We are corporate guinea pigs!

"Let's stop allowing them to conduct the largest genetics experiment in the history of mankind." "Gun violence and good food", Blake Donley, Star Tribune, 2012-12-37

This opinion piece is a good rant about how so many people are ranting about this and that, but few are offering any real solutions.  Donley's point in this paragraph is that large corporations are poisoning our water and food with "toxic compounds, toxic chemicals, and toxic organisms".

As I wrote elsewhere, all this is done without any real research into how people and the environment will be affected.  See "GMO producers don't want free markets".

How we got "Mother Goose and Grimm"

Since my two most popular blog entries have been about Mike Peter's last two Mother Goose and Grimm "Twelve days of Christmas", I thought that some of you would like to know more about him.  From www.grimmy.com I found a link to an interesting article in the St. Louis Dispatch:

"Mike Peters: The Man Behind Mother Goose and Grimm: Mike Peters extracts humor from catastrophe, political angst, private fears, and a goose's pet dog…", by Jeannette Cooperman.

English speakers should be the best linguists

Read the following out loud:

With one statement he charred Charlene's character.

Anybody who has learned to deal with three different pronunciations of "cha" really should have the mental tools to learn bits and pieces of many languages.

Corporate Entitlements

For a neat interactive map of state-by-state corporate subsidies, see "Explore Government Subsidies" by Louise Story, Tiff Fehr, and Derek Watkins, New York Times.

It also has data by corporation.

How I nearly spoiled our Christmas

We sang in the early Christmas Eve service last night and had the soup and bread dinner between the services.  The dinner almost didn't happen because nobody had been appointed to take charge of it.  My wife did a lot of calling around and found many volunteers to bring food, serve it, and clean up afterward.  She told me that she would help set up and then let others clean up.

Well, it didn't work out that way.  After I ate and chatted with a few people, I put on my coat.  The second service started and my wife was still in the kitchen.  We also wound up bringing home the tablecloths to wash.

I was irritated; I still had presents to wrap and a few other things I wanted to do at home.

When we arrived home I made a few trips between the garage and house with things we wouldn't have had if we had left right after we ate.  The last thing I brought in was the big bundle of tablecloths.  My wife said I should just drop them down the laundry chute, but I said I would rather just take them downstairs.

This shouldn't be a problem.  I frequently take heavy boxes of firewood to the basement.  A box of tablecloths should be easy.  This despite that my vision is blocked with either the firewood or the tablecloths.

I got to the last step and caught the heel of my boot.  Forward I pitched.  I think I dropped the tablecloths.  My right knee slammed into the concrete floor and I rolled onto my back.  Oh, great!

My knee was sore, but otherwise seemed OK.  My pants weren't ripped, but there was a sheen that wasn't there before.

I picked myself up, put the tablecloths by the washing machine, and went back upstairs on my own power.  But I was even more irritated for having to stay later at church than I had planned.

Well, I did get the presents wrapped, and I did get some of the other tasks done that I had planned.  I also slept rather well, even if sugar plums weren't dancing in my head.

When I woke up this morning, my knee was not the color of a plum and I could walk OK.  Whew!  I won't be in the hospital with a broken knee cap or anything else.  Bring on the presents!  Raise our voices on high in song!  Serve the punch!  Merry Christmas!

Quote of the day - Health care costs

Well, not quite of today.  I'm just trying to make a dent in my backlog of notes.

"How does Medicaid achieve these lower costs? Partly by having much lower administrative costs than private insurers. It’s always worth remembering that when it comes to health care, it’s the private sector, not government programs, that suffers from stifling, costly bureaucracy."
- "Medicaid on the ballot", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2012-10-29.

For some counter arguments, see "Krugman Flunks Health Econ 101", John Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis, 2012-11-05 http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-flunks-health-econ-101/

One thing critics ignore about private sector versus government programs is that government doesn't have CEOs taking home eight-figure salaries and other perks.

Energy – picking winners and losers

"In addition to legislative aid, Excelsior also has received a large share of financial assistance from the public sector. The company received about $22 million in development funds from the U.S. Department of Energy before the federal agency decided to cut off its support for the morphing project this summer. Initially, Excelsior had been slated to receive $36 million in support of the “clean coal” technology it aimed to develop, but the federal agency chose to stop its funding $14 million shy of that original earmark when Excelsior’s focus shifted to natural gas."

– "Key land auction for Excelsior Energy slated for today", Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune, 2012-12-19

See also "Report: Excelsior Energy project could run out of gas", Minnesota Public Radio, 2011-08-23.

Rather than decry all these subsidies, the Minnesota State Legislature passed a law in 2008 that made the financial records reported to state agencies secret.

