how I think the candidates did:

Like I said, Romney seemed to be getting criticized the most. Tonight he just seemed flat, like that old, mostly empty 2L bottle chilling in the back of the fridge--not much of a pop or spark to him in his answers.

Guiliani's appears to have gotten off his streak of mentioning 9/11 and terrorism in every answer. As a lady in their focus group said afterward, paraphrasing, 'he talks about what he did in New York City. I want to hear what else he's got' then she did the disappointed frown/head tilt thing right into the camera.

The reporter asked their focus group who did the best and they said McCain. I agree, despite having a collapsing campaign, he seems to be on the rebound. He tied himself to Iraq and the immigration debate which turned out to be quite a faux pas for him. News from Iraq has been sounding good lately and he's put enough distance between immigration and himself.

McCain had the pop this evening. Things started off on a good note for him as the others mentioned him. Rudy said he'd support him if he weren't running and Huckabee complimented him. He was able to score big on taking the principled stand on being against all torture from his own experience. Thinking about it, he didn't necessarily have the best solutions but he had good paths in that he could take the 'wise elder' decision making strategy.

Nothing remarkable stood about about Hunter, Duncan, or Tancredo. Going from nine to eight candidates doesn't seem like it'd make a big difference, but the stage seemed much smaller and more manageable.

Huckabee's done well lately. He was lingering around in the bottom with the just mentioned three, doing well in the Iowa straw poll seems to have given him credibility. Naturally I'm still supporting Ron Paul, but Huckabee is a palatable alternative, not in an ideological sense, but as far as how the candidates come across. (Unfortunately he's got a bit of that religious aura, which is a big turn off for me in selecting politicians.) I first saw him on Tucker on MSNBC talking about healthcare in response to Sicko in addition to tonight and in general I agree with what he says. He does a good job at appearing to be a level, common-sense person, though delivery shouldn't be how one votes. After all, what politicians say is mostly fluff. Send in the Pander Bear!

Ron Paul seemed particularly motivated this evening. Unfortunately, being as straight up front as he is about withdrawing, I can't imagine he'll chase away a few average republicans.

On the bright side, I hear increasing talk of this 'Constitution' thing and the 'federalism' stuff. Off the top of my head, this evening Rudy said it's the only pledge the president should make. I like to think that since Ron Paul's main spiel is constitutionalism, the other candidates are starting to mention more of it to not let him get more of a conservative stance than them. I can only hope they look into what they're starting to talk about and try to actually stick to the spirit of the document.

Talking about constitutionalism, one of the things that bothered me the most in the debate was some of the candidates were talking about a national ban on gay marriage and then some kind of amendment about it. That is completely wrong. The federal government doesn't issue marriage licenses, therefore it has no say in them. It's as easy as that. Try to change your state and if that doesn't work and it means that much to you, you're free to move to a different state. Though I'm most definitely not for abortion, I can't force my opinion on others and I would like to see Roe overturned--it's a state's decision and I can live with that. So many things the federal government has taken up were never meant to be handled on the national level.

Water Cooler Break

2007-09-04T12:26:00.001-05:00

As Carl Sandberg says:

"The school year comes
on little cat feet."

Working at the Fair, year 2

2007-08-23T18:55:00.000-05:00

After a few days of catching up on sleep, I think I'm finally ready to record the experience for the ages. First of all, I wrote about last year last year so I don't need to rewrite those parts.

In general, people are still dumb and ugly. Or I should say not all people, but the fair-going type. People still walk into the path of on-coming vehicles after seeing said vehicles. Children still look just like their parents. I still got sunburned.

On the bright side, this year I wasn't alone. My friend, Dave, and I were co-garbagemen. It works much better with two people than with just a single person. Being engineers, we developed a system. I was the primary driver and we'd pull up to the middle of a few barrels. We'd jump off and I'd reach for and start opening a new bag. Dave and I would walk around and check the cans. If one was found to be getting full, he'd pull the tape off and depending on how open the new bag was, one of us would grab it and pull it out and stick in the new bag. I'd carry the full bag back to the trailer and he'd tape the new one down. In full gear, we could change a can in about 20 seconds, I'd say. We could change the midway in 38 minutes including the two trips to the compactor.

For the most part, all of the food vendors were back. There were more changes in location than in the line up. I recognized most of them from last year and I think they recognized me. It was quite unnecessarily awkward that for the most part, people ignored Dave and spoke to me. I felt bad about it. Perhaps they thought he was my assistant instead of colleague?

Last year it only rained a little bit at night. This year, the fair which ran from a Wednesday to a Sunday, only had two decent days on Thursday and Friday. The other days it rained, and quite hard at times. Friday, especially in the p.m., and all day Saturday are typically the best times for the fair.

For us it was a wash. The rain kept people away, which reduced the amount of garbage, but as it turned out, by the clean-up day on Monday, Sunday alone had put a few gallons of water in each bag. (A gallon of water weighs 8.4 lbs.) We had to hide our enthusiasm since all of the other fair workers and the fair wanted lots of people to come, each admission is $7.

In addition to the rain and a second person, the fair had acquired more cans. In fact, we had more than 1.5 times as many cans this year to allocate than last year, 150 from 90. It would sound funny to say, but garbage cans seem to be the status symbol amongst carnies. They always ask for more. People wave us down and ask for them. I've developed a short list of possible things to say to requests: 'we'll look into it', 'we'll investigate', 'I'll see what we can do', 'I'll pass it on to so-and-so', etc. I suppose that's just normal office or organization hierarchy talk.

In general, there was a garbage can between each thing: a food vendor or building. One of the barbeque stands, which was on a corner kept on demanding a third can. We had already put one on the exact corner, and on the main road at the end of their slot, and they wanted one for their private seating area. The interiors of buildings, exhibits, and stands aren't in our jurisdiction, even when they're outdoors. Behind them was the music stage area and we were transporting a few empty cans to that. We turned their corner and the lady was thanking us for bringing another can and we kept on going. Awkward!

During the fair, we were the manifestation of the fair higher-ups to the vendors, as we were hired by the fair board to perform a service that is one of the most important fair services to the food vendors. They pay money to have each of those slots and a fair with trash everywhere is very different and probably a lot less hungry than a clean fair. When a food vendor or the petting zoo guy is unnecessarily disrespectful, one's first instinct is to be saucy back, but as representatives of the fair, the customer is always right. Besides there are much more subtle ways of retribution.

A few people asked us for directions and food recommendations and prices. I'm surprised more people don't ask for food recommendations. But then again, does anyone go to a fair expecting to eat good food at low prices? We see what people throw away and it's surprising. The nice barbeque stand (the other one), always smelled good and one of the things on their menu was "giant turkey leg". We saw a few giant turkey legs in the trash with only a bite or two taken. There were tons of corndogs with only a few nibbles on the ends and funnel cakes mostly intact. I don't get why people wait in line and fork over lots of money for something fried just to take a few bites and throw it away. Dave's hypothesis is that people are drawn to the flashiest stand without considering much else.

I had one possible idea which would be to go around and compile a fair guide which would list items, prices, and reviews and then sell them to the fair goers. The vendors would really scream. However, the market works better and more efficiently with more information.

High schoolers are the most annoying people. The funny thing is that when you're a freshman, the seniors look like big kids, but now as a college junior, even the college freshmen look like little kids. Most people at least move slowly out of a vehicles path, but high schoolers quite readily offer their feet to be run over. They also stand in big groups in the middle of the roads well past the time that most other people have left. They're the only ones at whom I would honk.

The other thing about high schoolers is that I drove past a few guys I recognized from my high school class. They were more of the kind of people that just show up when the bell rings and just go home when it rings again. Anyway, at least twice I saw guys from my class pushing strollers. That's unfortunate. Dave observed that wherever a person is when he starts having kids is, for the most part, wherever he'll be in life.

Out of the non-public at the fair, there are the fair board people who actually run it, the food people, the ride operators, the commercial exhibitors, the arts & craps people, and the farmers. I've never dealt with the commercial exhibitors nor the a&c people since they're in their own buildings more than picking up what they pitch. As far as the other people go, the food vendors seem to be normal. Surprisingly as I found, the wikipedia lists carnies as anyone who operates a booth, ride, game, or food stand at a carnival. The ride operators are undoubtedly carnies, their vehicles said they're from Wisconsin, but I wasn't really expecting the food people to be carnies, too. Though they participate in the mobile lifestyle, they actually have to be presentable since people are buying food from them.

Talking about carnies, I discovered some proof that carnies do exist (in case there were any doubt):

A piece of cardboard fell out on in the back of the gator and I found it. Who knows what they're planning! Could be a carnival ... or an insurrection. We got a kick out of the strange item names, 'fun makers' and 'critter puffs', and the misspellings like 'sords' and 'for wheels'.

As you can imagine, to preserve our sanity, we, two college guys, came up with some running jokes, most of which is repeatable here, though you might not get it.

The biggest one had to be the voice and character of the bee in this video:

It's pretty applicable to anything. Start with the "Oh no!" and work from there. (There are a lot of "Oh no!" situations in garbage.) In that voice say what's bad, then something positive about it, and then declare your conclusion, "which is your choice". There were a few hours there, where we may have ended up getting stuck talking like that.

On the first day we noticed one of the vendors was a "God Mobile" vehicle (the picture is from their website):

We took "God Mobile" like the cell phone company "T-Mobile", the difference being that God Mobile offers stuff like unlimited roaming in Europe and North America, you never get disconnected, and stuff along those lines. You can make up your own jokes about it.

They offer a "two question test" as to whether a person is going to heaven. Being the omniscient garbage people we are (we eventually know everything) we got our hands on a copy of the test. I'm not going to type it here because it's online. Needless to say, no one short of a Ned Flanders is getting in.

The other big joke, for which Dave wants credit, is as follows: we were driving through what we called "Carnytown", the ride area, and upon passing the Fun Slide, I asked him what happens when someone gets to the bottom and asks the operator for a refund since he didn't have fun. Dave corrected me. He said the operator would say that it's actually a "Fun Slide" (pronounced FOON slide) from Eastern Hungaria, which the Eastern Hungarians used to escape to the West after the Soviets arrived. They also stayed in Fun (pronounced FOON) Houses which operated kind of like the Underground Railroad.

Like I said, those probably aren't as funny as when we randomly came up with them, but they got us through the fair. That and people watching.

The fair wasn't as much of a shock this year since I was fresh out of France last year. Dave, and I to an extent, were happy to see the Dane County sign as we rolled back to town. As I told Dave, I didn't think the people at the fair are an accurate representation of that area; they weren't an accurate sample. Also a typical county fair is pretty much the exact opposite of downtown Madison in every way possible. In the end, the world needs all types of people (even those who don't know how to correctly use an apostrophe).

One for the road

2007-08-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

This is my last post before I leave, I promise.

I saw this video yesterday and, well, I guess he shows his true colors. To say the least, I am very, very disappointed. Where was this in 2004?

On Wisconsin Healthcare

2007-08-13T19:36:00.000-05:00

I wrote this without really intending to post it here. I was starting to get disturbed by the blind belief in the recent state health care proposal.

I find this Wisconsin medical insurance law disgusting. There are a few major problems with it that people seem to not even be able to understand. Wisconsin is not going to magically turn into the land of milk and honey no matter how high they raise the taxes to pay for it.

For starters, 45 million people sounds like a lot, yet it is only 15% of the people in this country of 300 million. Why are we cutting down the 85% of people who are able to get coverage for themselves to match the unsuccessful 15%?

First of all, since Wisconsin will be paying for your medical bills, the state now has a vested interest seeing that you stay as healthy as possible. People seem to swallow silly cigarette taxes and bans, but that is just the start of us losing our freedom. They will tax and ban everything that's bad: fried foods, candy, soda, alcohol...driving a car, not exercising. We will lose our liberty and freedom of choice. You may say that we're safer though. Why don't they just wrap each of us up in bubble wrap and be done with it?

Secondly, they budget for only so much. They, just like every other country with socialized medicine, especially Canada and Britain, will draw up a list of how many of each procedure they can afford to perform. X number of heart surgeries, Y number of cancer treatments this year. If it's October and they just performed the last budgeted organ transplant and you need one, guess what happens.

Thirdly, anything that is perceived as free is wasted. Since it doesn't cost anything to the people, as far as they perceive, people will start going to the ER every time they get a boo-boo or something hurts or their baby sneezes. That's already been going on with low co-pays and whatnot. It will get worse as healthcare turns into the newest example of the proverbial "Tragedy of the Commons" as everyone races to try to get his fair share of healthcare out of the pot.

Remember back to grade school. I remember people who made trips to the nurse all the time 'because their tummy hurts' and all sorts of stuff. I only went once to the nurse in 13 years of public school, K-12, when I broke my finger in gym class. If they charged kids even a dollar or two for each visit, then the chronic complainers would stop blocking up the nurses office for the people who actually need it.

Furthermore, if there is a shortage of doctors right now with only 85% of the country having access to them, then when 100% of the people are covered, then they'll get 18% (100/85) more busy! Not to mention that the State will soon start regulating the salaries of doctors in order to keeps its costs down, which will encourage people to be doctors in other states if at all. Fixing the problem through government will only make the problem worse, causing the need for more government and so on it snowballs.

Now, I don't complain about something unless I offer solutions. The state of Wisconsin should definitely not provide any kind of health anything. The state (and federal government) should eliminate as much regulation as possible on the medical industry. The shortage of doctors is because the American Medical Assoc. has a monopoly. They are not a doctors' union, rather they control how many open spots per year there are in medical schools and how many can then practice. Their incentive is to keep that number as small as possible to create a shortage to raise doctors' salaries (supply and demand).

On a side note, people are trying to get around the artificially small opening via fields like chiropractics. One of the coaches at my high school was one, and I'm sure he and many of them would make fine enough doctors, but they can't and didn't ever have the opportunity to go to medical school for doctors, which a free market would have allowed them--chiropractor school is under different, freer regulations.

Moreover, Wisconsin needs to allow people the option to practice whatever profession they want without a license--make requiring a license optional. Now, upon first consideration, you may find it disgusting to think that whoever wants to, can set up shop and claim to be a doctor. Well, they should be. First of all, if it's important to you ask to see the doctor's credentials. A license should mean that whoever, a barber or a doctor, has at least enough skill to be recognized by the state as competent, but if you want to save money and take a chance on an unlicensed doctor (or barber, or teacher, or real estate agent, or lawyer), you're free to.

As an example, perhaps then a nurse with a few years of experience who knows enough about what to do with people who walk in sick, can then open up a small clinic for sick people, or for physicals, then medical capacity increases and the price decreases.

I am an engineering student. Would you believe there are few if any government regulations concerning engineering and the country operates just fine? (For all the things we design, build, and make in this country, so few things go wrong that it's big news when they do.) We have several professional organizations that have boards, mainly old and retired engineers, that draw up books of our own standards and regulations completely free of the government. If something does break, then we are legally held to those standards in court.

No matter how much kool-aid you drink, the government and the bureaucracy cannot do a better job than the market. The government does not create anything (except for long lines, space shuttles, and atomic bombs [and we all know how that worked out]); it only moves around wealth at an alarmingly inefficient rate.

I'm sure all of you have been to a sporting event, whether professional, collegiate, or high school. Have you ever seen a referee who thinks he is a player? Those games always go the worst. In real life, we, the people, along with businesses are the players. The government is instituted to be the referee. Our problems of today have all be created in the last 70 years when the government decided that it is not just the referee, it should be actively involved in shaping how things turn out.

As John Stossel says, at the least Wisconsin is going to show the rest of the country why control is a bad idea. Too bad we have to take one for the team, I guess. (Heh, that's altruism for 'ya.)

If they say Wisconsin has a brain drain now, wait until this gets implemented. People will run screaming for the nearest state line. Of course, there are some idealistic people who will move in, along with everyone else in the country with a chronic or costly ailment seeking treatment. People will start washing up on Michigan's west coast in old rusted cars and on other assorted pool accessories. (Okay, maybe not that last sentence.) I, along with other productive people and businesses, will be promptly taking our leave from this state. I'll be gone as soon I graduate.

If they implement this and the state goes to hell in a handbasket, they will never repeal it. Old laws never die.

It makes more sense to me that Wisconsin should provide auto insurance before it even starts to deal with health insurance. It's against the law in the state to drive without auto insurance! They should at least give people a decent solution since they created the problem in the first place. (Note: I'm not suggesting they should provide any kind of insurance.)

Au revoir

2007-08-13T13:50:00.000-05:00

I shan't be posting for the next few days. I'll be too busy and at home, working at the county fair again this year. (Hint: Kenosha is the big city in my county.)

I wrote about it last year. This time I've got a friend to do it with me, but there's one thing to which I'm not looking forward: the smell of all that fried stuff. Or the fair-goers. There are two things to which I'm not looking forward: all the fried stuff, and the country people, and the trash...

But this time, I've got some Ron Paul bumper stickers. And I won't be fresh out of Europe, so it shouldn't be so much of a shock. I'd take a camera, but I'm not planning on it--it could easily be swiped, so there may be photos. Otherwise, I'll be seeing you in a week.

The Hottest Toy this Xmas:

2007-08-13T13:41:00.001-05:00

The Ben Bernenke Action Figure. I want one! (From here) Click for a bigger image.

Political Potpourri

2007-08-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

It has started.

The campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards accused former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) of taking “every opportunity to exploit the memory of 9/11 for political gain.”

The statement from Edwards’s campaign manager David Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan, came in response to Giuliani’s statement that he “was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

“Evidently, Rudy Giuliani has taken a break from reality,” Bonior said. “It is outrageous for Giuliani to suggest, in any way, shape or form, that he did more at ground zero or spent more time there than the brave first responders who worked tirelessly around the clock for many months during the rescue and recovery operation.”

