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Supposedly, we could combat a non-trivial chunk of global warming by painting all road and roof surfaces white. Even Nobel prize-winning Secretary of Energy Steven Chu champions this idea. He says "It’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years."
I was idly thinking about this, and wondering why this has any global effect. Sure, a white house will stay cooler inside than a dark one. But if the light is reflected into the atmosphere and trapped there by green house gasses, you haven't won anything. Similarly, even if a dark object absorbs heat, it'll radiate that heat back out when the air cools off. Is there a difference (for the planet overall) between reflecting it right away as light and radiating it later as heat?
First off, keeping the house cooler helps simply by reducing the need to spend energy on air conditioning or fans.
Second, it turns out that the atmosphere allows far more visible light through than it does heat radiation. (See e.g. here.) So heat radiated back out tends to stay in the atmosphere, while 70-75% of reflected, visible sunlight will pass back out into space.
The one bit left unaddressed is the cost of producing, transporting, and applying all that paint.
I was idly thinking about this, and wondering why this has any global effect. Sure, a white house will stay cooler inside than a dark one. But if the light is reflected into the atmosphere and trapped there by green house gasses, you haven't won anything. Similarly, even if a dark object absorbs heat, it'll radiate that heat back out when the air cools off. Is there a difference (for the planet overall) between reflecting it right away as light and radiating it later as heat?
First off, keeping the house cooler helps simply by reducing the need to spend energy on air conditioning or fans.
Second, it turns out that the atmosphere allows far more visible light through than it does heat radiation. (See e.g. here.) So heat radiated back out tends to stay in the atmosphere, while 70-75% of reflected, visible sunlight will pass back out into space.
The one bit left unaddressed is the cost of producing, transporting, and applying all that paint.
Is it true that the maxim "eat less and exercise more" will help pretty much anyone lose weight? Is it physically harder for some people than for others? What does it mean for a human to have "a high metabolism"? The term is associated in my mind with people who can eat lots of calories without gaining weight. The implication seems to be that such a person burns more calories for the same activity level than others do. Why would this be the case? Is their resting core temperature higher? Are their muscles less efficient? Is it possible that their intestines simply absorb fewer of the calories in the first place, letting the rest pass through? Would that be the assumption under Occam's Razor?
Please discuss.
Please discuss.
Friday afternoon an SPU crew showed up to fix the water leak. By that time it was getting to be a gusher. While the guy who originally look at the problem thought that the water main on our street itself might be busted and thus need to be replaced (requiring either the street or the sidewalk to be torn up), the leak actually was in the spur pipe to our house, making it a much smaller job. I was lucky that the leak was on the street side of our meter, as home owners are responsible for problems between the meter and the house--but this one was the city's problem.
With the leak fixed, the weird noise in the house has disappeared. Yay!
One day later:
(click to enlarge)
Yesterday I discovered a water leak out in the sidewalk planting strip; today it's increased to a small creek. (Note to the right of the red markings.) The noise in the house has been getting worse faster. The paint markings were left by the first two water utility guys to stop by after my call yesterday afternoon. In the next few days, I think we'll be seeing the inside of the sidewalk or the street.
(click to enlarge)Yesterday I discovered a water leak out in the sidewalk planting strip; today it's increased to a small creek. (Note to the right of the red markings.) The noise in the house has been getting worse faster. The paint markings were left by the first two water utility guys to stop by after my call yesterday afternoon. In the next few days, I think we'll be seeing the inside of the sidewalk or the street.
When we were checking in for our trip to New Zealand, I was hoping that we might get upgraded for the long flight from San Francisco to Auckland. I'm tall, I have trouble sleeping on airplanes, so it'd be nice to have the better seats. We didn't luck out, and in retrospect, I'm glad.
Flying is a huge part of my carbon emissions, and as it's often for vacation travel, it's discretionary and the easiest item to reduce to do my part in fighting global warming. When you fly business class, you're sitting in seats that have (by my guesstimate) about a third of the seating density of regular coach seats. That means you have three times the carbon impact.
It'd be truly decadent to triple the environmental damage for just a bit of extra comfort. If we're going to do fun things that are bad for the planet, we might as well be slightly uncomfortable and feel the pain. I'll stick with coach--until we're ready to pass on more flights.
