Cool or ooky?

This isn't political, per se, but I stumbled across this site and found myself equal parts fascinated and repulsed.

When your loved one dies, you can subject their body to exceedingly high temperature and pressures and turn them into a diamond, which is then placed in a tasteful setting of your choice so you can wear them on your hand all day.

Since my wife and I intend to be cremated, I guess the general idea shouldn't bother me -- although I don't actually expect my kids to keep our ashes around. But for some reason, though the science-geek side of my brain says "cool!", another part of me thinks this is just a little out there.

Thoughts?

death, science, politics, midtopia

Follow the money

Christmas has come early for political bloggers, in the form of USASpending.gov, a new web site that contains a searchable database of every federal contract -- including who got paid, when, how much and what for.

It's a government site, but it's the result of a remarkable bipartisan effort by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal group OMB Watch to make government more transparent and accountable, which culminated in Senate passage of a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to create the site.

Combined with new databases on FEC reports and earmarks, we now have an unprecedented ability to follow the money trails that wind in and out of government. It isn't perfect -- it still takes a fair bit of legwork, and the databases aren't linked -- but it's far better than what existed (or rather, didn't exist) before.

One hitch is that you have to search by contractor name, which is usually a company, not a person. For instance, you need to know that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, owns Perini Corp. -- a construction contractor -- before you can plug the company name into the database and find out that the company lands millions of dollars worth of federal contracts every year: from a low of $24 million or so in 2002 to a high of $459 million in 2004 (and declining since).

But once you know that, you can freely dream up conspiracy theories that the contracts are somehow related to Feinstein's Senate perch.

There's also an "Assistance" tab, which lets you find out who are the recipients of federal grants, loans, etc. You can search by name, congressional district, type o recipient and other criteria.

So thank Santa for the gift and go investigate your favorite politician or company. I've added the link to my "Resources" list in the sidebar so it's easy to find.

spending, politics, midtopia

Bernanke parody video

I'm enough of a politics and business junkie to find this pretty funny. Even if you don't like the economics jokes, it's a pretty slick video -- and the singer ain't bad, either.

The back story: Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School, was a candidate to replace Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman. The job ended up going to Ben Bernanke. The video purports to be Hubbard expressing his views on the subject, to the tune of the Police song "Every Breath You Take."

Hubbard, Bernanke, politics, midtopia

Al-Qaeda fed up with pace of Freedom Tower construction

This is hilarious in a sick, Onion-type way.

terrorism, humor, politics, midtopia

The funny side of dating

Well, it's funny as long as you're not one of these guys.

The site, "I Can't Believe He's Still Single," is a new project of a friend of mine. Check it out. And if you're like me, be glad you haven't had to venture into the dating scene for more than a decade.

humor, politics, midtopia

Atheist sets up post-Rapture postal system

Okay, this is both funny and practical. It's the Post-Rapture Post.

For as little as $4.99, Witter offers to deliver your letters to friends and loved ones left behind after the Rapture, when some Christians believe they will be whisked up to heaven while everyone else — the "Left Behind" of the popular book series — suffers a series of tribulations.

As Witter sees it, it will fall to the unsaved to serve as the postmen of the Apocalypse.

It's a joke, of course, but he actually provides the service -- although he has only 11 takers so far. He also gets a lot of hate mail -- which seems a bit unChristian, but is perfectly understandable from a human point of view.

(h/t: Sad-Sav)

humor, religion, politics, midtopia

Here's your chance to balance the budget

Well, the Minnesota budget, that is.

Minnesota Public Radio has a semi-nifty interactive feature that lets you decide priorities, taxes and spending for the state. Even if you're not from Minnesota, it's still an educational exercise.

This biennium the job is made easier by the state's projected $2 billion surplus. You're making decisions on whether to increase spending or cut taxes, not making tough calls about where to cut back.

There are a few drawbacks that make it less than satisfying. First, you only have certain choices for how much to spend on each item. For instance, you're given a choice between sticking $50 million in reserves or $700 million -- nothing in between. And the particular programs funded at each spending level is decided for you, so you don't get to choose your priorities as specifically as I would like. For instance, if you want to increase the number of public defenders, you also have to increase judicial salaries.

With those caveats, here's how my budget ended up. All numbers reflect changes from current spending, not totals.

OVERVIEW
It turns out I'm something of a tax-and-spend kind of guy. I used up the surplus and added another $465 million in income tax increases. But that's somewhat misleading. It's mostly because I chose to greatly increase budget reserves. Had I not done that, I would have avoided raising taxes and been left with a $300 million surplus.

E-12 education: Mostly unchanged. $38 million extra to help poor families send their kids to pre-school. Not only is this good for the kids, it's essentially subsidized day care for working families.

Health and human services: $300 million to provide health insurance coverage to most of the state's uninsured kids and low-income adults, as well as giving small businesses a break on insurance costs. COLA increases for nursing homes, and $48 million to child welfare programs.