The Giuliani campaign reacted with an equally strong statement.

“For John Edwards to lecture Rudy Giuliani about September 11th is laughable at best," said Katie Levinson, Communications Director for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee. “This is, after all, the same guy who thinks the War on Terror is simply a ‘bumper sticker.’”

Isn't that a classic case of the kettle calling the pot black? The swiftboats are swooping in and have just landed. Not a minute too late, I should add.

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The former New York mayor struck a nerve with firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

"I have a real problem with that statement," said Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York. "I think he's really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11."

Does Rudy have anything other than 9/11 on which to run a campaign? Not really.

- - -

Tomorrow is the big Ames Straw Poll for the presidential candidates. Historically whoever wins it goes on to do well. It doesn't have any official consequences, but a few of the candidates that take the bottom spots are expected to pull out of the race and lighten the field.

The big candidates, McCain, Guiliani, and Fred Thompson aren't actively out in Iowa, only Mitt is. I'm sure the Iowans will remember that when the time comes. If you go on his website, his campaign, to which he gave $9 million, will buy you transportation and a $35 ticket to vote in it. In contrast common folk people are buying Iowans tickets to vote for Ron Paul.

I hope Ron Paul at least places in the middle; he might get as high as 2nd, behind Mitt. I guess what people don't understand is that he's trying to help you, not himself like most other politicians nowadays. A Ron Paul government would want to neither run your life nor your money. He's got a 20 year congressional record backing him up. He's hasn't flip-flopped and he's never voted to raise taxes. The lobbyists don't even bother trying to sway him. Since he's against the war he's the black sheep of the GOP, but does anyone think that a pro-war candidate can actually win the election?

Who will drop out? It's definitely make or break for Tommy Thompson. I hear he's spent all of his time there campaigning from county to county. Overall, he's making a surprisingly little splash. I think this might be the last hurrah of Hunter and Tancredo. Huckabee's been doing well, but still not good. Brownback is somewhere in between them. Nothing out of the McCain camp lately...

- - -

Congratulations! Your money is worth less today!

Since some people at some banks made some bad loans the Fed had to throw money at them today so they don't start to tank. Today it "infused" just an emergency $38 billion into the markets today, after $24 billion yesterday. According to the Fed there's already approximately $783.5 billion floating around out there. That's a total of 7.9% over the last two days. Expect inflation as this extra money works its way through the market.

Riders "leaking" from MSN

2007-08-10T16:58:00.000-05:00

From the WiSJ:

Despite dramatic improvements over the past three years — including a $65 million renovation and an expansion in the number of nonstop flights — more Madison area travelers are bypassing the Dane County airport to do their flying from Milwaukee or Chicago.

Here is the problem. The percentage of passengers who bypass the local airport to fly out of other cities is called "leakage." After the service improvements at the Dane County airport, the Madison area "leakage' should have declined. Instead, it increased.

Data from Mead & Hunt of Madison show that from late 2002 to late 2003, just over 63 percent of Madison area travelers chose to fly from the Dane County airport. Most of the rest used Chicago or Milwaukee airports.

From mid-2005 to mid-2006, after many of the airport improvements had been made, the percentage of passengers flying from the Dane County airport declined to just over 59 percent.

The percentages of local passengers flying from Chicago and Milwaukee were up.

Last year I flew in and out of Madison, both times the other terminal was O'Hare to connect to go elsewhere. The Dane County airport is very pleasant and hassle-free, especially considering that there isn't much of a line in Madison to go through the same security as in Chicago.

A flaw in Madison's airport has to be this, which I experienced first hand: it's a bit isolated. I flew back on a Sunday and stopped by the info desk to ask where the bus stop was. I was quite surprised to find that the bus doesn't go to the airport on weekends. (The taxis must have a good lobby.) On weekdays between 6:30 am and 10:55 pm, it stops twice an hour in the morning and afternoon rush, and hourly during the day. I then had to pay $14 to split a cab instead of using my $600+ buss pass (see "segregated funds") to ride for free.

The lack of bus connectivity probably doesn't affect most Madisonians. They either park or ask a friend or family to stop by and pick them up. However, I imagine with a major university here, a lot of potential fliers are foreigners, especially foreign students, and students headed abroad. Coach bus tickets from Memorial Union to O'Hare run about $20 and are probably round trip.

Looking up the flight from MSN to ORD on the airfare websites shows that that a ticket is roughly just under $300, one way. I think flying to Madison or taking the bus would be a wash. After paying hundreds to fly international and spend hours on planes, I'd probably take the bus and save some money. By bus it's about 2.5 hours on 135 miles of I-90, but I had to wait that long in O'Hare for the 25 minute flight to Madison anyway.

In the end, Madison has too small of a market and is just too close to one of the biggest airports in the world to directly compete with it. However, Madison seems to be a better option for flights that go to cities a few states states away in the South or on the East Coast.

Bitch, please!

2007-08-07T15:36:00.000-05:00

It appears New York City has gone from banning stuff that goes in to people's mouths to stuff that comes out of people's mouths.

The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.

The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women. . . .

While the bill also bans the slang word “ho,” the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word. Even so, a number of New Yorkers said they were taken aback by the idea of prohibiting a term that they not only use, but do so with relish and affection.

Bitchin'! The mall Santas are going to run into trouble.

Ron Paul on Fox News

2007-08-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul had a really good interview on Fox News in the last hour. Check it out:

Part 1 of 2 (5 mins):

Part 2 of 2 (5 mins):

Republican debate

2007-08-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit disappointed. I think there's another hour of it floating around somewhere, but I can't watch it since at the commercial break in the middle of the debate, the local ABC station went to paid programming, but I will comment on the first hour.

Right away it started off pitting a Sam Brownback campaign statement against Mitt Romney over Brownback's pre-recorded phone message calling Romney a flip-flopper on abortion. Along those lines, this debated seemed especially confrontational in comparison to CNN's debates, but Stephanopoulos has done a better job of not being as easy a pushover as Blitzer by the candidates. He seemed to work in nearly all the candidates in each round at the expense of the number of questions; CNN was visa-versa.

The first round was abortion. The second round was Iraq strategy and Ron Paul got the bookends on that one. Though I support Ron Paul, the Iraq issue is the one with which I am the most unsure of about him. On the one hand, democracy and freedom is good, but you can't point a gun at people as you tell them to vote. And the war is costing us billions and billions and if we really want to spread democracy and whatnot, then basically what we should do is to invade everything between Morocco and India. I like Ron Paul's proposal that we spread democracy by being the good example. Unfortunately, that method takes generations instead of a few years.

Tancredo said last week that he'd drop the bomb on some of the Muslim's holy cities if we are attacked and he reconfirmed it today. I think that's by far one of the worse ideas, ever. Though in the immediate heat of something really bad, it wouldn't seem like such a bad idea, that'd be the kind of thing for which we'd deserve a regime change. If only he weren't an extremist he'd be more viable. On healthcare, I think it was he who said something like 'the president's job isn't to educate and care for kids, it's to protect the country'. Whether or not he said it, it is true.

Rudy was out with his normal nonsensical statements. In the past he said "freedom is about submitting a large amount of control of your life to authority". Today he said something like 'Democracy isn't about voting, it's about the military using force to control stuff' and that people were afraid to go out for groceries before he was mayor. I sure hope he doesn't get the nomination. He does this certain look that's incredibly annoying when he opens his eyes really wide and raises his eyebrows.

He got, quite frankly, bitch slapped by Stephanopoulos twice. Confronted with his words, Rudy denied the phrasing of something, and George said 'I've got the transcripts right here' and then he disagreed so George read it word for word.

Mitt Romney is annoying too. He seems as plastic as John Edwards. It's interesting to hear how their phrasing shifts over time. Today he was picking up a little Paul by saying that we need to set a positive example. He did have the funny of the debate when he said that Barack Obama "has gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove" in the last week. (How I miss that mineshaft gap.)

Huckabee seemed to do well. I'd say he's my #2 candidate. A few weeks ago I saw him on tv refuting the film Sicko. He comes off as being stable, conservative, and real. I find myself agreeing with him with other issues, but he seems strong in the healthcare field for some reason, likely to the chagrin of Tommy Thompson.

I think Tommy had a good debate, perhaps even his best. Really though, healthcare is the only issue he's got and he's not particularly special on it. Other than that, he seemed like the polite, level, older gentleman on stage. Unfortunately for him, playin' it safe is leaving him in the dust with, 4% I think it was in Iowa, even after he's spent all his time going from county to county.

I'd like to see what they're talking about in the second half. This one was more of a debate in that most of them were actually almost disagreeing with each other.

the Networks' Presidential Coverage

2007-08-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

I came across a chart from the New York Times of the amount of time each presidential candidate has been interviewed by news channel through the middle of July. (Click on it for full size)

Some of the numbers don't quite make sense. Surprisingly, John McCain has had the most air time at nearly 6 hours spread evenly across the board yet his campaign is going down like the Titanic. The candidate with the second largest amount of time is Joe Biden, with just over 5 hours, whereas Hillary, the current Democrat frontrunner, has only had half that and she's near the bottom of air time. The third and fourth spots are held by Huckabee and Richardson who are both largely ignored.

Someone who really is ignored is our own Tommy Thompson dead last with 53 minutes. I heard one commentator mention that he'd be lucky to stay in for another two weeks. Unfortunately Ron Paul is third from last.

The most striking contrast has to be that of Fred Thompson who has only been on two channels, NBC and Fox, and despite not even actually running has the second most air time on Fox, of 101 minutes, just 14 minutes behind Rudy's 115.

It is said that the media has a liberal bias, so I took these numbers and did a little computing:

Hmm, it appears the "fair and balanced news" channel isn't so balanced. Other than that, these channels are slanted liberal, but rather moderately in comparison to Fox News. In fact summing up the swing of the other five stations yields 73%, slightly larger than Fox's 70.5% Republican swing. Fox is literally single-handedly balancing tv politics, it would appear.

Taking into account the fact that there are 10 GOP and 8 Democrat candidates the chips fall as such:

On the bottom is how much more interview time each channel gives to the average candidate from each party. Once again, Fox News is the most slanted, but overall the Democrats have still gotten 1.2 times as much tv time as the Republicans.

One last chart, each channel's top three candidates:

This chart is near even, 11 Dems and 9 GOP'ers. CNN has two ties.

Overall from the first graphic, I would say CNN and MSNBC do the best job of covering all the candidates, though leaning Democrat. CNN emphasizes the big candidates and MSNBC emphasizes the 'others' (although CNN needs to add a 'Wolf Blitzer' category). The air networks ignore the 'fringes' and Fox ignores 'fringes' and Democrats.

***On a side note, the next presidential debate is this Sunday morning at 8 am CST on ABC with the nine Republican candidates. Yikes!

Bach attack

2007-07-30T18:07:00.000-05:00

From the west coast:

TACOMA, Wash. -- City authorities, fed up with gang activity in public places, are taking Bach their bus stop.

Transit workers are installing speakers this week to pump classical music from Seattle's KING-FM into the Tacoma Mall Transit Center. The tactic is designed to disperse young criminals who make drug deals at the bus stop or use public transportation to circulate between the mall and other trouble-prone places.

That's hilarious and quite a simple solution if it works.

Too bad people in general know little about classical music anymore. The author only mentions "Bach, Brahms and Beethoven" and "divertimentos, scherzos and polonaises". That's scraping the top of the iceberg. Sonatas, concertos, strum und drang anyone? How could they not mention Mozart? But the biggest faux pas has to be that Beethoven wasn't classical, he ushered in the romantic period.

But that's just splitting hairs of stuff that people find repulsive. If someone wanted to disperse me they'd have to play the opposite: either rap or country music. I think I'll put on a record of Eroica.

I think the great composers are more interesting than a lot of the musicians in the past century. They were all child genus people types working to make art whereas a lot of modern radio music seems to be variations of a 4 minute formula: three verses, a bridge/key change, and then wrap it up. Something all musicians have in common is being broke. The composers had to find patrons to sponsor them otherwise they had no income as people freely copied their sheet music without paying royalties. That happened to Mozart and then he dropped died at 35. Beethoven, on the other hand, went deaf; that's got to be the definition of irony.

In a groove

2007-07-25T17:27:00.000-05:00

It's official, I'm spinnin' like a politician. That's right, I got an old turntable earlier this week! I've been rock and rolling these last few days.

It was strangely fun to go to the music store and crouch down to look through the boxes of records under the cd tables. I am now the proud owner of a start to a small record collection. I can truthfully say that I now have more Simon and Garfunkel records than anyone my age should know even know about (and I even know the words to most of their songs). I first heard about them from my mom, who said that one of the nuns played S&G and had then analyze songs like poetry. (She talks about other musicians, too.) I also bought some Beatles and other stuff.

Up until the past few days, the only place I had ever seen or heard a record being played was in the classroom of my grade school's music teacher, but that wasn't real music. We children could never figure out how she always knew exactly where to put the needle to play a certain song. My parents had cassette tapes. That's what I think of when I think of the 80's, my birth decade: cassette tapes, Reagan, bad taste in fashion and pop culture, the Berlin Wall, and gray generic offices.

The sound from vinyl record albums is definitely on par with cd's (and there's something hypnotic about watching the label in the center spin). To me music from a record sounds fuller and deeper than from a cd or computer. Ignoring the periodic pops from the occasional scratch, the infrequent random crackles give it some character. Teasing sound from a record is simple compared to what's involved with computer files.

It's been probably two decades since the decline of the record, at least. It doesn't help that cd's have three advantages over records: size, crackles, static, and no flipping. Also, the music companies got everyone to rebuy their favorite music on cds.

Records aren't dead; new music is still released on vinyl albums. At least half of the new albums in the store had stickers saying that they contain a code allowing the purchaser to go online and download the mp3's. Those albums are still competitive since they go for about $20 when a new cd is around $14-15 anyway.

Cd's are probably it as far as a physical medium for music. Perhaps they'll eventually be smaller, only a few inches big with better technology, but I don't think they'd ever sell music on microchips. If anything music would mostly move to downloading files on itunes and others, but I'd never buy files. I always want a hard copy when something involves money.

In the meantime, I'll start hoping for a record renaissance.

Bonus concerning the picture I took of a record playing (click it for a bigger image): Identify the band and album for a touchdown and the kick (one should lead to the other), and/or try for a field goal and name the record company.

The rise of minimum wage

2007-07-24T22:02:00.001-05:00

Minimum wage has had the first of its three bumps to eventually reach $7.25 in two years. Today it went up 70¢ to $5.85. Some people are surely celebrating this triumph for the working masses who day after day toil away for a pittance. If only it were really that way.

When Congress mandates a minimum wage, as was first done in 1938 at 25¢ an hour, it makes it illegal to hire anyone for less than the minimum wage. If you were an employer and the minimum wage were $5.85, would you hire someone at $5.85 who's skills, or lack thereof, are only worth, say, $3/hour? Why would you? Businesses are not charities. Employers want the best employee they can get for what they can pay.

An example would be the student approved (yet status unknown) "living wage" referendum here on campus. It would have required the student Unions to pay a "living wage" of, I believe, at least $10.23 an hour. For that price and taking into consideration that any college campus is labor saturated, whom would the Union hire? Would they hire an undergrad? At those prices they could likely attract grad students and real adults, pushing out students who could use any job. They mean well, but haven't fully considered the consequences.

Minimum wage shuts people out of the workforce by making them illegal to hire and increases unemployment. Price floors, or a minimum price for something, create surpluses. Employers who have to pay more in salary than they would otherwise, then hire less workers.

Big companies, like national big-box retain chains who often find themselves on the other side of the table from labor groups, like minimum wage increases. They can absorb the cost of slightly more expensive labor whereas a mom-and-pop store with whom they're competing can't perhaps forcing them to close, further consolidating the big corporations' hold on the market.

Since the government wants to make it illegal for certain people to work, it then has to provide some kind of welfare to them. For simplicity, let's say minimum wage is $1 an hour, or $40 a week, then how much welfare should be given out? If the government gives anything less than the minimum wage amount to the unemployed, they're being ripped off. If welfare gives $40 a week to unemployed people, then why would someone actually do something just to get the same $40 an hour? With it still at $40, why would someone work for $50 a week? All their labor would really only be worth $10 more than they could get by doing nothing?

It's easy for politicians to promise higher wages. The positive consequences of higher wages and more money is short-term and very visible, but the negative consequences are often hidden and result over the long term: fewer people employed, more expensive products, inflation, and businesses losing their competitiveness eventually closing.

the Tragic Tragedy of the Commons

2007-07-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

There's a bit of a debate about the tragedy of the commons going on over at Letters in Bottles and Dorshorst's.

The tragedy of the commons was a parable used to illustrate how free access to a resource dooms it through over-exploitation. Imagine a community field on which the town's farmers are able to graze their animals. Any farmer acting in self-interest would realize that he could get more money with additional animals. Moreover, he will keep the full profit of each animal and only have to absorb a fraction of the wear it has put on the field. Ergo, each farmer will cram as many animals as he can into the pasture, maximizing his profit while ruining the field that everyone else uses.

There are a few remedies:

Free Market: The field could be privatized so that one farmer could decide how it should be grazed. His interest is making a profit from grazing animals while keeping the field in as good a condition as possible for future years.
Mixed Economy: The government could start regulating the field. It could sell grazing licenses or set up quotas to prevent the overuse of the field. The bad side: we all know how great committees are, then the mayor would have to start sucking up to the farmers' lobby to get reelected and make promises he didn't really have any intention of keeping, and the government then has to decide who gets to graze--farmers who weren't allowed to graze (perhaps one of the farmers doesn't like the other farmers and is friends with the mayor or committee) will then go complaining about a lack of fairness and justice.
Socialism/Communism: The farmers could divide up all their proceeds evenly to spread around the profit as they had to spread around the costs. It will likely be enforced by the government.