And no, I don't buy the argument that the plane is going to fly anyway, and a few business class seats don't make any difference.
PS: this post may sound preachy, and I suppose in part I even intend it that way. I keep noticing that there's little discussion among friends about actual trade offs or sacrifices we're making in the face of global warming. I think it's time that we start talking about and gently start generating some peer pressure to be more thoughtful and occasionally make other decisions. Buying a hybrid is not giving up a piece of your lifestyle. There are tougher choices to be made. I think it would help if we had a sense that others around us (our peers) were taking these choices seriously.
Flying is a huge part of my carbon emissions, and as it's often for vacation travel, it's discretionary and the easiest item to reduce to do my part in fighting global warming. When you fly business class, you're sitting in seats that have (by my guesstimate) about a third of the seating density of regular coach seats. That means you have three times the carbon impact.
It'd be truly decadent to triple the environmental damage for just a bit of extra comfort. If we're going to do fun things that are bad for the planet, we might as well be slightly uncomfortable and feel the pain. I'll stick with coach--until we're ready to pass on more flights.
And no, I don't buy the argument that the plane is going to fly anyway, and a few business class seats don't make any difference.
PS: this post may sound preachy, and I suppose in part I even intend it that way. I keep noticing that there's little discussion among friends about actual trade offs or sacrifices we're making in the face of global warming. I think it's time that we start talking about and gently start generating some peer pressure to be more thoughtful and occasionally make other decisions. Buying a hybrid is not giving up a piece of your lifestyle. There are tougher choices to be made. I think it would help if we had a sense that others around us (our peers) were taking these choices seriously.
I need "Car Talk" for houses. A radio show where you can call in to describe the sound your house is making and have experts tell you what's going on.
Months ago, I noticed an odd, continuous wooshing noise in the basement. It seemed to come from behind the cabinet of shelves mounted above the washer. But behind those shelves is nothing. I puzzled over this for a while, got SJ to listen to it, and periodically would notice it and scratch my head.
Since we've come back from NZ, the noise is now audible in the living room, coming from the exact same area. It's gotten louder.
I scratched my head some more, and stared at the cabinet a bunch.
Eventually I noticed that the shelves themselves seemed to be making the noise. Sure enough, when I touched them, they were vibrating a bit, like a sound board. Resonating with what? With, it turns out, the water pipes. The copper water piping for the washer runs along & is attached to said cabinet. The pipes are carrying a fair bit of vibration.
Meanwhile, we can hear the noise in the bathroom too; I think the water pipes in the stack (i.e. in one of the bathroom walls) are using the walls as their sound board.
It sounds like... well... it sounds like a damped rumbling noise. It sounds like the dryer is running downstairs. A bit like water flowing through a pipe, or traffic in a tunnel. It sounds like an airplane passing overhead. It seems periodic, like a running engine of some kind.
There's not much in the house that could be generating the vibration. The fridge? The boiler? The heating? 24/7? Nope.
I think the resonance is coming in on the main water supply pipe. But what the heck is generating it? And how do I figure it out? And really, would all that ground it passes through not dampen it?
Months ago, I noticed an odd, continuous wooshing noise in the basement. It seemed to come from behind the cabinet of shelves mounted above the washer. But behind those shelves is nothing. I puzzled over this for a while, got SJ to listen to it, and periodically would notice it and scratch my head.
Since we've come back from NZ, the noise is now audible in the living room, coming from the exact same area. It's gotten louder.
I scratched my head some more, and stared at the cabinet a bunch.
Eventually I noticed that the shelves themselves seemed to be making the noise. Sure enough, when I touched them, they were vibrating a bit, like a sound board. Resonating with what? With, it turns out, the water pipes. The copper water piping for the washer runs along & is attached to said cabinet. The pipes are carrying a fair bit of vibration.
Meanwhile, we can hear the noise in the bathroom too; I think the water pipes in the stack (i.e. in one of the bathroom walls) are using the walls as their sound board.
It sounds like... well... it sounds like a damped rumbling noise. It sounds like the dryer is running downstairs. A bit like water flowing through a pipe, or traffic in a tunnel. It sounds like an airplane passing overhead. It seems periodic, like a running engine of some kind.
There's not much in the house that could be generating the vibration. The fridge? The boiler? The heating? 24/7? Nope.
