Fie on AT&T

My phone indicated a voice mail.  I looked up the procedure for hearing the message and dialed the access number.  It was no longer valid.  Hours later I finally reached the right on-line location and menu item to receive a new number.  After I dialed it I had to set up voice mail all over again.  Finally I got my message.  I bet you know where this is going.  The message was from AT&T.  It was about VOICE MAIL!  Grrr!

Duh

A solution that can't [or won't] happen is not a solution.

Ann Arbor

On Sunday I'll be going to Ann Arbor for the four-week statistics seminar.  I verified that the Border's there next to the campus is still open.  I hope I'm still up to the walking involved.  Mike tells me there is a course I should be interested in.  I hope it doesn't meet at eight o'clock.

When you are in a hole ...

... stop digging.

The hole is the deficit.  The digging is Obamacare and subsidies.

Big Business and Wall Street

I think most people, including myself, tend to confuse these.  Wall Street is stock traders.  Big Business is the issuers of the stock they trade.  They are different people.

Three Markets

I would like to see a competant economist (not an oxymoron) analyze what has happened and may happen in three markets, namely housing, higher education, and medical care.  They have several things in common including being important parts of the economy which have experienced periods of major price increases and are subject to significant government meddling.  In the case of housing a culprit was subprime loans and the bubble has burst.  Higher education is affected by government-guaranteed loans, grants, and state budgets.  Medical costs ballooned as a result of Medicare and Medicaid.  Admittedly technology also had an effect.

Easy credit increases demand and supply cannot keep up.  Each has unique features.  Higher Education is something of a sacred cow with various degrees lumped together.  Everyone believes they are entitled to the best medical care regardless of their ability to pay and there isn't enough best medical care to go around.  Housing was something of a Ponzi scheme.

There is a fourth major growing market, namely government service.

Sitting in the park.
Keeping the beat.
Feeling sorry for myself.

Planning my happiness.
Eating too much.
Planning my health.

Sleeping late.
Working puzzles in the night.
Dreaming strange dreams.

Hoping against hope.
Improving my chances.
Giving up.

People watching.
Longing for company.
Reminiscing.

Feeling my age.
Checking the mirror.
Playing old songs.

Reading the news.
Wishing for better.
Making no difference.

Eating chicken soup.
Playing solitaire.
Walking the mall.

Listening to birds.
Photographing flowers.
Mounting pictures.

Remembering the lake.
Where we fed the ducks.
And times were good.

Nuclear Waste Disposal

I've done some online research about my last post.  First, "deepest part of the ocean"  should be replaced with "deepest subduction zone."  Second, the worst thing that can be said about my suggestion is that it would be a waste of a valuable resource.

Solution to Nuclear Waste

It's simple.  Just drop it into the deepest part of the ocean.

Orchid

Giving Up

I'm giving up on finding a new companion.  I've tried SeniorPeopleMeet and eHarmony without success.  The trouble is that the gal I lost set the bar so high that nobody else comes close.  I think of moving near a daughter but the necessary downsizing would be tough.  My pleasures are in my house, in coffee shops and at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

A Good Thought

The older I get the less I have to worry about what might happen during my lifetime.

Tipping Point

How long before the expansion of government regulation causes a collapse.  It happened in the Soviet Union.  It is happening in Europe.  Sooner or later it will happen here.

Unmet Needs

[This] is a world of trade-offs, not solutions--and whatever trade-off is decided upon will still leave unmet needs.

-- Thomas Sowell

Budget

The GAO report could have been used as a step-by-step instruction manual for producing real cuts to government spending. Why wasn't it?
"Because the constituency for spending is still strong in Washington," says former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R- Holland, who has the perspective of three months as a private citizen. "Appropriators don't want to cut spending, and the bureaucracy is a big advocate for growing government."
So instead, Hoekstra says, Congress "worries more about how to gain a political advantage than actually solving the problem."
 
--Nolan Finley

Shocking

More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined.

Over the period 1970-2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington.

Be careful

Be very careful about what you believe today.

GOP Nominee

Maybe the reason Republican candidates are so slow out of the starting gate is that the sooner there is a clear front-runner the sooner the Democrats can start demonizing him (or her) which they are very good at.

Free

Free advice:  Don't judge a posting by it's Title.

