Amateur Hour in the Blogosphere

I'm not too good at blogging.  My recent month-long hiatus should convince anyone of this.  However, I do feel like I should blog about things that I know about, and cite sources if I know them.  If I don't know, then I should probably not blog about the topic, or say that this is total conjecture.

What I do know about is squeezing a dime until it bleeds, which is why I was disappointed when The Consumerist (awesome blog!) linked to a blog post on saving money on your heating bill that contained no useful information.  Among the things that the blogger suggested was to keep your thermostat at 73 degrees.  Oh, honey, that's not right.

Currently, my thermostat is set to 64 degrees.  This may sound extreme, but my thermostat is on the main floor, my bedroom is on the second floor, and using the principle that heat rises, it's slightly warmer up here.  Like, 66 degrees. 

Using her outline, this is what I do:
1) I can't control the weather.  I can only try to keep the weather outside and me inside.
2) She has a 4 bedroom house for 2 people.  I have a 2 bedroom house for 2 people.  Not having unnecessary space cuts down on the volume of inside space that needs to be heated.
3) Her back door is completely closed.  So is mine.  Then, I caulked the outside, added seasonal caulk to the moving parts (which can be removed in spring), then closed off the backdoor with plastic sheeting.  I'll just use the front door until April.
4) Bundle up.  Not just wearing layers, but having slippers nearby and down throws at hand.  I have an electric heated throw, too.  Running that for 4 or 5 minutes, then turning it off and adding another throw pre-heats the space around my legs and keeps me toasty warm for the rest of the time I'm sitting at that place.  Don't heat the entire room to 72, just the area directly around your person.
5) Lower the heat when no one's home?  No, I don't.  But I do open the south facing blinds to allow the sunlight to warm the rooms when I'm at work.
6)  73?  That's hot.  My house is at 64, and I just avoid the basement.  All basement windows are caulked with plastic sheeting on them, and on REALLY cold days, blankets are put up over the wall to reduce cold air coming in.  Air tight, the temp down there is still above 60.
7) Drafts are bad.  Caulk, plastic sheeting, weather stripping are good.

So, yes, 64 might be a tad on the low side, but it's still 50 degrees warmer than it is outside.  From that perspective, it still feels warm when you walk in the door.  Isn't that the point?

Marriage: Midwest vs. L.A.

No, this is not a post on gay marriage.  I'm for it, but this is different.

If you were looking for something that is destroying marriage in America, it's Kim Kardashian.  While this is months after the news broke, without the Bears in the playoffs, Sunday afternoon TV seems to be limited to basic cable reality shows.  Kourtney & Kim in New York seems to be playing all afternoon.  From the first episode, I knew this was not going to work out.

Genesis 2:24 is a pretty popular selection for weddings: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."  A better reason for a married couple to move out on their own than "God said so" cannot be found.  Flash forward to the first episode of Kourtney & Kim Take New York, and Kris, Kim, Kourtney, Kourtney's Baby Daddy, and Kourtney's Kid are all living in the same hotel suite.  Bad idea.  Kim runs every idea past her family before her husband.  Yeah.

I'm watching the episode where Kim mentions that she would never want to live in Minnesota.  Breathe a deep sigh of relief, St. Paul.  When Kris mentioned that by the time their kids were going to school, no one would care about Kim and her career, he was hitting the nail on the head.  Mr. Humphries could probably look forward to another 10 years of professional basketball.  A 45-year-old Kim Kardashian sex object with kids?  What career are we talking about?  What is it that Kim does exactly?  It looks like she just has camera people following her around, shows up at places in exchange for an appearance fee, and ... well ... something?

Her career appears to be to walk around being seen with stuff.  This is why Minnesota would be perfect for her:

1) Little competition.  Besides Prince, who else is she going to be competing for attention with?  Garrison Keillor?
2) Her talent appears to be to wear stuff.  Think of all the opportunities to wear stuff during a long Midwestern winter!  Adorable knit accessories!  Colorful wool peacoats!  Boots that are actually needed!  Could spokeswoman for North Face or Columbia be in the works?
3) Easy access to both New York and Los Angeles.  This may be a surprise, but there is an airport in the Twin Cities that offers direct flights to both coasts and locations overseas.  I know people on the coasts don't believe this, but Midwesterners are free to come and go as we please.

There was a great moment in last night's series finale, when Kourtney asks Kim about whether or not her marriage might work in a normal environment without the Inlaws and entourage.  For normal people, it might.  Kim is not a normal person.  I don't think she could be without a croud.  (Kudos to Kourtney - it looks like she actually has a job and a grasp on reality.)

Kris Humphries may have dodged a bullet.  Congrats, sir.  Learn a life lesson, and find a good Midwestern girl.  We're kind of awesome.  (Not me, I'm taken, and I like smart men with backbones.)

Downton Abbey

Tonight, I'm going to be watching PBS.  For an educated, white, middle-class Midwesterner, this should hardly be surprising.  But, this is Downton Abbey on Masterpiece, so I'm recording it too.

