Sometimes it's hard to truly grasp the meaning of big numbers. That's why it's helpful to use graphics:
Say It With Pictures
Leave a reply
Author Archives: Jon Lowder
I’ll See Your Bible and Raise You a Torah
There's a proposed bill in the NC senate (SB 138) that would allow local school boards to offer elective courses in Bible study at their high schools. This would probably cause some consternation with folks who see this kind of thing as violating the separation of church and state, but quite honestly if it's an elective that seems to be a bit of a stretch. On the other hand it does seem to put the state in the position of favoring one religion over others since it doesn't include other religious texts like the Torah or the Koran.
If the intent of the course is not to indoctrinate students but to study how the the Bible has influenced society then it could be seen as a legitimate educational effort rather than an effort to indoctrinate non-religious or non-Christian students. And if that's the case then why not write the bill so that school's could offer similar courses to study the Torah, the Koran or other religious texts that have obviously had a tremendous impact on our world?
Perhaps it would be helpful to look at the text of the bill to see if we can discern the intent. Here it is:
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
2 AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR LOCAL BOARDS OF EDUCATION TO OFFER TO
3 STUDENTS IN GRADES NINE THROUGH TWELVE AN ELECTIVE COURSE IN
4 BIBLE STUDY.
5 The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
6 SECTION 1. G.S. 115C-81 is amended by adding a new subsection to read:
7 "(g4) Bible Study Elective. – Local boards of education may offer to students in grades
8 nine through 12 elective courses for credit on the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament), the New
9 Testament, or a combination of the two subject matters. A student shall not be required to use a
10 specific translation as the sole text of the Hebrew scriptures or New Testament and may use as
11 the basic textbook a different translation of the Hebrew scriptures or New Testament approved
12 by the local board of education or the principal of the student's school. A course offered by a
13 local board of education in accordance with this subsection shall (i) follow federal and State
14 law in maintaining religious neutrality and accommodating the diverse religious views,
15 traditions, and perspectives of the students of the local school administrative unit and (ii) not
16 endorse, favor or promote, or disfavor or show hostility toward any particular religion,
17 nonreligious faith, or religious perspective. Courses may include the following instruction:
18 (1) Knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are
19 prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including
20 literature, art, music, mores, oratories, and public policies.
21 (2) Familiarity with the contents, history, style, structure, and societal influence
22 of the Hebrew scriptures or the New Testament."
23 SECTION 2. This act is effective when it becomes law and applies beginning with
24 the 2013-2014 school year.
At first blush it seems innocuous enough, but you still have to ask why other prominent religious texts aren't included. By not including them it's easy to see how people would assume the underlying intent is to introduce Christianity to the public schools, and as mentioned before it definitely seems to put the state in the position of favoring one religion over another.
Let's end with a fun scenario game:
- Bill becomes law.
- School district decides to offer Bible elective at its high schools.
- Two-thirds of the way through the course a teacher, who's a Baptist, goes out on maternity leave and the replacement teacher is a Mormon.
- Parents of several students demand either a different teacher be assigned to the course or that their children be allowed to transfer out of the class without penalty. Their argument is that they don't want their children being fed "lies" by that "cultist."
Wouldn't it be fun to be a fly on the wall of the principal's office that day.
Related articles
Winston-Salem Makes a Great Geezerville
Winston-Salem made the Forbes list of 25 Best Places to Retire in 2013. Here's what they wrote:
Pros: Low cost of living, median home price $129,000, moderate climate, college amenities (Wake Forest), high doctors per capita, high Milken Institute aging rank. Con: Crime.
Other North Carolina cities that made the list were Charlotte and Asheville.
Google Glass
Google's new gizmo, Google Glass, looks really cool. If you want to be one of the first to get one you'll need to submit a 50-words or less essay , up to five pictures and a 15 second video that will help explain why you should be one of the cool kids. Oh, you'll also need to pony up $1,500. Guess who's gonna wait for version 2.0?
Here's an article written by a guy who got to test-drive Glass and came away impressed and convinced that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" we'll see Glass in consumers' hands:
But what’s it actually like to have Glass on? To use it when you’re walking around? Well, it’s kind of awesome.
Think of it this way — if you get a text message or have an incoming call when you’re walking down a busy street, there are something like two or three things you have to do before you can deal with that situation. Most of them involve you completely taking your attention off of your task at hand: walking down the street. With Glass, that information just appears to you, in your line of sight, ready for you to take action on. And taking that action is little more than touching the side of Glass or tilting your head up — nothing that would take you away from your main task of not running into people.
