(_) Conservative Romney
(_) Moderate Romney
(_) Barack Obama.
I couldn't figure out which Romney would actually take the oath of office, so I voted for Obama instead. ---
Friday, October 26, 2012
Romney Voter Problem
When I got my ballot, it had THREE names on it:
(_) Conservative Romney
(_) Moderate Romney
(_) Barack Obama.
I couldn't figure out which Romney would actually take the oath of office, so I voted for Obama instead. ---
(_) Conservative Romney
(_) Moderate Romney
(_) Barack Obama.
I couldn't figure out which Romney would actually take the oath of office, so I voted for Obama instead. ---
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Ads Within Ads: How to Get MORE Politcal Ads on TV! #pres2012
 |
| Embedding Romney Ads Inside Mourdock Ads Delight Voters With A Double Pleasure! |
"It's similar to product placement on a sitcom," explained a salesman. "Your typical campaign ad shows an American highway with spacious skies and billboards. We simply place campaign ads on those billboards. Or where there's a crowd listening to a candidate talk, we have them holding signs for an allied candidate."
Take, for example, Republican Richard Mourdock, locked in a tight race running for Indiana's Senate seat against Joe Donelley. Mitt Romney made a TV ad specially endorsing Mourdock as the sort of guy Romney really liked.
But Mourdock needed more help, because his views on pregnancy resulting from rape as "Intended by God" might hurt his standing among women that worship a competing God Who disapproves of rape. This created a problem: all available ad time had already been sold!
Trust good old American ingenuity to sold the problem. With "Ads-within-Ads", TV stations can sell the same ad time twice!
But what do voters think?
"I love this!" said one TV addict, who asked to remain anonymous. "This lets me view twice as many political ads as ever before. The only question is: what will they think of next? I hope someday they can beam political ads directly onto the back of my eyelids, so I can watch them while I sleep!"
Cook What You Have
Yesterday I prepared dinner by opening the fridge and going, "Hunh, what do we have?"
Into the cast iron skillet went:
The Unnamed Dish In the Pan cooked on medium heat as I wrote, The Lovely Wife enjoyed a book and we both listened to music. Occasionally one of us would get up to stir, and eventually it was done. It didn't get photographed beforehand and it's too late now since it was too tasty to leave leftovers. This meal, so satisfying and yet so economical in time and money, lead me to ponder our Three Meal Preparation Styles:
Into the cast iron skillet went:
- a quarter of a cabbage (leftover from a previous meal)
- half an onion (also leftover)
- some garden tomatoes that were a little tired (the season is over; these have done their best)
- garlic (we always have a Costco canister of ground garlic; it's just too darn useful)
- thawed tofu (regular tofu that has been frozen, then left in the fridge to thaw; it makes for a more interesting texture.
I added a little olive oil, water and a dried herb from our garden (I can't remember the name and what does it matter? plants doesn't come when you call them anyway ;-), put on a lid and set the heat to medium. I also put a sweet potato (or yam, or some orange root anyway) into the microwave, after piercing the skin to avoid explosions.
The Unnamed Dish In the Pan cooked on medium heat as I wrote, The Lovely Wife enjoyed a book and we both listened to music. Occasionally one of us would get up to stir, and eventually it was done. It didn't get photographed beforehand and it's too late now since it was too tasty to leave leftovers. This meal, so satisfying and yet so economical in time and money, lead me to ponder our Three Meal Preparation Styles:
- Massive Planning: We have the ideal of planning a menu Sunday morning, then shopping that afternoon. This is a very good idea! But in practice, we usually vary from the plan. Make no mistake, we try to shop prudently. When there's a sale, we stock up like crazy (it sure is nice having a basement!); we buy in bulk at a discount; we avoid premade food (although not entirely.) Would better discipline help? Probably, but it's not on the horizon; planning a week's menu and sticking to it hasn't worked for us; we're flawed human beings and there you have it.
