Computer withdrawal symptoms

Come on, Mel, how can you have computer withdrawal symptoms when you obviously are posting something to the web.  You can't do that without a computer!

True!  I am using a "computer" but it is not my very familiar laptop.  I'm using my iPad to write this and I'll probably use it to post this.

But it is not the same as using a laptop with hundreds of applications and many gigabytes of storage. Plus, even with my Logitech compact keyboard, my fingers are challenged even more to hit the right keys at the same time.

This morning, my Mac Book Pro suddenly decided not to move the cursor.  Nor accept any keystrokes on the keyboard.  I could reboot it and get some reaction for awhile.  I don't remember whether it was through my iPad or one of the few times the keyboard worked, but I found that one supposed fix was to mangle your fingers on reboot on the option, command, R, P, and turn on keys.  This, according to some advice in one of the Apple Support Communities, would reset the PRAM (Programmable Random Access Memory) and put things right.

This worked for one or two times for about fifteen minutes.  Then there was no way I could put things right.  I could use the USB mouse from my wife's computer to have some access.  But then she wouldn't be able to use her computer.

After awhile, my system kept looking for a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.  I wasn't using one, and I could find no way in System Preferences to change this "demand".

So, off I go to Geek Squad at Best Buy where I bought the laptop less than two years ago.  I was unable to find my receipt, but Best Buy had the record and I had a three-year warranty.

When I get there, guess what?  The touchpad worked, the keyboard worked, and everything seemed hunky-dory.

The Geek Squad guy was very helpful in the sense of courtesy and understanding.  We agreed that it would be best to leave my laptop with them to more thoroughly check what may be going on.  He said that would take a day or two, but they might have to send it to their repair center if there were more serious problems.

I feel like the local priest in "Babette's Feast" turning away suitors for his two daughters.  They were his right hand and his left hand.  I have the feeling that I've lost my "right hand".

P.S.  Google on an iPad has made me feel like I've lost my "left hand".  Google just would not respond properly to Safari on my iPad.  When I went to my wife's iMac and used FireFox, I saw about six copies of this entry.  I've deleted all but this copy, and now I'll see if I can open it up to my loyal reader.

For the rest of the story and its resolution see
"Good news about a large corporation", "Computer withdrawal resolution", and "Computer withdrawal resolution continued".

If all else fails, follow instructions

After much rain and with grass that was growing like a beanstalk, I thought I had better mow our lawn.  I had made an attempt a few days ago and decided the grass was too wet.  I felt the grass and it seemed reasonably dry.  OK, let's get it done before supper time.

Digression: Last year I had traded our gas lawnmower in for a light-weight electric mower.  The old lawnmower's wheels didn't really grab going up the short but sharp incline in front.  It was a lot of work to heave it around and I didn't want to pay the repair bill to get the clutch readjusted.  Even though the electric mower didn't cut as wide a swath, it sure beat heaving the gas mower around.

I started mowing and the blade would slow down.  I banged the mower up and down and big chunks of grass would fall out.  Repeat.  And again.  Then the mower stopped and the gauge showed no power!  What have I done?

I took the battery inside and plugged it into its charger.  Then I started looking for the instructions.  And looking, and looking, and…  I found an update on charging the battery.  The only info I got was that it should take 8-14 hours to charge.

I looked again for the instructions, and looking, and …   Finally I found them, sort of in an obvious place, but under something else.

I looked under "Trouble shooting" and found three important pieces of information.

If the grass is too dense, it might trip the circuit breaker.
If the grass is too dense, raise the height of the deck.
The circuit breaker is located at this place on the handle.

I found the circuit breaker, pushed it, and it went in and stayed in.
I raised the height of the deck to its highest, three inches.
I put the battery back in and worked the controls to get the engine running.

I was no longer shaving the lawn but I was making it look more even than it had.

The time and energy to cut the grass was less than the time and energy to find the manual and make the correct adjustments.

Panic and frustration can be such time wasters!  When will we ever learn to be calm and focused in the face of unexpected problems?

Have I learned my lesson?  Probably not!

See also "If all else fails, read directions".

Quote of the day: A rebuke to an insult on ancestry

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."
- Alexandre Dumas, French author and playwright, his father was the son of a French aristocrat and a slave in Haiti.

The French version is:

"Mon père était un mulâtre, mon grand-père était un nègre et mon arrière grand-père un singe. Vous voyez, Monsieur: ma famille commence où la vôtre finit."

In 2002, French President Jacques Chirac has Dumas' ashes re-interred at the Panthéon of Paris.  Chirac remarked that Dumas was the most widely read French author.

If regulation is bad for business, then…

Why are so many breweries opening in Duluth and elsewhere in Minnesota?  See "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle".  Alcohol production and sale is very highly regulated.  Why are so many other small businesses opening, if they don't compete with giant corporations?  See "Big corporations hinder little corporations".

This blog entry was inspired by an interview with Niall Ferguson about his book "The Great Degeneration".  The interview was by Lauren Lyster "The Daily Ticker" and entitled "The 1.8 Trillion Tax You've Never Heard Of".  This huge tax is the supposed cost of all the government regulations.  Among other indicators for increased regulations is the increased number of pages in the Federal Regulations.

The premise is if we only cut back on regulations then we'll free up businesses to be more productive.  What Ferguson doesn't say is less regulation pushes costs off on everybody else.  Yep, if businesses were free to pollute they would be more productive and their prices would go down (or would it be the CEOs salary would go way up).  But if they were free to pollute what would our costs be in health?  If they were free of regulations in construction then rents would be less (or CEO salary…).  But if they were free of construction regulations how many of us would die when their buildings collapsed or caught fire?  Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anyone?  Bangladesh garment factory?  Salvation Army building collapse?

Regulations have increased not because government is eager to have more control.  Regulations have increased because we live in an ever increasingly complex and compact society.  Regulations increase because we understand more about the harmful effects of many activities and substances on ourselves.  Lead in gasoline was seen as beneficial because it reduced engine knock.  But then lead was seen as harmful to growing brains.  Factories could dump whatever pollutants into nearby streams and lakes, but then people realized that the pollution was killing fish and costing cities more to clean up the water for drinking.

A counter to Niall Ferguson's position can be found at "Niall Ferguson Cites Flawed Evidence to Stoke Regulation Fears", Albert Kleine, Media Matters for America.

This article cites an Office of Management and Budget report of the costs and benefits.  Two of my selections from this report follow.

"The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 2001, to September 30, 2011, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $141 billion and $691 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $42.4 billion and $66.3 billion. These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated."
"It is important to emphasize that the large estimated benefits of EPA rules are mostly attributable to the reduction in public exposure to a single air pollutant: fine particulate matter. Of the EPA’s 19 air rules, the rule with the highest estimated benefit is the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule, issued in 2007, with benefits ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year. While the benefits of this rule far exceed the costs, the cost estimate for the 2007 Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule is also the highest at $7.3 billion per year. In addition, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CAIR Replacement Rule (2060-AP50)) has benefits ranging from $20.5 to $59.7 billion and costs of approximately $0.7 billion."
- 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities

Magic really works!

My wife has been having difficulty accessing her bank account online.  She had me look over her shoulder as she signed on.  Of course, it worked!  I said, "Of course!  You showed me."  She replied, "It's like taking a car that's making a noise to a mechanic."

Canoe give me a Bent Paddle?

Bent Paddle Brewing is one of the many new locally-owned breweries in Duluth and in Minnesota.  I had a pint of their IPA when we went to Sir Benedict's for pasta and drinks tonight.

The first server I said "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle" to when I ordered it was so busy with doing three things at once that she didn't even notice.  The second server threw back his head in laughter and repeated it to another server.  The owner, Antonino Coppola, also enjoyed the pun.  I don't know if this is original with me, but I hope I am one of the very first.

The Bent Paddle I was served was an IPA (India Pale Ale) with a strong but not overwhelming bitterness.  I think I might be ordering it in the future over a brown ale from another regional brewer.

This incident also is another of the two degrees of separation that one often finds in Duluth.  We know the parents of one of the owners of Bent Paddle Brewing.

