Quotulatiousness

January 21, 2010

Vikings scheme to handle Reggie Bush

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:06

Just in case you thought they’d forgotten how Reggie Bush made them look plain awful on special teams last year — giving up a pair of punt return touchdowns in the same game — here’s some strong evidence that they’ve got plans in place to deal with Bush in Sunday’s NFC championship game:

Punter Chris Kluwe drew a lot of media attention Wednesday regarding his game plan for Saints punt returner Reggie Bush, who returned two punts for touchdowns against the Vikings last season.

“Actually, we were planning on first pooping our pants and running screaming toward the sidelines, and then Reggie would be able to just pick up the ball and run toward the end zone,” Kluwe said. “In retrospect, though, that might not be the best plan, so I’m sure we’ll come up with something else.”

Coach Brad Childress and Kluwe had a heated conversation on the sideline last season after Bush’s second touchdown return. Asked about it, Kluwe said: “It happens. Emotions run high during games and you go from there. Me and Coach are much more heavily medicated now, so hopefully we’ll be OK on the sidelines.”

Naval forces, estimated

Filed under: China, Military — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:44

Strategy Page summarizes the recent accidental release of US intelligence estimates about the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN):

The strength of the Chinese fleet was listed as;

Submarines- 62 (53 diesel Attack Submarines, six nuclear Attack Submarines, three nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines). The U.S. has 72 submarines, all nuclear (53 attack and 18 ballistic missile.)

Destroyers-26. The U.S. has 52.

Frigates-48. The U.S. has 32, including two of the new LCS vessels.

Amphibious Ships 58. The U.S. has 30, all much larger and equipped with flight decks and helicopters, plus landing craft.

Coastal Patrol (Missile)- at least 80. The U.S. had a few of these, but got rid of them. China uses these for coastal patrol and defense, a concept they inherited from the Russians.

In addition, the U.S. has eleven aircraft carriers (ten of them nuclear powered) and 22 cruisers.

Most of the Chinese ships are older (in design, if not in the age of the vessels) than their American counterparts. China is building new classes of ships, with more modern equipment and weapons.

Planning for retirement

Filed under: Cancon, Economics — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:28

I’m one of those bad savers you keep reading about in the financial pages: I’m not saving enough for my retirement. Of course, depending on where you get your retirement advice from, few of us can save enough to retire comfortably. Here’s what I wrote about this back in 2004:

I’ve been saving money in my registered retirement savings plan, although I’ve never been able to afford to put away the legal maximum for my income (I’ve come close, but never hit the max). This is literally the only tax dodge available to Canadians earning less than $200,000 per year: the money you save in that year is deducted from your taxable income and the interest it earns is also tax-deferred until retirement.

This means I’m saving a theoretical 14% of my pre-tax income as provision against starvation once I retire. Sounds reasonable, no?

According to the banks, no. If you go to any of the major Canadian bank websites and look at their online retirement planning tools, you’ll discover that no Canadian can ever really afford to retire. In my case, going on the (doubtful) assumption that I continue to earn the same as I do now until I retire, I need to save approximately 105% of my pre-tax income in order to barely maintain my standard of living after retirement. If I manage to stay employed for a few years after age 65, I cut that down to needing to save only 94% of my pre-tax income.

In the most hopeful scenario, where I work until age 78 and die the same year, I won’t go bankrupt.

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. I’ve always found it depressing to do this sort of planning, and the bank websites (which of course are biased to encourage you to keep more money with them) sure don’t help. For example, the CIBC retirement calculator says I need to save just over 75% of my take-home pay every month in order to be able to retire at 65. Aaaaggghhh!!!

Since those balmy, optimistic days, I’ve gone through several jobs, and had no opportunity to match my earlier savings rate. The last couple of years, I’ve even had to draw down my savings to cover periods of unemployment. So maybe I need to work to age 81 before I can retire . . .

