Jack on January 30th, 2010

OBE, for short–that’s a much used phrase from a once upon a time former supervisor. Applied to projects, assignments, etc., it meant the task at hand no longer needed doing. Some might suppose that recent election results might make that an epithet applicable to health care reform. But as President Obama said in his state of [...]

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Jack on April 7th, 2009

The Vermont House joined the state’s senate in overriding the governor’s bill making gay marriage legal in Vermont. The Iowa supreme court recently made gay marriage legal there. Numerous states allow the use of medical marijuana and some have decriminalized the possession or use of small quantities of the recreational drug. An African-American man now [...]

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Jack on March 23rd, 2009

What a hoot! Leave it to the American Enterprise Institute to declare as a scholar someone who can set up and knockdown liberal strawmen in such a hilarious fashion. It’s difficult to know where to begin in critically examining his opinion piece from Sunday, March 22, so let me quickly summarize his thesis and then get [...]

Continue reading about Charles Murray’s Scholarly Strawmen

Jack on October 30th, 2008

I am getting impatient. I want the election to be over so I can stop watching Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Larry King, Nightline and local news. What else is there to blog about right now but the election? Plenty of stuff; the same stuff that I used to blog about. But I am consumed [...]

Continue reading about Waiting for November 5th

Jack on October 21st, 2008

Once upon a time, John McCain was a Maverick. At least as late as 2000, he still behaved like one. Unfortunately for him, that helped seal his doom in the contest for the Republican nomination for President. The sad truth he took from defeat is that in order to fulfill his Vietnam POW-era dream of the [...]

Continue reading about The Sad Fate of a One-Time Maverick

Jack on October 10th, 2008

What news will come from the MastersButtheads of the Universe today, a continuing fall in the global economy perhaps? Maybe the MBAs should have “learned to play the guitar,” as Mark Knopfler suggests, instead of learning to play the market. At least then the suffering we are enduring would have been limited to our ears [...]

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Jack on September 23rd, 2008

Obama will tell you it’s Bush and his buddy McCain that helped make the current money morass happen. He is not entirely wrong but he is not entirely right either. Congress facilitated the mess by repealing the Glass-Steagal Act that kept the insurance, investment and banking businesses firewalled from one another. Institutional investors, including the [...]

Continue reading about Financial Fallout and the Blame Game

Jack on September 22nd, 2008

Treasury Secretary Paulson and Republicans in Congress object to tying limits on executive compensation (especially “golden parachutes”) to bailouts in the legislation now pending. Even with such limits, a taxpayer revolt may be in the offing. Freemarket conservatives jump up and down, stamp their feet and scream “class warfare!” whenever anyone talks of raising taxes [...]

Continue reading about The Bailout and the Backlash

Jack on August 11th, 2008

When last I posted about choosing where you live I promised some methodologies. Left brain/right brain? Subjective/objective? Let’s not go there for now. Starting from the purely rational or practical approach, my recommendation is to do a simple self assessment of what is important to you (and any significant others involved–spouse, family, intimate friend, etc.). Are recreational [...]

Continue reading about Methodologies for deciding where to live

Jack on July 21st, 2008

If I were a statistician or wanted to get really meaningful results, I might well design a better poll than the one on the right. But this isthe internet after all and I am not doing research for a paper. I just want to get you thinking. For example, if you happen to like the [...]

Continue reading about If you had a choice, where would you live?