Big corporations hinder little corporations

Not quite always, some little corporations do grow into big corporations and some big corporations buy from little corporations.  But think how hard it is for people to start a company in many fields.

When I grew up in Cleveland, there were many grocery stores in walking distance of one place we lived and there were many drug stores and grocery stores in another place.  By walking distance, I mean less than ten minutes, more like five minutes.  Since we moved to Duluth fourteen years ago, a state-wide drug store has closed, a city-wide drug store has closed, and only two independent pharmacies are left.  All the others are in large chain stores and medical centers.

Now suppose you start a small company that makes a skin medication.  How are you going to get it into all those chain stores?  Will the local managers of those stores have the authority to buy local products on their own, or will they have to get corporate approval?  It depends on the company.  But if you had access to locally-owned stores, you would have a greater chance of getting in the door.

I'm only writing based on observation and not personal experience.  I know people who know people who are active in such a small company, and I have observed their marketing results.  The company is Apolonia B, a maker of a skin ointment.  When it first came out, it was available at the city-wide pharmacy, Falk's Pharmacies.  Falk's closed all of its stores rather than compete with the big chains.

As my own jar was getting low, I wondered where I would get a refill.  I checked Apolonia B's web site and found one retailer listed - Whole Foods Co-op (not to be confused with the national chain Whole Foods Market).  Bias warning: we are two of many owner-members and we shop at Whole Foods Co-op regularly.

I can only surmise that being a locally-made natural-ingredient product, Apolonia B was an easy sell to the buyers at Whole Foods Co-op and was probably too time-consuming to try to sell to the big chains.

Our choices for buying locally are dwindling.  At least we have a great choice in locally-owned restaurants and even locally-produced beer, many local hair salons, several locally-owned coffee shops, three or four locally-owned hardware stores, and one locally-owned camera shop.

Minority births now surpass white births! So what?

News organization after news organization reported recently that minority births now surpass white births or that white births are less than white deaths.  Among others, see "Census: Minorities Now Surpass Whites in Births", Hope Yen, Associated Press, 2013-05-17

Duh!  Given our attitude of "one drop" and of nationality what would you expect?

More and more couples are "mixed": "blacks" marry "whites", "whites" marry "Asians", "Native Americans" marry "whites", and so on.  Fewer people are concerned about racial "purity" than ever before in U.S. history.  And what are the offspring of "white"-"whatever" couples called in our society?  It ain't "white".

Sometimes people self-select the non-white designation; sometimes others make the designation for them.  For the first case, look at all the tribes that will allow a person to enroll if only one grandparent was "Indian".  For the second case, look at all the people that too many designate as "black" because one grandparent was "black", or even one ancestor was "black" many generations ago!

Not all of my parents' descendants are "white".  Boy, would my father's mother be horrified!  Three lines have married "Asians" and another may marry a "black".  As far as many of my generation and after are concerned, all of these "non-whites" are most welcome into our family.

Sorry, white supremacists, we will all be "brown" some century from now.

King Canute and the House Republicans

King Canute, king of England, Denmark, and some other places had followers who thought he could do anything.  He had his throne placed way out on a beach at low tide and commanded that the tide not come in.  Of course it came in and he had his throne moved back a bit.  The tide kept coming in.  Repeat move.  Repeat incoming tide.  Finally Canute declared that only God could control the tides.  One hopes that his followers were appropriately chastened.

The House Republicans have followers who want them to do certain dogmatic things.  The House Republicans have voted 37 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  The Senate has not acted on this or has voted against the repeal.  The House Republicans are ignoring the tide of history that eventually most of the world will have universal healthcare, where rich and poor will have adequate health care at a minimal personal cost.  Will this tide drown the Republican Party?

Round robin service robbin' my time

I started this entry near the end of May as "Good Service from a Large Corporation" but never finished it or posted it.  The original follows up to the ellipsis (…).

Last week our internet service kept going out.  The "internet" light on our DSL modem would go out, and we couldn't send or receive any data.  We would unplug the modem, wait about five minutes, and replug the modem.  Within a couple of minutes, all the modem lights would be lit normally.  This kept happening more and more frequently.

We attributed it to the wind and the rain that went on for about three days.  But when the weather cleared the problem persisted, maybe with less frequency.

I sent email to our phone company, CenturyLink, with the suggestion that the storm may have been causing the problems.  I received a sympathetic reply from Martina that there was no known problem in our area.  My guess is that few people call up when they have problems that they think will go away.  Martina also suggested that I call a service number or set-up an online chat.

I was reluctant to do so because, with so many companies, one just goes around in circles.  Also we were heading to our cabin that has no DSL.

When we came back on Saturday evening, we still had the problem now and then.  When I woke up in the night, I checked if the internet light was on.  I reset the modem from my iPhone, it came on.  Before I had gone back to bed, the light was off again.  I reset the modem again and went back to bed.  When I got up in the morning, the light was off again; I reset the modem.  Repeat three times within an hour.

I'm not sure when the light finally stayed on, but I called my ISP, Hickory Tech, to hear if they had heard any problems.  The support person who I talked to said there had not been any major problems reported.  He thought, as I did, that the modem may be becoming faulty.

I fussed and fumed about going to the CenturyLink store in the local mall or to Best Buy.  I would do that on Monday.

Meanwhile…

Well, on that following Monday I did nothing about buying a new modem.  Over two weeks later the problem still persists but as I write this sentence the internet light is on.

I think the Monday was Memorial Day, and I knew Best Buy would be open.

On Tuesday after Memorial Day I did have an online chat with Melanie of Boise of CenturyLink.  She did some tests and found that our service had been throttled back.  She wrote "…all I did was go in and correct the provisioned [sic] speeds from 3M to 7M".  I thanked her and told her she deserved a raise.

However, speed has dropped again.  We also had a major power outage last night; see "Taking life for granted".

So, I'm back dithering about buying a new modem.  The ActionTec website recommends the "C1000A for CenturyLink" or the "Q2000 for Century Link".  I went to BestBuy page for the C1000A and looked at customer comments.  Many said that it was simple to install but a few others described exactly the problems I have been having with my DSL modem bought in October 2005 (the date is on one of the line filters).  These comments were made for purchases this year: 2013!  I should shell out a hundred bucks just to have the same problems again?

If some people have no problems at all and some people have problems no matter when they bought their DSL modems, I would say one of two things is happening.  Either the quality of the modems is inconsistent or the quality of the internet service provided by CenturyLink is inconsistent.  Or maybe both.

I didn't feel any better about my quandary when I found out that CenturyLink was rated 14 of the worst 15 companies for customer service by Business Insider.  And replacing telephone service with cable service isn't a good alternative.  Charter is rated 3 in the worst customer service list!!!

See all my other rants about this problem in
Internet service – What free market?
Internet service but not customer service
Who is worth more, the CEO with rigid rules or the employee giving excellent service?
Free market and the Internet
‎

I guess my only recourse is to have a chat with Melanie in Boise every so often to get my provisional speed bumped up again.  She gave the best customer service on this issue of anyone else.

To end on a good note about customer service, see
Why do people pick on the Post Office?

Taking life for granted

Here we sit in the descending darkness three hours after a power outage.  At about five a thunderstorm with thunder, lightning, hail, and strong winds came through.  In the middle of working on our computers the Internet went out on our modem.  Then we heard a clap of thunder very close and then another.  Our power went out.  Later my wife said the second seemed more like an explosion of a transformer.

I used my cell phone to call the power company.  The automatic system informed me that 2,956 customers were affected and crews would be working on it as soon as possible.  I hoped not too soon because the weather was still rather bad.

We considered going to the restaurant at the corner but figured they wouldn't be able cook much, and so I made tuna salad.

I read the New York Times on my iPhone and played a lot of Sudoku.  My wife read the paper copy of the Duluth News Tribune and then a book.  As it got darker we gathered flashlights and put them where we could find them in the dark.

About twenty minutes ago I looked out the front window to see if the corner restaurant had any cars in its parking lot.  It did and its lights were on!  It is on a different local grid!  We could have gone there for supper and had coffee afterwards!