- Pickup Shopping: Often do we prepare for dinner by saying, "What do you want to eat?" "How about XYZ?" "Ok, but we're short of Y; I'll go get some." There's nothing horribly wrong with this, but it is inefficient. You end up making a lot of extra shopping trips, which is expensive in time and money, and the leftovers add up.
- Cook What You Have: So long as you make sure you stock healthy food in your home, cooking what you have is just as nutritious as the other methods. The trick is to make it as satisfying. Sometimes it's not obvious which ingredients go together, but that just makes the whole thing a game. Anybody can make a well-balanced dish by going to the store and just buying something; the challenge is to do the same by Cooking What You Have. That this is both economically and environmentally responsible, since it minimizes spending and food waste, is a bonus!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
O-1 Visas, the SHIELD Helicarrier, and Politics
 |
| The 1st quote is from the Nov 22 debate. The 2nd quote is invented. Maybe. |
The speaker said that these were fine for those who qualified, but were quite rare; perhaps unique among workings visas, they are never oversubscribed.
In plain English, it appears that top scientists as a group may no longer be trying all that hard to work and live in America. This may be a canary in a coal mine, an indicator species, A Bad Sign; what do they know that we do not?
---
Pondering "America Is Losing Its Edge In Innovation" in Forbes, I offer another modest proposal: too many smart kids are going into law school because they see lawyers making big bucks on TV, while the scientists get wedgies. The reality of law practice today is different; a minority get rich but most grads today will live as baristas or jumped-up paralegals. A relatively modest program of publicizing law's dismal future to undergraduates might nudge a few back into the sciences, where pay may also suck but a soulectomy is not required.
I approve of the legal profession, but who disputes that its current size far exceeds requirements? I'm not a scientist or engineer, but does it really seem plausible that we'll regain the lead from China by suing them over IP violations?
--
In an era of dominated by plunder through economics rather than plunder through force, Mitt Romney's plan for thirteen more warships a year is as brilliant as his discovery of a border between Iran and Syria. Should his faction prevail, we may profit from asking the Brits how it felt when their Empire crumbled and they no longer Bore The White Man's Burden (or, in our American jargon, Exceptionalism). The difference is that our domination is not threatened by independence movements or other outside forces, but by our internal decisions to waste our wealth building weaponized pyramids.
Another modest proposal: Let's create another Service branch: the Potempkin Service. Its core missions are (A) to spray appropriations into the air over enough Representatives' districts that its funding is secure, and (B) to build huge, shiny, loud "Marching Morons"-style weapons systems that don't actually DO anything but look as impressive as heck (I suggest replicating the Shield Helicarrier first). It would be best if they were optimized for use against enemies that don't exist, so that never run out of targets!!
The remaining Services would then be free to concentrate on doing something useful, e.g. finishing off Al Qaeda.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
I Voted Today: For America, Against #Romnesia
- No waiting line!
- The leisure to ponder the issues at the kitchen table, and look up a few things on the internet while deciding.
Most of the contests were pretty easy to decide.
- President: I'm proud to support Obama and Biden, the team that took over while our economy was in a nose-dive, and got it leveled out, even heading up slightly. Knocking of bin Ladn and most of Al Qaeda, while helping the Arab Spring but mostly staying offshore, showed a smarter approach to foreign policy than the previous band of war pigs. I was amused to see the large number of alternative candidates (Justice! Constitution! and TWO kinds of Socialism!) but the main opponent is a man whose actual views on any subject no-one knows, because he changes them to fit his audience. This might have worked before YouTube, but Mitt is a comic figure now; he can't remember his own positions on most issues. It's funny to call his condition "Romnesia" because it really does seem like he's a sick man who just blurts out whatever his current audience wants to hear, but the presidency is too serious for that. As president, he'd be a disaster because no-one, absolutely no-one could trust him; diplomacy of any sort would be nonsense.
- Senator: I'm also proud to support Cantwell, a very good senator both for our state and for our nation. Her opponent is a no-name who attacked her for being childless: classy (not!)