Tax relief: $300 million to restore Pawlenty's cuts in local government aid. No direct property tax relief or rebates. The Jesse Checks drew down our rainy-day funds and led directly to the budget crunches of recent years. I have no desire to repeat that.

Higher education: $155 million to the University of Minnesota for merit pay and research, $125 million to community colleges (which offer a more affordable education to a larger swath of students) and a minor $25 million to student aid to help offset expected tuition increases.

Debt, state agencies and veterans: $200 million to provide COLA increases for state workers.

Agriculture and the environment: I dislike agricultural subsidies, but this didn't let me slash those. I boosted spending by $200 million to fund the Clean Water Legacy, a 10-year effort to clean up polluted waters.

Jobs, housing and the arts: No increase.

Transportation: $65 million more to the Highway Trust Fund. No more trying to build critical infrastructure on the cheap as Pawlenty has attempted -- and failed.

Prisons: $100 million for maintenance, COLA raises and rehabilitaton programs for prisoners.

Courts and public defenders: $120 million boost. I mostly wanted to increase funding for public defenders, a critical shortcoming in our legal system. To do that I also had to increase judicial pay.

Budget reserves: Socked away $700 million to get the reserves up to where they belong: 5 percent of the two-year budget.

Personal income taxes: Raised the top personal income tax rate from 7.85 percent to 8.5 percent, generating an extra $465 million. I could have left taxes alone and settled for a smaller contribution to the budget reserves. But I chose this option for two reasons: It merely returns tax rates to where they were in 1998, and the additional burden is very small: $90 a year for a single taxpayer earning $100,000.

Corporate income taxes: No change. Not needed.

Sales and sin taxes: No change. Not needed, and these taxes are regressive.

ANALYSIS
So while I spent the surplus and then some, what did I spend it on? Budget reserves, local government aid, prisons/courts, the environment, higher education and health coverage for the vulnerable. All appropriate places for government spending, IMO. This was because I saw an opportunity to make investments that will pay off in the long term. If I had not chosen that route, it would have been easy to balance the budget and provide a tax cut while still improving services in key areas. I would have been fine with that outcome.

Beyond the raw numbers, the exercise is useful in making you think about the tradeoffs between taxes and services. But it also assumes our tax money is being spent efficiently and wisely. That's not always a safe assumption.

Once you complete the budget, you can compare your budget to others'. I was in the mainstream in most of my choices. The exceptions were:

I spent more than most: health care, local government aid, paying state workers, environment, public safety, budget reserves.

I spent less than most: K-12 education, property tax relief, jobs/housing/arts.

The most interesting stat: More than 80 percent of participants agree that rebates are bad idea.

Give it a try and let me know how you make out.

budget, minnesota, politics, midtopia

News of the weird

A few small things to finish off the night:

Animal rights activists want baby polar bear killed.

When Knut was born in December, his mother ignored him and his brother, who died. Zoo officials intervened, choosing to raise the cub themselves.

But Albrecht and other activists fret that it is inappropriate for a predator, known for its fierceness and ability to fend for itself in the wild, to be snuggled, bottle-fed and made into a commodity by zookeepers. They argue that current treatment of the cub is inhumane and could cause him future difficulties interacting with fellow polar bears.

So off him? Yeah, that makes sense.

And a foot fetishist's dream come true: A woman who grew a fully-formed nipple on her foot. Pictures on the link. While such "supernumerary" nipples and breasts are found in 1 percent to 5 percent of the population, they are usually found around the upper torso. This is the first time one has been found on a foot.

Scientists have been messing with flies like this for a long time, inducing eyes to grow on their knees and things like that. This just demonstrates that the same mechanisms are at work in human development, too.

science, weird, politics, midtopia

Found: WW II tank. Slight water damage.

Even if you're not a military history buff, this is pretty cool.

A World War II T-34/76 tank, captured, repainted and used by the Germans, was driven into an Estonian lake and abandoned by the retreating German army in 1944. A local boy later saw tank tracks leading into the lake, and suspected a tank might be in there. More than 50 years later, he finally mentioned it to the local historical society, which located the tank under 20 feet of water and 8 feet of peat, and then arranged to pull it out. Contrary to expectation, and apparently thanks to being buried in peat, the tank was in excellent condition -- no rust, fully armed and nearly fully functional. The story claims the salvagers were able to start the engine after making some minor repairs.

As an amusing aside, I love the technical obsessiveness with which the article describes the tractor that did the pulling -- noting such details as when it was built and that it had "19,000 operating hours without major repairs."

cool links, World War II, history, politics, midtopia

Ain't capitalism great?

If you need a few belly laughs, check out the 2006 edition of "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" as assembled by Business 2.0.

Wal-Mart wins pride of place for 2006, grabbing 6 of the 101 spots for its snake-bitten marketing efforts.

