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Foundations
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What I'm For
and Against
PRO
- Atomic power
- Space Exploration
- Free Trade
- Capitalism
- Home Schooling
- Liberty
- Amendments IX and X
- 10th Commandment
- Good Manners
ANTI
- War on Drugs
- "Universal" Health Care
- Religion-based government
- Big Government of any kind
- Compulsory government monopoly mass schooling
- Income Tax
- Windmills and other government-subsidized "alternative" energy boondoggles
- The idea that electing the "right" person will make everything better
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Clock
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This excellent clock comes from the Poodwaddle web site. Yes, that's what it's called!
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TC Archive
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DownsizeDC
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The Town Crank
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| Author: |
Steve Erbach |
Created: |
Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:30 AM |
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| Just shut yer yap, leave me alone, and stop raising my blankety-blank taxes! |
By Steve Erbach on
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 1:36 PM
My brother, Dan, sent this from where he's staying in Afghanistan. It's a lengthy commentary by someone in the Navy apparently in a position to know what went down when the American captain of that hijacked vessel in the Indian Ocean was rescued by Navy SEALs on April 9th.
From: Jack Kaltenhauser <arizseabee@gmail.com>
Subject: Navy 3 Pirates 0
To: "Jack Kaltenhauser" <arizseabee@cox.net>
Date: Monday, April 27, 2009, 7:29 PM
I'll just tell you what I found out from my contacts at NSWC Norfolk and at SOCOM Tampa.
First though, let me orient you to familiarize you with the "terrain."
In Africa from ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Sunday, April 19, 2009 9:58 AM
Last night I took the family to see Riverdance at the PAC in Appleton, WI, just up the road from us about 10-12 miles. Everything, absolutely everything about the show was splendid. I loved the numbers geared towards an American audience that were added to the "basic" stuff we all know from the Riverdance video. In particular the "duel" between three Irish dancers accompanied by the violinist and two jazz tap dancers accompanied by a soprano sax player. It was like a non-agressive "West Side Story", with the two sides trading dancing licks...and even imitating each other at one point.
Michael Flatley may have a bit more "presence" on-stage, but his replacement was more approachable, I think, besides being just as good a dancer. I know, I'm not qualified to judge; but man! When he was "dueling" with the jazz tapsters, he did a jump and clicked hi ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 7:24 PM
To really fight global warming, just change how cows are made! I kid you not. From the Gannett papers today:
Dairy cow of future may pass less gas
The Associated Press • April 14, 2009
The U.S. dairy industry wants to engineer the “cow of the future” to pass less gas, a project aimed at cutting the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, industry leaders said Monday.
The cow project aims to reduce intestinal methane, the single largest component of the dairy industry’s carbon footprint, said Thomas P. Gallagher, chief executive officer of the U.S. Dairy and Dairy Management Inc.’s Innovation Center in Rosemont, Ill.
The project involves adopting innovative practices and technologies One area to be explored is modifying the dairy cows’ feed so they produce less metha ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 7:16 PM
Governor Rick Perry of Texas for President! This bit of video shows Governor Perry voicing strong support for House Concurrent Resolution 50 reaffirming the intent and purpose of the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
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By Steve Erbach on
Friday, April 10, 2009 10:25 AM
Are you more apt to follow the Timber Rattlers (attend games more frequently perhaps) now that they are affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers?
(published 13-Apr-2009, Appleton Post-Crescent)
Well, no, to tell you the truth. I've been to a couple Rattlers' games in past years with the Cub Scouts when I was a Cubmaster. I've been to one Brewers game, a couple Appleton Foxes games years ago, and I managed to see one Milwaukee Braves game when I was a lad. It's like with the Packers: since we canceled our cable TV subscription in '99, I have not watched a complete Packer game. The last one was when the Packers lost to Denver in the Super Bowl. I don't miss it. I'd rather play a game than watch it. I've played lots more softball than I've watched baseball games. I've golfed a lot more than I've watched tournaments on TV, though I do miss the Masters. For me, the best spectator and participatory sport is politics. As ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Friday, April 10, 2009 8:30 AM
I was chatting with my friend, Nick, the other night and he mentioned that the public debt in these United States is around $60 trillion. I hadn't thought that it was quite that high, but I'd done a little noodling with loan amortization using a somewhat smaller figure as the total public debt. The numbers are not encouraging.