It’s a simple concept that feels powerful in practice.
The same is true for navigation. When I get out of trains in New York I am constantly jumping right into Google Maps to figure out where I’m headed. Even after more than a decade in the city, I seem to never be able to figure out which way to turn when I exit a subway station. You still have to grapple with asking for directions with Glass, but removing the barrier of being completely distracted by the device in your hand is significant, and actually receiving directions as you walk and even more significant. In the city, Glass make you feel more powerful, better equipped, and definitely less diverted…
Is it ready for everyone right now? Not really. Does the Glass team still have huge distance to cover in making the experience work just the way it should every time you use it? Definitely.
But I walked away convinced that this wasn’t just one of Google’s weird flights of fancy. The more I used Glass the more it made sense to me; the more I wanted it. If the team had told me I could sign up to have my current glasses augmented with Glass technology, I would have put pen to paper (and money in their hands) right then and there. And it’s that kind of stuff that will make the difference between this being a niche device for geeks and a product that everyone wants to experience.
After a few hours with Glass, I’ve decided that the question is no longer ‘if,’ but ‘when?’
Here's a video of the Glass experience:
Probably Not at TEDxWakeForestU
This Saturday the folks at Wake Forest will be hosting their second TEDx event at Wait Chapel. It looks to be very interesting (I'm excited to be going), but it's doubtful they'll have a "model" presentation. Pardon the pun.
$22 Trillion Here, $22 Trillion There
The GAO was tasked with studying the impact of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to help determine what it's economic impact would be. So what did they find?
The 2008 financial crisis cost the U.S. economy more than $22 trillion, a study by the Government Accountability Office published Thursday said. The financial reform law that aims to prevent another crisis, by contrast, will cost a fraction of that…
The report, five years after the collapse of mortgage-focused hedge funds in late-2007 set off a yearlong banking panic and a deep recession, was published as part of a cost-benefit analysis of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010. The GAO tried to determine if the benefits of preventing a future economic meltdown exceeded the costs of implementing that law.
"If the cost of a future crisis is expected to be in the trillions of dollars, then the act likely would need to reduce the probability of a future financial crisis by only a small percent for its expected benefit to equal the act’s expected cost," the GAO concluded.
Obviously the banksters disagree.
Starving the Beast
Those of us old enough to remember the Reagan years can probably remember hearing the phrase "Starving the Beast." What did it mean? From Wikipedia:
Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives in order to limit government spending[1][2][3] by cutting taxes in order to deprive the government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force the federal government to reduce spending. The short and medium term effect of the strategy has dramatically increased the United States public debt rather than reduce spending .
Those of us still around to see what happens when terms like "fiscal cliff" and "sequestration" enter the lexicon are able to see what will happen when the starvation takes hold:
Imagine that just before Thanksgiving a major retailer, say Nordstrom or Wal-Mart, announced it would furlough 10 percent of its sales, collections and accounts payable staffs.
The stock would tank. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the CEO or the board of directors keeping their jobs as customers switched to other retailers during the holiday buying season, costing the company revenues far in excess of the savings. Not only would the corporate overseers become everyday laughing stocks, they would surely be enshrined in a Harvard Business School case study as the worst of all corporate dunces.
Well, on March 1 — right in the middle of tax season — the IRS will be faced with cutting staff ten percent under the federal budget sequester…
Rational people would think that a law-enforcement agency which saved taxpayers more than 150% of its budget would get some support from Congress because its highly cost-effective. The operative word there is rational.
House Appropriations Committee Democrats on Feb. 13 offered these rational observations on what sequester would do to the IRS and to taxpayers:
- Sequestration will be particularly devastating to the IRS, since it will require furloughs to take effect during the 2012 filing season. Furloughs at IRS call centers equate to longer hold times on the phone for taxpayers, if the call is answered at all. Fewer enforcement agents will be available to investigate fraudulent claims, leading to an increase in the number of identity theft cases unresolved. Further, each dollar invested in enforcement actions returns $4 in additional revenue to the Treasury. Cutting investment in enforcement will lead directly to an increase in the deficit.
It's hard to generate any sympathy for the IRS, but if we must have an IRS (as we must) then we should make sure it has what it needs to complete its mission.
Land of the Free, Home of the Afraid?