It is interesting that many hold alternative energy companies to a different standard than fossil fuel companies.  In the one case it is crony capitalism on the part of government, and in the other case it is creating jobs. "'At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting attenders have gotten jobs,' said Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, the only Iron Range legislator who opposes the project."  See MPR article.

NRA wants to raise your taxes

The NRA proclaims that having police officers in all schools will prevent more shootings.  Is the NRA willing to pay the taxes for tens of thousands of police officers?

There are about 99,000 public K-12 schools in the U.S. and the average police officer is paid about $50,000.  That's nearly five billion dollars.  If there are an average of two school shootings per year, that's over two billion dollars to prevent a single school shooting.  Would the NRA agree to a sales tax on guns to pay for these police officers?

Over ten million guns were sold in the U.S in 2011.  To fund the NRA's protection plan would require a $500 tax on each gun sale.  I doubt the NRA would accept that tax.

There were 93 million children enrolled in public schools in 2010.  If we taxed the parents for police officers in their children's schools, that would be about $54 per child.  So, all parents would be required to pay $54 per child so that the NRA can keep gun regulations to a minimum.  Sounds fair, not!

However, what would be assurance that said police officers would reduce school shooting deaths to zero?  The NRA is watching too many westerns where the good guys can shoot an apple out a tree, even from the hip!  The reality is that many police officers themselves are victims of mass murderers.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the first police officer on the scene at the Ft. Hood mass shooting, is a member of a SWAT team and an advanced firearms instructor.  Maj. Hassan, the shooter, wounded her at least twice, and supposedly he was able to kick her gun out of her reach.  Whether she wounded him sufficiently to subdue him or her partner did so is not clear from what I read.

In another case, New York Police wounded nine bystanders trying to take down a gunman on a city street.

The NRA also claims that more armed citizens will prevent mass murders.  In the Arizona shooting in which Rep. Gabby Giffords was wounded, one armed citizen almost shot the wrong person in the melee.

Several commentators are pointing out that the NRA is not so much about the right to bear arms but the right of gun makers to sell arms.

Mike Peters' "Twelve Days of Christmas" puns for 2012

Mike Peters, creator of "Mother Goose and Grimm" is at again with his puns on "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  As I write this, he is on the Eighth day of Christmas.  If your newspaper doesn't carry "Mother Goose and Grimm", you can find his comics at his web site.

I was led to write this for a couple of reasons.

First, my blog entry "For word nerds only" from last December has been getting several hits a week and a common set of keywords used is "mother goose" "grimm" "twelve days" "Christmas".  This particular set puts this blog entry first of over 25,000!!!

Second, we stopped buying paper copies of the newspaper.  The online versions of the Duluth News Tribune and Star Tribune don't carry the same comics as the print edition, and even then, you have to click on the individual listing of a comic to see the current panel.  It's almost enough to get me back to the print edition.  Oh, yes, with the Star Tribune eEdition I can get a copy of the comic section.  It does take a bit more effort than scanning the paper copy, but I do have all the comics in one place.  Shall I call the Star Tribune eEdition my Christmas present to myself: two chortle doves?  Or "my blue glove waved to me"!

And another interesting tidbit!  When you pass the cursor over today's Google logo, it shows "200th Anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales".

Quote of the day: Gun Control

"Why is voting & adjusting my Facebook settings harder than buying a semi-automatic?"
"The K Chronicles" by Keith Knight, 2012-12-19, http://www.gocomics.com/thekchronicles/2012/12/19

For many of your favorite comics, see http://www.gocomics.com/feature for alphabetic listing of many popular comics.

Climate change - can you catch the typo?

"The annual rise of 17 billion tons [of atmospheric carbon] translates into a rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Each additional 7.8 billion tons is equivalent to one part per million in the atmosphere, so that an extra 17 tons each year is equivalent to a rise of roughly two parts per million."
- Common Wealth, p. 92, Jeffrey D. Sachs

Hint: The word "billion" is missing in one place.

Hint: If the amount of carbon dioxide needed to add 2ppm is what he wrote, then the earth would have become a desert already.

The moral: Once you proofread something you wrote, proofread it again.  I caught at least one in what I typed above!

Helping the sick and injured is age-old

Many hunter-gatherer cultures helped those who could not contribute fully.  Many of us have read stories about hunter-gatherer cultures caring for the elderly and healing the sick, but do we know how much they cared for those younger who could never contribute a great deal to the group?

As it is, archeologists have found cases of primitive societies caring for people that couldn't even feed themselves or could not keep up as the group traveled.  See "Ancient Bones that Tell a Story of Compassion", James Gorman, New York Times, 2012-12-17.

The archeologists, Lorna Tilley and Mark Oxenham, ask "what care for the sick and injured says about the culture that provided it."

