25 Years
I will be 50 in April. Barring fatal illness or accident, statistically, I have 25 years of life remaining. What can be done in 25 years? What can happen in 25 years? I was born and grew into a young man in 25 years. Had I started a family at age 25, the children would be grown and the first would have been living as an adult for 7 years. Two sets of children can be raised in 75 years. 25 years for yourself to grow up, 25 years for the first set and 25 years for the last set. New Yorkers could replace the World Trade Center then build 2 more in succession. I will vote for President 7 more times and die in the first year of the 7th President’s term. If past history is consistent, the 7th President will represent a shift to the politial left after 10 years of right political practice. There will be 4 more economic growth/recession cycles. There will be 2 more global events as astonishing and significant as Man landing on the Moon, the fall of the Berlin wall and the Computer Revolution.
December 23, 2008
Defining the Extreme
What is an extreme position? An extreme position is either a completely positive or completely negative answer to a question. The question is structured in a way that the answer must be one value of a mutually exclusive two-value pair. Basically a yes/no answer. The unspoken assumption is the “correct” answer automatically rejects any part of the ‘incorrect" answer. The answer must be pure yes or pure no to be “correct.”
Take the abortion debate as an example. If the abortion question is structured as “Is abortion OK?” The only answers are “Yes, abortion is OK.” or “No, abortion is not OK.” If the abortion question is structured as “Under what circumstances is abortion OK?”. There can now be three answers. “Abortion is OK under all circumstances.”, “Abortion is not OK under any circumstances.” and “Abortion is OK under some circumstances but not in others.” The extremist will choose one of the first two questions. The moderate will choose the third question then attempt to define the circumstances under which abortion is OK.
December 19, 2008
Trap?
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.Obama is going to offer Israel a nuclear guaranty against Iranian attack. Why make such an odd offer? Israel already has a nuclear deterrent so why would they accept Obama’s “nuclear umbrella”? Maybe Israel doesn’t have any nukes. Maybe Obama will force Israel to give up their nukes. Maybe Hillary is just “triangulating”. If Israel accepts the offer and dismantles their nukes, then they will be inside a death trap. The trap could be sprung simply by Obama delaying or withdrawing the guaranty at a critical moment and letting Iran do his dirty work. Assuming 60% first strike survival, 2.8 million people dead in 8 minutes. Obama would then be the first mass murderer of the 21st century. My guess is Obama doesn’t yet understand the post-Bush Middle East and is being advised by Cold War discards and ’90s illusionists who are just as clueless. Hopefully, Israel will see the offer for what it potentially is and pass.
December 16, 2008
Morfen vs The Squirrels
I spent last month battling squirrels in our attic. Real ones. My wife kept telling me for months that the noises coming from one part of the attic were animals inside but it sounded to me like birds getting a drink from the gutter. Last month we had all the trees around the house trimmed back. The following weekend was bright and sunny and while contemplating the chipmunks in my yard, I noticed a squirrel shadow merged with the roof’s ridge line shadow. My first thought was “S***, V was right.” So I went outside, laid in the hammock with the kids and watched the house where I had seen the shadow. Five minutes later out he came. I thought “Cool, but what now?” then a second squirrel came out. Uh oh… There’s going to be a squirrel family in my attic.
Well, darn. Nasty but necessary business ahead. Poison was out because poison doesn’t kill instantly and the thought of rotting squirrels in my walls was unsettling. I’m in the suburbs so firearms were out. After thinking about the shooting angles, an air rifle was out. Too much distance and no backstop. The exterminator wanted $100 to come out and $75 per squirrel. NFW. The only real option was trapping so I borrowed a Hav-a-Hart box trap from a friend of mine and went to work.
I actually didn’t do much Web research on this one. Usually, I put off an unpleasant job by researching the mess out of it first. This time I was serious so I just hit sites until I found the basics. Bait the trap with peanut butter on bread and “chum” the trap with peanut butter bread around the entrance. I waited a week. Nothing. I knew from experience squirrels like the black sunflower seed birds eat so I tried those. Two weeks. Nothing. I started thinking about super-bait. Corn cob covered with peanut butter and sunflower seeds but by now the whole thing was feeling like useless Eagle Feather stuff. An academic exercise. A “thought experiment.” Two days later I got the squirrels.
