Dawog's Blog

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service just released an updated report titled “U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility: Trends and International Comparisons”  dated 11/29/12. In it they find that over the past few decades, the rich have gotten a lot richer.  In addition, the data they analyzed “suggest that those at the very top have reaped disproportionately larger gains from economic growth.“  In the report’s comparison with other countries, it stated “the U.S. income distribution appears to be among the most unequal of all major industrialized countries and the United States appears to be among the nations experiencing the greatest increases in measures of income dispersion.“

Why do (or should) I care?  I have nothing against the wealthy.  But… I’m really starting to get pissed with all the nonsense about the “fiscal cliff” and how it’s “ok” to cut benefits & raise taxes on the middle class, but not on the wealthy.  Uh… excuse me… but I think most American’s realize that the greatest number of tax breaks (& loopholes) apply, many exclusively, to only the wealthy.

Oh… and all that crap from the GOP that lowering taxes on the wealthy creates more jobs & improves the economy?  Uh, well, uh… the CRS released a report in September titled “Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945” which found no correlation between reduced tax rates and increased economic growth over the past 6+ decades.  Of course, the GOP didn’t like that & forced the CRS to withdraw the report (see NY Times article “Non-Partisan Tax Report Withdrawn after GOP Protest“).  The report states “data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.”

Ya just gotta love the Republican Party, eh?  To heck with woman’s rights, Planned Parenthood, Social Security, Medicare. and even PBS/NPR; and to heck with all the people EXCEPT the rich.  I’m embarrassed to even admit that I ever voted Republican!

All I ask is to be taxed fairly.  If there are benefits to be granted, then they should be distributed from the bottom up… not from top (most wealthy) down.  Maybe it’s time to finally throw out our overly complicated tax system and just switch to a Flat Tax.  Things have gotten so ridiculous & our representatives so useless that I’m beginning to believe that only a “Flat Tax” system can save us.

But what the heck do I know?

A new report just published from Australia claims that aging men (69-87) that use computers are less likely to get dementia (up to a 40% lower incidence rate).  The conclusion of the report: “Older men who use computers have lower risk of receiving a diagnosis of dementia up to 8.5 years later.“

The report is summarized in The Register and is available free from PLos ONE (pdf download).

The study broke out the numbers by type of computer use (Email, Games, Internet, Word processing & Other), with Internet use having one of the lowest dementia incident ratios.  Their results also indicate that using the computer more often reduces the incidence of dementia.

Altho’ I’m not in the study’s age group, from the results shown above (Fig 1) I’m hoping that the earlier you start & the more you use computers, the better the results.

If you don’t feel you’re using the computer enuf, then take a stab at a free game called Entanglement.  It’s not only addicting, but it requires some serious thought.  To see how to play, click on “Menu” on the right side of the page followed by “How to Play.”

Enjoy!

Finally!  An article that addresses my own meager observations concerning the disappearance of pubic hair on women over the past couple decades (and on men, too, according to The Atlantic article).  I find great joy in finally seeing an article that starts out with the line “I must have missed the declaration of war on pubic hair,” as that’s exactly how I feel.  I mean, I didn’t necessarily miss it… I did notice the disappearing pubes… I just didn’t know it had gone this far… or that it was ‘a war.’  It seems (to me, anyways) like this all came about with little to no public conversation or reporting.  Gee… haven’t we evolved enough to allow a general discussion about ‘pubic hair’?  To shave… or not to shave???  (Apparently not)

So… why do I care?  Well, I don’t, really.  I just don’t understand why.  I’m of the “if it’ ain’t broke, then don’t fix it” generation.  My motto is:  We came with hair, so leave it there!  I choose to believe that it’s probably there for a reason (and no… not just because we’re all chimpanzee or gorilla descendants)

Oh well… just so long as Congress doesn’t pass a law requiring me to shave MY pubes (which, BTW, wouldn’t surprise me), then so be it.