These pre-historic cultures were close-knit communities that knew all of their members.  It is hard not to care for those in a small community.  But what happens as the community becomes larger, more diverse, and more dispersed?  Children move to another city or even another country.  People associate more with those at the factory or office than they do with people on their own block.  Driving out the garage and down the street we may not even meet many of our neighbors.  We don't know who is sick and disabled.  Even when we know our own neighbors, we aren't aware of all of their problems.  It took a mail carrier asking a neighbor about my step-father before anybody realized that he had died.

Even when we know a neighbor is ill, do we have the skills needed to care for the neighbor?  Our expectations of health-care are much higher than in pre-historic times.  In the last few centuries, charitable groups established hospitals to take care of people who couldn't be cared for at home.  But our expectations became even higher and many of those groups could not raise sufficient funds to give care to all who needed it.  Hospitals needed to charge all comers in order to have the funds; those without enough money often did without needed care.

If we are to replicate in today's dispersed societies the attention given to the sick and injured in primitive societies, wouldn't we need to have universal health care?  We still must ask "what care for the sick and injured says about the culture that provided it."  We certainly have many politicians who are more concerned with guaranteeing people access to guns than guaranteeing people access to health care.

The opportunity cost of freeways

"Opportunity cost" is an economic term to describe the cost of spending money one way instead of another.  Consider the penchant for "across the board cuts" in government spending.  If a family were to do that say with "across the board cuts" in its grocery spending, the kids would suffer.  That is, if Dad cut his beer spending by 25% and the spending on milk by 25%, then the opportunity cost of Dad's beer would be less healthy children.

Every time I drive through the mammoth interchange of I-35 and I-694 in the Twin Cities, I think of all the houses or farms that could be in that space.  I think of all the property tax that has been lost so people ever farther out can get between here and there in a "minimum" amount of time.  Could the lost tax revenue have gone into more public transportation, moving more people with less space?  If public transportation was more widely used, would more people spend less time in traffic when weather conditions make driving difficult?  I'm sure you can think of many more costs associated with complex highways that could be better spent elsewhere.

Disconnect on subsidies

Why is it bad to subsidize an industry such as wind or solar but it is all right to subsidize a company for locating in a particular spot?

There are many who call for an end to subsidies for alternative energy, but do they complain about subsidies for fossil fuel companies?  For example, Sasol is getting a $2 billion subsidy from Louisiana to build a gas-to-liquid plant.  See "Sasol Betting Big on Gas-to-Liquid Technology",  John M. Broder and Clifford Krauss, New York Times, 2012-12-17.

I wonder if any economist has ever done a long-term study on the value of subsidies.  I know there have been subsidies to get companies to locate in a particular city or state, and many companies abandon that city or state before the locality has even recouped its investment.  I also know that government subsidies have transformed the economy mostly for the benefit of many.  Lincoln called for subsidies to the transcontinental railroad which greatly improved the U.S. economy.  Would we have computers and the Internet without many other government subsidies?

What we really need are some metrics that show whether a government subsidy will provide a huge social benefit or will only be a drain that lines the pockets of a few.

Pistol-packing principals?

"Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, was the sole representative of gun rights' activists on the various Sunday talk shows. In an interview on 'Fox News Sunday,' Gohmert defended the sale of assault weapons and said that the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who authorities say died trying to overtake the shooter, should herself have been armed.

"'I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands. But she takes him (the shooter) out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids, Gohmert said.'"

- "Senators call for ban on assault weapons, want commission to examine gun laws, mental health", Anne Flaherty , Associated Press  Updated: December 16, 2012 - 2:52 PM

Do we really want to live in a country where every citizen is armed?  Do we have to add weapons training to the curricula of our schools of education?  When I went to high school in the 1950s, we didn't even have cops in the schools.  What has changed in our country?  Maybe it was too many westerns in which the hero was always the fastest draw and the most accurate shot.  For a couple of more realistic views, see "Myth of the Hero Gunslinger" and "How the Gunfighter Killed Bourgeois America".

As for the proposed year-and-a-half waiting period "to discuss this volatile matter" the U.S. has been averaging two mass murders per year for the last thirty years.  "And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally."

- "11 facts about U.S. gun massacres", Ezra Klein, Washington Post  Updated: December 15, 2012 - 7:10 PM, retrieved from Star Tribune

Strange remarks on gun control

On the Connecticut shooting, a letter to the Star Tribune included:

"To discuss this very volatile matter, we need to wait until we have a period of, say, a year and a half with no mass killings that come about as a result of gun sales and ownership."
- http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/183584251.html

I wonder if the writer considered that "a year and a half with no mass killings" is about the same as never.  First, unfortunately there will be some copycat killings.  Second, what does he define as "mass killings", more than two dozen victims, more than a dozen, more than six?  This writer also thought that the killer could have killed as many with a club and feet!