Oh, well!  My wife is ready for bed and reading a book by flashlight.  Hey, the power just came back on!  Thanks to the Minnesota Power crews who are ready to work on a Sunday evening.

We'll get everything back in order and I'll send this on my laptop.

We considered this power outage as a minor inconvenience that we were certain would be fixed in a reasonably short time.  Even if the repair had taken several hours longer, it still would have been only an inconvenience.  Considering how many people whose lives have been turned upside down by violent storms, fires, and wars we can only look at our little problem as just that, a little problem.

Contradictory thoughts on contradictory thoughts

"Apes and Humans" was one of Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge" (TTBOOK) broadcasts for 2013-06-09.  One segment was about the so-called "monkey girl", a five-year-old girl kidnapped in Columbia and then abandoned in the jungle.  Supposedly she survived with the help of monkeys who "adopted" her.  She, Marina Chapman, and her daughter, Vanessa James, wrote a book on Marina's experiences – "The Girl with No Name".  Philip Sherwell of the Telegraph was asked to go to Columbia to check up on her story.

There were some inconsistencies in the stories he heard, but considering the events were fifty years ago, he would have been concerned if they were consistent.  He came away not establishing anything that would make him "believe that she'd made it up…"

In other words, by compiling a mosaic of thoughts, Sherwell came away believing Chapman's story in general.

On the other hand, in the preface to his satire, "L'Ile des Pingouins", Anatole France claims if you have a "fact" about certain events from one person, you should believe it, but if you have reports from several people then their reports are always contradictory and always unreconcilable (my translation).

Unfortunately, too many people today rely on one source of news, and whatever is said by that source must be true.  They just don't want to believe that some of what the source says may be true, some may be partly true, and some may be completely false.

World Getting Better? Depends

I finally finished Charles Kenny's "Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding – And How We Can Improve the World Even More".  We bought the book when he spoke at the "Confronting Global Poverty" lecture Series of the Alworth Center for Peace and Justice at St. Scholastica in Duluth on Nov. 13, 2012.  You can watch his lecture here.

Many were disappointed in his talk and book because they thought he was painting a rosier picture than reality.  Kenny's thesis is that we should concern ourselves less with increasing GDP and look more at quality of life measures.

These include health, longevity, education, child mortality, and family size.  He claims that throughout the world with a couple of notorious exceptions, the first four measures are getting greater and the last less.  Rather than look at the number of roads and dams, we should look at how people are living day-to-day and what they and we can do to improve daily life.

For an example of a low-tech solution that improved the lives of trash pickers in India, see "Out of India's Trash Heaps, More Than a Shred of Dignity", Sarika Bansal, New York Times, 2013-06-12 .  Do read some of the comments.

Score one for Clarence Thomas

Supreme Court Clarence Thomas wrote the unanimous opinion against Myriad Genetics claim that it had a patent on the naturally occurring BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that are used for its breast cancer tests.

See "Justices, 9-0, Bar Patenting Human Genes".

It is very heartening to see another case where dire predictions of strict ideology don't come true.  The big corporation was overruled in its attempt to patent nature.  Scientists in academia and other corporations should be allowed to access and use these genes.

If you're interested in all the details, you can find the ruling at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_8njq.pdf.

If you have nothing to hide, why worry?

Supporters of the NSA wire-tapping and of the PATRIOT Act assert that if we have nothing to hide, why should we be concerned.  Consider that an administration may construe any criticism of itself to be criminal and covered by the PATRIOT Act.  Don't laugh, but there have been people who have privately called their leaders jerks and put in prison for it.  Don't laugh, Joseph McCarthy hounded people for their political beliefs.  Don't laugh, Richard Nixon had his enemies list of people who were critical of his policies.  Don't laugh, George W. Bush said, "You are either with us or against us."

But how many of these same people don't apply the same reasoning to corporate labels.  If a corporation has nothing to hide in its products, then why is it concerned about laws concerning labeling?  If GMO foods are good for you, then what do corporations have to hide in having laws past to prohibit labeling foods as GMO?

If various political front organizations of any stripe have nothing to hide, why do they need 501(c) status?  Could it be that the law requires candidates to give the names of their donors but a 501(c) organization doesn't have to?  If you live in California and want to contribute to a candidate in Wisconsin, why do want to hide that you are an out-of-state donor?

Consistency has never been a hall-mark of those with uncompromising political mind-sets.

The Read the Bill Caucus

I've long been pondering what a viable new political party would be based on and what it would be called.  Considering all the current comments about the NSA telephone surveillance and the Patriot Act, I have considered a new solution to the rigid stances.

I forget the details, but someone challenged Congress to read the entire Patriot Act.  Only one Representative did and he voted against it.  Many Democrats in the House opposed it and only Russ Feingold opposed it in the Senate.  Many did complain that they weren't given enough time to read it, and some complained there weren't even enough copies available.

Given this "knee-jerk" voting on so many issues, rather than look around for a third party to replace one of the two current major parties, maybe we just need a new caucus open to all: The Read the Bill Caucus.

To join The Read the Bill Caucus, a Senator or a Representative need only promise to read a bill before voting for it.  If a caucus member has not read a bill and understood it, then the member will vote against the bill or abstain from voting on the bill.

The beauty of this idea is that a member of Congress doesn't have to change his or her ideology.  Members only have to understand what they are voting for instead of just following a party line or caving in to mass hysteria.

Another witty ditty mined from my mind

Ginger the singer was singed by something rude and lewd zinged from the crowd.

Muslims do speak out; anyone listening?

See "An Interviewer Asked A Muslim Leader About The Murder Of A British Soldier.  Here's How He Answered".  Imam Ajmal Masroor gave a heartfelt condemnation of people who want to injure or kill others in the name of religion.

The comments on Facebook are all over – from support to blind, sweeping opposition.  One I like best is from Rafi Uddin Ahmed:

"I agree 100%.
The Muslim leadership in US has been condemning these terrorist acts for years and can not get any media coverage. We work closely with FBI, TSA and Homeland security in safeguarding our country. Majority of foiled terrorist attacks were a result of tips from muslim community."

See also "Violent militants are not Muslims", Fouza Saeed, Star Tribune, 2013-05-28.

She didn't write this phrase, but I think the best term for those she describes is "pseudo-Muslim criminals.

See also "Qur'an burning - Questions for Muslim protesters"

Labor unions bad, corporate unions good?

Anti-union sentiment is getting more and more vociferous among Republicans.  A case in point is an op-ed in the Star Tribune about day-care providers "union benefits" – "Minnesota is the latest scene of desperation", James Sherk, Heritage Foundation, Star Tribune, 2013-05-26.  However, this article is more balanced in that it questions only a particular situation.  Should self-employed people be forced to join a union?

But isn't a union a group of people with similar interests.  And aren't there many labor laws to ensure that labor unions have democratic leadership?

If we are to ban unions or pass laws that make it difficult for workers to form unions, shouldn't we also ban corporate unions, like Chambers of Commerce or National Association of Manufacturers?

See also Adam Smith on wages and who gets to organize to control them.

Concerning the Heritage Foundation and its bias, see "Heritage Shock", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2013-06-05 and "Yes, Europe is really is in the throes of austerity", Dylan Matthews, Washington Post, 2013-06-05.

Buy gold?

As I was waiting at the barber shop, I had two choices.  Look at Fox News or keep my eyes closed.  The visual noise of the multiple banners of modern news broadcasts is bad enough, but the hype of the advertisements is even worse.

One of the ads that caught my attention was a company selling gold.  They offered it at one percent over dealer cost and with free shipping.

First, what do they mean by "dealer cost"?  Is that the cost to buy it in the first place?  Or is it the cost to buy it and sell it together?  After all, the sales people, the management, and the advertising are all costs for the sale.  And isn't the "free shipping" a cost?

Second, if owning gold is such a good deal, why aren't they holding it as an investment?  Won't they make more money by holding it than selling it?  Maybe they are trying to dump it before the price drops even further.

Magree's law of market timing:  When others are excited about buying, keep what you already have.  When others are excited about selling, sell what you already have.

There are no porches in Portugal…

and there are no gulls.