All right, first the assumptions:
- U. S. population: 300,000,000
- Average family size: 4 individuals
- Total public debt: $50 trillion
If we treat that $50 trillion figure as the balance due on a mortgage, we can project what the payments will be by plugging in a few figures into a financial calculator:
- Principal: $50 trillion
- Number of monthly payments (30 years): 360
& ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Monday, April 06, 2009 11:53 AM
The concert was wonderful. I was allowed officially to make a recording of the concert with my little Olympus DS-30 voice recorder. I placed it down stage right on the Lawrence Chapel stage and was able to get a very good recording.
Here are the songs in "raw" form. That is, they've just been extracted from the original recording with no special fade-in or fade-out, so I apologize in advance if the sound starts and ends rather abruptly in some of them.
The only recording that really didn't turn out was the first number of the evening performed by the youngest choir, the Ragazze. The two girls playing percussion instruments were just a few feet from the microphones; so the percussion sort of drowns out the first song: Gahu.
There were 6 choirs (!) and a total of 21 songs.
Ragazze Choir
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By Steve Erbach on
Saturday, April 04, 2009 3:49 PM
 ... you may listen to the webcast live broadcast by WLFM, the Lawrence University campus radio station:
http://www.lawrence.edu/conservatory/webcasts/
You'll see the "Listen" link in the sentence: Listen to a live webcast on WLFM at a concert time listed below. Click on the Listen link at 6:30 tonight to hear the pre-concert broadcast. Concert begins at 7:00. You won't be disappointed.
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By Steve Erbach on
Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:38 AM
To the Honorable Tom Petri, Herb Kohl, and Russ Feingold,
I know that I can't have any effect on legislation if I merely complain about it to my wife and friends; so I've decided that I have to add the sound of my little flyspeck voice in hopes that enough flies buzzing about my Congressmans' ears will get their attention.
Please vote against the spending increases. I would hate to see these United States head for a future like that of the Weimar Republic or the former Yugoslavia...but maybe I should buy a wheelbarrow now while I can still get one for less than a wheelbarrow-full of worthless bank notes!
It's a measure of my frustration that I would even make a weak joke like that; but the immense bailouts and loans and stimulus programs that have rolled over this country don't feel to me like a benificent wave of relief -- it's more like a tsunami of fiscal destruction.
Please, please vote to cut spe ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:44 PM
I hope this is published before Saturday: letter to the editor of the Appleton Post-Crescent:
Full disclosure again: I'm a proud parent of a member of the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir, so I'm biased, all right? But I think I'm biased in the best way.
I attended a Girl Choir concert for the first time last December and I was completely bowled over by how terrific it was.
The five choirs each sang three or four songs, from Brahms to Pablo Casals, Holst to Mozart, and Grieg to Vivaldi; and they all joined forces for a wonderful finale that involved over 240 girls on-stage accompanied by two pianists performing a four-hand Gypsy dance piece from Serbia! It was heavenly.
Now comes their spring concert, "Folk Songs and Fairy Tales". The same five choirs will be joined by the very youngest performers in the Ragazze ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Friday, March 13, 2009 4:16 AM
If you could change careers today, would you?
(published 16-Mar-2009, Appleton Post-Crescent)
Exactly four weeks ago I was "involuntarily terminated due to downsizing", so I've had a fair chance to consider that question. I'm in the same boat with a lot of people in my profession -- information technology and web development -- so the pie might not get any higher, to paraphrase former President Bush. I did apply for a position in an entirely different field right away, as executive director of a national association. It was an interesting exercise and I had decent qualifications for the position. I didn't get it, but it was worth the ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Saturday, February 28, 2009 7:53 AM
My absolute favorite quote from this Guardian article is "People just don't understand that softness equals ecological destruction."
You can't make this stuff up.
Extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin forest causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions, say campaigners
Thursday 26 February 2009 18.29 GMT
The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is cau ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Friday, February 20, 2009 1:35 PM
A school board in Florida -- actually, the county where they had so much trouble with the "butterfly" Presidential ballots in 2000 -- has voted to limit students' homework to 10 minutes per grade. So a 4th grader would have 40 minutes of homework. Imagine that!
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By Steve Erbach on
Thursday, February 12, 2009 6:00 PM
How has the economic downturn hurt you?
(published 16-Feb-2009, Appleton Post-Crescent)
Our oldest son works at a popular restaurant. He works fewer hours and gets fewer tips. One Sunday three customers left no tips; one had a $70 tab. My wife actually works more hours than before, so she's doing fine. I don't have "layoff survivor syndrome" yet, mainly because there haven't been any layoffs where I work. But hourly workers there now work seven hour shifts, not eight. Gas prices are good, as low as they were four years ago. I really don't think that we're heading into a depression. The early 80's had higher unemployment, interest, and inflation rates than today, and there wasn't any talk of an economic "stimulus". Comparing the Reagan administration to the Obama administration will be very instructive. Spending our way to prosperity is a phantom, a trap. Don't listen to
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By Steve Erbach on
Thursday, February 12, 2009 5:23 AM
From The PatriotPost:
THE FOUNDATION
"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it." --John Adams
INSIGHT
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
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By Steve Erbach on
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 5:20 PM
Very symbolic, you know. Don't you feel better that PETA wants to avoid the creation of a "master race" of dogs?
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By Steve Erbach on
Wednesday, February 11, 2009 5:19 AM
From DownsizeDC.org, this appeal to the lesson from recent history provided by the Japanese in their attempts to turn their economy around through the use of government "stimulus" efforts:
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
Quote of the Day: "Are we turning Japanese? I really think so." -- The Vapors
Subject: What we are failing to learn from Japan's example
"The Vapors" were a band whose only big hit, "Turning Japanese," could be the theme song for the so-called stimulus package. Congress too is a one-hit wonder whose one solutio
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By Steve Erbach on
Monday, February 09, 2009 12:26 PM
You can't make this stuff up:
Climate change takes a mental toll
By Emily Anthes, Globe Correspondent | February 9, 2009
Read More »
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By Steve Erbach on
Monday, February 09, 2009 5:03 AM
I don't know what you think of Fred Thompson, but I thought this "explanation" was refreshingly sardonic and satirical. Recorded before Christmas.
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By Steve Erbach on
Saturday, February 07, 2009 7:42 AM
I've written with some amusement about hyperinflation before on my old blog. That examination took in the decline of the Yugoslavian currency in the early 90s when Yugoslavia was breaking apart. The Yugoslavian dinar printed before 1990 was worth 1.3 octillion (that's 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) of the 1994 dinars!
From the Voice of Africa comes this story about the currency devaluation in Zimbabwe:
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By Steve Erbach on
Thursday, February 05, 2009 2:14 AM
[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b3cf80a-f2ac-11dd-abe6-0000779fd2ac.html]
Story from the Financial Times about Russia's interesting mish-mash of policies:
- huge budget cuts in an attempt to limit its fiscal deficit
- authorities are not giving in to public demands for a quick-fix response
- deliberately choosing to allow gross domestic product growth to fall to zero or below in 2009 to stabilise the economy and maintain foreign exchange reserves
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By Steve Erbach on
Monday, February 02, 2009 3:10 AM
...why do I get the feeling that it's simply another example of government control over our lives and the destruction of freedom? Let me illustrate.
This article is from the Life & Style section of the London Times, believe it or not, and the article was written by the "Health editor" of the Times:
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By Steve Erbach on
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:55 AM
Last week Thursday I was part of a small panel of current and former city, county, and state-level officials. We were the featured speakers at the transmogrified Ron Paul Meetup group's January 8th meeting at the Appleton Public Library. (The APL has excellent meeting facilities, by the way. Top notch.)
Here is a link to the Windows Media audio of the event.
This was a very fun event; I hope as much for the people attending as it was for the presenters.
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By Steve Erbach on
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:23 PM
It's been 2½ weeks since the performance of the Girl Choir. I thought I'd collect everything I'd written about the performance, except for my letter to the editor I published earlier.
