Sunday, June 28, 2009
Weather
The weather is the news here, again. In this case, the news is good news: it's going to be "cool" here for the next few days. Cool, in this case, means about 90 degrees, which feels wonderful when compared to the near-100 temperatures that we saw last week. Aside from just having enjoyable weather, the best part of this cooler weather is that I can finally get my house painted! It's hard to get much done when you have to stop at noon because it's too hot. So, here's to a couple days of hard work to getting my house looking like new!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
More Random Thoughts
A couple more random comments on news items.
1. The benefits (at least for teachers) of a union can be seen in this story from the AP and reprinted on Fox News. To summarize, hundreds of New York City teachers who are under suspension for one reason or another (each teacher has his own story, and all claim to be innocent, of course) are required to report to a "rubber room," where they have basically nothing to do. Some teachers are there for years. They still get full pay, however, because the union rules require them to be paid even while they are suspend. Moreover, the rules require that these suspended teachers continue working at tasks that do not directly involve teaching. The estimated yearly cost for this situation is $65 million. (Comment: We spend $65 million for basically nothing, and we wonder why our average per-pupil expenditure is so high!) Of course, a big part of the problem is that every tenured teacher (who are the ones who get reassigned to this "rubber room") has the right (again, thanks to the union contract) to have a disciplinary hearing with an arbiter. There are 23 arbiters in New York City. They work 5 days a month. (Comment: What?! So, we have teachers who, legitimately or not, are trapped in a sort of limbo and can't get out because the arbiters who are supposed to adjudicate their cases are only available 1 day a week? What sort of nonsense is this? Oh, wait, a union's involved. Never mind. I'm not shocked anymore. I have to wonder if unions have perhaps outlived their usefulness...)
2. The scary (and foolish) cap-and-trade legislation is headed to the floor of the House. This poorly-conceived, scientifically-flawed legislation is exactly what we don't need in this struggling economy. According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the average annual cost of this legislation per household is $175. Big deal, most of you probably are saying. But consider those who are not rich, such as myself. I'm a teacher, and unlike my counterparts in New York, I don't make huge amounts of money. The only way I'm going to get an extra $175 a year out of my budget is to cut about $15 a month out of my budget, meaning that I am going to have live on the bare-bones necessities if this legislation passes. And to make matters worse, this bill, which purportedly will help combat global warming, will do nothing of the sort, since global warming is a naturally-occurring phenomenon that we have absolutely no control over. So, we're going to spend a ton of money to enact a program that won't solve anything. All it will do is bankrupt more Americans who are already struggling in this faltering economy. I hope that this legislation fails miserably. This is the sort of "change" I feared would happen if the Democrats got control of both Congress and the White House. Get used to bad ideas coming out of Washington for a while. Socialized medicine is next. Get ready to wait in line. :-(
1. The benefits (at least for teachers) of a union can be seen in this story from the AP and reprinted on Fox News. To summarize, hundreds of New York City teachers who are under suspension for one reason or another (each teacher has his own story, and all claim to be innocent, of course) are required to report to a "rubber room," where they have basically nothing to do. Some teachers are there for years. They still get full pay, however, because the union rules require them to be paid even while they are suspend. Moreover, the rules require that these suspended teachers continue working at tasks that do not directly involve teaching. The estimated yearly cost for this situation is $65 million. (Comment: We spend $65 million for basically nothing, and we wonder why our average per-pupil expenditure is so high!) Of course, a big part of the problem is that every tenured teacher (who are the ones who get reassigned to this "rubber room") has the right (again, thanks to the union contract) to have a disciplinary hearing with an arbiter. There are 23 arbiters in New York City. They work 5 days a month. (Comment: What?! So, we have teachers who, legitimately or not, are trapped in a sort of limbo and can't get out because the arbiters who are supposed to adjudicate their cases are only available 1 day a week? What sort of nonsense is this? Oh, wait, a union's involved. Never mind. I'm not shocked anymore. I have to wonder if unions have perhaps outlived their usefulness...)
