Friday, April 27, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
"In 2010, as I reported at the time, Amnesty International released a damning report about pregnancy..."
“In 2010, as I reported at the time, Amnesty International released a damning report about pregnancy and childbirth care in the United States. That report noted that American women are dying during pregnancy and childbirth at double the rate they were 20 years ago (from 6.6 per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006).”
- Yes, childbirth is more dangerous for women than the abortion pill | MinnPost
- Yes, childbirth is more dangerous for women than the abortion pill | MinnPost
A very good, politics-free assessment of the constitutionality of Obamacare
Summary: the individual mandate is unprecedented and the law likely means nothing without it.
Conclusion: it’s too bad the insurance lobby torpedoed a government-funded option, because that would have been constitutional.
Here’s the link to part 3. Links to Part 1 and 2 in the article.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Justice
the party of fiscal responsibility found out that its trusted and twice-elected party chairman, Tony Sutton, resigned after over-spending nearly $2 million the party did not have
That sounds an awful lot like their legislative strategy as well. Borrow, shift, hide, but don’t dare pay for things!
Monday, April 23, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
A birthday with some self-illumination
My birthday this year was great. K did the dishes for me on the day of (a weekday) so I got to read a new book for an hour straight (not easy with two small children). I got good foods (e.g. French Silk Pie) and had a small, low-key "happy hour" at our house with a group of friends. Today was a great end to the "birthday week," with a leisurely lake walk, playing the sand with the kids, and a tasty, simple meal ("veggie delight" sandwiches and scrambled eggs).
I'm not sure why, but thinking back on the week (and some of the things I got for my birthday) fired the spark of self-reflection. For example, why am I so delighted with a ceramic paring knife? Or the quick-read kitchen thermometer? I'm not really a foodie by the standard definition. While I like good kitchen tools, my "birthday meal" (a family tradition) was from Chipotle this year. I also found a Groupon to the local bar that has great burgers.
Rather, it's what Robert McCloskey called "labor saving devices" in his Homer Price books (childhood favorites) that both intrigue and delight me.
Seriously, if you do any amount of cooking with vegetables and have not tried a ceramic knife, you haven't lived. As K knows, I will talk for hours about how delightful that first slice was, how nice it is to chop carrots and how well the knife cuts tomatoes.
Do you know how much I like this? Isn't this knife great?
It's the third knife I've asked for as a gift (I started with this one - get it, it's terrific and inexpensive), and I just love that it makes something we do (cook) significantly easier.
I also rave occasionally about the pot rack in the kitchen corner that freed up two whole shelves in our cupboards (if you live in a city home, this kind of space-saving is not easy), the lights I installed in the clothes closets in the bedroom (yes, that shirt IS blue), and - of course - my iPhone.
An iPhone presents the ultimate intersection of "labor saving device" and technology. I'm the guy who at age 14 got SimCity 2000 for Christmas and - after realizing the family computer couldn't run it - spent five months reading the game manual, the weekly Best Buy circular, and writing about it in my English class journal every week (I still have it - wow, I was obsessed) until we got a new computer.
By the time I got an iPhone (the year the 4th edition was released), I had already researched apps I wanted. I knew every reason why the 4 was better (or not) than the 3 or 3gs. And I had also researched jailbreaking, just in case I couldn't handle Apple's hardware/software lockdown.
Why was this device great? Schedule a meeting while at a meeting? Great, my phone says I'm free next Tuesday. Carry my music and audiobooks without a second device - delightful! Skip packing the Nintendo DS on airplane trips - okay! Skip bringing a book and bring an ebook - splendid! It was the consolidation of entertainment and productivity. Labor saving!
Then there are apps. I already use Mac programs like Quicksilver or Hazel or TypeIt4Me to shorten or automate everything I do on the computer. The iPhone itself was just the beginning. JotNot Pro was the end of paper filing in my house. Dropbox was the end of flash drives (and my worry about regular backups). GroceryIQ was the end of paper lists for shopping. Remember the Milk was the end of forgetting that thing you asked me to do last week. Lastpass means I can have a password like this 20Y$%UWERT#@$TERry34509j3049r2304jt4 and I don't need to type it in. Ever.
I could go on (as K remarks, I often do).
