The gun control folks are calling for yet more background checks. Like background checks for sales between family members, friends, and private individuals. So someone picks up the phone, calls a magic phone number and asks if it is OK to sell a gun to so and so. At the far end of the phone, some bureaucrat checks the name against a list. If the name isn't on the list he says "OK sell it to him".
In short we have the government running a blacklist. Once your name goes on the list, you cannot purchase firearms. Since this list is so damaging, ethical doctors are reluctant to mess up their patient's lives by calling the government and saying " I was just treating so an so and I think he is a danger to society and you ought to put him on the gun blacklist."
If the government is going to run a gun blacklist, there ought to be clear rules about how much evidence is needed to blacklist a citizen, rules for getting off the black list, and strict rules keeping the black list secret. Amid all the happy talk about more background checks I haven't heard any talk about fair and just procedures for operating the black list.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Ford's admen ride again
A week or so ago I twitted Ford over their ineffectual TV ad for an SUV. This morning comes word via NPR that Ford India had done worse. They chartered the JWT agency to do some ads. JWT came up with an ad to show how big the trunk was. The ad showed three women, bound and gagged, being loaded into the trunk. Apparently Ford never actually ran this ad, but copies of it leaked out to the public and caused a furor. It got so bad that Ford is publicly apologizing for the ad.
Great thinking Ford. Sell cars by showing them used for crime. Even though V8 Fords were Bonnie and Clyde's favorite getaway cars, Ford never mentioned this in ads. Let's be charitable and put this down to Indian Ford executives who presumable are less sensitive to public values than American ones.
Mulally ought to schedule all his execs for remedial ad creation 101.
Great thinking Ford. Sell cars by showing them used for crime. Even though V8 Fords were Bonnie and Clyde's favorite getaway cars, Ford never mentioned this in ads. Let's be charitable and put this down to Indian Ford executives who presumable are less sensitive to public values than American ones.
Mulally ought to schedule all his execs for remedial ad creation 101.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Pricey Corporate Jet
The new version of the Gulfstream bizjet retails for a mere $64.5 million. Nice plane and all, but how do I explain to my stockholders why I blew $64 million on a bizjet instead of paying it out as dividends? Especially as IRS will make me capitalize it so I cannot even deduct the cost from earnings.
Vikings on History Channel
I think I am going to stop watching this one. Too much looting and murdering and general crime. Too many bad looking guys with strange haircuts and shaggy beards. Everyone is a bad guy, no good guys. Terrible lighting, every indoor scene is too damn dark. Color is poor. Too many actors mumble their lines.
Too bad. The title was attractive.
Too bad. The title was attractive.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Republican Post Mortem Report
After the 2012 wipeout, the Republican National Committee has issued a "What went wrong and how do we fix it" (aka Growth and Opportunity) report. It came to me yesterday. I skimmed it. It's wordy. It's full of nice sounding but non specific verbiage, repeated over and over again. It fails to grapple with the key issues.
Number One key issue is the women's vote. We lost the woman's vote to Obama by a margin of 10%. Right there is the whole election. Ten percent of half the population is more the all the Hispanics, and all the gays put together. Republicans have to figure out what has to be done to regain the woman's vote. Does the party have to drop it's anti abortion stance? Does it have to offer free contraceptives to all? How many women care about charter schools? Do we need to support charter schools? Teachers (mostly women) are dead set against charter schools. Are there enough mothers who care about charters to offset all those unionized teachers? How many women care about an opportunity to join the infantry? Does maternity leave (or paternity leave) have any resonance with woman voters? Do women want the right to carry concealed or do they want to take the guns away from the bad guys?
Grow and Opportunity report simply doesn't deal with woman's issues. Probably too controversial.
Number Two key issue is the youth vote, youth being everyone under 30. Youth care deeply about the internet, specifically the ability to download neat stuff, music, and movies. They hate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They hate the current copyright law that extends copyright forever. They don't like taxing sales over the internet.
Young folk are universally in favor of gay marriage. They see it as a fundamental right, and opposition is seen like racial prejudice or antisemitism. And, most young folk see nothing wrong with abortion.
And where does the Republican Party stand on any of these issues? Who knows, Growth and Opportunity report is silent. Again, probably too controversial.
Until the Republicans debate these real issues and come to some conclusions, the Democrats will win to next election.