I didn't think I would be sucked into an Edwardian soap opera, but here I am.  Truthfully, I'm not as enraptured by Lady Mary as many commentators are.  I'm a Lady Edith fan.  While Edith's ruining of Mary's happiness was a result of something Mary did, Mary's turn on Edith was a fabrication.  It sucks being the middle child.  I relate.  Stupid Lady Mary.

The issue I have with Masterpiece showing Downton Abbey is the timing.  In the UK, this played months ago.  When I engage with a show on this level, I want to research it, look up facts I may have forgotten on Wikipedia, or just talk about it on message boards.  I can't do this without coming up against spoilers.  I did what any reasonable person would do.  I found the remaining episodes streaming online and watched the whole series in two nights.  In light of the SOPA/PIPA/SIPAPOPA controversy, was this illegal?  If I lived in the UK, I could have watched these for free online.  If I could have bought these off Amazon or iTunes, I would have purchased them in order to watch them in better quality.  If I would wait, then I could have watched them for free.  I still will.  So, why does PBS want to turn me into a potential criminal?

Reporting with Blinders

My office recently changed the default TV channel in our break room from CNN to CNBC, in order to be more business-y, or something or other. This afternoon, CNBC was looking at the volatility in a number of energy stocks, and brought on a pair of "experts" to discuss the stock prices for oil and natural gas stocks. Here's the link:

What's Moving Oil Now?

Did you see something missing? Now, if you only watched business news, this would sound like a pretty comprehensive discussion of stock prices in terms of supply and demand, the forecasts for both, inventory, international markets, and profits. However, if you read an occasional full-service, non-Wall Street Journal newspaper, you may have seen another reason for why natural gas stocks might not be a safe and steady investment right now: FRACKING CAUSED EARTHQUAKES IN OHIO.

I can't stress that enough. If your business sector caused a seismic event in Youngstown, there may be something wrong with your business practices, which may in turn make investors nervous if leveling Toledo with a 5.2 earthquake might leave one open to lawsuits and destroy your investment in the natural gas company that will be bankrupted after paying damages... then again, others might want to pick up those shares at a discount. You want some volatility in the marketplace? How about an unprecedented shift on the ground which literally is an unprecedented shift of the ground?

This goes to show why watching nothing but CNBC all day, every day, is like viewing the world with blinders on. Everything is evaluated through the prism of stock prices, investment, and profits. You forget about whether or not actions are right or wrong, just the effect on that business sector. It's helping to train an entire system of business executives to think exactly the same, then bemoan the fact that employees can't think outside the box (a phrase so IN the box that anyone who honestly uses it is by definition not thinking outside the box). It is a vicious cycle that can easily be broken by just changing the channel from time to time.

Back soon!

After taking a couple weeks of down time to travel around the Greater Chicagoland area to visit friends and family, it looks like I picked up a nasty case of stomach flu from one of the many daycare-aged children with runny noses that I encountered.  Erg.  Not having kids of my own appears to have ruined my immune system.

I'll be back in a couple days with more ranting posts. (Like, really Iowa?  Santorum?)  Happy New Year!

Merry F-ing Christmas to you, too

As I found myself embracing my 9% Jewish heritage yesterday with a brunch of crepes and potato pancakes on the second day of Hanukkah, I was thinking of why the holiday has not caught on.  Eight days of eating fried food and gambling?  It's like a week in Vegas, only with the bonus of chocolate coins.  If there's a secular way to celebrate Christmas by having a strange man invade your home via chimney, I'm sure we can figure out a Hanukkah celebration that involves latkes and dreidels without the miracle of the oil aspect.

Then, I'm reminded of why not by a post on Facebook:

Just so everyone knows, I have a CHRISTMAS TREE in my living room (not a holiday tree), my family is getting CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (not holiday gifts) and we will eat CHRISTMAS DINNER(not a holiday meal), and I will attend a CHRISTMAS PARTY (not a holiday party). I will also very cheerfully wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS! (not... happy holidays). By the way, if you want to have a Happy Hanukah , by all means do, I respect that. If you want to have a Blessed Kwanzaa, I also respect that. I want to have a Merry Christmas, so I ask YOU to respect that!

Bearing in mind that this person watches a lot of Fox News, I'm not surprised to see this.  The idea that any culture can have a monopoly on December celebrations is narrow at best, deliberately closed-minded perhaps, and flat-out racist at worst.  As Hanukkah predates Christmas by a couple hundred years, perhaps it is Christmas that is stealing Hanukkah's thunder? 

What really annoys me is the idea that the author will wish someone a Merry Christmas even when he knows that the person does not celebrate the holiday.  Let's talk about the purpose of the greeting, shall we?  When one wishes someone a Merry Christmas, it is a hope, wish, and aspiration for the other person.  You do not go up to someone and say, "I hope I have a Merry Christmas".  You want the recipient to have the Christmas that is merry.  So, if you know the person on the receiving end will look at December 25th as a day off work and little more, do you want them to have a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Holiday?  If the greeting is intended for the recipient, then the Happy Holidays works for the entire time between Thanksgiving and MLK Day.  If you still want to wish someone a Merry Christmas, then the greeting is for yourself, and you are a selfish little A-Hole who is using this as an opportunity to shove your beliefs down another's throat.  What's wrong with you?