December 3, 2008
My Favorite Veteran
My Dad died a year ago today in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. He died of cardiac arrest due to Altzheimer’s Disease. In Altzhemier’s, the brain eventually forgets how to breath or how to beat the heart. My youngest brother called on Saturday to tell me Dad’s breathing had been labored since Thursday. I listened to my Dad breathing and I knew this was it. However, as I talked to my brother, I thought “Maybe he’ll last to Thanksgiving” then a little later “Maybe he’ll last to Christmas”. My Dad died the next day. Cool analysis reveals truth and emotional denial covers truth. My Dad was a mixture of both. So are his sons. I got the word while sitting on my lawn tractor getting ready to mow. My wife brought me the phone and I knew then. My brother simply confirmed. My wife had the decency to leave me alone while I absorbed the death of the most important man in my life. His death was expected but the reality is jarring. No amout of emotional denial can cover the truth of death.
My Dad’s last meal was an Ensure knock-off made by Wal-mart. I try not to think of the implications of this fact. He died in the house he had lived in for 48 years. He was in the bedroom where me, my brothers and a long dead sister were conceived. Our old 8mm movies show a vibrant, self-assured young man whom I never knew. My memories of my Dad start in his middle years.
November 11, 2008
Constitution vs Constitution
The United States constitution is 19 pages including the amendments. The European Union constitution is… well, they actually don’t have one. Just a mash-up of treaties representing thousands of man-hours of work. Man, what a contrast! The US constitution was thought up by a bunch of young insurgents who had defeated that era’s greatest superpower. They rebelled because they didn’t want a bunch of old guys who didn’t know the situation on the ground telling them how to run their business. The European constitution is what you would expect those same old guys to come up with if they were alive today. This era’s only hyperpower is governed by principles contained in a 19 page document. The EU is governed… well, is it really governed? Can an economic circling of the wagons be considered a government? Maybe not. The old guys have been trying for a long time and to this outsider, they appear to be suffering from intense Eagle Feather syndrome.
October 28, 2008
Higher Taxes Why?
The following comments were written during 2006 - 2010 and reflect the political and economic anxieties of that period. They are preserved as a historical record, not as current opinion.People want higher taxes. Why? Don’t know because nobody ever talks about why. If pressed for a why answer, they freak. It’s going to be interesting living in a socialist country. I wonder how long before the rich people leave and us middle class have to bear the entire burden?
Update, October 27, 2008
One why is the 401K. These are tax deferred not tax free. There is a huge pool of Boomer 401K money that the government can tap once they start retiring. It makes sense to jack the taxes during the Boomer retirement phase. I need to check the demographics to see how long the Boomers will be bled and whether it will affect us or not.
Update, November 12, 2008
At least one Boomer has it figured the same way. He has put his retirement plans on hold for at least eight years. He’s pulling out of the market as well. This is going to be an interesting fight. To bad I won’t be around for the end game.
Update January 20, 2009
The Dow Jones index dropped 332.13 points on Obama’s inauguration day. A four percent drop for the biggest inauguration day drop in the Dow’s 112 year history. S&P index dropped 5.28 percent and Nasdaq dropped 5.78 percent. The combined Dow Jones Obama Drop is 14 percent. Ten percent after election day and four percent now. The S&P and Nasdaq about eleven percent total. I guess more than one Boomer has it figured out.
October 26, 2008
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is both a warning and a blueprint for the future. It all depends on your concept of how people should live. For those who believe that the individual is more important than society, it is a warning. For those who believe that society is more important than the individual, it is a blueprint. For those of us in between, it offers a handbook of concepts that can be used to gauge the extremism around us and in our leaders. For example, political correctness is the positive spin on thought crime. If the drumbeat of political correctness increases, then we know society is becoming more important to our leaders than the individual. And of course, if the drumbeat fades, the opposite holds true. A careful reading will also teach one how to successfully live in a totalitian society. A Brave New World by Aldus Huxley used to be my favorite dystopian novel. I reread Nineteen Eighty-Four two years ago and at some point it became clear that Orwell’s was the more realizable vision. Will Nineteen Eighty-Four come to pass? Probably. The will always triumphs. Eventually.