Is green energy going to be a job creator?

(published 19-Jul-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent on-line)

Government creates jobs, all right: in government bureaucracies. The "investment" in "green" jobs is being sold to us by the same people that sold us the high-speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison. If you're ready to grit your teeth and say, "Go ahead! Empty my wallet! It's good for everybody!" when that rail line's construction and maintenance costs go over budget by 50% or more; and yet again when ridership turns out to be 50% or less than the rosy projections... then you probably won't flinch too badly when it turns out that the "investment" in renewable energy and " ... Read More »

Should Congress pass an extension of unemployment benefits?

(published 12-Jul-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent)

I've been directly affected by the moral hazard implicit in extended unemployment benefits.  I've collected unemployment for 72 weeks.  Those benefits will now end with the 73rd unemployment check.  I've had moon-lighting gigs in my field (software development) that have provided me with about half again as much money as I got in those unemployment checks.  During this time I applied for about 130 jobs, had a couple dozen telephone screening interviews, and half-a-dozen face-to-face interviews from Green Bay to Milwaukee.  Don't get me started on "behavioral-based interviewing"!  I can see why some people have simply stopped looking for work.  After 130 rejections I've started to wonder what's wrong with m ... Read More »

I have been scornful of the global warming johnnies that bleated about how hurricanes were going to continue to get much worse and more deadly...particularly after the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans in 2005.  My scorn was justified immediately when both the 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons went by with fewer hurricanes than forecast...indeed no more than the 60-year average of six in 2007.

In 2006, of the five hurricanes that formed in the Atlantic, not a single one touched land in North or South America.  They were all out in the mid-Atlantic.  This after NOAA  ... Read More »

Do you see more negatives or positives with social media?

(published 14-Jun-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Twitter is like that scene in "The Matrix" where Cypher shows Neo all the data that's flowing past.  There's too much to make sense out of it.  "All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead."  Twitter instant status updates fly by faster than a stock market ticker tape.  It's like Max Headroom's "blipverts": after the billionth tweet your head explodes.  It's communication by highway billboards. It's a DJ with nothing to say blabbing on-air to whomever will listen ... which is nobody since everybody else is blabbing about something equally as riveting. With it's emphasis on emoticons and misspelled abbreviations and swearing, it's the computer equivalent of grunting. Now the Library of Congress has acquired ... Read More »

Ladies and gentlemen, Hizzoner Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey scores:

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Eleanor, her teammates, and her teacher, Mr. Hopfensperger, are featured in this this Fox 11 report from last night.

When I first watched this report I was amused by Raven Wallene's assertion that "We picked some and noticed kind of doing bad so we tossed a few of them and then picked some new ones..."  I think that perhaps she may have been coached to say something more dramatic about the game than simply, "We bought our stocks in February and sat on them," which is what they really did!

I can't quibble too much.  The kids got to be on TV for the first time in their lives.

Should the FDA mandate a less salty diet?

(published 3-May-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent)

The Dallas Morning News reported that "The government intends to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to adjust the American palate to a less salty diet."  I am utterly, unashamedly relieved that the government is going to do this.  I have been contemptibly timid about reducing my own salt intake.  It's disgusting, really, my pusillanimous inability to recognize the deadly facts about salt.  Why, if it weren't for the government, I'd likely overdose on Lays potato chips.  What a revolting, pitiful development that would be.  What citizen in his right mind would object to the government completely controlli ... Read More »

This is a funny story. It involves my darling, self-contained, blasé, 5th grade daughter, Eleanor.

On Tuesday evening, I helped Miss E with a homework assignment.  She had to print out pages from the Yahoo! Finance web site for three of the eight companies her team was tracking for the stock picking game they're playing.  I had known about the stock picking game for a couple of weeks.  Every kid in the two 5th grade classes at her school were members of various teams of 3-5 kids in this game.  Eleanor had done a couple of things over those couple of weeks but I didn't really think much about it as she didn't say much.  I figured it was simply an educational exercise that her teacher, Mr. Hopfensperger, had cooked up to help kids get a start on learning about the stock market.

So I helped Eleanor print out some company info pages and some graphs for each of ... Read More »

Once again, Janet was able to practice by herself on the concert grand piano at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel in Appleton.  Both Eleanor and I accompanied her this time.

The Steinway was level with the proscenium this time and I placed my recorder on a chair about 8 feet away.  My mistake was to set it to its hottest record level.  The Olympus DS-30 is a nice recorder but its method of adjusting recording levels is a 3-way switch on the side: Dictation, Conference, and Lecture Hall.  The Lecture Hall setting provides the hottest levels and I should have used the Conference setting to tone it down a bit.  There are some resonances in the piano which seem to reverberate a bit on the harsh sid ... Read More »

I attended last night's forum for the two candidates for Mayor of Neenah.  As I often do at Council and committee meetings, I recorded the proceedings.  I'm not acting as a reporter, as such; there are things said that I find worth reviewing from time to time.  Last night was one of those times.

I transcribed the introductory remarks of Neenah Council President, Todd Stevenson and posted them in their entirety at my NeenahPolitics.com blog.

Duke Behnke, the Neenah beat reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent, was there.  He heard Stevenson address the slur made about his thinking abilities by a sitting Council member while campaigning for Stevenson's opponent, Mayor Scherck. Behnke witnessed how quiet it got in the Council chambers as peop ... Read More »

Are holds a necessary Senate tactic? Or do they impede progress?

(published 15-Mar-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Anything that impedes legislation gets my support.  Gridlock is good.  Filibusters are fine.  Holds are wholesome.  Super-majorities are sublime.  This 51-49 stuff is for the birds.  I never thought I'd say this, but California has the right idea, at least for its budget: a 2/3 super-majority is required to pass it.  Especially if it's a vote on "progressive" legislation to extend government control over yet another aspect of our over-regulated lives.  "Progress" has come to mean "some bureaucrat who thinks he knows better than you is going to make your decisions for your own good because you really aren't capable, you poor thin ... Read More »

A semi on its side. A fully-loaded semi overturned at the corner of Bell St. and Brooks St. in Neenah at about 8:15am, Thursday, March 4th, 2010. I drove by just moments after it happened and went back home (about 2-1/2 miles) to get Janet's camera.

Should parents remove books from libraries?

(published 1-Mar-2010, Appleton Post-Crescent online)

It isn't so much the books in the library that bother me, it's the textbooks.  I've sustained three waves of elementary school social studies, math, and science books for my three kids (now 23, 19, and 11).  Social studies books have to top some sort of list of vapid, insipid, and gormless works intended to instruct schoolchildren.  The explicit political cant, moral equivalency, and cultural superiority are maddening.  Math books are just about as bad, though for different reasons.  My favorite -- that is to say LEAST favorite -- math book folly was the double page color photograph showing half a dozen multi-cultural children playing with a huge model city and roadway as the introduction to a chapter on geometric shapes.  Just the pi ... Read More »