I think the resonance is coming in on the main water supply pipe. But what the heck is generating it? And how do I figure it out? And really, would all that ground it passes through not dampen it?
SJ and I spent a long weekend between Christmas and New Year's Eve in Mazama, the far corner of the Methow valley.
Mazama is on Highway 20, the North Cascades Highway, but in the winter you can't get there the short way: the pass is closed. So you experience the one negative aspect of going to Mazama up front: the 5+ hour drive, long enough that you could be going to Whistler instead. We got lucky with the weather and road conditions, and had a smooth trip over Snoqualmie Pass, then north on Hwy 97 to Wenatchee, on to Chelan, and then into the Methow Valley. (Side note: drove more miles on snow with the studless snow tires than ever before and am very pleased. (Blizzaks))
That long drive is the only negative of the trip I can report, really. We loved it. We stayed at the Mazama Country Inn, a 20-room casual lodge where the room rate includes breakfast and dinner served family-style at tables of 8, and guests hang out reading books by the fireplace in the living room. You get to know the other guests, many of whom have been coming back each year. Some for 20 years. (Apparently we were lucky to get last minute reservations.)
Mazama itself doesn't really amount to much as a town; it's said to have 100 residents, but all you find is the country store-coffee shop-gas station, the ski school/rental, a real estate office, the Inn, and some cabins. They've resisted development in the valley, and it shows in the undeveloped rural feel and wide open vistas. It's really beautiful out there.
The groomed cross country ski trails are right there at your doorstep, with the valley trail the backbone of a 150 km trail system that's groomed for both classic cross country skiing (which is apparently *completely* out of vogue) and skate skiing (which is the big thing now and has you going three times as fast--if you can manage the heart rate). Since we're fuddy duddies, we stuck with the classic style, took a lesson to start, and then spent the next three days practicing what we learned and improving our technique a bunch each day. By the third day I was getting a fair bit of 'glide' and not using my arms to propel myself, though also not getting the momentum that makes cycling such an efficient way to move. XC skiing seems more like low-intensity running. It uses muscles that I apparently have no other use for--I had wickedly sore hip flexors.
The trails mostly wind through snowy forests--winter wonderland, serene, very pretty. Sure, it's cold much of the time (20ish F). You don't feel it when you're moving, and besides, that's what keeps the snow really nice. After you're done skiing, there's not much to do other than showering, socializing, reading a book, and sitting by the fire place. It's great.
A+, would go again.
Mazama is on Highway 20, the North Cascades Highway, but in the winter you can't get there the short way: the pass is closed. So you experience the one negative aspect of going to Mazama up front: the 5+ hour drive, long enough that you could be going to Whistler instead. We got lucky with the weather and road conditions, and had a smooth trip over Snoqualmie Pass, then north on Hwy 97 to Wenatchee, on to Chelan, and then into the Methow Valley. (Side note: drove more miles on snow with the studless snow tires than ever before and am very pleased. (Blizzaks))
That long drive is the only negative of the trip I can report, really. We loved it. We stayed at the Mazama Country Inn, a 20-room casual lodge where the room rate includes breakfast and dinner served family-style at tables of 8, and guests hang out reading books by the fireplace in the living room. You get to know the other guests, many of whom have been coming back each year. Some for 20 years. (Apparently we were lucky to get last minute reservations.)
Mazama itself doesn't really amount to much as a town; it's said to have 100 residents, but all you find is the country store-coffee shop-gas station, the ski school/rental, a real estate office, the Inn, and some cabins. They've resisted development in the valley, and it shows in the undeveloped rural feel and wide open vistas. It's really beautiful out there.
The groomed cross country ski trails are right there at your doorstep, with the valley trail the backbone of a 150 km trail system that's groomed for both classic cross country skiing (which is apparently *completely* out of vogue) and skate skiing (which is the big thing now and has you going three times as fast--if you can manage the heart rate). Since we're fuddy duddies, we stuck with the classic style, took a lesson to start, and then spent the next three days practicing what we learned and improving our technique a bunch each day. By the third day I was getting a fair bit of 'glide' and not using my arms to propel myself, though also not getting the momentum that makes cycling such an efficient way to move. XC skiing seems more like low-intensity running. It uses muscles that I apparently have no other use for--I had wickedly sore hip flexors.
