As discussed here , the climate models that predicted a rapidly warming earth continue to be way way off. The measured results and the projected results are way off. I’ve received a lot of grief over the years from friends, family and colleagues because I’m a global warming “skeptic” (particularly about AGW). Now mind you, I drive an electric car powered by a solar array and live in a house heated and cooled through Geothermal and had a gold rating from ...
I was reading a forum discussion regarding a car shop owner who lost his temper with a customer and berated them (hurled a bunch of profanity at them). The customer filed a suit against them for emotional distress. I couldn’t find a link to verify if this is even a real lawsuit but the discussion itself was illuminating. One of the participants said that they hope that the car shop owner “gets taken to the cleaners”. Really? This is the society these people want to see? Someone being ...
I’ve been watching the fall-out from the destruction of Hostess. I’m not going to get into the “blame” game other than to say it’s kind of dumb for people who go on strike to be shocked that they lose their jobs. What I will get into is the never-ending stupidity of complaining about CEO pay. Americans have no problem with paying athletes and entertainers tens of millions of dollars annually. But they rage about people getting paid a couple million for running a multi-billion dol...
You can see the full results here: http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president#exit-polls Here is what I found interesting: Obama won the youth vote 60% to 37%. Romney won the retired vote 56% to 44%. Obama won the high school graduates (and dominates those who didn’t finish high school) and also won decisively amongst those who pursued postgraduate degrees. Romney won the college graduate vote. H...
Headline: Obama has a 3 point lead over Romney in the latest ABC/Washington post poll. As a stat nut, I like to look at the internals. So here they are: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_20121013.html Lots of interesting stuff in there. Especially when you get to the bottom: Wait a second. So they changed their sample size since the September (pre debate) poll to give Democrats a +9 point advantage in likely voters versus a 3 point a...
Caused a minor outrage on Qt3 a couple years ago by being uncomfortable with individual leaders having their own logo. I stupidly pointed out that personalized logos have commonly been used by totalitarian movements in the past (Godwin alert!) But you know, it’s still creepy. And you know what else is creepy? To politicians: STOP IT.
The US Ambassador in Libya was killed in an attack yesterday by "Islamist gunmen” blaming America for a film they said insulted the prophet Mohammad. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-libya-usa-attack-idUSBRE88B0EI20120912
Sometimes the local politics of Higgins Lake Michigan can be very frustrating. The latest example has to be the "save the dam" advocates. Briefly, MSU in cooperation with the DNR are conducting a study of the effect the dam has on Higgins Lake. The dam is used to help control the lake water level. Many decades ago, a dam was put on the lake to keep the water level high enough to use the lake effectively for for boats. As more people bought cottages on the lake, the demand to raise th...
Just curious, how serious would you take the views of someone who made their money by winning the lottery when it comes to economics and business? So picture this, 40 some year old couple with a yearly household income of around $200k suddenly has a windfall of over a million dollars in one year. Not from their job. Not from a business. Not from meeting some life long goal. The money just suddenly showed up. What do you think their attitude would be towards other people who were rich? ...
I see a lot of people in politics support the concept of "local control". But as a dogma, it falls apart at a certain point. Let me present you the example of Higgins Lake, Michigan. Higgins Lake is a beautiful lake in the northern part of the lower peninsula. It has two large state parks, a couple first class marinas and several public boat launches. The lake itself is beautiful. Shallow and sandy by the shore and very deep (over 100 feet deep) in the middle. So what problems ...
So why do people demonize companies that outsource to China but it's perfectly acceptable for individuals to go and buy things made in China? Next time someone wants to rant about company X outsourcing, they should, at least, start trying to buy American if they feel that way.
As some of you know, I'm politically conservative. This is fairly meaningless since my interest in politics is much like my interest in professional Starcraft. I'm kinda interested and follow it probably more than is healthy but I don't get particularly fired up about it. But I do like to debate. I will debate anything, no matter how mind numbing. I am thinking that this is why I tend to have mostly liberal friends. I enjoy talking to people who disagree with my views ...
In a recent speech Obama made the statement that implied business owners didn't build their businesses -- "someone else made that happen" I'm going to put the full text and context of what was said because I've seen left-wing writers trying to diminish what Obama said by claiming it was taken out of context. So here's the full context: I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It...
In our local school district, it’s $7,600 per student. Mind you, this is just the state’s contribution to it. That doesn’t count other sources (local and federal for instance). The total amount is allegedly $12,000 per student. Next time someone yells about the “Slashing” of a few hundred dollars per student, we’re talking a tiny percentage cut. If you paid a teacher $100,000 per year to teach a class of 30 students, that would be $3,000 per student. There are, cert...
Between the Nanny Statists on the left and the thumpers on the right, I just can’t get excited about politics anymore. I really don’t need anyone to tell me how to live. I also really don’t care to hear the religious beliefs of a federal candidate. Why tell me? Are you hinting that you’re going to use the power of the federal government to compel me to live by your beliefs? No? Then quit talking about them. I care as much for a Federal candidate’s religious beliefs as I do to wh...