Well, I am sure many houses in Portugal have verandas or porches and many beaches have many gulls.

However, if you consider how many Americans pronounce the word Portugal and how the Portuguese pronounce the name of their country, you will understand my quip.

Many American pronounce the name of the country as Porch-uh-guhl or Porch-you-guhl where "uh" is the most frequent vowel in the English language, the schwa, an unaccented form of a short u.  Some may get closer to the Portuguese pronunciation with Porch-uh-gahl.

In the Google Translate (http://translate.google.com/#en/pt/portugese), the English speaker says POUR-chyu-gahl, but the Portuguese speaker says Por-tu-GAHL with the "l" held a bit longer.

Do you really want term limits?

If you think that term limits of legislators at all levels will solve all of our government problems, then you better impose term limits on another group.

We will need term limits on individual lobbyists.  If we don't then experienced lobbyists will walk all over inexperienced legislators.  See "The Fixer", James Fallows, The Atlantic, June 2013.  It is about Gov. Jerry Brown and California politics.  California voters imposed term limits.  "Because legislators don't know what they doing, they're more under the permanent influence structure of lobbyists and bureaucrats."

But we'll also have to have term limits on lobbying firms.  The experience of their term-limited lobbyists will just be passed on.

We will also have to have term limits on corporations.  They will just pass their experience from one lobbying firm to another.

While we're at it, why not term limits on political donations.  If you donate to a candidate, then you can't donate to that candidate or that particular office until the term limit expires.  For example, if the term limit for the House of Representatives is six years, then you cannot donate to any candidate for that seat for six years.

The law of unintended consequences will bite you no matter what solution you find for current problems.  Gov. Hiram Johnson gave California voters the initiative to create law.  This was supposed to be an antidote to the control that the Southern Pacific had over legislators.  Now, deep-pocket corporations use the initiative to promote their own interests.  Propositon 8 on limits to property tax brought California's spending on school systems to second in the nation to somewhere in the 40s.

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.  And then some.

Oklahoma, tornadoes, Pat Robertson, God, and James Imhofe

Pat Robertson supposedly stated that the deadly tornado that destroyed homes and killed people in Moore, Oklahoma was because people didn't pray enough.  See "God and the Moore Tornado", Roger Talley, Examiner, 2013-05-25.  This in turn cites "Pat Robertson: Tornadoes Could Have Been Stopped If People Had Prayed", Huffington Post, 2013-05-20, which in turn uses a video from other sources.

What exactly did he say?  If you watch the video, both the Examiner, which seems to have a bias toward religion, and almost all the other "short quote" media, didn't give the full context of Robertson's statement.  In the video, Robertson gives a scientific explanation of tornadoes, stating that this is the way God set things up to provide thermal balance for the earth.  He then asks why people build in places with known dangers.  He does state that God could have stopped the tornado if enough people had prayed.  That is quite a different statement than God punished Moore because not enough people prayed.

This pokes a bit of a hole in the joke that I have, but I'll push on anyway, partly because the Examiner article put this spin on it.  What if the Moore tornado was a warning from God?  Could it have been a warning not about prayer but about re-electing James Imhofe to the U.S. Senate?  After all, Sen. Imhofe is one of the chief global-warming deniers in Congress.

All kidding aside, the data is not in on the connection between global warming and tornadoes.  As usual, we have the usual suspects jumping to draw their own conclusions.  On one side global warming doesn't exist because scientists have not found a definitive link between tornadoes and global warming, and on the other side tornadoes must be increasing in severity because of global warming. Actually, global warming could increase them or global warming could decrease them.  For a balanced view on the research in progress, see "Tornadoes and Global Warming", Robert Kunzig, National Geographic, 2013-05-22.

Due to popular demand…

…grammar rules have been changed.  We no longer have to write "because of…"

I have seen "due to" usage in so many press releases that I think the strict grammarians of my school days in the 40s and 50s have lost.

If you think about it, correct grammar and spelling are what people actually say and write, not what some grammarian dictates.  Even French, with the French Academy defending it, is changing and has been changing.  If you listen to French radio you will hear "le weekend" about as many times as you hear "le fin de semaine".

Did you notice another "rule" that I broke?  I avoid putting punctuation between quote marks unless the punctuation is part of the quote.

Consider

Did he say, "I don't believe that?"

and

Did he say, "I don't believe that"?

That is, did the quoted speaker ask a question (first example) or did he make a statement (second statement)?

Change of routine leads to paranoia

When we go to our cabin, we usually make a couple of stops before we leave Duluth.  At the last of these, I plug in my iPhone for a podcast of Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge".  The podcast lasts about 52 minutes, a bit less than the time it takes us to get our cabin.

Yesterday we planned to go to our cabin with no special stops.  Instead of listening to Minnesota Public Radio until we made our stops, I plugged in my iPhone before I even backed out of the garage.

About ten miles away, I wondered if I had shut the garage door.  My wife said I probably did.  After all, whichever of us is the passenger almost always checks that the driver closed the door.

I didn't turn around, but it kept gnawing at me all the time we were at our cabin.  I had visions of our lawnmower and snowblower being stolen.  I wondered if my wife's car would be broken into.  Around and around rattled these thoughts in my mind.

When we returned today, I forewent a couple of stops that I wanted to make and we came directly home.

Whew!  The garage door was closed.  As it opened I saw that my wife's car, the lawnmower, and the snowblower were all there.

A couple of hours later I'm still feeling the sense of relief!

Moral?  Don't be distracted as you pack and definitely don't be distracted as you lock up.  Have your paranoia about doing all you should before you leave, not after you are on your way:)

Offers you can refuse

As I opened my Frontier statement for our cabin phone, I was shown an ad for High-Speed Internet for "$19.99 No Contract, 3-year price guarantee".  The tiny, grey, fuzzy print is "per month with qualifying phone service".  I have yet to find "qualifying phone service" explained in detail.

Fine print on another page states "Limited time offer to new or current Frontier customers who subscribe to a qualifying package of Frontier local service with features, long distance and new High-Speed Internet with speeds up to 6Mbps."

Ah!  When I clicked on "bundles" then I got a list of packages that include high-speed internet.  The minimum bundle is "Digital Phone Essentials" which includes 30 minutes of long-distance per month, caller iD, and call waiting; all features we do not have and do not need.  The price is $47.98; taxes are not mentioned.  Our basic dial-up service is $18.00 including extended area service* and $16 taxes and other charges.  So, we would be paying at least $64/month for internet and phone we use only one or two nights a week.

I think I'll stick with the poky 25kbps dial-up.

But I may have no choice.  Last time I knew, the faster phone cable hadn't been laid as far as our cabin.  Even faster Frontier service is being provided in the area with fiber-optic cable, but it ends about 1-1/2 miles from our cabin.  I assume any extension of that cable will continue on the main paved road and not come down our gravel road.

* Surprisingly, we can make a local call to our house in Duluth that is 46 miles away, but we can't make a call to Two Harbors about 35 miles away.

Forgetting while remembering

While working at the cabin, I couldn't find my water bottle.  I looked all around the cabin and a couple of workspots around it.  When I asked my wife if she had seen it, she pointed right at the bottle at another workspot, where I had been working most recently.  I immediately said "Tankspridd" which is Swedish for absent-minded.

Although I read a Swedish book or newspaper now and then and listen to a Swedish radio podcast, I haven't really used Swedish as a daily language since we lived in Sweden 1970-1974.  I think I've thought of the word "tankspridd" now and then, mostly in my own head.  Still, it was a bit startling that an older memory popped out while I had to dig for a more recent memory.

While double checking my translation, I came across Tankspriddas Riksförbund (National Association of the Absent-Minded). http://tankspridd.se/~/  According to this site, 99% of us are absent-minded.

Oh, yes!  Forget about the stereotype of the "dour Swede".  The Swedes have a very good sense of humor and tell lots of jokes and funny stories.

Paved surfaces – public vs. private

Because of the freeze-thaw cycle of late winter, pavements all over crack and as vehicles drive over them potholes develop.  This is true of city streets and private parking lots.  Who does a better job of repair?

