X Curmudgeon

Bondi Compounds Her Tax Problem

2012-01-13T11:45:00.002-05:00

Melissa Bondi is now facing scrutiny from the "mainstream" press about her tax problem, or should we say problems. Her response is not encouraging.

The worst thing a candidate for public office can do when faced with a question about their personal behavior is to lie about it. Yet, that appears to be the path Bondi has chosen, and it will undoubtedly exacerbate the problems for her campaign.

Here's the two tax problems Bondi has:
1. A nearly $20,000 IRS lien for failure to pay taxes on income earned a few years ago; and
2. The apparent failure to pay personal property taxes on a car she garaged in Arlington for a couple of years.

As an aside, commenters on various blogs and news sites have raised other questions, but they seem beside the point. She was late on some car tax payments a few years ago--ok, but she paid them, and a lot of people are late at some point in paying bills. Another candidate, Kim Klingler, had the same problem, but really it shouldn't be disqualifying. Also, some commenters have complained that Bondi is now not an Arlington taxpayer at all, suggesting that should disqualify her for office. We don't see that as very pertinent--an Arlington resident who rents her abode and has no car can still be an excellent County Board member.

However, not paying taxes, and then evading the truth about it, is serious.

As for the IRS lien, Bondi's story is that until the tax judgment appeared on the Arlington Yupette blog a few days ago, she didn't know about it. That is pretty hard to believe. The IRS is far from perfect, but they don't file a tax lien without first making mulitple efforts to notify you of the tax delinquency and offering you an opportunity to negotiate the delinquency, all the while threatening the dire consequences that will befall you if you fail to act. Also, when you get hit with a tax lien--which is public--all kinds of lawyers and other types come out of the woodwork offering to "help" you with the IRS. Since the lien judgment has Bondi's correct address, it's hard to see how she somehow missed all that correspondence--some of which, by law, is required to be sent by certified mail.

Most telling is that in today's Washington Post article on the issue, Bondi "would not say" whether she received notices or warning letters. So, in other words, maybe she didn't know about the lien (still hard to believe), but she certainly knew about the delinquency. It would be one thing if she was in correspondence with the IRS disputing the delinquency and the IRS upped the ante by filing a lien--they will do that; but that doesn't appear to be her story.

The car tax issue is also problemmatic. Apparently, sometime in 2006 Bondi gave up her own car, but used a car that belonged to her father, who lives out of state. The fact that a car is registered out of state, however, does not exempt it from personal property tax. If the car is garaged in Arlington, it is subject to the tax. Bondi hasn't yet said anything to clear up this issue. While the amount of money is probably quite small, we do think it says something about someone who wants to serve on Arlington's Board. Paired with the other tax issue, it says volumes.

Now, people make mistakes, and if we only elected perfect people to public office, we wouldn't have any public officers. We're more troubled at this point, however, with how Bondi is handling her mistakes.

With four other committed Democrats running for the Board nomination, we think Arlington Democrats have better choices.

[The Curmudgeon is supporting Terron Sims. But we'd change horses in a nanosecond if he had Bondi's type of problems.]

Bondi's Tax Problem

2012-01-10T09:18:00.000-05:00

According to a posting on Arlington Yupette, County Board candidate Melissa Bondi has a tax problem with the IRS, which resulted in a judgment of nearly $20,000 against her back in March. (And public records confirm the judgment: http://landrec.arlingtonva.us/public/ViewDoc.aspx?popView=false&hideForm=&docId=1621576&fileId=1479128&id=53&cat=j&origin=retrieval )

We'd like to know more about this inasmuch as Bondi has been reported as a frontrunner in the five-way race for the Democratic nomination to replace Barbara Favola on the Board. The Democratic nominee will most likely win the seat; in turn, the Democratic nominee will be selected by a tiny percentage of the electorate at a "firehouse primary" type of caucus, probably by a plurality vote. Since there is very little turnover on the County Board, it's important to know more here.

So far, the news outlets that cover Arlington politics--the Sun Gazette, Arlnow.com, to some extent the Washington Post--have been mum. Some suggestions in comments on the Yupette page suggest it had to do with unreported income from some form of self employment. It's pretty significant, however, that whatever the source, the IRS had to litigate and go to judgment--and we wonder if the judgment has been paid.

Our concern is about getting someone on the Board whose ethics are suspect. Arlington has long been blessed by good government, without significant scandals, unlike some of our neighbors, such as D.C. and P.G. County. Paying your taxes is a civic responsibility, and electing representatives who fail in this basic obligation is a clear path to trouble.

We'll be looking for more on this one in the days to come--much better that it come out before the caucuses, rather than after, lest Democrats find a way to blow the special election in March.

Soccer Ridiculousness--Part 2

2011-12-02T08:40:00.001-05:00

In Soccer Ridculousness Part 1 we went over the absurd comments of college soccer coaches who object to any limits on current year-round training and competition for collegiate players.

Today, we cover the current push to prohibit elite players in the high school age group from competing with their schools.

In recent years, the powers that be in US youth soccer established an "academy" program for boys to supplement, compete with and generally confuse things with the existing Olympic Development Program, which was already confusing because it really has nothing to do with the Olympics.

Adding to the confusion, the girls have a different elite training program.

Putting aside, for the moment, the counterproductive effects of having multiple, overlapping and somewhat conflicting "elite" programs, let's get to what the boys Academy program is now trying to do.

Unlike ODP programs, which are run by state associations, the Academy program is run by individual soccer clubs who apply for the Academy franchise. To get the Academy designation, they must meet certain standards and abide by certain rules that are supposed to enhance player development.

One of the rules now being proposed in the Academy is to PROHIBIT Academy players (all of whom are in high school age groups) from playing for their school teams. This is a hugely misguided idea.

It is true that the quality of coaching at many high schools is inferior to that provided at the club level (not just the Academy clubs--almost any club). High school seasons also conflict with club seasons; high school training conflicts with club training. Many club teams "sit-out" the high school season to avoid conflict.

The Academy purists, however, believe that the high school season is detracting from the superior training of their young proteges, so they would simply get rid of the schools.

But that creates a huge dilemma for player who want the benefits of the Academy. School soccer is VERY important to these kids. In club games, the spectators are parents. Many of those parents have been pushing their kids since kindergarten, yelling at them and countercoaching them from the sidelines. Parents, being parents, are solely concerned about their kids, not the team.

In school, the spectators are fellow students. They are cheering for the team--and its stars. Being a star on the high school soccer team is a big deal for the ego of a student. It gives the player an exalted place in the hierarchy of the school social strata.

Now, take the same kid, who everyone knows is a great soccer player, and have him (or her) suddenly NOT playing for the school team because his/her club team is so much more important. Now that player not only loses the exposure to his/her school's cheering students, but actually becomes a traitor to the cause. "Hey John, you're the best player at the school, how come you're not playing for the team?"

Potomac Soccer Wire recently had an excellent piece capturing just how agonizing this choice can be for players. In this particular case, involving a girls team, the adults helped them work it out the right way--but that's getting increasingly rare.

The Academy and the various adults who rule youth soccer should not be creating this dilemma for players. There is a better way to go: improve high school coaching. There is no reason that most schools cannot use club coaches for their school teams and adopt club training methods. Some high schools already do this, and others should. It won't be the Academy, but the Academy can easily work around the high school schedule and still give its precious charges the training and competition they need.

We'll add one more thing. The folks behind the Academy think that they are bringing a European concept to US youth soccer. In Europe, the professional soccer clubs run academy programs to identify and develop new talent. But the US model is different in critical ways, and DOOMED TO FAILURE as a poor imitation of the European model.

In Europe, the pro club academies don't charge for their programs. As a result, they are drawing from the pool of ALL European players, and they are an attractive option for poor kids to pull themselves up. The US academies, mostly at elite suburban clubs, do charge for their programs, and they attract a talented group of players from a limited subset of the population. It's the exclusion of the rest of the population that makes all the difference!

The Future Car Is Literally Just Around The Corner

2011-11-29T21:12:00.001-05:00

We've previously stated that it's only a matter of time before we humans stop the activity known as driving a car. Cars will drive themselves--doing a better job than most humans--while humans use their time in their metal exoskeletons for other purposes.

Well, Volkswagen has announced that it will make it's "follow me" technology available on certain delivery vans in Europe shortly. This technology allows a vehicle to literally follow its driver as he/she walks down the street, or to come pick up the driver from about a block away.

This is the next logical step from automated cruise control and cars that can park themselves. Of course, it's only a few more steps to fully automated vehicles. We can think of some immediate good uses for such, even as many drivers cringe at the thought. One is for blind people--what a blessing an automated car would be for them! Likewise for others with handicaps (permanent or temporary) that prevent them from driving.

Another group is very old people who can no longer safely drive. Just think, Florida could be the capital of automated driving. (Come to think of it, no one in Florida drives very well.)

There's also folks who have lost their driving privileges, either temporarily or permanently. They're a good market for the new technology because they usually have lost their right to drive due to BAD DRIVING.

Looking further down the road, so to speak, we foresee a whole new car concept. A driverless car can be configured completely differently from today's cars. There is no need for a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator and dashboard in such a car--those are for humans. Likewise, there is no need for fixed seats that face forward. Instead, you can have seats that swivel so a group can have a discussion while riding. Or, seats like those in first class on international flights that can lie flat so you can go to sleep. Leave for grandma's at midnight, take an Ambien and wake up a few hours later at your destination.

Indeed, there's no need for windows on such a car, although most people will want them. But the windows could also be darkened, or better yet, turned into computer screens. You could surf the web and play video games; of course, there will be those who watch porn as well. Which leads to other things you could do while riding in an automated car with someone you love.

If all cars were automated, you could also make them a lot lighter and smaller. Little women wouldn't insist on SUV's so they can see over traffic, and we wouldn't have to engineer massive cars of sheet metal to survive collisions with idiotic drivers of other massive piles of sheet metal.

And if all the cars are automated, they can go a lot faster, getting you to your destination more quickly. That's because automated cars would not need, for example, the staggered start that humans take at a stop light--they could all start at the same time and pace. You might not even need stoplights--just a system by which the vehicles yield to each other, as they could know exactly where all the cars around them are going.

You can also drink and ride--at least up to a point.

The way people interact with cars would be quite different as well. No need to look all over for a parking spot--you'd get dropped off where you want to go, and then the car would go find it's own remote parking spot. When you're ready to go, you just ask the latest version of the Siri app on your smart phone to have you picked up. Like an instant cab without the smelly driver.

Furthermore, if you can summon a car to pick you up, anytime, why own a car? Why not sign up for a car sharing service and get whatever type of vehicle you need at the time. Driving into the office? Order up a nifty electric one-seater. Taking the family to the beach? Get something more akin to an SUV, but without having to OWN one and drive it on the daily commute.

There will still be problems to work out--that smelly person who had the car before you; the people who leave their trash behind; the people who try to override whatever safety systems are in place, etc. You can always count on a few people to do their best to ruin a good thing, but most of these obstacles will be overcome.

It'll be a good while before everything's automated--there will always be a few diehards crying out about "freedom" to drive themselves (at least until they try one of those porn trips). But, the day is coming. Just look down the street.

Soccer Ridiculousness--Part 1

2011-11-29T20:48:00.001-05:00

In a belated effort to restore some semblance of balance to collegiate athletics, the NCAA is considering some significant changes to off-season training for a number of sports, including soccer. Currently, collegiate athletes in soccer pretty much face year-round training and competition, including international tours in the off-season.