The trails mostly wind through snowy forests--winter wonderland, serene, very pretty. Sure, it's cold much of the time (20ish F). You don't feel it when you're moving, and besides, that's what keeps the snow really nice. After you're done skiing, there's not much to do other than showering, socializing, reading a book, and sitting by the fire place. It's great.
A+, would go again.
I thought some of these tips for non-obvious uses of a digital camera were clever. (Among them the relatively well-known strategy of taking a picture of where you parked.)
If you thought my post about the ethics of ad blockers for web browsers was interesting at all, please check out this comment in which I re-summarize my thoughts on the topic after some discussion in the comments.
I think once the discussion in comments dies down I'll want to figure out my resulting thoughts, so you can also be lazy and wait for that follow up post.
I think once the discussion in comments dies down I'll want to figure out my resulting thoughts, so you can also be lazy and wait for that follow up post.
Laptops have power savings modes to be used when the computer is operating on the battery; generally the conservation strategy is to turn part of the machine off when they're ot getting much use: spin down the hard drive, lower the performance of the processor, first dim and then darken the display.
On the Mac, different modes are labeled as "Better battery life", "Normal", and "Better performance".
What I want is a mode that says "I'm reading stuff": sometimes I need the machine to hardly do anything, often nothing at all for a minute a a time, and it'll seem like I'm not using it, but in reality I'm very busy *reading* what's on the screen. I don't want the Mac to conclude it should dim the display.
Luckily, there's a Custom setting for the power saving mode. Ive set it up to not dim the display before display blanking, and to not blank the display until a longer idle time has gone by. It's my "I'm reading stuff" mode.
On the Mac, different modes are labeled as "Better battery life", "Normal", and "Better performance".
What I want is a mode that says "I'm reading stuff": sometimes I need the machine to hardly do anything, often nothing at all for a minute a a time, and it'll seem like I'm not using it, but in reality I'm very busy *reading* what's on the screen. I don't want the Mac to conclude it should dim the display.
Luckily, there's a Custom setting for the power saving mode. Ive set it up to not dim the display before display blanking, and to not blank the display until a longer idle time has gone by. It's my "I'm reading stuff" mode.
OK, so the auto bailout didn't make it through a vote to end debate, so it never got a vote on the actual bill. Not meaning to discuss the merits of the bailout here, just noticing a few things about the vote to end debate:
First of all, why did the Democrats move for cloture right away? Why didn't they force the Republicans to actually filibuster for 24 hours?
Second, among those not voting were Biden and Kerry. WTF? Oh, I think I read Kerry had an international trip planned. Was that really important enough?
Third, Harry Reid is reported as voting "No" on the motion to bring the bill to a vote. Say what? The Democratic majority leader didn't vote to support the bill he negotiated? I'm baffled.
First of all, why did the Democrats move for cloture right away? Why didn't they force the Republicans to actually filibuster for 24 hours?
Second, among those not voting were Biden and Kerry. WTF? Oh, I think I read Kerry had an international trip planned. Was that really important enough?
Third, Harry Reid is reported as voting "No" on the motion to bring the bill to a vote. Say what? The Democratic majority leader didn't vote to support the bill he negotiated? I'm baffled.
I've been browsing the web with an ad blocker installed for a while. (In fact, one reason I stick with Firefox as my default browser is that AdBlock+ is easy to install and works really well. When I play with Safari or Chrome, I'm quickly appalled at the many annoying ads.)
Lately I've noticed that sites are taking steps to combat the ad blockers. One approach is to make the ads look like regular content. Instead of coming from adcompany.com/ads/bigcorpad.jpg, an address that's easy to filter out, they'll now have URLs similar to real content on the site.
Another approach is to detect the ad blocker and display a banner saying "ads keep us alive, please disable your ad blocker". Some even withhold their actual content until you do so.
This feels a bit like the start of an arms race, where each side will update its tactics to combat the other's latest move. Exactly like the fight against spam.
There is an important difference with spam: spam isn't paying for content I want to see. There's no excuse at all for spam, and I have absolutely no sympathy for spammers. But the banners calling out my use of an ad blocker have made me think again about my desire to see the content without "earning" it by providing my eyeballs.