Some of the streets in our neighborhood have a few small potholes that can be easily driven around.  On the other hand, the Mt. Royal Shopping Center parking lot has many huge, axle-buster holes.  Driving around these is like driving a gymkhana.

I bet the city potholes will be fixed before the shopping center sinkholes will.

Readership is dropping, this might be good

Over the last few days, the number of page views of this blog have dropped considerably.

That might be a good thing!

Possibly the majority of page views are by reverse spammers, especially from Russia.  Although I have not been posting as much as I like, I would think the amount of reverse spam would not drop.  However, the number of Russian page views has dropped by a half, and the page views from known reverse spammers has also dropped.

As I am working a big genealogical project and doing more reading of novels, it might be awhile before I write as frequently as before.

I do thank my real, live viewers.  I may have some items soon from my long list of "Unpublished ideas".

Place, community, and politics

Ross Douthat is a different breed of conservative, and I almost always read his columns with satisfaction.  He tries to cut through all the political grandstanding of either party to get to some basic truths.  One of these was "When Place is not Enough".

I posted the following as a comment to his article:

We've lived in the same house now for 14 years, and we still don't know the names of all our neighbors. We chat with a few, but we either are inside or out and about. We belong to some various groups and form our relationships within them.

I think stay-at-home moms have contributed to neighborhood or town cohesion, but as kids grow up and interests diverge, more activities outside the neighborhood draw people away from their neighbors and towards others with similar interests all over town.

In Duluth we have three choices for getting around - car, bus, and walking. We use each according to conditions. The car obviously doesn't let us connect to our neighbors other than a friendly wave. The bus is less than a block away and there are few people out to meet. We can walk to several places within a mile and do in nice weather, but we rarely meet anyone regularly. It is the people at these various destinations that we know better than those in our block.

I grew up in Cleveland in mostly lower middle-class neighborhoods. In the 40s and 50s I knew only half the kids and no more than 10 percent of the adults on the same block.  My network was through school, community center, and a church, all within a mile of my house but past dozens of houses whose occupants I knew not.

I do laud the Front Porch Republicans and communitarians for striving to make where we live better places.  If more of us do that maybe we can organize better to put the Masters of the Universe in their place!

I highly recommend at least taking a peek at the About page of the Front Porch Republic.  It looks like a good basis of a new political party.  Or at least for independent candidates to use as an inspiration.

There is more to the U. S. Constitution than the 2nd Amendment

The NRA and others cite the Second Amendment as giving individuals the right to bear arms.  One justification they give is "the people" need arms to protect themselves against "the government".  However, they neglect Article II, Sec 8, of the Constitution:  Congress has the power "to call out the militia to suppress insurrection".

If you use your guns to "protect you" from the government, then you are involved in an insurrection.  If you are in an insurrection, then the Constitution gives Congress the power to suppress your insurrection.  Suppressing an insurrection includes taking the guns from those in the insurrection.

George Washington was involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion, a tax revolt from 1791-1794.  See "Whiskey Rebellion", Wikipedia.  The Whiskey Rebellion was quite a complicated affair, but popular support seemed to be in favor of the suppression of the rebellion.  Another interesting point that some make: it was also a conflict between large distillers who paid less per gallon than small, individual distillers who paid more per gallon.

The last great Republican President put the down the biggest insurrection of all, the Civil War.

See also "Is the N.R.A. Un-American", Stanley Fish, New York Times, 2013-05-13.

Wooden-headed woodsman

On Saturday, May 11, I was using a draw saw to cut lengths of downfall into fireplace lengths.  I was working on smaller pieces, three-inches or less in diameter.  Many of these had branch stubs that would make it difficult to lay a good fire.

To cut these stubs, I placed the pieces vertically in a section of my saw horse to stabilize them and then would cut down.  Sometimes I would hold the piece above the stub, sometimes below.  The latter was more stable.

As I was doing this, I noted that my work gloves were mostly fabric, not leather.  I told myself that I should be careful.  That worked for about five pieces and then the saw hit my hand.  Oh, drat!  My glove had a small shredded patch!

Hm, I better check my hand.  Oh, I have a good cut there and it's bleeding a bit.  I licked at it a bit to minimize the blood flow and went inside to get a bandage.  Hoo boy!  It started bleeding more!  I grabbed three or so pieces of facial tissues to sop up the blood.

I found the first-aid kit and managed to open it without getting blood on it.  Grab more tissues to sop up the blood.  My wife had gone to the Brimson post office.  Should I call the post office where she would be visiting with other neighbors and ask her to come back to the cabin?  Should I call 911?

I managed to get a bandage on just before my wife came back.  She suggested that I also put bacitracin on the cut, and she bound the wound up better than I had.  We changed the bandage(s) often as they became soaked.  By sauna time, there was little blood flow.

Of course, as I sweated in the sauna, the latest bandage loosened up.  No big deal because the bleeding had stopped.

My wife had washed up and gone back to the cabin.  I washed up and started to get dressed.  As I put on a sock I bumped my thumb.  Oh, great!  It's bleeding again.  With no bandages around, I just kept licking the wound.  I got the other sock on with a spot of blood on it.  I managed to get into my pants but no way was I going to put a shirt on with my thumb bleeding.

I put my feet in my boots and grabbed my shirt and jacket to get back to the cabin.  At least it wasn't freezing.

Once back at the cabin, I put another bandage on and could finish dressing.

Over the past week, I've put bacitracin and a bandage on twice a day.  The wound is healing nicely and I can use my thumb for most tasks.  I still bump my thumb with various tasks, but my only reaction is a grunt.

Have I learned my lesson?  Probably not.  There will always be another situation where the most convenient way of doing something is the riskiest, and in the interest of saving time or ...

The company with the computer for the rest of us forgot the rest of us

When Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984, they dubbed it "The Computer for the Rest of Us".  With its WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pictures) it was certainly a step up from the alphabetic command interface of all the other microcomputers of the time.  Even an experienced assembly-language programmer like me found the interface superior to remembering a whole bunch of commands that had to be spelled correctly with the correct syntax.

Over the decades, Apple has introduced hundreds of ideas that make Macintoshes, iPhones, and iPad even easier to use, mostly.  But sometimes they are devilishly difficult to use.  A case in point is trying to do a simple thing like buy an eBook.

My wife wanted an eBook for a book group that meets this week because she was unable to get it at the library in time.  She has never bought an eBook for her iPad mini, and even though she taught computer classes for years, she would rather have me do it.

She gave me the title, her AppleID, and her password.  I found the book in a few minutes.  I pressed on the price which turned into a "Buy Book" button.  Why not have a separate "Buy Book" button?  I pressed the "Buy Book" button and the price appeared again.  Sometimes the button changed to downloading, but the gear icon for internet use never appeared.  Eventually, for some reason the iPad eventually asked for my wife's password.  I entered that.  The iPad asked if she wanted to select security questions.  I clicked "Not now".  Now we saw the price button again.  Repeat and repeat.

Finally, I clicked that we would select security questions.  I had to enter her password again.  Remember that poking a small screen is more cumbersome than a full-size keyboard.  We selected the questions and gave the answers.

Now, as expected, we had to give payment method details.  I don't remember if we had to enter her password before we could proceed.  It certainly seemed as if we did.  I gave the payment details, and I was asked again for her password.

Now I could click on the price, click on the resulting "Buy Book", and once again enter her password.  Finally we see the "downloading" button stay on and the gear go round and round.  In a few minutes she had her book and her acknowledgment of activity in her email.

She is now in her favorite chair with her iPad mini, engrossed in her book.  Once I post this diatribe I hope I will be engrossed in the latest hardcover John Lescroart murder mystery.

Opposition to the EPA is just a GOP plot to dismantle public education

Mercury, lead, and several other pollutants are known for reducing cognitive function. If these pollutants are kept at high levels, then many children will not perform well in school. If many children don't perform well, it will demonstrate that public schools are failing. Thus, private interests, which always do "better" will take over. Of course, they can reject those children adversely affected by pollutants.