The NCAA's Resource Allocation Workgroup is proposing to ban off-season competition and international tours, and to reduce the number of games in the season by about 10 percent. These are rational steps to reign in a sport--that like many others on college campuses--has gotten out of control.

Yet to hear the college soccer coaches yowl, you'd think the NCAA was proposing to shut soccer down. These coaches--many of them foreigners--need to realize that college soccer is NOT PRO SOCCER, even though it may appear that way at times.

An article in last week's Potomac Soccer Wire illustrates the hysteria. “The spring [off-season] games are critical,” noted University of Utah women’s soccer coach Rich Manning on his twitter feed. “Who would want to run, lift and train for 6 months a year with no games. And when you consider the NCAA doesn't allow players to play on outside teams, it's almost a death sentence to anyone getting better from ages 18-22."

A death sentence? Coach, most of these players are going to have to go on to something other than soccer, or at least they should (although coaching apparently is always an option). They ought to have some time to do something else in their lives. They don't need to train all year either. Yes, they need to maintain their conditioning, but that's not the same.

As for getting better (or playing all the time), if they want to go pro, go pro.

Anyway, other sports also have only one season. Football, basketball, baseball, to name a few. Although it is true that some of these teams--notably basketball--do tour around the world in the off-season (remember Georgetown's brawl with a semi-pro team in China this past summer?), so we hope the rules will be enforced equitably.

Bad as the Utah coach's comments are, they pale in comparison to the utterly ridiculous statements of Rob Kehoe, Collegiate Programs Director at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. He's quoted in Potomac Soccer Wire thusly: “If you have players that have eight months without competition opportunities, what happens to their discipline? In a campus situation, they’re going to be bored and involved with the scourge of the college campus, which is substance abuse and relationship abuse issues. The sport serves as a deterrent from being involved in things that are irresponsible, illegal activities that are very prevalent on college campuses."

Whoa! We had no idea that colleges were such cesspools, with soccer literally being the only thing saving these poor young men and women from a life of destitution and ruin.

Soccer is a good sport, but it's only a sport. There are plenty of good ways of allowing college soccer athletes to maintain (and even improve) their skills without subjecting them to year-round competition. They need an occasional break from soccer, and time to focus on what the rest of their lives will bring.

Soccer COACHES, of course, have nothing better to do, but that's exactly why they shouldn't be the ones determining what limits should be placed on the sport within colleges.

VA GOP Takes First Step Toward Self Destruction

2011-11-22T11:52:00.001-05:00

We knew they couldn't resist.

With its new dominance of all of Virginia's government, what's the first bill pre-filed by a GOP legislator? Why, of course, a bill to define human life as starting at conception.

Even Mississipians rejected this really bad idea.

The question is whether Virginia's Republican legislators, needing to play to their base, will have the good sense to say "no" to this bill. If not, they'll put Governor McDonnell in an awkward position, one that will dash any aspirations he has for higher office (Senate, GOP VP nominee)--if he vetoes such a bill, he loses the religious right; if he signs it, his moderate image (the basis for his success so far) is shattered.

Moreover, if this bill goes into law (and believe us, this one is just the tip of the iceberg--you can bet there are plenty of other religiously inspired bills to come from the same group), Republicans can kiss their majority goodbye in short order.

VA voters are concerned about the economy. They didn't elect Republicans to institute a Taliban of state-controlled religion in the Commonwealth.

First World Problems Versus Third Word Problems

2011-11-04T11:41:00.000-04:00

This morning my older son reminded me how trivial some of our utter frustrations can be.

It wasn't a great morning. The Curmudgeon is a single parent for most of this week, and it's the first hour and a half of each school day morning that is the real challenge. The last two days were great, though, with everything running like clockwork.

Yesterday, however, unbeknownst to me, our housekeeper apparently unplugged my clock radio, then plugged it in and reset the time, but she conveniently had me "fall back" an hour just a little too soon for the switch to standard time this weekend. As a result, my alarm would have gone off an hour late this morning, but for one of the kid's alarms waking me up only a half hour late (and quite confused as to why his alarm was going off at what seemed like 5:35 a.m.).

So this morning was a big rush, with dad grumbling quite a bit about our housekeeper's negligence.

Then older son lightens the mood on our trip to school by saying this a good example of "first world" problems and how they compare to third world problems.

First world problem: alarm clock reset to wrong time;
Third world problem: no electricity

First world problem: this steak is medium, not medium rare
Third world problem: we have no food

First world problem: she said something mean about me on Facebook
Third world problem: a militia group raped all the girls in our village

You get the picture. So next time you're angry about something that has happened to you, play the first world/third world game. You'll feel better.

Why VA Independents Should Vote Dem In State Senate Races

2011-11-01T18:00:00.001-04:00

If you're one of Virginia's many independent voters, next Tuesday's elections--especially for state Senate races--should be of great interest to you.

Virginia has a large group of mostly moderate independent voters. They tend to be fiscally conservative and socially libertarian, i.e., they don't want the government telling them what to do in their bedrooms or with their guns. Their primary interest is in getting good government services as efficiently as possible. Not surprisingly, these sensible folks are disgusted with both major parties.

For those of you who fall into this large category of independent voters, Tuesday's election is important because if the Virginia state senate swings to a Republican majority, the Commonwealth will be--for the first time in many years--a single party state, with the GOP controlling both houses of the legislature as well as all the major constitutional offices (governor, lt. gov., AG, etc.)

That will, in turn, unleash social conservatives to push--and enact--a flurry of regulations on conduct, as well as to turn on the spigots for spending on conservative programs. No, it turns out that Republicans are not against regulation, nor are they against welfare spending--it's just a matter of who/what they want to regulate (sexual mores) and who they want to reward (businesses, churches).

As long as Democrats continue to control the state senate, neither party can go too far off the rails with its agenda. The current stalemate is not ideal--on some issues, particularly transportation funding, the legislature has gotten nowhere for years. Virginians increasingly pay a higher and higher price each year for the lack of investment in transportation infrastructure. But it's not like Gov. McDonnell's solution of sticking a tollbooth every few miles and pretending its not a tax is going to solve the problem.

In any event, independent voters have an important stake in how this election goes. Republicans bill the election as a "referendum on Pres. Obama," but Obama's got nothing to do with it. The real issue is whether Virginia is going to retain the balance that has served it so well over recent years.

Perfect for Halloween: Sorcerors and Apprentices

2011-10-30T15:20:00.004-04:00

We commend to you The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives, by Frank Moss.

Moss is the recent former director of the MIT Media Lab, and the book is an informal tour of the Lab's discovery process, which has brought us such things as digital books (where I read this one).

The MIT Media Lab is an agglomeration of scientists, engineers, artists and other experts into what Moss calls "anti-disciplinary" fields such as Kindergarten for Life, Opera of the Future and New Media Medicine. To say that the Lab is doing "cutting edge" work in science and technology would be an understatement--the folks in the lab are, in many areas, re-inventing the way things are done, from city driving to doctor's office visits.

It's a short read, less than 240 pages, and a fun one. Learning how the Lab's denizens in the City of the Future group, for example, have created a foldable car that can be stacked like luggage carts at an airport is fascinating. The technologists in the lab don't just dream up great--but perhaps impractical--ideas. They implement them by creating working prototypes and then giving the technology away to their many corporate sponsors.

While the gadgets and systems created at the Lab are mind-boggling, Moss's bigger point is the process of creation at the Lab--the antidisciplinary approach. The new "city car," for example, was created by a team that included only one automotive engineer, which gave them the freedom not only to think outside the box, but to discard the box altogether.

Some of the Lab's projects are almost magical in nature. The book highlights the roles of many of the quirky people involved in this process of creation. These are not boring people, and the book is a fun read that makes one optimistic for the futue.

The only negative is Moss's occasional myopic tendency to imply that no one else in the world is doing similar work. We doubt that's the case, but surely labs like MIT's are still pretty rare, and the approach used there could be more widely adopted in academic and corporate settings.

Who knows, maybe they'll even figure out a way to make Blogger's buttons work in Explorer 9!

GOP--The Party of Fiscal Irresponsibility?

2011-10-27T16:12:00.002-04:00

Here's a biting op-ed from an oldline Republican doubting the current crop of GOP presidential candidates' commitment to fiscal responsibility:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/the-republican-idea-of-tax-reform/?emc=eta1

We'll just add that borrow and spend is no better--probably worse--than tax and spend.

Wish we could go back to the days of fiscally conservative, but socially liberal Bill Clinton and Al Gore!

(Hat tip to LS for the article).

How To Save The Postal Service

2011-09-19T21:39:00.002-04:00

It's hard to believe that people are upset that the Postal Service might have to cut out Saturday mail delivery.

Really, is there anything that comes in the mail on Saturday that couldn't wait until Monday?

The fact of the matter is that NOTHING particularly time sensitive comes in the mail. Yes, we do need mail service, but why not limit it to two times a week--say Tuesday and Saturday? Would it really make a difference?

The mail is a little like human food digestion. A lot of stuff goes in, a tiny amount of with actual nutritional value is extracted, and the rest gets excreted as waste.

In our household, the Curmudgeon processes the mail. More than 90% of it gets immediately dumped into the recycling bin. The rest goes into one of two piles: stuff that needs to get filed (eventually--usually on a rainy day), and stuff that needs some kind of action (mostly, bills). The action items get addressed about once a week.

Oh, and there are the magazines, but even the so-called newsweeklies are no longer all that timely--any real news we've already gotten off the net from our smartphone. Being old-fashioned, we like having magazines around, but waiting until tuesday, or Saturday, to receive them would be no big deal.

So, to those who oppose eliminating Saturday delivery, we say fine--let's keep Saturday, and get rid of most of the rest of the days!

Memo to GOP Fatcats: Don't Block My Driveway!

2011-09-19T21:27:00.002-04:00

This evening, one of our neighbors hosted a fundraiser for Caren Merrick, the Republican candidate for state senate in our local district.

Hey, we have no problem with that. But one of the GOP fatcats attending decided it was just too much trouble to find a legal parking space, so instead parked completely across our driveway. They're fortunate that Mrs. Curmudgeon was feeling charitable and only had them ticketed--the Curmudgeon would have had them towed (and jr. Curmudgeon wanted to put an obscene sign on their windshield).

Meanwhile, a small group of protesters gathered outside the fundraiser to urge another attendee--Congressman Frank Wolfe--to support the Jobs Bill. More than our usual level of excitement on North Edgewood St.!

Maybe we'll have a fundraiser for Merrick's opponent in November, Arlington Co. Board member Barbara Favola.

Irene Was A Good Warning For the Northeast

2011-08-29T14:19:00.003-04:00

Although Hurricane Irene turned out a little weaker than many forecasts, it still caused at least $5-10 billion in damage, while serving notice to the mid-Atlantic and northeast about what a more powerful storm could do.

Some observations post-Irene.

1. Forecasting landfall for a hurricane approaching the Atlantic coast is quite difficult. As is usually the case for storms like Irene, the forecast track steadily slipped northward over a period of days, moving from the lower South Carolina coast to the middle of North Carolina. Had Irene's track been just 50 miles further east, it could have missed NC altogether (skirting the Outer Banks) and remained a stronger hurricane as it approached further north.

2. Likewise, forecasting hurricane intensity is difficult. Fortunately for NY and New England, Irene did strike NC first, taking out quite a bit of its energy. But even before it approached NC, Irene weakened a fair amount. In constrast, in 1989, Hurricane Hugo ramped up in intensity just hours before striking Charleston, SC. Better to err on the side of overpreparation, however.

