On: "insubordination toward government that knows everything"

A nickel for big government

Excerpts:

The National Recovery Administration was an administrative mechanism for the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which envisioned regulating the economy back to health by using, among other things, codes of fair competition. The theory was that by promoting the cartelization of labor by encouraging unions, and the cartelization of industries by codes that would inhibit competition, prices would be propped up and prosperity would return.

Soon there were more than 500 NRA codes covering the manufacture of products from lightning rods to dog leashes to women's corsets.

...

Pick at random any three letters from the alphabet, put them in any order, and you will have an acronym designating a federal agency we can do without.

Comment: Excellent read on Big Government. More on the National Recovery Administration. Not to be confused with the good NRA!

France: "stay on the job until 62 to collect a full state pension"

France Makes Crucial Move to Raise Age of Retirement

Excerpts:

Despite vocal protests, French lawmakers approved President Nicolas Sarkozy's sweeping retirement reforms Wednesday, including a highly contested measure to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62.

The National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, voted 329-233 to pass the broad retirement package, clearing a crucial first legislative hurdle and sending it onto the Senate for debate starting Oct. 1.

The retirement reforms are one of the pillars of Sarkozy's conservative agenda and a prime target of France's powerful unions. Wednesday's vote puts France on track to become the latest European Union country to require workers to stay on the job longer because of a deficit-plagued pension system.

...

The central and most controversial reform requires workers to stay on the job until 62 to collect a full state pension.

Even then, France would still have one of the lowest retirement ages in Europe. In contrast, Germany recently raised its retirement age from 65 to 67 to offset a shrinking, aging population, and the U.S. is also gradually raising its retirement age to 67.

Comment: In the US, retire at 62 and one's Social Security is 75% of what it would be at full retirement.

In praise of OpenDNS

Simplifying the Lives of Web Users

Excerpt:

... the topic is your Web browsing, and the magic wand is a free service called OpenDNS.

You know how every Web site has an address, like www.google.com or www.nytimes.com? Turns out that’s just a fakeout. It’s a convenient crutch for you, the human with limited brain capacity.

Behind the scenes, the actual address is a string of numbers (called an I.P. address, for Internet protocol) that looks something like this: 74.125.53.100. (That happens to be Google’s address.)

Nobody can remember those addresses, though they are no longer than a phone number, so the Web’s thoughtful designers came up with a secondary system: plain-English addresses like www.whatever.com. When you type that into your browser, a computer at your Internet provider performs a quick lookup. “Aha,” it says to itself in its little digital way, “you just typed www.google.com. What you really want, of course, is 74.125.53.100. Please hold; I’ll connect you.”

That, in a nutshell, is how D.N.S. works. (It stands for domain name system, in case that helps.)

Unfortunately, from time to time, your Internet provider’s D.N.S. computer goes down. To you, it seems that the Web itself has gone out, because you can’t pull up any sites at all. In December 2008, for example, 1.2 million Los Angeles citizens thought that the entire Web had gone offline, because of a crashed Time Warner D.N.S. computer.

That story was gleefully provided by OpenDNS, the one-of-a-kind company with a killer idea: to provide a free, alternative D.N.S. service that works better than your Internet provider’s. Faster, more reliably and with more features. You don’t pay anything, sign up for anything or install anything. All you have to do is make one change to your network settings, and you get all of these benefits:

NO D.N.S. CRASHES The company claims that in its five-year history, its D.N.S. computers have had zero downtime. In fact, had you been using OpenDNS in 2008, the Time Warner crash would not have affected you at all. You’d have kept right on surfing while your next-door neighbors were gnashing their teeth and playing board games.

A similar feature called SmartCache lets you pull up individual Web sites even when, because of broken addresses, they are unavailable to everyone else.

FASTER PAGES To speed up the conversion of plain-English addresses to numeric ones, every Internet provider caches, or preloads, the addresses of thousands of the most popular Web sites. This trick can save you microseconds or fractions of seconds with every page you open. When you visit a site that’s not on that “most popular” list, though, you may wait a bit.

But OpenDNS caches the entire Web. Every Web site appears slightly faster. If you don’t actually feel the difference, you can measure it using Google’s free Namebench program. It told me that OpenDNS was performing that looking-up business 14.8 percent faster than what I’d been getting before.

TYPO CORRECTIONS As long as OpenDNS is inserting itself between you and the Web, it can do you some favors. One is correcting typos. If you type “nytimes.cmo” or “wikipedia.og,” for example, OpenDNS quietly and instantly corrects the typo and sends you where you wanted to go. Most of the time, you never even realize your fingers misfired.

Unfortunately, this feature auto-fixes only the suffix (.com, .org, .gov and so on). If you type “dinseyworld.com” or “wikipeida.org,” you’re on your own.

PHISHING PROTECTION Phishing is the Internet scheme where you get a fake e-mail note from your bank about a problem with your account. When you click the link to correct the problem, you get a fake Web site, designed to look just like your bank’s — and by logging in, you unwittingly supply your name and password to the bad guys.

OpenDNS intercepts and blocks your efforts to visit the fake sites. It works like a charm.

SHORTCUTS Web address shortcuts are short, memorable abbreviations for your favorite sites. You can set up “nyt” so that, when you type it into your address bar, you go to a much longer Web address like http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html.

Shortcuts are great. There’s limited space on your bookmarks toolbar, and the bookmarks menu is clumsy for people who like to keep their hands on the keyboard. And unlike the similar feature in Firefox, OpenDNS’s shortcuts work in any browser on any computer or phone in the house.

PARENTAL CONTROLS The latest OpenDNS feature is site-blocking. Here again, having an account means that you can create a setting that applies to every computer in the house — and block your choice of 57 categories of Web sites, including Pornography, Nudity, Lingerie, Instant Messaging, File Sharing, Game and Humor. (Honestly. What kind of parent would block humor?)

How can OpenDNS possibly track every Web site on earth and put it into the right 57 categories? It doesn’t. Its fans do. Anyone can submit a site to the master database of categorized sites, whereupon other people vote on its placement. This Wikipedia-style crowdsourcing is ingenious, and, as far as my testing was concerned, bulletproof.

(Teenagers often subscribe to mailing lists that publish the addresses of proxies and anonymizers, special sites that they use to get around traditional Web blockers installed by schools or parents. But I was amused to learn that the engineers at OpenDNS subscribe to those lists, too. They block the proxies as fast as they are created.)

Comment: Previous posts . I've been using OpenDNS since July 2007!

Time to buy a home?