In case you’re interested, here’s several articles I found that discuss the “Case of the Missing Pubes”:

• Salon.com “We have pubic hair for a reason“ by Eily Gibson & M.D., KEVINMD.COM (dtd 8/12/12)
• The Atlantic “The New Full-Frontal: Has Pubic Hair in America Gone Extinct?“ by Ashley Fetters (dtd 12/13/11)
• freq.uenci.es “Disappearance“ by Roger Friedland (dtd 10/14/11)
• The Huffington Post “Looking Through the Bushes: The Disappearance of Pubic Hair“ by Roger Friedland (dtd 6/13/11)

Gotta go… uh… scratch… my pubes… before they disappear.

A few pics of hummingbirds visiting our feeder this summer.

Slide shows w/full-size photos are here (#1) and here (#2).

• All pics taken w/Canon EOS Rebel T3 w/Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens

Latahs…

This comic  titled “How to suck at your religion“ from “The Oatmeal” captures pretty much perfectly just how I feel about religion (and many religious people I know or have known).

Also check out The Oatmeal for “15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee.”

I just got back from loading up and driving a slow rental truck from Knoxville, Tennessee to Colorado.  Needless to say, I spent a great deal of time on Interstate 70.

Have you ever noticed that wherever extremely religious people are found, bizarre behavior or customs seem to prevail?

I tried to take a rough count of highway signs (billboards) along I-70 in Kansas and guess what?  Adult Superstore billboards (porn) seemed to win by a large margin.  In between all the porn superstore signs are primarily religious signs (Porn Destroys Families; Jesus Hates Abortion; etc., etc., etc.).  Cute, eh?

Now… are the majority of customers for all these ‘porn superstores’ from out of state or just truckdrivers?  I seriously doubt that.  Although I’d prefer much fewer billboard advertisements along any highway, I have nothing against adult store advertisements in particular.  In fact, if I had to choose between only religious or adult bookstore signs, I’d take the adult advertisements every time.  (Guess that makes me a pervert, eh?)

Here’s my observation from living in nearly a dozen states & all the religious people (of many religions) I’ve known over the past several decades:

How extreme the religious beliefs a person has is directly proportional to how big a pervert that person is.

Now this is just a rule of thumb, and most certainly not always true.  But it’s been more true than not in my experience.

P.S.  In Missouri, they seem to prefer “Gentleman’s Club” vs. “Adult Superstore” with respect to billboard language.  Isn’t that nice!

I wrote a post nearly a year & a half ago concerning Canada’s ISP-forced metered internet usage, warning that this is likely to spread to America.  Well…. apparently it’s here.

Public Knowledge published a paper last week about data caps and so-called “usage-based billing.”  Directly from their Executive Summary:

Usage-based pricing (UBP), today most commonly encountered in the form of data caps, is rapidly becoming part of the Internet access landscape.

The paper considers economic and historical perspectives and raises some concerns, both in regards to competition and to national priorities such as broadband adoption, education, employment, and innovation more generally.

Unfortunately, not too long ago the FCC gave UBP an unequivocal green light (at the request of industry stakeholders) to expressly allow “bandwidth- or consumption-based” billing to address network congestion (whether or not it exists!).  The FCC adopted the reasoning that UBP (which includes data caps) can be an effective mechanism to ensure that consumers pay for what they use.

This argument alludes to many falsehoods, including that Internet bandwidth is being eaten up by Bandwidth Hogs.  Here’s what the report says:

Before considering the existence of Bandwidth hogs, we should examine the nature of Internet access as a service.  For starters, bits are not physical goods, and therefore cannot be “consumed” in any meaningful sense.  Absent network congestion, one person’s use of bandwidth does not interfere with another’s.  This is because the Internet is largely a “non-rivalrous” technology:  one’s use or consumption of the Internet does not impede or deprive anyone else from enjoying it as well.  Furthermore unlike, for example, vehicular traffic, bits do not “wear out the road.”  Maintenance costs for networking equipment are not directly related to the volume of traffic they process.  The rhetoric behind the cost-recovery rationale for data caps is heavily charged with notions of equity, scarcity, and unjust  subsidization.  It begins with the intuitively appealing notion that users of a resource should “pay for what they use.”

