Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
The most ignorant student can ask a question that even the most intelligent professor cannot answer.
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
"What would you like to make for dinner?" "Reservations."
Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.
Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.
---------------------------------------------------
"The secret services are the only real expression of a nation's character,"
John Le Carre, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," 1975.
[Would have added attribution(s) to each, but could not find the data I needed. Please add to comments if you know.]
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Hanlon's Razor Applied to Aliens & Legislators
This is in the town just north of Jupiter, FL. There is a similar problem in Jupiter itself. One patient had to go to the emergency room several years ago for AFib (atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia) and the whole waiting room was filled with Hispanic (Mexican/Guatemalan) mothers holding kids with runny noses and non-emergency complaints.
URL to the video from hospital re costs:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=9dd52b97fc&view=att&th=12df332397ab310c&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw
A number of folks have gotten so frustrated with this nation-wide problem that I have heard them suggest the CIA maneuver of extraordinary rendition of patients
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States) as a proposed solution. Note: NOT the torture part, just the expedited transportation to their home country.
Personally, if the ERs / Hospitals had an approved policy in place to treat US Nationals with residency proof first, and make the illegals step to the back of the line and wait until everyone else has been diagnosed and treated, I can't really see that as a bad solution.
It may have something to do with personal feelings of "intolerance," but rationally it has everything to do with payment for costly services (e.g., you can't walk in to a PUBLIX and pick up a loaf of bread and walk out without paying for it ... that's a crime ... and medical care for illegals, it could be argued, is no more or less of a crime ... if we charged every illegal with a crime (i.e., stealing the amount of money the care would cost as an objective measure of the crime) every time he/she walked into an ER, in a short time there would be enough data on the PD books to have the Customs and Border Patrol deport that person for being a Chronic Offender. (Using laws that are already on the books.)
Just a thought.
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Feel free to apply Hanlon's to any segment of this episode. It seems to fit multiple places.
URL to the video from hospital re costs:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=9dd52b97fc&view=att&th=12df332397ab310c&attid=0.1&disp=attd&zw
A number of folks have gotten so frustrated with this nation-wide problem that I have heard them suggest the CIA maneuver of extraordinary rendition of patients
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States) as a proposed solution. Note: NOT the torture part, just the expedited transportation to their home country.
Personally, if the ERs / Hospitals had an approved policy in place to treat US Nationals with residency proof first, and make the illegals step to the back of the line and wait until everyone else has been diagnosed and treated, I can't really see that as a bad solution.
It may have something to do with personal feelings of "intolerance," but rationally it has everything to do with payment for costly services (e.g., you can't walk in to a PUBLIX and pick up a loaf of bread and walk out without paying for it ... that's a crime ... and medical care for illegals, it could be argued, is no more or less of a crime ... if we charged every illegal with a crime (i.e., stealing the amount of money the care would cost as an objective measure of the crime) every time he/she walked into an ER, in a short time there would be enough data on the PD books to have the Customs and Border Patrol deport that person for being a Chronic Offender. (Using laws that are already on the books.)
Just a thought.
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Feel free to apply Hanlon's to any segment of this episode. It seems to fit multiple places.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Dollar Tree Robberies & the Economy
One of the major insights gained by the Baltimore Homicide Detectives (#) after years of chasing (and catching) criminals is: "Crime makes you stupid." That would be true of the perps they catch ... and the reason that they can catch them.
But there is another group of bad guys who must be smarter than the average street thugs. That would be the group that is astute enough about our current trodden-down economic climate to put the Dollar Tree (and / or Dollar Store or other "dollar xxxx" establishments) in their sights. The reasoning must go something like this: Many people are out of work. If they don't have work, they don't have steady income (although they may have money from somewhere). Wherever they are getting money, it isn't enough to feed, clothe and entertain themselves and the ones for whom they are responsible. And they know that the general public can still get essential items at cut-rate, discount and low-end retail outlets, so that is where a lot of people now have to shop to get some of what they need.
If all these economically-challenged folks are shopping at "dollar" stores and coming out with the goods they need, then they must be leaving what little cash they have with the clerks inside. Any, as any fool can plainly see, even if they only leave a few dollars, a horde of shoppers can drop a significant amount of cash in a work-day. Which explains why the robbery rates at cut-rate stores nationwide are going up during this down economy.
Furthermore, these mooks who are bumping off the dollar stores are also smart (maybe not Real smart, but smart enough) to realize that Willie Sutton's law can, in this day and age, refer to the Concept of a Bank, (*) not the actual commercial bank buildings per se. [Willie robbed banks, so he told the FBI when they caught him, because "that's where the money is."]