10 Reasons To Buy a Home

Excerpts:

1. You can get a good deal
   
2. Mortgages are cheap
   
3. You'll save on taxes
   
4. It'll be yours
   
5. You'll get a better home. In many parts of the country it can be really hard to find a good rental
   
6. It offers some inflation protection
   
7. It's risk capital. No, your home isn't the stock market and you shouldn't view it as the way to get rich. But if the economy does surprise us all and start booming, sooner or later real estate prices will head up again, too.
   
8. It's forced savings. If you can rent an apartment for $2,000 month instead of buying one for $2,400 a month, renting may make sense. But will you save that $400 for your future?
   
9. There is a lot to choose from
   
10. Sooner or later, the market will clear. Demand and supply will meet.
    
    
    

Comments: I question the validity of # 6 and 7. # 8 is a wrong reason to buy. # 10 may be later rather than sooner. My advice, if you can project staying in that home for at least 7 years consider it.

Plymouth: South Shore Drive Bridge Replacement

Comment: We cross this rustic bridge to and from church. It will be rustic no more


South Shore Drive Bridge Replacement

Excerpt:

The South Shore Drive project is located from 10th Avenue to the City of Medicine Lake and from the City of Medicine Lake to the cul-de-sac, and 13th Avenue from South Shore Drive to Nathan Lane.

The improvements will include a full depth mill and overlay for this project. A full depth mill and overlay will remove the entire bituminous surface, between 4-6 inches in the area, to the existing gravel section that is between 17 to 37 inches deep. It is proposed to install and grade approximately two inches of recycled aggregate material to direct storm water runoff off of the new street and to bring the new street to the proper elevations. Finally, it is proposed to install four inches of bituminous on the aggregate material. In most cases the street widths will be installed to match the existing widths, which are generally 22 to 25 feet wide, with some areas between 33 and 40 feet wide.

Map - Street view

Western Sky Financial

Western Sky Financial

Comment: APR = 194.70% . For the truly desperate!

We are a nation of entitlement and debt addicts

Obstacle to Deficit Cutting: A Nation on Entitlements

Excerpt:

Efforts to tame America's ballooning budget deficit could soon confront a daunting reality: Nearly half of all Americans live in a household in which someone receives government benefits, more than at any time in history.

At the same time, the fraction of American households not paying federal income taxes has also grown—to an estimated 45% in 2010, from 39% five years ago, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization.

A little more than half don't earn enough to be taxed; the rest take so many credits and deductions they don't owe anything. Most still get hit with Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, but 13% of all U.S. households pay neither federal income nor payroll taxes.

"We have a very large share of the American population that is getting checks from the government," says Keith Hennessey, an economic adviser to President George W. Bush and now a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, "and an increasingly smaller portion of the population that's paying for it."

The dimensions of the budget hole were underscored Monday, when the Treasury reported that the government ran a $1.26 trillion deficit for the first 11 months of the fiscal year, on pace to be the second-biggest on record.

Yet even as Americans express concern over the deficit in opinion polls, many oppose benefit cuts, particularly with the economy on an uneven footing. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted late last month found 61% of voters were "enthusiastic" or "comfortable" with congressional candidates who support cutting federal spending in general. But 56% expressed the same enthusiasm for candidates who voted to extend unemployment benefits.

'Hi. My Name Is America, and I'm a Deficit Addict.'

Excerpt:

The U.S. doesn't have a system that can fund the government the country wants. The Tax Foundation says the levies paid by the top 1% of taxpayers now exceed those paid by all of those in the bottom 95%. And the Tax Policy Institute says almost half of all filers will pay no 2009 income taxes at all, because of various exclusions and credits—up, by some estimates, from a quarter in 1990.

Comment: A giant disconnect: get the government out of our lives, but keep giving us benefits

Remembering "the Great Panic of 2008 "

Was the Great Panic of 2008 Preventable?

Excerpts:

It's been two years since Lehman Brothers failed (Sept. 15, 2008)

...

Consider what happened after Lehman:

• Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went from 7 percent in August to nearly 10 percent by October.
  
• Stocks tanked. After its historical high of more than 14,000 in October 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average was still trading around 11,400 before the bankruptcy. By October, it was about 8,400; by March 2009, 6,600.
  
• Consumer spending and business investment (on machinery, computers, buildings)—together about four-fifths of the economy—declined sharply. Already-depressed vehicle sales fell a third from August to February.
  
• Employment collapsed. Five million payroll jobs disappeared in the eight months following Lehman's collapse. The unemployment rate went from 6.2 percent in September to 9.5 percent in June 2009.
  

Comment: We are still in the middle of this muddle! Article conclusion: "Maybe saving Lehman would merely have postponed panic and requests for broader powers to deal with a weakening financial system. Citigroup and Bank of America, among others, needed help. The nature of crisis is that people are surprised and overwhelmed by events, and in that sense, the mistakes made in dealing with Lehman might have been unavoidable. One way or the other, the first draft of history is still being written -- and it remains very rough"

Cuban opportunities: "Toy repairman ... piñata salesman "

Cuba to Cut State Jobs in Tilt Toward Free Market

Excerpts:

The mass layoffs will take place between now and the end of March, according to a statement issued Monday by the Cuban Workers Federation, the island nation's only official labor union. Workers will be encouraged to find jobs in Cuba's tiny private sector instead.

"Our state can't keep maintaining...bloated payrolls," the union's statement said. More than 85% of Cuba's 5.5 million workers are employed by the state.

...

"This is survival economics," says Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban Studies at the University of Miami. "They don't have liquidity, and have a lousy economy."

Laying off government workers, however, is unlikely to do much to solve the country's problems, Mr. Suchlicki and others warned, since let-go workers have no where else to turn to earn a living. "They won't be absorbed by the private sector because there is no private sector to absorb them," he said.

...

It remains to be seen, however, just how many private-sector jobs Cuba can create. Cuba now has only 591,000 people working in the private sector, most of them family farmers, as well as another 143,000 workers classified as self-employed, according to government figures.

Since Cuba first allowed self-employment in the early 1990s, thousands of Cubans have gone into business, often catering to tourists. Privately owned restaurants, known as paladares, emerged to serve visitors, usually in the crumbling but grand old homes of Havana. But restrictions on the paladares were so strict in recent years that many have since closed their doors.

Cubans who decide to go into business for themselves will find a series of obstacles, including very high taxes, lack of access to credit and foreign exchange, bans on advertising, limits on the number of people they can hire, and a litany of small-print government regulations, experts say.