…

The Internet is based on a technical concept called “statistical multiplexing” where multiple users can share the same bandwidth that previously would be consumed by one user making a single phone call.  In theory, with statistical multiplexing there is no limit on how many users can share the bandwidth represented by the circuit for a single phone call.  Unlike other utilities such as water, electricity, gas or oil, where the product is actually “consumed” by end users, network bandwidth is never truly “consumed”: bandwidth is infinitely reusable and therefore only temporarily in use (or “consumed”) at any given time.

Although our major ISPs make the claim that UBP is needed to counter network congestion, there is no data available to support their claim.  Network congestion apparently does occasionally occur, almost exclusively during the evening hours (after work) when people are getting their Netflix or Hulu fixes.  But UBP will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to alleviate this congestion — when & if it occurs.  More often than not, it’s due to the ISP’s practice of “oversubscription” (i.e., selling more bandwidth than it can actually provide at any given time).  This usually happens at the endpoints, i.e., neighborhood Customer Aggregation Equipment (CAE).  Fortunately, this is easily (& inexpensively) resolved by the ISPs.

Bottom line?  For both cable (coax) & wired (tele company) broadband, there is little evidence that “bandwidth hogs” are imposing costs that are either unpaid or borne by other users.

All data coming from Canada (& other countries) that have imposed data caps indicate that competition (as in lack of), rather than congestion, determines whether a service provider feels entitled to impose UBP on its customers — which is particularly troubling in the U.S. given the lack of competition in the broadband market.

The communications industry in the U.S. is moving rapidly towards UBP, and is stigmatizing flat rate pricing as unjust and unsustainable.  However, much of the rest of the world (except Canada) is moving in the other direction.

The conclusion of the paper begins with:

Flat pricing schemes should be regarded as an ideal goal, supporting innovation and social and economic welfare, and not as irrational aberrations that promote inefficiency and waste.  However, sometimes temporary resource constraints may make flat rates infeasible.   Currently, in the wired Internet, that does not appear to be a real concern, as the rate of progress in technology appears to be comparable to the rate at which traffic demand is rising, so that should be possible to support the growth in traffic without increases in the level of investment.  On the wireless side, traffic is growing faster than carriers are investing in capacity improvements, so the case for UBP appears far stronger.

My concern is with wired broadband, not wireless.  With more ISPs (i.e., Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) offering their own content, which does not count against their data caps, it’s going to get increasingly difficult (& definitely more expensive) for users to obtain content from 3rd-party providers like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, etc..  In addition, it will hasten the downfall of any 3rd-party competition.  The sad fact of the matter is that American ISPs have a monopoly.  By allowing them to also sell their own content, they’re now in a position to eliminate any outside competition.  This will make it even more difficult to ‘cut the cord’ from cable content.

Don’t ya just love how monopolies rule in America?

UPDATEs:

• Hulu announced yesterday (4/30/12) that they are going to require users to have a pay TV subscription before they can stream video online.   As I mentioned in previous posts (here & here), the major Hollywood/TV studios are doing everything they can to destroy alternative video services and to keep people from “cutting the cord.”  Don’t pay for cable, telco, or satellite TV?  No streaming video for you!  More on this from Techdirt.
• Sony announced Monday (5/1/12) that they are putting their Internet video on hold due to Comcast’s data cap.  Netflix CEO Reed Hastings accused Comcast of violating net neutrality a couple weeks ago.

I just saw the C/NET article (Fed driver distraction guidelines make navigation unusable) by Wayne Cunningham reviewing the recently issued National Highway Transportation Safety Agency guidelines for automakers to minimize distraction for in-vehicle electronics.

Not to worry… “NHTSA says you can keep your GPS — as long as it’s completely useless” (Techdirt article).   Me thinks their new acronym should be NHTSBA (Nat’l Highway Transporation Safety & Buffoon Agency).

Now… I don’t have a GPS, auto or handheld (altho’ I’ll probably buy one now before the NHTSBA renders them useless).  I grew up with maps and still use them.  Most folks probably don’t even remember the Rand McNally Road Atlas that nearly everyone who traveled cross-country had.  When is the last time you saw maps for sale in a gas station?