I posted the above as a comment to "The Latest G.O.P. Temper Tantrum", Robert B. Semple, Jr., New York Times, 2013-05-09.  Temper tantrum is the description Semple gave the walkout by some G.O.P. Senators from the hearings for the confirmation of Gina McCarthy as the head of the EPA.  See also "Lead and 'failing' schools".

E. Nowak of Illinois responded to my comment with

"And the closer people live to factories, the more toxins they breath in. The rich, always live far, far away from the industrial centers."

But we don't even have to live close to factories to be introduced to toxins.  What are all the pesticides used in agriculture doing to us.  What are the neoniconitides used to "kill aphids and other crop-destroying insects" doing to us?  These are nerve poisons that disrupt neural activity.  They are put into seeds and "become incorporated in the tissues of the adult plant".  If we eat these plants what's to guarantee that the neurotoxins won't be affecting us?  See "Honeybee die-off brings 'Silent Spring' back to mind", William Souder, Star Tribune, 2013-05-12.  In other words, are these neurotoxins affecting the performance of school children?

I'm sorry if you think I'm a scold about free markets and Adam Smith's "invisible hand", but we really have to hold to account those who corrupt both ideas to hide their own self-interest against the public good.  Please tell your friends about

"The Invisible Adam Smith" and "Humpty Dumpty and Free Markets".

Export cones, not drones

Once upon a time, Yemen had rich areas for growing grapes, pomegranates, oranges, and the famed Yemeni coffee.  Then came oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemeni men flocked there for work.  The women cut trees for firewood and the terraces eroded for lack of maintenance.  Water which once could be found at 60 meters is not found until 850 meters or more.  Now Yemenis fight over water.  See "Postcard from Yemen", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2013-05-08.

"Trees have the deepest system of root in soil. They evaporate water from sometimes 50 meters deep level of soil. It increase humidity in air and probabilities of rains, dew-sources of water."  Comment by mioffe2000 in response to "Postcard from Yemen".

This comment got me thinking about "The Man Who Planted Trees" about a shepherd who planted acorns over a wide area that had been deforested by charcoal burners.  The land was dry and suitable only for grazing sheep.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees, the story is a work of fiction.  However, people all over the world have planted millions of trees in many countries to stop desertification and alleviate global warming.  This article mentions a few of these projects.

What would the effect be on world peace if the U.S. exported cones instead of drones to some of the trouble spots of the world.  Well, not exactly cones because evergreens are not suitable for many areas.  Actually, for a small fraction of the military budget, the U.S. could send teams to plant trees of any size, from seeds to semi-mature trees a few meters tall.   It would take a few years to bring better rainfall back to areas where water is scarce.  More available water would reduce tensions among various groups and go a long way to reducing the hold terrorists have on some areas.

A simple arithmetic proof of global warming

Too many people deny that our atmosphere is warming.  Many of these do so because they are making lots of money contributing to global warming.  They also spend lots of money convincing people of a certain political view that the promotion of the idea of global warming is the plot of people of a certain other political view.

It is relatively simple to prove that there is global warming with one simple assumption: increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the globe to be warmer.

For centuries there has been a certain balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  People have used plants for food and fuel for eons.  As people use the plant carbon as food, they breathe out carbon dioxide.  As they use plant carbon as fuel, their fires give off carbon dioxide.  Plants, in turn, use the atmospheric carbon dioxide as food to grow.  The balance is such, that even with huge forest fires and volcanoes, the excess carbon dioxide is used up over a few years or decades with the new growth of plants.

We could express this as

CB-CU=0

That is, carbon burned minus carbon used by plants equals zero.  That is, we have a long term balance.

Then people took coal, oil, and gas from under the ground.  Now are equation is

CB-CU=CG

where CG is carbon from underground: coal, oil and gas.  That is, the carbon from coal, oil, and gas is not used up by the existing plants.

To make matters worse, human activity doesn't increase the amount of plant life to absorb the extra carbon.  To the contrary, human activity reduces the volume of plant life.  Humans cut down huge forests without replacing them with plants of equal volume.  Sometimes they replace the huge forests with sugar cane, coffee plants, or corn.  Sometimes they don't even replace the plants but cover the same ground with highways, parking lots, and mammoth buildings.  Now our equation becomes

CB-CU=CG+CL

where CL is carbon uptake lost.  CB, CG, and CL keep getting bigger, and CU keeps getting smaller. 

If you assume the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming, consider that  residents of many cities are having breathing problems because of all the pollutants, including carbon dioxide, that are in the air because of the cities' dependence on fossil fuels.

Different rules for private and public pensions (and organizations too)

I recently received the annual funding notice of a company pension plan, a large company I worked at for almost twenty years.  Among other things, a new federal law allows companies to use more favorable interest rate calculations, thus having a smaller projected funding shortfall and a smaller minimum required contribution to the pension fund.

This is called the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act ("MAP-21").  To me it looks like progress for corporate bottom lines and regress for retirees' pension security.

For example, my former employer would have a funding shortfall under the older law of $1.3 billion.  Under the new law the shortfall would be $0.6 billion, less than half.  The required minimum contribution would have been $152 million.  Now it is $56 million, almost two-thirds less!

On the other hand Congress has really socked it to the Postal Service.  Search for

"post office" pensions

One I read was "Background on the $15.9 Billion Loss by the Postal Service".  Be sure to read the comments.

The Postal Service was required to significantly increase its reserves in its pension fund.  The Postal Service may only put those reserves in government securities, which pay significantly less than the securities corporations may use for their pension fund.

In short, the best Congress money can buy gave its supporters a big break on pension funds and threw stones at its favorite scapegoat.

One of the commenters to "Background" pointed out that the Postal Service is a Constitutionally-mandated organization.  I would add that the Constitution doesn't even mention private corporations.

Business-friendly is often people-unfriendly

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, is famous for his desk sign: "Open for business".  But somehow, his attitude seems to be more "closed for people".  Wisconsin has already severely curtailed the rights of government workers to organize and bargain.

The explosion at the West fertilizer plant in Texas was definitely people-unfriendly.  It was indirectly caused by a state government that likes to consider itself business-friendly, that is, low taxes and few regulations.

"It's rare for Texas to require insurance for any kind of hazardous activity.  We have very little oversight of hazardous activities and even less regulation."
Randy C. Roberts, one of the plaintiff lawyers, quoted in "Texas plant that blew up carried only $1M policy", Christopher Sherman, Associated Press, Duluth News Tribune and others, 2013-05-04 and 2013-05-05

Because of the explosion, the company will likely file for bankruptcy.  An ounce of prevention is worth millions of failure?

Where does Texas rank in taxes, regulation, and business-friendly indicators?

For taxes, Texas is sixth lowest, with 7.9%; New York is highest with 12.8%. See http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/02/state-local-tax-burden/1937757/

Surprisingly, Freedom in the 50 States ranks Texas 24th for "regulatory freedom".  Freedom in the 50 States is a web page of the Mercator Institute of George Mason University.  Most of its rankings seem to be predicated on the freedom of businesses to reduce costs to the detriment of people and the freedom of people to make themselves nuisances to other people.

Quote of the day: Our Education System

"Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
- Albert Einstein
Posted by a relative on Facebook from "Everyday Humor"

On the other hand, sometimes we are our own worst enemies for learning.  How many people do you know who say, "I was never good at…"  Consider most Americans image of their foreign language ability.  If you ask them what a Mexican calls a hat or an afternoon nap, most can correctly answer (fill in the blank).  Or how the French say "goodbye" or what a Swedish buffet is called, or …  I guess that most Americans know at least ten words in each of at least ten languages.  Da?

See "You can speak foreign languages".

Paper covers net, a readership comparison

Many of my acquaintances in Duluth ask me if I still write for the Reader Weekly.  Other than an occasional letter to editor, I haven't written any column since 2008.

After an article about some of the proposed mining in the region and the promises of no damage to the environment, I submitted my blog entry "The Invisible Adam Smith".  After all, the Reader often reprints material from the Christian Science Monitor and from Jim Hightower's web site.

With my using a wrong email address and the delay of having an open spot, the Reader Weekly published "The Invisible Adam Smith" in the 2013-04-25 issue.