Many websites are largely supported by advertising. I'm willing to tolerate some amount of advertising, but I find animated ads unacceptably annoying. If I'm on your site to read your articles, and you've got moving doo-dads that distract me once I've started reading, that doesn't work for me.
Generally speaking, I support the right of a producer of goods or services to set the terms at which they want to sell their product. Of course I'd prefer it if there were some room to negotiate or to send signals more nuanced than walking away altogether.
So I'd be happier if the sites provided an alternative. DailyKos notices the ad blocker and asks you to subscribe, but I don't go there much. I would pay NYTimes.com $10/year for ad-free access to their site (but not $15/month for the Reader edition); I wonder what my eyeballs are worth to them.
I'd also be interested in a more subtle ad-blocker, one that would let me say "I'm willing to see ads as long as they're not animating". Maybe instead of using the broad filter that comes with AdBlock, I should reset it and start blocking only content I find truly annoying.
Is it fair to keep running an ad blocker to send the signal "hey, I'm interested in your content, but those ads are just too much, try something subtler"? Or am I just rationalizing?
Lately I've noticed that sites are taking steps to combat the ad blockers. One approach is to make the ads look like regular content. Instead of coming from adcompany.com/ads/bigcorpad.jpg, an address that's easy to filter out, they'll now have URLs similar to real content on the site.
Another approach is to detect the ad blocker and display a banner saying "ads keep us alive, please disable your ad blocker". Some even withhold their actual content until you do so.
This feels a bit like the start of an arms race, where each side will update its tactics to combat the other's latest move. Exactly like the fight against spam.
There is an important difference with spam: spam isn't paying for content I want to see. There's no excuse at all for spam, and I have absolutely no sympathy for spammers. But the banners calling out my use of an ad blocker have made me think again about my desire to see the content without "earning" it by providing my eyeballs.
Many websites are largely supported by advertising. I'm willing to tolerate some amount of advertising, but I find animated ads unacceptably annoying. If I'm on your site to read your articles, and you've got moving doo-dads that distract me once I've started reading, that doesn't work for me.
Generally speaking, I support the right of a producer of goods or services to set the terms at which they want to sell their product. Of course I'd prefer it if there were some room to negotiate or to send signals more nuanced than walking away altogether.
So I'd be happier if the sites provided an alternative. DailyKos notices the ad blocker and asks you to subscribe, but I don't go there much. I would pay NYTimes.com $10/year for ad-free access to their site (but not $15/month for the Reader edition); I wonder what my eyeballs are worth to them.
I'd also be interested in a more subtle ad-blocker, one that would let me say "I'm willing to see ads as long as they're not animating". Maybe instead of using the broad filter that comes with AdBlock, I should reset it and start blocking only content I find truly annoying.
Is it fair to keep running an ad blocker to send the signal "hey, I'm interested in your content, but those ads are just too much, try something subtler"? Or am I just rationalizing?
When I go for a road ride, I tend to pick one of the same few routes over and over again: out to Seward Park and back; out to Mercer Island and around; around the lake, etc. I've been trying to think of a way to break out of the repetition and give myself an incentive to ride more and see more of the city by setting some kooky target.
When I first thought of this, I think it was in response to hearing about a retired Boeing engineer who was working on something like taking a picture of every street block in the city, so my first idea was to work on riding every single block in the city. That makes for an interesting planning problem, but it seems pretty tedious to execute.
So far, the best idea I've come up with is to visit each of the official Seattle parks. There are dozens of them (about 400 according to that page), making for a non-trivial target that will take a few rides to cover. They're spread all over the city, making for exposure to a lot of neighborhoods. There's a handy printed map.
Stay tuned for park visit updates... assuming we get more nice days
When I first thought of this, I think it was in response to hearing about a retired Boeing engineer who was working on something like taking a picture of every street block in the city, so my first idea was to work on riding every single block in the city. That makes for an interesting planning problem, but it seems pretty tedious to execute.
So far, the best idea I've come up with is to visit each of the official Seattle parks. There are dozens of them (about 400 according to that page), making for a non-trivial target that will take a few rides to cover. They're spread all over the city, making for exposure to a lot of neighborhoods. There's a handy printed map.
Stay tuned for park visit updates... assuming we get more nice days
I want my browser windows to always be created the same size, a bit taller than wide, like a portrait-orientation page.
