tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85188662024-10-24T17:48:02.343-05:00Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-16559141205358463062017-09-04T15:15:00.001-05:002017-09-04T15:15:31.130-05:00

You may notice when a storm destroys a beach, the beach is "back" by the next summer.  The sand may just be dredged from the ocean, but still it's a big operation: everything has to come from somewhere. Now, the BBC reports on some notable effects of sourcing construction sand: The sand used for construction comes mainly from riverbeds and oceans. Desert sand, it turns out, is too smooth

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-71874048017968657212017-01-12T19:29:00.001-06:002017-01-12T19:29:25.600-06:00

I have a netbook from 2009 (Dell Mini 10): a smaller, lighter, lower-specification laptop that was sold before tablets became all the rage.  Running Windows XP, it was great for domestic and international travel.  About half the size and weight of my current laptop, it came along to Europe that same year. Eventually, as the Internet and operating system bloated, performance dropped to

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-74905833816303658862016-12-24T13:42:00.002-06:002016-12-24T13:42:33.963-06:00

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-49886410671734455152016-04-20T14:16:00.001-05:002016-04-20T14:16:26.984-05:00

I recently came across a Business Insider article about an October 1943 report for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Adolf Hitler by a psychologist, Dr. Henry Murray. The current reporting on this has centered around Hitler's life and mental state, but what I found somewhat amusing was to picture Murray's suggestion for post-war Hitler, if they could keep him from killing himself or

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-42209488392519780712016-02-14T09:03:00.000-06:002016-02-14T09:03:00.133-06:00

Regarding the eventual replacement of the great Justice Scalia, we have two conflicting but both literally correct statements from Senate leaders. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Reuters): "It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat," he said in a statement. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (The Washington Times)

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-27013225548820876832016-02-13T14:12:00.001-06:002016-02-13T14:12:27.559-06:00

From Generation Opportunity: According to Investor’s Business Daily, when Washington D.C., Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago started paying low-skilled workers more, job creation dropped to its slowest in the last five years in the leisure and hospitality sector. Many minimum wage jobs fall within this field, which includes restaurants and hotels. And this isn't just a

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-74988590267426461632016-02-08T15:09:00.004-06:002016-02-08T15:09:51.141-06:00

A frequently under-reported point about music for political campaign events: musicians can complain, but this is because of free speech, not because they actually control their music. From the Politico: As long as the campaign or the venue has bought a “blanket license,” which is standard practice, it can use any song from the music library of the organization granting the license. (Use of music

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-27450289665918414822016-01-21T10:50:00.003-06:002016-01-21T10:50:52.493-06:00

A fun fact from NDIA might put the cost of some defense systems in context, especially for dramatically reduced orders: While working on the B-2 bomber, [Tom Vice, president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems] recalls, the company studied General Motors’ production process for introducing its new Saturn line and estimated that if only 20 cars had been built, each would have cost $350 million.

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-44636701046989905072016-01-20T20:13:00.001-06:002016-01-20T20:13:58.017-06:00

In the New York Times, Thomas Edsall tries to find the mysterious explanation of how Republicans could possibly be successful at the state level in recent years. The divisive president is overlooked, but Charles and David Koch are referenced nine times. Most notable, however, is the omission of the one simple advantage that Republicans have over Democrats at the state level: an interest in

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-81443051053963305472015-11-16T23:02:00.004-06:002015-11-16T23:02:46.793-06:00

Amongst the last several days of calls for war and calls for peace, comics and hashtags, it has been difficult to articulate where the country, or the West, is right now. Mark Steyn, however, puts it well: I have not called for more bombing raids, more boots on the ground, more war. Because, I regret to say, it's not worth brave soldiers "fighting, killing & dying" for a home front as enervated

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-22844166345748755132015-11-15T16:01:00.001-06:002015-11-15T16:01:25.384-06:00

Minnesota's Star Tribune reports: A [Minnesota Democrat's] campaign for the state House abruptly ended Sunday morning within hours of him posting on social media that ISIS "isn’t necessarily evil" and is "made up of people doing what they think is best for their community." Washington state's Patty Murray made similar comments about Osama bin Laden in 2002: He's been out in these countries for

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-20204546356229376622015-11-11T14:59:00.004-06:002015-11-11T14:59:42.632-06:00

War on the Rocks has a pair of competing pieces on the threat of dirty bombs (Don't Fear the Dirty Bomb vs. Why I Fear the Dirty Bomb and You Should Too), but the second one has the most realistic view of how people would react. Regardless of the actual, scientifically-measurable risk, people will still be terrified: Think of it as if somebody sprayed asbestos in your apartment building. No one

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-72777464043864601132015-11-02T09:57:00.005-06:002015-11-02T09:57:59.572-06:00

From KELO, according to the Center for Financial Literacy: South Dakota schools are receving [sic] an "F" in teaching students personal finance in high school... South Dakota requires high school students to take a half-year course in either personal finance or economics but does not require students to choose personal finance or require schools to offer personal finance. These ratings appear