3. There was more time to prepare for Irene than would be the case for some storms. Irene approached at a relatively leisurely pace for an Atlantic hurricane coming at the east coast (less than 15 miles per hour). The 1938 "Long Island Clipper" was going 60 miles per hour when it hit NY. In the future, there could easily be storms where the lead and warning time is half that of Irene.

4. A large storm like Irene is particularly dangerous. Irene was a good sized hurricane, with tropical storm force winds extending a good 200 miles from its center. A storm that size striking the east coast is always going to cause a lot of damage because there are so many people and cities concentrated in the region. Irene sent moderate storm surges over hundreds of miles of coastline; blew down trees over a huge area; and dropped flooding rains on at least ten states.

5. A slightly more powerful version of Irene could cause catastrophic damage. If, as forecast, Irene had strengthened to a Category three storm before landfall, and if it had just missed NC before turning toward the Atlantic Coast, it could have dealt a devastating blow to NY, NJ and/or New England. As it was, as a large tropical storm Irene managed to flood parts of New York City and devastate several NJ beaches. A more powerful storm on the same track could easily have upped the damage ante to $50 billion, or even $100 billion.

6. NYC is ready to take hurricanes seriously--NYC officials treated the threat soberly, as did many--but of course not all--New Yorkers. As illustrated in the Curmudgeon's novelization of a major hurricane striking NYC (Landstrike), the consequences of a major hurricane making a direct hit on the city would be devastating. We just hope there's no backlash in attitudes because the storm ended up a little weaker than advertised.

Fortunately, geography and climate make the odds of a major hurricane striking NYC at any given time quite small. Irene illustrated that point. But, when the big one does hit--and one day it will--the consequences will be devastating.

REALLY IMPORTANT AND USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT HURRICANE IRENE FOR EAST COAST RESIDENTS

2011-08-25T17:26:00.003-04:00

Anyone living on the east coast from North Carolina to Maine should read this excellent summary of the significant dangers from storm surge from Hurricane Irene:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1899

(We, of course, also like and greatly appreciate the plug for Landstrike at the bottom. Irene is behaving very much like fictional hurricane Nicole in Landstrike, albeit not quite as strong--but still dangerous!)

Will Irene Follow Us To NYC?

2011-08-23T16:45:00.002-04:00

It figures. The Curmudgeon family is headed to New York City this weekend for a show and some touristing about, but it looks like Hurricane Irene may follow us up there, Landstrike style. Irene probably won't be "the big one," and it's course is still far from certain, but we guess it would be poetic justice for the storm to ruin our weekend. (Having just survived the great Virginia Quake of '11).

The forecast track for Irene is already illustrating one of the big problems with hurricane forecasting that we tried to highlight in Landstrike: given the curvature of the Atlantic coastline and the tendency of Atlantic hurricanes to curve to the north as they approach the coast, it is very difficult to accurately predict where they'll strike (or if they will miss entirely).

In the worst case, Irene will hug the coast from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod, causing billions of dollars of coastal damage (similar to Hurricane Floyd in 1999).

If you live anywhere on the east coast north of Georgia, you should keep a close eye on this one for the next few days!

Rick Perry's Porn Investment

2011-08-20T17:39:00.002-04:00

With hat tip to Nathalie, we thought this was interesting in terms of a long line of GOP "family values" hypocrites:

Rick Perry's Hardcore History of Investment in Porn

We'd be willing to bet he's sampled the product as well.

Arlington Should Tell Motorcyclists To Take A Hike

2011-08-16T19:28:00.001-04:00

[Note to readers: with this post we're back from a summer hiatus, hoping to resume posting regularly.]

Arlington County has announced that it will close portions of I-66 and Route 110 in the County this Friday afternoon between 2:30-4:00 pm so that Arlington police can accompany a large group of motorcycle riders coming into town to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Sorry Arlington, but this is BAD POLICY. Anyone who's ever driven I-66 on a Friday afternoon knows that rush hour starts early and it goes in BOTH directions. Likewise, Rt. 110 is a major artery.

We have no problem with motorcyclists coming to town to commemorate the 9/11 attacks, although we highly suspect this is more like a big party than any kind of solemn event. (Promotional material for the event on Friday touts a BBQ in Crystal City on yet more closed streets, along with a gun raffle to raise money. A lot of Arlingtonians on Arlnow.com were more bent out of shape about the gun raffle, but we're not sure Arlington authorities can--or should--do much about that.)

But on a Friday afternoon?

There's a reason why marathons, walk-a-thons, bicycle events, etc, are on Sunday mornings: because the traffic disruption is minimized (it's still disruptive if you're trying to get somewhere at that time). Why cave in to these motorcyclists?

The alert from Arlington County said, in part, that it is for the protection and safety of the motorcyclists. Fine, but if they want to ride into town on a Friday afternoon, they should sit in traffic like everyone else (and NOT hot dog it around cars, driving on medians and in the middle of lanes).

Couldn't Arlington have told the cyclists that they'd be welcome to come in at say between 10:00 a.m. to noon, or after 7:00 pm? Or on the weekend? This is a bad precedent.

If the President (current or most recent) were to motorcade through at a similar time, disrupting traffic, you can believe there'd be complainers. (Indeed, a few years ago, Bush wisely opted not to motorcade to a fundraiser in NoVa during rush hour, realizing how counterproductive it would be.)

Powerful Video On Climate Change

2011-06-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

Send this to all your Red State friends!

Johnny Reb Funds Lincoln Bio-pic?

2011-05-11T16:38:00.000-04:00

Would Greece provide support for a Turkish filmmaker producing a film about the Ottoman empire?

Would Germany fund a movie about Stalin?

Would Israel help produce a move about Arafat?

No. But believe it or not, Virginia is going to provide Steven Spielberg with more than $4 million in tax credits and other funds to make a movie about none other than Abraham Lincoln, the very man who directed the devastation of Virginia about 150 years ago. (See Wapo story here.)

Hey, we think it shows that the Commonwealth is mature. South Carolina sure wouldn't do such a thing (they don't have the $4 million).

While we have nothing against Spielberg making his movie in Richmond and Petersburg--despite the fact that Lincoln's Union Army left both in utter devastation in 1865--we do have a problem with spending $4 million in state funds to support billionaire Spielberg and his Hollywood multi-millionaire friends in this endeavor.

For some reason, even supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans have a blind spot when it comes to spending taxpayer money on films (and sports teams). The supposed rationale is that filming in the state provides jobs. So what? Every other business in the state provides jobs, too, but they aren't getting some huge windfall from the state (okay, some are, but they shouldn't).

Film jobs, in particular, are notably temporary. Once Spielberg is finished with a few weeks of filming, everything will be shipped back to Hollywood to be finished and those "jobs" will disappear.

We'd love to know the cost per job of this corporate welfare scheme.

Presidential Apprentice

2011-05-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

With so many Republicans--many obscure--vying for their party's presidential nomination, there just has to be a better way than slogging through a series of primaries, caucuses and "debates." And there is.

We now introduce a new system: Presidential Apprentice. Not only will this get the Republicans the best nominee, but it will be entertaining and provide a large windfall profit to one of the television networks in keeping with GOP principles.

Here's how it works. Each week, the aspiring nominees will be given a presidential task to complete. One week it might be reducing the deficit; the next it might be dealing with high gas prices, or taking out a wanted terrorist. After each task is completed, a panel of Republicans will decide which contender is fired. (Obviously, since Donald Trump is running--and believe us, he is--he can't be the one making the judgments.) The panel will be assisted by voting (a la American Idol style) of the public, with the voting counting as 50% of the score.

So then, each week the weakest contender will be eliminated. At first, the candidates will have to work as teams--this is fine: a President has to work with a team of advisors anyway. It will be easy enough to see who is working and who is sabotaging and we'll learn a lot about each contestant, er aspirant. Later in the competition, when we're down to three or four, they'll work individually.

This format will give relatively unknown candidates a chance to distinguish themselves on the merits.

Oh, and each week the candidates on the winning team will get a significant campaign donation as well.

We can't wait to tune in!

King George III Party

2011-04-12T15:14:00.002-04:00

The original Boston tea partiers were upset about taxation by England's King George without their representation in Parliament.

Today's misnamed Tea Partiers in Congress have--in the style of King George--imposed their own worldview on the residents of the District of Columbia, who have no representation in Congress.

Today's Tea Party should be renamed the King George party.

Bully for D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and members of the D.C. Council for holding their own true tea party protest of those actions yesterday.

J. Edgar Hoover, Clint Eastwood, Leo DiCaprio and . . . Arlington?

2011-03-30T21:03:00.004-04:00

A little bird (thanks CH) told us that the forthcoming Clint Eastwood directed bio-pic of J. Edgar Hoover, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was out filming in little ol' Arlington today (up near Marymount U.) So what we're wondering is "why Arlington?" Did the reputedly gay Hoover have his secret liaisons here? Or perhaps he had a source in the American Nazi party HQ here in Arlington (in the building that now houses Java Shack)? Or maybe they just needed a boring 1950's style home?

Incredible Tsunami Video Hints At Power of Hudson River Hurricane Storm Surge

2011-03-27T22:45:00.003-04:00

Some of the most powerful scenes in the Curmudgeon's fictional book, Landstrike, depict a 20-25 foot storm surge from a category 4 hurricane raging up the Hudson River and into Manhattan.

A newly released Japanese video from the recent tsunami amply demonstrates how this might unfold. This video is shot from the side of a river that is suddenly swollen by the tsunami's massive surge, similar to what would happen with a major hurricane sending a storm surge into a river.

You will see the river quickly rising about 20 feet and cascading over its banks into the hapless Japanese town, sweeping cars and trucks away and demolishing buildings in seconds. One can easily imagine the awful effects of a similar surge up the Hudson River as it washes into NYC with massive force.

Also note, in part of the video, the large boat in the upper portion, straining at its moorings, then breaking free and adding to the carnage as it rides the wave into the town. This reminded us of the scene in Landstrike when the Norwegian cruise ship bursts free of its moorings and crashes into the Jacob Javits Center. This is an amazing video--it's hard to believe whoever shot it was brave enough to stand and keep filming while this destruction occurred!

The Importance of Tax Fairness in Virginia

2011-03-27T18:18:00.002-04:00

Today's Washington Post has a terrific op-ed piece co-written by Virginia state representatives David Toscano (a Democrat) and R. Lee Ware (a Republican). In "Shining Some Sunlight on $200 Million In Virginia Tax Breaks," they note that "[w]ith every tax credit that is adopted, a policy decision is made about the appropriate use of public resources." The coal industry alone has an estimated $100 million in tax credits. Simply eliminating that tax preference could result in a reduction of the corporate tax rate from 6% to 5.25%, or provide a refund of $15 a year to every Virginia taxpayer. When legislators (this goes for Congress, too) talk about taxes being "too high," the answer is not always spending. A significant issue is the inequities in the tax code that favor one taxpayer over another. Why, for example, should a coal mine operator in effect pay lower taxes in Virginia than the mom and pop owners of the local Subway sandwich business? Is it only because the mine operators wield greater political clout? [Yes.] The authors suggest that, at a minimum, all such tax credits should come with an expiration date. There may, in fact, be a compelling policy (not political) reason for a tax credit, but the legislature should be forced to reconsider periodically the continued existence of that rationale. We'll just note that the problem is far greater at the federal level. Tax rates could be lowered significantly if all the preferences, credits and loopholes in the current tax code were eliminated or closed, without reducing spending on critical program.