Number One key issue is the women's vote. We lost the woman's vote to Obama by a margin of 10%. Right there is the whole election. Ten percent of half the population is more the all the Hispanics, and all the gays put together. Republicans have to figure out what has to be done to regain the woman's vote. Does the party have to drop it's anti abortion stance? Does it have to offer free contraceptives to all? How many women care about charter schools? Do we need to support charter schools? Teachers (mostly women) are dead set against charter schools. Are there enough mothers who care about charters to offset all those unionized teachers? How many women care about an opportunity to join the infantry? Does maternity leave (or paternity leave) have any resonance with woman voters? Do women want the right to carry concealed or do they want to take the guns away from the bad guys?
Grow and Opportunity report simply doesn't deal with woman's issues. Probably too controversial.
Number Two key issue is the youth vote, youth being everyone under 30. Youth care deeply about the internet, specifically the ability to download neat stuff, music, and movies. They hate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They hate the current copyright law that extends copyright forever. They don't like taxing sales over the internet.
Young folk are universally in favor of gay marriage. They see it as a fundamental right, and opposition is seen like racial prejudice or antisemitism. And, most young folk see nothing wrong with abortion.
And where does the Republican Party stand on any of these issues? Who knows, Growth and Opportunity report is silent. Again, probably too controversial.
Until the Republicans debate these real issues and come to some conclusions, the Democrats will win to next election.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Evolution of domestic dogs
Interesting article here about discovery of a dog 33,000 years old. That's a long time ago. The article talks a lot about "morphology" (size and shape) and DNA analysis. The author argues that this isn't really the beginning of domestication of dogs, the "morphology" is pretty much pure wolf and the DNA matching is more wolf than dog. He speculates that this specimen represents an early attempt at domestication that didn't work out, or the harshness of the last ice age which started maybe 20,000 years ago, aborted the domestication.
Perhaps.
In actual fact, the difference between domestic dogs and wolves is psychological, more than anything else. Dogs have a much better attitude about humans than wolves do. Dogs will accept petting, food, affection, and even obey orders. Wolves, not so much. Modern German Shepherds and Huskies look a lot like wolves but aren't. It's not clear to me that this psychological difference would make much difference in the DNA or in the shape of bones.
It's a good bet that wolves were domesticates when some human children came upon orphan wolf pups in the wild. When young, pups are cute, humans are attracted to cute, and surely the children carried the pup[s] home and made pets of them. Some wolf pups so adopted must have carried the genes needed to bond with humans. Probably other orphan pups lacked these genes and ran away when they grew old enough or were driven off when they did something wolflike such as threatening small children. Some how, an adopted wolf cub who hung with the humans must have found a mate somewhere, and gave birth to a litter of pups while living with humans. It would only take a couple of dog generations to establish a domestic strain of dogs that were breeding while living with humans. Dogs are pretty useful in the hunt and in guarding the camp. The humans would have taken to them. Despite the harshness of the coming ice age, it's hard to see that breaking up the domestication of dogs once begun.
Perhaps.
In actual fact, the difference between domestic dogs and wolves is psychological, more than anything else. Dogs have a much better attitude about humans than wolves do. Dogs will accept petting, food, affection, and even obey orders. Wolves, not so much. Modern German Shepherds and Huskies look a lot like wolves but aren't. It's not clear to me that this psychological difference would make much difference in the DNA or in the shape of bones.
It's a good bet that wolves were domesticates when some human children came upon orphan wolf pups in the wild. When young, pups are cute, humans are attracted to cute, and surely the children carried the pup[s] home and made pets of them. Some wolf pups so adopted must have carried the genes needed to bond with humans. Probably other orphan pups lacked these genes and ran away when they grew old enough or were driven off when they did something wolflike such as threatening small children. Some how, an adopted wolf cub who hung with the humans must have found a mate somewhere, and gave birth to a litter of pups while living with humans. It would only take a couple of dog generations to establish a domestic strain of dogs that were breeding while living with humans. Dogs are pretty useful in the hunt and in guarding the camp. The humans would have taken to them. Despite the harshness of the coming ice age, it's hard to see that breaking up the domestication of dogs once begun.
Continuing Resolution is real, Budget is show
The TV news had been full of budget talk, the Ryan budget, the Senate budget, the White House budget, and who passed what. They are threatening to withhold Senate salaries unless the Senate gets its act together and passes a budget. The newsies love this story and give it a lot of air play.
The budget story, while entertaining, isn't all that important. A budget just expresses hopes. Budgets do NOT allocate money, authorize spending, authorize programs or hiring or retention of federal employees. The budget just says "We want spending to be so much, taxes to be hiked so much, and we will only run a deficit so big." Worthy thoughts, but of no real effect.