Firefox tries to remember the last window size, and in practice almost never gives me what I want.
I just realized I could switch my start page from about:blank to:
Firefox tries to remember the last window size, and in practice almost never gives me what I want.
I just realized I could switch my start page from about:blank to:
javascript:window.resizeTo(850,950);and get a blank window in a predictable size.
If you read the subject of this post and thought it was about moving a household from one residence to another, think again. This is about moving houses: picking up the whole structure, and plopping it down somewhere else. Homes that need a new home.
If you live in Seattle, you've probably heard of this before: the house gets jacked up, moved onto an enormous truck, and, very slowly, moved to a new lot. There was some publicity about the Eastlake house around the corner from Le Fournil that was put on a barge and move to some island. (Updated: link.)
This kind of scheme happens when someone decides that a parcel with an existing house can be more valuable if it is redeveloped; it might be rich folks buying a waterfront lot with a home that does not fit their dream (see link below), or it might be a lot that's zoned for a bigger structure like a set of condos. At that point, the existing structure is effectively worth zero dollars, as it's about to get knocked down, and it may be economical to pour a fair bit of money into the herculean task of moving the house.
Friends told me last night that they love to go to the website for local company Nickel Brothers to see what houses are for sale. For sale for relocation, that is. For sale and looking for a new lot.
For a mere $155,000, you can buy a vintage 5 bedroom home! Admittedly it's been neglected for a few decades *and* needs a new place to sit, but the ordeal of actually moving the house is included in the bargain. That's assuming that you find a new lot within a 10 block radius of its current spot. Apparently it's not just the jacking-up and moving that's expensive--dealing with utility cables strung across the street that get in the house's way add cost for every block you go. So it's cost effective if you're near the shore: put the house on a barge, and away you go. Hence a 3,300 sq ft mansion got moved from Hunts Point (near Kirkland) to Vancouver Island, few hundred miles away, but the house near Providence Hospital may be doomed.
Nickel Bros' have a page with some of their most interesting moves.
If you live in Seattle, you've probably heard of this before: the house gets jacked up, moved onto an enormous truck, and, very slowly, moved to a new lot. There was some publicity about the Eastlake house around the corner from Le Fournil that was put on a barge and move to some island. (Updated: link.)
This kind of scheme happens when someone decides that a parcel with an existing house can be more valuable if it is redeveloped; it might be rich folks buying a waterfront lot with a home that does not fit their dream (see link below), or it might be a lot that's zoned for a bigger structure like a set of condos. At that point, the existing structure is effectively worth zero dollars, as it's about to get knocked down, and it may be economical to pour a fair bit of money into the herculean task of moving the house.
Friends told me last night that they love to go to the website for local company Nickel Brothers to see what houses are for sale. For sale for relocation, that is. For sale and looking for a new lot.
For a mere $155,000, you can buy a vintage 5 bedroom home! Admittedly it's been neglected for a few decades *and* needs a new place to sit, but the ordeal of actually moving the house is included in the bargain. That's assuming that you find a new lot within a 10 block radius of its current spot. Apparently it's not just the jacking-up and moving that's expensive--dealing with utility cables strung across the street that get in the house's way add cost for every block you go. So it's cost effective if you're near the shore: put the house on a barge, and away you go. Hence a 3,300 sq ft mansion got moved from Hunts Point (near Kirkland) to Vancouver Island, few hundred miles away, but the house near Providence Hospital may be doomed.
Nickel Bros' have a page with some of their most interesting moves.
Since January of this year, we have seen an 81% increase in demand in our program alone.
--Emergency Feeding Program of Seattle and King County, in their Fall 2008 newsletter.
The same message comes through in this King 5 story: demand is up, shelves at food banks are emptying. It's not surprising that things are stressed: the economy is lousy, and earlier this year, the largest food bank in King County closed its doors.
It's almost Thanksgiving; food distribution programs like food banks will likely have more demand this year than in any recent year. We're making some donations tonight to support their efforts, please consider doing the same. Here are some organizations working in this area in Seattle:
# Northwest Harvest
(Big supplier to food banks)
# Union Gospel Mission
(One of the biggest host of holiday meals for the needy; operating/fundraising expenses are higher than I'd like them to be, but they're a high profile provider.)