(On a side note, trying plan 2 would probably create even bigger problems, perceived as having come from plan 1, which would requiring the condemnation of plan 1 and the implementation of plan 3.)

Dorshorst applies this parable to the real world issue of global warming and air pollution--each of us gets the full profit from whatever we do that makes pollution while getting 1/6.5 billionth of the cost.

I think another example of the tragedy of the commons is city garbage collection. No matter how much trash any individual makes, it all goes on the curb to be collected. The cost from the collection service and landfill expense is then divided amongst the town, so any large trash producer doesn't experience any incentive to not make huge amounts of trash--he pays the same as the grandma who puts out one bag. It would be more fair for the townspeople for the trash to be weighed or volumed and then divided up by amount contributed that way. In that way, people would have an incentive to make less trash.

Or how about considering Wisconsin's plan for state-wide health insurance. Is this not a Commons being set up for a giant Tragedy? People who go to the doctors will spend money on unnecessary extra procedures, devices, and care because they get the full benefit and pay only a tiny fraction of the additional cost. This kind of stuff already goes on with medicare, medicade, social security, or any kind of insurance driving up the costs for all. They're not intentionally evil, the system is just set up so that it's in their interest to do so.

Another example is the way transportation works in the U.S. The government has spent countless billions building highways and airports--the cost is divided somewhat equally amongst all taxpayers--yet some people fly and drive like crazy, using their share much more than others, creating polluting all over the place. If the government did not subsidize and give out corporate welfare then people would pay for the price of the airport in their airfare, gasoline costs, highway tolls reflecting the true cost of transport which would discourage them from doing so. In fact, with the subsidies removed, $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year, the true price of gas is somewhere between $5.60 and $15.16 per gallon, for example.

The government started meddling with the economy to expedite the development of certain industries. The booms in the '20's and '50's could partly be explained as having come from the auto industry and then the nation's development of a road system, respectively. The government spends money and creates jobs and everyone's happy, but the actual costs get displaced onto the taxpayers and consumer's prices decrease spurring more demand.

There is one main problem with a mixed and/or centrally planed economy, besides its lack of flexibility and speed. In a free market, if someone makes a bad decision, he or his company, which may involve a group of stockholders, may lose their investment and go bankrupt while everyone else barely notices a blip. When the government makes a plan, if it makes a bad decision, everyone (who is involuntarily involved) pays the cost. (You can make up your own scenario about involving the farmers, the common field, the mayor & committee, and the town's taxpayers involving, say, a drought.)

And I can reasonably conclude that the government should not interfere with the economy as much as possible.

Dorshorst even brings up prisoners' dilemma, another example of cooperation versus self-interest. In a nut shell, if both parties agree to cooperate, the total benefit is greater than if one cooperates and the other self-interests or if they both self-interest. In my opinion, the prisoners' dilemma makes the case for voluntary exchange i.e. capitalism, over simple stealing or taking by force by means of the government. Given the commons and farmers, I think the best solution would be for the farmers to get together and figure it out themselves. I think the ideal solution would be to privatize the field, why is the government in the field business?

Finally, he concludes that government is formed as "a behavioral instinct to form rules and laws to limit our individual self interest". I disagree, government is formed to protect our property. What is property without a government? People realized that cooperation is in their best interest, and so we form and maintain a government to enforce what is mine and what is yours. If I want your property, I attempt to cooperate with you by involving the voluntary exchange of money. I don't run up and beat you and steal it, and I don't go whine to the government about "justice".

This just in

2007-07-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in my dining room reading. Out of nowhere I heard screeching brakes.

The collision sounded like a soda can being crumpled underfoot, though on a much larger scale, and just as quick. As soon as I made it to the window on that side of my place, the neighborhood folk were gathering with cell phones out dialing.

I walked and crossed the street to see the top side of the minivan. All of the side windows were smashed out and I was grateful to find that the driver had escaped, unharmed. He was fine and removing his wares within minutes. The other car was one of those big old low cars and it was damaged, but I didn't see its front.

At this intersection on Brooks Street, the minivan had the right-of-way and the cross street has stop signs. Apparently, the young man in red shorts completely blew through the stop sign and into the side of the van. It was a Plymouth minivan.

The emergency people quickly arrived and the firemen poured sand on leaking fluid and swept up the glass. No one was hurt and as of now the van is on the back of a truck. Though the neighborhood turned out gawking and I got to meet the neighbors, I still felt too much like a voyeur taking this picture.

Don't be envious

2007-07-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

I came across an interesting article that argues that envy is the motivation behind collectivism, and not jealousy.

In 1966, the German sociologist Helmut Schoeck wrote a classic book, A Theory of Social Behavior. He argued that envy is the root cause of socialism and other forms of compulsory wealth redistribution.

Most people think the cause is jealousy. The jealous person says: "You’ve got something I want. I’m going to take it away from you." Schoeck said this explanation misses the more intransigent underlying outlook: envy. "You’ve got something I want. I can never possess it. So, I’m going to destroy what you have. I don’t want anyone to have it until everyone can have it."

Schoeck said that a jealous person can be bought off. He is willing to settle for a piece of the other person’s action. The envious person can’t be bought off. The fact that someone else is in a position to buy him off enrages him. His sin therefore is self-reinforcing.

Envy undergirds socialism, he argued. He therefore concluded that it is impossible to buy off hard-core socialists by offering to share a larger percentage of national wealth with them. They will not go away. They will demand all: complete equality. Will this undermine economic production? They don’t care. They are not jealous. They are envious.

It's on the long side, but a good read.

Music Video Mittwoch

2007-07-18T15:12:00.000-05:00

Today's music video is Feist's My Moon My Man:

This song, which I believe was part of a recent cell phone commercial, is from her recently released album, The Reminder. Overall, it is pretty good, I'd give it a 'B'. She's got a few rather catchy songs (check out this and this) on it, but the album, in my opinion, is weighed down by a couple of slow songs. Normally, the songs I immediately don't like on an album end up growing on me, but they haven't so far. Regardless, she's on the rise so she ought to be putting out more good music in the future.

Like pulling teeth

2007-07-13T14:33:00.000-05:00

These were my left side wisdom teeth. My spring break trip was to the dentist. After a few months of oral asymmetry, the planned exit strategy for the righties will commence tomorrow. I'll be down and out this weekend.

Why soccer won't overtake football

2007-07-13T12:24:00.000-05:00

I was just watching the news on the cable news channels. Today is evidently the unveiling of David Beckham and a great day for American soccer, I guess. Fox had a British guy in L.A. reporting, among other things he said that Britain was happy to be getting rid of them as celebrities. Then CNN covered it and I think the business channel was interviewing a team business man.

I think that in America in the near future, soccer won't overtake football here. Between the US and the rest of the world, football and soccer are like water and oil. The division is a lot more deeper than a nation's attention span. Football is a pretty good demonstration of American success in comparison to soccer, which is a socialist success model.

Football is very American. Though it's a team sport, it's individualistic in that every player has a special set of skills and job to do: big people play on the line, fast people are receivers and runners, quarterbacks are smart, kickers kick. Yet everyone is willing to work together, at least enough, to achieve a bigger goal.

War imagery is used a lot in football. Offense and defense, attack the opponents, blitz, etc. Everything is measured out and every movement is defined by strict rules. Both teams line up in neat little formations and take turns, "downs" as they say, attacking each other with plays. It's not unlike Napoleonic Warfare which was the style of fighting in use from the War of Independence through the Civil War.

Just like war and traditional adult life, it's the males doing battle and the women are on the sidelines cheering them on. Consider the uniforms. Sure they make playing safer, but they accentuate certain areas like the shoulders and other spots to make the players look bigger and stronger, more manly. It's the same for the cheerleaders. Their uniforms highlight their femininity and they're assigned to doing what they do best: making noise and looking pretty.

In football, like capitalism and war, the point is to win. Both teams may score dozens of points, but there's a definite winner. In soccer the scores are often less than 5 points total and there's often no winner, just a tie.

Soccer, like socialism, is more team oriented. In soccer there are ten players on the field and a goalie. With the exception of the goalie, there's no exceptionally special skill to soccer other than running around and kicking. For the most part the players are all interchangeable and virtually the same, striving for the glory of the team. Players are much more equal on the soccer field than they would be on a football field.

Soccer is the main sport of the Europeans. I think it fits well. For example, the French are upset that their new president jogs every morning. They hate jogging so much that they call it "le jogging"--they haven't even made up a French word for it, which they do for everything because they hate using foreign words. Whereas we'd see jogging as maintaining one's health, they see it as "Sarkozy [fueling] a French suspicion that running is for self-centered individualists like Americans." Talk about cutting the tall flowers.

Though, I suppose, it's not completely black and white. Touchdowns are often made after a team working down the field and soccer goals can only be kicked in by one foot.

An engineer attemps political analysis

2007-07-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

I think things are on the rise for Ron Paul, especially after last week when it was revealed that after a Q2 donation boom, he's got more money on hand than John McCain. Furthermore it seems that McCain is on his way out as yesterday, four of McCains top campaign people quit.

I had a little fun putting together a table about the candidates:

Candidate	Asset	Liability
Hillary Clinton	already been president	she’s a Clinton
Barack Obama	youngish/hipness?	no experience
Al Gore	seasoned and well-known	sound of voice/one issue
John Edwards	dashing good looks induce the vapors in voters	all style; average people don’t care for rich guy who says he’s a poor guy
Bill Richardson	got the credentials and executive experience	he's quite Fred Flintstonesque

Candidate	Asset	Liability
Rudy Giuliani	America’s mayor	going to get swiftboated with 9/11 response mistakes and personal life
Fred Thompson	an actor, therefore very Reagany	Watergate, not very smart “but he’s friendly” said Nixon
John McCain	War experience	bet on success of failed immigration bill and Iraq, compromises too much
Mitt Romney	was a governor	GOP’s John Edwards
Ron Paul	fiscal policy	anti-war
Tommy Thompson	several term governor, cabinet secretary	“generic older white man” campaign has failed to excite voters

Like I listed, I think for Paul his 20 year record of low taxes and small government make him stand out. As I recall, Republicans are always talking about making the taxes low and the government small. He dominates in cyberspace, but he/they/us need to figure out how to turn that into name recognition in meatspace.

For Republicans that have heard his stand, I think the anti-war thing turns people off. Excluding him, it's black and white between the GOP and Dem candidates on Iraq. I'm not for any kind of immediate withdraw but Paul makes the case that for the past 50 years, when something over there goes wrong, we stick our hand in deeper, intervening, and then when they get upset and do something, we wonder why it happened. That's what he was saying when Giuliani confronted him during one of the debates.

From among the other candidates, Rudy is hanging by a thread--all of the positive feelings from 9/11--while people have overlooked his personal life. On MSNBC they were starting on him by talking about how they put the command center in the bottom of the World Trade Center, they sent in people to help without worrying about air quality, etc.

There's no love here. He's said some pretty discomfort-inspiring things:

We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

"Freedom" says wikipedia, in case you're curious, "is the right, or the capacity and ability, of self-determination as an expression of the individual will." I guess at least he's against socialized healthcare, though if we're going to go totalitarian, what's the point of holding out, I'd rather have it with a side of socialized medicine anyway.

John McCain tied his campaign to supporting the president. It's obvious that the support the president had is eroding considerably and sinking with it is his candidacy. I can't tell what the main support driving Romney is exactly. Isn't he the 'double Guantanamo' guy? Besides going on vacation with his dog in a cage tied to the roof, belonging to a, how to say without offending anyone, non-mainstream religion, and a little flip flopping, there really isn't anything too big holding him down.

I think Fred Thompson's still got the glow since he hasn't announced yet so he hasn't had to take a stance or answer questions. Also being an actor, he's likely somewhat good at telling people what they want to hear in a way they want to hear it. His skeletons are from Watergate and apparently Nixon said that he wasn't very smart. Perhaps people like him because he seems like a nice, simple guy who couldn't do too much harm. That really hasn't panned out with the current administration.

It's been floating around the past few days, especially on Drudge, that the White House is floating around how to get out of Iraq. Once we're on the way out of there, the war wouldn't be much of an issue. (That's why the democrats are so pushy about it. They want it lost by the election, so it doesn't impair them.) If it happens soon, I think it would benefit Paul because then his major barrier for a typical republican would have evaporated.

So then, the only thing is that Ron Paul needs to get his name out there somehow, so far it seems like most of his support growth is coming from word of mouth and not just hearing his name like the other candidates. It's a little disappointing that the media ignors all but the main few candidates. They don't talk about them because they're fringe candidates yet they wouldn't be fringe candidates if they reported on them more. But, this'd be the perfect time to talk about all the candidates.

On the bright side, Ron Paul stands out and his support seems to be solid. I think the differences between the McCains, Rudies, and Romneys are small and for the most part superficial.

I hope I don't sound like I've been sipping kool-aid. Like Ron Paul says, "Freedom is popular."

A massive, hypocritical fraud

2007-07-07T19:39:00.000-05:00

Today Al Gore had a giant Earth concert thing, which I only managed to watch for about a minute before changing the channel. (What can I say? Dave Matthews was playing.) The Mail points out how it's "a massive, hypocritical fraud" that a bunch of celebrities, who live in giant houses with lots of cars, are jetting around the world playing concerts to crowds promoting the environment while using enormous amounts of energy.

I had an environmental studies class this spring and it was very clear that the environmental people take it to religious levels. The temperature of the Earth is always rising or decreasing and the effect humans have on it is a drop in the ocean compared to the role the sun plays.

This spring I saw Al Gore's film and in honor of his concerts, today I watched the Great Global Warming Swindle. It's online in eight 10 minute clips. Ignoring my feelings on their content, the Swindle is a better film than Gore's.

It does an excellent job laying out the facts and de-bunking all the stuff that the environmentalists say. Turns out carbon dioxide levels, the basis of Gore's film, run 800 years behind temperature change, in contrast to Gore who says CO2 causes temperature changes. Rather solar activity, both in brightness and atmospheric cloud formation, more directly correlate as the cause of temperature changes.

I want to remain brief, but the film also covers the government funding monster that propagates global warming, it exposes the abuse of science and scientists, and shows how environmentalists want a return to and have romanticized peasant life (which works well with their communistic agenda).

In Congress, July 4, 1776

2007-07-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

. . .

Liberty is good

2007-07-02T17:54:00.000-05:00

I came across this awesome old video of Milton Friedman explaining why limited government is a good thing. In it he explains many things: social security, freedom, classic liberalism, collectivism, and why minimum wage is bad. It's kind of long, 28 minutes, but it's definitely worth it.

Is my state run by morons?

2007-06-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently yes, at least the state senate is. Right now, I'm praying for an opt-out option.

Some analysis by people I know: pro / con

It makes me rather sad to see the start of this place going down the tubes. How I did fancy Wisconsin; if these shenanigans are still transpiring when I graduate and look for an engineering job, I don't see myself staying here.

Benjamin Franklin was a pretty smart guy. I used to cringe whenever I saw or heard liberals use his quote about liberty and security against stuff the president has done, but I had a bit of a realization today. His quote is quite flexible: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary [economic] security, deserve neither liberty nor security."

Since now maintaining your health will be in the state's interest, the door to the nanny-state will be left wide open and the a/c is on. They'll actually have a reason to ban smoking, drinking, fried foods, you name it.

Besides, once this is implemented, no one will ever be able to make it go away.

While the state is buying us all insurance, will they also buy us auto insurance? How about homeowner's insurance?

There is a bright side: a person can always move to a different state. I'd rather have a state experimenting than the federal government.

They always told us to not look at the sun

2007-06-21T22:59:00.000-05:00

I saw a headline about preparing for Global Cooling and I winced. Not this again!

I mean, of course, after involuntarily taking an environmental studies class that beat any doubt out of me and defeated my will to argue with them, it seems that the climate is changing, but whether people are causing it is still up for debate. Of course not! All the carbon dioxide and temperatures rising so quickly... All but a handful of scientists said in a (voluntary) poll that there wasn't a doubt...

The Earth is nothing but change. Why would we expect the climate to be stationary? The weather channel can't accurately predict the weather in a region more than a few days in advance, but they can predict the weather decades in advance for the whole planet with enough accuracy to warrant spending lots of money?

Call me a loony, but the contemporary environmental movement seems to me like the reboot of communism. I'm being super cereal, people! Instead of sacrificing oneself for the community and state as with classic communism, the environmentalists want us to sacrifice ourselves for the well being of the planet (read: all humanity). Think about it: global communism. After telling me that we all live on the same planet, my environmental professor asked me if we're not all equally people and why I don't care about people in China who make $2 per day as much as I care about Americans.

After reading the article Read the Sunspots about a coming global cooling, I feel a little refreshed. His whole spiel is that after studying fjord sedimentary records, he's determined that variation in the sun's brightness is the biggest driving force of change in the climate of the planet. That seems very reasonable; the sun is the only energy input into the Earth's system after all.

The climate is constantly in flux. We've only just emerged from the Little Ice Age which started at the end of the Middle Ages and ran until the mid-1800's. Turns out the Middle Ages were a warm period and they used to be able to grow grapes for wine in England, which is at present far too much to the north. Then in the 1600's people begged God to stop the Alpine glaciers from running amok. Like the economy, it's all cyclical, baby.

...We also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia...

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. [Scientists] have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

I find those two sentences I bolded to be particularly interesting.

He goes on to predict that by 2020, the sun will be starting a new Seuss Cycle (200-500 years) that'll be "the weakest in two centuries," which should trigger a new cool period. That'll be interesting to see what the environmentalists are up to in 13 years and whether they all get to stick their carbon neutral feet in their mouths.

