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| Sunday, August 16th, 2009 | | 12:09 pm |
Low hanging fruit
In 2005 then-senators Obama and Clinton joined Senators Kennedy, Frist, Corwyn, Santorum,l and 30 others to introduce a health care improvmentment bill (S 1418 ) that, by the following summer, had passed the Senate 100-0. A similar bill passed the House (HR 4157) with 380 votes. Then President Bush anticipated passage and issued an Executive Order enabling many of the bills' requirements, such that the process could be "jump started". Congress failed to reconcile the Senate and House versions in committee and the effort died. The 110th Congress attempted it again in 2007 and didn't get a similar bill out of commit Anybody care to explain, or guess, why a necessary and desirable change with massive bi-partisen support that Senator Obama sponsored in 2005 is NOT on his agenda under his presidency? Is the Bush Executive Order another, like Gitmo and the "faith based initiatives" has renewed -- and is that better or worse than fighting for legislative change? I dunno. In a quasi-business environment where there is money to be made or costs to be avoided and the "stakeholders" are all lined up and signed up on board to go, the situation is described as "low hanging fruit". It gets plucked and the lucky plucker gets credit for the win. Illinois legislator Obama lined up several such quick wins in his career there. Bills that had come up before but failed for silly procedural problems got re-introduced and passed, again, then signed by a supporting executive. In fact Obama's critics assert that most of his "wins" in that legislature were of the "low hanging fruit" variety. On the other hand, he got 'em done. I can't help but wonder what might have happened if he had pushed harder for a quick win and the low fruit -- earning some additional public approval and political capital -- before trying to reform the entire health care industry. | | Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 | | 6:37 pm |
Sovereign Immunity and US bureaucrats
In the late 19th century the US taxed rich people who bought the luxury of long distance telephone service. Congress argued the tax was necessary to pay for the war -- the Spanish American War. A century later taxpayers noticed the phone company was not billing them in the fashion of the 1890's -- and the tax law did not pertain. The IRS disagreed. The courts, after some high powered lawyers figured out how to get the question before the bench, agreed with the taxpayers. A decade after the problem was identified, the IRS was still defying the courts, and holding tax moeny that should be refunded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_taxhttp://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-5106.pdfthe court held In sum, the IRS unlawfully expropriated billions of dollars from taxpayers, conceded the illegitimacy of its actions, and developed a mandatory process as the sole avenue by which the agency would consider refunding its ill-gotten gains. It cannot avoid judicial review of that process by simply designating it a policy statement. ... Taxpayers bear a heavy burden when pursuing refund claims, but we have yet to demand clairvoyance. ... I love the IRS, as an example of the professionalism and competence one can expect of federal public servants. | | Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 | | 8:57 pm |
Dinner table conversation
Note the new Pouncers refer to the film incarnations of the characters ... Legolas, or Susan Pevensie? Gandalf or Dumbledore? Yoda or Gimli? | | Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | | 8:35 pm |
*sigh* Such a short summary and such a tedious explanation...
Politics – Effective. Voters have replaced six of seven trustees on the local school board since 2005. The newer board quickly acted to terminate the superintendent’s contract. The chief business officer was persuaded to resign. The Public Relations Specialist has resigned. In this school district all board seats are localized, none "at large". So the board elections all had low turnout -- a few hundred voters each. One could, now, take the trouble to purchase public-data Dallas County voting records from prior years, say 2000 to present. A dedicated person could run some spreadsheets and do some business-like data analysis, and might detect a small group of voters who had typically voted only the fall -- in state and national races. Post-election analysis would indicate these voters had recently, for some reason, decided to make an unusual effort to turn out for the spring, local, elections. The data might also reveal in 2006 and later elections the appearance of newly registered voters -- less than a dozen, but a greater fraction than in prior election years -- turning out for their first election in the spring. Working with the spreadsheets and numbers the hypothetical after-action analyst might conclude that "new/spring" voters -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- appear to have voted as a bloc for new trustees. The whole analysis exercise could be good fun, if a hypothetical person happened to be inclined to such entertainments to begin with. It might be sort of like how Bill James views baseball. Spreadsheets, like video games, get better every year. On the other hand, "safe" seats