Considering that hundreds of people in the region read most articles in the Reader Weekly, I assume more people have read my article in the Reader than have read my article on the web.  The latter count is 57!!  Since October when I posted it!

So, if you're an obscure blogger like me, you might have more readers if you write for some local print media than if you write a regular blog entry.  That is, paper can still be a more powerful medium than the internet.

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and violence

"But we must ask a question only Muslims can answer: What is going on in your community that a critical number of your youth believes that every American military action in the Middle East is intolerable and justifies a violent response, and everything Muslim extremists do to other Muslims is ignorable and calls for mostly silence?"
- Thomas Friedman, "Judgment not included", New York Times, 2013-04-27

But violence against others is not a Muslim "franchise".  People of all kinds of religious persuasions have turned to violence to promote certain distorted ends.

Christians practiced violence.  The Roman Catholic Church burned people at the stake for supposedly not conforming to the prescribed beliefs.  Torquemada of Spain had many torture devices to get people to admit to being Jewish.  Hitler was never ex-communicated from the Catholic Church.  Catholic Irish who planted bombs were considered heroes by many.  Michael Servetus was "burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council."

Jews have been killing more Arabs than Arabs have been killing Jews: since 2000,  6617 Palestinians vs 1,097 Israelis (including 1,447 vs 129 children).  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict#Cost_of_conflict

Buddhists, supposedly a peaceful group, are attacking Muslims in Burma (Myanmar).  The recent riots of Buddhists against Muslims is only a part of centuries-long list of anti-Muslim events.

And all these perpetrators of violence seem to forget that a tenet of their religions is "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The high cost of low regulations

Corporation after corporation calls for less regulation, but can we trust them to regulate themselves as to consumer and employee safety?  The answer is over century old: "No!"

Think of all the mine disasters because production was more important than worker safety.  Think of the "Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire" over one hundred years ago.  Think of all the auto and food recalls.  Think of the shortcuts that led to the latest BP oil spill

Now the latest is the Bangladesh factory collapse, a collapse a day after police ordered it evacuated: "Western Firms Feel Pressure as Toll Rises in Bangladesh", Julfikar Ali Manik, Steven Greenhouse, and Jim Yardley, New York Times, 2013-04-25.

And there was a deadly fire in a garment factory in Bangladesh in November 2012.  Almost any story you find will have links to other factory disasters in Bangladesh.

All because we in the West look for low prices and corporation after corporation looks for the lowest price manufacturers.  Maybe it's time we double-check what we buy and look for the lowest price executives.

Scientifically we're in deep doo-doo

Sometimes links can lead to very unexpected articles.  I clicked on a link in New York Times Science to an article in Smithsonian Magazine:  "We Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like. Until Now".

From there I clicked in the sidebar on "How Much Do Americans Know About Science" by Terence Monmaney.

The caption below the main picture was "Many Americans think U.S. teens perform even worse on standardized science tests than they actually do, according to a new national survey."

The article asked that readers take a science quiz before continuing.  I took the quiz and found most of the answers obvious.  The only question I hesitated on was what is the most prevalent gas in the atmosphere.

I answered 13 of the 13 questions correctly; something only seven percent of the respondents did.  I found that very disappointing.  Most of the questions one should have been able to answer from high-school science or from reading the newspaper.

If we can't correctly answer simple science questions, can we correctly answer political science questions?  Or economic questions?  Although the answers in these last two disciplines are not as provable as science questions, there are definitely many answers that have been shown to be wrong again and again.  Unfortunately, too many people persist in believing these wrong answers.

Quote of the day: We do not have grown-ups in Washington

Watch "The Economic Argument is Over – And Paul Krugman Won", Daily Ticker, Henry Blodget.

The Bible is unerring?

When the royal printers, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, released their 1631 King James Bible, they dropped a "not" - "Thou shalt commit adultery".  See "To Err is Human: Typos in Literature", ABE Books.

"The Great He Bible" of 1611 has "and he went into the city" in reference to Ruth - Ruth 3:15.  However, if you check http://bible.cc/ruth/3-15.htm you find that some versions use "he" and some use "she".

If typos creep into printed Bibles, how often do mistranslations creep in?  How many mistranslations were done in ignorance and carelessness?  How many mistranslations were done deliberately to put forward a certain viewpoint that was not validated by the original text?

I think the point of Bible study should not be to take every word as literally true but to look for the greater truths among conflicting points of view.  For example, adulterers shall be put to death (Deuteronomy 22:22) compared to "he who is without sin cast the first stone", John 8:7.  One might say that forgiveness is more important than strict punishment for every act that is considered a misdeed.

Nation of laws or nation of revenge?

As expected, several Republican members of Congress don't want Miranda rights read to Dzhogar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston Marathon bomber; they want him tried in a military court as an enemy combatant; and of course, they want the death penalty.

This does not sound like due process for a U. S. citizen; it sounds like revenge is more important.  A nation of laws would be sure that any accused is proven beyond doubt to guilty of the crimes as charged.

As for the death penalty, what does that prove?  That the government believes killing is a solution just as the killer believes killing is a solution to some real or imagined problem.

Finally, whether the Tsarnaev brothers acted out of anger and craziness or they acted for political reasons, executing Dzhogar Tsarnaev will provide Islamists with yet another martyr.

Immigration and leaping to conclusions

“Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system.” - Sen. Charles Grassley, Rep. IA, quoted in "Senator Says Boston Attack Should Factor in Immigration Debate", Ashley Parker and Michael D. Shear, New York Times, 2013-04-19

Let's see, it is a loophole to let teenagers into the U. S. if they are Muslim, if they come from a country with ethnic violence, or…

One brother came at the age of 15.  He was probably somewhat unhappy to be taken away from his friends and never really got over it.  And how many immigrants from wherever come at that age and somehow manage to fit in and have socially satisfying lives?  The other brother came at the age of 8 and seemingly adapted quite well and was popular.  But because he adored his older brother, he probably picked his brother's dissatisfaction and anger.

If we are to close the "gaps and loopholes" on a couple of loopy brothers, maybe we should have never let Italians into the U. S.  Isn't Lanza, the last name of the Newtown terrorist, an Italian name?  And the Mafia is Italian based.  Ah, yes, we should suspect every Italian of being a Mafia member.  But then we wouldn't have had "Woody Woodpecker" to chuckle over, created by Walter Lantz.  Immigration changed his father's name from Francesco Paolo Lanza.  We wouldn't have Ghirardelli chocolates and Jacuzzis and Zambonis.  For hundreds more famous Italian-Americans who enriched our country, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_Americans.

If we are to close the "gaps and loopholes" maybe we should never have let Germans into the U. S.  After all, many German-Americans became spies or apologists for Hitler.  Remember the informant in "Stalag 17".  Unfortunately, if German immigrants had been kept out, I wouldn't be here.  Some readers think this might be a good thing.  Four of my great-grandparents were born in Germany.

Maybe the original inhabitants of this continent should have closed the "gaps and loopholes" that let thousands of English and others in.  The English and others unleashed a reign of terror on the original inhabitants for over three centuries that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee.

As Pete Seeger told it, two Indians watched a ship launch a small boat.  When the boat landed, Columbus stepped out and said, "Buenos días, señores!"  One Indian turned to the other and said, "There goes the neighborhood."

Quote of the day – violence

"And that speculation leads me to wonder about acts of violence against innocent victims cloaked in the language either of religion or nationalism, of Islam or the perceived national interests of the USA, or even of revenge. We 'know' that violence begets violence, yet some/many, of us persist in acting as if planting another bomb (or dropping just one more from a drone) would break the endless cycle."

Comment left by JO to "The Mind of a Terror Suspect", Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 2013-04-19.

Blow's column is a description of the morphing of a "nice kid" into someone with a bigger and bigger chip on his shoulder.

Default Social Security but not China?

A company was founded that used bonds for its financing rather than stocks.  It issued bonds for various lengths of time: short term to smooth cash flow, medium term for starting new projects, and long term for capital improvements such as office buildings and factories.