However, perhaps the situation isn’t quite as dire as all that. David Aston has an article in MoneySense magazine which at least avoids the typical “gotta save multi-millions” line the banks tend to give you:

This is the worst-case scenario, but it’s good to know what you’ll need if you just want to scrape by, if only because it gives you a starting point to build from. For this scenario, the costing has already been done for us in a recent study, called Basic Living Expenses for the Canadian Elderly, by three University of Waterloo researchers. The study describes a no-frills retirement as one in which a couple rents (rather than owns), has no vehicles (so they take public transit), and it doesn’t include spare cash for even minor indulgences such as cable TV or alcohol. This is not the stuff of most people’s retirement dreams, but the study does budget for three nutritious home-prepared meals a day, a one-bedroom apartment plus utilities, along with typical health-care costs and other essentials like clothing and personal-care products.

How much do you need?

The study’s authors conclude that the annual cost of such a retirement in five major Canadian cities ranges from $20,200 to $27,400. Here’s the good news: to achieve this bare-bones scenario you don’t have to save a penny. The combination of full Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) program for low-income seniors pretty much covers all your basic needs, at least outside the highest-rent cities. If you and your spouse are at least 65, those government programs would provide you with a combined $22,750 a year if you have no other income. “We’ve kind of made sure the Canadian elderly don’t live in poverty but we’ve given them, like, 50 cents more than the poverty line,” says study co-author Robert Brown.

The scenario does, however, require the Canadian government to make some pretty fast changes to how it’s funding the OAS, GIS, and CPP programs. CPP is, in theory, fully self-funded but the coming “bulge” in retirement rates from aging Baby Boomers will almost certainly require both increased premiums and top-up from other government revenue streams. Oh, and increased claw-backs from other income retired seniors may have.

January 20, 2010

Farewell, Momma Cat

Filed under: Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 22:12

Yesterday we bid farewell to our senior cat, Mollie:

She decided to adopt us as her family in 1996, and indicated that by attempting to have her first litter (literally) in my lap. Unfortunately, she was a very small cat and her first kitten was too big to be born normally. After an emergency C-section, she was the proud mother of three, and we had a vet bill we could barely afford.

We eventually found homes for all her kittens, including the eponymous “Big Bill”. Some of her great-grandkids are still living with friends of ours from that time . . .

She did a wonderful job of adopting all the cats who entered our lives from that point onwards, being literally the “Momma Cat” to all of them. We’ll miss her.

This has got to be a mis-communication

Filed under: Americas, Bureaucracy, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 21:55

At least, I hope it’s just a miscommunication:

Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.

It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.

“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.

Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.

Surely not even the most pig-headed rules-lawyer would have required this . . . I hope.

H/T Castle Argghhh.

Update, 21 January: For reasons of incompetence, I forgot to actually include the URL in that link to Castle Argghhh. Fixed now.

While I’m updating the post, this may be relevant:

The MRE (Meals Ready to Eat, in a pouch) are frequently used as emergency rations. The MRE has evolved from its initial introduction in 1983 (12 separate entrees) to today (24 menu entrees). The MREs change from year to year, and new entrees are added in place of others. The U.S. military has generally switched out entrees each year (apparently the notion that such a deal is a zero-sum game seems to persist, as opposed to just adding new ones). This constant evolution has done much to diminish the bad reputations MREs had early on. Back then, the MRE (officially, “Meals, Ready to Eat”) was often called “Meals Rejected by Everyone”.

The United States also has other rations, including variants for cold weather (which has a higher calorie count than the regular MRE – 1540 per meal compared to 1250 for an MRE), and a kosher/halal variant for Jewish and Moslem soldiers (both religions, for instance, forbid the consumption of pork). Vegetarian entrees are provided, as well. The United States also has developed the Humanitarian Daily Ration (HDR), which has three meals and is based on vegetarian entrees to provide a low chance of offending cultural sensibilities. Many of these HDRs were dropped over Afghanistan in late 2001. Several hundred thousand HDRs are stockpiled for disaster relief, and production can be ramped up quickly. MREs and HDRs are particularly attractive because they provide uncontaminated food that does not require refrigeration, in a compact package. The UN, and many other food aid organizations, use the HDR for situations like Haiti.

