Stuck in the Dallas airport.  Bored out of my mind.  What to do.  Guess I will bother people with my thoughts.

OK.  United Airlines sucks.  I have flown them 3-4 times.  EVERY time there has been a problem.  In fact, all of the big dinosuar airlines are bad.  I can’t wait for the day when we have only airlines like Southwest.  Cheap, efficient, timely and consistent. 

I am on the way to Denver to meet up with John and Andy for New Year’s in Breckenridge and 3 days of skiiing.  It should be fun.  I will make sure we take some pics so that I can upload them here.  If you hadn’t noticed I have added photo album to my blog (although there isn’t anything in there).  It’s the second link on the right side bar.  Don’t have many to put out there right now becuase I would have to scan in prints but I will make myself start taking pictures with the digital cam. 

Had a good time in Iowa and it was good to see all the family and old friends.  Didn’t get the century club taken care of but we had a good time just the same.  Mom has DSL and wireless now so that made the stay more productive for me from the work standpoint.  Can’t complain about boredom if I have good Internet access. 

Later,

Manly

P.S. Happy New Year!

This is a story that a friend sent me.  Funny stuff.

Manly

P.S. Thanks JRH.

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The following is an actual question given on a University of Colorado chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Diane during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct… leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Diane kept shouting "Oh my God."

This student received the only "A"

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Check out this link if you are into science (and if you are not it’s interesting anyway).  It’s an interesting essay by Michael Crichton about the role of science in today’s world and it’s interaction with politics, the media and special interests.

Michael Crichton

Manly

For those interested….

I will be home in G.C. on Wednesday afternoon (22nd) and I will be leaving sometime around noon on Sunday.   I will be staying at Mom and Dad’s.  If you are in town give me a call and we can go do the century club.   I will just assume that you’re game if your last name is Saak, Mutch or Brown.

Manly

The comments below are from  Michael Kinsley who is an editorial editor for the LA times.  I just wanted to repost his comments here because it basically sums up the way I feel about this issue. 

The whole social security debate is meaningless to me.  Everyone talks about privatization vs. current system.  What we need to realize is that unless we control government spending and reduce deficits this country won’t be much to live in anyways.  How long do you think it will take before the government can no longer easily sell treasury bonds because our national debt has risen to a level that shakes the foundations of our country?  In 2004 we paid ~320 billion dollars in INTEREST on the national debt!  That means that over 1 in 4 tax dollars collected went to just paying interest.  Not for roads, military, social security or any other program that we rely on.  Check out the debt number as of December 17th, 2004:

7,523,699,112,455.23

Now that’s one heck of a number.  If I didn’t already know it was in the trillions I would have to count up the digits.  I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about this.  We decided that if we were assured that the government HAD to run a balanced budget we would be willing to take some "lumps" to try and rid the country of this debt.  I.E. more taxes, etc.  As long as the dollars went towards reducing the federal debt and nothing else.  I would bet that there are many other like minded people out there.  The problem is that we cannot trust our polititians to follow through on their commitments.  I remember more than one balanced budget act making it’s way into law only to be ignored later on.

Of course there are times when you need extra funds to provide national security, offset disaster costs (hurricanes) and fund needs that are sudden.  I am ok with this but if you fund those items you need to have a plan to make it up in the next few years/decade.  You know congress.  If you don’t make them accountable they will go hog wild.

Oh, and now to Michael’s piece.  His e-mail is michael.kinsley@latimes.com. He invites comment on his opinions below.

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My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.

The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don’t necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won’t work for a better reason: it can’t possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

1. To “work,” privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees’ pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.

a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same.

b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.

4. If the economy doesn’t produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.

a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.

b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation’s most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it’s false.

c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.

5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

Q.E.D.

So Whats the solution ? First, we cant just try to fix Social Security as an isolated program. We need to somehow change the culture of DC to one that respects fiscal sanity. We give our politicians license to “go out and get money” for projects that selfishly benefit us. We want that money for the insect museum down the street, or the new highway to the undeveloped part of town, or for whatever pet project buys jobs and votes. We have to change the culture of allowing our votes to be purchased with gifts. Until then, the only way to pay for our future is by increasing the risk we are forced to accept hoping it “all works itself out in the end”. At some point we will realize the hard way , that it doesnt.

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Manly