Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Monday, June 04, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday, May 07, 2012
"Mystery of the Disappearing Bees: Solved!” announced a Reuters headline. Ah, if only that were true...."
““Mystery of the Disappearing Bees: Solved!” announced a Reuters headline. Ah, if only that were true. Even if neonicotinoids were banned tomorrow, honeybees would still be in big trouble.”
- The honeybees are still dying - Boing Boing
- The honeybees are still dying - Boing Boing
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Approaching taxes from data, not politics
I came across these two analyses months ago and never had time to share. Basically, it's an analysis of our federal income tax system doing two things:
- Finding out if there's anything to the Laffer Curve
- Determining what the optimal top marginal tax rate is for maximizing economic growth
The short answers are: no, it's upside-down; and, 65% should be the top marginal tax rate.
In more detail, then. Economist Mike Kimel tackles the Laffer Curve first - an upside-down 'U' chart that purports to show an optimal top marginal tax rate to maximize growth. In practice, partisan Republican "economists" use this to argue that tax rates should always be lower because it will actually mean more tax revenue.
The data disagree. Kimel illustrates that the proper Laffer Curve is a right-side-up 'U' – the Kimel Curve – with a minimum around 32% for the top marginal tax rate (the top rate is currently 35%, down from 90% or more during the 1950s and 60s, 50% during Reagan's first term and ~40% during the first Clinton term). In other words, both raising or lowering taxes could theoretically raise revenue.
However, tax policy isn't really about maximizing revenue. It's about providing services most efficiently and getting the best economic growth for the amount of taxes collected. And the historical data suggest that the optimal top marginal tax rate is 64%. It's a number that fits a lot better with the theory that government spending juices the economy (think education, infrastructure, and R&D) than the theory that government is stealing from the private sector's growth potential.
Fascinating.
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
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wicked fast Gmail in Firefox 11
If you use Firefox and Gmail, you can make the latter run much faster, using a new protocol aptly-named SPDY. What to do:
- Update Firefox to the latest version: 11
- To enable SPDY in Firefox, type
about:configin your location bar and press enter. - Now enter
network.http.spdy.enabledin the search box. - Double click the entry corresponding to
network.http.spdy.enabledto enable it.
(if you use Chrome, SPDY is enabled by default)
To see which websites use SPDY (other than Google ones), installed the FF add-on called SPDY Indicator.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Study: Conservatives’ trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s | ScienceBlog.com
Study: Conservatives’ trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s | ScienceBlog.com: 
The end of the article gets into an interesting discussion of the implications of governing when one party sees science as “liberal culture” rather than fact-based. Disturbing.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
'The Daily Show's' Advantage Over the Mainstream Media: An Eye for the Absurd
'The Daily Show's' Advantage Over the Mainstream Media: An Eye for the Absurd: 
Sad to say that the skepticism that comes with satire should be more prevalent in actual reporters.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Should Science Pull the Trigger on Antiviral Drugs—That Can Blast the Common Cold? | Wired Science | Wired.com
Should Science Pull the Trigger on Antiviral Drugs—That Can Blast the Common Cold? | Wired Science | Wired.com: 
A really excellent story on three potential paths to broad-spectrum anti-viral drugs and the potential drawbacks of having that kind of curative power at our disposal.
The U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Numerical Weather Prediction
The U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Numerical Weather Prediction: 
The Europeans are better predictors of our weather.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Where Did the Benefits of Technology Go?
Where Did the Benefits of Technology Go?: 
A two thousand dollar laptop computer today is vastly more powerful than the most expensive supercomputer was in 1975. Great advances have been made in the field of automation, and in many other technical fields. Applied to manufacturing and the supply of various services,
the amount of labor needed to perform many tasks has been greatly reduced.
This explains why working people today, despite shorter work days and more vacation time, are earning much more in real dollars than they were 35 years ago.
Wouldn’t it be great if the previous sentence were true? Why isn’t it true?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Can't Wait
Seeing how the Catholic Bishops are pulling out all the stops to oppose President Obama's contraception policy (a policy backed by several Supreme Court cases), I can't wait to see the bishops come out with guns blazing against the Republicans when it comes time to talk about achieving economic justice with higher taxes on the rich....
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Friday, February 03, 2012
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
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