If you wonder why it’s nicknamed “The Grauniad” . . .

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:13

This is the sort of thing they were notorious for:

You wonder why those “Crotians” and the “Sebians” can’t get along . . .

Amusingly, they got the national names correct in the article’s URL.

Air New Zealand goes for free advertising by courting outrage

Filed under: Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:16

It’s been done often enough, but apparently still works every time. I’m talking about generating huge amounts of press coverage by creating a highly controversial ad (whether you ever intend to run it or not), and allowing the media to publicize it for you. This is Air New Zealand’s offering:

Here’s some of the free publicity, by way of The Economist and The Telegraph.

January 19, 2010

QotD: Time to panic

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:11

Jonathan Cohn headlines his latest plea to ignore a Brown win and pass health care anyway “Pelosi Isn’t Panicking. Her Party Should Listen.” Umm, call me cynical, but maybe the reason Pelosi isn’t panicking is that Pelosi’s got one of the safest seats in the country? I mean, take this for what it’s worth but if Brown wins today, my advice to Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson, and their counterparts in the house? You should panic. They’re coming for you next.

Hell, If I were Blanche Lincoln, anyone in the leadership who wanted to get me to the floor for a health care vote would have to pry me out of the darkened room where they’d find me huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth and crying. Maybe Cohn’s right and the thing’s too far gone to save, so you might as well vote for it anyway. But that’s not exactly soothing, is it?

Megan McArdle, “Time to Panic”, Asymmetrical Information, 2010-01-19

TMQ’s view of the Minnesota-Dallas playoff game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:05

I don’t always agree with Gregg Easterbrook, but I always find him an interesting writer. Here’s some of his observations on the Vikings-Cowboys game:

Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees — the run-up to Title Weekend is sure to focus on them. For my money, the Colts, Jets, Saints and Vikings made the championship round because they have the league’s four best offensive lines.

Ninety percent of the action in football occurs away from the ball. When Jersey/B runners burst into the clear, or Favre casually dissects a defense, what’s going on is terrific blocking. Manning was sacked less than any other NFL quarterback this season because the Colts’ offensive line is tremendous. The Jets are in the championship round because of the holes their blockers open. The Vikings’ and Saints’ offensive lines both pass-block and run-block equally well, which is a rare combination. The TV commentators will be watching the glory boys holding the football. I’ll be watching the offensive lines. All four are tremendous.

[. . .] between a first-ever chance to host an NFC title game, and the travails of the city of New Orleans, there will be more energy in the Superdome on Sunday than in Iron Man’s pulse reactor. The sheer atmosphere-power within the facility may exceed the crowd feeling of any other game in NFL history. The Vikings are 9-0 at home this season, and 4-4 on the road — the only quality team they beat on the road was the Packers. NFL players are not intimidated by crowd noise. But it won’t just be crowd noise, it will be energy. The Vikings face an uphill climb.

Adrian Peterson — remember him? He hasn’t had a 100-yard rushing game since Nov. 15. The New Orleans run defense is weak, while its pass defense is strong. A conservative, rush-oriented game plan might be just what the doctor ordered considering New Orleans’ personnel and the need to keep the Saints’ league-leading offense off the field. But with Brett Favre and Brad Childress both preoccupied with pumping up Favre’s stats (see below) will Minnesota be able to bring itself to do the smart thing and use a conservative game plan?

When the Saints have the ball, you just never know what is going to happen. They probably don’t either, which is the joy of watching this team. When attention turns to the Vikings, all eyes are on Favre. But what makes Minnesota special is the best pair of lines in the league. The offensive line is stout, the defensive line is fantastic. The Vikings just clobbered the Cowboys via superior line play — if they are to win in New Orleans, their lines will be the key.