I was a navigator in the Navy (NFO) and we relied exclusively on maps.  Even when GPS became more prevalent, training still included extensive map training, as the Navy used to follow the axiom: “The more you rely on technology, the more likely that technology will fail when you need it most”  (in other words, the reliability of technology tends to be inversely proportional to just how badly you need it to complete your mission).  Yes, I know… yet another version of Murphy’s Law.

But I digress… back to NHTSBA’s recommendations.  Why not cut to the chase and make the leap to new technology?  Like Cadillac’s new “Driver Awareness & Driver Assist” package, in which the seat vibrates to alert the driver to roadway threats.   That technology could be modified to vibrate the hell out of your ass whenever it determines that you’re distracted (or falling asleep).  Because some people – of either sex – might find a vibrating seat just a little “TOO” enjoyable, why not go with electrodes (or a butt probe) that shocks the shit out of you when the system somehow determines that you’re either distracted or falling asleep at the wheel?

Better yet… isn’t it about time that the “Heads-Up Display” technology prevalent in military aircraft finally became mainstream in the automobile?  With GPS overlays of driving instructions to a desired location displayed right on your windshield?   Of course, prepare yourself for complete failure of this technology when you absolutely NEED to get to your destination for any of the following possible reasons:

• Trying to find the closest hospital to deliver an emergency victim
• Trying to find the closest bathroom
• Late for job interview
• Late for wedding
• Nearest Starbucks
• Nearest Bar or Medical Marijuana Dispensary
• Finding your way back home…
• etc., etc., etc.

Ain’t technology just wonderful???

P.S.  As a backup for technology failure, don’t to forget to look up your destination on Google Maps & print it out BEFORE you jump in the car! (and, uh, don’t forget to bring it with you)

A friend of mine forwarded me this link to B-29 & P-51 WWII footage by the War Department.  It’s around 36 minutes in length, but I found it extremely interesting.  It includes live footage of the 3,000 mile round trip air assault against Japan with 3 bomber wings and a host of P-51s.

Be sure to browse the Internet Archive website as they have a ton of other stuff, including many old B&W sci-fi movies such as “Plan 9 from Outer Space“, “Night of the Living Dead“, “Killers from Space“, and many more.  They also have old TV episodes such as the first episode of the Beverly Hillbillies.  Due to our outrageous copyright laws, many of the television episodes had to substitute different sound tracks (including theme songs) because they couldn’t license the original sound track.

Enjoy!

The pilot episode of L5 was released, free to the public, last week.  It’s approx. 27 minutes in length and I thought it was excellent.  Here’s a synopsis directly from the L5 Series home page:

Imagine returning from an exhausting adventure only to find that your home is abandoned, empty. Not just your home, but your neighborhood, your city, in fact, everyone, everywhere, seems to be missing. This is what happens to the crew of the first manned mission to Barnard’s Star – they return after awakening from suspended animation to find that their ship-board AI has sent them on a relativistic tour of the stellar neighborhood while they slumbered, dilating time so severely that nearly 200 years have passed on Earth. After coming to, they discover their vessel is adrift at LaGrange point 5, within visual range of a vast O’neill cylinder-colony. The night side of the Earth shows no lights, and no one answers their calls across all frequencies. They have no choice but to dock with the colony and explore its cavernous interior in the hopes of finding help. When they find the colony to be airless and devoid of life, the remains of human civilization baking in the Sun for decades, their predicament becomes even more dire. Following in the traditions of great legendary hard science fiction, their exploration of this relic of their own civilization will take them on a trans-humanistic and spiritual sojourn.

The pilot episode of L5 can be viewed or downloaded here.

Secrecy News is a publication of the Federation of American Scientists.  It reports on new developments in government secrecy and provides public access to documentary resources on secrecy, intelligence and national security policy. It is written by Steven Aftergood.