On a completely unrelated note, my anthropology professor, who's really a very nice person, today made reference to the "prison-industrial complex."

Like gag me with a spoon*

2007-06-16T23:01:00.000-05:00

On the front of Madison.com today there's an article on the city's streetcar debate that just won't die. Other than the fact that it's from the Capital Times, it starts off innocently enough but quickly turns into a suck-up-to-the-Mayor-fest.

In Kenosha's tracks? How a streetcar system works in southeastern Wisconsin

First of all, I lived about half an hour west of Kenosha, in the other end of the county with the same name from the time I was two until I left for college, so I'm familiar with the place. Heck, I've even ridden on said trolley, and believe you me, it is most definitely not a 'system'. It's a dinky, yes dinky little loop, around a new housing complex and Kenosha's tiny pointless museum. Did I mention it doesn't go anywhere and it's only cool the first time around?

Look at it! You can see the tracks, I drew the lines outside where it runs.

So what does this article say about the trolley?

Streetcars are the kind of thing you need to ride on and see to truly appreciate, according to Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

And Kenosha, just a two-hour drive from Madison, is the closest place to look at an operating streetcar system.

The mayor said he went there as a tourist last year and rode the city's restored vintage trains that make a 1.9-mile loop around two dozen downtown blocks that include the city's newest museum, built in 2000 along with the streetcar route. When the project was conceived nearly 10 years before that, Kenosha's downtown was suffering from manufacturing losses and other economic pressures that were leaving empty storefronts.

Lou Rugani, a Kenosha radio personality and streetcar skeptic who has been won over, told Cieslewicz that one out of every three people who go to Kenosha go to ride the streetcar.

"It a boon to tourism," Cieslewicz said. "And tourism is one of the reasons for a streetcar here."

However, on a recent Monday, there wasn't a tourist in sight on Kenosha's downtown lakefront.

It goes on to talk about costs.

Bingo! Like I touched on earlier, one loop and 4 cars is not a system. Also, since the beginning a few years ago, they've always tried to make the trolley a tourist destination. Kenosha, however is not where anyone really chooses to go, voluntarily--there's nothing there. The only things to do are shopping, along Interstate 94 at the edge of the city, the grayhound track, the site of the proposed Indian casino that got Doyle tied up, boating on Lake Michigan, and a Jelly Belly distribution center that gives tours.

As the article states, no one goes there for tourism, trolley or not. One-third of 100 people is still no one. To have Kenosha using trolleys as tourism as a model for Madison is quite frankly more unrealistic than what the mayor usually is.

Kenosha is in a bad spot since the downtowns of Milwaukee and Chicago are both within an hour's drive, so there's really no competition. Madison is different, we've got museums and culture performances, parks and lakes, the Capitol, and the University all attracting people to come. I don't think anyone's decision on whether to visit the city would hinge on whether they can ride in an over-sized model train set doing loops around the Capitol.

It's easy to glance over the reality presented in the article with Madison's pink tinted glasses, but it says that for Kenosha's $5 million trolley, they get 50 riders weekdays and 200 on weekends (that's per day, not at one time folks)--and that cost was after they went as cheap as possible on everything. So if the mayor spends $50 million, perhaps he could get 500 riders? As one of the comments on the article even says, giving limo rides would be cheaper.

It's all quite silly. Trolleys in small cities don't work well enough to justify their cost. Kenosha's has come off as more of a moving monument to government waste. Tourism is not a good argument for Madison. What kind of people would a trolley attract? Could Madison really handle more than one Mayor Dave?

If they want to boost business, they should zone blocks as 'enterprise zones' and give tax incentives to businesses and perhaps eliminate some of the inefficient micromanaging laws. That plan would cost a few sheets of paper and some ink.

* I really don't mean to be ripping on Kenosha. I guess it's a nice little city. They try hard.

More or Less

2007-06-14T13:35:00.001-05:00

Less is more.

Atlas Shrugged, the movie?

2007-06-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

Apparently, they're working on a movie version of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged to possibly be released in 2008.

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt in Atlas Shrugged?

The current "Atlas Shrugged" film adaptation has been looking very promising, with Jolie attached to play Dagny Taggart, the railroad executive determined to keep her business going while the society she lives in is falling apart. The story, which has sharp cultural and political resonances for today, has been scripted by Randall Wallace ("Braveheart," "We Were Soldiers"). It is to be produced by the Baldwin Entertainment Group -- which brought us "Ray" and "Sahara," among other films. Brad Pitt has been rumored as a possible casting for the character of John Galt, and there've even been reports of a projected 2008 release.

I didn't really see that coming. It's even got a pre-production page up on Imdb. I'm surprised that they apparently have Angelina Jolie playing Dagny. With her charity work, she seems to be a little too altruistic to play the lead in a Rand story.

Some other site was suggesting that it might be released as a trilogy, which seems logical because at 645,000 words spread over 1160 pages, it's quite a hefty tome. If squeezed down to a normal movie's length, it probably wouldn't be recognizable, though Rand was a bit redundant; the climax of the book is a 50 page speech. Also, it doesn't seem to be normal Hollywood fare. I'm sure with a little creative editing, Atlas Shrugged could easily be twisted into the story of a bunch of whiny rich people complaining.

Regardless, having read the book during last winter break it might be the first movie in a while that I'll actually feel motivated to see. The book wasn't a literary masterpiece, but it is quite different from the social ideas on which regular books are based. Having an environmental studies class last spring, I found it to have been a very good inoculation against their commune-Earth-worship. I hope the book getting out encourages more anti-collectivism in the country. coughnationalhealthcarecough

I gave my sister Atlas Shrugged a few weeks ago after talking to and finding out she's got libertarian leanings, too. It's a good stepping stone. I hope it doesn't mess her up. Even the libertarians at Reason make fun of Rand's Objectivists by making references to throwing people they don't like into a pit of hungry objectivsts.

Talking about Ayn Rand, between reading books for my summer anthropology class, I'm most the way through The Fountainhead. Brad mentioned what I had suspected, that the protagonist architect, or his architecture at least, is based on our very own Frank Lloyd Wright (click on the link, I dare you).

Democrat Debate

2007-06-03T21:05:00.000-05:00

I watched the Democratic Debate this evening. All I can say is 'Wow!' because one of these people may end up running the country.

I didn't really have any expectations. Barack seemed to under perform, although that might be because I'm around young people and they seem to be his main support. It was funny when one of the other candidates recognized him for being against the war from the beginning because he was elected to Congress at the end of 2004.

None of them give me strong feelings in either direction other than Kucinich. Before I just thought he was a funny looking outsider, but now I know he's crazy as well, though he wants to end NAFTA and the WTO, which is good.

In addition to Kucinich, Biden, Dodd and Gravel seem to be the other second tier candidates. Dodd did well I think, but he doesn't especially stand out. Biden seemed pretty good, but angry. Gravel, who pronounces it Gravél (ever seen that DuMass commercial?), I like. He's pretty spunky and isn't afraid to call people out and tell it like it is.

As it stands right now, as far as who could actually be elected, I think I could tolerate Bill Richardson the most. He's very well qualified, especially as he's actually in the Executive branch as a governor and not a congressman. John Edwards comes off as a smarmy southern lawyer. It was funny to see him define his boundary for 'rich'. I was wondering what accent Hillary would bring. For me, the main good thing about Hillary is that the Clintons are good at budgeting.

Hillary brought the closest thing to funny this evening when she said something like "sending Dick Cheney to other countries is not very diplomatic". Other than that, many of the things they spoke about were quite unsettling.

First of all: gas prices. They want to hold oil companies accountable, blah blah blah. It's funny because the joke is on you, the common folk! They think you're stupid. Unless, the Constitution says that Congress runs a post office and an oil company, they've no business doing that. They are right when they attempt to pass about price gouging. They are wrong when they target the oil companies. It isn't the companies, they want to provide gas as cheaply as possible. It's OPEC. They're the international oil cartel. They limit the amount of oil exported from their member countries to control the price. It's as simple as that.

If gas costs too much, it's funny because you did it to yourself (and that's what really hurts). Do you live as close as possible to your job? Your town's businesses? But it's not completely your fault you have to buy gas, your government helped you by zoning the land to be too low density to walk anywhere. Doesn't all that grass look nice now? They also built and expanded public roads making your commute possible and you dependant on your car without a direct cost to you. If put the cost of roads and subsidies, and even the cost of military action as one of the Dems pointed out, back into gas it'd be over $7, on par with everywhere else in the world.

You think cars and oil are dirty? Before there were cars they used horses. Cities were much more dirtier. Can you imagine how much of a shithole cities were in the 19th century? Take London, the largest city in the world in the 1800's for example. There were tens of thousands of horses eating and pooping in the streets and living in multistory stables. That would certainly stink up the place. Don't even mention having to cross the street.

Back to the debate, they spoke about Iraq. They all want to simply "redeploy" which is just avoiding the word 'retreat'. I don't get it. This war doesn't end when we say it does. There are people out there that want to see us all dead. If they're not attacking our soldiers in the desert, then they'll be attacking our office workers over our cities again. Anyone hear of London, Madrid, the NY pipeline yesterday? I know we won't be able to just sit there for the long term, but we should at least make a good attempt at giving the Iraqis something decent and then leave, instead of just dropping the pieces all of a sudden and running away.

On a side note, here's an oxymoron: force democracy.

What's with them? Bill Richardson made a reference to an "Apollo" scale initiative for the environment. I see Tammy Baldwin's dementia is spreading like West Nile and it's all the way to New Mexico already.

One of the scariest things for me is universal healthcare. This sums it up:

They even said the heathcare system needs to be more efficient and less expensive so let's have the government run it!

So what if so many people aren't insured? Does the government pay your auto insurance? I hate it when they say people are denied healthcare. No one in the United States is denied healthcare. Emergency rooms are going out of business because they treat everyone, even illegals who can't and won't pay.

Also, towards the end, they had a money orgy about what they'd want to fund. All day national kindergarten? Let's not make the daycare too obvious. I think it's Hillary that wants to go even younger. Let the indoctrination begin! (Gravel, I believe, was the only reasonable one about pointing out all the crazy spending when we don't have money.)

All of these students need teachers. Smaller classes are better. Teachers have to belong to unions. Unions have lobbyists. Connection? Besides, they never worry that many university classes are taught in classes in the hundreds, yet nothing much changes the summer between high school and college.

Furthermore, it may not be nice to say it, but people need to reevaluate college. It's not so necessary. That's why it costs more, demand is increasing! I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular, but how many people get jobs directly connected to their L&S degrees? From what I hear, after college, L&S people beg for jobs, but companies come to recruit us engineers.

Perhaps then, it's not so much exactly what you learn in college, but that you've had the experience. Maybe if high school were taken seriously, grades were earned and given carefully instead of throwing A's at everyone to make them feel good, then high school degrees would start to have some meaning again.

The Democrats made a point of agreeing too much. I wish they'd take a few Democrats and a few Republicans and put them together on stage. Now, that'd be a debate!

Anyway, I think this would some it up: "It's Bush's fault. Vote Democrat! We'll make everyone both healthier and smarter than average!"

No No No

2007-05-29T13:02:00.000-05:00

It's like something out of Atlas Shrugged:

We Are All in It Together, Clinton Says
Clinton: Shared Prosperity Should Replace 'On Your Own' Society

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.

Live free or die!

the Amero

2007-05-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

Ever heard of it?

It's coming. It's like the Euro, but more North Americany.

The Amero is a proposed common currency between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. We've already got NAFTA so why not, I guess? It would speed up trade and commerce.

However, we would be giving up a large chunk of our sovereignty. Doing this would start the process of eventually mushing together one country out of our three. The United States would end up just being averaged in with all of the rest of the countries. I could see us and Canada doing something, but why would we ever want to be more open with Mexico?

What would be a first step in implementing a new currency? Perhaps, devaluing the dollar so that this could be the solution.

In the year 2000 (and 7)

2007-05-20T12:44:00.000-05:00

Is the GOP in the midst of a major shift? This article goes further to say:

"The Republican Party is falling apart," said one insider to me recently. "The GOP has become the party of neoliberal corporate globalism, not the party of conservatism," said another. Perhaps election 2008 will be the last hurrah. Other than Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter, the GOP presidential candidates are a joke. The rest are all neoliberal, interventionist globalists.

Look how we've derailed...

Iraq is a huge mistake, a neocon experiment in utopianism, and we are paying the price. Bush's foreign policy is not conservative. It is Wilsonian nation building. The transformation of the Middle East to liberal democracy is Jacobin, not conservative. And it is because of the neocon war machine in the Middle East that we are hated.

The point of this article from Britain says that basically, these last few years are the high water marks of the Neocons. I can't really single out what the ideology of Neocon is other than it's a major force in the current presidency.

The article says this is the end of an era. It points to two events: the ousting of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank and the death of Falwell. Their importance according to the article: Paul Wolfowitz used to be number two at the Pentagon, or an insider, and Jerry Falwell got this whole thing started by organizing the Bible Belt into a voting block. Trouble doesn't end there, the attorney general is under pressure to resign, Tony Blair, Bush's biggest international ally is leaving in the next few weeks, and in search of a legacy, the President threw an immigration bill, that no one apparently seems to like, at the wall in an attempt to get something to stick. But, as the article doesn't say explicitly, the President seems to be going down like a leaky rowboat.

From the Times:

If Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, are the last men standing with responsibility for the Iraq war it is only because they are protected by their four-year terms of office. One former Bush stalwart told me: “If we had a parliamentary system, Bush would have lost a vote of confidence and have resigned by now.”

The perception I have, as a young person, is that the Republicans are made up of two main groups: the Constitutionalists for small government, and the Bible folk for telling everyone what's right and wrong. Lately, the Bible folk have been dominating and the situtation that we're in now is from their lead. For the sake of winning elections, perhaps the one side has been quiet and just went along, after all, both groups have more in common with each other than with any democrats.

Look at the presidential debates. There's Ron Paul and the rest of them. He said, without justifying 9/11, that the attacks may not have come completely out of the blue and all the rest of them, led by Guiliani deny it. Since then the people on Fox News, have all tried to paint Paul as a conspiracy theorist. If the Republicans can't recognize their own mistakes or at least confront them, then they're never going to win any more major elections, which is a pity.

(Fox News has been annoying me lately. As of late, their agenda seems less veiled than usual and their news seems more like tabloid material.)

The young conservative Politically Upwardly-mobile People I know (would that make them "Pups"?), many of whom are on the blogosphere, seem to be oriented much more towards the Constitutionalist side. Not very many young people really want to go around telling other people whether they're right or wrong or how to live. After all, it's my generation and future ones that have to live with gay people, for instance.

Like the Titanic with the iceberg of Iraq, it seems now the GOP is splitting into two groups and the Bible people are staying GOP while for the Constitutionalists find libertarianism and classic liberalism much more attractive.

I don't know what the future political landscape will look like. Two parties? Three? I think 2008 seems particularly well for 3rd party candidates as both parties lack strong leaders people like.

The Republican Party of Lincoln, Teddy, and others is a grand old party which would be a shame to see evaporate. However, in the grand scheme of things, for better and worse, political parties aren't permanent fixtures. After all, back in the 1850's and 60's, the Republicans were the liberal activists and the Democrats were the conservatives. Nowadays, it seems hard to tell both parties apart.

What's that?

2007-05-19T17:23:00.000-05:00

What do you think he's saying?

Schools out and I moved into my new lair (an old apartment) deep in the heart of the Greenbrush. If you're passing through, stop on by.

In other news, there are five years left until the end and the pot calls the kettle black. Check out the court case, Pot v Kettle.

Why not?

2007-05-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

I guess I haven't explicitly mentioned it, but I'm supporting Ron Paul. Perhaps I'll end up voting 3rd party?

Check out the poll!

The picture made me laugh.

Quick thoughts

2007-05-15T22:08:00.000-05:00

Here are some quick thoughts on tonight's Republican Presidential candidate debate, which I actually remembered to watch. It's quick because I was studying physics during it and I have to study fluid mechanics now.

For the most part the debate could be summed up as Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Thompson, Paul, and it was either Huckabee or Gilmore, I can't remember it's hard to tell names when they're all standing together like that and I was mostly listening to it. I'm probably a little biased with the last two. Thompson is representing the W, and I'm hoping for Paul.

Throughout the debate it wasn't too hard to tell when they were throwing out softballs to certain candidates. There were the mandatory casual and not so casual WWRD (What Would Reagan Do?) references as they all tried to be the Reagan. McCain referenced his experience in Vietnam in questions about Iraq and Arizona about illegal immigration. Giuliani played up 9/11, which led into the most memorable moment of the evening.

Ron Paul was talking about how he thinks that the fact that we've been in the Middle East for a while now interfering in their countries as more of a motivation for the terrorists to attack us on 9/11 than that they hate our way of life. That got some applause. Right away, Rudy interrupted the turn order saying something like "of all the crazy things I've heard, that's the craziest" to much applause. Then it turned into a feeding frenzy as all the other candidates tried to get into the spotlight.

Probably more than the last debate, the gloves came off. McCain and Romney went at each other right away. With the two of them going after each other, that left a gap open for Rudy. I hear Giuliani has been ahead in the polls right now (despite an Iowa faux pas) and it'll probably stay that way. Overall, I would say Rudy won this one, but I hope it gets Paul some more attention.

On a side note, Mr. Conservative Gilmore gets the McCarthy Award for threatening to start calling out candidates who have liberal tendencies. Also, one of the no-names, I think, even called for the enlargement of Guantanamo Bay. Tommy Thompson seemed to know about stem cells and he mentioned the University.

It was interesting to hear them twist language. Evidently torture shall now be referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques. Doubleplusgood, both Minitrue and Minilove would be proud. Only Ron Paul called it out, I believe.

