Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Tuesday, March 9. 2010

Tuesday evening links

Image: The American air is getting cleaner.


Gun-free zones: Shooting fish in a barrel


Brit governments putting microchips in garbage cans. h/t. How do the people put up with that crap? Well, The Englishman doesn't.


Stimulants increase learning and learning speed. h/t Insty. Every college kid knows that.


Poll: Young Adults Turn Toward GOP. Change!


Diane Ravitch discouraged by education reform. Schools should be entirely run by and for localities, not by the Feds and not by the unions. That's how reform can happen. The famous Albert Shanker quote: "When schoolkids get union cards is when we'll worry about their interests." Something like that.


Effects of CO2 are logarithmic, not linear. That's High School math. Is it part of the computer models?


Feminists: College gals should drink, Yes means No, and campus rape definitions. I thought the feminists said all hetero sex was rape.


Don't hold your breath for The New World Order


Bucknell: You cannot debate the 2009 Dem stimulus package. Too controversial for college?


Florida, sugar, government and the Everglades: The corporate State


Not predicted by the models: South Pole cooling, ice increasing


Doc:



...if I am ever told I have to see every patient who wants to see me and the government determines both the appropriate treatment and the fee I can charge, I will retire and find another way to make a living.  (Maybe I will be so disturbed by the changes in my profession that I would need to go on Disability?) 



WHT?



This exciting new project is aimed at increasing public awareness of the links between climate change, poverty and child rights, and engaging ...



Good grief. Those are some crazy links!


The Census: "My race is human"


Doug Hoffman is back! He'll win.


John says the O is an ignoramus about insurance costs. Maybe he is, or maybe it simply does not serve the narrative to mention the reality that if coverages are mandated, costs increase.


Evil, evil Drudge. Do not look at his site!

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 19:21 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

PingBack
Weblog: daltonsminima.wordpress.com
Tracked: Mar 19, 08:40

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

The usual weird stuff went on over the weekend. On Sunday, a notice popped up on the Instapundit site that said it was judged unacceptable by TrendMicro, my spam filter. It disappeared later.

I got a letter from the Census Bureau saying that I would receive a questionnaire in the mail within the week, and that I'd better answer it in full. Or else. I don't know what "else" is going to be but it sounds bad and puts my back up. They have a two question series about the race of those living in my house, and the choices are ridiculous. Several designations are geographic rather than racial. Puerto Rican? Cuban? Philippino? Native American? If we are American citizens born in America, we are native Americans, just as native-born Germans, born in Germany, are native Germans, etc. etc.

And since when is the Census Bureau authorized to ask such questions? Michelle Malkin says she is going to fill in the blank as American, and that's a good idea. Maybe I will too. And if these parolees that they are going to use to make personal visits to the more recalcitrant of us come to our house, I won't let them in. I have a covered porch on the front of the house and I will go out and answer their questions there. I may even call the constable to come and monitor the discussion.

The Busybody Brigade is becoming bolder every day.

Marianne
#1 Marianne Matthews on 2010-03-09 23:36 (Reply)
It can't be logarithmic. They guy is just tossing around a word.
#2 rhhardin (Link) on 2010-03-10 07:45 (Reply)
what's the right word for that curve?
#2.1 Bird Dog on 2010-03-10 07:49 (Reply)
It would probably be some constant minus a negative exponential in the CO2 concentration, I'd guess.
#2.1.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2010-03-10 12:04 (Reply)
It's a 'line' chart --data over time. iirc, also called a 'scatter' chart. it doesn't have a name such as 'bell' --which is always that shape since it always demonstrates distributions from 'normal'.
#2.1.2 buddy larsen on 2010-03-10 14:44 (Reply)
With regard to the unionization of garbage: Seattle, which for decades has prided itself on being the "Least churched city in America" has had the most rigorous garbage rules. It is possible for your neighbor to report you for not recycling properly and for you to be fined and then considered a criminal if the illegal activity continues. Initial google search comes up with these two links MF readers should review.
http://beaconhillbungalow.blogspot.com/2010/01/garbage-yardwaste-recycling.html

and

http://www.cityofseattle.net/UTIL/About_SPU/Recycling_System/History_&_Overview/Ban_on_Recyclables_in_Garbage/index.asp

Of course all of us want to do the "best thing" for managing the garbage but at what point does it become a criminal offense if we don't?
#3 another one on 2010-03-10 08:16 (Reply)
"...at what point does it become a criminal offense..."