- Representative: Jim McDermott's office has excellent constituent service that I've used to get help for several people. And I admire a guy who released a tape to the press proving Newt Gingrich was breaking the deal he'd made with Congress to avoid prosecution, even if that decision got Jim sued by John Boehner, who was in on the corrupt deal.
- Governor: I went with Inslee over the guy who tried to knock out Obamacare. The national GOP is opposed to the plan they proposed in the 1980s, and I can't be impressed with any candidate who won't stand up to them. McKenna's opposition to marriage equality ... or lets be honest, his stand in favor of sex discrimination ... is also a disqualification.
- Lt. Governor: This was a difficult race. Both candidates accuse each other of corruptly taking money from lobbyists, and I believe both of them. Ordinarily I'd go with the Democrat, but he's anti-choice so forget it.
There were plenty of down-ticket races, and I have to admit I don't really know one judge from another, so I mostly went with the Progressive Voter's Guide.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Obama may be criticized for many things, but under his leadership we are now gaining 100,000 jobs a month and more. Why change pilots now?
Especially when the other guy thinks it's a good idea to keep exporting jobs; he not only is opposed to ending the tax breaks that help pay for job exports, he denies that there exist any such tax break, which is an obvious lie: any businessman knows that business expenses are deducted from income before calculating taxes.
For example, when Bain Capital cruelly forced workers at Sensata, in Freeport Illinois, to train their Chinese replacements, Bain could deduct as a business expense the cost of flying the Chinese workers to America, housing them while here, and sending them and the manufacturing equipment to China. In effect, American taxpayer subsidized the export of those jobs. Isn't that crazy?
I think we should stick with the guy who's turned us around from a negative 700,000 jobs a month to a positive 100,000 jobs a month.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Binders Full Of Women (open post) #binderFullOfWomen
The whole Binders Full Of Women thing is amazing.
- Katherine's question was about gender-based pay inequity. How does hiring a few women address pay inequity?
- Who the heck uses binders anymore? Hasn't Romney ever heard of computers?
- It turns out, Romney's claim (irrelevant and stupid as it was) was a lie. Surprise!
- I want to be as positive as possible, because it's good for my health. So here's my take on the issue, meant to elicit a chuckle:
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Happy Thought: #Obamacare Means You Can't Be Dropped For Getting Sick
Be happy!
It used to be that if you got sick, your insurance company had the chance to drop you when you got too expensive. Yearly limits and lifetime limits were buried deep in the contract. And of course, if your insurance was through your employment, it's not as if you could negotiate the terms anyway.
That's changed, thanks to Obamacare. Even if an insurer starts losing money on you, they can't drop you.
Insurers who wanted to "do the right thing" were at a disadvantage; their competitors could be more profitable by dropping people when they got sick. Think about that for a minute: the system was set up so that people who wanted to do the right thing would be flushed out of the marketplace!
Let's think about what a good thing this is, for us as individuals, for our families, and for our nation!
More:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/obamacare-supreme-court-regular-americans
It used to be that if you got sick, your insurance company had the chance to drop you when you got too expensive. Yearly limits and lifetime limits were buried deep in the contract. And of course, if your insurance was through your employment, it's not as if you could negotiate the terms anyway.
That's changed, thanks to Obamacare. Even if an insurer starts losing money on you, they can't drop you.
Insurers who wanted to "do the right thing" were at a disadvantage; their competitors could be more profitable by dropping people when they got sick. Think about that for a minute: the system was set up so that people who wanted to do the right thing would be flushed out of the marketplace!
Let's think about what a good thing this is, for us as individuals, for our families, and for our nation!
More:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/obamacare-supreme-court-regular-americans
Monday, October 15, 2012
4freeCLE: Your Free CLE Newsletter! October 14, 2012
http://4freecle.blogspot.com/
Webcast CLE
In-Person CLEs State-by-State
Every week, take a little time to "sharpen your saw" with these free 
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)