From their updated point of view, a "bank" is anyplace sitting on a wad of cash, and today that means dollar stores. In addition, robbing dollar stores doesn't carry with it the serious Federal charges (*) (minimum: 10 years, maximum: death penalty) that robbing a real bank does.
So, what have we learned from this economics lesson: 1. All criminals are not that stupid; 2. Money flows where people goes; 3. A rose may be a rose may be a rose, but a Bank is not a banque is not a bank; 4. Robbers who used to pull heists at First Federal are now expanding the "Concept of Banking" to include shopping for bargains at cut-rate places and avoiding the Federal charges.
Time marches on! (Oh, that would be a great name for a newsreel at the local Cine-Plex.)
-------- Afterword -----------
Try this link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=robberies+at+Dollar+Tree
Robber's Rap Sheets: Johnson City, TN (second time in a week); Spartanburg, SC (parollee); Roanoke, VA (two men with firearms: Kshawn Marque Kelly with Decarlos Marchand and a woman, Dominique Montrell); it's a family thing). [NOTE: "Police responded to the robbery around 10:28 p.m. and said they found the three adult suspects near Sundae Grill within minutes of the crime." (?? Having an after-robbery ice cream??) Maybe Baltimore cops are right.];
Sacramento, CA (described as "an Asian man"); Massapequa, NY, (robbed by a GA man); Xenia, OH (asking specifically for "the night's deposits" ... might as well let the employees scoop up the cash for you, then grab the bag); a second report at another Sparanburg, SC, Dollar Tree store; Fairview Heights, MS; and Newport News, VA, Madison County, AL, Modesto, CA, FL, OH, MD, UT, IL, LA, on and on ...
Google reports at the top of this search for "robberies at Dollar Tree" 934,000 results in 0.22 seconds. I decided to not list them all. [NOTE: it would be interesting to take all 934,000 hits and plot them on a US map. I got the feeling from reading through the Google results that the sites were skewed toward the SE and deep south, but that's just a "feeling," not a statistically-significant comment.]
(#) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_Life_on_the_Street lots of links to videos, etc.
(*) see: http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm01349.htm
Subsection (f) defines the term "bank." A bank includes any member bank of the Federal Reserve System, and any other banking association, trust company, savings bank operating under the laws of the United States, including a branch or agency of a foreign bank (as defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b) of the International Banking Act of 1978), and any institution in which the deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or "FDIC." Well, it used to, but not so narrowly any more.
But there is another group of bad guys who must be smarter than the average street thugs. That would be the group that is astute enough about our current trodden-down economic climate to put the Dollar Tree (and / or Dollar Store or other "dollar xxxx" establishments) in their sights. The reasoning must go something like this: Many people are out of work. If they don't have work, they don't have steady income (although they may have money from somewhere). Wherever they are getting money, it isn't enough to feed, clothe and entertain themselves and the ones for whom they are responsible. And they know that the general public can still get essential items at cut-rate, discount and low-end retail outlets, so that is where a lot of people now have to shop to get some of what they need.
If all these economically-challenged folks are shopping at "dollar" stores and coming out with the goods they need, then they must be leaving what little cash they have with the clerks inside. Any, as any fool can plainly see, even if they only leave a few dollars, a horde of shoppers can drop a significant amount of cash in a work-day. Which explains why the robbery rates at cut-rate stores nationwide are going up during this down economy.
Furthermore, these mooks who are bumping off the dollar stores are also smart (maybe not Real smart, but smart enough) to realize that Willie Sutton's law can, in this day and age, refer to the Concept of a Bank, (*) not the actual commercial bank buildings per se. [Willie robbed banks, so he told the FBI when they caught him, because "that's where the money is."]
From their updated point of view, a "bank" is anyplace sitting on a wad of cash, and today that means dollar stores. In addition, robbing dollar stores doesn't carry with it the serious Federal charges (*) (minimum: 10 years, maximum: death penalty) that robbing a real bank does.
So, what have we learned from this economics lesson: 1. All criminals are not that stupid; 2. Money flows where people goes; 3. A rose may be a rose may be a rose, but a Bank is not a banque is not a bank; 4. Robbers who used to pull heists at First Federal are now expanding the "Concept of Banking" to include shopping for bargains at cut-rate places and avoiding the Federal charges.
Time marches on! (Oh, that would be a great name for a newsreel at the local Cine-Plex.)