How are these debates really useful for anything? They seem to be going more for sound bites and to stand out than to actually meaningfully figure out a strategy for running the country. Finally, I hope you don't find reading my blog to be like an enhanced interrogation technique.

Update, 12:45 am: Reason's got Paul's back against Rudy saying that he's either playing the crowd or "in a bubble so think it makes the president look well-informed". The actual debate video here!

Jamestown's Big 400

2007-05-14T11:51:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. It was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. I think it's fair to say that it kicked off all of America since it was also the founding of the Colony of Virginia.

Not to be tooting my own horn (isn't that the whole point of a blog?), but a member of my mother's family founded Jamestown. That's right, one Edward Maria Wingfield. Wikipedia says that "he became the first elected president in what is today the United States of America.

Captain John Smith wrote that Wingfield was one of the early and prime movers and organisers in 1602-1603 in “showing great charge and industry” in getting the Virginia Venture moving: he was one of the four incorporators for the London Virginia Company in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and one of its biggest financial backers. He recruited about 40 of the 105 would-be colonists, and was the only shareholder to sail. In the first election in the New World, he was elected by his peers as the President of the governing council for one year beginning May 13th, 1607, of what became the first successful, English-speaking colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia. He chose the site, a strong defensive position against land or canoe attack, and supervised the construction of the fort in a month and a day, a mammoth task.

But after four months, on September 10th, because "he ever held the men to working, watching and warding", and because of lack of food, death from disease and attack by the “naturals” (during the worst famine and drought for 800 years), he was made a scapegoat, and was deposed on petty charges. On the return of the Supply Boat on April 10th 1608, he was sent back to London to answer the charge of being an atheist (and one suspected of having Spanish sympathies). Smith’s prime biographer, Philip L. Barbour, however, wrote of the “superlative pettiness of the charges…none of the accusations amounting to anything.” Wingfield cleared his reputation, was named in the Second Virginia Charter (of 1609), and was active in the Virginia Company until the age of 70 (1620).

Wingfield played a crucial role in 1605-08; and without his extensive contacts and his steady input, the USA might well have been colonized by France or Spain.

That's pretty cool. First elected president in America, take that Mayflower Compact, and the first coup!

By the way, he wasn't a weirdo with a girl's name. It's because "his father Thomas-Maria Wingfield received the added name “Maria” from his godmother, Queen Mary of France (who was Henry VIII’s sister), and passed it on to his son."

America's done pretty well for itself in 400 years. Keep it up.

Multi-Media

2007-05-13T23:55:00.000-05:00

I've been posting a lot of videos and pictures lately. Why not keep it up? Here's the Fringe Candidate Debate from Saturday Night Live:

I'm bunkered down in the middle of finals, but I'll be back in full force by the end of the week.

America's Dairyland

2007-05-12T11:26:00.000-05:00

Wisconsin wants to re-brand itself.

Wisconsin spent $22 million on advertising in the fiscal year that ended in 2005, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

According to a 2004 national survey by brand consulting firm Landor Associates, when people were asked what came to mind when they heard "Wisconsin," cheese and the Green Bay Packers were the top answers.

The cheesehead image is the product of "50 years worth of culture," Steve Eichenbaum, creative director for Milwaukee marketing firm Eichenbaum & Associates, said in an interview. "You're not going to take an ad campaign and turn that around in six months."

I guess there's nothing terrible about the whole cheesehead thing, except the high water mark for that was in the second half of the '90's. And there's much more to the state than cows and cheese, as depicted on the back of our state quarter.

How does one sum up the entire great state of Wisconsin into one little catchy marketable phrase? What the other states have chosen is here, here are some highlights:

Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit
Maryland: Seize the day off [!?]
Nebraska: Possibilities...Endless [just like the corn fields]
North Dakota: Legendary [boredom]
Pennsylvania: State of Independence [true, but also a car commercial]
Tennessee: The stage is set for you [I hate country music, but they're one of the more beautiful states]
Washington: SayWA! [What? I don't want to]
Idaho: Great potatoes, tasty destinations [pretty good]
Delaware: It's good being first [well, no one can take that from you]
Arizona: The Grand Canyon State [this will be their slogan forever]

Illinois' current slogan is "Mile After Magnificent Mile" which singularly promotes the Magnificent Mile, part of Michigan Ave., the main shopping district, in Chicago. I don't go places for shopping. Besides if you've ever driven to St. Louis through Illinois, you'll already have witnessed mile after magnificent mile for 5 hours.

A few years ago, I was in the middle of nowhere Kansas, as big as you think, talking to a guy from Oklahoma. When I mentioned that I was from Wisconsin he immediately mentioned hunting and the beauty of our state.

What to market? The MJS also has a user suggestion page. Do we go with our beer and agriculture, research and quality educations, beautiful outdoors (forests & lakes), sports and recreation, or something else?

From the suggestion page here are a few I like:

Tradition on the Cutting Edge
More than you ever thought possible
As deep as our lakes
Research Wisconsin
Visit your friends
the Good Life

My suggestion is "Forward to something Great" or "Forward to Great Things".

Hooray

2007-05-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul highlights from the republican candidate debate.

This is only a test

2007-05-10T21:23:00.000-05:00

I saw this at the construction site of the Grainger addition.

I figure it's a mock-up on which to practice so the workers can go at the real building at full speed.

Posting is lovely, dark and deep.
But I have assignment deadlines to keep,
And pages to go before I sleep,
And pages to go before I sleep.

Does a 'rose' in any other typeface read as sweet?

2007-05-09T11:18:00.000-05:00

How actively do you notice fonts? I used to be indifferent about them, but doing the layout and design for the newspaper has given me an interest in design and typefaces.

I'm sure it's huge that Helvetica is turning 50 years old. You've seen it a million times though you probably couldn't instantly visualize what font exactly it is. It's not among the default fonts that come with computers. You've more than likely encountered its ripped-off ugly little sister, Arial. From the BBC:

We live in a world where we are surrounded 24 hours a day by adverts and corporate communications, many in typefaces chosen to subliminally complement the message.

Helvetica's message is this: you are going to get to your destination on time; your plane will not crash; your money is safe in our vault; we will not break the package; the paperwork has been filled in; everything is going to be OK.

"When people choose Helvetica they want to fit in and look normal. They use Helvetica because they want to be a member of the efficiency club. They want to be a member of modernism. They want to be a member of no personality. It also says bland, unadventurous, unambitious.

As Wildenberg notes, its Swissness is part of the appeal. The land where clocks run meticulously and the streets are spotless carries the kind of cultural resonance that the logo makers and brand masters of the major corporations might like a bit of. For others, its neutrality is a platform for daring design.

Have you ever noticed that fonts fall into two categories? There's the serifs, which are the fonts with the little curlies and angles at the ends of the letters. And then there's the sans serifs which are more geometrically shaped. They say the serifs help the reader's eye move across the text by leading the eye from letter to letter. Typically it's best to use serif fonts for bodies of text and sans serifs for a few words at a time in titles or on signs.

I don't use Helvetica or Arial; they seems too common. You're reading Verdana right now. Most of my font use comes from the newspaper which uses Myriad for headlines and Garamond, a nice alternative to times new roman, for the text. Futura, a time tested sans serif font, is neat too but it gets hard to read more than a phrase at a time in its sharp and clean geometric letters.

Man, this is starting to turn into the font version of the Money Programme. It's kind of funny, I suppose other people are into colors or something.

Before I wrap this up, there are certain fonts that need to disappear. It's like fingers on a chalkboard every time I see these two:

What compels people to use these? Papyrus looks quite silly especially when it's on menus or signage. Ooo, look they're trying to be artistic or something! But, Comic Sans takes the cake. Yikes! It instantly dissolves any respectability the words have. I'm not suggesting Microsoft is a bad company, but they did unleash this font to the world.

The End

2007-05-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

With the closing of Ogg Hall it's the end of an era here at UW-Madison. Until this school year, it had been one of the newest dorms on campus, built in 1964-ish.

I just dug this picture of 804 Ogg Hall all the way from 2005 out of my email archives:

I think I was standing up against the door and the camera was zoomed out as much as possible. That room was "cozy" in every sense of the word at 10' x 15'.

My side of the room was the left side, ironically. How I miss that green tile! I'll never forget all those sleepless nights with the window panes rattling in the wind. Or those elevators that kept you guessing if it'd be your last elevator ride. Or that funky smell in the hallway that never went away.

You may notice that all the furniture was already screwed to the walls. Really the only customization involved was whether to loft the bed or not and how far one sat from the desk.

One time last year, I was walking down State Street and I bumped into my high school principal. We got to talking and he told me about how he remembered living in Witte while Ogg was being built. He also said that a business seldom makes it more than a few years on State Street.

After this semester, the current Ogg will decommissioned. Evidently, not much thought was given in the 60's on whether to put sprinklers in a 14 floor building home to 1,000 people.

So they're going to remove the building, but how will they do it? Will Ogg finally go down in a blaze of glory or will it go quietly into the night? From the Badger Herald:

Despite the hopes of Chancellor John Wiley for a spectacular Discovery Channel-style implosion, Fish said Ogg will be systematically “deconstructed” piece by piece over four to six months beginning before October.

Ah, shucks. C'mon! Even the Chancellor wants to blow this puppy up.

“It would be very exciting, but it’d be very dangerous,” Fish said. “We actually explored whether this could be blown up, and we were very concerned with underground utilities beneath Ogg that could be significantly damaged.”

With the slower and more tedious approach, Fish said the university would recycle 75 to 80 percent of the materials, which will also offset some of the cost for the comprehensive undertaking.

Looks like they're going to recycle it as-best-as they can.

Turning heads in Chicago

2007-05-08T09:03:00.000-05:00

Tower twirls and debate starts to swirl

It sounds, at first blush, like an oversize architectural joke — a skyscraper where each floor would revolve independently around a central core, not only making a 360-degree rotation but also creating a constantly shifting profile.

The little-known Italian-Israeli architect and developer who recently announced plans to build such a skyscraper in the desert playland of Dubai was making the rounds in Chicago last week and has designs on adding another rotating tower, housing condos, offices and a hotel, to Chicago's vaunted skyline.

By the way, the article says a fast turn would be 1 revolution every hour, and a slow is one every three.

I wonder if this is possible. Each floor would be prefabricated and then stacked. Some strength would be lost because obviously, no supports could be run outside of the central column. Water and power would have to connect to the rotating parts and it would be a quite a mess if the plumbing connection broke.

Britain: not just dentistry and cooking

2007-05-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

The word on the street is that the Queen visited Jamestown to collect 230 years of unpaid tariffs. Just kidding. She's here on a state visit and CNN reports that a recent poll shows 8 in 10 Americans have a favorable opinion of her. Though we're not her subjects, as a former colony, she's the closest thing we've got to a monarch.

She doesn't exercise nearly as much control as she could, but I imagine, that as the Queen of at least 17 countries, she's up there as potentially one of the most powerful people in the world. Moreover, her ancestors have been ruling Britain for nearly a millennium now. That's quite remarkable. Obviously, they've been doing something right.

Besides Japan, Britain is the other major country to still have a continuous monarchy, compared to the Czars, Kaisers, Reys, and Louis's that ruled and were periodically taken to Dr. Guillotine over the centuries. As far as I know that only happened once in England.

Have you ever noticed that the English-speaking countries, England and its former colonies with their shared history, traditions, and culture, are the most successful areas in the world? Spain and the Spanish Empire had effectively kicked the pail by the 17th century, France lost its New World in the mid-1700's, Portugal got the short end of the The Treaty of Tordesillas, and the colonies of Sweden, Holland, Belgium faded away without much of a peep.

With the exception of Japan, there's something about Britain that they've spread around the world to their former colonies that have, at present, given them high standards of living. To name a few there's the big ones, like Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the more subtle ones like Singapore and Hong Kong. All of them are at the top.

The ruler or government of a country always needs revenue. They had to get the money as taxes from somewhere. Countries that are resource rich simply get the money from developing their natural endowments. Take for example Saudi Arabia or Russia.

England, as a relatively small island nation, had its people as its biggest resource, up to the industrial revolution. England had to encourage them to develop so they could be taxed. And it happened. The historical centers of learning were Oxford and Cambridge, and the English invented the Industrial Revolution. London was the biggest city in the world through the turn of the last century until New York surpassed it. Even today, more dollars are traded in London daily than in New York City.

The opposite historical example would be Spain and its empire. They could simply go to Latin America and pick gold off the ground and take it home. The Spanish government didn't have much incentive to develop anything as long as the gold held out.

England was also for the most part, a decentralized government. Starting in the 1100's, they've had a strong tradition of separation of powers. Parliament, originally representing the nobles, has been increasingly powerful against the king ever since the Magna Carta and they've always had an independent judiciary. Without a strong central government, the country flourished with a laissez faire system. In comparison, other countries were centered on their palaces. The French king would sequester all the nobles at Versailles, and the Czar, himself, would singularly rule the serfs with an iron fist.

Furthermore, the English speaking world, the Anglosphere, has never been dominated by a tyrant or dictator, except for that brief stint with Oliver Cromwell in the 1650's. For the most part, all the other countries have had their cycles. An extreme example would be the Russians, who have for centuries had a very strong ruler and it's now so ingrained, they tried switching to a democracy but have drifted back to a strong ruler.

Historically the Anglosphere has been neither dominated nor oppressed. Compared to other countries, the turmoil of the 19th century didn't take root and radical ideas like communism never caught on. We are lucky. There really aren't any overlords against whom we can rebel.

Another aspect could be our language itself. We only have one word to address someone else, 'you'.

I know for sure that German and the Romance Languages, French, Spanish, Italian and others, all have a respectful, formal 'you' and an informal one. On the street, everyone you would have met, from the lowest chimbley sweep, to the tradesman, to the merchant, to the king, everyone was a 'you'. In any other language it'd be a major faux pas to address someone the wrong way. The Anglosphere's legal tradition of equal rights could very well be naturally ingrained in us because we simply know no different. For the most part, the English language puts us all on the mostly level 'you' field. That's one of the founding ideas of the United State--that no one's above the law.

It hurts me a bit to say this as a Catholic, but perhaps it's also some of that Protestant work ethic. Protestant countries Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia tend to be the more productive parts of Europe compared to Catholic Italy, France, and Spain. Though it may not be simply a Protestant thing, as Venice and some of the Italian cities originally led the Renaissance. Additionally advanced places like Hong Kong or Japan have never been either.

Some of Britain's greatest potential wasn't fully expressed until the founding of the United States. I think it's most certainly a good thing that we're such friends with the UK but then again, I'm sitting here thinking and writing in English.

A Brilliant Idea

2007-05-07T01:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Mayor Dave,

We came up with, by far, the best idea ever for Madison at our blogger get together this evening (which Dorshorst, Brad, and Erik, who posted the infamous shoe video, covered comprehensively). This idea is big enough to blow the lid off of, something, that's well, really big and tightly sealed. This amazing idea, which regrettably I cannot claim as my own, is as follows: the Running of the Cows.

That's right: the Running of the Cows. Forget the silly trolleys or whether or not the city's drinking water is perpetually screwed up or scheduling fundraisers for the police, you need to get this in the city. Just imagine, cattle running, more likely a slow trotting pace, down State Street as some of the more daring spectators would risk even life and limb to run with the cows.

It would be the event of the century. A representative of every news outlet in the country, and probably the BBC, heck even Al-Jazeera and the Taliban Times, would be present to witness the spectacle for posterity. As someone said "it'd be rolling Mifflin, Halloween and the farmers' markets, everything [or something] all into one". Is there any possibly better way for this city to celebrate its Wisconsiness? I think not.

Madison could be known for something else other than the University, hippies, loopy state government, and alcohol consumption. Our newfound quirky reputation would spread far and wide throughout the land. Furthermore, Madison would be inundated with tourists as the masses from all around would converge on the route.

Mayor Dave, we all know you're a man of vision. This is a great idea for the city and it will help out businesses. You could even fence off State Street and charge admission after 8 pm (again).

Mifflin Street 2007

2007-05-05T18:20:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again here in Madison. This year the weather was nicer, no rain, so there were more people there. All around, I think it's safe to say, spirits were high. All photos were taken between 2:30 and 3:45 pm.

The horse patrol emerging from behind the Kohl Center
The south end of Mifflin Street

Police were arresting people if they had glass, or if they stepped onto the sidewalks or streets with open containers.

At the north end of the party

The beauty of Mifflin Street: you can get all your business done, literally within a few feet.
Houses were taking proactive steps to avoid tickets. Some even had bouncers.

The officers tried to ride into the party, but several horses spooked and they never went in more than a few yards.
The police made off with some booty.
People who were arrested were taken to an awaiting city bus to be whisked away.

Beating the dead horse

2007-05-02T16:17:00.000-05:00

Today is a nice day so I went for a walk. I conveniently walked up to the city building.

Everything's turned green in the past week. The flowers are out and so are the kiddies. My grade school's 4th grade trip is to the Capitol. That was 10 years ago already for me.

I got up to the city building and there was something going on in the street. The Tibetan flag was flying on two flag poles. This one:

And this one, in front of the city building (click for a bigger image):

Flying the flag doesn't really matter. Furthermore, what I've done is rather ironic. I don't like it when the media blows things up, yet I wrote a little about the flag last week and got linked to it (I'm not trying to flatter myself). So, naturally, I had to follow it up and post about it again, even though it's not important and will be history by the weekend. Simply by mentioning it, it's been given life.

Spring colors around the math building:

The end of the semester is a good time for some self-reflection (a la Brad):

Yeah, I am standing kind of weird, but it was very spur of the moment and there were probably people in the restaurant looking at me.

