Flim-Flamming A Reneger

Enjoy this tale of Ebay greed and justice.

Should A Reader Buy A Reader?

As Mr. Costanza once said admirably about the man in the cape (Larry David), I too most certainly do not *follow the trends*.

I've heard the noise about these so-called readers - iPad, Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, and even the Samsung one - but can honestly say that I knew very little about them until recently.

First of all, I do read a whole lot of books so one might think that I'd be a prime candidate to buy one of these reader thingys.

BUT, I don't travel much at all, keeping me always near my books. And it also means I don't have childless airport time to kill.

I don't read potboilers and popular fiction, generally opting for the classics and time-tested non-fiction.

I live near very well-funded library networks - and take complete advantage! The one in Port Washington, NY (a town of 18k people including Sands Point) has something insane like a $6 million annual operating budget.

So I sort of scoffed at the idea of buying a reader when they first came out - especially also because a lot of their appeal seemed like, at the time, the ability to buy and read freakin' newspapers on them. Recall I LOATHE newspapers; heck I wouldn't even permit my father to bring his into my house!

But the readers have become a whole lot cheaper. With the Kindle at $130 or so it almost feels free - but free only so long as you don't have to pay for content.

What I realized is that most all of the old classics are now beyond copyright (70 years past the death of the author?) and readily accessible for all these readers. THAT'S what I like to read!

AND, these days there are a rapidly multiplying supply of free ebooks out there from not just pro-blogger types but from aspiring upstarts in every field.

So even the most prolific reader could manage to *not pay* for any content for quite some time.

At the mall a couple of weeks ago I spent a solid 20 minutes talking with the Nook salesgirl - who coincidentally was also sleek-looking(!) and hip - about all the pluses and minuses of the various readers.

I got real close to buying either the Nook or the Kindle before discovering that they don't work at night. They've engineered them to work amidst bright daylight rather then when my first wife would be fast asleep next to me. I don't care what anyone says....those little clip-on reading lamps are a pain in the butt. It may be time for twin beds or separate bedrooms anyway.

It's too bad the Sony Reader sucks because I could get it for free. We have a Sony Points credit card with 150,000 points on it - good for $1,500 off any Sony products. In fact the entire company sucks now; we've had trouble spending those points forever. There almost worthless to us.

Anyways, I am looking more closely at these readers these days. I might have to buy one if only for research purposes as to what's actually being sold on them.

I do find the whole reader-mania a little curious though.

I mean, nobody really even reads yet they are all going to run out and buy these tablet PCs - for what exactly? To be groovy/trendy?

Most everyone I've seen with an iPad has been mindlessly watching Netflix motion pictures on it!

Yeah, and how long before the iPad is priced near $200??? Shouldn't be too far into 2011 I would think, not with all the competition out there.

In case any of y'all are interested in the differences between these gadgets....check out - Kindle vs. Nook vs. Ipad - Which E-Reader Should You Buy?

See also - Ebook Goldrush.

Cell Phones - More Important Than Anything Else!

I don't care; I still think most of the these cordless phone apps are completely unnecessary if not mere toys/games.

Shoot, do average teenagers really send over 100 texts a day???!!!

Impressive, Despite The Warmongering

Apparently the guy was just elected to Congress. More info - here.

Debt Prestidigitation

Someone just emailed me this - which I'm sure I've seen before in another form:

BAILING OUT IRELAND

It's a slow day in a damp, little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough. Everybody is in debt and living on credit.

On this particular day, a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a ¤100 note on the desk telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one in which to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the ¤100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the ¤100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the ¤100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the Farmers' co-op where he buys his feed and fuel. The guy at the Co-op takes the ¤100 note and runs to pay his bill at the pub.

The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute who is drinking at the bar. She too has been facing hard times and has had to offer him services "on credit". The hooker then rushes to the hotel and, with the ¤100 note, pays off her room bill to the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the ¤100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. The traveller comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the ¤100 note and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. In the meantime, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, everyone, is how the bailout package works.

I think there's something fundamentally wrong in this analysis - but I lack the time or concern to figure it out.

It's funny anyway.

"Things Desired"

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

This *poem* is called Desiderata....and I'd never come across it before.

Dizzying Morons...

I remember this buffoon from back when I used to watch color TV and follow the din of contemporary politics.

Behold his choice for Person of the Year:

MATTHEWS: I think it’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader who forced the President to the left on every issue from healthcare to the stimulus. He made him into a left-wing president because of Republican policy. It was brilliant. It allowed the Republicans to have a brilliant political year. I’m not sure it was in the country’s interest, but he made the big difference this year.