McDonnell Vetoes Physical Education Bill--Follow-up Needed

2011-03-25T11:18:00.002-04:00

In a recent post, we questioned the wisdom of a bill passed by the Viriginia legislature to expand the physical education requirements for elementary school children in the Commonwealth.

Governor McDonnell has now vetoed the bill, no doubt because he regularly reads and agrees with the Curmudgeon. (Or perhaps due to furious lobbying from school districts and local governments.)

We agree with the Governor's decision--the bill amounted to a very expensive unfunded mandate from Richmond.

That should not be the end of the matter, however. We would hope that the Governor would either ask the State Board of Education to study the issue, or appoint a commission to do the same. Many of Virginia's school children DO need more physical activity (although obesity is not, fundamentally, an issue of inactivity--it is primarily an issue of over-large serving portions that result in people eating too much food).

The trick is to provide more exercise to those kids who need it, without foisting it on kids who already get plenty (at the expense of other priorities). Some data gathering would be in order. Based on our experience with youth sports programs in Arlington, we'd guess that at least 50 percent of kids, maybe a bit more, are getting a fine amound of exercise, at least through elementary school, as a result of participation in various actitivies that take place outside the school day.

For those not getting enough exercise, one option may be to establish additional programs after school and require children whose parents cannot certify their participation in other sports programs to participate in appropriate activities.

The Arlington Soccer Associaton is experimenting with an after school program aimed at children who do not participate in our more traditional evening/weekend recreational soccer program, to see if we can reach kids who face barriers--such as transportation--to involvement in regular youth sports programs.

It may well be that the Commonwealth could reach those kids who need more physical activity, but at a much lower cost, by specifically identifying them and putting them into appropriate programs AFTER school.

Maybe Schiller is Right

2011-03-09T22:03:00.002-05:00

So an NPR fundraising executive called Tea Partiers xenophobes and suggested they are anti-intellectual. Big deal. Hasn't anyone noticed that former terrorist supporter Rep. Pete King (who raised funds for and defended the Irish Republican Army) has targeted hearings at American muslims for their alleged ties to terrorism?

Schiller also said NPR might be better off without taxpayer support.

Schiller's been fired, but he's right on both counts.

NPR--and PBS--should transition to independent organizations. Both have quality programming and a loyal audience. Cutting the loose from the taxpayer teat would only make them better--they could tell the truth!

Virginia's Expanded PE Requirement--Good Policy?

2011-03-08T16:00:00.004-05:00

Virginia's General Assembly has passed a bill that would mandate 150 minutes per week of physical education in the Commonwealth's public elementary schools. As the bill awaits Governor McDonnell's signature, school districts around the state are belatedly mobilizing to oppose it.

Is this bill a good idea?

The law was proposed by a pair of physician legislators, including state senator Ralph Northam from Norfolk, who views it as a weapon on the war against obesity, diabetes and other ailments of a sedentary lifestyle.

Regular readers of the Curmudgeon know that we're no fans of obesity (although our biggest peeve for the cause of this epidemic is oversized serving portions). While we're in favor of getting school children to be more active, we think this law, well-intentioned as it is, is the wrong way to achieve it's goals.

It is certainly true that some elementary school age children aren't getting enough physical activity. But many other school children are getting plenty of exercise. This one-size-fits-all approach will end up hurting some students by taking away time for academics, arts, music and other important subjects. There is only so much time in the school day, so more PE will result in less of something.

It appears that the General Assembly passed the bill without doing much research or study. We'd prefer that the governor send it back for more discussion, including input from schools on other possible options for giving children the physical activity they need.

Here's one possibility: allow parents to provide evidence that their children are getting the requisite exercise by certifying participation in programs outside the schools, such as soccer, basketball, gymnastics, etc. In Arlington, we have an extensive program of sports activities organized through the Parks Dept., as do most other Virginia counties, that cover thousands of school children.

For those children who AREN'T enrolled in exercise programs outside of school, the schools (or Parks Depts.) could organize AFTER SCHOOL programs. If the state wants to make sure kids are getting what they need, it can set up a commission to set standards for such programs. The schools could still be responsible for collecting the data needed to show that children are getting their needed exercise, but they would not then be spending precious school time giving extra PE to kids who don't need it.

There is some interesting data in Arlington on this score. The Arlington Soccer Association, which provides an extensive array of soccer activities for more than 6000 children, keeps tabs on the number of kids participating in its programs from each school in the district. The range is dramatic: at a couple of elementary schools, about 50% of the kids play in recreational soccer, which consists of at least one hour-long practice and rougly hour-long game per week in the Fall and Spring. At a handful of other elementary schools, however, fewer than 5% of kids participate. The average is about 30%.

The primary reason for this disparity appears to be that in many lower income families, working parents cannot provide the transportation to get their kids to and from practices and games. Arlington Soccer is beginning to experiment with after-school soccer programs, held on school grounds, as one way to bolster participation at these schools. Funding, of course, is an issue, but the state might find it much less expensive to provide supplementary after-school sports/exercise programs to those children who need it than to require more in-school programs for all children.

Arlington Soccer believes it (and other youth sports groups, coordinated through the Parks Dept.) could fill the gap for far less than it would cost to add PE teachers and facilities, without sacrificing other aspects of the school experience.

Let's send this well-intentioned, but flawed, legislation back for more study.

Crazy DC Closes All Weather Fields Due To Rain

2011-03-08T15:47:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend, the Arlington Soccer Association hosted its misnomered "Spring" invitational soccer tournament (it's still winter folks), with all games played on synthetic turf fields to avoid cancellations due to the usual chancy weather conditions of this time of year.

Despite a rainy day on Sunday--especially in the afternoon--all the games went off. But not without a hitch--some games were played on all-weather synthetic fields in the District of Columbia, which inexplicably decided to CLOSE its fields due to the rain. Only in D.C. could this happen! Fortunately, those games were able to be relocated to Arlington, where reason and sanity prevailed. (Ok, maybe playing soccer in a cold torrential downpour isn't exactly sane, but hey, it's futbol.)

Alzheimer's Caused By The Liver?

2011-03-04T22:16:00.002-05:00

This could be a quite a breakthrough in treating Alzheimer's:

Scripps Research Study Points To Liver, Not Brain, As Origin Of Alheimer's Plaques

Teen Talk

2011-03-04T22:00:00.002-05:00

The great thing about texting is that we can have an almost complete record of many of our interactions with our teens. Here's the Curmudgeon's "conversation" with his teen about picking him up from the movies (said teen said the movie started at 6 pm, but it really started at 7:10, leaving the Curmudgeon to mis-underestimate when the movie would be done):

8:03 pm Curm: We're here at Ballston when you're done

8:44 pm Teen: Meet me near the parking lot entrance when I get out

8:48 pm Teen: Ok?

8:48 pm Curm: Ru out?

8:49 pm Teen: Almost but I'll meet u where I said

8:49 pm Curm: K

8:58 pm Curm (After seeing pal of teen pass by a few minutes earlier): We're waiting . . .

8:59 pm Teen: I'm in a movie so just keep waiting where I told u. Almost done.

[Mrs. Curmudgeon and antsy older teen curmudgeon depart in cab]

9:16 pm Teen: Coming

9:25 Teen arrives. "I'm hungry."

Westboro Church--The Supremes Got It Right

2011-03-03T15:32:00.002-05:00

The Supreme Court got it right--you can't censor speech just because it is ugly. And there's none uglier than the Westboro Baptist "Church's" protests at funerals of servicemen and women, contending that our nation's military deaths are God's punishment because we've gone soft on gays. (So what caused all those military deaths during the Civil War? Never mind.)

Once you start trying to sort out "good" free speech from "bad" free speech you've headed down the wrong path.

Of course, there'd be nothing wrong with shutting down the "church" with counter protests. (The Westboro "church" is really just an extended family of very misguided kooks.)

Who Really Supports The Troops?

2011-03-03T15:29:00.003-05:00

For all those who believe the canard that Republicans are the ones who really "support the troops" this is must reading:

Troops Need Equipment? Let 'em Drink Beer

Federal Budget: Go After The Tax Expenditures

2011-02-28T15:27:00.002-05:00

While Tea Partiers in Congress are having a field day attacking the budget and hoping to ax $$ for various social programs, Democrats are standing around in their usual helpless manner, whining about the cuts but not doing much of anything.

What about going after tax expenditures? In the past decade, Congress, led by Republicans, has enacted hundreds of billions of dollars in special interest tax breaks, better labeled as tax expenditures. Most of these tax breaks are distortions of the "free market" principles the GOP loves to espouse--they elevate one group over another for tax purposes.

We suggest that Democrats draw up a list of tax expenditures to repeal, focusing on those that most narrowly favor Republican interest groups. Dems can then hold a series of high profile votes on repealing these tax expenditures, highlighting the budget deficit reductions that would occur without them.

Lyon Park To County: Your Fire Trucks Are Too Fat

2011-02-28T15:20:00.003-05:00

Here's a curious story. Arlington County told residents of a block of Edgewood St. in Lyon Park that they were going to restrict parking to one side of the street because with cars parked on both sides the street is too narrow for safe passage of fire trucks.

The Lyon Park Civic Association has objected. Ok, we were kind of sympathetic to the residents of this little block of Edgewood.

But then Lyon Park sent a letter to the County Board suggesting that the real problem is that Arlington's fire trucks are too wide. Hence, the County should get thinner fire trucks and leave the residents of Edgewood alone.

Talk about losing your audience! Hey, maybe the folks on Edgewood St. (in Lyon Park--we live on a nice wide stretch of Edgewood in Lyon Village) should get smaller cars.

Neglecting Short Children

2011-02-13T09:12:00.002-05:00

This from today's Washington Post:

Physical Activity Bill Goes To Governor

The Virginia General Assemby is sending Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R)

a bill requiring tall children in public elementary and middle schools

to participate in at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week to

fight obesity.

Two comments: what about those short children, and what about a bill requiring newspapers to proof read their copy?

We'll have more on this misguided bill later this week.

Dead Or Alive--DOA!

2011-02-06T16:25:00.004-05:00

If you're a Tom Clancy fan but haven't yet read his latest novel, "Dead of Alive," let us save you the trouble.

We've read most of Clancy's work over the years, and enjoyed many of his books. We wonder, however, whether major authors sometimes get to the point where they refuse to let their publishers properly edit their work. Or whether in today's publishing world editors have just become irrelevant, or too expensive to bother with.

Whatever the case may be, this is a book that could've used some major editing. The fundamental story is entertaining enough: a private clandestine intelligence agency set up by former uber-President Jack Ryan is tracking a thinly veiled Osama Bin Laden character ("the Emir") as he embarks on a set of interrelated terror attacks. When the book sticks to this storyline, it's reasonably fun.

The problem is that Clancy can't resist inserting pretty much every character he's ever created from any of his books into the story, often in some far-off tangent, side-story or backstory. There is a LOT of this in the book, and it really bogs it down.

When we started reading, the opening and the first chapter were vintage Clancy, sucking you in and getting you ready for a fast-paced thriller. Then the pace slows to a crawl as Clancy gets into all the irrelevant material. This goes on for page after page after page for pretty much the entire first half of the book. When you're in the middle of a book on Kindle and you find yourself opting to play solitaire instead of reading, you know there's a problem.

There's also an entire side-story of the former President Ryan gearing up to run again--the country having fallen into the hands of a spineless liberal President--that goes nowhere (or maybe to the next book?). Readers of Clancy books always have to put up with his right-wing leanings, and we could stomach that again here but for the seemingly endless pages of boring and confusing irrelevancies.