SNARK
That point is reached when the monetary volume of the fines become greater than the volume of the howls of the fined.
/SNARK

My local city (Carrollton TX) has already chipped the recycle bin, with the incentive of points for each time the bin is picked up on a recycle day. Of course the points may be redeemed for more things I wouldn't buy, all to become additional garbage and recyclables later on. heh.

The best recycle program I have heard of so far, is in Fort Bend county Texas. They literally take everything all the time. Poisons? check. Houshold chemicals? check. Electronics? check. Along with the usual paper, cardboard, metals, and glass. I don't know how they do it.

I contrasted their program with the one I experienced in Cupertino CA when I lived out there. They were so picky about WHAT they took, it was almost a laughable nod at recycling versus a real program. Plastic? well, we'll take 1's and 2's but only if its clean. Glass? only clear. none of that green/brown/colored stuff. Paper? well, we'll take newspaper and copy paper, but other than that, ummm, no.
As far as the rest? Well, every two years they'd do a 'free' day of garbage where almost anything you could get in a 4x8x4fth high area they'd think about. (versus Carrollton where we have heavy trash pickup EVERY week.)

...and I totally forgot where I was going with this hijack.

My friend in Fort Bend says that the recycling doesn't really pay for itself, but it wasn't their goal. The goal is to limit the amount of material that goes into the landfill. Its far cheaper to pay extra to recycle stuff that it is to acquire and maintain land for the landfill.
#3.1 JoeC on 2010-03-10 10:08 (Reply)
I am a strong supporter of reducing landfill. For too many cities "Landfill" has now come to mean "ocean dump". It seems to me that what is needed is a better designed system. Those on the west(left)coast are designed by politicians. Those who take anything anytime are not designed at all. Surely, with all the money going into sustainable design in academia somebody can come up with something that rewards and encourages a well planned and well managed (no unions please) system. But, then again . . .
#4 apple pie on 2010-03-10 10:52 (Reply)
Race - "And since when is the Census Bureau authorized to ask such questions?"

Since the beginning, or at least the second one. Remember, slaves - shorthand reference blacks - were not citizens but were each a percentage of a "person" and had to be counted.

But "American" or even "human" does not seem adequate to register protest about what is today supposed to be [heh-heh] an irrelevance. So -

Answer "black". Period. After all, we are all supposed to be descended from African forebears, if we trace back a hundred thousand years or so. According to the definition of "race" then, we all qualify. And it would mess up things so badly...
#5 John A on 2010-03-10 14:15 (Reply)
Mike Munger on recycling (podcast)
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/07/munger_on_recyc.html
#6 rhhardin (Link) on 2010-03-10 18:04 (Reply)
Re the evil Drudge report as a source of malware: sometimes valid websites get hijacked so that a bad guy inserts a popup saying "Scan your computer! End of the world! Scan now or face ruin!". Sometimes these critters are set up so clicking anything in the popup causing it to start the scan, which is an installation of malware. I've seen this at Cute Overload and I've seen it at Don Surber's site. SO it could have happened at Drudge.
If it happens to you, try to close the browser window. If that fails, POWER OFF THE COMPUTER IF YOU HAVE TO. Don't let the popup run ANYTHING!!! Don't click any part of the popup window if you can help it.
#7 Geoff Brown on 2010-03-10 19:17 (Reply)
And what is amazing, it is so easy to stop most of that (at least with Firefox). Just install the AdBlock and NoScript add ins, and check the block pop up windows in OPTIONS-> CONTENT.

Now, there are subscription sites that use pop ups and scripts for things such as logins, those are easy to enable PER SITE.

I also use ProcessGuard that warns me when a new program is attempting to run (not helpful for Java based attacks, which NoScript helps guard against).

So there are simple things (if you are aware of them) to help prevent the installation of Malware.
#7.1 JoeC on 2010-03-10 22:23 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.