Now admittedly I'm not up too much on these characters...

But still, his *reasoning* sounds a whole lot like when my wife lost her tennis match because *her opponent was really bad*!

Unsocialized Outsourcing Parents!

There's a *fun* article in the Boston Globe this week - The Daycare Squeeze.

Yeah, it's on a subject - the (financial) costs of daycare - that I'm thoroughly uninterested in - heck, if it was FREE I'd still be vehemently against daycare! But still, the comment section was fun to read. Outsourcing parents and insourcing parents simply do not get along, at all!

Of course, you'll never hear anyone say *you know, I daycare my kids but don't think it's good for them at all...*

No. Invariably they have to spin it positively, for those nebulous *socialization* reasons:

Deedeela wrote:
Childcare is expensive, however if you find the right provider/center, it's an investment in your child's future. I am blessed to have a wonderful in-home childcare provider, who is struggling to keep her head above water, just as I am, but doesn't skimp at all in what she provides my 2yr old in such a great learning environment!


just1voice wrote:
Both my husband and I work full-time, standard 9-5 hours. We use a combination of a nanny and family daycare. Definitely not cheap, but cheaper actually than many daycare centers. Would suggest looking at the immigrant community for baby sitting services. You can still find someone legal, but you'll get lower rates and your child will learn a second language for free.


tb151 wrote:
My wife and I are around 30 years old and we have a 7 month old son. I can personally speak for this age group from experience. I don't know anyone who is having children in teh Boston area, who don't have some special circumstance allowing them to do so. Either they are lucky enough to work from a home office, have family very close, or have serious family money. The cost of childcare is a national problem...


northeastern1 wrote:
I pay more per month on day care than I do for Rent; However, if either one of us stayed home rather than work, we couldn't afford the bills. The extra income is more than the daycare cost so we have no choice but to both work in order to pay the bills. Those who think its easy to do it with one income clearly don't realize what average people earn (even college educated). I will admit we can't afford to have a second child anytime soon due to the high cost of daycare; However, the benefits of having a good day care are well worth it. Having my son socialized around other kids at a young age is invaluable...


pawnrule wrote:
We have tried in-home care and family day care. As other comments have noted, the difference in social skills for our son in day care and in-home care is significant. He is much better in social situations after going to day care. The career gap by taking time off can also be a stumbling block. Although we are just breaking even with day care costs and salary it makes sense to get through the early years by putting our kids in daycare.


A disturbing trend in society and in some of the comments here is the harsh judgment on parents. It has become a social past-time to judge parents and their choice. Parenting is difficult and each family weigh their circumstances and makes choices. I would personally appreciate more support from society.


That being said the solution to this problem can be much like the K-12 systems. Another globe article pointed out the increasing demand for Catholic pre-school. I believe we can have affordable day care by providing public pre-schools and daycare. There are qualified teachers and care providers and safe school facilities in our towns. The cost is then socialized and will reflect societies priorities with children. To state an old saying "It takes a village to raise a child".


nooshmom wrote:
As interesting as it is to hear the high and mighty stay at home families claim their kids are better off than daycare kids, the most recent studies have shown kids in childcare have a much easier time transitioning/socializing in school. Ever notice which kid at the playground is losing his head because he's forced to share?


Jcon wrote:
My wife and I both work and have great jobs. We send our daughter to day care 4 days a week and one of us stays home on the other day. Both of our jobs are higher level and also offer us the flexibility of working from home every now and then. It is an online world and we can take advantage of that sometimes.


Our daughter is just over 2 and has been in day care since she was 6 months old. The day care center is amazing and is on my wife's corporate campus. Yes it is expensive ($1500/mo) but is worth every dime. Our daughter loves it, she loves her teachers, we love the quality of it. She learns so much there that we would just not be able to teach her if she were at home with us all day. She has friends and loves seeing them every day. When we go to parties and play groups on the weekends we can see the difference between the kids who go to day care and the ones who stay at home. The day care kids are much more adventurous and social; they play with each other, talk to each other, and share their toys. The kids who stay at home with mom all day tend to be shy and reserved, cry and hit when another kid wants to use their toys, and tend to not go far from their parents.

I don't know which comment made me laugh harder - the last one which asserts that daycared children are noticeably more *social* than parented children...

Or the self-justifying one atop that refers to daycare as an *investment* in their child's future!

I did post a couple of comments towards the end of the thread.

