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Friday, January 29, 2010A Tribute to J.D. SalingerWednesday, January 27, 2010Yeah on Ending DADTObama deserves big applause for asserting he will work with Congress to end Do Not Ask Do Not Tell. It was a politically risky but important thing to do from both a civil rights and and national security perspective. We have drummed out of the military Arabic speakers because they are gay. Sometime later this year such stupidity and monstrosities will end. Good for Obama. State of Public ServiceI heard only bits and pieces of Obama's speech but one part I did hear was his call for forgiving debt for students after 20 years and after only 10 years for those that enter public service. Why is public service held with greater esteem than private sector work? There is no evidence it is more valuable or helps more people. It reflects Obama's values and those in the majority party that work which does not entail making a profit is somehow more noble or valuable. It is a bad message to send and counterproductive to our economy. More Matter Over MindIt's updated below but since I misunderstood the Obama spending freeze proposal I attacked yesterday it's worth noting that apparently what Obama is proposing is not an across the board freeze but instead its a freeze on total spending and he will specify which programs go up and which go down undert the total. We await the details. Matter over MindObama is apparently going to propose a spending freeze in his state of the union address. Few policy prescriptions are more annoying than this. Proposing an across the board spending freeze is an assertion that all spending is equal, that in a time of great deficits we will not establish priorities. It's a proposal worthy of ridicule. Update: Apparently what Obama is proposing is not an across the board freeze but instead its a freeze on total spending and he will specify which programs go up and which go down under the total. We await the details. Tuesday, January 26, 2010Solutions to our ProblemsVia MarginalRevolution, here's an interesting approach to dealing with our debt and deficit problems. His big items are establishing a VAT, abolishing the income tax and increasing the payroll tax for the wealthy. He tackles the revenue side more than the spending side. Monday, January 25, 2010Coco!Friday, January 22, 2010Late Night VideosThe Late Night Show War continues which reminds me of a certain Larry Bud Melman. The Video of the Week: In Case You Were WonderingThursday, January 21, 2010Kurzweil predictionsAn interesting conversation is taking place at Accelerating Future on predictions by Ray Kurzweil about 2009 that he made writing the book Age of Spiritual Machines. The book was published in 1998 but he wrote it in the 1996/7 time period. Earlier, Michael Anissmov took Kurzweil to task for wrong predictions. Kurzweil strikes back in a letter defending most of his predictions and says he is working on an essay that will go into more detail about those predictions. When Kurzweil goes wrong it's usually because he gets the sociology wrong (people don't particularly want speech to text technology that much). My guess is he will be wrong on some of his health/biological predictions made in The Singularity is Near because he underestimates the complexity of the human body. All that being said, he's also been right about quite a few things. Wednesday, January 20, 2010Scared of ChangeKevin Drum has an interesting take on the Massachussett's election:
Our system is designed so that massive, quick change is unlikely. With the world transforming faster nowadays, it will be interesting to see if the system that has served us so well the last 200+ years will continue to suffice going forward. Tuesday, January 19, 2010Very Bad if True
The story sounds entirely plausible with the exception that it seems like too many people would have known about it to keep it secret for this long. But, if true, arrests are in order. Friday, January 15, 2010Video of the WeekWords to PonderFrom Tyler Cowen: Very rapidly, President Obama needs to come to terms with the idea that the country of Haiti, as we knew it, probably does not exist any more. Thursday, January 14, 2010Haiti Donation SitesThis has some pretty good information on where to donate to help the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti. Wednesday, January 13, 2010ConanI've never been a huge fan of Conan O'Brien but his statement regarding NBC's craziness is a stellar display of common sense, grace and intelligence. Tuesday, January 12, 2010Comments on McGuireTwo things come to mind. First, what does McGuire mean by this in his statement?
Why not. Why couldn't he come clean five years ago? Why couldn't he come clean last year? Why is today different? Is it merely because he has to so he can obtain the job with the Cardinals? It's a bizarre statement he makes and someone should ask him about it. Mark McGuire is still a weasel near as I can tell. Second, I agree with Andrew Sullivan that the use of PEDs is far worse in football with far greater health consequences. Football players have become so large that they risk huge injuries hitting each other. Baseball players using PEDs just distort historical statistics. Football players distort brains in big collisions. Why football has gotten a pass and baseball is continually crucified I've never understood. Actually, I have a third thought: as medicine advances and humans continue to enhance themselves, twenty or thirty years from now the steroid argument will seem odd. Monday, January 11, 2010Retails Sales May not be up
We learn from John Mauldin that the stats we see on the news about retail sales being up are based on surveys. Mauldin says a more accurate indicator is state sales taxes. When sales tax revenue is up so are retail sales. So, I checked Washington state's sales tax revenue. As one would expect it is down year over year. Perhaps more distressing is five out of the last six months it's been down month over month. For example, December sales tax revenue was lower than November and November was lower than October. Retail sales may not have recovered at all which is not a good sign for the economy going forward.
Friday, January 08, 2010Invention!So I'm not an engineer or anything but when I read about the Microsoft tablet computer at CES or the tablet Apple is expected to release later in January I don't get it. What will the tablet do for me that my iPhone doesn't? I wouldn't use a tablet to read books for the same reason I don't use a laptop for that purpose. Unlike the Kindle, a tablet won't be using electronic ink and so it will be too hard on the eyes for reading books. Instead of a tablet why doesn't someone come out with a hybrid tablet/reader. On one side would be a screen using electronic ink without backlighting ala the Kindle or Nook or Sony Reader. One would read books like I do on my Kindle using that side of the device. On the back side would be a touch screen like the iPhone. One would us that screen for surfing the web, answering email, reading blogs and so forth. One of the beautiful things about the Kindle is it uses very little battery power so you don't need to re-charge for up to 10 days at a time. When using the Kindle-like side of my new device, the other side would be turned off so that the device would be battery efficient. Wouldn't this be a money winner? Isn't this something that people would be much more likely to buy than a tablet? Thursday, January 07, 2010Edgar MartinezThose writers who didn't vote for Edgar Martinez for the Hall of Fame may as well have stapled a note to their forehead reading "I'm an ignorant fool who knows nothing about baseball." Tuesday, January 05, 2010Chicken and EggVia Kevin Drum we see Ben Bernanke continues to assert the housing bubble was a result of our current account deficit and not anything the fed did like keep interest rates too low for too long. The idea is there was so much money flowing in the world that it had to park itself somewhere and that somewhere was our housing market (and those in Spain, Britain and other places with current account deficits). But where did this big flow of money originate? Americans were buying things with money they didn't have. We over leveraged ourselves and an argument could be made that this was in part due to the Fed keeping interest rates too low and overheating the economy as well as making credit to cheap. I think Bernanke is in search of an answer that leads away from a major culprit of our problems. I don't find his graph or argument at all convincing. Monday, January 04, 2010The Coming DecadeThis is a pretty good list to start with of what may be coming our way over the next decade. I expect by 2020 cancer will be a manageable disease, self-driving cars will be on the road (although perhaps not in mass quantity yet), solar power will be cost competitive and the Seattle Mariners will have won a World Series. Only this last prediction could be considered fanciful. Hey, it's 2010That was a nice holiday break. Saw some movies--Up in the Air was way overrated, Avatar dull except for special effects, Fabulous Mr. Fox was fabulous--many friends and family--almost all of whom were fabulous--and took care of some projects. Now back to the grindstone. I have a couple books to finish writing, some big work challenges and some new opportunities to chase. And, we've got a lot to discuss around these here parts. Let's get crack'in.
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