New Beacon Out

2007-05-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

Today the last issue of the semester premiered. It's also my last issue as the Editor-in-Chief. I think we've ended on a high note.

We've got some interesting stories including the behind-the-scenes preparations of graduation and, as you can see, there's a story about how Madison's wireless broadband is hemorrhaging subscribers. If you're not on campus, here's a link to the pdf version. We're still working on getting a website back up. I hope that's settled by fall.

As for the personnel changes, they're mostly the normal stuff from graduations. The paper is in very competent hands all around. I'm not leaving completely. But, let me say, just wait until fall! (big hint)

Marx is playing with me...again (part 1)

2007-04-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote that capitalism is nothing but exploitation.

I had never thought about it in that way before. The buyer is trying to get the lowest price from the seller and the seller is trying to get the buyer to pay as much as possible. The buyer is trying to wrestle away the good or service for as little value as possible and the seller is trying to get as much money out of the buyer as he can.

In that way, I imagine he would say that we're not interacting with our fellow humans as people anymore but just as possible deals from which we could profit acting only for our self interest.

I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but is there another way possible?

The next time I want a cd, should I walk up to the register and ask the clerk what the store would like me to pay for it? That would still be exploiting me since the store would want as much as possible, I guess. Perhaps then the clerk would ask me what I would like to pay. Then there wouldn't be any exploitation. But how would any exchanges ever happen in a timely fashion? (Just imagine checking out at a grocery store that way.)

Perhaps, acting for the benefit of society? Should I walk into the music store and pick a cd of a company that is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and buy whatever cd they're selling regardless of whether it's absolutely terrible music (which might be why they're going out of business) or if I even want it, just because they need it to be sold? I guess it'd be worth a little sacrifice here for the benefit of the record company and all their employees. I'm sure society would be better.

A little sacrifice here and a little sacrifice there. Where is the line? Do I end up completely acting out of sacrifice for someone else? For everyone else? If we are no longer acting for ourselves, but for society, then ultimately, wouldn't we be little more than each other's slaves (with a smile)? The individual wouldn't be important at all; each of us might become quite disposable. We would lose our humanity just as easily, perhaps even quicker, that way.

Communism tries to enforce its happy thoughts as reality. One of my professors and I were talking after class about this. He basically said something about people in China who make $2 per day want tv's too. I replied that value can't be conjured up out of thin air. Communism always has nice plans as how to distribute goods and money, but it can't come up with ways to make stuff better than capitalism can. In the communist tv factory, the people who work their butts off would be paid the same as the lazy folks. There isn't much of an incentive to work hard.

Karl Marx, of course, said simply that to suggest that people wouldn't work hard in a communist society would be silly. If you're working in the communist tv factory, or anywhere for that matter, what do you think about to keep yourself motivated? The needs of all the people for tv's that are now being filled. So then, as you're not working for your self-interest, you're working for other people's interest, how can you be working to fulfill your own potential (that is unless it's working for other people's needs)? Fulfilling one's potential is what communists always put as the highest achievement.

Capitalism doesn't give it to you, but it gives you the means with which to make it possible. Your life is yours, and yours alone, to use, to exploit, or not.

It seems to me that the difference between capitalism and communism is that capitalism runs on reality, and communism runs on nice ideas and dreams. Communism seems to be a system that is based on what should be, things that could have been but aren't, ideas of what can be but have no way to be measured. Any system to be used in reality can't be based on what isn't.

Added

2007-04-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

I added a thing that shows a picture of the website to which a link links.

hover your pointer over this

What do you think? Does it stay, does it go?

Talk of the town

2007-04-27T14:33:00.000-05:00

Madison is such a pleasant little Midwestern city. It is so pleasant, in fact, that the biggest issue facing the City Council is whether or not to fly the Tibetan flag over the city building for three days when the Dalai Lama visits next week. They unanimously said yes.

I'm sure they have the best of intentions, yet it's rather silly. First of all, this is the United States, the Stars and Stripes is always the flag flown highest on the pole, bar none. By default we can invoke the separation of church and state. The local government is going to do something in celebration of a religious leader. This could also be an attempt to take a stab in favor of freeing Tibet, but as much as I don't agree with the Chinese government, this is a pretty irrelevant protest.

They're debating this on the madison.com forums. One poster even posted a purported email to the mayor from the Chinese consulate in Chicago.

Doing this sets a bad precedent. Besides the fact that he's a religious leader, he's kind of, but not quite, a foreign leader, too. So every time an important foreigner visits, the city is going to fly his flag? What determines importance? And the article says that it was a request from someone, so can I make a request to fly a different flag over the building, too?

Perhaps this is really just a big diversion by the mayor as he sneaks his trolley set in. Regardless, I can't wait until the Pope or a leader of Israel or China stops by.

Guernica

2007-04-26T13:05:00.000-05:00

Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War by the Nazis and Italians. This article or here sums it up well. More and more the Spanish are increasingly interested in their civil war; through the present, they haven't spoken much about it as it's a dark period in their history.

The painting pictured is Picasso's interpretation of the event. It was kept in NY up until 1981 so that it couldn't fall into the hands of the Spanish dictator.

BS Jobs

2007-04-25T16:11:00.000-05:00

Do you have one?

#11-Blogger

Download contents of your mind, even when there aren't any.

$$: Relatively small, but prospects for high-paying bullshit job in the future are virtually assured.

The upside: This is one of the bullshit jobs you can do immediately, with no training and no prior experience. You can also become very famous, since the established media, increasingly devoid of excitement and ideas of its own, has taken to siphoning off daily blogging activity as a much better and more interesting alternative to actual news.

The downside: You need a full, daily dose of imagination, guile, bile, and people pouring nonsense into your head that you can repeat.

Ha ha

Things are looking up

2007-04-25T11:02:00.000-05:00

The stock market hit a new high today when it went above 13,000 for the first time. This is good news for ~~the Bourgeois~~ us. Just kidding. The economy is doing pretty well and has been for the recent past, though the news hasn't talked about it much. I can remember back to my childhood when they talked about how great the economy was all the time. That was in the mid-90's.

So, being the curious person I am, I looked back in history for some perspective. In December 1986, the month in which I was born, the stock market had a low of 1880.48 and a high of 1963.30. On January 20th, 1981, the day Reagan started, the stock market closed at 950. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it went from around 400 to 100.

Also in the news, as an engineer nothing titillates me more, except something about space, than hearing this:

Undersea project would link Alaska, Russia

Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan -- a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world's most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.

The proposed 68-mile tunnel would be the longest in the world. It would also be the linchpin for a 3,700-mile railroad line stretching from Yakutsk -- the capital of a gold- and mineral-rich Siberian region roughly the size of India -- through extreme northeastern Russia, in waters up to 180 feet deep and into the western coast of Alaska. Winter temperatures there routinely hit minus 94 F.

Lobbyists claimed the project is guaranteed to turn a profit after 30 years.

Eventually, 3 percent of the world's cargo could move along the route, organizers hope.

That would be amazing to be able to run trains from Alaska to Russia. It would then be possible to take a train from anywhere to anywhere else except Australia and Japan. Trains are a much better, more efficient and cleaner, transport than airplanes.

The downside is that it would cost a ton of money for the tunnel. Nevermind the 5,000 miles of frozen, empty land on either side through which new rail would have to be run to connect to anything. That is likely the biggest deterrent keeping it from being built.

Perhaps both of these are good news the Russian media can now report. In case you missed it:

from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be "positive."

In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin.

What's up with that? I thought we were friends, Russia. I thought you were supposed to be trying democracy. Perhaps there's just something about Russia. Dare I say, 'France Syndrome'?

Hokie Hope

2007-04-19T20:00:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, Friday, is Hokie Hope Day. Wear orange and maroon.

Here is what UW-Madison has put on the internet about it. In addition to wearing VT's colors, in the rotunda in Bascom Hall there are banners for signing tomorrow that will be sent to VT. At 11 am, tomorrow, they are having a ceremony at the Memorial Carillon, which is the bell tower between Bascom and the Social Science building. I'd go but I have class.

The heroic actions, such as by the professor who was shot while holding the door shut so his students could jump out the windows, help to soften the blow in that average people can rise to noble actions. Yet the shootings remain a tragedy. It is unfathomable to imagine being in class one moment and a gunman bursting in and shooting the next. I doubt there hasn't been a student in the country in the past week who hasn't run through the scenario in his head. It is horrifying and utterly out of any sane person's control. No one packs his bag and heads to class thinking that today is his last day.

It seems too cliche to say that it goes to show that nothing should be taken for granted, but it is true. We live in the best country in the world and our affluence has afforded us a division from the hardships of life--and even the fragility of life, itself.

It was a hard jolt. We often lose sight of the big picture; we often get caught up in the deadlines, assignments, and duties of life but suddenly, events like this put it all back into perspective. In a few words, life is short, do your best and be happy. Be grateful for everyday and for the people you know. We are lucky and blessed to be here.

New Mendota Beacon

2007-04-17T08:42:00.000-05:00

Out today is the new edition of the Mendota Beacon. Pick it up around campus. I can't believe it's issue 6 of the semester already. Only one more. If you're not on campus, a pdf is availiable here.

An absolute tragedy

2007-04-16T23:44:00.000-05:00

What a terrible day. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

I couldn't have said it better.

Welcome back from spring break!

2007-04-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

Looks more like January than April. I had a pleasant saunter through the sidewalk slush on the way to class. The seas looked rough on Lake Mendota. The other side looks rather mysterious through the fog and snow.

"The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of April turn gloomy."

Little bit 'o snow on the ole' dome.

An Earth Shattering Revelation

2007-04-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

Quite mind-blowing, I know. Perhaps a little surprising, though, is that the traditional classifications only add up to 48%. A picture says a thousand words, so I'll save some time.

If you're wondering about me, I'm in the 'none listed' group. It's not that I don't care, rather, I'm somewhere between conservatism and libertarianism but I don't fit in either.

Out of curiosity and for a comparison, I looked up my parents' college, Virgina Tech. If I weren't a Badger, then I'd probably have been a Hokie. They said VT is substantially more conservative and that even during the Vietnam turmoil, there were no protests. As you can see, they're pretty well balanced. Also, the other groups, from the pie chart, were in roughly the same proportions.

Let's do statistics! The general population should fall into a symmetrical bell curve centered on the moderates. Here I've taken the categories and numbered them 1 to 5, with 'very lib' = 1, and 'very cons' = 5. Three is the mean of 1 to 5. For UW-Madison the mean is 2.46, with a standard deviation of .91. Virginia Tech has a mean of 3.02 and a deviation of .77. One can therefore conclude, Madison is liberal with some variation whereas Virgina Tech is virtually centered down the middle.

If no news is good news, then lots of news...

2007-04-10T22:42:00.001-05:00

Let me pose to you a question, metaphorically. Which came first: the lawsuit or the lawyer?

What I'm really wondering is whether news makes the national news media, or whether they make the news. What prompted me is that for the umpteenth time, irrelevant news stories are leading the big news sources on tv and the internet.

Lately, there's been the story of who of the presidential candidates has the most money. Has Barack sneezed today? Did Hillary look at someone wrong? Will the GOP find a candidate?

Who can forget the ongoing saga of Anna Nicole? I can't voluntarily. It's been on tv and the internet every other day for the last several months.

Today, some radio personality said something racist that he shouldn't have. Do I see "Kramergate" all over again?

All of these stories are irrelevant; the election is 20 months away, they're a bunch of rich idiots that did it to themselves and got what they deserved, and it's not completely unimportant, I'm sure we're all sorry feelings got hurt, respectively. Perhaps these are national-level stories, especially the presidential race, but running them over and over again is beating the dead horse to a pulp.

One reason could be that they get so much airtime because they're simply not Iraq or war-related.

I hope that I'm not the first person to notice (other people probably have already) that since there are at least two major tv news channels, not to mention the internet, they have to constantly fill up their live 24/7 schedule with news. Since they're in constant need of news, they put up stuff that often isn't quite deserving of the national spotlight, and then repeat it, repeatedly. Maybe the presidential race wouldn't have started so soon if the news didn't need something about which to fill their time.

The likely reason why, is that the news companies are simply that--companies. They sell ad time and space for revenue. Which attracts more consumers: mystery capers and stories, which tend to be "sexy" or cold hard facts about what's going on in the world?

That puts me in quite a conundrum as one of those laissez-faire types. (This kind of goes along with my thoughts about majority rule a few posts down) What a majority of consumers want is not necessarily the best thing.

But news is a different type of product than food, or computers, or cars. On the surface, I would say that normal goods are all presented from which to be selected, but with the news, it's a one-way street, we eat what they feed us for the most part. That's where it gets fuzzy, is that more than any other product, the news is a public service.

On a side note, out of news organizations, I find I like the BBC's news the best, which I find quite ironic as they're a government organization. I like them because they've got the best worldly perspective. I wonder how many Americans have even thought about how the Bahama Islands form a completely separate country; that Cuba isn't the only country next to Florida.

Up until a few years ago, I hadn't realized that, and instead figured by default that the news was honestly dedicated to delivering all the important stuff. My parents had always said that many sources had to be consulted to get the real story. People perhaps have to realize that the news is just an industry selling something. Ever notice how all the day's news always perfectly fits in the time slot or the newspaper.

Today in the cafeteria, I heard some girls talking at a neighboring table about how people know all sorts of trivia about the stars and very little about anything in the real world. I don't want to toot my own horn, but it's a little disheartening to think that people are more concerned about entertainment news than say what's going on with Russia, China, or in other parts of the world like that crazy Iran. People seem to care more about watching which presidential candidate has more money than for what the candidates stand, which is not how to run a country.

Spring Break Sign Out

2007-03-30T21:43:00.000-05:00

Finally, this week draws to a close. This final week before spring break has been one of the busiest weeks I've had here at college. Through procrastination, somewhat I did do it to myself and that's what really hurts. There are a few topics I want to mention before I sign off for break.

Britain/Iran thing

You're full of shit and we all know it, government of Iran. You're not fooling anyone. They have nothing to confess. In short, we should offer the British our assistance, but let them take charge. They are our brothers. It's like they're asking for a war. Thanks, Carter. Tharter.

Electioneering

I voted today via absentee in front of Walgreen's on State and RotS signed my envelope. Don't vote the wrong way, vote Ray!

Communism

It's a nice thought, but...no. It's definitely food for thought, though. Besides, now I know their arguments. Saying this as a quasi-libertarian, I'm willing to trade some market controls to keep people from thinking communism is better. Capitalism needs all kinds of different ideas to work (communism tries to stifle all others out), then it picks off the best parts of other things so it's here to stay.

Videos!

Here are some clips to keep you tied over for a week:

-From SNL last week: Maraka, Payton Manning-United Way
but the best character of all time is this guy
-Midlake, a band I found a few weeks ago: Roscoe, Young Bride
(any of you heard any good new music lately?)
-There's a British show called "Look Around You", they've got 8 episodes (1. Maths, 2. Water, etc. )and then a computer episode (in 3 parts) so Czech that out, it made me laugh really hard
-Oh, and then there's this:

Happy spring break!

Procrastinate, v

2007-03-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

Guess what I'm doing!

From the Oxford English Dictionary (the big one):

from Latin, procrastinare to put off till the morrow, to defer, pro + crastin-us belonging to tomorrow, (from cras to-morrow)

Evidently even those Romans put things off.

1. postpone till another day, put off
first used in 1588 by J. Harvey "The significations of this Coniunction happening in the watrie Trigon, are procrastinated or prolonged untill after sixe Coniunctions immediately insuing"

2. to defer action, delay, be dilatory
first used in 1638 by a Sir T. Herbert "Bacherchan having commission to persecute Curroon, procrastinates not."

I'll finish this post later, I'm feeling really dilatory right now...

the Mendota Beacon

2007-03-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

New Beacon out tomorrow! It's number five of the semester.

You may have noticed something funny about the Beacon website. The fact is that there is no website, for the time. 'Tis a pity; we miss not the old website. A certain person (without the blogosphere) didn't tell us how or when the hosting ended.

The Beacon in pdf format can be accessed here.

One might say that the wind is wailing in a different pitch as it whips around the mast of the lighthouse. The sea is high and undulating as the sun sets in the west amid a pink sky.

Spring has sprung

2007-03-26T12:57:00.001-05:00

Spring finally arrived and it's hit hard with its springy warmness the past two days. Though it's been above freezing for more than the past week, there's still some ice loitering out on Lake Mendota.

Talking about all this changing weather reminds me, last night "The Day After Tomorrow" was on tv. Having recently seen Al Gore's movie, I just had to see the other half of the cinematic works of our time. It's technically 'science-fiction', though to say the least, it's overwhelmingly fiction.

A basic knowledge of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics easily debunks most of the movie. For starters, it's impossible for a hurricane to form over land, or be cold, for that matter. Secondly, in the eye of the hurricane, people couldn't be flash frozen because as the air would be sucked down, unless its pressure was close to a vacuum at sea level (which wouldn't happen), the air would heat up as it pressurized. Also, its gravitational potential energy has to go somewhere as it descends to the earth (it gets converted to heat). Thirdly, a bunch of cold air couldn't freeze hundreds of feet of ocean water covering NY in a few hours. The specific heat of air is simply too low to do that. However, another several ice ages will happen in the future, but they will take thousands of years, not a week, to happen.

Also, did you notice that while the sea had risen hundreds of feet over NY, the president was still in the White House at about 10 feet above sea level in Washington about 200 miles away?

Oh Crap!

2007-03-22T00:06:00.001-05:00

To be honest I didn't really care too much when the School of Business started a dialogue with the community (heh, I sound like a liberal) last semester about starting a differential tuition scheme. That's where in addition to the standard university-wide tuition, the S. of B. students pay an additional amount each semester. All those cushy chairs and lecture halls do cost quite a bit. I don't know how far it's been implemented so far.

