January 2004 – Page 3 – Richard Bennett

Church Lady gets political

Judging by the reaction to the Club for Growth’s hilarious Mad Howie ad, Dana Carvey’s Church Lady produced a whole passel of offspring. Check out the clucking from John Perry Barlow, the illustrious Joi Ito, and Dean’s hired bloggers. Once again, we see concrete evidence that the people who made Michael Moore a millionaire have … Continue reading “Church Lady gets political”

Right-shoring and mis-educating

Fiorina and Barrett told Congress that US tech jobs have to go offshore on account of the crappy educational system in this country: Warning that the U.S. lead in high technology is in serious jeopardy from competition from other nations, they outlined a long-term agenda to improve grade-school and high-school education, double federal spending on … Continue reading “Right-shoring and mis-educating”

Fiorina and Barrett told Congress that US tech jobs have to go offshore
on account of the crappy educational system in this country:

Warning that the U.S. lead in high technology is in serious jeopardy from competition from other nations, they outlined a long-term agenda to improve grade-school and high-school education, double federal spending on basic research in the physical sciences and form a national policy to promote high- speed broadband communications networks, as Japan and Korea have done.

Sen. Boxer has offered to fix the schools, but it was people like her that broke them to begin with, with their insistence on soft subjects like self-esteem and emoting sessions instead of actual science and math education, and their insistence on affirmative action for middle-class white women to the detriment of actual academic standards. But education isn’t really the issue that motivates off-shoring, costs are. I’ve never heard a tech industry manager say he wanted to move software development to India in order to increase quality, it’s always to lower costs, and labor costs are driven by cost-of-living. The major components of COL are housing and taxes, so the more government involvement we see in education and technology, the worse we can expect that equation to get.

So, the problem with the American worker isn’t lack of training, it’s the cost of living in places like California and New York, and no amount of federal pork is going to fix that problem. The alternative to moving low-value jobs such as customer service to India and China is to move them to lower cost-of-living areas within North America, such as the drizzly Northwest and the Sunny South. Boxer and her ilk lose if that happens too, alas.

(edited Saturday noon)

Iced-in

The snow was followed by freezing rain, and now we’re in the middle of an Ice Palace as Day 2 of The Great Ice Storm of 2004 continues in Greater Portland, land of (frozen) hippies. Here’s a shot of a tree in the front yard. It’s warming up and the ice is starting to melt, … Continue reading “Iced-in”

It’s warming up and the ice is starting to melt, thanks to some hot air imported from California.

LATER: Here’s what it looks like when the sun comes out, a rare and wondrous event.

Snowed-in

We’re snowed-in today: the schools are closed, the office is closed, it’s been slowly dumping all day long, and nobody’s going anywhere. Weather forecast calls for a quick warming trend, which will most likely bring flooding. And being a former Californian and all, I still don’t quite get the concept of weather. Can somebody explain … Continue reading “Snowed-in”

And being a former Californian and all, I still don’t quite get the concept of weather. Can somebody explain what it’s supposed to be good for?

Here’s how it was at 8:30 this morning:

And by 5:30, it was like this:

Al Qaeda’s respect for women

You’ve no doubt heard about the British Airlines flights delayed or cancelled over the Christmas period because of terrorist threats. Here are the details.

A Wellbert’s Progress

Pioneer Wellbert John Perry Barlow steps outside the gated community with a load of mush that would have sailed by without a challenge on The Well, only to be slapped upside the head by Misanthropyst Don McArthur. Barlow retreats and cops a plea (guilty of hyperbole, but not of mush-headedness) and many bloggers applaud, others … Continue reading “A Wellbert’s Progress”

Here’s another raspberry. Barlow wants to stipulate that his people, the “anti-Bush” side, have failed to deliver their policies effectively because their rhetoric has been too hyperbolic. With all due respect and in the spirit of respect for everyone’s inner child, I beg to differ. What lurks behind the over-heated rhetoric of the anti- crowd is not a set of unappreciated but superior policies, but no real policy alternatives at all. Let’s take a few examples.

The antis don’t like the Bush tax cuts as a means of stimulating the economy. In their stead they offer no alternative, unless you consider universal health care to be an economic stimulus, a hard position to champion.