I've realized over the years that this tendency does require some moderation. One can (and has) spent more time looking for a shortcut that a new tool will ever produce. But it's kind of like panning for gold, the finding is the fun part, even more so than actual results.
Got any good tools or technology that make your life easier? Share with me in the comments?
I'm not sure why, but thinking back on the week (and some of the things I got for my birthday) fired the spark of self-reflection. For example, why am I so delighted with a ceramic paring knife? Or the quick-read kitchen thermometer? I'm not really a foodie by the standard definition. While I like good kitchen tools, my "birthday meal" (a family tradition) was from Chipotle this year. I also found a Groupon to the local bar that has great burgers.
Rather, it's what Robert McCloskey called "labor saving devices" in his Homer Price books (childhood favorites) that both intrigue and delight me.
Seriously, if you do any amount of cooking with vegetables and have not tried a ceramic knife, you haven't lived. As K knows, I will talk for hours about how delightful that first slice was, how nice it is to chop carrots and how well the knife cuts tomatoes.
Do you know how much I like this? Isn't this knife great?
It's the third knife I've asked for as a gift (I started with this one - get it, it's terrific and inexpensive), and I just love that it makes something we do (cook) significantly easier.
I also rave occasionally about the pot rack in the kitchen corner that freed up two whole shelves in our cupboards (if you live in a city home, this kind of space-saving is not easy), the lights I installed in the clothes closets in the bedroom (yes, that shirt IS blue), and - of course - my iPhone.
An iPhone presents the ultimate intersection of "labor saving device" and technology. I'm the guy who at age 14 got SimCity 2000 for Christmas and - after realizing the family computer couldn't run it - spent five months reading the game manual, the weekly Best Buy circular, and writing about it in my English class journal every week (I still have it - wow, I was obsessed) until we got a new computer.
By the time I got an iPhone (the year the 4th edition was released), I had already researched apps I wanted. I knew every reason why the 4 was better (or not) than the 3 or 3gs. And I had also researched jailbreaking, just in case I couldn't handle Apple's hardware/software lockdown.
Why was this device great? Schedule a meeting while at a meeting? Great, my phone says I'm free next Tuesday. Carry my music and audiobooks without a second device - delightful! Skip packing the Nintendo DS on airplane trips - okay! Skip bringing a book and bring an ebook - splendid! It was the consolidation of entertainment and productivity. Labor saving!
Then there are apps. I already use Mac programs like Quicksilver or Hazel or TypeIt4Me to shorten or automate everything I do on the computer. The iPhone itself was just the beginning. JotNot Pro was the end of paper filing in my house. Dropbox was the end of flash drives (and my worry about regular backups). GroceryIQ was the end of paper lists for shopping. Remember the Milk was the end of forgetting that thing you asked me to do last week. Lastpass means I can have a password like this 20Y$%UWERT#@$TERry34509j3049r2304jt4 and I don't need to type it in. Ever.
I could go on (as K remarks, I often do).
I've realized over the years that this tendency does require some moderation. One can (and has) spent more time looking for a shortcut that a new tool will ever produce. But it's kind of like panning for gold, the finding is the fun part, even more so than actual results.
Got any good tools or technology that make your life easier? Share with me in the comments?
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"Despite a massive investigation by voter ID proponents, there were only 160 voter eligibility..."
““Despite a massive investigation by voter ID proponents, there were only 160 voter eligibility violation cases filed in 2011, and only 140 convictions. All of which were felons voting before they were eligible. 2,700,000 votes were cast in 2010 primary and general elections. That is a .006% rate of error. Contrast that with the 45% of eligible voters who did not vote in 2010, which is the bigger problem?””
- Why Voter Photo ID Is Wrongheaded In One Page | Institute for Local Self-Reliance
- Why Voter Photo ID Is Wrongheaded In One Page | Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 09, 2012
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Researchers recreate bee collapse with pesticide-laced corn syrup
Researchers recreate bee collapse with pesticide-laced corn syrup: 
A fascinating lesson in our obsession with pesticides, and the dangers of relying on insufficient testing of them:
depending on LD50 findings (i.e. a lethal dose that results in the death of half of the specimens tested) “is not relevant to the modern day chemical toxicity testing.” In other words, regulators need to start testing the long-term impacts of chemicals in the environment, and not simply focused on whether or not they instantly kill test subjects.
Friday, April 06, 2012
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