2. The scary (and foolish) cap-and-trade legislation is headed to the floor of the House. This poorly-conceived, scientifically-flawed legislation is exactly what we don't need in this struggling economy. According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the average annual cost of this legislation per household is $175. Big deal, most of you probably are saying. But consider those who are not rich, such as myself. I'm a teacher, and unlike my counterparts in New York, I don't make huge amounts of money. The only way I'm going to get an extra $175 a year out of my budget is to cut about $15 a month out of my budget, meaning that I am going to have live on the bare-bones necessities if this legislation passes. And to make matters worse, this bill, which purportedly will help combat global warming, will do nothing of the sort, since global warming is a naturally-occurring phenomenon that we have absolutely no control over. So, we're going to spend a ton of money to enact a program that won't solve anything. All it will do is bankrupt more Americans who are already struggling in this faltering economy. I hope that this legislation fails miserably. This is the sort of "change" I feared would happen if the Democrats got control of both Congress and the White House. Get used to bad ideas coming out of Washington for a while. Socialized medicine is next. Get ready to wait in line. :-(
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Random Thoughts on Random Topics
Father's Day
Happy Father's Day to my Dad. In a society where fathers are becoming more and more absent, I'm realizing what a great blessing from God my Dad was to me and my siblings. I would not be half the man I am without him in my life.
Iran
On the one hand, I understand why everyone in the West is upset with the Iranian government for how they're handling the recent election and the post-election protests. It is not right to have a vote and to say that people are electing the next president (sort of a #2 leader in the country) and then rig the vote to ensure that one man is guaranteed to win. The handling of the protests also is quite wrong. Opening fire on peaceful protesters and generally trying to stifle the voice of the opposition is wrong on every level.
On the other hand, I'm also not surprised at what is happening. It is quite in keeping with the nature of dictatorships, such as the one in Iran, that elections are rigged or manipulated as needed to establish who the powers-that-be want as legitimate. Protests are, of course, squashed as quietly as possible. And when quite calming doesn't work, there's always the aggressive tactics that we're starting to see. China has used such an approach for years, and we're seeing something similar in this situation.
These protests, I fear, are going to do very little, unless the military refuses to obey the Ayatollah's orders and organizes a coup to throw him out. That is not likely to happen.
I'm disappointed in the response of our President to this whole situation. He seems to be convinced that he can negotiate with Iran and have good relations with them. They have clearly indicated the opposite, and even if they started being nice to us, I fear that it would only be a part of some elaborate deception on their part. They do not trust the United States and have not ever since they deposed the American-backed Shah in the 1970s. No amount of playing nice now is going to change how they see us. We are seen as an evil country, and that is not going to change as long as Iran remains a theocracy.
Health Care
I am scared at what I'm hearing about the health plan being proposed by the Democrats in Congress. To force every American to carry health insurance is not going to do anything to address the real problem in the health care industry: spiraling costs. These spiraling costs result from many factors, one of them being the addiction of American medicine to technology for diagnoses and another being the fear of malpractice suits if every avenue isn't exhausted. Congress can't do much about our technology-obsessed society, but they can do something about the malpractice suits. There needs to reform in how medical malpractice suits are handled. I don't have any specifics because I am not knowledgeable enough in law or medicine to know what to suggest, but I do know that there are some proposals that could work. I would far rather have that than be trapped into a government-run health care program, which will be the eventual outcome of a program such as the Democrats propose.
Weather
Central Kansas had some brief tornado touchdowns yesterday, a brief burst of late-season tornadoes. Tornado season is nearly over for Kansas for the Spring. As the summer progresses (it technically began today), the middle atmosphere is going to become too warm to allow for thunderstorm development on a regular basis, hindering the development of tornadoes.
That's All, Folks!
I have no more random thoughts to write right now. So there!