Clancy doesn't need to bring along all the baggage of his old books, and a good editor would tell him not to. Unfortunately, the answer to the title's question--dead or alive?--is dead on arrival. Take a pass on this clunker.

Arlington "Wins" On HOT Lanes

2011-02-03T18:53:00.002-05:00

Arlington appears to have "won" it's battle against HOT lanes on I-395, at least for now--see here and here.

The only question, is at what cost from spiteful legislators and bureaucrats in Richmond? Instead of gloating, County officials might want to offer a few olive branches.

Richmond Hypocrisy

2011-01-31T16:53:00.002-05:00

One of the big complaints from Tea Partiers and other conservatives is what they see as "meddling," "interference," etc. from Washington in local affairs. Keep the feds off our backs, they say.

We hear the same thing from Virginia's TP'ers. But while they want Washington out of local affaris, they evidently have no problem with imposing RICHMOND into local affairs.

Put aside that under Virginia law local governments have to get permission from the General Assembly to do just about anything, including imposing new taxes. (In contrast, the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes clear that the states have the right to do anything not specifically reserved to the federal government.)

We also have Delegates who like to impose their mores on jurisdictions they don't represent. The latest is a bill from Delegate David Albo, a Republican of the Tea Party ilk from Fairfax County, that would prevent Virginia localities from restricting the "enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." Albo doesn't like the fact that Arlington briefly discussed "opting out" of the federal government's "secure communities" initiative due to strict immigration enforcement issues.

Arlington has since concluded that it cannot opt out of the secure communities program. Furthermore, Arlington cannot "restrict" the enforcement of federal laws--the federal government can enforce those laws in Arlington to its heart's delight. So Albo's proposal is superfluous.

We have a suggestion, however: the General Assembly should simply pass a law that prohibits all Virginia localities--and the STATE (including the Attorney General)--from restricting the "enforcement of [ALL] federal laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." Somehow, we don't think that would go down with the TP'ers.

Memo to Albo and cohorts: if you don't want the feds to meddle in Virginia, then don't have the Commonwealth meddle in localities.

Memo To NHTSA: To Make Safer Cars, Get Rid of Drivers

2011-01-26T13:24:00.002-05:00

The nation's automotive safety agency--NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to those of you living outside the beltway)--held a press briefing yesterday to tout ways it intends to make cars safer in the future.

Among the ideas bandied about were cars that can tell if you're over the legal alcohol limit, talking cars to let you know if someone ahead is braking, and various proposals to prevent distracted driving while texting, tweeting and facebooking.

Here's a better idea: get rid of human drivers. The age of the driverless robo-car is nearly upon us. The technology already exists in affordable form--it's just a matter of testing it and tweaking it for the myriad circumstances a robo-car might encounter on the road (especially as long as there are still human drivers). Indeed, Google has been testing a pair of robo-cars in various big cities with great success.

There are a lot of advantages to robo-cars. One is that a person can go partying and still get home without endangering the rest of us. Another is that everyone in the car becomes a passenger, and they can do whatever they want--text, yap on the phone, tweet, update their Facebook profile, put on make-up. If ALL cars were computer driven, they could also get us where we want to go faster, as the variability of human drivers would be taken out of the question.

We also like the idea of universal valet service--have the car drop you at the front door of wherever you're going and then find it's own place to park.

This won't happen overnight, but we think that by 2020 fully automated robo-cars will be a routine part of the transportation landscape. The Curmudgeon son is about to get his learner's permit (egads!), but we think the grandchildren will never learn to drive their own vehicles.

Arlington's Palm Reading Crisis

2011-01-20T16:36:00.003-05:00

Lately, we've noticed a horrifying trend in Arlington: our palm readers are disappearing at an alarming rate!

We had one in Lyon Village, over on Lee Highway, but that property is now up for sale. We wonder what the market is for houses used for psychic purposes--would you pay a premium for that?

Then we saw that another palm reader, on Wilson Blvd. just west of Clarendon, had shut down, the property being redeveloped (condos, we predict, but a psychic would know for sure).

We call on the County Board to take action! Arlingtonians will be at a distinct disadvantage if they don't have professional assistance in seeing the future. Let's use some of that housing money to create a cluster of palm reading homes!

Republican Illogic On Health Reform

2011-01-17T12:50:00.001-05:00

We couldn't say it better than Paul Krugman in today's NYT:

The War On Logic

Tucson

2011-01-13T16:16:00.002-05:00

There's not a lot we can say about the tragedy in Tucson. True, our level of political discourse is pretty appalling, but it's been worse--much worse--at many times in U.S. history.

There's no evidence that the killer was motivated by any particular ideology, commentator or political type, and trying to assign blame in that area is simply counterproductive.

There is, however, a stark contrast in leadership styles in terms of the response to the crisis. While President Obama gave a moving speech seeking to promote healing, Sarah Palin went on a petty rant, which is no surprise because that's the type of person she's always been.

While we don't blame anyone on the right, left or middle for Jared Loughner's deranged act, it's sad that we as a society make it so easy for an unbalanced individual to inflict such devastating harm. The hardcore position of a small minority that we cannot, under any circumstances, regulate firearms is ridiculous. No one needs a 30 round clip for a pistol.

The Blessing and Curse of Constant Contact

2011-01-13T16:05:00.002-05:00

If you've never heard of Constant Contact, just look at the bottom of any of those periodic emails you get from your school(s), church, sports groups, charities and anyone else you've given your email address to--CC is the software package powering all those updates you regularly get.

In the nonprofit world, Constant Contact is king. At the Arlington Soccer Association, where the Curmudgeon serves as President, we use the software to keep in touch with nearly 6000 families on a wide range of programs and activities.

On the other hand, as the recipient of a burgeoning in-box of quasi-legitimate, but nonetheless spammy email from all kinds of groups we're affiliated with in some manner, Constant Contact is getting to be a burden.

Lately, we've taken to unsubscribing from a few that have abused the privilege. Email is a great way to keep everyone up to date on what's going on, but there is such a thing as too much information. Maybe it's time for a new software package: "Occasional, But High Quality, Contact."

What's Ailing The Hoyas?

2011-01-13T15:48:00.002-05:00

We usually stay away from sports topics on this blog, but with our beloved Georgetown Hoyas in freefall, we need to get this off our chest.

The Hoyas started the basketball season in fine form, going 11-1 against the toughest pre-conference schedule in the nation, then promptly went into the toilet, going 1-5 so far in the Big East. What's the problem?

When a team this good gets into a funk, it's the coach's responsibility to get them out of it. This isn't the first time it's happened to G'town--a couple years ago the Hoyas had a great start to their season, culiminating in a dramatic drubbing of UConn on the road, before going into a swoon and missing the NCAA tournament. Coach John Thompson III was not able to get his team turned around.

Can he do it this time? We'll see. The big problem is the Hoyas' offense, modeled on the so-called "Princeton offense" of swift ball movement and backdoor cuts. The other Big East teams have now seen this offense for several years, and they've figured it out defensively.

An inherent trade-off in the offense is a lack of offensive rebounding; the offensive strategy compensates for this by getting easy "backdoor" baskets that don't require rebounding. But when the offense stalls, requiring a forced shot as the time clock expires, a miss is essentially a turnover. That's exactly what we've been seeing from a team suddenly shooting quite cold from three point land. Earlier in the season, the team was getting good threes--open looks--and making them; now, they're shooting in desperation and missing.

Thompson needs to show more flexibility. Using the same offense no matter who he has on the floor makes no sense. Last year, he had big man Greg Monroe, one of the best passers in college basketball, and a threat to go to the basket himself. It was perfect for the Princeton offense. This year is much different. The Hoyas have the best guard trio in the country, but rather than turning them loose on opponents, they are forced into a slow tempo offense.

During last weekend's loss against a decidedly ordinary West Virginia team, the Hoyas showed a couple of flashes of brilliance. In both instances, Thompson uncharacteristically put his team into a full court press, with instant results. The quick Hoya guards forced turnovers and easily converted them into points with lay-ups. But the press didn't last, and the Mountaineers recovered as soon as the pressure relented.

JTIII has a talented bunch on the court. He needs to turn them loose, instead of forcing them into an offense that their opponents have completely solved.

The Limits of Energy Efficiency

2011-01-04T18:09:00.004-05:00

Ever heard of the Jevons Paradox?

Neither had we until we happened across the Dec. 20 New Yorker (thanks to Mrs. Curmudgeon) and an article by David Owen, "The Efficiency Dilemma: If Our Machines Use Less Energy, Will We Just Use Them More?"

William Stanley Jevons, an English engineer of the 19th century, postulated that the more we conserve energy, the more energy we'll use.

Recently, some scientists have returned to Jevons', wondering whether we can solve our current energy problems through increases in energy efficiency, i.e., conservation. Perhaps not.

The problem, of course, is that as a technology becomes less expensive, it becomes more widely used. Contrary to Jevons' paradox, however, it's not just the cost of the energy input that matters. It's the total cost, particularly as a proportion of one's income.

Thus, as Owens points out, while the cost of the energy needed to provide lighting has declined over time, the overall cost of all the materials needed, especially in proportion to income, has gone down dramatically. Yale economist William Nordhaus has estimated that it would have taken an ancient Babylonian 41 hours of work to acquire enough lamp oil to provide 1000 lumens of light (the equivalent of a 75-watt bulb burning for one hour). By Thomas Jefferson's time, it would take about 5 hours of work to get the same amount of light (with a tallow candle).

Today? It would take the average American less than half a second to get 1000 lumens. Pretty incredible. But, of course, our per capita use of light has exploded since Babylonian and Jeffersonian times (as I write this, I'm bathed in energy efficient light from compact fluorescent bulbs; pretty much half the lights in our house are on right now).

Another example is refrigeration. Today's refrigerator uses just 25% of the energy of its smaller counterpart in the 1950's. That's great progress, but today, refrigeration is far more widespread than it was 50 years ago. Refrigerators, freezers and coolers are ubiquitous--just about every hotel room now has a small fridge; most houses have more than one; just about every retail store has a drink cooler and supermarkets sport many square feet of refrigerated and frozen food. Most likely, we're using more energy in total today for refrigeration than we were in the 1950's. That's not just because of energy efficiency gains--the relative cost of the appliances that refrigerate has also plummeted.

We could go on and on (and Owens does, to some degree).

The big growth in energy use today is in developing countries, like China and India. The first time we went to China, in the 1980's, air conditioning was almost non-existent and refrigerators were rare. On our last trip, four years ago, our Chinese relatives were rapidly catching up with us. And there's no stopping it. We can't tell the rest of the world that they can't have the benefits of air conditioning, refrigeration and a personal automobile--they deserve to get just as obese as we are!

That's not to say we shouldn't try to achieve energy efficiency; indeed, the market will probably do this regardless of what we want. But the potential result of that efficiency may not be to "save" energy--rather, it might instead just help someone else in the world catch up to our gluttonous standard of living.

Amazing Graphic Of Human Progress Over 200 Years

2010-12-25T08:56:00.001-05:00

So much for Glenn Beck's good ol' days!

One of the Best Days of the Year!

2010-12-22T09:04:00.003-05:00

Cold (again!), cloudy, gets dark early--so what's so great about today? With yesterday's winter solstice, today is the first time in six months that we're adding a little daylight! It's a start; Spring is on its way!

Time To Enforce Arlington's New Snow Removal Ordinance?

2010-12-20T17:56:00.005-05:00

After the serial blizzards of last winter, Arlington finally adopted a snow removal ordinance that requires businesses and homeowners to clear the walks abutting their property within 24 hours of a storm.