I’m looking forward to watching the Saints-Vikings game, but Easterbrook’s praise of Minnesota is a tad overdone. The offensive and defensive lines are good, but they have had some bad outings in the last month, and the offensive line is much better at pass blocking than run blocking (Adrian Peterson is one of the best running backs in the NFL, but even he can’t run if there are no running lanes opened up for him). It’s also not yet known how bad the leg injury to Ray Edwards was (no official word until tomorrow). If he can’t play, it’ll depend on Jared Allen fighting through double-team blocking without the same threat from the other side of the line.

The Brett-Favre-to-Sidney-Rice connection has been wonderful, but after Sunday’s game, New Orleans will be double-teaming Rice all afternoon. Percy Harvin, Bernard Berrian, and Visanthe Shiancoe will have to get open much more this week than they did this time. New Orleans is supposed to be weak against the run (they’ve jumped ahead in most games, so teams have had to throw against them to try to catch up). I hope that’s true, and that Adrian gets some good run blocking to let him do what he’s proven he can do best: hit those lanes and take it to the house.

The evolution of music

Filed under: History, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:59

In spite of the portentious title, this is just an excuse to post an old James Lileks quote from a few years back talking about the difference between popular music of the early 20th century with the worst excesses of the 60’s (the “60’s” being defined for convenience as running from about 1965-1974):

Every note is simple and obvious but it still seems remarkable that no one had thought to arrange them in that particular order. It’s the countertheme, to invent a musical term, that gives it spice, and the middle section has a lovely expansive quality that makes you think of Frank Sinatra peeing off a balcony in Vegas. And of course the beat: bum / bum / bum / bumbum bum / bum / bum / bum / bumbum bum.

The name of the show was a callback to an old song from the early part of the 20th century — “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.” I’ve only heard the first few bars, sung by Bugs Bunny with appropriate alterations: “I dream of Jeannie, she’s a light brown hare.” Old as the song was, audiences in the forties got the joke, just as people today recognize a reference to a song from the 60s.

The difference, of course, is that the 60s aren’t seen as The Past; the 60s are a Timeless Vault of Cultural Touchstones, the apotheosis of Western Civ. Sigh. Well. One of the future Diners will take place in the 60s — don’t ask why, it’ll be explained — and I will use many of the gutbustingly dreadful “psychedelic” records I have collected. It’s obvious from Note One that everyone involved in the effort had so much THC in their system you could dry-cure their phlegm and get a buzz off the resin, but instead of having the loose happy ho-di-hi-dee-ho cheer of a Cab Calloway reefer number, the songs are soaked with Art and Importance and Meaning. You can imagine the band members sitting down to hash out (sorry) the overarching themes of the album, how it should like start with Total Chaos man because those are the times in which we live with like war from the sky, okay, and then we’ll have flutes because flutes are peaceful like doves and my old lady can play that part because she like studied flute, man, in high school. The lyrics are all the same: AND THE KING OF QUEENS SAID TO THE EARTH THE HEIROPHANT SHALL NOW GIVE BIRTH / THE HOODED PRIESTS IN CHAMBERED LAIRS LEERED DOWN UPON THE LADIES FAIR / NEWWWW DAAAAY DAWNNNING!

Five years later it was obsolete. The Jeannie theme, however, will make toes tap in 2476 AD.

There’s more than enough evidence to support James in this notion . . . pick up a random 60’s Psychedelic album and this is what the lyrics are like.