Yesterday the headline story in the Badger Herald was about how the College of Engineering is looking to do the same. I had to take a double look at it. There was another article today. Whereas it was $500 per semester I believe for the business students, it's going to be $700 for us. There's about 3,500 of us so that makes an additional $4.9 million per year.

At first I was slightly upset and wondering why. Then I got to thinking about it and quite frankly it sucks, but hey, we get a great education. I can't decide; it's not apathy. Some of my engineering classmates today were angry and showing it.

Pro's:

All the other Big 10's engineering schools do it
An engineering degree costs more than a L&S one, we've got costly labs
Simple economics, we make more than 50k out of the gate and recruiters hunt us whereas other graduates have to hunt down jobs, also they can afford to turn potential students away
When we graduate we're "professionals like with the law school..."
Keep our competitiveness with top facilities and professors
Maintain the value of our degrees

Con's:

Tuition costs money; an additional $1400 per year!?!
With extra cost, we'll only take the minimum credits and not take other subjects outside our engineering, math, and science for interest or personal growth
They already laugh as they tell us that we can and will graduate in 4 years
We're not exactly "professionals" upon graduation, there's still licensing and work experience
It seems the dean got a rubber stamp group of students together to review it who would approve it anyway
The College seems to be a little "top-heavy" (if you catch my drift) with extra staff that doesn't seem to do much
UW-Milwaukee's Engineers currently pay $15 per credit per semester additionally, that'd be $240 for a typical 16 credits, not our proposed $700!

I don't really feel strongly either way, which bothers me because it's important. I see both sides. We, engineers, as a group, are probably the least likely to rally and protest so they've got us.

Pretty Cool

2007-03-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was looking through the news and I came across an interesting article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The math professor I had for differential equations and linear algebra (my last math class, ever) last semester and another math researcher have uncovered solutions to some very complicated math formulae, the mock theta functions. I say: good for her.

She'll stand out in my mind for giving a rather difficult and abstract math final that had the class laughing in despair upon first opening the booklets, but she is evidently very good at what she does. The neat thing about college is that the professors are experts in their subject.

My Comrades

2007-03-19T22:53:00.001-05:00

So I'm reading the Communist Manifesto by Marx for my environmental studies class. I'm almost done with it. It's actually rather concise; the actual text is only 50 small pages in 4 parts. Big things with huge effects do come in little packages.

I went to the university bookstore to pick it up because it's probably the bookstore around here that endorses it the least. I couldn't find it on the shelves, so I asked the lady. When I first asked her, I could barely get it out louder than a whisper. I didn't even intend to do it that way, it's just such a dirty phrase to say in public.

I would say it's pretty "mind-melting", or perhaps "air-thefting". I'm definitely going to have to pour over it several times.

Don't worry though, having read Atlas Shrugged and Anthem over winter break (Adam Smith is sitting on my shelf, in case all else fails) and turned quasi-libertarian, I'm fortified against it. Yet it is food for thought.

He/they offer some nice promises. In particular, he says that you're worth more than just your labor value and you should have lots of time to reach your highest potential. Yet, in his 10 guidelines for creating a communist society, you don't get to own anything, or inherit anything, or leave the country, or disagree. (They've achieved 2 of their 10 goals: a progressive tax, and free education for children. Hmm)

It seems he favors replacing wealthy investors, entrepreneurs, and risk-takers with a monopoly of the majority. The majority is not a good way to run or judge anything. Everyone wants a say when the going's good, and everyone disappears when it gets tough. (Have you ever worked on a committee before?)

Capitalism is not the best system, but it's a hell of a lot better than communism or feudalism. I'll be getting back about this after reading and analyzing it some more.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2007-03-17T22:19:00.000-05:00

Read my blog, I'm Irish!

I had the usual corned beef and cabbage. It was very good.

Also today is the one year anniversary of my first blog post. That makes this post #129 and I've had 2,977 visits and 4,456 page views so far.

Even liberals can't stand themselves

2007-03-09T16:16:00.000-06:00

Take for example Wisconsin's very own representative from the 7th district, Dave Obey. He tried in vain, just recently, to explain how Congress works to anti-war people. It gets good about 90 seconds into it.

Isn't it ironic? Part Deux

2007-03-09T00:41:00.000-06:00

Don't you think? I recently found out that the song "Walking on Sunshine" is by Katrina and the Waves.

Completely Irrelevant

2007-03-08T14:27:00.000-06:00

It's in the Capital Times that "George McGovern has a word for Vice President Dick Cheney: 'Resign'."

After reading the headline, memories come back. Ah, yes, McGovern, the democrat who ran against Nixon in '72. I then thought two things:

He's still around, eh?
Why is this important?

Not to be mean.

Of course, I wasn't around until the middle of Reagan's second term so I don't remember any of that. A few years ago, my mother was going through a box of old stuff, really old stuff, and there was a large manila envelope with "McGovern/Shriver '72" as the return address. I opened it and there was a letter and a large, signed photograph of George, himself.

With disbelief I asked her what was going on, knowing that she votes republican. Turns out, when she was in high school, she and grandma went to help out with that campaign for a day or two. Their task was to "open envelopes and collect the money that fell out". "People sent in piles and piles of envelopes."

I then said something about how successful that campaign was. She used the excuse that grandma is a democrat so she dragged her along, or something like that.

Mom and grandma have a lot of neat stories like that because my grandparents lived in Washington, D.C., or "D.C." as they call it, for most of their lives.

My mom told me about how the nuns told them to put their heads on their desks and pray for JFK when it happened in 1963. Or she'd be walking to her high school on Capitol Hill and she would see a 'young' Ted Kennedy walk by. (Seems he's as much of a Capitol fixture as the dome.) Also, she told me about how she had the Beatles' records "up until they got druggy and people stopped listening" and how high interest rates were "so high people stopped having kids" during Carter's time.

I first heard a lot of this stuff when I was in AP U.S. History in high school. I had an advantage over the other students by asking my family about recent events. In class the teacher was into modern history and I was the only student who knew who Spiro T. was, and who ran against Nixon, and who and what Mondale, Goldwater, Humphrey, and Ferraro were. Also how LBJ drove like a madman in Texas and picked up his dogs by their ears.

Grandma, born in the year the stock market crashed, is great for the random history bits. (Did you know that when it crashed it went from around 400 to around 100?) Grandma remembers when Pearl Harbor happened, and FDR's fireside chats. One thing in particular is that she told me it used to be a DC tradition to go to Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. One time she and her family were there and FDR rode by in a convertible and waved at them.

People who were around tell it like it was. None of this modern handwringing revisionism. She knows and would tell you we had to drop the bomb. Or that she was the first child in her family to be born in the U.S.; they were from Germany. And her mom refused to teach, even to speak German to them. "We're Americans now, act like it."

It's neat to hear about those random moments from people who were around, especially while they're still around.

Walking like giant cranes

2007-03-03T22:40:00.000-06:00

This is the view looking north out of one of my windows. Another crane went up today.

(click on it for the full sized image)

That's North Park Street on the left. My window is above the railroad. The tan building in the foreground is the New Ogg Hall which will replace the two Ogg towers, on the right side of the picture, when they're demolished in June. I think the architect must be going for some kind of competition because the New Ogg has a rather funky design.

Anyway, on Friday I noticed the bottom of a new crane tower between Grainger Hall and Park. Grainger is the building two blocks up on the left and they're building a large addition. As I suspected, today I woke up and the tower was put up and the cranes were starting to put on the horizontal part.

Piece by piece it went up and it was done by early afternoon. That makes for 4 cranes I can see out my window (there's a fifth behind a building): two at Grainger and the other two at the new University Square, which looks interesting.

e.c.: name the song

Whom I support for President

2007-03-02T23:28:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul, the US Rep from Texas. He's a true Republican, supporting constitutionalism and small government. I think he's got a somewhat decent shot at it.
(campaign website, bio)

Exploratory committee kick-off video

Ron on CNN, Iraq seems to be the only thing with which we disagree

the Battle of Bascom Hill

2007-02-28T23:00:00.000-06:00

On facebook on Monday, Tom declared a snowball fight on Bascom Hill, Wednesday at 12:55 pm. I guess it was in celebration of the recent snowfall. On facebook about 85 people said they were coming and approximately 200 said they might. I turned out with my camera to document for the ages the ensuing battle.

some people starting to show up

It ended up being a fizzle, but the Badger Herald and the Daily Cardinal both showed up, the media blowing up stories like usual. I was representin' the Beacon.

For most of it, it was about 25 people standing in the middle of the green throwing snowballs at people walking down the hill in front of the Law Building. I'm surprised the Althouse Vortex didn't at least snap a few pictures; it happened right outside her window.

Some passers-by freaked out and unleashed strings of inappropriate words. Others returned fire towards the belligerents. Many a snowball was struck down by the trees. It was over within about 10 minutes.

Hear Ye!

2007-02-27T17:20:00.000-06:00

Do you know what today is? It's an every other Tuesday, ergo there's a new Mendota Beacon out around campus.

We've got our third action packet issue out! The big story in this issue is an interview of Ray Allen, who's running to unseat the mayor this spring. Be sure to check it out, leave some comments, and click the ads! Or pick it up on campus.

A special thanks goes out to Dan C. for lending us his driving services.

Funny Stuff

2007-02-26T12:26:00.000-06:00

Saturday Night Live hasn't been spectacularly funny for the past couple of years, but this sketch made me laugh hard.

Some nice Pythonesque type humor.

A Political Conundrum

2007-02-24T23:41:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I'm a Republican: I'm a College Republican (secretary for a semester), I have a bunch of Republican friends, I helped Republican campaigns (all but one lost), and I run a conservative student newspaper. I feel like I'm in a closet.

I was apathetic up until civics class in 9th grade, and then I went diehard Republican. I witnessed socialism this summer in Europe and all August long, I thought long and hard and questioned my beliefs. Looking around, I came to find that my beliefs are closer to the Libertarians than the Republicans.

I still agree with the Republicans, I guess, but I'm willing to trade social issues for economic issues. I used to be really strongly against gay marriage and abortion, but if I could, I'd make a deal with Democrats. I'd cede them those issues to cancel social security and most of the federal executive departments.

Religious people, no offense to God, Who I truly hope and believe exists, rub me the wrong way. As it was put in Monty Python's Holy Grail, King Arthur is explaining to the anarcho-communist peasants why he's king:

King Arthur: Her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excaliber--That is why I am your king!

to which the peasant replies: Listen--strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate of the masses; not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

I kind of cringe inside whenever a politician or anyone starts talking about religious things in public. For me religion is a private thing. If we go around letting it dictate policy, then we'd end up back in the Middle Ages, just like in the Middle East.

Another thing, back in high school, I was having an animated debate with some people and I was accused of only thinking and not feeling at all. I promptly told the people, who were liberals, that they're only feeling and not thinking at all. Animals can 'feel'. People are unique because they can 'think' and so that's what we should do. A welfare program may make you feel good, but what incentive is there to not be on welfare (teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish, as the saying goes)? It doesn't fix it; it only makes it tolerable.

Competition in the free market is the best solution. There is no perfect way to distribute and produce, but free capitalism is the best humans can come up with. If there's no profit motive, then no one would be motivated to put their neck on the line to make risky decisions with responsibility, no one would work those extra hours to come up with the next great thing, and no one would make the risky investment to let the ideas take off.

Europe is socialist. Once you hire someone, there are a ton of rules about how long they can work, how much vacation, how much pay, how much benefits they get if you have to fire them. (That's where we're headed by the way) Therefore, few companies can afford to risk hiring someone that might be crappy because they won't be able to fire them until they retire. France's unemployment runs about 12%, and it's nearly 25% for young adults. In the U.S. our economy is doing great and unemployment is around 4-5%.

In my environmentalism class, there's a lot of bad things said about free trade and globalization. For instance Mexico used to be able to feed itself, but since NAFTA, their farmers can't compete with ours and they have to import our corn. If our government and other ones didn't get involved with farm subsidies, then the playing field would be level.

As Thoreau put it "the government that governs best governs not at all". People seem to get upset that politicians and the bureaucracy are crooked. Of course, there's lots of money involved. If you eliminate the cookie jar, then people can't be stealing the cookies. Example: the hundred million dollar Alaska Bridge to Nowhere.

The government getting involved with things only screws them up further. You've probably been to at least a few sporting events in your life. I've been to countless high school games. The worse games happen when the referees think they're playing in the game. The point of the referee is to enforce the rules without bias. The government is our referee between the individual and every other individual, company, etc.

The government messes up nearly everything. Take for instance, urban planning. (Read Jane Jacobs) How many non-dysfunctional public housing projects has it created? We've given our cities to it. By creating zoning laws, it forced America into the car culture. Zoning created the suburbs and subdivisions, where the only way to get around is by driving. Now you need a car to get anywhere. Wait until the oil runs out. I'm going to laugh hard.

The government should stop subsidizing things. Airlines, farmers, car companies, people who live in cities below sea level or in natural disaster prone areas, (dare I say education?). Perhaps the reason why the government has to give billions to the airlines every few years is because there's too many of them. Perhaps they have to give money, our tax money, to automakers because they build crappy cars that can't compete internationally. I say "Live and let die."

I've always been a "suck-it-up" kind of person. Someone has a problem, tough beans. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade (or kill someone by ramming them down their throat). All I want is for the government to protect my property and I will pay my taxes and not make a stir. I don't expect to be entitled to anything or receive anything unearned. I don't want to mind anyone's business and I don't want anyone minding mine. For example: I really could care less who's banging whom. "Don't want an abortion," so the chant goes, "don't get one". But they never say, "don't want a gun, don't get one".

The Republicans could be making huge strides in the economic arena, but they seemed to have abandoned that to get stuck in the fight over social issues. I think they could have made lots of friends across the country by fixing economic things. I think that's what made Reagan so popular. For example, social security (privatize or even opt-out!) or education (vouchers to let kids go to whatever school they want).

On a side note, it makes me happy to think that in the 2040's social security is expected to go kaput. In 2040, I'll be 54. I'll have paid the taxes for most of my life to get nothing!

So, as I've laid it out, I feel like a Libertarian hiding in a Republican closet. I don't really know what to do. It seems almost too easy to be a libertarian. Imagine a debate between the GOP, the Dems, and Libertarians. The GOP would say that there's a certain way to fix a problem, the Dems would suggest throwing money at studies and discussions, and the Libertarians would say that the government shouldn't even deal with it. Besides, there aren't very many libertarians for whom to vote, anyway. Also, if I remember correctly, the Althouse said something about how "a libertarian has to look inside himself to see whether he has a soul or not" (I'd link to it, but the search crashes because her blog is so big).

The Republicans are the party of Lincoln, T.R., Goldwater, and Reagan. I hope it's salvageable. It seems that they've been hijacked by the social issues people lately and the sky doesn't seem to be clearing anytime soon, unfortunately. My "Quotationary" tells me that David Broder said "Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office." 2008 doesn't look too bright. The Democrats are not to be trusted and the GOP isn't putting up anyone good.

On a side note, if I were president this is how it'd go :
year 1, cut half the programs
year 2, cut the other half
year 3, cut half the taxes
year 4, cut the other half

Of course, a lot of other stuff would happen in between, but I'll spare the details. Let me just say, there'd be a lot of office space for rent in Washington. (I turn 35 in December of 2021, so the earliest I could run would be in 2024.)

Anyway, that's what I think about politics. I feel relieved to get that out. So what should I do? Suggestions?

Madison's Transit Future; or How I Don't Believe There Should Be a Trolley

2007-02-16T00:58:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, a mayor had a grand dream to build a trolley in a beautiful city. Using the philosophy that "if you build it, they will come" he continues to relentlessly pursue it.

I, however, believe, politics aside, that it should not happen. It is not a wise decision financially and streetcars wouldn't fit the type of city Madison is.

Madison is expected to grow. I've heard 100,000 people, or something like that, in the next decade or two. But, the city is not growing up, it's growing out. A few days ago, one of the leaders of 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin spoke to my environmental studies class. He made a big deal of how lots of surrounding farmland is going to be developed and that a streetcar was a good idea.

Building a trolley will do nothing to stop the city from spreading out. Especially when it may only run within this area:

I don't think the bulk of Madisonian's trips originate and terminate within these bounds. Perhaps people would drive in, get off the Beltline at Park and ride the trolley in? They can already do that with the buses. Who would drive 20-30 minutes towards the city, then park, wait another 10 minutes for the streetcar, then ride it for at least a half an hour as it stops every other block for a few miles into the downtown instead of just driving another 5 or 10 minutes?

Taking out a lot of the city residents and most commuters, that leaves tourists and UW students. We already have the free buses around campus and bus passes. It would be silly to build streetcars for the Kohl Center and Camp Randall. Then the only other people who come to the downtown are people and school groups going to the Capitol.

Buses are a better option for the city. We already have them. They are flexible and don't need tracks. They also go faster than streetcars, which typically go about as fast as bicycles. I believe that people who already use alternative methods of transport or live in the downtown and already bike, will continue to bike. I think a trolley would be pretty cool, but I wouldn't ride it to go on a trolley ride.

Another important point is that Madison is not the right kind of city for streetcars; it is not dense enough. I've seen trolleys in German cities. Their cities are also 4 and 5 story, wall-to-wall houses, apartments, and shops for blocks and miles. Here, the streets are wide and the buildings are low-density and surrounded by grass.

A streetcar in Munich, Germany. Notice the size of the buildings on the street. There's nothing like that in Madison, except for on Capitol Square.

Here's more Munich from a church bell tower, typical European city blocks.

