Category: Idle Thoughts

Significant Digits at FiveThirtyEight.com by Walt Hickey is among my very favorite daily (Monday-Friday) features. Indeed, I get it as an email so I won’t miss it.

Link is to today’s edition.

If electricity is produced by coal-fired power plant — as about 60% of New Mexico’s is — an electric car is more harmful to health and the environment than a gasoline powered vehicle. 

30% coal in Arizona; 64% in Colorado. 

I don’t think he understands this story. But enough of us remember.

First posted on NewMexiKen eight years ago today.

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One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The old man said, “Okay,” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”

The man thanked him and again just walked away

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, “See you tomorrow, Sir.”

From 2011 —

“But this seems like a good time to repeat, once again, the truth about federal spending: Your federal government is basically an insurance company with an army. The vast bulk of its spending goes to the big five: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest on the debt.”

Paul Krugman

“And if you want smaller government, either you’re talking about cuts in the big five, or you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

… Airlines don’t charge a second bag fee for a connecting flight? Why does the greed stop there?

… Some think their circumstances will improve if they make snide stage-whisper comments while given a personal going over by TSA? 

… Some don’t know stand right, walk left is the rule on moving sidewalks and escalators? Whoever decided the norm should be stand and ride these devices rather than walk anyway? 

… Some still cough or sneeze into their hand that touches everything rather than the elbow of their sleeve?

I wish dead-tree newspapers were still worthwhile. It would be fun to recapture the appeal — and the serendipity —of that daily and especially Sunday package. 

Yeah, I know they still exist but they’re nowhere near as good nor as necessary as they were for most of my life. At least my fingers are no longer ink-stained.  

Are the speedometers in all the cars I drive — rentals included — wrong or do police everywhere invariably exceed the posted speed limit?

Steve Spurrier quits at 70 because coaching a football team is too much … but Bernie Sanders is 74, Joe Biden nearing 73, Donald Trump 69, Hilary Clinton about to turn 68 and they all want to be president. 

Hey Albuquerque Journal, it is nice that a Nobel Prize co-winner grew up in Raton, New Mexico, but it is most definitely not news alert notification worthy. 

Driving through its Georgia O’Keeffe mountains or under its aurora-clear skies, it’s easy to forget that New Mexico regularly tops the list in various poverty rankings. Americans willing to live side by side with UFO museums, the Very Large Array and the weapon to end all wars also claim the distinction of being number one in child hunger, poverty and school dropout rates.

Truth or Consequences, population 6,000 and home to the Spaceport America Visitor Center, is one of the poorest places in the state. It is a skin-of-its-teeth tourist town, and now a portal to another world.

The Guardian in a report “Space travel for the 1%: Virgin Galactic’s $250,000 tickets haunt New Mexico town.”

Goyaałé (aka Geronimo) and Лeв Никола́евич Толсто́й​ (Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (aka Leo Tolstoy) were contemporaries. Tolstoy was born in 1828; Geronimo reportedly in 1829. Geronimo died of pneumonia in 1909; Tolstoy of pneumonia in 1910.

Which would you rather have been?

It’s New Mexico. We’ve got all these wild horses and we’ve got all these nuclear warheads. I see a solution.

What’s the difference between a codger and a geezer?

Why is it that four of the months have never been named for anything but a number, while the first eight months of the year are named for someone or something?

January is named for Janus (that two-faced guy); February after februa, a celebration of purification and forgiveness; March for Mars, the god of war. April comes from aperire, Latin for opening, as in the opening of buds in the spring (or possibly from Aphrodite); May is named for Maia, the goddess of of plants; June for Juno, the goddess of marriage and well-being.

Then along comes Julius Caesar and he has the gall in 44 B.C.E. to rename Quintilis (for fifth month, as it was then) to Julius (July). Not to be outdone, Augustus renamed Sextilis (for sixth month) to Augustus (August) in 8 B.C.E.

So, why did it stop 2020 years ago? I mean, there are September (seven), October (eight), November (nine) and December (ten) just sitting out there like blank billboards waiting for a clever new name. (And the numbers are no longer even correct!)

Surely, Julius and Augustus can’t be the last two guys in Western culture with enough ego to rename a month after themselves.

Or more fit for our times, commercialize the names of the months; the rights could be purchased like bowl games. It’s not the Orange Bowl anymore, it’s the FedEx Orange Bowl. It’s not November anymore, it’s Toyota November; it’s Bud Light December. Just think, their logo on every calendar.

I guess these last two posts have been OBE.

Paterno fired tonight (over the phone), according to reports just after 8 MST.

Scrolling down the page to the CPR video, at least the still image I’m seeing.

I’m thinking CPR is probably wasted on that guy.

First posted here six years ago today.

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What’s the deal with public libraries anyway? Everywhere I’ve ever lived they start herding people out the door with announcements, flashing lights, computers shutting off and dirty looks well before the actual closing time. It happened to me again tonight. They close at 8:00 and at 7:45 they’ve got more rounding up going on than a well-led cattle drive.

NewMexiKen managed a public research facility for ten years. I well remember that some diehards would hang in until the last minute, but I don’t remember having to be rude about it. And I don’t remember my staff or I ever getting agitated if the last stragglers were still pulling together their belongings and filing out at two minutes after quitting time.

Who do these public library staffs work for anyway?

(For the record, I left the library tonight at 7:50, ten minutes before closing. I know what time it was because as I was leaving they made an announcement saying it was ten minutes to closing and you could no longer use your library card.)

… that I have ever ridden in (and it was on a 90-foot tether) belonged to … Apple.

Last night’s Balloon Fiesta events were mostly blown out.

This morning’s were rained out. Three lousy inches of rain all year (officially) and a third of it falls during Albuquerque’s biggest annual event.

Lots of chatter on the internets about whether the media has lost credibility with their over-reporting of Irene.

I laughed and laughed. What credibility?

As a patriotic American and life-long student of American history I find myself genuinely depressed at some of the people — perhaps even all of the people — who aspire to the job once held by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

Of course, if God is telling them to run, that’s different.

So, at what age do you start going through all the stuff you’ve saved for years to look at when you’re old?

And, after you look at it, do you keep it in case you want to look at it again when you are even older?

It pays to keep in mind that just about half the people in the United States have below average intelligence.

By contrast Jimmy Carter was a tower of strength when he was president.

I’m sick. I’ve been sick all week. Sinus infection I guess. Who the hell knows? Not any doctor I’m sure. Head hurts, inside out, eyes run faster than I ever did, I’m grabbing and poking at my ears like I was a toddler.

Anyway, I was just sitting here feeling sorry for myself when I began thinking — there’s either two HeineKens (Ken, get it?) in the refrigerator or one.

If there are two, then I think I’ll drink one. There’ll still be one left.

And if there is just one, I think I’ll drink it. Who wants just one beer in the fridge?