Some Thoughts On Mother Jones May/June 2011

Mother Jones (as well as The American Prospect) are my Liberal side shining through. You have been warned.

• A little late on getting this to you, but if you want to take a peak behind why those Rapture people continued to insist we were all going to die last Saturday and how they may be coping with it, then look no further.
• I do find it a bit ironic that a men such as this one insist on using the courts to destroy the word of the people when they are the same who cry foul when Liberal judges strike down those same people's word. Anyway he just looks like someone who would do something like allow billions in undocumented financing into our political system doesn't he?
• Really someone is exploiting a populist movement for financial gain? Say it ain't so?
• Lies are far easier to tell than they are to disprove. Probably explains why we have libel laws.
• Have you ever asked yourself what Climategate is/was? Answer.

Some Thoughts on Mandatory Solar Panels

I do not presume to know the cost effectiveness of a policy such as this nor do I claim to know if it is good policy. But all the same it IS policy and I would like to know why we aren't having this discussion in the US (The Federal, Sate or Local level) ? Why isn't there laws that say that in order to build something you must have at some point during the building process a team come out (paid for by the government in question) to determine the feasibility of placing renewable energy production built into the building? They should then issue their report and recommendations to the owners, recommendations that they by now means have to follow but at least then they know the options.

Some Thoughts on The Economist May 21st

In case you have been living under a rock for the past two weeks here is a good rundown of why the arrest of DSK matters.

The housing market continues to fall, I blame Thomas Jefferson.

With 3D printing in it's ascendancy I don't see how there is any other option. That is in the long term, but in the short term I think current manufacturing methods aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Creating small specific pieces and prototypes will be what we use 3D printing for for the foreseeable future.

If you need a crash course on why Pakistan is the problem in Southern Asia then look no further. For my opinion read below.

Some good coverage on Libya this week. Qaddafi is done. This is one of the reasons for why he is done. The international community did the right thing, but it may cost them. Look for my thoughts on Libya a little later.

I'm liberal. I'm Pro-Union. And I still think this looks really bad.

Because this post is lacking opinion I'll leave you with this parting shot. Some people have it out for Ronald McDonald. Now I can't say that when I think of a "balance, active lifestyles ambassador" but I also don't think he is the Marlboro Man. People are not fat because of McDonald's, people are fat because they handed over their hard earned cash to eat food that McDonald's provides. If people can not see the correlation between their ever expanding waste lines and the food they eat then that is their problem. Now if by the grace of god they realize a hamburger is not made of leafy greens then McDonald's will adapt to it. Oh wait......

Some Thoughts on Pakistan

Pakistan, to me, is a country that thinks of itself as a world power when in actuality it is not. As an example I present the following

• A constant need to match India pound for pound militarily (men on the border, their nuclear arsenal and insurgents to make up for the rest) even though it has a smaller population, inferior economy, and weaker ties to the west (the US deals with Pakistan because it has to).
• Insistence that the US not operate within Pakistani borders, be it clandestine operatives or targeted hits against terrorists and insurgents. An insistence that is not coupled with taking care of the problems that these forbidden US actions insinuate.
• A desire to have a future in controlling part of Afghanistan's trajectory (which runs counter to its love of sovereignty when the US is concerned) even though it can not even govern its own fracturous society.

It is as if Pakistan had this grand plan for itself and has spent the past half decade failing to come to grips with the fact that it will never happen. That either directly explains the thought process of its leaders or it indirectly explains the need to demonize the West/India while showing clout in Afghanistan, in order to blind the public of reality. A reality in which Pakistan sponsors terror abroad, tacitly allows it within and has no plan to lift its people out of violence and poverty.

The only solution, in my mind, is for the US, India and Afghanistan to foster economic ties in the region. The stronger the ties the more likely that the Pakistani street will demand peace in lieu of retribution.

Links, Random Links

With the latest issues of Wired and The Atlantic arriving recently I realized I never gave my readers my links from the past issue of both. So here they are, slightly rushed.

Wired May 2011

• Only Bill James would have chronicling a history of dark crime as a hobby. Count his book as one I wish to read if I had the time.
• Yes commercials are indeed louder.
• Japan's quake ridden history.
• Sycophants might now be sooooo bad.
• Why do we still have Region Codes? Answer. Though the DVD is all but dead anyway.
• First rule about private trackers, you don't talk about private trackers.
• We are an angry 12 year old away from Armageddon.
• I for one tend to agree with Steven Levy. Though I would love to do away with physical programs for web based apps I still find myself using a Mac based Twitter client, email client as well as RSS reader. So to find myself doing away with physical files on my computer will be quite a stretch. I myself favor a Dropbox approach for now.

The Atlantic May 2011

• Did you want to know more about the Verizon Wireless Guy? Here you go.
• I am happy to say I do not follow into this category of yuppie.
• Being a pack rat is never a good thing, preserving useless old buildings is an even worse habit. We grow through innovation not through preserving old inferior buildings.

Some Thoughts on Mitch Daniels

I never thought he would run, mostly because it would have been very hard for him to talk candidly about the debt and spending problems when the opposition (GOP and Dem alike) tried to paint those problems as his to begin with (he was George W Bush's budget man). With that said, if he had run I do not think he would have garnered as much support as everyone was saying he was bound to get. I think Mitt Romney has all ready staked his claim as the moderate Republican, with Tim Pawlenty to the right and John Huntsman trying to be slightly to Romney's left. I saw no space for Daniels and my guess is Daniels saw that as well.

I had planned to write about how I thought Daniels mirrored the prospect of Wesley Clark in 2004, but I was overtaken by events.

Podcast's of the Week

This American Life reports that government's don't create jobs, at best they add minimal value to jobs being added by the private sector all ready and at worst they rob future investments in high end job growth to subsidize low wage jobs now (AKA you need to invest in education to really win the future).

Oh and they like to poach jobs from eachother.


Planet Money does a great, and short, history of US debt dating back to Hamilton. Well worth your 20 minutes.

It's All Politics for this week features Ron Elving giving probably the best explanation as to how voters choose between an incumbent President and a challenger. I will be co-opting it from now on.

Charles Barkley is on the BS Report and in only the way Charles can do he makes America (or that specific part of America) look really stupid for disliking gay people.