Happy Father's Day to my Dad. In a society where fathers are becoming more and more absent, I'm realizing what a great blessing from God my Dad was to me and my siblings. I would not be half the man I am without him in my life.
Iran
On the one hand, I understand why everyone in the West is upset with the Iranian government for how they're handling the recent election and the post-election protests. It is not right to have a vote and to say that people are electing the next president (sort of a #2 leader in the country) and then rig the vote to ensure that one man is guaranteed to win. The handling of the protests also is quite wrong. Opening fire on peaceful protesters and generally trying to stifle the voice of the opposition is wrong on every level.
On the other hand, I'm also not surprised at what is happening. It is quite in keeping with the nature of dictatorships, such as the one in Iran, that elections are rigged or manipulated as needed to establish who the powers-that-be want as legitimate. Protests are, of course, squashed as quietly as possible. And when quite calming doesn't work, there's always the aggressive tactics that we're starting to see. China has used such an approach for years, and we're seeing something similar in this situation.
These protests, I fear, are going to do very little, unless the military refuses to obey the Ayatollah's orders and organizes a coup to throw him out. That is not likely to happen.
I'm disappointed in the response of our President to this whole situation. He seems to be convinced that he can negotiate with Iran and have good relations with them. They have clearly indicated the opposite, and even if they started being nice to us, I fear that it would only be a part of some elaborate deception on their part. They do not trust the United States and have not ever since they deposed the American-backed Shah in the 1970s. No amount of playing nice now is going to change how they see us. We are seen as an evil country, and that is not going to change as long as Iran remains a theocracy.
Health Care
I am scared at what I'm hearing about the health plan being proposed by the Democrats in Congress. To force every American to carry health insurance is not going to do anything to address the real problem in the health care industry: spiraling costs. These spiraling costs result from many factors, one of them being the addiction of American medicine to technology for diagnoses and another being the fear of malpractice suits if every avenue isn't exhausted. Congress can't do much about our technology-obsessed society, but they can do something about the malpractice suits. There needs to reform in how medical malpractice suits are handled. I don't have any specifics because I am not knowledgeable enough in law or medicine to know what to suggest, but I do know that there are some proposals that could work. I would far rather have that than be trapped into a government-run health care program, which will be the eventual outcome of a program such as the Democrats propose.
Weather
Central Kansas had some brief tornado touchdowns yesterday, a brief burst of late-season tornadoes. Tornado season is nearly over for Kansas for the Spring. As the summer progresses (it technically began today), the middle atmosphere is going to become too warm to allow for thunderstorm development on a regular basis, hindering the development of tornadoes.
That's All, Folks!
I have no more random thoughts to write right now. So there!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Quiet Week So Far
Things have been relatively quiet in Topeka, lately. No more proposals for roundabouts in places that they probably shouldn't be, no fights breaking out between city council members, and no major weather events in the city itself, other than some rain. It's nice for things to be quiet once in a while. Usually, there's some sort of crisis happening. So, I'm going to enjoy the quiet and get to work painting the outside of the house.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Media Bias or Non-story?
I ran across an interesting story from my old hometown today. You can read an article discussing the story here. To summarize, a conservative political science teacher in Lawrence, KS, has not had his contract renewed for next year. He is protesting the decision, claiming that it was political bias that cost him the job, not poor teaching.
I don't have enough information about the situation to know whether that is the case, of course. There could be many factors at work here, none of them political. It would not totally surprise me if someone was fired for his political views, though. Having grown up in Lawrence, I can tell you that it is the most politically-liberal city in Kansas. Conservative ideas are not looked on as being good, but the people who hold conservative political views are still treated with respect on those rare occasions that they dare speak their mind. The seeds are there, then, for a teacher to be fired for his political views, but it seems unlikely at the same time.