In one I included this zinger from a previous post - Daycare = Child Abuse:

Not only are the seeds of peer orientation sown in day care and preschool, but the fruit is already in evidence by the fifth year of life. One of the largest studies ever done on this subject followed more than a thousand children from birth to kindergarten. The more time a child had spent in day care, the more likely she was to manifest aggression and disobedience, both at home and in kindergarten. As discussed in previous chapters, aggression and disobedience are the legacy of peer orientation. The more they had been in day care, the more these children exhibited counterwill as indicated by arguing, sneakiness, talking back to staff, and failure to take direction. Their elevated frustration was indicated by temper tantrums, fighting, hitting, cruelty to others, and the destruction of their own things. These children were also more desperate in their attachment behavior: given to boasting, bragging, incessant talking, and striving for attention, as we would expect when attachments are not working.

A great retort for any of these types of arguments on procreation, daycare, or homeschooling I've found is to simply agree:

Yeah, I don't think YOU should be having children.

Yeah, I don't think YOU should be at home raising the kids.

Yeah, I totally agree that YOU aren't qualified to be homeschooling your kids.

Better Blogging Chronicles 10 - Backlinks And Forward-Thinking

A good friend of mine, the one who's pumped me a lot of *foreclosure* fodder over the years from Florida, recently asked me to incorporate a link to his site - Naples Real Estate - on this here highly-PageRanked blog. So I did, way down on my sidebar, and then again just now. He's a good friend, this costs me nothing,....plus I do owe him still for all the money I took from him (actually from his firm) in the trading pit over the years. In fact I vividly remember once selling him a 50 lot of calls (at 4 3/4?) early one volatile morning, taping the ticket on my post, boasting about how much money I was going to make, and then ultimately buying them back FROM HIM 1 1/8 cheaper that same day (for a $5,625 profit or so). Now if only I can figure out where the heck all my bull market profits from yesteryear are!

*Backlinks* are links to your site....from other sites. They are, or theoretically should be, pure gold for SEO - Search Engine Optimization - i.e. web traffic. The more backlinks you have, from high ranked sites, the more *authority* Google confers upon your site. All this I've mentioned before and this was the thrust behind my buddy's request.

Last week, our friend and moral compass(!) Anne Galivan wrote a *guest post* - The Homeschool Advantage - on the NY Times website. Now THAT is huge for her in terms of backlinking. Google her and you'll see that the article already appears on the first page of search results for her - only 2-3 days after publication! Now that she's BIG TIME I guess she won't need any more link love from me! Actually, when I think about it....since I already have a few links on her site to mine, any elevation in her authority should, again theoretically, help me.  So thanks Anne....and get to work!

So it IS on my agenda - procuring backlinks for myself. I've actually brainstormed and even rough-drafted a few *killer* guest posts that I will eventually shop around to some very popular blogs. But for the moment, I'm saving them until I get my new edu-site up and running. Starting from scratch, it'll certainly need a boost from CaptiousNut early on.

Oh yeah, what exactly is the new site going to be?

Well, as I've said before, it's going to focused on *education*.

And what's going to be there?

Well, in a word....*resources* - some for free and some for a fee. I think. It may even take on *membership site* form.

My site will also be a commercial endeavor so I'm compelled to think along these vulgar profit lines. Sorry but one *personal* non-profit blog is plenty.

The hard part, like in any business, is to figure out what people will pay you for. Without offering *value*, there can be neither frequent nor significant economic transactions.

What I've learned in 2010, over the course of my Better Blogging Chronicles, is that there essentially exists a formula for *making money online* these days:

1. Start a website.

2. Give away a free ebook in exchange for someone's email.

3. Amass a few thousand (or more!) email addresses.

4. Keep the website/blog fresh.

5. And then periodically spam your *readers* with high-kickback affiliate products.

Here's a good example - Making Math Fun.

That author has essentially co-opted "math fun" in the Google search rankings (and I just gave them another link!). So anyone who Googles *math fun* has a good chance of ending up on that infomercial-esque *landing page*(?). There they can buy the product, easily, for $28.

But get this...

If I became an *affiliate* and put a link to that product on my site or spammed my subscribers with an ad to buy it....for everyone who purchases the author or whoever owns that thing will kick back, I think, $13 freakin' dollars (nearly 50% of the price) to me, the salesman. Pretty nice, eh?

You see, the product is an *eProduct*. Buyer's don't actually receive bound math books, they get ebooks, *files* on their PC. So it's an extremely high margin product to sell - really ALL PROFIT.

That author would probably sell the ebooks for $10-$13 directly but instead they opt for the *distributed* model which is nothing more than trading off a higher price with generous kickbacks in exchange for mobilizing a veritable army of mercenary salesmen, worldwide.

AND with all these interested peddlers out there itching for $13 affiliate commissions kickbacks, guess what...