# Emergency Feeding Program
(I just looked at their 2006 tax filing; their finances look reasonable; they're mostly supported by private donations.)
# Food Lifeline
(If you have concrete information on these organizations, their functioning, finances, or needs, please leave a comment.)
It's worth reading Mark Bittman's column on the state of fish production. Industrially farmed fish is often fed fish meal, needing several pounds of feed to raise one pound of people-food, something that's awefully reminiscent of the many pounds of corn/soy/etc needed to raise one pound of beef in a feed lot. The fish meal feed is made from less desirable wild caught fish, and putting those populations under pressure now, too.
We hear repeated claims that GM's workers enjoy salaries that are rather high, substantially higher than people working for foreign manufacturers in U.S. plants. Mitt Romney refers to this in his NYTimes op-ed; I think somewhere else I saw a claim that salaries for comparable positions are on average 20% higher for the Big 3 than for Toyota.
Many of the non-Big 3 auto factories were established relatively recently, in whatever region of the country offered the best tax breaks and the lowest prevailing wages for decently educated workers. Many of these plants are in South Carolina, Kentucky, etc. Is it possible that the cost of living is substantially lower in these areas than it is in Michigan?
I realize there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg aspect to this question: if the cost of living in Michigan is high, it may be in part because of the higher salaries. But even if that's true, it would not be reasonable to propose cutting the wages without regard to cost of living.
One data point: I looked at the "Average (annual) total household expenditure" figures in the Moving.com calculator. Michigan: $51,700; Kentucky: $44,600, South Carolina: $45,400. Hmmm.
Many of the non-Big 3 auto factories were established relatively recently, in whatever region of the country offered the best tax breaks and the lowest prevailing wages for decently educated workers. Many of these plants are in South Carolina, Kentucky, etc. Is it possible that the cost of living is substantially lower in these areas than it is in Michigan?
I realize there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg aspect to this question: if the cost of living in Michigan is high, it may be in part because of the higher salaries. But even if that's true, it would not be reasonable to propose cutting the wages without regard to cost of living.
One data point: I looked at the "Average (annual) total household expenditure" figures in the Moving.com calculator. Michigan: $51,700; Kentucky: $44,600, South Carolina: $45,400. Hmmm.
Did you know that the Bill of Rights originally had 12 amendments in it? Two were not passed initially; one of them was ratified 200 years later and became the 27th Amendment; the other, Article the First as it originally was the first one proposed, is technically still pending. It stipulates the size of Congressional districts, to start at 30,000 and top out at 50,000 persons per representative.
If it had been passed (and never superseded), that would have given us a current House of Representatives with 6,000 members. Instead, with the House limited to 435 members, each district now represents almost 690,000 people.
There are people out there who feel that "435 can not faithfully represent 300,000,000 Americans". They reside at thirty-thousand.org and have a nice FAQ for you with questions like "Do we need more politicians?", "Wouldn't more Representatives mean a bigger government?", and "How would that many Representatives get anything done?" The answer to the latter bounces from saying that maybe fewer bills passed would be preferable, to noting that they get little done anyway.
6,000. The mind reels.
If it had been passed (and never superseded), that would have given us a current House of Representatives with 6,000 members. Instead, with the House limited to 435 members, each district now represents almost 690,000 people.
There are people out there who feel that "435 can not faithfully represent 300,000,000 Americans". They reside at thirty-thousand.org and have a nice FAQ for you with questions like "Do we need more politicians?", "Wouldn't more Representatives mean a bigger government?", and "How would that many Representatives get anything done?" The answer to the latter bounces from saying that maybe fewer bills passed would be preferable, to noting that they get little done anyway.
6,000. The mind reels.
So why is it that states are not allowed to secede from the Union?
I'm reading Team of Rivals about Lincoln's candidacy and Presidency. When he took office, seven states had already seceded, so Lincoln tried to calm the situation in his inaugural address by stating that he did not believe the Union could be broken, and that his Administration recognized slavery where it existed.
Lincoln:
I wasn't initially persuaded by the argument of obvious perpetuity. This is not a nation divided into provinces; it is a union of states [1]. It is a union of entities, and thus, logically, there is the potential for the union to be dissolved.
The answer, as Lincoln indicated but I missed, is in the Articles of Confederation, which were explicitly titled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union", and in Article 13 stipulates that "the Union shall be perpetual".