But there are countless jaw-dropping other contenders. The first link will let you click through all 101. Some individual highlights:

Northwest Airlines providing "live cheap" advice for laid off workers, including dumpster diving.

Chevrolet sponsoring a "make your own commercial" promotion for their Tahoe SUV -- only to watch in horror as ads proliferate with taglines such as "Yesterday's technology today."

Kazakhstan's central bank misspelling "bank" on their currency.

A Comcast repairman falls asleep on a customer's couch -- and the customer turns it into a video.

The BBC invites an IT expert in for a segment -- but end up mistakenly interviewing an unknown computer technician who was waiting in the lobby for a job interview.

Great stuff.

business, humor, politics, midtopia

Check 'im out

I'm not a gay atheist Republican neocon, but if I were I'd want to be The Gay Republican. It's a new blog by a political debater I've known for a couple of years now. And while I disagree with nearly everything he says, he's consistent, smart, and funny. Oh, and arrogant; very, very arrogant.

You might not agree with him, but you'll find him interesting and entertaining, if occasionally infuriating. And you'd be surprised at the places you do agree with him.

Check him out.

Update: He got tired of fighting MySpace's code, so the blog has moved to Blogger, here.

politics, midtopia

Just for fun

It's Friday, and I've been coming across a lot of really bizarre links lately. So here's another one: The Museum of Really Bad Album Covers.

Update: photo added.

humor, midtopia

The Bible in Legos

This guy has too much time on his hands (Hmm. As a blogger should I really be throwing stones like that?). But he's created a fabulously funny site with it.

Check out the visual index of Old Testament laws. The best sequence is "Why to Keep the Law," in which we discover in graphic Lego detail what happens if you don't follow God's word.

Legos, religion, politics, midtopia

Political Compass

Not much time tonight, so how about a little topical entertainment?

The blog is named Midtopia, and I think of myself as a moderate. But am I really? I took the Political Compass test to find out.

It plots your political position on two axes, giving a more nuanced view than the traditional left-right divide.

My score on a scale that seems to go from -10 to +10:

Economic Left/Right: -1.38 (slightly left leaning)
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.18 (moderately Libertarian)

I guess I really am moderate -- though with a libertarian streak. And I think the nature of some of the questions means the score actually overstates my leftward tilt.

If you're interested, take the test and post your score in the comments.

politics, midtopia

As seen by the FAA

I don't normally post simple eye candy, but this is way cool. And it's not just eye candy.

Have a look.

FAA, cool, politics, midtopia

Happy Easter

Had an egg hunt this morning. Not to mention the Peep research.

Enjoy!

Peeps, Easter, midtopia

Lucky 17

This isn't the way these things usually turn out:

A huge military cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff at Dover Air Force Base on Monday, breaking apart in a belly flop that drenched some of the 17 people aboard with fuel but caused no fire or life-threatening injuries. ...

Military officials said the C-5 Galaxy, the military's largest plane at more than six stories high and 247 feet long, developed problems soon after taking off for Spain about 6:30 a.m.

It crashed just short of the runway while attempting to return to the base and broke in two behind the cockpit. The tail assembly landed several hundred yards away, and an engine was thrown forward by the impact.

Next time I'm buying Lotto tickets, I want one of those 17 to pick the numbers.

midtopia

A continent splits apart

This is just too cool for words.

Normally changes to our geological environment take place almost imperceptibly. A life time is too short to see rivers changing course, mountains rising skywards or valleys opening up. In north-eastern Africa's Afar Triangle, though, recent months have seen hundreds of crevices splitting the desert floor and the ground has slumped by as much as 100 meters (328 feet). At the same time, scientists have observed magma rising from deep below as it begins to form what will eventually become a basalt ocean floor. Geologically speaking, it won't be long until the Red Sea floods the region. The ocean that will then be born will split Africa apart.

Basically, Africa will lose its horn once the land slumps enough to let the ocean in.

Visit the link. There's a lot more there, including photos and maps.

Thanks to Centerfield for pointing out this story.

Afar Triangle, Africa, geology, midtopia

Favorite links

If you've got a link that you think should be included here, please e-mail me! Suggestions are always welcome.

Fantasy football
FF Today
Realtime Fantasy Football

Military
Armed Forces Journal
Armor School
Global Security
M1 Abrams
Strategy Page
U of M ROTC

Niche news
Environmental News Service

Nonpolitical blogs/other
Sadistic Savior

Nonpolitical humor
Evil Overlord
How to Destroy the Earth
I Can't Believe He's Still Single
Passive-Aggressive Notes
Superdickery
User Friendly

Political humor
Jib Jab
The Onion

Religious humor
The Brick Testament

Political sites
Electoral vote predictor

Reference
Site readability test
Tax Policy Center

Science
Asteroid impact calculator
Ideonexus

Science Fiction
David Brin
Jim Baen's Universe
SF ship size comparison

Weird and spooky
Jack Nicholson sound board
Mr. Angry and Mrs. Calm