Those hucksters are spamming affiliate links not only to their email lists but more importantly they are posting affiliate backlinks on their websites for *Making Math Fun*. Now THAT represents an ocean of link juice and most definitely propels the product right to the top of the Google search results. So you can see the thing feeds on itself, and grows to the point where it becomes very hard for another website/product to supplant them in the search engines - for those particular keywords anyway.

While I believe a whole lot of the *make money online* world to be rank husksterism and pure skimming....I'm not one to argue with economic realities. The formula has proven to work, time and again and demands consideration.

However I do think it can be done with a tad more moral sophistication.

See also my index of - Better Blogging Chronicles.

Disconnected!

I've had no home internet access since Sunday night - until just now.

The Verizon Fios cable and landline were out too - which sent my MIL into hysterics even though she has Cablevision color TV in her room AND even though she has a fully functioning cordless cell phone.

Oh yeah, our power went out on Sunday as well and that also made her crazy crazier - even though it was almost 10pm and time for bed anyway.

Idle people crave drama in their life. And they'll manufacture it if need be!

I'm hopping on a train now to meet a college friend whom I haven't seen in 3-4 years for lunch.

While my wife has the day off and is taking the kids to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City. At $75 a ticket I volunteered to skip that one!

But No Bite-Marks On My Tongue!

So the dentist last week told me that I was grinding my teeth at night.

Actually, they asked if I *was grinding my teeth*?

How the bleep would I know? I've never heard myself snore either!

But on one spot they showed me how my teeth were *level*. And on the inside of one there was faint yellow.

The yellow is from, I learned, not from plaque but rather from scraping off the enamel. Yellow is the inside color that manifests itself in the mouths of 'old coots' not because they don't brush, but because their enamel is gone - so I was informed.

So what does this mean?

It means that I was advised to wear a $325 mouth-guard at night.

Are you freakin' kidding me? For how long?

FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

I bought it - although only because we had $800 in our *flex-spending* medical account that we HAD TO SPEND before the year's end - or we'd lose it.

But I'm not looking forward to wearing a mouth-guard for the rest of my life. I don't care what anyone says, those things promote halitosis.

I was just Googling and learned that teeth grinding is actually called bruxism - from the Greek for *gnashing of teeth*.

And I was just Googling for *natural remedies*. Y'all know me by now, I'm a DIY'er to the n^th: cutting my own hair, teaching my own kids, trading my own money, a self-taught golf swing, etc. There isn't a dentist in the land that's going to tell me to do *jaw exercises* to stop night-time grinding. No, just like those orthopedic quacks with the outrageously expensive inserts they peddle, dentists would much rather ring the cash register for $300+ bucks for every grinder that walks in.

I don't dispute the fact that I grind - not after seeing the up-close images of my teeth, and not after hearing that the main cause was psychological, anxiety! Yeah, I've got plenty of that. My dreams are crazy these days. My normal dreams would probably qualify as the average person's worst nightmare. Seriously.

Anyways, all I've come up with for bio-organic solutions to my grinding so far is....*relaxation therapy*.

But I do sense there is some type of jaw yoga out there that actually works. Only it's hiding behind a bevy of quackish infomercial-type products on the web. I'll keep looking.

Schools = Prisons?

Hmmm....let's ponder for a moment the stark similarities between government schools and government penitentiaries:

Multi-year *sentences*.

Good behavior privileges.

Segregation for worst offenders/students.

The hole in one, detention/suspension in the other.

Both have *socialization* justifications!

Free shitty food.

Dangerous working conditions.

GEDs given in both.

Butt rapes in one...mind rapes in the other.

Gangs and....gangs.

Riots and....riots

Both staffed by public sector unions - thugs who collude against *taxpayers*.

Both are arms of Big Government.

Read some of the comments on the news story. Let's just say that many of them ARE NOT very politically correct.

Someone I know, pretty well, recently told me in a debate over *education* that the schools here in NYC are not about traditional scholarship or any such thing.  They exist merely, and justifiably, to keep *those people off the streets*.

Was it an unenlightened bigoted redneck?

Not by any stretch.  It was a card-carrying, Northeastern, blueneck socialist!

I may as well have been conversing with eugenicist Margaret Sanger...

Cool Piano Tunes

I hadn't heard this one before coming across it playing in the background of someones' blog the other day:

Here's another good one from Yiruma:

Another Over-Achieving Homeschooled Kid!

According to this article - Danny Woodhead of the New York Jets New England Patriots was homeschooled up until high school.

