2009 archive
Que Passa? 0
From TPM:
Reverse Anachronism 0
I’m watching Psych, which I really enjoy. It’s plotted in a most disjointed manner, but has a nice sense of humor.
Our heroes are chasing down a steam train as if it were a regularly scheduled mainline train. I know it was a steam train. The shot of the passing engine showed a triple-cylinder compound drive.
In a quarter of a century of working for the railroad, I never saw a steam train in scheduled mainline service. Or branch line service. Or siding service.
Diesel. Diesel-electric. Electric. No steam.
Furrfu.
Diversification 0
Also posting at Geekazine.
This Week’s Dustbiters 0
The FDIC just started posting at 21:00.
So far there’s only one.
Number one: Silver Falls Bank, Silverton, Oregon (no relation to Silverado).
A Constant 0
Don’t believe what you see on teevee.
Among its many criticisms, the study counted a backlog of 359,000 requests for forensic analysis in 2005, a 24 percent increase in delays since 2002. A survey of crime laboratories found 80 percent of them to be understaffed.
Still Making Stuff Up 0
It’s a Republican thing. They dumped the country down the toilet, got nothing on their side, so they return to their tried-and-true tactic: Making stuff up.
From FactCheck dot org (emphasis added):
- Rep. Tom Price of Georgia says the measure creates “a national health care rationing board.” Not true. What it creates is a council to coordinate research into which treatments work best, and are most effective for the money. And in fact, the new law states quite specifically that the council has no power to “mandate coverage” and that its recommendations are not to be construed as “clinical guidelines for … treatment.
”
- Betsy McCaughey, a Republican former lieutenant governor of New York, claims that the bill creates a “new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.” Not true. The office was created in 2004 by President Bush. McCaughey also says the office “will monitor treatments” and ” ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.” But that’s nothing new. Bush’s initiative called for creating a health IT system to transmit information to “guide medical decisions.”
Critics of comparative effectiveness research, which the government has been funding for decades, claim that it will lead to treatment being approved or denied based on costs. Proponents say it will improve the quality of care and can, in some cases, show that more costly treatments aren’t as effective as less expensive alternatives.
We can’t predict what will happen in the future, but we can say that several claims being made about the impact of the bill are simply opinions being passed off as facts.
“. . . opinions being passed off as facts.”
Yeah.
Right.
There’s a nice short pithy word for opinions passed off as facts.
Pay for Performance 0
Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:
(snip)
The answer is simple. Performance-related pay is called salary.
This is actually sound compensation theory and good organizational psychology.
Wrapping the bulk of an employee’s or an executive’s compensation up in huge annual “performance-related” bonuses which far exceed his or her base pay encourages short-term individual greed and stupidity self-serving risk-taking and discourages considering the long-term survival and growth of the organization.
How It Happened 0
A story of greed and irresponsibility.
Eleven worthwhile minutes. You can bank on it.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo
Via Andrew Sullivan.
From the Dept. of Really Stupid Ideas Dept. 1
A mileage tax.
We’ve already got one. It’s called a gas tax. The more miles you drive, the more gas you buy, the more tax you pay.
The lower your miles per gallon, the more often you buy gas, the more tax you pay.
Doesn’t take a GPS to figure that out.
Frankly, as I commented over at Duncan’s, I think this comes from the school of thought that says
The more complicated the technology, the better the idea.
Folks, that just ain’t so.
Afterthought: And if there is a motive beyond this to reduce actual miles driven, well, gas prices can do that too. Remember last summer.
Your Tax Dollars at Work 0
Mohamed Farag Bashmilah tells his story at the Huffington Post. He was never told why he was picked up and detained for almost three years:
Torture is not some academic thing discussed on talk shows, with hairsplitting over how many buckets of water are needed to turn a moonlight swim into body surfing. Those who participate in such discussions deny truth, to themselves and to others.
Torture is the brutal destruction of humanity and a violation of all that is holy, if, indeed, anything is holy.
For the folks who made this–and similar things–happen (and you know they did–the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt), torture is not an instrument of anything; torture is their pornography.
They are shameless. We should be shame-full, for they bring shame on us all.
Summations 0
Bonddad analyzes “Fed speak.” The conclusion:
Follow the link to read the analysis.
While you’re at it, read his thoughts nationalizing the banks.
Scientific Method 0
The scientific method of disposing of a request to legitimize idiocy, that is. (Via CC.)
By the way, while we are on the subject, I got a kick out of this interview. From the website:
Follow the link to the website and search for February 13, 2009, or listen here (MP3).
Jerry Coyne was a year ahead of me at college; I knew him slightly. He probably wouldn’t remember me from Adam. If I remember correctly, he graduated with a 3.0 GPA in a college that used a three-point system (a “D” was no points). No easy feat anywhere, certainly not at my school.
He was brilliant and funny then.
He’s brilliant and funny and published now.
Car Balk 0
Sales pitchers retired from the mound:
In the face of tight credit and a plunge in sales of cars and trucks, about 4.2 percent of the country’s 20,084 auto dealerships shut their doors, according to data firm Urban Science.
More vanishing retail: While I was in Concord Mall today buying socks, I noticed that the Burger King and three stores were gone and vacant and the Spencer’s Gifts had turned into a plush looking hearing aid place.
The Burger King and Spencer’s had been there since before I moved to these parts, through all the iterations of the Mall. I can’t remember what the other stores were, which leads me to think they were women’s wear stores of some description.
The camera shop is long gone, a victim of digital photography.
“Reagraham Lincool” 0
Go to Balloon Juice. Read the post. Play the video.
Do not drink anything while playing the video.
You will not regret it.
Nowhere To Go, Nothing To Do 0
The hangover deepens:
(snip)
U.S. stocks fell as the data reinforced fears the worsening slump would erode company profits, driving the Dow Jones industrial average to 7,465.95, its lowest close since October 2002.
(snip)
New applications for unemployment benefits were steady at 627,000 last week, hovering close to a 26-year high and raising the possibility that job losses in the non-farm sector could cross the 600,000 threshold in February.
The Mythology of Layoffs 0
Shorter Peter Cappelli interview: In the long run, they don’t help companies. They help the stock price because “Wall Street analysts,” rulers of all things financial, think that layoffs help companies.
A description of the interview from the Radio Times website:
Follow the link to the website and search the archives for February 18, 2009, or listen here (MP3).
SUVurban Life 0
Hope she has a big car.
Stimulating the Economy 0
I bought a pack of four pairs of socks today.
Couldn’t afford two packs for eight pairs.