Real Clear Politics

I've been reading a bunch of opinion pieces and have concluded we should spend less time arguing about what is good for Democrats and what is good for Republicans and more time arguing about what is good for the country.  (And it is not more debt or commitments in Libya.)

Death

My younger brother died Tuesday making me the last survivor of five siblings.  It makes me feel so old.

My Poetry

SOLILOQUY


Contemplating inner spaces--empty aching inner places
where wellings should belong.
Examining faint feelings that elude my apprehending
like the title of a half-forgotten song.
Suspecting lack of motivation based on something being taken
from the pleasure centers of the mind;
taken from the driving will that kept me moving on until
I knew within myself I was alive.
Looking for a spark to kindle energy for some new passion,
some new way to spend a day that's not a task.
Pondering why there is no yearning that would guide me to a turning
from these tearful visions filtered from the past.
Searching for imagination that would lead to inspiration--
would lead to more than resignation, to more than marking time.
Days were meant for more that counting, years for more than passing,
time for more than filling with a rhyme.
But I do not find much comfort in the places where I seek it,
and when I sit and wait it doesn't come to me.
I surely hope my sorrow will be lightened on the morrow,
that there'll be a better cure for this ennui.

--Harlow B. Staley (c) Dec 9th, 1996

An Inconvenient Question

How did polar bears survive in earlier warming periods?

World War II Music

I went to a fish fry sponsered by the American Legion last night.  The entertainment was The Legacy Girls who do an impersonation of The Andrews Sisters.  It was a toe-tapping time and I remembered many of the words.

War on Drugs

Google John-Stossel war-on-drugs unintended-consequences video to see why I am convinced drugs should be legalized.  And that's in addition to what it is doing to Mexico where it is no longer safe to be in law enforcement or government.

Now what?

Monday, February 14, 2011

I'm starting to accept that I'll never see [my girlfriend] again. It's like being widowed for a third time. I guess that we had enough great years to make it worthwhile. There aren't enough years left to try for a fourth. I'm 84. Anyway, she has spoiled me for anyone else.

My brother, Jerre's, cancer reminds me that my own years are limited. I don't know what I should do with them. "I haven't got time for the waiting game."

Being where people are doesn't mean that I can meet them. I haven't solved that one yet. Senior Center trips could be a start. Dance lessons? A lot of boats have sailed.

My Brother

My younger brother, my last remaining sibling, called to tell me he was in a hospital in Springville, IL, with cancer in his liver.  He said when he leaves the hospital he will enter a nursing home.  He will no longer be able to manage my farmland and prepare a summary for my tax return.  I am sure I can handle that, but it won't be easy to visit him except by driving more than I like to.  The girlfriend who would have taken me recently dumped me.  Suddenly my house seems very empty.

Dilemma

I need to move on, but I don't know where on is.

Pre-existing Conditions

I just read in an opinion piece that denying health insurance to people with pre-existing conditions was one of the insurance industry's "most abusive practices."  I wonder why fire insurers won't cover you if your house is on fire.  The author of the piece admits that insurers could only do this if everyone is forced to buy coverage.  I wonder why insurance companies are blamed for not being a charity.  If they are so bad, why not do away with them?

Egypt

I have no way of knowing who the good guys are.

Mood

I'm lonely tonight.

Where are the politicians . . .

. . . with the fortitude to take on:

the farm lobby
public service unions
trial lawyers association
environmentalists?
[an incomplete list]

I suppose they are out there.  They just can't get elected.

Minimum Wage

". . . it’s too bad that the minimum-wage law added so many people to the list of those who today cannot find jobs."

Seeing the doctor

Tomorrow, because of a high blood-pressure reading.

Ennui

I don't know what to do with myself even though I have plenty of things to do.  [Taxes?]

Lunch

I had lunch with an old friend and his wife.  I'd worked with him years ago programming games for the Radio Shack Color Computer.

A Place to Start

Eliminate all of the green subsidies.

Suggested Reading:
John Stossel
Thomas Sowell
The Reference Frame (the part about global warming, not the part about theoretical physics)

Sigh

My girlfriend came by this morning and brought all my stuff from her house and said "Goodbye."  I am so sad.  She was my whole life.

I'll Never Understand...

1. How vibrating strings create mass.
2. How neurons and synapses create conciousness.

Polar Bears

Didn't polar bears manage to survive earlier periods of global warming when Greenland was green?