See also:

Homeschooled Math Prodigies

Another Homeschool Success Story

Homeschooling Update - December 2010

Okay, the 4.48 year Princess is on the cusp of full-fledged reading. We've been somewhat frustrated that it's taken her so long - or so we think. Both of us seem to believe that she's slightly behind the literacy pace her older brother took. Although that might not be completely true. Whatever, who cares anyway?

Maybe we're just sick of those darn *baby books*!? I have about 60 of them checked out at the moment - strewn all over my house and cars.

Anyways, we've just started our daughter on those audio books; she's eagerly reading along and devouring them. We probably should have started them a little bit sooner. To this day my wife is convinced that our son learned to read - or at least got over the hump - with audio books. Oh, and not just the CDs....they have to come with the written book as well. That's the key! Hopefully your library network has a good selection of them. I don't know, maybe when you are reading to your child, even if you wisely slide your finger under each word as you say it perhaps the kid zones out a little more than when they don't have another human doing it for them (in the case of an audio book)? Or it could be just that the kids are/were ready to turn the corner anyway.

I will say one thing however - the Princess did a ton of Starfall.com. Now, did that help speed her along with phonics and reading or do nothing at all? I have no idea nor any way of proving it one way or the other. I deliberately put her on it with the hopes that it would accelerate her reading comprehension. And as I said above, she's a little behind her brother's literacy pace. Read into that what you will.

Note that our girl is not yet actually reading. There can easily be false positive signals in these matters as everyone who got excited about *no more diapers* after their two year old piddled in the pot, once, can testify to.

While Mrs. C-Nut is partial to the audio books, I myself am partial to, surprise, surprise(!),....blogging.

I'm really trying to get my daughter in the habit of a daily blog post - one which she sort of chooses, we discuss, I write out, and she types up. We say all the letters and words aloud several times throughout the composition. I believe the reading process can be moderately facilitated when combined with writing - what I call *reverse reading*.

As for the Prince himself...

He completed Singapore Math Level 6B (grade 7!) last month and so now we are going back to the Life of Fred algebra series, Kumon Word Problems - Grade 5, and my homemade math worksheets.

Maybe four or five days a week I tell him to log into his Time4Learning.com account and do a section or two (we put him on the 4th grade level to start). He's also almost done the Kumon Reading - Grade 5 workbook.

He and I are working on a writing a book - which excites him to no end!

He's plodding away a little at the piano even though we've been unable to secure for him any type of instructor. Just today I made him start reading a free ebook from PianoEncyclopedia.com. I've been trying to find a 14-15 year old kid who'll teach him for $20 (per 45 minute session) rather than the $60+ an hour most instructors demand in New York.

He's also joined the local chess club so I might look to ramp up teaching him the game - BUT only if he seems to enjoy it. BTW, I've been blown away by the amount of free quality chess instruction there is on the web.

Tim Ferriss, Hyping

Shoot I almost forgot about his new book coming out. Check out his *video marketing*:

I ordered the 4-Hour Body a while ago and very much look forward to reading it in a week or so when it finally arrives.

Either of his books, that one or its predecessor, will make a great gift for your slighted man this Christmas season. Order them through Amazon because they are SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper. I think I paid $22+ for The 4-Hour Workweek at a bookstore....meanwhile, it's $12.37 online.

See also:

Explains Why Ferriss Is Blogging So Much These Days

Book Review - The 4-Hour Workweek

Stop Whining About Your Commute!

Channel surfing late last night I caught a little of Al Gore's color TV channel:

It was pretty crazy watching these kids, some only 6 years old, board 18 mph-traveling ferry boats on the Amazon River to sell their wares. Heck, if our kids merely *run* at the pool the lifeguards go ape$hit.

Just now on the website I came across another episode. This a full 21 minute clip that shows precisely how El Salvadorans make the 2,500 mile Texas border-jumping journey:

Pig Flu Vaccine Killing Fetuses?

Here's the story:

(NaturalNews) Recent data presented to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Children's Vaccines has revealed some shocking information about the effects of the H1N1 / swine flu vaccine on pregnant women. According to the report, the rate of miscarriage among pregnant women during the 2009 H1N1 / swine flu pandemic soared by over 700 percent compared to previous years, pointing directly to the vaccine as the culprit -- but the CDC denies the truth and continues to insist nobody has been harmed.

According to the CDC, nearly 50 percent of all pregnant women were vaccinated with the H1N1 vaccine during the 2009 / 2010 influenza season.

Hah! It's all from the CDC's own data. They've been hoist on their own petard.

Of course, it's not so funny for these poor women who *trusted* their Moronic doctors apparatchiks.

Recall that only a few weeks ago I was attacked with a *study* from a swine-flu-enthusiast doctor that asserted flu shots were perfectly safe for pregnant women. I guess, in fairness, perhaps that study didn't think the fetus worthy of consideration!