Cuba's government has a list of 124 "authorized" activities for people who want to employ themselves. Among them: Toy repairman, music teacher, piñata salesman and carpenter. Carpenters are allowed only to "repair existing furniture or make new furniture upon the direct request of a customer." They cannot make "furniture to sell to the general public."

Carmelo Mesa-Lago, an expert on the Cuban economy who is emeritus professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh says: "The question is how many obstacles [the government] will place in front of these people?"

A government attempt this year to get Cuban farmers to produce more by allowing them to lease land, has been hampered by an acute lack of fertilizer, farm machinery and herbicides. That has made it difficult to cultivate land overrun by a thick, thorny scrub brush called Marabu. And earlier this year, Cuba announced big drops in agricultural production despite the land reforms

Comment: The WSJ article fleshes out what was posted yesterday. If there is any doubt of the viability of communism, this should erase it!

If Facebook Existed Years Ago....

Comment: Some a bit profane. I edited a bit

Greenspeak - stimulus was a waste!

Greenspan: Fiscal Stimulus Worked Far Less Than Expected

Excerpt:

The former head of the Federal Reserve said fiscal stimulus efforts have fallen far short of expectations, and the government now needs to get out of the way and allow businesses and markets to power the recovery.

“We have to find a way to simmer down the extent of activism that is going on” with government stimulus spending “and allow the economy to heal” itself, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told a gathering held at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday.

At this point, “we’d probably be better off doing less than more” because “you’d be far better off to allow the normal market forces to operate here,” Greenspan said. That’s largely because stimulus spending is not proving as effective as many had hoped. “To the extent the evidence suggests very large deficits concurrently crowd out capital investment, there is a debit to the stimulus program that is somewhere between a third and a half of what the gross stimulus is,” he said.

Comment: Greenspan understated

Americans short on retirement funds

Retirement on Hold: American Workers $6 Trillion Short

Excerpt:

A new study obtained by CNBC says Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire.

The study, conducted by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, says savings have been squeezed by declines in stock and housing values.

The study was commissioned by Retirement USA, a coalition of organized labor and pension rights advocates that hopes to use the study to push for a more stable retirement system. The group plans to unveil the study at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

Comment: I visited the Retirement USA website. In my mind they raise valid issues but do not have good solutions. EG their first proposal:

Excerpt:

Guaranteed Retirement Account Plan: The GRA proposal mandates a contribution of five percent of earnings (up to the Social Security wage base) for all workers – evenly divided between employer and employee. The employee’s share of the contribution would be offset by a $600 refundable tax credit, which would completely cover the contribution obligation of an employee with income up to $24,000. The contributions of husbands and wives would be combined and divided equally between their individual accounts.

The plan would provide for a guaranteed real three percent annual rate of return adjusted for inflation. If actual investment returns are consistently higher than three percent inflation-adjusted over a number of years, the trustees of the plan could distribute a surplus to GRA participants. A balancing fund would be maintained to ride out periods of low investment returns.

Why: No government can make such guarantee - would just become another underfunded program. The government needs to make it easier to save by not penalizing investors and savers.

Bolt removed from neck

Comment: Two weeks ago I had a nasty something removed surgically from my neck. Kathee called it my "bolt". Got the results back today and it was a benign hemangioma. Probably more than anyone wanted to know ... but the bolt is gone!

IPhone Deposit

Depositing Checks, Right From Your Phone

Excerpt:

A little while ago, I upgraded my iPhone app from Chase. Like most banking apps, it had allowed me to check balances and pay bills from my phone. But the upgrade included a new feature that kind of floored me: It could take a picture of a check made out to me and make a deposit based on that image — no trip to the branch required.

Now, Chase is not the first bank to have this feature. USAA has had it for a year now. Bank of America has been playing around with it for some time, but has yet to release it to its customers. (Our Your Money columnist, Ron Lieber, wrote about this back in March.)

The process is terrifically simple: Once you are in the app, you tap on “deposits,” which activates your iPhone’s camera and brings up a viewscreen with some guides and commands. Line up the check with the guidelines on your screen, hold the iPhone steady and push an onscreen button. You then do the same for the back of the check. (The endearing Chase TV ads with newlyweds in bed also show how.)

The image is then sent to Chase’s computers, which use optical-character recognition software to “read” the information on the check. The software is impressive, able to read both handwritten (to a point — the software cannot read extremely messy, doctor handwriting) and printed checks. Once Chase’s computers have determined the check’s value, routing number and account number, the app displays a screen recapping the information, which you can then confirm with a click. About a minute later, you get an e-mail from Chase confirming the deposit.

Links:

• Chase Quick Deposit
  
• Article on USAA
  
• USAA IPhone App
  

Comments: I still do not have an IPhone, but I think this would be handy!

Cuba: The good news ... the bad news

The good news: 500,000 opportunities for Cuban workers!

Cuba to spur private sector

Excerpt:

Cuba will let more than 500,000 state employees go by next March and try to move most to non-state jobs in the biggest shift to the private sector since the 1960s, the official Cuban labor federation said Monday.

The layoffs will start immediately and run through the first half of next year, according to an announcement Monday by the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation — the only labor union the government tolerates.

The statement said eventually more than a million jobs would be cut and, due to efforts to increase efficiency in the state sector, there would be few new state sector openings.

More than 85 percent of the Cuban labor force, or over 5 million people, worked for the state at the close of 2009, according to the government.

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls (and) losses that hurt the economy," the statement said.

"Job options will be increased and broadened with new forms of non-state employment, among them leasing land, cooperatives and self-employment, absorbing hundreds of thousands of workers in the coming years," it said.


...

"We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world in which people can live without working," Castro said, upon announcing in general terms his plans to cut state payrolls and increase self employment in an August speech to the National Assembly.

The news comes less than a week after Fidel Castro's much-reported comments to a U.S. reporter that the Cuban economic model no longer works.

Castro, in semi-retirement, retracted the remarks featured in The Atlantic a few days later, telling a Havana University crowd that his comments were misinterpreted.

Cuba currently has only 591,000 people working in the private sector, a number that includes mostly family farmers as well as 143,000 self-employed, according to the National Statistics Office.

The bad news: There are only 591K working in the private sector. And just how much fun is it make bricks!?

New jobs in Cuba? Raising rabbits, making bricks

Excerpt:

Cuba's communist leaders have already determined what they want soon-to-be-dismissed workers to do after they get their pink slips in massive government layoffs, detailing a plan for them to raise rabbits, paint buildings, make bricks, collect garbage and pilot ferries across Havana's bay.