A round-up of current “non-lethal” weaponry

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:16

Strategy Page looks at some new developments in the non-lethal weaponry category:

Israel has developed a new non-lethal weapon; the Thunder Cannon. Light enough to be mounted in a cart, it uses a new Pulse Detonation Technology that combines LPG (liquefied natural gas) with air to create a sonic boom in a cannon type barrel. Each burst moves forward at 2,000 meters per second and lasts 300 milliseconds. The cannon generates 60 to 100 bursts per second. One 27 pound (12kg) canister of LPG can create 5,000 bursts. A PDA size control unit does the mixing and detonation. The cannon is effective, at hitting people with these sonic bursts, at ranges of up to fifty meters (152 feet), and eventually double that. At ten meters or less, the burst can cause injury, or even be fatal. Anyone hit by the sonic bursts feels it, and hears it. It’s disorienting, and most people exposed to it flee the area. The technology was first developed to chase birds away from crops. It has been very effective at that. The military version can be mounted on vehicles, and fitted with a nozzle that can calibrate the shockwaves for special mission requirements. [. . .]

The problem is that, non-lethal weapons are not one hundred percent non-lethal, and not nearly as effective as proponents would like. But people love to call them non-lethal, because such devices are intended to deal with violent individuals by using less lethal force. A classic example of how this works is the Taser. A gun like device that fires two small barbs into an individual, and then zaps the victim with a non-lethal jolt of electricity, the Taser has been popular with police, who can more easily subdue violent, and often armed, individuals. Before Taser, the cops had a choice between dangerous (for everyone) hand-to-hand combat, or just using their firearms and killing the guy. While the Taser has been a major success for non-lethal weapons, for every thousand or so times you use it, the victim will die (either from a fall, another medical condition, use of drugs or whatever). This has been fodder for the media, and put Taser users, and non-lethal-weapons developers, on the defensive. Naturally, the manufacturers of these devices want zero deaths, and the users want a device that will bring down the target every time, at a price (for the device) they can afford to pay. There’s no way of satisfying all these demands, but it makes great press, insisting that someone should make it so.

Of course, the media also — rightly — points out cases where police officers use their Tasers like wands of domination . . . Tasering in situation where there’s no need for it or using the Taser like they’re playing paintball with the victim. There’s no need to blame the technology when it’s misused by “professionals”.

January 18, 2010

Nostalgia’s over-rated

Filed under: Humour, Randomness — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 19:14

John Scalzi looks at a few things folks tend to get all misty-eyed and nostalgic about. Here’s why he thinks you’re on crack:

1. Stupidly expensive long-distance charges. [. . .] When my sister briefly lived with me when I was in Fresno, between the two of us we could generate $600 phone bills on a monthly basis, at a time when I was paying $400 a month for an apartment. Yes! I was occasionally paying more for my phone bill than I was for having a place to eat and sleep. Naturally, this was madness.

[. . .]

2. Crappy old cars. Which cars qualify as crappy old cars? In my opinion, pretty much all of them. Pre-catalytic converter cars were shoddily-constructed, lead-spewing deathtraps, the first generation of cars running on unleaded were even more shoddily-constructed 70s defeat-mobiles, the 80s were the golden age of Detroit Doesn’t Give a Shit, and so on. You have to get to about 1997 before there’s a car I would willingly get into these days. As opposed to today, when even the cheap boxy cars meant for first-time buyers have decent mileage, will protect you if you’re hit by a semi, and have more gizmos and better living conditions than my first couple of apartments.

[. . .]

3. Physical media for music. Audiophiles like to wank on about the warmth of vinyl, and you know, maybe if you take your vinyl and put it into special static free sleeves and then store those sleeves in a purpose-built room filled with inert gases, to be retrieved only when you play that vinyl on your $10,000 turntable which could play a record without skipping through a 7.5 earthquake, ported through your vacuum tube amplifier that sucks down more energy than Philadelphia at night, maybe it is warm. Good for you and your warm vinyl.

[. . .]

4. Smoking allowed everywhere. You know what? It did suck to have smokers at the table next to you at a restaurant. It did suck to have a movie theater haze up. It did suck to be walking in the mall and have some wildly gesticulating smoker randomly and accidentally jam the lit end of his cancer stick into your face.

How much are the Vikings worth?