If you read the whole story (link above) you'll see that despite appalling evidence (from its own data!) that the pig flu vaccines might be killing babies....that Big Government is still in denial and still pushing these rushed-to-market, untested, and unnecessary shots on pregnant women.

I'm sure it won't be long before the *experts* spin this to:

"Actually, it's the pig flu that's causing miscarriages....it's so lethal that in can sometimes defy vaccination....so we need stronger vaccines, more widely distributed, pronto!"

More On The Ideal Woman

Hmmm...

Let's discuss that info-graphic a bit.

So women think they need to, ideally, be size 8s.

But men think they only need to be svelte size 12s.

How to interpret this???

The girls believe they have to lose soooo much weight to be ideal that....that they don't even bother to try?

And men, those infinitely shallow neanderthals....all they're begging for is a tiny, Marginal cellulite reduction! (Sorry ladies, taking the stairs instead of the elevator after lunch, once in a while, doesn't actually do anything. NOR does frozen yogurt!)

This all reminds me a bit of my perma-bachelor cousin.

He once told me that he requires no more than a *size 4*. How's that for being picky?!

Meanwhile, over the course of his multi-decade search for a suitable life partner....he's morphed into a bit of a pear-shaped chunk-a-do himself, most ironically. (His weakness is one of *portion control*.)

But getting back to the female form...

Of course, it's very possible that men and women are answering two different questions.

Perhaps, the elusive size 8 that they idealize to has nothing at all to do with satisfying dudes. Perhaps that's just the weight they would prefer to be for their own self-esteem?  So they can more easily shop for clothes?

While I probably couldn't articulate it, there's certainly a corollary discussion on the *ideal man* (a guy who'll love them no matter what they look like?).

That image above hints at it; so does this song.

See also:

For Wannabe Ideal Wives

Yoga Goddesses - In Harmony With Men

Marginalizing Kelly "Bull" Book

On Saturday morning we bought this ride:

...for 15k.

It has just under 16,000 miles on it and is somewhat pimped up: black, with a sun-roof, and tinted windows!

Some Moron kid paid $28,000 for it 3+ years ago. He told me he used his bar mitzvah money to demonstrate new-car, drive-off-the-lot, instant depreciation. Whatever, he was 19, going off to college,....and incorrigibly short.

And that same day we also, finally unloaded our clunker:

...but for only $1,900.

Let me tell y'all, it was a real struggle to sell this one.

Originally, being a '97 Suburban with 155k miles on it, I thought it was worth only $900. Heck when my MIL gave it to us 4.5 years ago, with 100k miles, the book value was only $6,000. My wife and I have recently been more concerned about the gas in the 43 gallon tank and the GPS being stolen than we were about the car!

But I punched up the Suburban a couple months ago on Kelly Blue Book and was shocked to discover the private party value around $4,000.

Great! Even if I sell it for 3k I figured I'll be way ahead psychologically anyway.

But alas, Kelly Blue Book is out of its tree if they think my POS worth 4k.

We didn't get a lick of interest in it until I dropped the price to $2,000. One guy came Saturday afternoon, a car vulture type, and bid me $1,500. He was sharp, noticing every little detail - good and bad.

I was itching to give it to him but my wife insisted on $1,650. I nearly cried when the guy *walked away* over $150. I went inside and sort of cussed out my first wife who relented and told me I could call the guy back and hit his $1,500 bid. I mean with our new car already in hand, we now have six cars piled into our driveway; buying interest in our Suburban was almost nil; and gas is tipping $3.30 a gallon around here at the moment. Do any of y'all want an old clunker that only gets 12 mpg???

For 20 minutes I tried calling the vulture back - except his *pre-paid* cheap-a$$ phone wasn't connecting us as he started his 1 hour trek back to the middle of Long Island.

Anyways, one other guy came by about an hour later, our only other lead at the time, and mercifully relieved us of this albatross for $1,900.

My wife went to the DMV today to register our new car.

She had to pay $1,293 in sales tax (8.625%)....and another couple hundred to register it - $1,500 total.

What a total freakin' jam job!

Do you *new car people* pay these rump-ripping transactional costs all the time?

This $15,000 on the Volvo is the most I've ever spent on anything that wasn't a *derivative*. I think my wife's engagement ring only cost 11k (Blue Nile, round, 1.6 carats).

Ridiculous Color TV Nostalgia

Ridiculous but watchable, a la many of today's shows - for example, Prison Break.

Believe It Or Not - Banks Walking On Air

Ignore that graphic's title because it doesn't even begin to broach the real story.