-------- Afterword -----------
Try this link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=robberies+at+Dollar+Tree
Robber's Rap Sheets: Johnson City, TN (second time in a week); Spartanburg, SC (parollee); Roanoke, VA (two men with firearms: Kshawn Marque Kelly with Decarlos Marchand and a woman, Dominique Montrell); it's a family thing). [NOTE: "Police responded to the robbery around 10:28 p.m. and said they found the three adult suspects near Sundae Grill within minutes of the crime." (?? Having an after-robbery ice cream??) Maybe Baltimore cops are right.];
Sacramento, CA (described as "an Asian man"); Massapequa, NY, (robbed by a GA man); Xenia, OH (asking specifically for "the night's deposits" ... might as well let the employees scoop up the cash for you, then grab the bag); a second report at another Sparanburg, SC, Dollar Tree store; Fairview Heights, MS; and Newport News, VA, Madison County, AL, Modesto, CA, FL, OH, MD, UT, IL, LA, on and on ...
Google reports at the top of this search for "robberies at Dollar Tree" 934,000 results in 0.22 seconds. I decided to not list them all. [NOTE: it would be interesting to take all 934,000 hits and plot them on a US map. I got the feeling from reading through the Google results that the sites were skewed toward the SE and deep south, but that's just a "feeling," not a statistically-significant comment.]
(#) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_Life_on_the_Street lots of links to videos, etc.
(*) see: http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm01349.htm
Subsection (f) defines the term "bank." A bank includes any member bank of the Federal Reserve System, and any other banking association, trust company, savings bank operating under the laws of the United States, including a branch or agency of a foreign bank (as defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b) of the International Banking Act of 1978), and any institution in which the deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or "FDIC." Well, it used to, but not so narrowly any more.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Pot Holes and Pennsylvanians
We create smooth asphalt or concrete roadways, then wonder
why people drive too fast and don't obey the speed limits.
Currently, our streets are being torn up because sewers are
being installed. The sewer / pipe-laying
crews throw loose asphalt back on top of the torn up streets, but don't put a
steam roller on it to smooth it out.
The consequence is that it is almost impossible to drive the
0.9 mile stretch from the market to our street at anything more than 25 miles
an hour ... unless you want to tear up your car undercarriage.
The result of this trash on the road: even the known speeders, and the construction trucks, the
teenagers and vacation visitors from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Canada and New York have
been observed driving on the torn up streets at a reasonable speed, i.e., at 25 mph, despite the posted Speed
Limit being 35 mph. The Speed Limit
signs have never been effective, but the cruddy roadway has slowed everyone
down.
Is there a message here? Maybe we should petition the City Council to leave the ruts and ruined asphalt just the way they are and see what happens to the number of speeding tickets in the next few months. In the current jargon: "I'm just sayin' ..."
PS: Nothing against the Pennsylvanians, or other tourists who visit Our Fair City. They just happened to come from a state that allowed alliteration in the title. I could have used POntario, PDelaware or PNew Jersey, but it just wouldn't have been the same.
Substitution Game
[Going to church] doesn't make you a [Christian] any more than
going to [a garage] makes you a [mechanic].
Add your suggestions in the Comment area.
going to [a garage] makes you a [mechanic].
Add your suggestions in the Comment area.
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Work You Speed to Hate
An irony of the depressed economy: Roughly 9% of people in the US don’t have a job … and they comprise a group whose complaints about being out of work rank at the top of most survey concerns about our country.
However, one of the common complaints from people who have work is how they hate their jobs.
So I don't understand why the ones with jobs speed on the freeway, pass on curves, cut in and out of traffic and, in general, make a NASCAR-like race out of driving to work every morning.
So I don't understand why the ones with jobs speed on the freeway, pass on curves, cut in and out of traffic and, in general, make a NASCAR-like race out of driving to work every morning.
Reminds me of the poem (I would post an attribution, but can’t find one):
As a rule
Man’s a fool:
When it’s hot
He wants it cool.
When it’s cool
He wants it hot.
What it is
He wants it not.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Failure of Newspapers, Reason for
Research and analysis of gross and net revenues of the nation's print newspapers and their suppliers has revealed some interesting information. Two relationships have been discovered, one direct and one inverse.
The direct relationship is described by the fall in purchases of printer's ink and newsprint, and the gross revenues generated by newspaper sales. This relationship has been characterized as one which should be "intuitively obvious to the casual observer." A not-so-obvious, but just as concrete a direct relationship has been noted between the decrease in newspaper sales and the decrease in the sales of ink-stain removal products.
The inverse relationship, which should be just as obvious is between the decline in print-edition sales and the rise of revenues due to the sales of eReaders (various products), tablet computers (e.g., iPad(r) and iPhone(r)), the Amazon Kindle Fire(r), the Barnes and Noble NOOK(r) and the like.
