Penultimate
Today is the penultimate day of the year
Spokeo
There’s a site called Spokeo that aggregates people’s name and personal info like home price etc. They obtain data from Facebook and other sites. If you want to protect what little there is left of your privacy by staying off Spokeo, you can “opt out” by following the instructions. If you don’t want to then just move along.
1. Go to the site www.spokeo.com
2. punch in your name and address or previous addresses (mine came up under my previous home addresses but not apartments)
3. copy the url at the top
4. Go back to the home page and scroll to the botom.
5. in small lettering you will see “privacy” at the bottom middle of the page. click it and follow the instructions
6. you will have to enter your email and then copy in the url and a confirmation code.
In this clip Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator, expounds on Michael Vick and his dog-fighting past. In one breath he states that he is a Christian and believes in second chances. In the next he says that Vick should have been executed.
As it is Christmas season, I have been reflecting a bit lately on what it is to be Christian. I am reminded of the Bible verse in which Jesus is approached by the authorities regarding a woman who had commited adultery. His response: let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Why professed Christians continue to confuse “eye for an eye” justice with Christ’s message of forgiveness is beyond me. Unfortunately this confusion has given a bad name to Christians throughout the world. It has been used to support large scale retribution and discrimination, neither of which Christ would have actually condoned.
Whether you are a Christian or not, studying Jesus’ words reveals his message: peace. He spoke for the sinners: the adulterers, tax collectors, the criminals. He illuminated the hypocrisy of the authorities, that none of them were without fault, and that God was the final judge.
George Bernard Shaw once said that, “Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.” I think this is true.
“ As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only doing their duty, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil. ”
George Orwell, London 1941
I was in Chinatown (NYC) today and saw this vendor selling belts (please forgive the picture quality- old cell phone camera). I thought his sign was marketing brilliance. It reads:
“Keep Your Pants Up”
then it adds a little humor
“stop crack, it’s the law”
Why is it brilliant? It tells you what buying his product will DO for you. It lays it out in black and white, leaves nothing to the imagination. There’s no question about the value of what the vendor is selling: it will keep your pants up. I think this is a much more effective way of selling than saying “belts.” It does the heavy lifting for the customer. It answers the question, “why should I buy your product?”
And a little humor is always good too.
Stadium or Money Pit?
I saw this articleon Yahoo today. It talks about how some New Yorkers (New Jersians?) are already complaining about their new $1.6 billion Meadowlands stadium. I think what they should be complaining about is that the OLDMeadowlands Stadium - you know, the one that is now rubble- is not even paid for yet. Read on:
It’s the gift that keeps on taking. The old Giants Stadium, demolished to make way for New Meadowlands Stadium, still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident, even though it is now a parking lot…
With more than four decades of evidence to back them up, economists almost uniformly agree that publicly financed stadiums rarely pay for themselves. The notable successes like Camden Yards in Baltimore often involve dedicated taxes or large infusions of private money. Even then, using one tax to finance a stadium can often steer spending away from other, perhaps worthier, projects.
“Stadiums are sold as enormous draws for events, but the economics are clear that they aren’t helping,” said Andrew Moylan, the director of government affairs at the National Taxpayers Union. “It’s another way to add insult to injury for taxpayers.”
Stadiums tend to be boons for the team owners and politcal capital for the politicians, but serve the people rather poorly. How else can you explain the fact that the citizens of NJ and Washington state are still on the hook for demolished stadiums?
Teams should have to stand on their own two feet. If the fans want them, let them support them through TV revenue, ticket prices, merchandise etc. But don’t pretend that new billion dollar stadiums are going to make EVERYONE richer.
Snow shovels and speculators
A speculator is someone who buys snow shovels in the summer and sells them after a blizzard
“ An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained. ”
Mahatma Ghandi
Trial and Error
I think there’s a misconception about the phrase trial and error. Perhaps this is because it contains the word ‘error.’ The misconception likely stems from what we want to believe about the process of learning. Can we learn risky tasks through trial and error? Most people are uncomfortable with this thought. Take surgery for example. Would you want there to be any error associated with fixing your life or limb? I wouldn’t. Then how is it done? Are such tasks so different than anything else in life?
We have an 11 month old at home who is learning how to walk. It is both endearing and fascinating. Two weeks ago he put 2 steps together. A week later he was doing 4-5 at a time. Today he is turning corners and going on full fledged jaunts. What is so awe inspiring is that the whole process has been one of trial and error: for every new step there have been 2 dozen missteps. For every milestone there have been countless falls. The cumulative effect however, has been the inexorable march toward bipedal locomotion. Undeterred, the little boy each day has built on his falls and now makes less of them…and walks.
Walking is one of the most fundamentally human traits that there is. And learning how to do it is not without risk (babies can and do fall and hit hard objects). So if it can be learned by trial and error then why not just about anything else?
Have a Merry Digital Christmas.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Touch Consult: New Features and Fixes
Every start up needs to iterate, and iterate quickly. They should also iterate in the direction of their customer feedback. We’re trying to do just that. Read on to hear about our new developments…
In football, if the quarterback is the lead singer, then the offensive line is the percussion: the unheralded yet resilient back beat that ties the show together.
Cheers to Dan Connolly of the New England Patriots for nearly returning a kickoff for a touchdown today. He warmed the hearts of all current and former offensive linemen, of which I proudly call myself one. As one reporter stated, it was the most beautiful, ugly moment you could hope to see…but oh how beautiful it was.
In football, if the quarterback is the lead singer, then the offensive linemen are the percussion: the essential yet unheralded backbeat that ties the show together.
Cheers to Dan Connolly of the New England Patriots who just warmed the hearts of all current and former offensive linemen, of which I am proud to call myself one, for returning a kickoff nearly for a touchdown today. As one reporter stated, it was the ugliest thing of beauty you could hope to see…ah but how beautiful it was.
What do life insurance companies and non profits have in common?
Not much at first glance. A deeper look reveals otherwise.
There has been a lot of debate recently about reinstating the estate tax. For those unaware, the estate tax has stood at 0% over the last few years. Effectively this has allowed individuals to pass on their estates to their heirs without a huge tax hit to the families. This burden can be quite large. It’s especially onerous when someone bequeaths a relatively illiquid asset such as a family business. If the family intends to keep the business they may have to pony up X % of the worth of that business just to have it remain in their hands. I’m not going to get into the (il)legitimacy of the government’s claim on wealth that’s already been taxed in this piece. What I do want to point out is a strange set of bedfellows that has emerged in the fight to reinstate this tax.
Life insurance companies and non for profits have both been lobbying the government hard to get the estate tax reinstated. What do these groups have at all in common? Simply stated, both groups stand to benefit hugely from high estate taxes. If there is no estate tax fewer people need life insurance to cover the costs normally incurred by death: loss of income, funeral costs, liquidity to cover taxes. They’d be able to cover them out of the inherited assets. Non for profits benefit as well. When there is a large estate tax people recognize that a significant chunk of the wealth that they spent their lives accumulating will get swallowed up by the governement upon their exit to the pearly gates. Not wanting to see this wealth evaporate, many donate it to “a good cause” at a significant tax advantage. They may even set up an annuity through the non for profit that kicks some of the money back to them while they are alive. Either way, the non for profits benefit.
In life it’s not so easy to follow the money. The average citizen with little to pass on is given the class warfare head fake by most politicians: reinstate the estate tax, make the “wealthy” pay their “fair share” they say. The behind the scenes lobbying tells a different story. The average citizen has no seat at this table. He’s left out in the cold regardless hoping that his representative will throw him a redistributed government bone.