supported by a solid "base" just aren't what they used to be. Perceived (blush) discrepancies in the school district’s finances did lead to a state agency audit last year. The confirmation of alleged problems resulted in a state-selected financial conservator who has been in place a full year. He, and the new business officer, are still digging into accounting “errors” in the local school construction funds. These errors were documented by investigators acting on tips and analysis provided -- well, modesty forbids. And finally, in another consequence of mistakes uncovered ( curls fingers, buffs nails on lapel) in 2006, the IRS has reviewed district travel records and is demanding back taxes. Roughly 170 employee files are being reviewed. Travelers who filed receipts indicating actual expenses greater than cash advances -- the vast majority -- have no problem. However, those who neglected to provide receipts, or those who receipted less expense than cash advanced --and pocketed the difference -- are now on the hook. One particular employee was (a) advanced DOUBLE the daily rate of every other employee and (b) traveled vastly more often than other employees and (c) seemed to believe that since he approved everyone else's receipts his own were, by definition, always approved without further record or processing. That (former) employee was mistaken on point (c) and in consequence may have a severe tax problem this month under points (a) and (b). If there is a general lesson for public officials in all this, it may be: Don't piss on patient people who actually enjoy arithmetic. | | Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | | 6:51 pm |
still catching up -- the long list continues
Hobbies. Whelming. I mentioned overflowing bookshelves? We enjoy acquiring books. (Distinct from, of course, “collecting” books. The idea of collecting would imply a degree of discrimination we have no talent or inclination to apply.) We’re good at it. All five of us, now. Library cull or donation sales, bookfaires, garage sales, truckload remainder sales … I should have realized, I suppose, that like alcoholism or physical abuse, a parent’s vices are imposed upon the family. When I, myself, was bringing home a cubic foot or so of printed matter every month or so, the situation was manageable. Get a new bookshelf for Christmas or birthdays and carry on. Now there are five readers in the family, with distinct and differing tastes. And there is a certain synergy: each of us delights in finding something that, maybe, suits the tastes of another. Or maybe not, but why not bring the book home and find out? And even it such a thing is not ENTIRELY to one’s taste and one might not have, oneself, brought it home, one can’t bear to get rid of a book that (a) is PRETTY CLOSE and (b) was a PRESENT. Another driver is that technology is driving other people, and institutions, into dumping books. Schools, in particular, seem to think that library books and the shelves they occupy are taking up space better used for a (as near as I can observe) internet MUD gaming station. At this point the cost of a cubic foot of books is entirely negligible. We’re getting about five to ten a month. Boxes, not books. There is some turnover. Again, it’s delightful to find and bestow a gift that (more or less) suits the tastes of a friend. Or an acquaintance. Or seem generous towards a person one doesn’t actually like very much but who does need a particular book whether he knows it or not. But it seems as the kids get older and better at the acquisition end of things we’re falling behind on the bestowal side. So, anybody have any requests? | | Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | | 6:31 pm |
more ...
Schooling -- Pro-Am. The amateur part is homeschool, still. Math provides the structure, and great heaps of reading matter supports anything else. We experimented briefly last year with a formal government funded “virtual classroom” -- the “K12.com” curriculum Texas and other states have approved. Incongruent with our expectations. It’s far from clear how a program where everything is custom tailored to the vendor’s specifications should need to be altered by administrative “lesson plans”. By this I mean something of the sort where Lesson One begins in Chapter Three, Lesson Two goes back to the last of Chapter Two, Lesson Three skips up to several pages in Chapter Five plus one exercise in Chapter Seven of a different textbook … We amateurs got into the habit of opening one book at chapter one, page one, exercise one, and working thru in the author’s chosen sequence until we’d reached the end of the book – typically in somewhat less than a full year. It’s nice to think about several thousand dollars worth of tax money coming home to buy twenty or thirty books, and to pay an expert to monitor progress over the phone and the internet. And I suspect that this virtual school approach is less disconcerting for those transitioning OUT of a brick-and-mortar classroom; for students accustomed to professional teachers each developing individual and peripatetic routes through the material. We gave it up before the month was out. It has, however, been useful to have professional guidance and peer competition in non-academic matters. This year, for the second year in a row, karate (see previously) and piano. The piano course is held at the local Community College. So, the explicit lessons in music etc are augmented by implicit experience-gathering in how to navigate a campus, how to show up on schedules designed to suit other people, watching bulletin boards for exciting social events, etc. Good stuff, even for the nine-year-old. | | 4:20 pm |