It seems that many Arlingtonians need a reminder of this requirement. Hey folks, just because it's "only an inch" of snow doesn't mean you can ignore it. Walking around Lyon Village and Clarendon today, we saw quite a few very icy sidewalks that had never been cleared (although we saw mostly clear sidewalks--thanks to the majority who did their duty).

The photo here is of our neighbor's sidewalk at the corner of Edgewood and Franklin streets. Our neighbor caddy-corner from them did no better (no surprise--neither cleared their walks last winter).

Business owners should remember to clear ALL the walks around their property, not just that in front of their entrance. We noticed that the back of the Comcast property on Franklin was quite icy today, and some other Clarendon businesses ignored some of their side and back walks as well.

Hooray for Repeal of DADT

2010-12-19T21:36:00.002-05:00

Finally, the U.S. Congress has done the right thing and will allow gays to serve openly in the military. It's sad that it took this long, but it's another sign of progress, ever so slowly. We're happy that both Virginia senators voted for the repeal--they did the right thing, and it will help them, not hurt them, politically in the Commonwealth (they aren't going to get the right wing homo-phobe vote anyway, and shouldn't want to).

Should Government Be Subsidizing TV and Radio Media?

2010-12-16T11:44:00.003-05:00

In Virginia, Governor McDonnell is proposing deep cuts in state support for public broadcasting, and we can expect similar efforts from new members of Congress at the federal level.

Some of our friends on the left will be disappointed at this, but we tend to agree with the governor on this one.

When television first came along, the idea of promoting public broadcasting was a good one. In many markets there were just three or four commercial broadcast stations, and only three national networks. Public television carried programming--largely educational and cultural--that would never see the light of day in the limited broadcast environment that existed at the time.

That has all changed, of course. Today, we have hundreds of television stations on cable and satellite. Some are built on the traditional commercial television models, others (such as HBO) on a subscription model. These stations cater to many specialty audiences.

Of course, public television (and radio) have many fine offerings. The question, however, is why can't those fine offerings simply compete in the regular television market. It's hard to imagine that one of Ken Burns' fine documentaries wouldn't find an audience on, say, Bravo or A&E.

As it is, public television and radio these days operate on a quasi-subcription model--but instead of subscribing, they have interminable telethon like fundraising campaigns that, frankly, are worse than commercials.

Most of the programming on public television and radio could easily survive in a commercial or subscription environment, and that which couldn't--well, maybe it shouldn't be on at all. In fact, freed of the strictures of public funding, the programming on "public" television and radio might get even better.

There may be an exception where public funding is justified--some of the state programming on public television is for educational programs used in schools. But the funding for that could easily be moved into the Education budget to avoid any public confusion on its purpose.

We don't see a strong continuing rationale for using taxpayer dollars to subsidize "public" television and radio. Most of that programming appeals to a very narrow audience, not the public in general. And while our lefty friends generally enjoy public television and radio, we can see why more conservative taxpayers would not. If NPR were to suddenly adopt a Fox-like slant, you'd see the end to Democratic support for such subsidies.

We need to make some hard decisions about what government should and should not be doing. This is a fairly easy one.

[Now, having said that, Governor McDonnell ought to take a hard look at some of the programs he likes that subsidize the business community. These are often disguised as "jobs" programs, but they almost always benefit a narrow segment of the private sector.]

Are Tea Partiers Libertarians?

2010-12-15T17:14:00.003-05:00

Generalizing anything about Tea Partiers can be difficult, but the same can be said about Democrats and Republicans.

Today, we ask the question, are Tea Partiers libertarians?

The answer: not really. Let's start with gay rights. Tea Partiers are more likely than Republicans in general to oppose gay rights. You certainly don't see any of them leading the charge (or even following) on repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

In fact, the Tea Partiers appear to be descended from the same people who opposed extension of civil rights to blacks; who opposed women's suffrage and later opposed the women's rights movement. Sarah Palin seems oblivious to the fact that she'd be nowhere if it weren't for the women who fought for equality for women in the political and economic spheres.

Some of the tea partiers also seem to question the First Amendment's anti-establishment clause for religion, arguing that the founders only intended to prohibit a national establishment of religion, but not state establishments of such. This is a popular line of argument from Utah's new senator, who comes from a state that would love to impose Mormonism on all its citizens (and ultimately, all of us).

Indeed, when it comes to religion, Tea Partiers seem to become much more of government activists. There seems little doubt that if they COULD, the WOULD impose a whole raft of right wing Christian moral strictures on the rest of us--their Taliban. They're certainly not shy about asking that public schools teach things the way they see it.

They do like to rant and rave about government regulation of businesses. God forbid that a gun dealer should have to adhere to some rationale standard of care in selling a dangerous product to the public. Or that an industry that pollutes the environment should have to include in the costs of its product the price of cleaning up.

The fact is that many industries in the U.S. have learned to welcome regulation (to a reasonable point) because it protects them from fly-by-night operators charging low prices for inferior products. You think GM has it bad now--suppose any Indian or Chinese auto manufacturer could bring some $2000 piece of crap dangerous as hell car into the U.S. market? Where would GM be then? The point is, many businesses benefit from a well-regulated market, and they have plenty of lobbyists and lawyers poring over every new regulation to make sure their voices are heard.

Would you really want to live somewhere with no zoning laws? And have someone open up a hog farm in your neighborhood, or put an auto repair shop next to your house without a question being asked?

Tea Partiers, then, are not true libertarians.

The "Tax Deal"--Vintage Congress

2010-12-14T18:22:00.002-05:00

If you thought the mid-term elections with all their colorful Tea Party candidates were going to change the way things are done here in the Nation's Capital, think again.

The "tax deal" brokered by Pres. Obama and the Republicans in Congress is vintage pork politics. After all that talk about the deficit and getting real about bringing the budget under control, we got a "deal" that INCREASES the tax breaks for everyone, including hyper-millionaires, and that EXTENDS unemployment benefits for people who haven't managed to "find" a job for two years.

Result: bigger deficit. Screw the American people. But everyone in Congress gave out a holiday goodie to their constituency. Unfortunately, that's the way our system works.

In our next post, we'll discuss why those new Tea Party congresspeople won't be any different. [Hint: they're not for less government, or less spending--they just want the government to tell you and I how to live our lives, and to give tax breaks to their cronies, the classic Republican way of spending.]

We're Back!

2010-12-14T18:20:00.001-05:00

Just a note to say that after an unplanned break due to various causes, the Curmudgeon is back, ready to make some Curmudgeonly posts on those issues near and dear to our hearts!

Maybe Obama Really Doesn't Get It

2010-11-05T11:42:00.002-04:00

Today's depressing reports include that Pres. Obama is considering extending the Bush tax cuts for EVERYONE, including the top 1-2 percent of earners, for another couple of years.

WTF! Come on, Obama, get a backbone. One reason we're losing out to the tea-baggers is we're not putting up a fight. If you go down that road, you may well have an intra-party challenge in 2012.

Why not show that you, at least, are SERIOUS about deficit reduction. The stock market is now up nearly 100% since its bottom in March 2009. The rich are doing fine. The Bush cuts were supposed to be "temporary."

Don't be another Republican.

10 Dumbest

2010-11-05T11:39:00.002-04:00

Back in the early 1970's, New Times magazine published a list of the "10 dumbest congressmen". With the election of so many new tea party Republicans to Congress, it may be time for an update. What about the "10 Dumbest Freshman Representatives"?

Nominations are open!

2010-11-05T11:34:00.002-04:00

Did you know that the words "race car" spelled backwards still spells "race car"?

"Eat" is the only word that, if you take the 1st letter and move it to the last, spells its past tense, "ate"?

And, if you rearrange the letters in "so-called tea party Republicans" and add just a few more letters, it spells:

"Shut the f**k up you free-loading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent, hypocritical, douche bags, and deal with the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush and that our President is black."

Hat tip to JB for this one.

Perriello Race To Be Close (Or Maybe Not)

2010-11-02T20:30:00.003-04:00

Update: While things looked good for awhile, the later results were not so good and it looks like Tom Perriello will go down in the GOP wave. Too bad--he was a good man!!

We've been closely watching the congressional race in Virginia's 5th District between incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello and GOP challenger Robert Hurt, and this one promises to be close. In 2008, Perriello had the narrowest win of any Democrat, and he was considered toast this time by many, but he's run a good campaign and still may pull it out thanks to independent candidate Jeff Clark, who is getting just over 2% of the vote.

We compared those counties with complete returns so far tonight to those same counties two years ago. In four of them--Prince Edward, Buckingham, Halifax, and Martinsville City--Perriello had a higher percentage differential than in '08 (we have to factor out Clark to get to this), whereas in five--Campbell, Charlotte, Henry, Nelson and Bedford City--his percentage differential was worse.

The biggest county, Albemarle, is still mostly out.

We think this will go down to the wire again, with Perriello gradually closing the gap thru the night.

Our Predictions For Tuesday

2010-11-01T09:03:00.003-04:00

Yes, readers, we've been awfully quiet of late as the election season has progressed to it's climax tomorrow. Why? Just too depressing.

A significant portion of the electorate seems to think we can have a federal government that provides the services they want, with lower taxes and a balanced budget. And they seem to believe that candidates who espouse a balanced budget without specifying how they'll do it are inherently credible, as long as they are "against Washington."

Do these same people also think they can get paid a high wage without actually doing any work, or that they can get unlimited health care without it costing anything?

Our voters also have a very short memory. Two years ago we were teetering on a true economic Depression. Reluctantly, Democrats--of all people--voted to shore up the economy by bailing out the same banks and Wall St. firms that caused the crisis. The worst of it was avoided, but now voters, unsatisfied that the economy is not roaring again, want to return to office the folks who caused the problem in the first place.

This is a little like suing the doctor who saved your wife from certain death with an emergency tracheotomy because now she has a scar on her neck.

Anyway, we went through this in 1992, and it turned out ok. After the Republicans returned to power then, we soon saw what incompetent fools they were, and things balanced out.

Enough whining Mr. Curmudgeon. Here's our fearless predictions for tomorrow:

Senate: Dems 50, GOP 48, Independent 2

House: Dems 204, GOP 231

In individual contests, we'll do the same ones as the Washington Post Crystal Ball contest:

Nevada Senate: Reid 44, Angle 47 (Nevada has a "none of these candidates" option)

Colorado Senate: Bennet 50, Buck 49

California Governor: Brown 52, Whitman 47

Maryland Governor: O'Malley 53, Ehrlich 47

Tie-breaker--% of vote for Christine O'Donnell in Delaware: 42%

Wild Card--Tom Perriello retains his seat in Virginia's 5th Congressional district

Cooch Commits More Fraud, Waste and Abuse

2010-10-06T17:40:00.003-04:00

Hey Tea Partiers! Want to cut out fraud, waste and abuse in Virginia's government? Then ask Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to drop his politically motivated civil investigative demand against his own client, the University of Virginia, for documents related to research done by climate scientist Michael Mann.

U.Va. has already spent $400,000 SUCCESSFULLY fighting the AG's lawsuit, and only the Cooch knows how much his office has also spent on it. And now he's back for more!

Here's what's happened so far: using a law designed to catch people who commit fraud against the state, the Cooch, within weeks of taking office, issued a subpoena to U.Va. for all records related to research funded by a series of grants Mann had while teaching there (he's now at Penn State). Cooch claimed that Mann defrauded the Commonwealth while performing research that underlies claims of man-made global warming.