The antis don’t like the Patriot Act as a means of closing the noose on terrorist cells operating on American soil, but offer no alternative for dealing with a loosely joined network that relies on e-mail and cell phones for communication.

The antis don’t like pre-emptive invasion of terrorist states as a means of knocking foreign support out from underneath terror networks, but offer no alternative apart from UN jawboning that failed to produce a constructive result in Libya during 20 years of sanctions that hurt innocent people or in 12 years in Iraq with similar results.

The antis would do well to study President Bush. His demeanor is a lot more personable and open than is Howard Dean’s, although he’s every bit as direct. The president is able to speak softly because he carries policies that have produced clear and obvious results: a growing economy, a reduction in terrorist attacks, the overthrow of a genocidal regime, and, in Libya and Iran, a reduction in WMDs in the hands of terror-friendly states. The president has even beaten the antis on the traditionally Democratic issues of health care and education, passing an education bill that increased federal funding to the schools and a Medicare bill that offers prescription drugs to the elderly, both coupled with programmatic reforms important to conservatives.

Left-wing, anti-Bush politics are too much about emotion and identity and not enough about policy. For thirty years, the Democrats blindly supported a dysfunctional welfare system by telling themselves that only they really cared about the poor, but it was Republicans who came along and finally made the program work in 1996 when they made it an avenue to work and not a permanent dependency plan.

So all this talk about rhetoric and manners is nice, but it doesn’t go very far. Unless the left can come up with some realistic and practical policies, they’ll continue to be the weak sisters of American politics, all alone in their gated ideological communities crying to each other about how nobody understands them, and losing election after election.

Poor Babs

Poor little Barbra Streisand has lost her suit against TGV founder Ken Adelman’s California Coastline Project: Superior Court Judge Allen J. Goodman threw out the $10 million-dollar lawsuit, requesting Adelman to remove an aerial photo he snapped of Streisand’s bluff-top estate from among the 12,700 photos posted on his Web site, www.californiacoastline.org. In a tentative … Continue reading “Poor Babs”

Poor little Barbra Streisand has lost her suit against TGV founder Ken Adelman’s California Coastline Project:

Superior Court Judge Allen J. Goodman threw out the $10 million-dollar lawsuit, requesting Adelman to remove an aerial photo he snapped of Streisand’s bluff-top estate from among the 12,700 photos posted on his Web site, www.californiacoastline.org. In a tentative 46-page ruling, Goodman wrote Streisand’s privacy had not been invaded by the retired software engineer who began photographing the California coastline to aid in its preservation.

Tough break for the Democratic Party’s lead strategist.

Building an aquarium stand

This is a follow-up on a previous article on aquarium stands. Here are some pictures of an aquarium stand with puzzle-piece joints. The theory is that these joints are stronger than the butt joints commonly used with screw-and-glue for aquarium stands, especially when exposed to salt water. The aquarium loads the joints and makes them … Continue reading “Building an aquarium stand”

This is a follow-up on a previous article on aquarium stands.

Here are some pictures of an aquarium stand with puzzle-piece joints. The theory is that these joints are stronger than the butt joints commonly used with screw-and-glue for aquarium stands, especially when exposed to salt water. The aquarium loads the joints and makes them stronger, while butt joints are prone to pulling apart under load.

This stand supports a flat-back hex tank which looks like a conventional rectangular tank with softened edges in the front and a normal back. The stand sits on a sheet of 3/4″ fir plywood, which is supported by 4×4 fir legs and 2×4 cedar crosspieces. All of that sits inside a bottom tray of 3/4″ fir ply, which will be sealed and painted with epoxy to make it completely water-tight. The tray extends 3 1/2″ behind the tank, and the back support members extend up the back of the tank in order to support the canopy that houses the lights and fans. The back support pieces hide the plumbing and electric wires on the back of the tank.

Here’s the tray at the bottom, which also spreads the tank’s load across the floor boards.

Attached to the tray we have the legs, 4×4’s trimmed with 122 and 148 degree angles to follow the tank.

The cross-pieces at the top of the legs are notched to overlap each other, and the legs are notched to carry them. These are the puzzle-pieces, but they’re easy to cut with a table saw or a miter saw.