When it began hiring a large number of people, it started a retirement and disability insurance fund for its employees.  It paid half of the premiums and collected the other half from the employees.  All the premiums purchased short-term bonds of the company.  Essentially, the company used the premiums to smooth its cash flow.

This went on for several decades.  Some employees never collected because they died before retirement.  Others collected for a few decades after retirement.  Few complained about the arrangement.

Then the company hired a new CEO.  He looked at the retirement fund and decided that instead of paying interest on the bonds of the fund, he could use that money to increase his own salary.  He also found a loophole in the decades-old contracts that allowed him to not pay the principle on the bonds.  He could apply it to his own salary.

There was a big hue and cry from current retirees about having their retirement checks reduced, but the votes of the bonds were controlled by the company, not the retirees.

Meanwhile,the holders of the higher interest bonds, the big banks and the foreign governments, including China, were assured that the company would meet its regular interest payments and pay the bonds in full on maturity.

Let's all praise government workers

A favorite sport of too many people is to bash government as inefficient.

Let us consider the many ways that we should be thankful to government.

Let's start with the rather prosaic in Minnesota.  We have had a lot of snow in Minnesota this month.  Schools have been closed and events cancelled.  But the plow operators were out clearing streets and alleys at all hours.  Major streets were opened almost immediately, other streets within a few hours, and alleys within a few hours more.  The plow operators are union city workers that are doing their best to battle nature without damaging parked cars.  Are they greedy union workers or are they people requesting just compensation for the difficult work they do?

A favorite target of many anti-government people is the U.S. Postal Service.  Sometime after nine I got busy on the walkway around our house.  I wanted to make sure our carrier didn't have much difficulty.  I saw her park almost in front of our house rather than down the street, just about on her usual schedule. Before I could even get to the front walk, Sara came trudging up the steps in nine-inch drifts.  She said that if she hadn't seen me, she would have waited until tomorrow to deliver our mail, none of it urgent.  Maybe regulations don't cover her discretion, but she was making a very good effort at delivering important mail in a timely fashion for all on her route.

Then there is the big government operation in Boston.  It is just amazing how the federal, state, and local criminal investigation bureaucracies worked through thousands of pieces of information to determine who the prime suspects were, locate them, and fatally wound one of them.  As I write this, the other is apparently cornered in a boat in somebody's yard.  All of this in less than a week.

Fake Republicans

"A Fake Republican mistakes conformism for conservatism, forgetting that the history of true conservatism (in the Burkian tradition) rest[s] on intelligent and thoughtful non-conformism distilled from independent thinking, careful analysis, and tradition—and not the spewings of pre-determined talking points that ignore evidence, facts, and rationality."

-Michael Charney, Tea with the Mad Hatter

Michael Charney has a blog "Chasing Glenn Beck, An Incredibly Minor Public Figure".   Charney also contributes to the Coffee Party http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/ where he is known the Coffee Party Conservative.

I highly recommend "Tea with the Mad Hatter" as a refreshing attempt to get some sanity back into politics.

As for the conservatism of Edmund Burke, see several of his quotes at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edmund_burke.html.  Included among them are:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." (not in writings, but may be a paraphrase)
"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

Check the data of those claiming proof of whatever

Many are claiming that high national debt leads to a decline in growth.  According to Mike Konczal, this claim is based on a paper whose results cannot be replicated by other economists.  See "Shocking Paper Claims That Microsoft Excel Coding Error Is Behind the Reinhart-Rogoff Study On Debt",  Business Insider, 2013-04-16.  Among other things, the authors of the study have not released the data they used to determine their results and that they didn't use comparable data from one country to another.

Unfortunately, "This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity budget states their study 'found conclusive empirical evidence that [debt] exceeding 90 percent of the economy has a significant negative effect on economic growth.'"  And the Washington Post considered it a consensus view of economists!

But the debate doesn't end here.  See also "New Research Undermines The GOP's Austerity Agenda", Jeff Spross, Think Progress, 2013-04-16 and the rebuttal from Reinhart and Rogoff, "Critique of Our Work Still Confirms What We Found on High US Debt", Rob Wile, Business Insider, 2013-04-16.

Terrorists win the skirmishes but not the war

Terrorists never win in the long run where there is a strong functioning government and a sense of community.  Dennis Lehane wrote a beautiful op-ed on the resiliency of Boston.  See "Messing with the Wrong City", New York Times, 2013-04-16.

President Obama calls U.S. a terrorist nation

Well, he didn't directly say that the U.S. is a terrorist nation, but he didn't choose his words carefully in response to the Boston Marathon terrorism.

First, let me back up to my first knowledge of this meaningless act.

One of my earliest reactions was when Rep. John Boehner called it a terrorist act.  I read the subtext as an "Islamist terrorist act."  I don't know if that was his intention or not, but he certainly gave me the impression that was what he meant.

Some authorities were reluctant at first to call the bombing a terrorist attack, but I don't think there is any other definition for it.  Sandy Hook was a terrorist attack; the Boston Marathon was a terrorist attack.  The whole object of these and many others is to frighten, maim, and kill a large number of people.

Given that nobody has claimed any responsibility, my guess is that someone who was disqualified from the Marathon might have done this out of spite.  Whoever it was and for whatever reason, I hope the authorities can track that person down, for no other reason than some sense of closure for the victims who lost their lives or who have had their lives drastically altered.

President Obama said the right words under the circumstances, but some of them may haunt him and other politicians later:

 “This was a heinous and cowardly act, and given what we know about what took place, the F.B.I. is investigating it as an act of terrorism.”  “Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terror.”

“What we don’t yet know, however, is who carried out this attack or why,” the president said, “whether it was planned and executed by a terrorist organization, foreign or domestic, or was the act of a malevolent individual. That’s what we don’t yet know.”

- "Obama Calls Blasts an 'Act of Terrorism'", Mark Landler, New York Times, 2013-04-16

So, Mr. President, if bombs targeting innocent civilians are acts of terror, what are missiles shot by drones into occupied dwellings?  What are missiles shot from ships into cities?  What are atomic bombs dropped from planes or sent by guided or ballistic missiles?  Are these weapons only taking out "bad guys" or are a lot of people who have no control over the bad guys just going to be "collateral damage"?  We certainly don't want to think of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombs as being "collateral damage" for somebody's grudge against Boston or against the United States.

Acronym of the day: GOP

In his online essay "The United States of Inequality", Bill Moyers gives another meaning of GOP - Guardians of Privilege.

In the same essay, he also castigates the Democrats for being willing to make cuts to Social Security.  He puts a wry emphasis on "Security".

I was right to be positive about a negative

This morning my urologist called me.  He was pleased to tell me that there was no sign of cancer in the biopsies of my prostate.  See "The Impatient Outpatient".  However, he wants to see me again next February and his staff called me back with a specific date.

Where are my get-young pills?

Ah, this is a good place to stick in my notes about Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth.  Ponce did not discover Florida.  "By 1513, when Ponce de Léon first arrived, so many Europeans had visited Florida that some Indians greeted him in Spanish."  The fountain of youth at St. Augustine was concocted by Washington Irving over 300 years later.  See "Ponce de León, Exposed", T. Allman, New York Times, 2013-04-01.

About the only Fountains of Youth are to pick long-lived grandparents, don't smoke, drink moderately, eat your vegetables, and exercise regularly.  I've failed at some time or another on all five, but I have followed the second for over 30 years and I try to follow the last three every day.  Plus I have Magree's push-up rule of longevity - you'll live as many years more as you can do pushups.  I have been doing between 22 and 26 most mornings.  See "The Magree Inexpensive Heart Stress Test".

"Free marketers" rail against free markets again

"Think Those Chemicals Have Been Tested?" Ian Urbina, New York Times, 2013-04-13

Think again!  "[T]he overwhelming majority of chemicals in use today have never been independently tested for safety."

The American Chemistry Council "has also argued that the bill risks raising costs, squelching innovation and putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage."  Raising whose costs?  The industry's costs or those of individuals and health insurance companies?

So much for the full information of a free market and once again "this order of men" seeks to "deceive and oppress the public".

See"Humpty Dumpty and Free Markets" and "The Invisible Adam Smith".