Boo

Doubtless I will get scorned for this admission: I don't like Halloween. I don't like having to put costumes together for my kids. I can remember that either my mother went to Woolworth's and bought us costumes in a box or we made them ourselves. The drive to Woolworth's and back was the zenith of parental involvement, so far as I can recall. I simply didn't understand mothers who sewed their children's costumes. I still don't. It seems like so much work for just a few hours--wildly inefficient. I know a woman who sewed her daughter's wedding dress, and that was clearly a labor of love. This, on the other hand, would just be labor. I'd be resenting it inside of three minutes, I know it. So I bought costumes for my kids. And I'm hosting a pizza party for them and their friends and the parents of some of the friends before we all go out. After the whole thing is over, I plan to make myself a big margarita--now that will be a labor of love.

Speaking of labor, it will be as light as it can be on October 31, due in part to the intense effort of...the candy lobby. The extension of DST by three weeks began this past spring as a way to cheaply save some energy, without having to make much sacrifice. Whether it actually saves anything is another matter. (Cynics know it's really for the benefit of retailers, and when you drive to the mall more than you otherwise would because it won't be dark when you get out, there's no energy being saved.)

The candy lobby (I can't write that term without giggling) apparently had much to do with the 2005 Energy Act, but my question is: does another hour of sunlight mean more candy will get purchased? Does anyone, when they're contemplating how much candy to buy, standing there in line getting angry at how ripped off they're about to be, think: Hey, better get more. That extra hour and all. I don't think so. I've looked outside. It's already dark by 6:30, so it's not like anyone is staying out way later than before. Note to candy lobby: You're boneheads. No matter when DST ends, trick or treating ends by about 8 pm.

So bank on my sipping that 'rita by about 8:03.

Source:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7779869

Dyslexics, untie!

I've been checking into dyslexia, as that might explain some of the issues regarding one of the Trog children. Certainly I believe that dyslexia presents some challenges to people who have it and while I wouldn't want to offend anyone, this is nevertheless funny.

If you go to http://www.dyslexia.com/qasymptoms.htm#d981102, and scroll down the lefthand side of the page, you will see questions and their answers. This particular one has said Trog child and her mother absolutely howling:

Q. Will my child dyslexia from me?

'Nuff said.

Fire

Remember in the article just below this I said that when I run the world people who opt out of insurance won't get to use FEMA services? I need to amend the Trogvision Worldview. People who don't leave areas when they're being ordered to evacuate also need sanctions. I think the municipality should get to sue them later, but I also think there ought to be immediate sanctions. Right now this is about fire, but just as often it's about flooding, hurricanes or whatever other event Mother Nature can vomit up. In my world, the immediate sanction is: You don't get rescued.

It sounds colder than it is. It's very similar to the logic applied to the deli line. If you're Number 84, and you walk away when it's nearing your turn, woe unto you. You have to wait, until there's a break in the action, or until everyone else's orders have been taken care of, or until everyone else is dead. Either way, it's a long wait. And what's more, you knew this going in. Don't leave your secure, Number 84 place in line. Leaving=bad.

One of the fire chiefs in L.A. County estimated his needs at 1,200 firefighters. He only got 600. Part of the problem is that they're chronically understaffed. Staffing at the rate of need is a duty that is owed the people of California. It's one thing in a pinch, but rescue personnel can't constantly be pulled from various areas as standard operating procedure. What this ill-fated decision to underfund and understaff means is that it's particularly important in this emergency to evacuate when ordered to do so.

I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode in which Bart and Lisa are removed from the Simpson home due to perceived parental negligence. Marge and Homer have to take a parenting class and the instructor tells the class to "put your garbage in a garbage can, people. I can't stress that enough."

It seems simple: Get. Out. Hey, wait, it actually is that simple. Get out, and if you're too stupid to get out, don't make anyone exert one iota of energy on the thing you were too stupid to do, because the other, smarter people need the rescue people more than you do.

Yes, there are people who aren't able to get out for one reason or another. Presumably they have working radios and TVs and cellphones and can call ahead to alert the rescue personnel that they are in harm's way and need help. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about people who willfully decide that, having been graced with survival of a fire previously, they will risk it again, dump the gallons of water they're holding on to the fire that's now threatening their homes, watch the action from their roofs, etc. If the fire departments, ie people trained to handle this very activity, are having a hard time deciding which spot is next because the winds are so treacherous, how is it not the height of arrogance for Joe Citizen to think he knows better?

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071022/ap_on_re_us/california_wildfires
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec07/fires_10-22.html

Katrina Reflux

So. It's come to this. Insurance companies (the ones who were supposed to have enough of a clue about things impacting their industry to know not only that a big-ass hurricane would do in Louisiana and parts of Mississippi but that it would cost the industry a bundle) have decided, after their initial attempt of "managing risk" (insurance-speak for "ways to not have our asses handed to us") by refusing to pay out homeowner policies for those catastrophically devastated by Katrina, to take another tack. They've opted to discontinue policies of people who live in much less risky places, like Rhode Island.

Now, now, settle down. It's not as bad as it was. At first, the insurers let their clients know that one reason they were getting canned was that they lacked tie-in insurance. But it turns out it's not legal to force clients to use your company for all of their insurance needs. So the insurers took that line out. Now don't you feel better?

Look. Insurance is a risky business. Insuring historically risky places needn't cost everyone. Charge people who want to live on cliffs, or next to forests, or on coastlines, or in places where mudslides are regular events, more money for their policies. (When I rule the world, these same homeowners will not be allowed to apply for FEMA services if they opt out of insurance. But they'll still be able to get blankets from the Red Cross, b/c I'm soft that way.)

Risk is profitable, always has been. Wildcatters know it, and so do hedge-fund players. But the risk for insurers is more manageable than other industries b/c it's largely not an unknown. There will be hurricanes, and fires, and bridges will fall apart while people are on them. If the companies were so greedy that they didn't budget for the lean years, the years in which they'd be paying out historic amounts of cash, is that anyone else's mess to clean up? One could argue that the government who didn't serve its constituents is at least partly to blame. But the little guy who's done nothing but pay on his policy is blameless.

One view is that a market economy breeds competition, and so the little guy can go elsewhere. But what happens when the whole industry does it? Where does Joe Sixpack go then?

Consumer advocates, product liability lawyers, and state board of insurance, it's your time to shine.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/nyregion/16insurance.html

Bad Penny

Coulter outs herself as an anti-Semite and this is surprising why?


Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301216,00.html