Don't compliment a Lutheran

As I drive around the Midwest visiting friends and family for the holidays, I've been catching up on The News from Lake Wobegon podcasts for two reasons.  First, Garrison Keillor's voice is soothing to my cat and keeps her from screaming in the back seat of the car, and second, the humor comes from astute observations of the ridiculous nature of the culture in which I was raised.  One of the podcasts concerning Thanksgiving included the line (and forgive me for not writing it down - I was driving 70mph on the Tri-State Tollway afraid to be rear-ended while on my way to Wisconisn) that "You never compliment a Lutheran.  It unsettles them."

I'm currently trying to apply for graduate school.  I say "try" because each application requires me to spend hours complimenting myself about how awesome I am.  Lutherans do not do this.  As such, the number of completed applications I have done is zero.  I'm hoping for some down time to work on these over the next two weeks, but I'm afraid that the biggest hurdle to overcome will be the idea that I do have so speak well of myself to do these.

Sunday Morning Papers: Census and Poverty

While it is tempting to write about the Presidential campaign right now, everything will probably revolve around the economic news that was announced on Thursday: 1 in 2 Americans is living in poverty or near poverty.

Now look at the Republican field that wants to cut or eliminate the safety-net, automatic-stabilizer programs that provide high-velocity money to those who have a marginal propensity to save of 0.  When unemployment benefits are given to someone living under the poverty line, the entirety of that check goes to rent, utilities, and food, and whatever it takes to keep from starving or becoming homeless.  Meanwhile, the landlords and grocery store owners can hire clerks and pay their own expenses, and the utility companies can pay for line maintenance and still return ginormous profits to their stockholders (Deregulation, HO!).  Newt Gingrich deciding that 99 weeks of unemployment is unnecessary means to me that he has no concept of the velocity of money, which is surprising as someone who should have a command of the social sciences.

The new poverty measures which classify a family of 4 as living in poverty if they make under $22,500 (above the average unemployment benefit), and low-income as below $45,000, illustrates a fundamental problem in the United States: what good is job creation if the jobs that are created are not worth having?  To make $45,000 per year, a wage earner would have to make $21.63 per hour.  That's three times minimum wage.  If this is a two-income household, then to rise to the middle class, parents would have to work 3 full-time jobs, or work 2 jobs that pay 1.5 times the minimum wage.  Minimum wage is so far away from a living wage in this country that it is hard to think that there is any corelation between the two. 

Which is why the attempts to institute the unfounded supply-side trickle-down economic theory in the Midwest should concern everyone.

Right now, Right To Work campaigns are underway in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, where the speaker of the General Assembly has declared that undercutting the ability of unions to organize is the most pressing priority in the state.  Indiana already has a median household income below the national average by state, one of the poorest states in the Midwest, and just barely over the standards of the new Low Income Household by the Census at $45,679.  If the most pressing issue in the state is to drive the percentage of workers living in poverty and low income households above 50%, then by golly, this sounds like a swell idea.  However, if you want to create jobs that allow people to live and thrive without reliance of government assistance, then maybe you should look at incomes and the decrease in demand of a consumer economy that can only afford to buy housing and electricity as a problem to try to tackle.

50 DTSBYD: #25 Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room

Part of my 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die Challenge

Way before the mortgage meltdown, there was Enron.  Led by my favorite meteorologist's little brother, Enron imploded in spectacular fashion, following an absolutely improbable run of decades in which the company didn't seem to make any money or have any real plan that would ever make the company profitable.  And these smug little bastards didn't seem to find anything wrong with that because they were smart enough to figure out how to perpetuate the fraud.

Whether the cause of bad business sense, stupid accounting rules, or the logical result of the deregulation of rules designed to prevent abuse, it's a bad thing.  What's worse is that it does not appear that the business community learned anything from this situation.  Sometimes we have regulations for a reason.  Whether or not utilities should be a public good is the question, not whether utility regulations get in the way of corporate profits.  The Enron case is a cautionary tale about what happens when regulation is repealed without thinking about what the consequences are going to be.  We're living through the consequences of the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act, and the inability of the government to recognize that Credit Default Swaps should be regulated like insurance policies.  Maybe someday we'll recognize this.  Maybe?

50 DTSBYD: #46 Little Dieter Needs To Fly

Part of my 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die Challenge

Hey!  It's Rescue Dawn!  But without Gloria Steinem's step-son in the lead role (yes, strange, but true).

Little Dieter Needs to Fly is the story of Dieter Dengler, a pilot who was shot down over that country we were not bombing during the Vietnam War, held captive, then managed to escape to freedom.  What you learn from this documentary is not so much about Dengler's amazing story, but the lengths that Werner Herzog will go to in the production of a documentary.  He has Dengler running through the jungles of southeast Asia, recreating moments of his captivity, and pretty much making an old man relive the most traumatic moments of his life.  It's kind of fascinating.