Taxes will be what they were last year unless Obama musters enough votes for a tax hike. Spending on "entitlements" (Medicare, Medicaid, social security, pensions,and some other stuff) will be what it will be. Social Security will write checks to all those eligible, Medicare and Medicare will cover the medical bills of all those who go to their doctors, pensions will get paid. This happens automatically, or at least til the money runs out. The rest of federal spending is "discretionary" meaning Congress must pass a law authorizing the spending of tax payer money. Discretionary is Defense, Justice, State, HUD, Homeland Security, Energy, EPA, Agriculture, FAA, FCC, Highway Trust Fund, and a bunch more.
In the old days, Congress would pass a separate law (appropriation bill) for each discretionary organization. This process was bogging down even back in the 1960's. Appropriations bills were always late. USAF in those days never knew what it could spend until the very last day of the fiscal year. Each year the start of the new fiscal year was rolled back a month to give Congress more time to wrangle over appropriation bills. Eventually Congress got so late that they skipped an entire fiscal year.
It got so bad that the new fiscal year would start but Congress hadn't passed any appropriation bills at all. In order to prevent a total shutdown, Congress passed a "Continuing Resolution" that year which said "All you agencies can spend what you spent last year, with a few little changes here and there. "
Continuing Resolutions have the advantage of being filibuster proof. While hard core senators could hold up appropriations for this department or that department, they never had the stones to hold up the entire federal government. And, it's very difficult to figure out just how much money is going where. You have to know what the appropriations were when the last appropriations bill was passed, (ancient history) and work in all the ups and downs from all the subsequent continuing resolutions. Doing this is a life's work. Congressmen just vote to pass the thing. They don't really know where the money is going.
Anyhow, the last continuing resolution expires at the end of March. A few WashPo articles claim that Congress passed another continuing resolution that carries us forward to September. Fox News said (once) that the continuing resolution includes the famous "sequester" budget cuts. Let's hope so.
September will be here, real soon, and they will have to pass yet another continuing resolution. "Cuts" only take effect if they get included in the continuing resolution.
The budget story, while entertaining, isn't all that important. A budget just expresses hopes. Budgets do NOT allocate money, authorize spending, authorize programs or hiring or retention of federal employees. The budget just says "We want spending to be so much, taxes to be hiked so much, and we will only run a deficit so big." Worthy thoughts, but of no real effect.
Taxes will be what they were last year unless Obama musters enough votes for a tax hike. Spending on "entitlements" (Medicare, Medicaid, social security, pensions,and some other stuff) will be what it will be. Social Security will write checks to all those eligible, Medicare and Medicare will cover the medical bills of all those who go to their doctors, pensions will get paid. This happens automatically, or at least til the money runs out. The rest of federal spending is "discretionary" meaning Congress must pass a law authorizing the spending of tax payer money. Discretionary is Defense, Justice, State, HUD, Homeland Security, Energy, EPA, Agriculture, FAA, FCC, Highway Trust Fund, and a bunch more.
In the old days, Congress would pass a separate law (appropriation bill) for each discretionary organization. This process was bogging down even back in the 1960's. Appropriations bills were always late. USAF in those days never knew what it could spend until the very last day of the fiscal year. Each year the start of the new fiscal year was rolled back a month to give Congress more time to wrangle over appropriation bills. Eventually Congress got so late that they skipped an entire fiscal year.
It got so bad that the new fiscal year would start but Congress hadn't passed any appropriation bills at all. In order to prevent a total shutdown, Congress passed a "Continuing Resolution" that year which said "All you agencies can spend what you spent last year, with a few little changes here and there. "
Continuing Resolutions have the advantage of being filibuster proof. While hard core senators could hold up appropriations for this department or that department, they never had the stones to hold up the entire federal government. And, it's very difficult to figure out just how much money is going where. You have to know what the appropriations were when the last appropriations bill was passed, (ancient history) and work in all the ups and downs from all the subsequent continuing resolutions. Doing this is a life's work. Congressmen just vote to pass the thing. They don't really know where the money is going.
Anyhow, the last continuing resolution expires at the end of March. A few WashPo articles claim that Congress passed another continuing resolution that carries us forward to September. Fox News said (once) that the continuing resolution includes the famous "sequester" budget cuts. Let's hope so.
September will be here, real soon, and they will have to pass yet another continuing resolution. "Cuts" only take effect if they get included in the continuing resolution.
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