I also have links below to the raw recording I made of the concert and a playlist in case you'd like to jump to a particular song. I hope that in the next week or so to have the concert broken into individual songs.
Here is the text of an e-mail sent to a friend a day or two after the concert:
I have to mention a bit more about the Girl Choir. I was very pleased that Eleanor wanted to join the choir, though her interest was fairly ... how shall I put it? ... blasé.
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By Steve Erbach on
Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:03 AM
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 10:59AM GMT 28 Dec 2008
Polar bears will be fine after all. (AP)
The first, on May 21, headed "Clima ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:58 PM
The UK Independent has a fine article skewering the beautiful people that haven't a clue about science:
Scientific illiteracy all the rage among the glitterati
By Steve Connor, Science editor
Saturday, 27 December 2008
When it comes to science, Barack Obama is no better than many of us. Today he joins the list of shame of those in public life who made scientifically unsupportable statements in 2008.
Closer to home, Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith faltered on the science of food, while Kate Moss, Oprah Winfrey and Demi Moore all get roastings for scientific illiteracy.
The Celebrities and Science Review 2008, prepared by t ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:18 AM
(published 22-Dec-2008, Appleton Post-Crescent)
I saw a wonderful performance of the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir at the Lawrence Chapel on December 13th. It was so charming and amazing how beautiful they all sounded.
The 3rd and 4th grade Primo Choir all sang in unison with no harmonies or rounds. They were, of course, the most fun to watch as they were the sweetest and most unselfconscious.
The Allegretto Choir are 5th and 6th graders. They sang in simple harmonies and sang a round, "White Sand and Gray Sand", as they came on-stage. The highlight was "The Old Carrion Crow", a favorite of Girl Choirs past.
The Intermezzo girls were next, 7th and 8th graders. A number of these girls formed an ensemble for a Schubert piece and a solo violinist, Andrea Carpenter, joined them for an 18th cen ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Friday, December 19, 2008 6:41 AM
As you think about your own childhood or that of your children: What is one of your favorite Christmas holiday memories?
(published 22-Dec-2008, Appleton Post-Crescent)
We once lived in an old Victorian house that featured pocket doors in the living room. We'd opened our presents and were settling down to play with our new stuff when I announced that there was one more to go. Warning everyone to stay put, I closed the pocket doors. I had done all the "tab A into slot B" stuff on this surprise gift for my wife ahead of time and I'd tied a bow to the top; now I had to haul it from its hiding place without too much clanking. I dragged it into the hallway outside the living room next to the doors and nipped back into the li ...
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By Steve Erbach on
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:04 PM
This comes from a DownsizeDC.org email
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
Quote of the Day: " was socialistic in every way. It rewarded market failures. It ripped off average families for the sake of billionaires. It was the worst form of Keynesian planning. It was an open conflict of interest, as the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs funneled vast sums to Goldman Sachs. It had exactly zero chance of helping the economy. In fact, by draining productive private resources necessary for economic recovery, it makes a bad situation worse." -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
Subject: What is a troubled asset?
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By Steve Erbach on
Thursday, November 20, 2008 9:10 PM
Should the minimum wage be raised?
(published 24-Nov-2008, Appleton Post-Crescent)
What we see is that some workers' wages go up by government decree. What we DON'T see is the higher prices we pay on everything to subsidize those wages. Either that or fewer minimum wage workers get to keep their jobs. You either pay more for a Big Mac or the junior bun toaster is out on his ear. That is, government puts people out of work by raising the minimum wage. But you know what might really help minimum wage earners? Cancel FICA and Medicare taxes. They're the most regressive taxes of all. Let minimum wage workers keep every penny. But really what I wanna know is this: Why do our Congresscritters ...
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Tea Partyer
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U.S. Congressman, Maxine Waters, says that the TEA Party "can go straight to hell." Well, after you, Maxine!
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Our Founder
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"Just shut yer yap, leave me alone, and stop raising my blankety blank taxes!"
You are free to add your two cents to any blog entry; but if you want to send a deeply personal message to Our Founder, [click here].
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