Our analysis, proprietary and (probably) of non-generalizable nature, is that the general public has become fed up with cleaning printer's ink deposited on fingers, hands and everything those appendages touch (e.g., white toasters and other appliances, white kitchen faucets, counter-tops upon which the papers lie (lay?) while being read, smudges on white shirts and blouses and a myriad of other otherwise sparkling, clean items about the well-kept home).
While the smudges are some of the most obvious draw-backs to daily newspaper subscriptions, there is the peripheral disadvantage of having finger-prints all over the house. Even the least adept, CSI trainee is able to lift those prints from glasses, plates, every-day silver and mirrors, to name but a few areas from which an identity can be determined. Day-to-day readers may not be under suspicion of anything (except participating in the demise of the print media), but in the unique situation where a specific individual is being sought, a random finger print may be critical to closing the case, and therefore, be a reason for even the most ignorant criminal to cancel his (her) daily subscription.
It, therefore, seems obvious that the tidy middle class homemakers have decided that "newspapers must go," that ink-removing tasks (and the costs thereof) are a burden to be dispensed with, and that the neat, clean and continuously-updated digitized information delivered to us inside our warm, dry, heated and air conditioned homes it the option of choice.
In addition, having that digital information delivered to us 24/7 on our eReader equipment (various manufacturers) is far preferable to having to brave the wind, rain, snow, sleet, ankle-deep water and other environmental hazards when getting the paper thrown on to the driveway by the brazen little snot, with the entitlement attitude, on his bicycle who will TP our trees at Halloween or misplace our paper completely if he is not given a handsome monetary (cash) reward at Christmas.
The newspaper as a modern-day utility is going the way of all dinosaurs. We can only take heart in the fact that those dinosaurs, their bones and altered flesh are now, after eons of metamorphosing into Light Sweet Crude, are lighting the way to our petroleum-fueled future. The horse-and-buggy days were replaced by internal combustion engines. The print media is being, understandably, replaced by digital data delivery. And it has all happened, in the case of newspapers, because of the printer's ink smudges on our new, white, Cuisinart(r) toaster.
Please pass the butter.
The direct relationship is described by the fall in purchases of printer's ink and newsprint, and the gross revenues generated by newspaper sales. This relationship has been characterized as one which should be "intuitively obvious to the casual observer." A not-so-obvious, but just as concrete a direct relationship has been noted between the decrease in newspaper sales and the decrease in the sales of ink-stain removal products.
The inverse relationship, which should be just as obvious is between the decline in print-edition sales and the rise of revenues due to the sales of eReaders (various products), tablet computers (e.g., iPad(r) and iPhone(r)), the Amazon Kindle Fire(r), the Barnes and Noble NOOK(r) and the like.
Our analysis, proprietary and (probably) of non-generalizable nature, is that the general public has become fed up with cleaning printer's ink deposited on fingers, hands and everything those appendages touch (e.g., white toasters and other appliances, white kitchen faucets, counter-tops upon which the papers lie (lay?) while being read, smudges on white shirts and blouses and a myriad of other otherwise sparkling, clean items about the well-kept home).
While the smudges are some of the most obvious draw-backs to daily newspaper subscriptions, there is the peripheral disadvantage of having finger-prints all over the house. Even the least adept, CSI trainee is able to lift those prints from glasses, plates, every-day silver and mirrors, to name but a few areas from which an identity can be determined. Day-to-day readers may not be under suspicion of anything (except participating in the demise of the print media), but in the unique situation where a specific individual is being sought, a random finger print may be critical to closing the case, and therefore, be a reason for even the most ignorant criminal to cancel his (her) daily subscription.
It, therefore, seems obvious that the tidy middle class homemakers have decided that "newspapers must go," that ink-removing tasks (and the costs thereof) are a burden to be dispensed with, and that the neat, clean and continuously-updated digitized information delivered to us inside our warm, dry, heated and air conditioned homes it the option of choice.
In addition, having that digital information delivered to us 24/7 on our eReader equipment (various manufacturers) is far preferable to having to brave the wind, rain, snow, sleet, ankle-deep water and other environmental hazards when getting the paper thrown on to the driveway by the brazen little snot, with the entitlement attitude, on his bicycle who will TP our trees at Halloween or misplace our paper completely if he is not given a handsome monetary (cash) reward at Christmas.
The newspaper as a modern-day utility is going the way of all dinosaurs. We can only take heart in the fact that those dinosaurs, their bones and altered flesh are now, after eons of metamorphosing into Light Sweet Crude, are lighting the way to our petroleum-fueled future. The horse-and-buggy days were replaced by internal combustion engines. The print media is being, understandably, replaced by digital data delivery. And it has all happened, in the case of newspapers, because of the printer's ink smudges on our new, white, Cuisinart(r) toaster.
Please pass the butter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)