The whole story of this situation doubtless will come out in time, but the part that fascinates me about the whole story is the complete lack of coverage from any local news source. (You'll notice that I ran across this on FoxNews...and lest you accuse me of reading biased news, I'll point out that I also read the equally-biased CNN to get a bit of a counterpoint.) The Lawrence Journal-World, the paper that should be covering this story, has nothing about it. The Topeka Capital-Journal, usually quick to pick up on discrimination stories, has nothing on it. Now, noticing the nature of the story and the lack of coverage, I have to wonder would have happened if a political liberal had been non-renewed and made the same claims. Would the LJW and CJ have picked up the story and trumpted it from the front page? Or would they also have left it be, considering it a non-story? I don't know. And I refuse to speculate. But it is something that the journalists at both papers need to ask themselves if they truly want to stay balanced in their approach to the news.
I don't have enough information about the situation to know whether that is the case, of course. There could be many factors at work here, none of them political. It would not totally surprise me if someone was fired for his political views, though. Having grown up in Lawrence, I can tell you that it is the most politically-liberal city in Kansas. Conservative ideas are not looked on as being good, but the people who hold conservative political views are still treated with respect on those rare occasions that they dare speak their mind. The seeds are there, then, for a teacher to be fired for his political views, but it seems unlikely at the same time.
The whole story of this situation doubtless will come out in time, but the part that fascinates me about the whole story is the complete lack of coverage from any local news source. (You'll notice that I ran across this on FoxNews...and lest you accuse me of reading biased news, I'll point out that I also read the equally-biased CNN to get a bit of a counterpoint.) The Lawrence Journal-World, the paper that should be covering this story, has nothing about it. The Topeka Capital-Journal, usually quick to pick up on discrimination stories, has nothing on it. Now, noticing the nature of the story and the lack of coverage, I have to wonder would have happened if a political liberal had been non-renewed and made the same claims. Would the LJW and CJ have picked up the story and trumpted it from the front page? Or would they also have left it be, considering it a non-story? I don't know. And I refuse to speculate. But it is something that the journalists at both papers need to ask themselves if they truly want to stay balanced in their approach to the news.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
No Roundabout
It's time for a minor news note, brought to you by Petty Corp., maker of the Irrelevantator, the greatest useless gadget ever!
The Topeka City Council has reconsidered its decision to put in a roundabout at 17th and MacVicar, mostly in response to protests from those who lived in the area. The majority of those who opposed the change pointed out that there was insufficient space for the roundabout (which is true) and that a roundabout would be potentially more dangerous for pedestrians (also true). The question remains, however, about what to with the intersection. It is somewhat dangerous and definitely narrow. Traffic tends to back up there during the late afternoon "rush" home, and MacVicar jogs slightly to the east as one drives north on it. Perhaps the best solution would to widen 17th Street and re-align MacVicar. That solution, like the traffic circle, would probably result in more protests from the neighborhood. Still, given the amount of traffic that 17th Street carries, it would make sense to add in a right-turn lane on westbound 17th at MacVicar. That would help some, as would a new traffic signal that allowed for both protected and unprotected left turns. The current model is a '70s unit that allows only for unprotected turns. Those ideas, of course, are the thoughts of an amateur observer. The professionals know these things better, and hopefully, they'll find a way to make that intersection safer for all without using a traffic circle.
The Topeka City Council has reconsidered its decision to put in a roundabout at 17th and MacVicar, mostly in response to protests from those who lived in the area. The majority of those who opposed the change pointed out that there was insufficient space for the roundabout (which is true) and that a roundabout would be potentially more dangerous for pedestrians (also true). The question remains, however, about what to with the intersection. It is somewhat dangerous and definitely narrow. Traffic tends to back up there during the late afternoon "rush" home, and MacVicar jogs slightly to the east as one drives north on it. Perhaps the best solution would to widen 17th Street and re-align MacVicar. That solution, like the traffic circle, would probably result in more protests from the neighborhood. Still, given the amount of traffic that 17th Street carries, it would make sense to add in a right-turn lane on westbound 17th at MacVicar. That would help some, as would a new traffic signal that allowed for both protected and unprotected left turns. The current model is a '70s unit that allows only for unprotected turns. Those ideas, of course, are the thoughts of an amateur observer. The professionals know these things better, and hopefully, they'll find a way to make that intersection safer for all without using a traffic circle.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
KC Royals
It is with great disappointment that I bid farewell to any hopes of the Royals amounting to much more than an also-ran this year. The season started out with great hope: the pitching was excellent, and the offense, while not powerful, was providing just enough offense to win games. So, the logical question is, "What happened?"