The plans, along with a timetable for which government sectors will get the ax first, are laid out in an internal Communist Party document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Cuba on Monday announced plans to cut 500,000 state workers by March 2011 and help them get work in the private sector, in the most sweeping reforms instituted since President Raul Castro took over from his brother in 2008.

Many of those to be let go will be urged to form private cooperatives. Others will be pushed into jobs at foreign-run companies and joint ventures. Still more will need to set up their own small business — particularly in the areas of transport and house rental — according to an internal Communist Party document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Comment: I would like to see the Federal government cut 6% of the Federal public sector workforce ... say over 3 years. And then freeze it for 10 years.

Auto Insurance Primer

Insurance Basics: How Car Insurance Works

Comment: Don't go cheap on auto insurance. I agree with his comment about towing insurance.

How Projects Really Work

How Projects Really Work

Comment: My daughter sent this my way. Click on the link for the graphics. Project Management is a lot like this

Brazen armed robbery of Plymouth bank

Masked men rob US Bank in Plymouth

Excerpt:

Two masked men robbed the US Bank at 4105 Lancaster Lane N. in Plymouth at about 6:45 a.m. Monday, authorities say.

The robbery occurred as bank employees were opening the bank for business. The two robbers, one armed with a semi automatic handgun and the other a knife, forced bank employees to the vault, where they held a handgun to a bank employee's head and demanded money.

After receiving an undisclosed amount of cash, the robbers bound and blindfolded the bank employees in the vault, then fled the bank.

One robber is described as a black male, approximately 5 feet, 8 inches to 6 feet tall with a heavy build, wearing dark clothing and a black ski mask. The other robber is described as a black male, approximately 5 feet, 8 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall with a slim build, wearing dark clothing and a dark mask.

These bank robbers are believed to be responsible for the Aug. 4 robbery of the Wells Fargo Bank in Champlin and the attempted robbery of the TCF Bank in Chanhassen on Aug. 30.

Comment: Location. 1.2 miles from our house.

Minnesota 3rd District in Play?

Some pundits eye Paulsen/Meffert race as potential DFL pickup

Excerpt:

The New York Times’ political prediction maker Nate Silver has Paulsen the likely favorite, predicting he will finish the race comfortably with 62 percent and Meffert at 35 percent, and the Cook Political Report doesntt see it as a competitive race. It’s not even on their radar.

But the popular election tracking website Electoral-Vote.com rates the race as a pure tossup. According to the site’s author, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Paulsen should be vulnerable even in a good year for Republicans.

Comment: I would be very surprised if Paulsen did not win this. I'm in this congressional district.

Just "a little over the top"

Woman cited for indecent exposure in Moorhead

Excerpt:

A woman wearing whipped cream and not much else has been cited for incedent exposure at a Walgreens in downtown Moorhead.

The Forum of Fargo reports that police say the 37-year-old Moorhead woman walked into the store about 5:45 p.m. Sunday wearing on a thong, pasties, a "partial" towel and whipped cream.

Police Lt. Tory Jacobson tells the newspaper the woman told police she was a "free thinker" who was trying to attract attention and encourage people to defy society's norms.

A bystander called police and gave the woman a blanket to cover herself.

Jacobson says the woman later conceded her actions might have been "a little over the top." Police gave her a ticket and took her home.

Comment: Image is cover art of Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965) (which happens to be one of my favorite Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass albums)

The Face of Bravery

Iowa Man to Receive First Non-Posthumous Medal of Honor Since Vietnam

Excerpts:

A young Army specialist, Salvatore A. Giunta, took a bullet to the chest, but was saved by the heavy plates of his body armor. Shaking off the punch from the round, he jumped up and pulled two wounded soldiers to safety, grabbed hand grenades and ran up the trail to where his squad mates had been patrolling.

There, he saw a chilling image: Two fighters hauling one of his American comrades into the forest. Specialist Giunta hurled his grenades and emptied the clip in his automatic rifle, forcing the enemy to drop the wounded soldier. Still taking fire, he provided cover and comfort to his mortally wounded teammate until help arrived.

“It was one of the worst days of my life, and when I revisit it, it kind of guts me a little bit more every time,” the soldier, now a staff sergeant, said Friday.

...

“I entered the Army when I was 18, and I’m 25 now. I became a man in the Army,” he said. “That night I learned a lot — and after that night I learned even more. This respect that people are giving to me? This was one moment. In my battalion, I am mediocre at best. This shows how great the rest of them are.”

Comment: One has to appreciate his humility!

Facebook status: "I have a 140-pound Rottweiler"

Burglars Picked Houses Based on Facebook Updates

Excerpt:

If you plan to log into your Facebook account and announce to the world that you’re heading to the beach for the weekend, you might want to append the status update with a warning that your home is under 24-hour surveillance, you have a 140-pound Rottweiler who hasn’t eaten in a week and that you own a really good alarm system.

If you don’t, you personal belongings could be fodder for some tech-savvy burglars.

According to New Hampshire’s WMUR Channel 9 News, three local men, Mario Rojas, Leonardo Barroso and Victor Rodriguez, have burglarized more than 18 homes in the Nashua area of New Hampshire simply by checking status updates on Facebook and then pillaging houses of victims who announced on the social network that they were not home.

Comment: A reminder about a common sense approach to Facebook privacy!

Boomers, Retirement, and the Lord

Baby boomers long to retire, but can't

Excerpt:

The sad reality is that many members of the baby boom generation are shell-shocked from their recession-related financial losses and have no idea what kind of shape they are in for retirement. The numbers aren't going to add up for them, forcing them to keep working or undergo a drastic change in lifestyle.

"I would love to be able to retire," said Valerie Kindle, 60, one of the 76 million people born from 1946 to 1964. "At this point in time, I can't afford to."

The 2008 recession hit baby boomers right on the brink of retirement age. Kindle, an employment and training specialist for Michigan Works! in Highland Park, said that as painful as it may be, boomers have to take stock of their situation.

HT: Stuff Out Loud

This is a good reminder not to build your life on shifting sands

Comments:

• Nice graphic associated with the article.
  
• I'm one of those "Boomers" (b 1949)
  
• Be sure to read Larry Rogier's comments on the article at the HT!
  
• John Piper has a great article on savings for retirement. Link and excerpt below
  

John Piper: Should I invest for retirement?

Excerpts:

If you get paid once every two weeks, should you give it all away the day you get it and trust God for the other thirteen days? Or would keeping some of it in the bank for thirteen days—because you know a bill is coming in twelve days—be distrusting God for his provision twelve days from now?