A state court then THREW OUT the lawsuit. It ruled that the Cooch could only go after research projects funded by the state of Virginia, which was only one of the five grants that the subpoena was aimed at. As to that one state grant, it said that Cooch's subpoena failed to allege just how it was that Mann had committed fraud.

Now, having wasted a lot of taxpayer money with his legal malpractice the first time around (it would not have taken a legal genius to realize that the state of Virginia has no basis to sue over federal grant funds), the Cooch is back with a new subpoena aimed at the one state grant. The only problem? The state grant has nothing to do with climate research!!

Furthermore, the supposedly beefed up allegations of fraud in the new subpoena shouldn't pass muster either. The Cooch claims that Mann's papers (albeit not the papers that were the subject of his state grant) "demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect."

Huh? That's fraud? If "lack of rigor" regarding statistical analyses is now a crime, there are thousands of scientists--including quite a few on Cooch's side of the climate "debate"--who are headed to jail. All the Cooch is really saying is that he disagrees with Mann's interpretation of his data. This is a valid area for scientific debate, but not a valid use of state funds for LITIGATION.

On top of all this, the Cooch is also appealing parts of the initial court ruling against him. That's great for U.Va's lawyers, but not for us taxpayers.

Surely the Cooch can find some legitimate targets for claims of fraud against the Commonwealth. He might start by looking in a mirror.

Nathalie for Senate

2010-10-04T16:42:00.002-04:00

For Nathalie Dupree's campaign website (nathaliedupreeforussenate.com), click HERE.

Nathalie Dupree For Senate

2010-09-30T11:43:00.002-04:00

The Curmudgeon's stepmom, Nathalie Dupree, is announcing a write-in bid for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina today.

Nathalie will be challenging incumbent Senator Jim Demint, the overwhelming favorite after Democrats nominated Alvin Greene, an unemployed novice who has been charged with showing pornographic pictures to a college student.

Nathalie, who is a renowned chef, with many cookbooks and television cooking shows to her credit, also happens to be quite politically active and astute. We're pretty sure Nathalie doesn't expect to be moving to Washington after the November election (although we've told her she's welcome in the Curmudgeon guest quarters), but she did feel that Greene's flagging campaign was failing to raise certain issues about Demint that ought to be aired.

Demint, for his part, is so confident of victory that he's barnstorming around the country trying to help various highly unqualified Tea Party candidates elected to they can wreck our government.

We'll try to get a link for Nathalie's campaign website in here soon--not sure it's gone live yet.

Arlington Goes Crosswalk Happy

2010-09-30T11:17:00.004-04:00

Maybe Remy (of "Arlington Rap" fame) should do a rap on Arlington's penchant for putting crosswalks every 10 feet.

Really, the County has gone crazy with crosswalks. We're all in favor of well-marked pedestrian crossings, especially at intersections controlled by traffic lights or stop signs. In those cases, the walks discourage drivers from creeping into the pedestrian crossing, while the traffic signals let everyone know when they can walk--or not.

But Arlington has added quite a few crosswalks in fairly busy roads where these is no intersection. The County is also fond of signs reminding drivers that "state law" requires yielding the right of way to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk.

We sometimes wonder about that state law. If Arlington marks a crosswalk on I-395, does everyone have to stop? Could be a less expensive way to derail HOT lanes than the County's silly lawsuit.

In any event, some of the crosswalks the County has laid out are downright dangerous, and could get a pedestrian killed. The worst is one on Wilson Blvd., at the Gold's Gym in Ballston. This crosswalk is not at an intersection; it's across a four lane road; it's at a curve in the road; and it's in a part of the road that demands extreme concentration from drivers on the other cars--there are parking lanes and a lot of people turning here with no turn lane. Some places were not meant for pedestrians to cross, and this is one of them.

Then there's the silly crosswalks. At the Powhatan skateboard park on upper Wilson Blvd., there are three crosswalks controlled by traffic signals, including one traffic signal solely for pedestrians. Yet, that didn't stop the County from adding a fourth crosswalk between these, with no traffic signal. As if skateboarders are going to use a crosswalk!!

Another problem is road markings that look like crosswalks, but aren't. Arlington loves "traffic calming" speed humps, but paints them with white markings to alert drivers. Some of those markings look a little like crosswalks, but they aren't. We have seen pedestrians standing at these, scratching their heads, wondering if they should blandly walk out into traffic with that "state law" protecting them like some kind of fake force field.

Pedestrian safety is important, but giving pedestrians a false sense of security with badly placed crosswalks, or faux crosswalks, only increases the danger. Fortunately for pedestrians, Arlington has engineered most of its roads so you can't really get over 25-30 mph, even if you wanted to.

Tropical Storm Nicole Takes Dead Aim At Curmudgeon

2010-09-29T12:00:00.002-04:00

Does Mother Nature have a sense of humor--or irony--or maybe just revenge? A year ago, the Curmudgeon released Landstrike, his book in which fictional Hurricane Nicole slams into New York City as a major, category four, storm, wreaking havoc and spreading devastation far and wide.

Now we have Tropical Storm Nicole about to cross Florida. It has little chance of becoming a hurricane, or devastating New York, but it does appear to have the Curmudgeon in it's cross-hairs. Nicole is forecast to race directly across D.C. tomorrow, bringing torrential rain and the prospect of postponing the first round of the golf tournament the Curmudgeon is playing in this weekend.

We know that you all share our pain!

Do We Need Refrigerators That Tell Us When We're Out of Milk?

2010-09-14T16:26:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's Post, reporting on an impending FCC decision to free up some unused TV broadcast spectrum for new wireless applications, speculated that as a result we could see "internet connected refrigerators that monitor when it's time to get more milk and eggs."

Huh? Is this something people are dying to get? The Curmudgeon gets enough junk emails without having his refrigerator nag him for more milk.

Or worse yet, asking to be cleaned; or wondering if anyone's really going to eat those Noodles & Co. leftovers that have been sitting in the back for a week; or questioning the need for five different kinds of mustard; or suggesting something healthier than Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

If this is all we're going to get from a "new generation" of wireless, why bother?

Let us know when you come out with a refrigerator that will go to the store and get the milk. Then we'll take interest!

Random Thoughts on Rosh Hoshanah

2010-09-09T18:38:00.003-04:00

Sitting in temple for two and a half hours of Rosh Hoshanah services gives one's mind plenty of time to wander, especially when the cantor's belting out several minutes of some incomprehensible Hebrew tune.

So here's some of those thoughts:

--Why is the service so long? Hasn't anyone ever heard of editing? Wouldn't it be great if the college of rabbis, or whatever they're called, used some modern techniques to determine ideal human attention span and designed a service that people would enjoy?

--Why is so much of the service in Hebrew? The Jews who started these services spoke Hebrew, so it made sense to them. But as a reform Jew, who like most reform Jews learned how to read Hebrew for bar mitzvah purposes, but certainly never learned to understand it, why stick with the old language?

--Why is so much of the service meaningless. Most of the blessings are about the greatness of God, or some event that took place 5000 years ago. Why not craft blessings that would make modern Jews think about their role in the modern world? And why not incorporate more recent events? Yes, the exodus was great. But so was the 6-day war.

--One prayer repeated throughout the high holy days talks about how it is written on Rosh Hoshonah, then sealed on Yom Kippur, who shall die by various means--fire, water, sword, etc. Again, that made sense when the Hebrews wrote the prayer--that's what killed them then. Why not update it: who shall die by heart attack, who by stroke; who by diabetes and who by cancer; who by auto accident and who by gunshot.

--The weird thing about religions is that the people who start them don't glom on to the past to create them, but the people who perpetuate them feel a need to stick with the past after it no longer makes sense. Orthodox Jews wont' drive on the sabbath because that would be "work". The only reason for this is that before cars, people used horses. For a horse, it is work. Cars are inanimate. Anyway, religion ought to try to stay relevant.

--Is there really a point to having someone sing a long song in a language no one understands? This is when the mind really starts to wander. I like a little music in the service, but we could cut out a lot of the mind-wandering time.

--The story of Abraham and Isaac. What's up with that? What if the Bible told the story from Isaac's perspective? "Ok dad, first, you lied to me. You said god would provide a sacrifice when, in fact, you crazy coot, you were planning on sacrificing me!" We'd especially like to know what Isaac thought when Abraham tied him up and put in on the altar. Did Isaac go on any more trips with his dad after that?

--Why aren't there very many young people at the service? Oh yeah--see above.

P.S.--I remembered one more after posting this: why is Rosh Hoshonah called the "new year"? The Bible says that it is to occur on the 1st day of the seventh month--hardly the beginning of the year!

McDonnell's Liquor Privatization Plan

2010-09-09T18:17:00.002-04:00

Guv McDonnell has finally unveiled his plan to privatize Virginia's liquor stores, a centerpiece of his campaign platform.

The plan illustrates the problem. On the one hand, there is no particularly good reason for Virginia to have socialized liquor. The state's ownership of all liquor stores is an artifact of post-prohibition era efforts to control hard liquor sales. Certainly, the private sector can handle liquor sales with appropriate regulation, while improving service to customers (there are too few liquor stores and their hours are not always convenient).

On the other hand, state ownership of ABC stores brings in more than $250 million a year in revenue. We can't just sell off the stores for a one-time short-term windfall while losing that revenue stream.

So, to keep the revenue while getting the one time benefit--estimated at about $500 million--from privatizing the stores, McDonnell has proposed a series of new taxes. He says they aren't taxes, but they are. That said, they are pretty reasonable taxes--they're basically designed so that liquor sales in Virginia bring in revenue at about the same rate as in other states.

On balance, we like the idea--get the money without losing the revenue stream. But we think that McDonnell's Republican colleagues in the legislature will kill the idea. Anything that reeks of "tax" is anathema to them, no matter how much sense it makes. After all, this isn't a bunch that's really interested in making government work better.

Democrats in the legislature may also make trouble, for political and other reasons. And if the GOP isn't going to support the Governor, why let them label Dems as "tax and spend" even if the plan does make sense.

So most likely another good idea will go down the drain, sacrificed to the gods of politics.

A couple other points on McDonnell's plan. He says he'll use most of the $500 million windfall from privatization to pay for transportation improvements. That's nice--the money is really needed. But it's a drop in the bucket--the Commonwealth needs billions of dollars for transportation, and it needs a dedicated funding source, not a one time benefit, to secure those improvements. Having motorists pay a modestly higher gas tax would do the trick. As a proportion of the price of gas, the tax is less than half what it once was. But those "no tax" Republicans would rather have you sit in traffic than work out a reasonable financing plan. If they ran businesses the same way, they'd be bankrupt.

Also, some Dems are saying that McDonnell's plan to sell about 1000 new liquor licenses may bring liquor close to schools and into low income neighborhoods. We don't think so--most of those licenses are intended to go to outlets that already sell beer and wine. Virginia has too few liquor stores to serve it's growing population now. While 1000 sounds like a lot, it's really not.

Will the plan succeed? Probably not--seems voters don't want "change" after all.

Could Earl Surprise The East Coast With The Landstrike Scenario?

2010-09-01T20:21:00.004-04:00

In Landstrike (the Curmudgeon's hurricane novel), fictional hurricane Nicole forms out of a tropical wave as it passes the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, and eventually strikes New York City as a major hurricane, devastating a region with 25 million people in it.

Could Earl follow the Landstrike scenario? The answer is yes, but it probably will be a near miss instead.

