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I tend not to blame Obama too much.

By on May 17, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior, International affairs

I think Obama has done a number of things wrong, at least from my personal perspective. However, there are two major reasons for these failures, neither of which diminish my opinion that his intentions are commendable. These two reasons are his lack of administrative experience, which is being slowly rectified as his time in the [...]

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Charlie Munger said…

By on May 7, 2012 in Economics, Human Behavior

In discussing programmed trading, Charlie Munger said: “Those people have all the social utility of a bunch of rats who break into a granary.” Thank you, Charlie. That is priceless. A subject of some concern among both CNBC commentators and market-centered guests is the very low participation of the retail investors. The most significant comment [...]

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Tomorrow, on Monday, May 7th, the US stock market will take a big hit.

By on May 6, 2012 in Economics, Human Behavior

The reason will be that the French and the Greeks appear to have unseated a couple of the governments which imposed or promoted austerity, which most of the major US market mavens have been saying, for weeks, is completely the wrong way to go. I guess the message is that they are so convinced of [...]

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How are you preparing for retirement?

By on May 2, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Human Behavior

I know what my wife and I did, but that was then and this is now. We were both able to build up future income in non-contributary (mostly) defined benefit pensions. Of course, we both paid into Social Security and Medicare for decades. My wife now receives my spousal benefit rather than her own because [...]

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Social media and Christianity.

By on April 29, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

I am not a big Facebook person. I use it mainly to share photographs with far flung family members, but one thing I have noticed in my time spent there, and from talking to others who use the site, is that it has seemed to cause a lot of Christians to come out of the [...]

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Vessels

By on April 27, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

There was recently a lawsuit which was brought that requested that men who take viagra or cialis be subjected to the same treatment that women are who seek abortions, that they should have to watch the same videos, hear the same spiel. Now I do think that is over reach, most men who take these [...]

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Rock bits.

By on April 27, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

The Beatles are widely considered to be the best rock and roll group ever, but really if you take all the radio stations that play big bands of that era, or shortly after, which of these bands do you think gets the most airplay, The Beatles, Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, or The Who? My guess [...]

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My take on Mass Effect3.

By on April 25, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

O.k. this is total fluff, but what the hell… Mass Effect is a sci fi PC game covering installments 1 through 3. It has to do with advanced civilizations fending off an attack by a synthetic intelligence that wipes out advanced civilizations on a 50,000 year cycle, leaving young civilizations to take their place. The idea [...]

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Francesca Woodman

By on April 25, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

I just had the privilege of seeing an exhibition of photographs by Francesca Woodman at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. She produced the bulk of her work in the late 70′s and early 80′s, mostly as a student since she took her own life at the age of 22. Her work is fraught with these [...]

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Balancing acts

By on April 22, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior

As our cat gets older, I can see that there is an increase in the number of occasions on which he studies a proposed jump to some high spot where something good may be waiting. As near as I can read his thoughts, he is balancing the value of the treat against the penalty of [...]

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