Long list more
Career – Pressurized. Capped, actually. Way too many bubbles in the overall system, far too many bottlenecks and kinks to manage matters gracefully. I predict a few blowouts here and there – in locations other than mine, one hopes – over the next year or so; then we’ll have to see who and how things shake out. | | Monday, July 27th, 2009 | | 8:16 pm |
Everything is on the long list
Home – Attractive. In the “black hole” sense – money is sucked in from all directions and basically disappears. The ‘live oak’ trees are growing, providing significant shade, and beginning to overtake the junk tree, an ‘Arizona Ash’, that the builder installed. My stonework, now edging the flowerbeds, is gathering a picturesque layer of moss. The downstairs bathroom with the walk-in shower -- sized to support either two able adults or one adult enabled by walker/wheelchair -- is by good fortune now enjoyed entirely in the former capacity. Various experiments in flooring have been conducted – notably without satisfactory results. The library is overflowing, as usual, and the shelving supplier has stopped making the style and color of shelves desired to expand and match. The security system now consists of a three-tiered symbiotic suite of self-propelled mobile sensors, audible alarms, and active response modules: three canines. The small observer dog, allowed on furniture, looks out the windows and yaps and/or howls when he detects disturbances. The intermediate-sized rapid-response dog works latches and flaps to self-egress, engage intruders if any, and barks. The large main dog receives and discriminates yaps, howls, and barks and decides when and if to growl. When, rarely, growling is called for, the large main dog avails herself of the openings procured by the rapid-response dog, to lunge in and secure the intruder. It’s an effective system but the individual canine units consume quite massive amounts of bio-fuels and deposit comparable masses of noxious waste. | | 7:37 pm |
The long version, continued
Extended Family – Diminished. My father died suddenly a year ago, without warning. Also, without lingering. My mother has transitioned from a home to an apartment now back to a rental house; attempting to shape a new normal for herself. The ten hour drive from here to there is a major and frustrating barrier to my ability to assist. Neither my mother nor my wife are at all willing to consider having Mom move closer, (one of the very few topics on which they’ve agreed.) Mom’s health has been poor for decades and the immediate family had been accustomed to the idea of “Grandpa” joining us someday. But that proposal has been abruptly disposed of. Mom continues to cope with her diabetes and related disorders. She continues to anchor several civic/church/charitable activities in her community. She … continues. But the universe has shifted and Whoever is In Charge, it’s obviously not me. | | 6:55 pm |
Long, more
Immediate Family -- Intact. I almost regret reporting that into a social scene where divorce, death, and dramatic transitions seem to be common. How little entertainment value is there in acknowledging x-teenth anniversaries, birthdays, etc? Ah well. The LilPouncer will be our first teenager next month. MiniPouncer, 17 months behind, is generally mistaken for her twin. On Beta Colony, both would be wearing ear-rings already. (The ones that signal -- "not even looking". In MiniPouncer's case, that would be less than completely accurate...) Shapely young ladies, if I may say so. The MicroPouncer, 18 months younger still, ( that is, he's almost nine.) is in the midst of a pre-adolescent growth spurt. His growth chart looks like Al Gore's Inconvenient Hockey Stick. His increasing size, and consistent inclination to spy on, tease, and otherwise inconvenience his older sibs has, so far, obviated any need of mine to hang the shotgun over the mantelpiece. (Let alone the squid…) I’m also reliant on the fact that all three are advancing rapidly through the ranks in TaeKwonDo. They’re in a style with ten belts from beginner to first black; presently having earned “green” -- fifth of the ten. MicroP had one lesson, his sisters watching. The girls quickly noted that, unlike ballet, TaeKwanDo class includes LOTS of boys. Suddenly my enrollment expenses tripled. But, karate turns out to be cheaper than either ballet or soccer; and vastly less expensive than horseback riding. MrsPouncer remains wonderful -- my domestic goddess. | | 6:53 pm |
Status report:
Status report: The short list, then the long. Short Health- Stable Immediate Family -- Intact Extended Family -- Diminished Home -- Attractive Career -- Pressurized Schooling -- Pro-Am Hobbies -- Whelming Politics -- Effective Forecast -- Hectic The long, let me break up. Health -- Stable. So some of you have seen this rant before. And which is to say I continue to remain in denial. I have compared the situation to living in a house where the smoke detectors simply will not shut down. There is, apparently, somewhere a smoldering fire -- evidenced only by the faint, imperceptible whiff of smoke that regularly triggers the alarms. There is, I'm told, an ember remaining, perhaps buried in upholstery or behind the walls. As long as it continues to smolder there is no way to identify which wall to douse with retardant chemicals; or which article of furniture to break up and remove. We've reached a point where my "firefighters" seem to me becoming impatient for the ember to actually kindle a flame; something they can ACT on. I, on the other hand, as you may understand, am in absolutely no hurry for either the fire, the ax, or the foam. | | Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | | 1:25 pm |
| | Thursday, August 30th, 2007 | | 7:12 pm |
Real Life
See PegasusNews.com for what I've been doing. | | Thursday, March 1st, 2007 | | 10:39 am |
| | Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 | | 5:37 pm |
The world is a less colorful place this week
Dave Cockrum has died of complications of his long term diabetes. Obit hereIt's not clear from Douglas Martin's NYT article whether Mr Cockrum served in the Navy, the Air Force, or some time in each. But then I don't much expect a mere journalist to ... Sorry. Not much on the professional media lately. Navy, I believe. The small Pouncers are fans and have Giant-Size X-Men #1 from 1975 on CD-ROM along with a dozen or so other issues of that era. I have the the original tucked away in the garage, but I haven't admitted that to them yet. The Scott-and-Jean soap opera, of Lee and Kirby vintage, continues to be the most compelling aspect of the whole series for the girls, but all agree Cockrum was much the preferred artist to Kirby. I may have some Cockrum-era LSH issues tucked away as well. I suppose, (in all my free time [joke!] ) I ought to go dig it out and sell while the artist's demise is driving up prices. | | Friday, November 10th, 2006 | | 2:19 am |
Election over
We won. Now in South Padre Island, resorting. Back to normal soon, I hope. | | Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | | 9:23 pm |
A good journalist.
A dead one, anyway. Pham Xuan An, reporter for Time Magazine and Reuters, died this week. He was noted for his in-depth coverage of the War in Vietnam. | | Friday, August 25th, 2006 | | 9:02 pm |
| | Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 | | 11:05 am |
Beloit freshment mindset
A list ... I'm not exactly sure when the cut off is -- a freshman, 18 y.o.a. , is presumed not to have been paying attention 13 years ago? 15 yrs ago? So, maybe, anything that hasn't happened or existed since 1990-something has "never", and anything that started about then has "always" ? US/UK military forces have always been based in Kuwait and environs nearby, enforcing UN resolutions. Ditto Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel and Jordan have always been at (tense) peace. The "Dear Leader" of North Korea has always been both evil and looney, not merely evil. South Korea has always had reasonably free elections among multiple pollitical parties. Also, the South has always been much more heavily industrialized than the North. Japan, also, has always had competitive elections among multiple pollitical parties. India has never been in imminent danger of mass starvation. Freshman have always been able to correctly pronounce "Chechnya". They also have always known about Ebola and Ebonics, and can identify which is a language and which a disease. The Hubble Space Telescope has always made a cool picture available on the internet every week. O.J. Simpson has never been well-known for his football career, television ads, or movie roles. PC's chips have always had names like Pentium, Celeron, Alpha and like that -- numbers such as 386 or 68032 have never been seen. Baen Books has always been a note-worthy SF publisher. Star Trek has never been off the air very long. Nobody has ever walked on the moon. Cloning mammals, like sheep? [shrug] Palm-sized electronic devices have always had capacity to talk/listen/read/take-and-store more pictures or record more hours of lecture than can be supported the battery life of the device. | | Friday, August 18th, 2006 | | 11:06 am |
Rhetorical query to the choir
But not preaching, oh no. Suppose you are constructing a very large room in which you will store your books and set up your (several) computer workstations. Two walls in the room,forming the northeast corner on the exterior of the building, will be about 16 feet high and 40 feet wide. The designer offers you floor-to-ceiling seamless glass walls ... Does it occur to you all, readers and computer users, that just maybe glass walls aren't the ideal back structure on which to hang shelving? Or even to place bookcases? That not being able to put shelves against the walls costs your square footage in your floorspace? Are the locations of your workstations uncomfortably constrained by the efforts to reduce morning glare pouring in from the glass walls? Given that your building will be primarily used late August thru mid May (i.e. "winter") do you anticipate condensation on the cold exterior glass walls will pose a risk to your printed materials? Don't you suppose painted cinderblock, however unaesthetic, might be a better alternative, given the proposed purpose? |
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