Here are a few tips I think the city should take, if it is serious:

Make a greenbelt to counter urban encroachment on Dane County countryside. England uses the greenbelt system and it seems to be the only practical way to preserve countryside. My home town has "smart growth" planning but it's too complicated and it usually gets dominated by stupid people. K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid. Simply designate land to remain unbuilt. In England, they specify that fields and land within commutable range of a city are to remain natural, which keeps growth in the town. If it weren't for this, a lot of their country would be sprawl.
Encourage denser growth. They don't seem to like taller buildings in the downtown, yet that's exactly the city needs more of. Where there are concentrations of people many things work better. City services are more efficient as well as enough market exists that shops will start to open along the streets and people won't have to drive to get to work or shop as much. Madison isn't a Paris or London and it won't ever be, but houses should be built as row houses within a few feet of the sidewalk. People seldom use parks because every house is already surrounded by one.
Eliminate most zoning. Once houses and buildings are built closer and with more efficient uses, however the market will allow, perhaps with natural materials like brick, so they'll last for centuries, stores and shops will want to spring up on corners, but if the entire neighborhood is zoned residential, they can't.
Encourage mixed growth. As I've mentioned before, when shops are mixed in with residences, people walk a lot more. Also, shops are often locally owned, so their revenue will be put back into the local economy. I think this would manifest as shops on the ground level and apartments or condos above.
Don't build more roads and don't make current ones wider. More bigger roads only encourage more cars. Also, by not building, the city will save money. Besides, if/when gas runs out, what are we going to do with all the roads we've built?
Run express bus routes. From Johnson and Park, it takes nearly an hour to get the 6 miles to West Town's shopping. The most annoying thing about the bus is that it stops every other block. I think the best urban mode of transport is the subway because its quick and its stops are farther apart. Metro should pick some locations to be important connections, off the top of my head, I would say the N/S/E/W transfer points, Capitol Square, and somewhere in the campus. Then then should plan some new bus routes, perhaps a dozen, that crisscross the city stopping every mile or two and stop at these places for sure. I think travel time is a big deterrent keeping people from taking the bus. Doing it this way, after only a few stops a person would get across town quickly. They should run it quasi-subway style and it may attract some people that wouldn't ride it otherwise.

If these are taken into account, I think the city could prosper without expanding into the surrounding land. Eventually, as newer buildings are built with density taken into account, mass transportation would be used more frequently. Street life would prosper. State Streets would pop up across the city. And eventually, a trolley would be plausible.

Another new Beacon!

2007-02-13T16:56:00.000-06:00

Our second issue of the semester was printed today. We turned two years old yesterday, Feb 12th, Abe Lincoln's birthday. Our centerpiece article is an interview of Mayor Dave. Be sure to check it out, leave some comments, and click on the ads!

Just kidding with the last one, or am I?

Perhaps you've noticed that a new issue of the paper is my main catalyst for posting. I mean to post more, but I don't like blogorrhea.

Besides, the running the paper takes up a lot of time. Trying to make an "alternative" paper successful in Madison is an uphill battle, but it's worth it. By alternative, I mean, of course, conservative with a dash of libertarian.

It's unfortunate, that the "open minded" people are afraid of a different viewpoint. In particular, someone in the physics building really doesn't like us. Last week, most every day when I have class there, I walked past the baskets and someone was trying to cover up the stack and finally, after a week, they just put the whole pile into the trash. So much for trees.

But hardship is good. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. When I took the helm (ha, maritime) of the Beacon over winter break, I updated the look of the paper. When they're looking for any way to debunk us as a newspaper, the look is the most prominent as it's the packaging. I would venture to say that our appearance is on par with other student publications now.

A good paper doesn't just look nice; we have to fill it with copy. A lot of people seem to think that we are just the angry little conservative newspaper. We do a good job, I think, of keeping the politics to the opinion section. Good news is factual. Besides, so what? Read it and if you disagree, your beliefs are strengthened. What ever happened to "winnowing and sifting"?

We may not be big and few may pay attention to us, but I enjoy making the paper. I see our role as modern muckrakers, just like journalists a century ago, except we plow through the liberals' b.s. And I mean, this is Madison, we're here sitting in the heart of it.

I think the future is bright for the Beacon. A talented group of people has stepped up to the plate and each issue is better than the last.

P.S. I also wrote an opinion in this issue.

New Beacon!

2007-01-30T08:31:00.000-06:00

The Mendota Beacon hits stands across campus for the first time this year. This issue is a great start to semester number five. And, might I add, I make my editor-in-chief début along with an updated look.

Winter

2007-01-22T10:31:00.000-06:00

It snowed all day long Sunday here in Madison. It was the third time this winter and second time in a week. Winter has started only recently.

December was warm; I wore shorts to class twice in the middle of the month and Christmas was less festive without snow on the ground.

Opposites-Today and last summer

Working on the railroad

the Fay Theories

2007-01-22T00:25:00.000-06:00

The Fay Theory:

Here's how it goes: The brontosaurus is a dinosaur that is thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.

The Other Fay Theory:

Individualism and self-interest is good; it spurs progress, growth, and technology.

In human history there have been two great ages of progress and a dark age. The first age of progress was ancient Greece, and the second is the period since the Renaissance. The dark age was obviously, the Middle Ages. What do these have in common/different?

Ancient Greece and Renaissance: both put individual paramount and maximized liberty which led to lots of progress in arts and technology

Middle Ages: everything was dominated by religion in which everything was done in the name of God, so everything was about God and helping and loving your neighbor along with very strict social order, in other words putting the community first. result: no progress anywhere, likely because there isn't much motivation

I'm willing to wager that the last quarter of the 19th century was the high tide of this cycle and we've started the slow decline into the next dark age. The same thing is going to happen as in the Middle Ages but it will be secular instead of religious. This time it will end with -ism.

What progress has come out of communist countries: USSR, Cuba, China (up until a decade ago when the started loosening up and still it's mostly just cheap labor)? Soviet and Cuban store shelves were and are empty.

Europe, more specifically, France, is stuck in socialism. I saw it this summer. It's just a lesser form of communism. Their economies are stagnant. An easy way to compare would be that Europe's unemployment runs between 10 and 15% whereas the U.S.'s economy has done very well and our unemployment has been around 5% for the past several years. Sure we're running a trade deficit; one can't put a price on the educations, knowledge, and minds that leave the U.S. for the rest of the world. We are the land of ideas and innovation, just like ancient Athens was.

Without the U.S. communism and socialism are both community oriented schemes that stifle progress and growth. Within the U.S. we now are becoming focused on the community under the guise of the environment. We are supposed to start sacrificing progress to the religion of environmentalism.

This is already starting to play out. Take this as an example: in 1882 Thomas Edison said that "[he'll] make electric light so cheap that only the rich will be able to burn candles." Nuclear power (virtually no pollution) would make electricity so cheap that only the rich will be able to burn coal and oil (lots of pollution into the air), but environmentalism aborted that. Today to reduce pollution we have to start curbing our growth which slows down the development of better and cleaner technologies.

The first part of the third millennium doesn't look good.

Aww

2007-01-19T14:30:00.000-06:00

Aww, I would venture to say it's a young badger. If the badgers keep this up, I think they could easily give puppies and kittens a run for their money. Wait for a certain entertainment company to make a badger movie and then there'll be a huge demand for little badgers. Which would be kind of funny in a dark way because I'm pretty sure adult badgers are not social animals. Wikipedia and this site don't really mention anything about being anti-social. They like to dig and they bite, apparently. They're in the ferret-weasel-otter group of animals. Interesting.

I'm not really posting about badgers for anything too relevant. In Scotland, badger tunnels were undermining a road so they, the government, set up new housing for them instead of just taking care of them by moving them far away or something else.

A nation divided

2006-12-10T20:45:00.000-06:00

And you thought red versus blue states was big. Earlier this evening, I happened to stumble upon the Great Debate.

I, personally, am a 'soda' person, though I seldom drink any. If you call it 'pop' would it not logically follow to call a 'cow' a 'moo' or a 'toilet' a 'flush'? However, as you can see, I'm from the little sliver of blue that runs along the East Coast of Wisconsin, surrounded in a sea of green. Regardless, the 97,700 pops and 90,700 sodas could easily take on the 40,500 cokes.

For no reason in particular, I took the numbers by state and applied it to the Electoral College. It would certainly be an interesting election. Here are the results: Pop 150, Coke 133, and Soda 255. Alaska, Utah, and Florida were the swing states, Wisconsin went Soda, by the way. To win in the Electoral College, you need a majority, 270, votes. In this case, no party won with a majority, Soda got the plurality, and so the top three candidates would move onto a vote by the House. I couldn't tell what would happen, but Pop and Soda would have to woo the Cokes to win.

There are other websites that map regional things. Who would have guessed that Madison is its own region that's much larger than Milwaukee in a 'city sphere of influence' survey? Or that Southerners' houses get a 'rolling', Texans get a 'wrapping', and New Englanders get a 'papering' instead of a 'tp'ing'? My favorite is the world famous "bubbler".

Yeah...

2006-12-03T23:10:00.000-06:00

You've probably seen them too.

Lies. All lies. Wisconsin is the diary state. Happy cows come from Wisconsin.

So they produce more milk than us, but they've also got seven times the population and three times the land area. I wouldn't have guessed that NY is number three.

How can happy cows come from California? They have to worry about fires, floods, mudslides, smog, hippies, and slipping into the ocean. A cow in an earthquake does not make a milk shake.

Besides, out on the left coast, California is the land of fruits and nuts.

Isn't it ironic?

2006-11-29T23:10:00.000-06:00

Don't you think? The big picture on today's Badger Herald:

I actually didn't have to Photoshop this one, though I did anyway (just kidding. I saw how well the last one went over, but really, I did that quickly. (And, no duh it's all in the same type, I drew it myself.)) I actually mean to blog more, but it's just that I just got done with a Dynamics midterm and now have to write a geography paper, do tons of homework, and it's a publishing weekend). The ironic thing, I think, is that the Sierra Club gave a ton of identical paper postcards to the chancellor telling him to stop burning coal in our power plant, as if seeing the same message a thousand times makes it any less crazy. Indeed, chopping down trees helps mitigate global warming. If it were me (and don't think that we at the Mendota Beacon don't get piles of hate mail; we don't) it takes all of about 5 seconds to throw the pile away. For any activist group: a far more annoying and invasive scheme to pound your inconsequential message into the Chancellor's head (he's an engineer, by the way) would be to send lots of emails, mixing up the subject line, too. However, I don't condone doing that.

A weekend protest?

2006-11-20T16:31:00.000-06:00

Here's a picture of the protest they had here in Madison over the weekend on the front of the Badger Herald. It's not really clear what they were protesting.

Registration: Spring 2007

2006-11-19T16:11:00.000-06:00

Earlier today, I registered for next semester's classes. It was so exciting: classes filling up and opening every time the timetable is refreshed, wrong class numbers (that you don't find out until the thing pops up for '18th Century Portuguese Literature independent study'), explosions, battles, and sword fights.

As you can imagine, registration isn't really that exciting, but playing the sound track to 'Gladiator' can make anything dramatic.

Finding classes for next semester really isn't that hard.

Read the curriculum.
Look at the timetable.
Decipher.
Repeat until you've got 12-18 credits.

Within a minute of my registration time I had the numbers I got from the timetable (53715, ±¾i, B6, XIV, I-94) plugged into the system. I then found out that two of my sections were full and two other classes conflicted. I used creative repositioning, the timetable, and the schedulizer to finally get all the classes I wanted. It was no small feat. As it turns out, I snuck into a class that was full by registering for its cross-listed counterpart. Ha ha suckers!

Here's what I'm taking:

Statistics 275: 99 Exciting Ways to Die
Classics 312: Conversational Pig Latin II
Art Hist 195: Periodicals in Ancient Egyptian Pop Culture
Naval Science 380: Swashbuckling I
Naval Science 345: Laughing while Jumping off Objects
Mech Engineering 224: Applied Slide Rule Lab
Botany 278: The Environmental Impact of Migratory Coconuts

In hindsight, I suppose the joke's on me, since on Thursday, I've got class from 7:45 am to 10 pm. Luckily, it's not straight lectures. Instead it's 2 lectures and 3 labs in two buildings, Engineering Hall and Chamberlain. But, my MWF is looking nice. I have 1,2,2 classes, respectively.

Special Editorial

2006-11-16T14:09:00.000-06:00

Many times the op/ed's in the student newspapers are unintentionally rather funny. I normally page through Badger Herald online because their articles allow comments. (The Daily Cardinal ought to get comments, too. That'd probably help their readership. ) The comments are usually a good reality check for whoever penned their craziness.

Today in the BH, there's a rather funny op/ed piece about how voting is bad. It was written by UW-Madison's favorite self described "Community Activist, Anti-Authoritarian Social Revolutionary and Anarchist philosopher." It saddens me to find out he's graduated. You may remember him from his frequent commenting on Letters in Bottles.

Even funnier than the actual article are the comments.

"who describes themselves as a "Social Revolutionary"? I'm sure Che didn't have that printed on business cards."
"Finally a moment when Democrats and Republicans can unite... and call this guy a moron."
"LET THIS BE A WARNING TO ALL UW GRADS WHO FAIL TO LEAVE MADISON."
"He's not a socialist, he's an anarchist... but still, he's a moron."
"How does a Community Activist, Anti-Authoritarian Social Revolutionary and Anarchist philosopher make a living these days? If the answer is free-market capitalism, I will figuratively crap myself."

Crazy college students!

2006-11-14T21:04:00.000-06:00

Today, I picked up one of each daily student newspaper. I got a little chuckle out of their editorial board pieces about the challenge to the recent student referendum to remodel the student unions and raise student fees by about $100 per semester for 30 years.

First, from the slightly left from center, Badger Herald:

... we adamantly oppose the dramatic increase in student-segregated fees mandated by the initiative. We do not support the initiative itself on the grounds that it would put too heavy a burden on students ... the low voter turnout in the paper-ballot elections further fueled our distaste for the measure...

They took the stance that the only thing we have left to do is to beg the chancellor to not allow it to happen.

And now the, out past the left foul pole, Daily Cardinal:

... the UW-Madison Student Judiciary handed down what hopefully spells the end of challenges to the Student Union Initiative victory. The unanimous decision to throw out the case indicates that the Student Judiciary sees the situation as clearly as this editorial board ... [it] fell within constitutional limits. Even the language of the referendum made this clear: It asked students to “support the... plan proposal and the segregated fee increase to help fund it

As for the referendum, I really like how, according to the student president of the union said two weeks ago

So what are the next steps? There is a formal design committee that consists of nine students, two UW staff, two faculty and two alumni. In addition, there will be many subcommittees and open forums to gather input, ideas and feedback from anyone who wishes to be involved.

I don't know much, but it seems like it's a much better idea to decide what to build first and then figure out how much money to procure instead of getting more than $200 million and trying to decide what to toss in. There's that saying about the grocery store and being hungry, well, if you've got $200 million in your pocket, you'd better make a list and stick to it. Especially because it's student run, most of campus turns over every 4 years.

Imagine asking a little kid to redecorate his room and see how long he can settle on one thing. Also, you probably won't spend more than $200 for at most a little paint. Now imagine 40,000 college students, 2 buildings, and 1,000,000 times as much money. What if what they had planned only cost $50 million?

Just thinking about it, two years ago my high school got a $40 million referendum to double the size of the school and they got the works. $200 million for two unions seems like a little much. Ug, that and the whole propaganda campaign they waged! I'll post about that later. Besides only 7% of the students even voted! Total!

40,000 students x $96 x 2 semesters x 30 years = $230 million

For some more laughs, the DC ed. board also wrote about our very own senator potentially running for President in 2008 in "Rational Russ".

While popular here in the Badger state, Feingold would have been a long shot to get the Democratic nomination. He lacks the name recognitions and minority status of two of his likely opponents, namely U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. ... Unfortunately, the rest of the country will never learn what Wisconsinites already know—Russ Feingold rocks!

I'm not one for clichés, but, like, gag me with a spoon.

Let It Snow!

2006-11-10T15:40:00.000-06:00

Today after being dark all day, and low 60's yesterday, it has started to snow. As I type, I can hear the first snow plow of the season rumble by on Park Street.

Looking west, Camp Randall is on the horizon, (click for a larger picture for both)

Looking north up Park Street

On the recent elections

2006-11-08T20:12:00.000-06:00

Seriously,

WTF?

Oh well, the sun still rose and cafeteria food is still gross.

The Republicans need to get back to basics: small government, low taxes, and high standards.

The news is just breaking that the dems have the Senate, too. On the bright side, it's pretty much right down the middle so neither party will be able to go overboard in either direction.

Here in Wisconsin, Doyle and Baldwin were reelected. There was a victory, J.B. won the A.G. race by the skin of his teeth. Also, the marriage amendment passed, overwhelmingly.

All around, the past few days haven't been to good for Republicans. Lucky for us, now there won't be a shortage of democratic fiascoes to write about in the newspaper. As Dennis York wrote, "Democrats will show us how a bad war is supposed to be run (see LBJ)."

Let's see how things are going in two years.

Red China!

2006-11-01T21:51:00.000-06:00

Ha Ha

2006-10-29T13:04:00.000-06:00

I found this in the news: Americans snub invitation to pay $500,000 for Clinton birthday party

When America's liberal elite were offered the chance to pay up to $500,000 each (about £260,000) to attend Bill Clinton's 60th birthday extravaganza tonight - with the added promise of a private Rolling Stones concert - a packed house was expected...

No one was coming so they priced it to go go go! Prices dropped down to $1,710 for just the concert. The weird thing, though, would be that his birthday is in August and last night was the end of October. I'm not taking pleasure in seeing someone's bad luck, rather it's more of a reality check. And as one comment on the article said, "How refreshing to read that some wealthy Americans do not have more money than sense after all."