We really should have been having intelligent conversations how to reduce the number of killings, no matter how many are killed by no matter how many.  But, no, we have the National Rifle Association (NRA) raising political hell on any restrictions of unlimited availability of guns and a few less politically powerful calling for complete restrictions.

I wish some Constitutional scholars would really take on the meaning of the Second Amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Many argue that the single-shot "Arms" of the time were nowhere near as lethal as the large-magazine automatic pistols of today.  Unfortunately, few argue about the choice of words for who has the right to bear arms or for what purpose.

First, the purpose in the Second Amendment is "the security of a free State", not the "defense of home or self".  Many claim that the Constitution gives them the right to have arms to defend their home.  That is common law, the so-called "castle doctrine", not constitutional law.  Given the times, I venture that this was meant for communities on the frontier to defend themselves against Indian attack or foreign invasions.

Second, please note the choice of words to describe who has the "right to bear arms" - "the people", not persons or citizens.  The writers used "the people" only twice in the original Constitution: "We, the People" in the preamble and "The House of Representative shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People..." in Article I, Section 2.  That is, "people" is a collective noun.  Otherwise, when writing about individuals, the writers used "person" or "citizen" in the singular or plural form as appropriate.

I do find it ironic that the party that wants a strict interpretation of the Constitution gives such a loose interpretation to the Second Amendment.  This same party completely ignores the parts of the Constitution that state office holders need only give an oath (or affirmation) to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." - Article II, Section 1, and Article VI.  Article VI also includes "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  It would seem the political pressure to attend prayer breakfasts or to end speeches with "God Bless America" are certainly violations of the Constitution.

The strange workings of our minds

My wife has read many Janet Evanovich novels.  She mentioned that the story line used to be clever and tight but has become just raunchy.  She said the main character, Stephanie Plum, was a bounty hunter, but at the moment she had the wrong idea of a bounty hunter, thinking mostly about animals.  In bits and pieces I pulled out of my own mind that a bounty hunter was a person who tracked down those who jump bail.  They are hired by bondsmen but have to get a receipt of the capture from the police.

I said I had seen a movie about this, I remember the bondsman kept his money in his socks and the bounty hunter was played by Robert DeNiro.  Then it came to me that the movie was "Midnight Run".  I checked Google and one of the top entries was the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Run.

The movie was produced in 1988 and I probably watched it on VHS in the early '90s.  I didn't remember all the details given in the Wikipedia synopsis, but I did remember that the bail jumper got away (or was let go) and that DeNiro's competitor had gotten DeNiro's credit card cancelled.

I don't claim any particular genius in remembering these long-ago details; most of us have these same capabilities.  They are just so hit and miss.  We can't remember the name of somebody we met yesterday, but we remember the name of somebody we haven't seen in decades.

I think David Eagleman got it right with "Incognito: The Hidden Lives of the Brain".  There are so many processes going on in our brains of which we are not aware.  See "Memory and coincidence".

Quote of the Day - Entitlements

"Social Security and Medicare aren't entitlements. They're subsidies to companies that do not sufficiently cover the health care and retirement needs of their employees."
- Gary Peterson, Letter, Star Tribune, 2012-11-24

But companies often more than sufficiently cover the health care and retirement needs of their executives.  See "Let's Look at Entitlements".

A different idea for capital gains tax

Many don't want capital gains to be taxed any amount, even if a stock was bought and sold in seconds.  But how does such a short term profit make any real contribution to the economy compared to an hourly worker producing a tangible product such as vegetables or automobiles?

We really should tax capital gains on a sliding scale.  Securities held for less than a year should be taxed at the same rate as earnings.  Securities held for more than a year should be taxed at a progressively lower rate until securities held for, say, ten years should be taxed at zero percent.

Of course, we are still rewarding people for luck at throwing darts more than people who show up for work everyday.

I'm probably preaching to the choir on this.  I've been writing for some time on this and you can see how much it's caught on.

See "Let's do away with capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and estate taxes by…" or do a search for "Irregular Blog" and "Capital Gains".

Remember Tom Lehrer?

He's still around and has a web site http://www.tomlehrer.org.  I'm not sure how much is his doing and how much is a tribute to him.  I do know it includes a clip of Daniel Radcliffe singing the elements song.  Puff!  Puff!

For more on Tom Lehrer see Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer.

Garrison Keillor and the Prairie Home Companion are keeping some of his songs going.  This past Saturday the Digiallonardo Sisters did Tom Lehrer's "Hanukkah in Santa Monica".