The stand-up comic answer is "The Kansas City Royals finally realized that they were the Kansas City Royals."
A more serious answer, though, requires discussion of three problems, one of which was evident from the start of the year: lack of offense. As the weather heated up, the Royals' hitting did not. The offense consistently has shown that it will not be able to produce 4+ runs on a frequent basis. While it is true that the Royals are averaging 4.07 runs per game, the offense has produced more than 4 runs in only 10 of the past 34 games. Half of those were at the start of May, during the Royals' 5-game win streak. In the last 10 games, the Royals have scored more than 4 runs only once. (And I don't even have time to talk about the problem of players striking out a lot. There are several Royals' starters who average 100+ strikeouts a year. A team can survive with 1 guy who strikes out a lot. To have more than 1 is nearly impossible to overcome.) So, the offense needs to produce more runs and to produce them early in games in order to put pressure on the other team's offense. Right now, the Royals are constantly having to play from behind, and part of the reason for that is that they are not scoring runs in the early part of the game.
The Royals' problems, however, also lie in pitching. The team started to struggle tremendously when its closer, Soria, went down with an injury. The bullpen turned into the "blowpen," blowing saves left and right. With Soria back, things have improved little because the starting pitching has not been good. Now, starters do have bad games. A couple of the Royals' loses were the result of a bad outing by one of the starters. Several more were the result of bad pitching by the bullpen. The statistics overall show that the pitching needs to be better, but the pitchers can only do so much. The offense has to help the pitchers out when they have bad days.
In addition to offense and pitching problems, though, the biggest problem the Royals face is an economic problem. They simply cannot afford the players necessary to put together a consistently winning team. For example, the Royals had a potential 30 HR/30 SB player on their roster (Carlos Beltran) a few years ago. They couldn't afford to keep him around because his salary demands were too high. The money that the team gets from revenue sharing is not enough to help offset the vast costs required to put together a team of high-quality players. Unless something changes in the overall salary structure of baseball (i.e. a salary cap), then I see little hope of the Royals putting together a team that consistently is competitive in its division. The only chance that the Royals have is for a bunch of young players (all under relatively-inexpensive long-term contracts) all to mature at the same time, resulting in huge output for a couple of seasons. That could happen, but the Royals need about 5-6 position players and 4-5 pitchers to have those sort of years. That probably is not going to happen.
This year, certainly, it is not going to happen, which means many a day of turning off the radio broadcast early.
The stand-up comic answer is "The Kansas City Royals finally realized that they were the Kansas City Royals."
A more serious answer, though, requires discussion of three problems, one of which was evident from the start of the year: lack of offense. As the weather heated up, the Royals' hitting did not. The offense consistently has shown that it will not be able to produce 4+ runs on a frequent basis. While it is true that the Royals are averaging 4.07 runs per game, the offense has produced more than 4 runs in only 10 of the past 34 games. Half of those were at the start of May, during the Royals' 5-game win streak. In the last 10 games, the Royals have scored more than 4 runs only once. (And I don't even have time to talk about the problem of players striking out a lot. There are several Royals' starters who average 100+ strikeouts a year. A team can survive with 1 guy who strikes out a lot. To have more than 1 is nearly impossible to overcome.) So, the offense needs to produce more runs and to produce them early in games in order to put pressure on the other team's offense. Right now, the Royals are constantly having to play from behind, and part of the reason for that is that they are not scoring runs in the early part of the game.