That same Article XIII states that the power to amend the Articles of Confederation is reserved to the Congress; this suggests that just as Congress has admitted new states to the Union, it could vote to allow states to depart.
That raises a different question: is there a reasonable argument that Lincoln and the Congress should have let the slavery states go their own way? What was the basis for denying them their secession?
The call on that question wasn't about slavery, or abolition thereof. Lincoln was initially willing to let the South retain slavery where it already existed; he didn't go to war to force abolition. However, he had pledged to uphold the Constitution and rule of law, and to defend federal property everywhere. Given that Congress wasn't going to ratify the secession, Lincoln responded to the attack on federally held Fort Sumter.
But back up a minute: the South seceded over threats to slavery. The North had just elected Lincoln, who was willing to let slavery continue where it already existed [2], suggesting that a majority of Northern voters did not see abolition as immediately imperative. The issue was known to be deeply divisive and problematic for the Union--it had been in the foreground of national politics continually for over a decade [3]. What am I trying to say? That perhaps the North should have let the South go? At most, I might say that the decision to fight doesn't appear as obvious to me as it seems to have been to Lincoln.
Every contentious dispute can't lead to secession. So if there were to be a secession clause in the Constitution, what should be the threshold? If both sides are willing to go to war to defend their position, would that qualify?
[1] Oddly, states have been allowed to split, in a sense letting blocks of counties secede, as when West Virginia seceded from Virginia under fairly iffy circumstances.
[2] Lincoln wasn't pro-slavery, but he also didn't walk into this with the ambition to become the Great Emancipator. He strongly believed in States' Rights and saw no provision in the Constitution to warrant interference. He opposed the spread of slavery in newly formed states.
[3] Certainly since the mid-1840s, and arguably back to the Compromise of 1820, though I get the impression there was a lull in between the two.
I'm reading Team of Rivals about Lincoln's candidacy and Presidency. When he took office, seven states had already seceded, so Lincoln tried to calm the situation in his inaugural address by stating that he did not believe the Union could be broken, and that his Administration recognized slavery where it existed.
Lincoln:
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
I wasn't initially persuaded by the argument of obvious perpetuity. This is not a nation divided into provinces; it is a union of states [1]. It is a union of entities, and thus, logically, there is the potential for the union to be dissolved.
The answer, as Lincoln indicated but I missed, is in the Articles of Confederation, which were explicitly titled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union", and in Article 13 stipulates that "the Union shall be perpetual".
That same Article XIII states that the power to amend the Articles of Confederation is reserved to the Congress; this suggests that just as Congress has admitted new states to the Union, it could vote to allow states to depart.
That raises a different question: is there a reasonable argument that Lincoln and the Congress should have let the slavery states go their own way? What was the basis for denying them their secession?
The call on that question wasn't about slavery, or abolition thereof. Lincoln was initially willing to let the South retain slavery where it already existed; he didn't go to war to force abolition. However, he had pledged to uphold the Constitution and rule of law, and to defend federal property everywhere. Given that Congress wasn't going to ratify the secession, Lincoln responded to the attack on federally held Fort Sumter.
But back up a minute: the South seceded over threats to slavery. The North had just elected Lincoln, who was willing to let slavery continue where it already existed [2], suggesting that a majority of Northern voters did not see abolition as immediately imperative. The issue was known to be deeply divisive and problematic for the Union--it had been in the foreground of national politics continually for over a decade [3]. What am I trying to say? That perhaps the North should have let the South go? At most, I might say that the decision to fight doesn't appear as obvious to me as it seems to have been to Lincoln.
Every contentious dispute can't lead to secession. So if there were to be a secession clause in the Constitution, what should be the threshold? If both sides are willing to go to war to defend their position, would that qualify?
[1] Oddly, states have been allowed to split, in a sense letting blocks of counties secede, as when West Virginia seceded from Virginia under fairly iffy circumstances.
[2] Lincoln wasn't pro-slavery, but he also didn't walk into this with the ambition to become the Great Emancipator. He strongly believed in States' Rights and saw no provision in the Constitution to warrant interference. He opposed the spread of slavery in newly formed states.
[3] Certainly since the mid-1840s, and arguably back to the Compromise of 1820, though I get the impression there was a lull in between the two.