As you can see, over just the past 2 years, the banks have allowed the average foreclosure to become 500 days payment-delinquent up from what had been only a 250-300 day allowance.

But what MEANS is so much more important...

It means that there's a ton of invisible, yet eventual housing supply lurking out there waiting to crush home prices.

And it means that the banks are thoroughly bankrupt already! Why else would they be forestalling losses reality so aggressively?

BTW, I don't care what anyone says....homes in the Northeast cities: Boston, NYC, Philly, Washington DC and their tony suburbs HAVE NOT even begun to decline in price.

While that 5 or sub-5% mortgage rate might seem tempting or reassuring to today's first-time buyers I'm sorry to inform them that it most certainly is FOOL'S GOLD.

While technically their loan is fixed, for 30 years, I submit that it is still, for all intents and purposes, a *teaser rate*. Because once rates inevitably rise, their house will plummet in value, putting them in that massive negative-equity, strategic-default-considering position.

My BIL is looking to buy a house here on Long Island.

It's a nice house; and he can afford it.

But that's besides the point. Check out the real estate taxes on it over the past 5 years:

They've jumped from $7,325 to $11,003 a whopping 50% increase in a only a handful of years!

Happy home-buying, y'all.

Happy bank-stock-buying, y'all.

I couldn't embed the video.

Death Of A Vegetarian...

And I'm not talking about the deer either.

That's my nephew above with an animal he recently offed, for sport, with a rifle.

If only I had the video footage from about six months ago...

We were out at the family summer house when the 15 year old chauvinistically declared to me, my first wife (his aunt), and his grandmother that he was now a *vegetarian*.

We couldn't even bring ourselves to react. I mean he's a typical teenager who sleeps until 2pm and doesn't exactly fetch water or in any way contribute to the family. So how exactly was he going to execute his new eating plans? He either has to eat what's put in front of him, what's found in the refrigerator, or starve.

Several hours went by, or perhaps it was the next day still at the summer house....and I don't know what precipitated it, but from afar I heard my nephew exclaim, "FINE, I'LL JUST EAT MEAT!"

We all got a nice chuckle out of this upstart moral crusader's endurance.

And now not only is he out there murdering deer, I believe that hunting weekend he also nibbled on a black bear's heart (that someone else shot).

Not for anything, but there were plenty of fruits, veggies, and non-meat items the kid could have eaten back at the summer house.

Of course, he would have had to get up off his duff and prepare them for himself if he wanted to stick to his diet.

Federally Subsidized Organ Harvesters!

City To Deploy Ambulances...

Some 911 calls in Manhattan will now bring out two ambulances, one hurrying to the scene and one lagging slightly behind.

The first one will try to save the patient’s life. The second one will try to save the patient’s kidneys, in case the first ambulance fails.

Hah!

This new *initiative* sounds like something straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.

I'm proud to admit that I DID NOT opt to become an organ donor when I switched my license over to New York.

Pretty much anything the gov't wants you to do deserves your deepest cynicism.

Skewered, Forked, Pinned, and Mated!

Alright I took my son to the local library's chess club tonight....where I myself was promptly and summarily demolished by an 11 year old kid.

Furthermore, there were two significant aggravating factors.

For one thing, I have actually been practicing, hard. I've been playing daily on Windows pre-installed Chess Titans (level 4). And I've been working my way through a 700 page tome - Standard Chess Openings. So I thought I was making some real progress!

AND, not only did this twit beat me in about 15 minutes....he taunted me throughout! Before we even started he asserted that *it was going to be a short game*.

Apparently he's been playing since he was 6; he has a paid instructor; and he competes in tournaments.

My intermediate goal, for when I play him next week, will be to last 20 minutes. Baby steps...

See also:

Homeschooling - Collateral Education

Best Self-Reinvention Ever?

Up 1 And Over 2

En Passant

Book Rec - The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

I just read this absolutely terrific book - The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

I'm, luckily, not very experienced in *special ed* and wouldn't have thought a book on anomalous illiteracy would grab me as it did.

But John Corcoran's autobiographic account of how he went through life: school, college, a career in teaching(!), how he was a husband, father, and very successful real estate developer all without being able to read a single word until he was 48 was not only fascinating, but extraordinarily educational.

The real power of this book is that it's a window into the world of illiterates. Think about it. If somebody can actually read this post or Corcoran's book they will, by definition, probably have great difficulty seeing the world through illiterate eyes. Right off the bat the book opens with Corcoran trying to ad-lib his way through reading Rapunzel, a story he wasn't familiar with, to his 6 year old daughter. In the background, tears streamed down his wife's face as she overheard him stammer his way past his daughter's corrections.