The Royals' problems, however, also lie in pitching. The team started to struggle tremendously when its closer, Soria, went down with an injury. The bullpen turned into the "blowpen," blowing saves left and right. With Soria back, things have improved little because the starting pitching has not been good. Now, starters do have bad games. A couple of the Royals' loses were the result of a bad outing by one of the starters. Several more were the result of bad pitching by the bullpen. The statistics overall show that the pitching needs to be better, but the pitchers can only do so much. The offense has to help the pitchers out when they have bad days.
In addition to offense and pitching problems, though, the biggest problem the Royals face is an economic problem. They simply cannot afford the players necessary to put together a consistently winning team. For example, the Royals had a potential 30 HR/30 SB player on their roster (Carlos Beltran) a few years ago. They couldn't afford to keep him around because his salary demands were too high. The money that the team gets from revenue sharing is not enough to help offset the vast costs required to put together a team of high-quality players. Unless something changes in the overall salary structure of baseball (i.e. a salary cap), then I see little hope of the Royals putting together a team that consistently is competitive in its division. The only chance that the Royals have is for a bunch of young players (all under relatively-inexpensive long-term contracts) all to mature at the same time, resulting in huge output for a couple of seasons. That could happen, but the Royals need about 5-6 position players and 4-5 pitchers to have those sort of years. That probably is not going to happen.
This year, certainly, it is not going to happen, which means many a day of turning off the radio broadcast early.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Euler's Identity
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0
Few things in mathematics fascinate me as much as this simple, seemingly-trivial statement. Inside this one equation, we have all of the basic constants of mathematics (e, i, pi, 1, & 0), but we also incorporate trigonometry (admittedly, it's behind the scenes, but it's there). To understand this identity requires knowledge from several different areas of mathematics. Thus, fully understanding it sort of brings about a sense of fully understanding elementary mathematics. (And, for me personally, it doesn't hurt that my favorite mathematician, Leonhard Euler, figured out the mathematics behind the identity.)
So, how does the identity work? (I'm so glad I asked! [grin]) It turns out that e^(ix) can be evaluated as the sum of cos x and i sin x, that is,
e^ix = cos x + i sin x
(The explanation for this is far behind the scope of a simple blog post. If you want to find out why, consult a good mathematics textbook.)
In the case of the identity above, x = pi, so
e^(i*pi) = cos pi + i sin pi
cos pi = -1, and sin pi = 0; therefore, we have
e^(i*pi) = -1 + i*0 = -1
This result means that the first term in the identity is simply -1, making the result of its addition to 1 be 0.
That is how the identity works, in case you were curious.
Few things in mathematics fascinate me as much as this simple, seemingly-trivial statement. Inside this one equation, we have all of the basic constants of mathematics (e, i, pi, 1, & 0), but we also incorporate trigonometry (admittedly, it's behind the scenes, but it's there). To understand this identity requires knowledge from several different areas of mathematics. Thus, fully understanding it sort of brings about a sense of fully understanding elementary mathematics. (And, for me personally, it doesn't hurt that my favorite mathematician, Leonhard Euler, figured out the mathematics behind the identity.)
So, how does the identity work? (I'm so glad I asked! [grin]) It turns out that e^(ix) can be evaluated as the sum of cos x and i sin x, that is,
e^ix = cos x + i sin x
(The explanation for this is far behind the scope of a simple blog post. If you want to find out why, consult a good mathematics textbook.)
In the case of the identity above, x = pi, so
e^(i*pi) = cos pi + i sin pi
cos pi = -1, and sin pi = 0; therefore, we have
e^(i*pi) = -1 + i*0 = -1
This result means that the first term in the identity is simply -1, making the result of its addition to 1 be 0.
That is how the identity works, in case you were curious.
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