Filed under: Economics, Football, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 17:52

An interesting Wall Street Journal article tries to put a dollar value on the “intangible” value of a professional sports team to the fans . . . in this case, the Minnesota Vikings:

Christopher Slinde, a lifetime Minnesota Vikings fan who has endured decades of heartbreak and lots of overpriced beer in supporting his team, believes Vikings fandom is priceless. According to economists, it’s worth $530.65.

“This is deep,” said Mr. Slinde, a 33-year-old X-ray technician, outside the Park Tavern near Minneapolis on Sunday. He had been handed a recent economics paper that is tattooed with equations and attempts to value, in dollars, the joy and pain Minnesotans get from the Vikings.

“Don’t economists spend their time on more serious stuff?” he asked, after thumbing through the paper in the cold.

As fans pack stadiums and couches to watch the National Football League’s divisional playoffs this weekend, they care about victory. Economists are tackling a more abstract challenge: putting a price on the emotional benefits of having a pro sports team in town.

Interestingly, the one question that doesn’t come up is why non-fans (the rest of the taxpayers being asked to pay for a new Vikings stadium) should use their tax dollars to subsidize their sports-mad fellow citizens. The answer is, of course, that if Minnesota won’t then some other state or city will do. It seems reasonable to me to ask the billionaire owners of these sports franchises to pay for their own buildings . . . but there’s a long, inglorious history of these very well-off, well-connected folks being able to get politicians to pry the coffers open and paying public money to benefit private interests.

QotD: Haiti was already in trouble before the earthquake

Filed under: Americas, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:17

For the past several days, I have found myself unable to look at the photographs from Haiti. I have also found that when I start reading an article datelined Port-au-Prince, I have to force myself to read to the end of it. I have donated money to Doctors Without Borders, on the grounds that it has been in Haiti a long time and will be able to use the cash quickly. However, I have no illusions about my tiny donation, or about the organization’s ability to help. I have no illusions about anyone’s ability to help, for this is not just a natural disaster: It is a man-made disaster first and foremost, and so it will remain.

Though the earthquake was a powerful one, its impact was multiplied many, many times by the weakness of civil society and the absence of rule of law in Haiti. As Roger Noriega has written, “You can literally see [the] dysfunction from space”: Satellite photos of Hispaniola, the island split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, show green forests on the Dominican side and bare, deforested hills on the Haitian side. Mudslides and collapsing houses were routine in Haiti, even before this disaster. Laws designed to prevent erosion, and building codes designed to prevent criminally shoddy construction, were ignored. The rickety slums of Port-au-Prince were constructed in ravines and on steep, unstable hills. When they collapsed, they collapsed completely.

So weak were Haiti’s public institutions, literally and figuratively, that nothing is left of them, either. Parliament, churches, hospitals, and government offices no longer exist. The archbishop is dead. The head of the U.N. mission is dead. There is a real possibility that violent gangs will emerge to take their place, to control food supplies, to loot what remains to be looted. There is a real possibility, within the coming days, of epidemics, mass starvation, and civil war.

Anne Applebaum, “Haiti Is a Man-Made Disaster: Recovery will require a profound cultural and political change”, Slate, 2010-01-16

Why just be shallow? Show off your shallowness for the next generation

Filed under: Media, Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:54

It used to be that you could show off your lack of imagination by naming your kid after sports stars. These days, it’s names from popular films that are all the rage:

According to a rather sketchy report in the Sun, some parents have inexplicably decided it’s a bright idea to name a kid Neytiri or Toruk or indeed Pandora. The latter is top choice in the US, “with UK parents set to follow”.

The Sun appears to have got the shock news from blinkbox.com, which suggested that the $1bn box office barrier acts as a trigger for movie-based sprogbranding. A spokesman offered: “Past the $100m barrier, the chances of a film’s star lending their name to a child increase.”

This remarkable and almost unbelievable fact explains, of course, why priests have in recent years been obliged to utter: “I christen thee Bilbo Dark Knight Barbossa Gollum Jack Sparrow III…”

It almost makes you sympathetic to those countries which legally restrict the names parents are allowed to select for their children . . .

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