That sounds silly, right? But it's not silly: it's an analogy. God ordains that we work for our living and that we use what we earn to pay our bills, whether it's food, clothing, housing, education for our kids, or whatever.

Those bills don't arrive simultaneously with our paycheck, which means that everybody saves if they pay their bills. Everybody does. Some just do it more consciously and briefly than others.

...

Retirement is forced for a lot of people. When you get to sixty-five or seventy you have to step back. Finding another job at age seventy that might support you or your invalid wife is not an easy thing. The way our culture is dealing with that is having you earn your money for the post-working years while you're working. And what do you do with it? You just set it aside.

Why should we assume that the post-working years should be provided for from heaven and the working years should be provided for from labor? I don't assume that.

The way I think about retirement—though I don't believe in "retirement" if you can avoid it—is that you should start doing different things for Jesus. And if you can do them without having to be paid by people because you've set it aside, then that's all the more wonderful.

I think of that like this: I don't want to get rich. I don't want to sit on a pile of money. I just want to be able to survive between the ages of sixty-five and eighty-five. And I'd like to be spent for the kingdom. So if I can have a house and have my bills paid and pour my life out for the kingdom, I would be thrilled.

...

So, all that to say, Put a governor on your life. Make as much as you can, give as much as you can, and save what you need to in order to be a responsible non-borrower. Then do retirement with some minimalistic plan that frees you up for gospel ministry till the day you drop.

Inflation Zero

2010, a Year of No Inflation

Excerpt:

On Friday, the Labor Department will release the inflation number for August. Economists are expecting an increase of about 0.2 to 0.3 percent over July’s Consumer Price Index. If that’s correct, it won’t be nearly enough to reverse a remarkable period in which prices have barely risen at all.

Over the last two years, inflation has been zero. Over the last year, it has been just 1.3 percent. Over the last six months, it has been below zero — negative 0.7 percent.

Since the Labor Department started keeping records in 1947, there have been only six six-month periods when prices have fallen more than that. All of them were in 1950, an unusual time when prices were falling even though the economy was growing.

Comment: What is still strongly inflationary: tuition and health care costs

Cesarean sections for Dollars

C-section rates higher at for-profit hospitals

Excerpts:

A database compiled from [California] state birthing records revealed that, all factors considered, women are at least 17 percent more likely to have a cesarean section at a for-profit hospital than at one that operates as a nonprofit. A surgical birth can bring in twice the revenue of a vaginal delivery.

In addition, some hospitals appear to be performing more C-sections for non-medical reasons - including a doctor's level of patience and the staffing schedules in maternity wards, according to interviews with health professionals.

Across the state, more women are having C-sections for a variety of reasons: a rise in obesity and the number of older mothers, fear of lawsuits among doctors and hospitals, and a growing cultural acceptance of the procedure. Rather than examine these well-known trends, California Watch looked at why individual hospitals are performing cesarean sections at higher rates than others.

...

Some critics say the numbers provide ammunition to those who have long suspected that unnecessary C-sections are performed to help pad the bottom line.

"This data is compelling and strongly suggests, as many childbirth advocates currently suspect, that there may be a provable connection between profit and the cesarean rate," said Desirre Andrews, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, a nonprofit that would like to see C-sections only in cases of medical need.

Comment: I suspect this is a nationwide issue

Tehrani shakedown

Iran Willing to Release American Hiker on Bail

Excerpt:

After a power struggle within Iran's conservative leadership put her freedom in doubt, an American woman arrested more than a year ago along the Iraq border is on the verge of heading home. Her two companions, however, could be on their way to spy trials.

Sarah Shourd could be released in the ''next two or three days'' -- or even sooner -- after $500,000 bail is paid, said Masoud Shafiei, the Iranian lawyer for Shourd and the other detained Americans, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally promised Shourd's release on Friday as a sign of Islamic compassion at the end of the holy month of Ramadan but was quickly slammed down by the judiciary -- which turned around Sunday and set its own ground rules, including the bail amount. Swiss diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in Iran because the two countries do not have direct diplomatic relations, were making arrangements to post bail.

Comment: Only good news is that perhaps Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's authority is being challenged.

Eliminate the Penny

Pennies cost 1.7¢ to make. They create economic losses of up to $1b/year. You can’t buy anything with them. And they’re nasty. I hate pennies. Nickels, too. Abolish both. Maybe a silver lining to Bernanke’s inevitable debt monetization will be the elimination of worthless coins?

Comment: HT Bearish News

Shrinking Banks

A Capital Mistake

Excerpt:

... the nation’s banks are shrinking. At the end of 2008, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data showed that the American banks it insured — around 8,000 of them — had $13.84 trillion in assets. At the end of the second quarter of this year, they held a total of $13.22 trillion — a decline of $620 billion.

Fewer assets means fewer loans. From the summer of 2008, just before the financial crisis, to the present, business loans made by American banks declined from $1.49 trillion to $1.175 trillion, a drop of some $315 billion. Mortgages on one-to-four-family homes declined from $2.155 trillion to $1.874 trillion. Over all, the total value of loans in the American banking system has fallen from $7.996 trillion to $7.395 trillion — a drop of $600 billion.

There are many reasons for this. The size of the credit market is smaller today because banks will no longer make risky loans to marginal borrowers. Additionally, commercial companies have seen their cash flows improve because the economy is still growing (albeit too slowly). Therefore, corporations do not need as many bank loans.

However, the main reason bank lending has declined may be that the banks’ capital requirements have increased, and this encourages them not to lend. They certainly don’t have a shortage of capital. The F.D.I.C.’s data shows that the common equity in the banking system — the amount of money invested — as a percentage of all bank assets is now at the same level as it was in 1937. If one calculates what is called the banks’ “capital ratio,” which is done by adding the banks’ reserves and common equity and then dividing by the assets, it appears that the banking system has more capital than at any time since 1934.

Yet banks are sitting on the money rather than getting it out into the economy. Why? Because ever since the collapse, politicians and policymakers have been insisting that risky lending by the banks was the prime culprit, and have demanded that banks build up a cushion of capital to protect the system.

In the past 18 months, in order to meet these demands for higher capital ratios, banks have raised some $192 billion by selling stock — despite declining prices — and attempting to grow earnings. But this has not been enough for the regulators. The banks have also had to shrink their balance sheets — that is, to have fewer loans outstanding.

The trouble with overcapitalizing banks is that when banks cut back on loans, they start a domino effect. When a loan is paid off, money is subtracted from the overall money supply. And while economists can debate whether a growing money supply is necessary for economic growth, it is very unusual for a nation’s economy to grow when its money supply is shrinking.