I mean who can believe a guy could actually teach high school without the ability to read?

Well, he had his pet students read to him written communications from the principal aloud. He'd fake injuries (e.g. a sprained wrist, replete with bandages) to get others to take dictation and fill out his job applications. His wife and girlfriends did a lot of his required reading and homework. He'd bluff his way through a menu by ordering whatever his date said she wanted. As a student, when the teacher asked him to read aloud in class, he'd sit there silent and sometimes even get fresh or goofy to mask the fact that he COULDN'T READ A SINGLE WORD. Corcoran even took to breaking into his professors' offices and stealing tests. In fact, he cultivated many *bad* traits - beyond the LYING - throughout his life to compensate for his illiteracy. And that's, IMO, one of the subtle yet trenchant points of this book - that frustrated, misfit students can easily morph into bullies, criminals, teenage parents, liars, politicians(!), wastoids, Heathers, or some other anti-social life form all on account of the pressures and failures of age-graded, government education.

Heck I was bored OUT OF MY MIND in school....and behold the psychopath that I evolved into!

So why exactly couldn't John Corcoran read?

Well he actually had an auditory dsyfunction - one that prevented him from hearing and distinguishing between the different phonetic sounds in a word.

Part of the cure was a *multi-sensory* approach to reading. Don't ask me what that entailed. All I gathered was that he had to focus on learning sounds by watching his lips/mouth move in the mirror or something.

But the thrust of the book transcended this one man's peculiar battle with illiteracy - even if his story all by itself was compelling read.  Now when I scan the subway car or supermarket I realize that many of the people standing next to me can't read a lick and I can better appreciate how much of a burden that is to bear.  And this is precisely one of the main reasons why we should read....to gain a better understanding of realities staring us in the face, is it not?

I give this one almost my highest recommendation for those of you out there interested in matters of education.  It's an older book so your local government library should have it.

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Soaring Little Girl!

Check out this blog post my daughter authored today.

I was sitting there playing chess with my son and she did this one all on her own.

She logged into her account and uploaded those pics from her personal pics file.

I'll bet 73% of 'old coots' couldn't do that.

Yet the Princess is only 4.47 years old!

Normally when we do a blog post, I write it out on paper, she types it up, and I upload the image for her.

Of course, she's been using the computer for quite some time now.

See - Another Great Activity For Kids.

I simply can't believe the number of parents who explicitly tell me that they *don't want their kid on the computer* for reasons X, Y, and Z. Mostly the excuses have to do with an irrational fear that their children will be *preyed upon* by a bogeyman they heard about on the color TV news.

But these same parents send their kids to school all day to be prodded from rectangle to rectangle like farm animals. These same parents allow their kids to be raised by agents of the government, strangers and know-nothing age-mates. And far more kids are sexually abused at schools than by online stalkers.

The computer/internet has been THE central part of my own life's education.

So I'd be a Moron not to make it a huge part of my children's.

The Marketing/Usage Divide

I saw this item - the Biju Twin Head Massager - at the mall yesterday. Note the anatomical target on the product box:

But check out the *labeling* on the unabashedly truthful World Wide Web:

It reminds me of those semi-automatic guns that used to sell like hotcakes. They were engineered specifically so it was easy for yahoos to convert them to fully automatic weapons. Paul Mitchell probably has a cache of them!

What do they call this in the Big Pharma world - off-label use or something?

Greg Mankiw - In Favor Of Money Printing

Listen to that Harvard Economics professor - Greg Mankiw - the Moron whom I harrassed into removing ALL COMMENTS from his econo-aliterate blog:

My view is that QE2 is a modestly good idea. I say it is a "good idea" because, like Ben Bernanke, I am more worried at the moment about Japanese-style deflation and stagnation than I am about excessive inflation. By lowering long-term real interest rates below where they otherwise would be, QE2 should help expand aggregate demand. I include the modifier "modestly" because I don't expect these actions to have a very large effect.

It's amazing that a purported *economics* professor thinks printing money a modestly good idea - even if he mumbles his trademark hedging.

But then again macroeconomics is a junk science.

And Greg Mankiw is nothing short of a self-aggrandizing slimeball.

Of course he, and the other plutogogues, are afraid of deflation.

In that case he might have to lower the a$$-ripping price of his textbook! In that case his salary might go down!

So what if the printing press hits Joe Blow at the pump and in his grocery bills...

And so what if the disgustingly-euphemized QE eventually leads this nation to a hyperinflationary ruin...

Just so long as Greg Mankiw's annual book royalties remain artificially inflated.

For more Mankiw bashing - click here.