Random Goodies...

Robbed:  My Sister's house was completely cleaned out the day after they left on holiday - cars, computers, TV etc...  Apparently the German police have just called to say they've got his Porsche, en route, I imagine to Russia.  I am assuming that a modern Porsche comes with a modern tracking system.

Forced Air: With M at home and the autumn kicking in, we've had the heating on a couple of times.  Why do so many American homes essentially have electric fan heating systems?  What was the POD to go that route and not radiators?  There's some sound energy efficiency reasons why radiators are more effective and less power hungry.

On the nature of wealth and freedom...

pmcray has often said that you see bumper stickers saying things like "the market works" on the worst cars imagineable.  It is almost as if there is a contradiction at the heart of many of the modern brand of libertarians.  I've been having an online discussion with one of them about billionaires.  Essentially, the libertarian in question, who admits to being poor which he blames in part on taxation, takes issue with the things that new billionaires spend their money on unlike, for example, the billionaires of a generation ago.

How dare, for example, Bill Gates, spend his money on charity works?

I see a couple of interesting things here.  One is a recurring theme I see from many libertarians, that they'd be better off if they paid less tax and the reason they don't have enough money is that the government takes too much. The government, at least that of the UK and US don't take all that much in tax.  The problem is they tend to take a disproportiate amount of the income of the lower paid than from the richer.  The issue for the libertarian chap here is that he doesn't earn enough money in the first place.  The government could drop his tax to a 20% flat rate (favoured in these circles I understand) and he'd still have very little money relatively speaking.

At the crux of this is the reason I got out of engineering work.  I knew exactly what I could be earning for the rest of my career and it depressed me.  

The second interesting thing is the idea that somehow billionaires used to be somehow more honourable than they are now doesn't really bear all that much scrutiny unless you pretend that some of the most famous examples of the 1980s super rich didn't actually exist.  Not to mention that there were fewer off them back then, but you don't hear about Bill Gates doing the things that used to make Tiny Rowland's days happy.

Hello, world calling, pick up the phone.....

This sort of thing from one our local rags really does annoy me...

Aerospace Notebook: Oil money is driving big orders in Dubai

The quotes, specifically which have me grinding my teeth are, "analyst Adam Pilarski estimates that every man, woman and child in Dubai would have to make 1,000 airplane flights a year to fill the seats in all those planes" followed by, "

Contrast that, he said, with the United States, which has a population of about 300 million and about 700 million jetliner passenger flights a year.

"It doesn't make any sense," said Pilarski, senior aviation analyst with Avitas, an industry consulting business. "This is loony tunes.""

*sigh*

I don't know who Mr Pilarski is, but one must only assume that he's a cretin of some order.  Emerits and Qatar aren't buying planes for their local markets - they're buying them for 2 distinct market segments.

First is the global long haul sector where they've been working to establish themselves as a global hub - with some success.  They offer excellent levels of service with great cost structures and they're not dry states.

Second, Dubai, in paticular, has been extremely sucessful in setting itself up as the next Spain for European holidays, and they've done it by aiming at the high end of the market with excellent hotels and resorts.

There's the third point that Dubai has been an important trading post for centuries and they don't want to lose that position either.

The customers probably aren't American of course, they're Indian - flying the millions of migrant workers in and out needs planes, they're Western European to handle the millions of British, German and Swedish holiday makers they get. 

The final nonsense from Pilarski, again missing the point about people in the rest of the world, "One act of terrorism and all the tourism goes away," Pilarski said."

There's only one thing to say about that BOLLOCKS.  I don't see people staying away from Eygyt because of acts of terrorism.  I hate to feel jingoistic, but most people are made of sterner stuff than that.

Blogged with Flock

Short of...

... bondage, does anybody have any suggestions about making my dear wife relax?

She did a slow 30 minutes on the treadmill in the apartment gym this morning and then decided to walk to Whole Foods where I can pick her up in the car.

I'm pretty sure she's doing far too much this close to the surgery, but there doesn't seem to be a lot I can do about it. 

New User Pic...

Just playing.

Quotes that don't age

Found on the Stewie Griffin quote site:

Stewie: For the love of God, shake me! Shake me like a British nanny!