One of the best resources provided by this blog are the analyses & reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  CRS is primarily known for “analysis that is authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan.” Its highest priority is to ensure that Congress has 24/7 access to the nation’s best thinking.  As a taxpayer-funded organization within the Library of Congress, it’s certainly appropriate that ‘taxpayers’ should have access to these analyses and reports.  (We ‘taxpayers’ might as well read these, as it seems fairly apparent that few  – if any – in Congress spend much time reading them)

Here’s just a small sampling of CRS reports over the past few months:

• Representatives & Senators: Trends in Member Characteristics Since 1945 (2/17/12)
• The Federal Budget: Issues for FY2013 and Beyond (2/17/12)
• Reducing the Budget Deficit: Policy Issues (2/15/12)
• Previewing the Next Farm Bill (2/15/12)
• The Role of Local Food Systems in U.S. Farm Policy (1/24/12)
• Internet Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress (2/9/12)
• Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (2/8/12)
• Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress (2/7/12)
• Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity (2/3/12)
• Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress (1/7/11)
  
• Economic Downturns and Crime (12/19/11)
• U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Current Conflicts (12/29/11)
• Gun Control Legislation (11/7/2011)
• Military Retirement Reform: A Review of Proposals and Options for Congress (11/17/11)
• 2012 edition of the U.S. Army Weapon Systems handbook

You can subscribe to Secrecy News here.

Cheers!

VERY interesting intel newsletter from KGS that analyzes current international affairs or events affecting US national security interests (and without any of the hype and/or bias that’s present in most all other news sources).

I’ve been reading it for several years and have found it to be not only extremely accurate, but simply one of the best & easily accessible sources of information for non-DOD/non-Intel folks as to “what’s really going on” in Iran, Syria, Egypt, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere throughout the world.

You can either read the nightly reports directly on their website or subscribe to the newsletter via email here:   KGS NightWatch Newsletter

This past year our guinea hens managed to hatch AND raise 7 baby guineas on their own, of which 5 survived.  What follows are pics from all of 2011 and the last six just after our Feb 2012 snowstorm.  For most of the past 12 years that we’ve had these “strange” martian-like birds, we’ve had to gather up the eggs; hatch them in an incubator; and raise them ourselves until they were old enough to release with the other guineas.  I guess there’s a first time for everything, eh?

Know anything about “The Great War”?  How it started?  Who were the players & current alliances?  Remember the Ottoman Empire?

I’ve been meaning to read the history of WWI for many years but just haven’t gotten around to it.  With the recent movie “War Horse” and a couple of series on PBS that revolve around WWI, my curiosity finally got the best of me.

The book I started reading is “The First World War” by Hew Strachan.  I would have preferred to read “The First World War” by John Keegan, but it is not available in Kindle (or any ebook) format plus it is over a hundred pages longer.  If you search hard enough, you can find a scanned pdf version of John Keegan’s book on the Internet.  Hew Strachan’s WWI book is available in a Kindle version, but I didn’t purchase it from Amazon as their price is 50% greater ($14.99) than their paperback price.  I flat out refuse to pay more for an ebook than it’s cheapest hardcover/paperback price.  Period.  Again… if you search the Internet, you can find a “cheaper” version as I did.

I’m only about 75 pages into Hew Strachan’s WWI history, but so far it’s OK.  Since I remember absolutely nothing from my high school WWI history, it’s all new to me, but I’m not sure I’ll last for 384 pages.

On Amazon.com I also found “The First World War: A Very Short Introduction” by Michael Howard.  The Kindle edition is only $4.98 and this book is only 184 pages in length.  Since Hew Strachan’s book seems to require that the reader have at least a little WWI knowledge (which I don’t), I may switch to reading this short intro first & then go back to Strachan’s WWI overview.

Don’t forget… history always seems to repeat itself.  The more we know about our history, the better we are for it.  (Seriously!)

UPDATE:  I just tried the pdf version of John Keegan’s “The First World War” on my Kindle Keyboard & to my surprise, it’s VERY readable!  I so much prefer Keegan’s writing style & analyses that I’m going to abandon Hew Strachan’s book for now & read this one instead.