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-46747644169534111762015-10-26T22:29:00.001-05:002015-10-26T22:29:38.607-05:00

Interests rates are higher on unsecured loans. That's really all there is to it. Now, for the background: Socialist Senator and Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was quoted as saying, "It makes no sense that students and their parents pay higher interest rates for college than they pay for car loans or housing mortgages." Robert Tracinski at the Federalist responds: Why do car

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-87692096586504554952015-10-09T22:44:00.005-05:002015-10-09T22:44:54.006-05:00

What do GMOs and migrants have in common? Hungary doesn't want either sneaking in. Hungary was celebrated by the anti-GMO world in a recycled news story about how it had previously destroyed crops grown from genetically modified seeds banned in the country. A devoted ally in the organic jihad against science? Probably not. If we recall that Hungary has a nationalist government, a little

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-64529721366462760772015-09-28T15:28:00.000-05:002015-09-28T15:28:57.705-05:00

Speaker of the House John Boehner's decision to resign in October has produced victorious howls and calls for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to join him. This attitude seems to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of the government of the United States. With a divided government (Congress controlled by Republicans, the presidency by a Democrat), there is basically

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-45479306140959838772015-07-22T15:31:00.003-05:002015-07-22T15:31:13.977-05:00

An article on student loans at The Federalist includes this piece of advice, similar to advice heard frequently from the "financial aid" world: I was so scared of my looming financial commitments that I didn't attempt to make a single payment while I was in school... If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to put some money on my loans each month, instead of hoarding it all in my savings

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-43123413165136554342015-03-18T17:25:00.000-05:002015-03-18T17:25:49.606-05:00

In the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson writes on the question of wage stagnation and concludes: At the root of our great pay stagnation is the appropriation by major investors of the funds that used to go to businesses' research, modernization, expansion and workers. This perpetuates a common misunderstanding of for-profit corporations. There may be an issue of long-term thinking in business,

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-54289879408950980122015-02-13T18:30:00.000-06:002015-02-13T18:30:00.646-06:00

The refusal of the current administration to enforce selected federal laws in selected states has led to what may be an unprecedented legal question: what happens when a federal statute clearly preempts a state law, but the federal government refuses to enforce it? Colorado's neighbors are dealing with this question. The LA Times reports: In December, the attorneys general of Nebraska and

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-1162004899230726992015-01-20T16:00:00.003-06:002015-01-20T16:00:59.801-06:00

A lost, unpublished post from October/November 2006, but a wonderful lesson in history.Following in the footsteps of Eugene "I-Forgot-About-Internment" Robinson, Washington Post's Joel Garreau argues that a fence on the Mexican border is pointless because... the Allies won World War II?He begins with a poetry-based public policy:"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote Robert Frost in

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-9214828167896385202015-01-05T13:45:00.000-06:002015-01-05T13:45:00.517-06:00

The New York Times notices that states are not all the same. Richard Florida writes: Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty rates and lower levels of education on average than those of blue states — but their residents also benefit from much lower costs of living. For a middle-class person, the American dream of a

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-80789995319521070092014-12-04T13:27:00.000-06:002014-12-04T13:27:28.018-06:00

March 18, 2013 (The Atlantic): "The days of $100-a-barrel crude, [Saudi Arabia's longtime oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi] told the crowd, are here 'for the foreseeable future.' December 3, 2014 (Wall Street Journal): "OPEC’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, now believes oil prices could stabilize at around $60 a barrel... Brent crude dropped 62 cents a barrel to $69.92 on Wednesday. ... [Saudi

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-81223682406382883472013-03-13T23:46:00.000-05:002014-12-06T23:38:07.094-06:00

From The Washington Post: As the third non-Italian pope after the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict, Francis seems to have ended the era of Italian dominance of the papacy. The Wall Street Journal adds a few details about this "non-Italian": The former Cardinal Bergoglio... was born in Buenos Aires to Italian immigrants. Also from The Wall Street Journal: In many ways, Cardinal

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-37829364564192337222008-10-23T19:23:00.001-05:002008-10-23T19:25:55.076-05:00

Emily Bazelon writes on "Oklahoma's gallingly paternalistic ultrasound law" at Slate:Four states-Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma-have taken the galling step of requiring [pre-abortion ultrasounds] regardless of need. They recently passed laws that go beyond offering ultrasounds to mandating them. Oklahoma's new statute dictates that either the doctor performing the abortion or a "

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8518866.post-30578577297893274372008-04-22T18:35:00.002-05:002008-04-22T18:36:33.441-05:00

In an article about Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, Ed Koch writes:Earlier in the week, I was asked by a reporter how I felt about the Pope's approving a prayer asking for the conversion of the Jewish people to Catholicism. The reporter said that many Jews were upset with the prayer. I said I was not and considered the Catholic desire that we join them in conversion as a

Nickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08082165211136849273noreply@blogger.com0