Mischievous Ramblings II

Interesting Musing on Oil Prices

Via Marginal Revolution, Calculated Risk discusses a possible scenario concerning oil prices, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country spending, and the US trade deficit:

The following graph is interesting. This reminds me of how the surge in California state government revenues in the late '90s (due to the tech stock bubble), led to a concurrent surge in government spending. When the tech bubble burst, the state budget went bust.

The same pattern has been repeated across the U.S. recently with surging government spending based on revenues from the housing bubble. Now, almost every week, we see a story about some state or local government laying off workers and cutting their budget as revenues from housing decline.

Moved

Following in Chuq's footsteps, I have moved from WordPress over to TypePad. Here's the new feed

I've spent more than a month contemplating dealing with comment spam, and have given up. I'm more likely to write if I don't have technical issues like that.

Long Hard Slog

It's been long hard slog but the semester is over. I don't think I should have re-started blogging that close to finals week. Two finals, two final assignments, an American Kenpo seminar, and a USSD belt test all wrapped into just about 10 days made for, well, too much to do. :-)

But it's over, and I hope to get myself back to writing on a more regular basis.

Once I've graded all the homework that backed up on my for my TA job.

Yes, Comments are broken…

it's because of some of the anti-comment-spam stuff. I'm trying to decide whether I should fix it or just move over to TypePad or something where I don't have to worry about it.

Thanks for trying, though.

Yee-haw!

DVDActive - News - Releases - Western Mini-Series' (US - R1)

The Sacketts is coming to DVD.

Just this weekend I finished mastering a DVD copy of my (old, crappy, long-play) VHS version to a DL DVD. I was Googling to find the rights owners (track down the production companies, call NBC, etc.) when I found out Warner Home Video is finally going to put out a DVD.

Oh, it looks like I'm back to blogging. I wonder how that happened?

Woman fired for missing work after seeing husband off to war

Woman fired for missing work after seeing husband off to war

Family values as practiced in George W. Bush's America. I don't care if these people are Democrats or Republicans, they're despicable. They're obviously Corporatists: interested in their bottom line and getting the most they can for their money and nothing else matters.

Who said the 80s were the "me" decade? Sure looks like the 00's are even more the "me and my money" decade for the corporations of America.

1918 killer flu ‘came from birds’

1918 killer flu 'came from birds'

The possibility of an H5N1 flu pandemic is getting a lot more attention and press (especially since avian flu hit Europe). It remains a potentially terrifying possibility, but at least some conversation is happening.

Odds are good that whatever happens will not be as bad as the worst we can imagine, but that it will be worst than the best we hope for.

Michael Yon: The Battle For Mosul IV

Michael Yon : Online Magazine: The Battle For Mosul IV

Some of the good that we're doing in Iraq.

I don't deny that some good is happening, but the price is awfully high. I don't think it's worth it. I think we could have done the good without doing nearly the harm -- to us, or to the Iraqis, or to the world at large.

Making Healthcare Work: Principles, Rules, Actions

How to Save the World has an extensive piece comparing the US and Canadian healthcare systems and how to improve the Canadian one.

Yeah, how to improve it, even though it's already so much better.

Screw Digital Newspapers, I want display screens 2 meters wide!

Paper view technology

The Siemens spokesman said that one square metre of the material costs around £30, and scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007.

Harry Potter style moving photos? Video ads in expensive magazines?

Nah.

I want a color display two meters wide and a meter high. Say, 7000 x 3500 or so. Curved, perhaps, so that it wraps around my keyboard slighly. I'll pay $100 for that without complaining. I'd even go $200 :-).

I want a "TV Screen" that's really 16 x 9 ... feet. That rolls up and down like a projection screen.

I want most of the flat surfaces (door interiors, ceiling, etc.) of my car to be capable of displaying what's on the other side of them so I can see the stars out the top and what's immediately to my right and left.

I want a laptop with a screen that unrolls to the size and aspect ratio of a full sheet of paper. Maybe dual sheets of paper next to each other. But it's still gotta work with the plain old 1024x768 aspect ratio screen too, so I can use it on an airplane.

I want my front door to be able to show me the entire person who's standing outside. Hell, I want the option of turning all the walls in my house "transparent" so I can be warm and dry while living "outside".

The possibilities are endless. Video Ads? Pfui.