On Facebook a friend recently shared an article from The Atlantic titled "A Repbublic Demands Courage From Its Citizens" that essentially calls into question most Americans' perception that America is indeed the Land of the Brave. The piece focuses on our willingness to set aside the values that have largely defined our society for generations – basically we're against torture and for civil rights – in reaction to threats that aren't really as bad as we perceive them to be. From the article:
We have suffered several thousand casualties from 9/11 through today. Suppose we had a 9/11-level attack with 3,000 casualties per year every year. Each person reading this would face a probability of death from this source of about 0.001% each year. A Republic demands courage — not foolhardy and unsustainable "principle at all costs," but reasoned courage — from its citizens …. To demand that the government "keep us safe" by doing things out of our sight that we have refused to do in much more serious situations so that we can avoid such a risk is weak and pathetic. It is the demand of spoiled children, or the cosseted residents of the imperial city. In the actual situation we face, to demand that our government waterboard detainees in dark cells is cowardice…
Look at it this way.
There were almost 10,000 drunk-driving fatalities in 2011 alone. That's the equivalent of three 9/11s in people killed, plus many more seriously injured, every year. Is a majority of Americans ready to lower the blood alcohol limit to 0.01 and to mandate breathalyzers on all ignition switches? Nope. That would be an onerous government intrusion on liberty. I'm fine with that. But it vexes me when the same citizenry faces the significantly lower risk that terrorists pose, spends far more on prevention, and still insists that targeted killings in Yemen and Somalia can't be constrained, because taking more care to save innocents would threaten us.
These concerns are very real. Simply ask yourself this question: If Canada's Security Intelligence Service were to fly drones into Michigan and fire missiles at well-armored SUVs that they had strong evidence were carrying gun runners who were directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Canadian citizens, and in the process they accidentally killed four American families who happened to be traveling in the vicinity on their way home from a church picnic, how would you as an American feel about it? Horrified? Terrified? Incensed? You bet. Now ask yourself this: After an episode like this how would we Americans react to Canada insisting that we do something to take care of our gun problem? Would we see the Canadians as a well-intentioned society trying to be the world's "good cop" or would we see them as vigilantes willing to suspend any semblance of due process and recklessly endanger innocents in an effort to protect its own citizens?
The point is that many of America's practices during its War on Terror have eroded our moral standing in the world, and while our "hawks" would like us to believe that our practices convey an image of strength to the world the reality is that our society is exhibiting cowardice. Don't confuse that notion with the notion that our armed forces are perceived as weak – to the contrary they've exibited a great deal of courage and fortitude over the last decade after being put in some very tough positions – but our society can only appear weak when we overreact to a threat that is not as great as it's perceived and when we abandon core principles that have always defined our society. As the first paragraph in the excerpt makes clear it's not that we shouldn't fight back against terrorists, it's that we should do so in a way that's proportional to the threat and without sacrificing our principles.
In a nutshell we need to grow some you-know-whats and we should demand our elected leaders do the same.
Easy Way to Record a Meeting
Today at our office (I work for a trade association) we hosted a board meeting and the secretary asked if we could record it so that she could reference the recording later in case she missed anything for her notes. We don't have a digital recorder in the office so our solution was the following:
- Signed up for a free Google Voice account.
- Tied the Voice account to my office phone since you have to tie the Google Voice number to an existing number.
- From our conference room phone I called my office phone and had someone answer it and then press "4" to start the recording process. (Google Voice allows you to record any incoming call, but currently you can't record outbound calls which is why we called my office phone from the conference room and not vice versa).
- The recording is automatically saved as an MP3 in your Google inbox which you can then share as a link you email to whomever you want, embed in a webpage/blog post or download to share offline.
- When the meeting was over I simply hung up the phone which ended the recording.
- After the meeting was over I emailed the secretary the link to the recording and that was that.
Other uses I can picture for this setup:
- Recording interviews with industry experts over the phone to share on our blog.
- Recording our educational offerings to be archived or posted online for others to access.
All of this was unbelievably easy to do and the price was definitely right.
Memories
This five minute Freakonomics segment from NPR's Marketplace show should freak out anyone who:
- Thinks they have a great memory and thus eschew the use of notes, reminders, planners, etc.
- Is in a position that they are dependent on anyone else's memory in order to stay out of jail or avoid some other catastrophe.
Luckily I have a bad memory and know it so I've developed all kinds of systems to compensate for that fact. Unfortunately my kids also know I have a terrible memory and they use it to their advantage by saying things like, "Dad, don't forget you promised to buy me the new Halo for Xbox today." I've started to wise up and have developed a simple system to deal with that too: if they don't get it from me in writing it doesn't count.
Here's the Freakonomics segment:
Befuddled 