Comment: A somewhat technical read but interesting. It's related to Fractional-reserve banking.

Using Software to Write a Will

In Using Software to Write a Will, a Lawyer Is Still Helpful

Excerpt:

QUICKEN WILLMAKER PLUS 2011 This program felt like the most substantial, given the sheer amount of information it provided throughout the form-filling process. Because the program is actually written by Nolo, which publishes do-it-yourself books and software for legal matters, it appears that Nolo is drawing from its vast instructional library. If you have a question about a specific issue, like how to choose an executor, you can dive into its easy-to-read legal manual.

And before you choose whom to leave your property to, the program encourages you to take inventory of what you own and describes what type of property actually passes through a will — an important point because items like 401(k)s, I.R.A.’s and insurance policies do not (they go to the beneficiary named on the policy). Several lawyers pointed out that you might run into problems if you didn’t properly coordinate all your assets.

For instance, if you have minor children listed as the beneficiaries on your insurance policy, but you want their money to go into a trust, which is in the will, then you need to name that trust as the beneficiary on the policy.

Ms. Twomey also said that I left it up to New York State to decide how to pay estate taxes. That aside, the Quicken will seemed fine for the most straightforward situations: I want to leave my assets to my spouse, then my children or some other assortment of relatives. It was also cheap; the program costs $41.99 and includes other legal documents that complete the estate plan, including a health care directive and financial power of attorney.

Quicken also asked how I wanted to pay estate taxes, something I couldn’t answer with confidence. It quickly became clear that anyone worried about these issues should consult a lawyer. And before you rule yourself out of that category, consider that the state estate tax is levied on assets above $675,000 in New Jersey and $1 million in New York. That could potentially affect middle-class families whose modest homes and retirement accounts have appreciated over several decades, or even someone with a large life insurance policy.

Comment: We used software to do our most recent will - 7 years ago, as I recollect. I believe we used Willmaker (but I think it was before Quicken bought them). I hired a notary to come by the house to seal it all up and witness the signings. Legalzoom also mentioned in the article.

Malodorous political ads

Candidate’s Scented Mailing Says Albany ‘Stinks’

Excerpt:

There could be a surprise waiting in your mailbox this weekend, courtesy of Carl P. Paladino, a Republican candidate for governor. Not the front of the brochure, which states that “Something really stinks in Albany.” Nor the back, which features images of tarnished Democrats like Gov. David A. Paterson, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi.

But open it up, and you will be greeted by an unmistakable odor: rotting vegetables.

Comment: Taking it to the fetid limit! Official site: Paladinoforthepeople

Blast victim: "It's really unbelievably ironic,"

Bay area blast search about finished

Excerpt:

The Chronicle said one of the fatalities in the explosion was 44-year-old Jacqueline Greig, a longtime employee of the California Public Utilities Commission who specialized in consumer issues related to natural gas rates. One of her projects was examining what Pacific Gas & Electric charged its customers for pipeline inspections.

"It's really unbelievably ironic," said Mindy Spatt, spokeswoman for the consumer group The Utility Reform Network.

Comment: I really don't believe it is a conspiracy! Two years ago when Kathee and I flew to San Fran and then drove up to Oregon and returned to San Fran, we stayed in the San Bruno area (had a motel by the airport and then had dinner in San Bruno before we flew out the next day. Blog post from 2 years ago.

1970 Mustang Boss 302 vs 2011 Mustang V6

1970 Mustang Boss 302 vs 2011 Mustang V6: And The Winner Is…

Excerpt:

The little V6 makes more power, and scoots the 2011 down the road substantially faster. Now those test results from the Boss look a little slow compared to the commonly published figures of the times (0-60 in 6.9; 1/4 mile in 14.6 @98mph). But then the buff books didn’t buy their Bosses anonymously, like CR did. Anyway, the V6 still equals those numbers. And gets more than twice the mileage. The prices: similar too, adjusted for inflation, comparing a base 2011 to the Boss. And the 2011 gives you a the comforts that either weren’t available or extra in 1970: AC, power steering, music and a host of other creature comforts.

Comment: Pretty cool. A V-6 today is more than yesterday's V-8.

OnStar turns 15

OnStar turns 15, has unlocked 4.7 million doors

Excerpt:

Founded in 1995 and officially launched at that year's Chicago Auto Show, OnStar has just hit its 15th birthday. After unlocking 4.7 million doors and providing over 59 million turn-by-turn routes, the tech centerpiece found in General Motors' vehicles is not ready to sit back and revel in the past.

Comment: We're one of them ... needed an unlock back in April.

Securing the patio door

Kathee was cleaning glass last weekend and discovered that our lower level (we have a walk-out ranch) back sliding patio door did not lock. How long it has been like this is unknown but obviously is was a security issue.

Today I had Pop-a-Lock out to repair the patio lock and install a Pro-Lok Entry Armor patio door latch with lock.

I also put a Master Lock security bar in the sliding door track.

“Better a borrower than a lender be?”

Falling Rates Aid Debtors, but Hamper Savers

Excerpts:

“It’s the whole point of low rates, to entice borrowing and discourage saving, but it means a massive wealth transfer from savers to borrowers,” said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “It is a trend on steroids now because interest rates have been cut to the bone.”

For example, anyone keeping $500,000 in a 12-month certificate of deposit earning a rate of 1.5 percent annually — one of the best savings rates available nationally these days — would earn $7,500 a year, hardly enough to live on. Just three years ago, that same investment would have generated $26,250.

...

As long as rates stay this low, the plight of the saver will be especially disquieting for those who rely on their savings for a large slice, if not all, of their income. That is a particularly unnerving prospect for pensioners or for people approaching retirement age — who now want to draw on the interest from their savings to support them when they are no longer working.

“You have spent your life being prudent, building a nest egg for your retirement, and now the returns are terrible,” said Todd E. Petzel, chief investment adviser at Offit Capital Advisors, a wealth advisory company in New York. “I am 58 years old. I know lots of my peers who are thinking of retiring, and they are scared to death.”

Among the winners from low interest rates are people taking out new mortgages. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has fallen to 4.53 percent, the lowest in more than half a century, according to Bankrate.com.

Comment: I'm a far cry from the illustration above of $ 500K in a CD! One of the better savings rates is with INGDirect. Bankrate.com has more options.

“Weedless Gardening” w newsprint

Fending Off the Weeds With Newsprint

Excerpt:

I started laying down the newspaper, four sheets thick, as Rock went off to dig some compost — rotted leaves from one pile, aged manure from another — and mixed it together in a wheelbarrow.

I used the garden hose to wet the newspapers, to keep them from blowing away. But also because wet newspapers will decay faster, and roots from young plants will be able to grow right through to the soil below.

Comment: Interesting read. Book: Weedless Gardening:

A former agricultural researcher for Cornell University and the USDA, Reich (Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention: A Gardener's Guide) challenges conventional gardening or gardening from the bottom up, in which the soil is turned over every spring or fall. This method exposes to light and air all the weed seeds lying dormant in the soil and encourages weed growth. Reich maintains that instead, since soil health determines plant health, gardeners should essentially create new soil by gardening as nature does from the top down. This means placing layers of newspaper over the soil to smother weed growth, covering the area year after year with mulch (which can include compost, leaves, bark chips or peat moss), then planting in that rich medium.

E-Mail Worm Hits Offices Worldwide

'Here You Have' Virus E-Mail Spreads Online

Excerpt:

Organizations including NASA, Comcast, AIG, Disney, Proctor & Gamble, Florida Department of Transportation and Wells Fargo are just a few of the organizations apparently affected by the worm, which appears to have sent out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of e-mails.

Comment: Hit our office (mentioned above). Kathee had it in her inbox but not me. Interestingly: did not hit my Gmail or Fastmail accounts

Online image editor

pixlr.com

Comment: View how I used it over here. Free and EZ is always good!

Phantom Stadiums

As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On

Excerpts:

The old Giants Stadium, demolished to make way for New Meadowlands Stadium, still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident, even though it is now a parking lot.

...

New Jerseyans are hardly alone in paying for stadiums that no longer exist. Residents of Seattle’s King County owe more than $80 million for the Kingdome, which was razed in 2000. The story has been similar in Indianapolis and Philadelphia. In Houston, Kansas City, Mo., Memphis and Pittsburgh, residents are paying for stadiums and arenas that were abandoned by the teams they were built for.

But befitting its name, Giants Stadium is the granddaddy of phantom facilities. Taxpayers in New Jersey, already under pressure from declining local government revenues, this year will pay $35.8 million in principal and interest on the $266 million in remaining bonds for the Meadowlands Sports Complex, which opened in 1976 and includes the Izod Center and a horse racing track. Those bonds will not be paid until 2025.

Comment: Not the case with the Metrodome.

On walking to school

Fort Wayne walk to school
(.3 miles - K to 5th grade)



Delhi walk to school (.6 miles - 5th through 8th grade)



Whatever Happened to Walking to School?

Excerpt:

If you think the first week of September means kids skipping off to school, you might want to check your calendar—for the century. The way you got to school isn't the way they do.

Take the bus. Sure, about 40% of kids still ride the cheery yellow chugger, but in many towns it doesn't stop only at the bus stops anymore. It stops at each child's house.

Often, the kids aren't waiting outside to get on. They are waiting in their parents' cars—cars the parents drove from the garage to the sidewalk so their children would be climate-controlled and safe from the predators so prevalent on suburban driveways.

Those of us who remember using our own legs for transit now run the risk of sounding Abe Lincolnesque. Today, only about one in 10 kids walks to school, says Lauren Marchetti, director of the National Center for Safe Routes to School.

The shift is so profound that the language itself has changed. "Arrival" and "dismissal" have become "drop-off" and "pick-up" because an adult is almost always involved—even when it doesn't make sense.

"When we first moved to town we found a house three blocks from the school," says Annie Anderson, a mom in Corpus Christi, Texas. "The day before school started a lady knocked on my door and asked if I'd like to join the carpool."

"Carpool to where?" Ms. Anderson asked. "She proceeded to explain that not only would I pick up her kid and others every morning of my assigned week, but I would need to pick up their 'carpool seats' before Monday and pass them to the next parent on Friday." Ms. Anderson declined and allowed her second-grader to walk instead. He beat the car every day.

Comment: The Fort Wayne walk would have been from about 1954 - 1960 (The E Rudisell crossing was a major 4 lane city street (there was a crossing guard there!)). The Delhi walk 1960-1963.

MRE International

A Taste of Home in Foil Packets and Powder

Comment: Article from the NYTimes

Keylogging software greater threat than weak passwords

A Strong Password Isn’t the Strongest Security

Excerpt:

Some computer security experts are advancing the heretical thought that passwords might not need to be “strong,” or changed constantly. They say onerous requirements for passwords have given us a false sense of protection against potential attacks. In fact, they say, we aren’t paying enough attention to more potent threats.

Here’s one threat to keep you awake at night: Keylogging software, which is deposited on a PC by a virus, records all keystrokes — including the strongest passwords you can concoct — and then sends it surreptitiously to a remote location.

“Keeping a keylogger off your machine is about a trillion times more important than the strength of any one of your passwords,” says Cormac Herley, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research who specializes in security-related topics. He said antivirus software could detect and block many kinds of keyloggers, but “there’s no guarantee that it gets everything.”

Comment: Image source .... possible solution

Debt can bust a relationship

How Debt Can Destroy a Budding Relationship

Excerpt:

Ms. Eastman said she had told him early on in their relationship that she had over $100,000 of debt. But, she said, even she didn’t know what the true balance was; like a car buyer who focuses on only the monthly payment, she wrote 12 checks a year for about $1,100 each, the minimum possible. She didn’t focus on the bottom line, she said, because it was so profoundly depressing.

But as the couple got closer to their wedding day, she took out all the paperwork and it became clear that her total debt was actually about $170,000. “He accused me of lying,” said Ms. Eastman, 31, a San Francisco X-ray technician and part-time photographer who had run up much of the balance studying for a bachelor’s degree in photography. “But if I was lying, I was lying to myself, not to him. I didn’t really want to know the full amount.”

At a time when even people with no graduate degrees, like Ms. Eastman, often end up six figures in the hole and people getting married for the second time have loads of debt from their earlier lives, it should come as no surprise that debt can bust up engagements. Even when couples disclose their debt in detail, it poses a series of challenges.

Comment: Interesting read

Virgin Mobile's cheap Hotspot

Your Own Hot Spot, and Cheap

Excerpt:

You can just leave the thing in your pocket, your laptop bag or your purse to pump out a fresh Internet signal to everyone within 30 feet, for four hours on a charge of the removable battery. You’re instantly online whenever you fire up your laptop, netbook, Wi-Fi camera, game gadget, iPhone or iPod Touch.

The MiFi released by Virgin Mobile this week ($150) is almost exactly the same thing as the one offered by Verizon and, until recently, Sprint — but there’s a twist that makes it revolutionary all over again.

The Virgin MiFi, like its rivals, is still an amazing gizmo to have on long car rides for the family, on woodsy corporate offsite meetings, at disaster sites, at trade show booths or anywhere you can’t get Wi-Fi. If you live alone, the MiFi could even be your regular home Internet service, too — one that you can take with you when you head out the door. And it’s still insanely useful when you’re stuck on a plane on a runway.

But three things about the Virgin MiFi are very, very different. First, Virgin’s plan is unlimited. You don’t have to sweat through the month, hoping you don’t exceed the standard 5-gigabyte data limit, as you do with the cellular-modem products from Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile. (If you exceed 5 gigabytes, you pay steep per-megabyte overage charges, or in T-Mobile’s case, you get your Internet speed slowed down for the rest of the month.)

If you hadn’t noticed, unlimited-data plans are fast disappearing — but here’s Virgin, offering up an unlimited Internet plan as if it never got the memo.

Second, Virgin requires no contract. You can sign up for service only when you need it. In other words, it’s totally O.K. with Virgin if you leave the thing in your drawer all year, and activate it only for, say, the two summer months when you’ll be away. That’s a huge, huge deal in this era when every flavor of Internet service, portable or not, requires a two-year commitment.

Third, the service price for this no-commitment, unlimited, portable hot spot is — are you sitting down? — $40 a month.

That’s no typo. It’s $40 a month. Compare that with the cheapest cellular modems from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint: $60 a month. T-Mobile also charges $40 a month for its cellular modems. But all four of those big companies require a two-year contract, and come with those scary 5-gigabyte monthly data limits.

(There’s actually another Virgin plan available, too: you can pay $10 for a 100-megabyte chunk of Internet use that expires in 10 days. It’s intended for people who are heading out for the weekend and just want to keep in touch with e-mail without having to fork over a whole month’s worth of money — and without paying $15 or $25 for each night of overpriced hotel Wi-Fi. And speaking of options, Virgin also offers a standard U.S.B. plug-in cellular modem with exactly the same pricing details.)

Comment:Virgin Mobile

60 days to go!

Shock Prediction: GOP to Take House, Maybe Senate in 2010 Election


Excerpt:

Sabato on House elections: "Given what we can see at this moment, Republicans have a good chance to win the House by picking up as many as 47 seats, net. This is a 'net' number since the GOP will probably lose several of its own congressional districts in Delaware, Hawaii, and Louisiana. This estimate, which may be raised or lowered by Election Day, is based on a careful district-by-district analysis, plus electoral modeling based on trends in President Obama's Gallup job approval rating and the Democratic-versus-Republican congressional generic ballot. If anything, we have been conservative in estimating the probable GOP House gains, if the election were being held today."

Sabato on the Senate: "In the Senate, we now believe the GOP will do a bit better than our long-time prediction of +7 seats. Republicans have an outside shot at winning full control (+10), but are more likely to end up with +8 (or maybe +9, at which point it will be interesting to see how senators such as Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and others react). GOP leaders themselves did not believe such a result was truly possible just a few months ago. If the Republican wave on November 2 is as large as some polls are suggesting it may be, then the surprise on election night could be a full GOP takeover. Since World War II, the House of Representatives has flipped parties on six occasions (1946, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1994, and 2006). Every time, the Senate flipped too, even when it had not been predicted to do so. These few examples do not create an iron law of politics, but they do suggest an electoral tendency."

Comment: The New York Times has some great graphics on the upcoming mid-terms

The Vega

Comment: For my brother who had one. Boy did his rust! Wiki

Buckyballs

Comment:Today only .... 2 fer on Woot

Is there gold in Fort Knox?

Ron Paul questions whether there's gold at Fort Knox, NY Fed

Excerpt:

The libertarian lawmaker told Kitco News, a website tracking news about precious metals, that an audit was necessary to determine how much the U.S. maintains in gold reserves in case the government were to use gold to back the dollar.

“If there was no question about the gold being there, you think they would be anxious to prove gold is there,” he said.

“Our Federal Reserve admits to nothing, and they should prove all the gold is there. There is a reason to be suspicious and even if you are not suspicious why wouldn’t you have an audit?

“I think it is a possibility," Paul said when asked if there was truth to rumors that there was actually no gold at Ft. Knox or the New York Fed.

Comment: Second image is from Goldfinger.

Dale Dye: Hollywood's go-to man when filmmakers want to make an authentic war picture

The Man Who Brought War to Hollywood

Excerpt:

Dye joined the Marines in 1964. He was involved in 31 major combat operations in Vietnam during two tours, and was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Through his company, Warriors, Inc., based in the San Fernando Valley, Dye has advised on approximately 50 productions. The Pacific is a passion project. "It took longer than anything I've ever done," Dye, 65, says, "I personally worked on it for about 13 months overseas, and then about six to eight months in post-production here in L.A."

Comment: If you have seen Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, or The Pacific this will interest you. More on Dale Dye

Current federal budget trends are capable of destroying this country

The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in U.S. History

Excerpt:

... current budgetary trends are capable of destroying the country. As Bowles pointed out, according to a Washington Post report, we can't just grow our way out of this. We can't just tax our way out of this. We have to do what governors do—cut spending or increase revenues in some combination that will begin to pull us back from the cliff.

Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.

Comment: Scary but true

Understatement: film-less photography could “substantially impact the way pictures will be taken in the future.”

Kodak’s 1975 Model Digital Camera

Excerpt:

Mr. Sasson called it “film-less photography” and took a “year of piecing together a bunch of new technology” to create a digital camera which ran off “16 nickel-cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter.”

One of my favorite anecdotes about this snazzy digital camera is the fact that it took 23 seconds to record a single digital image to its cassette deck. To view the filmless photo, Mr. Sasson had to remove the cassette from the camera and place it in a customized reader that could display the image on an old black and white television.

When the team of technicians presented the camera to Kodak audiences they of course heard a barrage of curious questions:

Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?

And although Mr. Sasson and his team tried to answer some of these questions, he concludes with the statement that the digital camera they created could “substantially impact the way pictures will be taken in the future.”

Comment: Click through to article for interesting pics!

Brother turns 57

Comment: Sister scanned this today. Nancy and Roger on the front steps of our home in Fort Wayne. Street view of home. One of my earliest memories was the week Roger was born. As a matter of fact, I don't have a memory older than that! August 25th 1953.