Earl's path has been similar to that of fictional Nicole, but just a little further to the east. In Landstrike, Nicole's powerful eye just brushes by Cape Hatteras, N.C., then, carried by the jet stream, races up the coast and turns right up the Hudson River, delivering a catastrophic storm surge into New York City.

Earl, too, is expected to brush by N.C.'s outer banks, but curve away from New York before turning back to the west and slamming northern New England or Nova Scotia.

But forecasting the track of these storms is tricky. In Landstrike, officials at the National Hurricane Center furiosly debate whether to issue a hurricane warning to New York. One faction believes the storm will curve out to sea, as they usually do. The other believes the weather system that's supposed to push Nicole out to sea will arrive too late.

That very debate may be going on now at the NHC. Weather models forecast that a powerful low pressure system will arrive just in time to bounce Earl away from the coast, but not enough to keep it out of Maine or Nova Scotia. Timing is everything, however. If that low pressure system slows down just a little bit, New York--or maybe more likely, Boston--could get a direct hit.

In fact, one widely used computer model (NGFDL) has Earl striking right around Providence/Boston, while others have it moving a further to the east. Trying to make sense of these conflicting computer models is one of the main challenges for human hurricane forecasters.

One of the main points of Landstrike was that forecasting the landfall of hurricanes along the U.S. Atlantic coastline is far more difficult than on the Gulf Coast. The angle at which storms approach the East Coast, and their typically greater speed, give residents of Atlantic communities much less time to prepare. (Forecasters were able to predict Hurricane Katrina's landfall near New Orleans nearly four days in advance--not that New Orleanians took advantage of the notice.)

If Earl does take a slightly more westerly turn, it's likely that the communities most directly affected will have, at most, 36 hours notice, and even then the likely target area will be huge, containing many millions of people. Evacuation, other than from literally beachfront communities, is not a viable option (imagine trying to evacuate New York or Boston on 36 hours notice).

Keep an eye on Earl. Hurricanes like this have a habit of surprising us in real life, not just in entertaining fiction!

So Long Lisbeth Salander

2010-08-08T18:13:00.004-04:00

So sad. We just finished reading "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest," the final installment in Stieg Larsson's trilogy of wildly best-selling novels from Sweden. Having spent most of the summer enjoying the exploits of spunky Lisbeth Salander, we now have a big empty spot in our reading schedule.

Even sadder is that with Larsson having died shortly after finishing the trilogy, we probably won't be hearing anything new from Salander, other than wild speculation and debate over who should play her in the upcoming American version of movies based on the books. (Our vote: Nathalie Portman.) (Larsson did complete most of a fourth manuscript, so maybe we'll one day have a further visit from Lisbeth.)

So, what can we do with the rest of our summer?

"Restrepo"--Tough To Follow

2010-08-02T21:40:00.003-04:00

We recently saw "Restrepo," a documentary film produced by Sebastian Junger (of Perfect Storm fame), which follows a company of American soldiers stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

We'd have a hard time recommending the documentary unless you've also read Junger's recent companion book, "War," which in turn expanded on a series of Vanity Fair dispatches from 2008-09. Even then, it's tough to sit through.

The book is good, capturing the day-to-day life of American foot soldiers fighting, and sometimes dying--on an almost daily basis--at the furthest extension of western military power into that remote region of the world. It certainly makes you wonder what, exactly, we're trying to do in Afghanistan and whether the mission is worth it.

An important part of the book is probing the lingering social/emotional damage done to these young soldiers by their service.

Unfortunately, the movie, which has a limited release in theaters, is hard to watch. It's very raw footage, with almost no narration, and no other props of a good documentary--no maps, no context, nothing. For those who've read the book, it does put faces on the soldiers you meet while reading, but that's about it. For those who haven't read the book, like our friend, it was very confusing.

It's also difficult to watch because much of the action takes place with a handheld camera during combat operations, resulting in a lot of jerking and bouncing around. By the end, we were getting pretty queasy, like with motion sickness.

Another problem is that in combat, a camera person needs to keep his or head down. So we see lots of scenes of American soldiers firing loud, heavy-caliber weapons, but we never see who, or what, they're shooting at. The sense you get, however, is that they're firing large quantities of ammunition and ordnance at a very small number of enemy fighters, many of whom are local young men paid a few dollars by the Taliban to take potshots at the Americans.

It is a dangerous game, however, as we do see wounded, and killed, American soldiers. And occasionally some Afghans as well.

Raw film alone does not a good movie make, however. The footage shown in Restrepo* would best be used as the heart of a good television documentary, with a narrator, some maps, and some other visual and verbal aids to telling a story.

We can't imagine that Junger would have a very good book if he just transcribed a bunch of interviews with soldiers and stitched them together as separate chapters. Yet, that's the feel of the movie--it feels unfinished, lazy even.

So, read the book. And hope the film footage shows up later in a better edited, more finished format that tells a real story.

*The film is called Restrepo in honor of Army medic, Juan Restrepo, who was killed during one of the frequent firefights in the Korengal Valley, and for whom one of the forward operating posts manned by the Americans was later named.

Storms of my Grandchildren

2010-07-27T23:31:00.002-04:00

Weatherunderground's Jeff Masters has a nice review today of climatologist James Hansen's new book, "Storms Of My Grandchildren" HERE.

Palin, Tea-Partiers To Exempt Pentagon Fraud, Waste and Abuse?

2010-07-08T16:46:00.002-04:00

According to today's WSJ, Queen Sarah Palin and her Tea-Bagging allies are under pressure to exempt defense spending from their attacks on the federal government's spending ways.

If they do so, they won't be Tea Partiers. Instead, they'll be Republicans, who traditionally have turned a blind eye to defense spending.

What, you don't think the Pentagon, which spends about a quarter of the U.S. budget, is subject to fraud, waste and abuse? You don't think defense spending contains pork? You don't think there's purely politically motivated spending going on there? You don't think there are corporations making a mint off Pentagon projects?

Think again!!

It's Official: We're In A Drought

2010-07-08T16:35:00.005-04:00

Although the big weather focus of late has been on the HEAT, it's also been quite dry.

So dry, in fact, that much of Northern Virginia has now been officially classified into a drought by the denizens of the US Drought Monitor.

Doesn't look like there's much in the way of drought relief on the horizon either. After a fall and winter punctuated by serial coastal storms driven by El Nino conditions, it's now been several months since we've had any true rainy couple of days. We'll get some thunderstorms, but they provide spotty coverage, and the water runs off quickly. Ok for streams, but not great for plants.

Just a couple years ago, many parts of the Southeast endured lengthy severe drought conditions. We fear we're headed back that way. By fall, we may be hoping for the drought-busting remnants of a tropical storm or hurricane to head our way!

Committee For A Worse Arlington

2010-07-03T15:21:00.002-04:00

Actions speak louder than words.

The so-called "Committee For A Better Arlington" is pushing for a change in the structure of Arlington's County government. We've already explained why the change is unnecessary and would only make things worse.

The Committee's actions, however, bespeak much. To get a referendum on the issue on the November ballot, the Committee needs to submit just over 14,000 petition signatures by July 14. Arlington election officials would then have to scramble to verify the signatures.

Nothing prevents proponents of the referendum from submitting petitions on a rolling basis. So far, however, they haven't presented a single signature, so officials are waiting, bracing to be dumped on at the last second. Of course, that will require bringing in extra personnel. It will cost taxpayers more, and potentially interfere with other work.

Is this really the type of people you want pushing for a "better" government?

Their approach to the petitions is simply further evidence that this is a small group promoting their own very selfish interests--not those of Arlington's general public.

[We think the Committee is delaying the petitions as part of a deliberate strategy. If election officials can't verify the petitions in time, the measure will have to be decided in a special election, rather than in November. Proponents may figure that the small turnout in a special election favors them. Of course, a special election will mean even MORE taxpayer dollars for this ridiculous measure.]

Wone Case: Judge Leibovitz Got It Right

2010-06-30T23:30:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, Judge Lynn Leibovitz issued her ruling in the fascinating obstruction of justice case arising out of the murder of D.C. attorney Robert Wone.

We happen to know Judge L. from way back--she was a student (a good one!) in a legal writing class the Curmudgeon taught to first year law students when he was a third year student at Georgetown.

For those who haven't been following the case, here's a synopsis. Wone was working late one night, and had an early meeting the next morning. Instead of trekking back to his suburban home, he stayed overnight with a college friend and fellow attorney, Robert Price, at Price's townhome in D.C.'s Dupont Circle.

Within an hour of arriving, Wone was dead, stabbed in the chest while in the guest bedroom of Price's home. Price and his two roommates--all three of whom were in a committed homosexual relationship--told police they believed an intruder stabbed Wone. Police never bought that story. Instead, they believe one of the housemates did it, with the others covering; or, perhaps, Price's brother did it and they were covering for him.

Police never had sufficient evidence to charge anyone with murder. But prosecutors eventually cobbled together a conspiracy obstruction of evidence and tampering case against the three housemates. Price and his co-defendants waived a jury trial, leaving it to Judge Leibovitz--a former prosecutor herself--to decide their fate.

Yesterday, Judge L. acquitted the three defendants, while at the same time saying she didn't necessarily believe their story. Based on what we read in the Washington Post, which covered the case intensely, she made the right decision (not that reading about it in the newspaper is the same as being there).

While we absolutely believe the three defendants are covering up a murder, the prosecution's evidence was weak. The prosecution argued that the defendants delayed calling police while they cleaned up the scene, removed a lot of blood, and switched the real murder weapon with another knife.

Problem is, there was never a good explanation for why the defendants did all this, i.e., what benefit it was to them.

The prosecution also suggested that the roommates might be covering for Price's brother, who had had trouble with the law before, and who a few months later did break into Price's home to steal items in support of an apparent drug habit. Here again, however, there was no explanation of why Price's brother would've attacked and murdered Wone, who was in a second floor guest room at the time.

There are all kinds of things that don't add up in the case. The first is why Wone was there in the first place. At the time of night when he arrived, he could have gotten to his own home in about a half hour. By all accounts, Wone and Price knew each other in college, but weren't particularly good friends.

Then, there's the issue of whether Wone was sexually attacked. The Post repeatedly hinted at this, from its police sources, but there was no such evidence at trial as far as we could tell.

The person who's actions seemed the most suspicious based on the evidence at trial was Price's roommate Dylan Ward. His bedroom was next to the guest room, whereas the other two defendants--Price and Victor Zaborsky--were on the third floor. According to testimony and 911 tapes, it was Price and Zaborsky who heard something going on in Wone's room and came running down to find out what. Zaborsky placed the 911 call. Meanwhile, Ward--right next door--apparently did nothing, at least according to their stories to the police. We find that awfully suspicious. He should have been the first on the scene.

In any event, Price and Zaborsky had somewhat different recollections of the events--not too far off, but enough to sound like they agreed on a story, but didn't work out every detail before being interviewed by detectives.

It's certainly not clear why any of the roommates, or Price's brother, would've wanted to kill Wone.

Unfortunately, the evidence was just too weak to meet the prosecution's burden of proving guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."

That doesn't quite mean the defendants are off scot-free. Wone's family has filed a $20 million civil suit against the three. The burden of proof will be lower, and some additional evidence may be admitted. We can only hope that justice is someday done in this bizarre case.

South Carolinians Have A Real Choice For Governor

2010-06-29T11:38:00.005-04:00

For the past year, South Carolina has been the butt of many jokes on late night TV. SC is comedian Jon Stewart's "favorite state" because it's politics are so messed up that one can only make fun of the state.

The problem is that for ordinary South Carolinians, it is no laughing matter. Unemployment is high. The state's economy has been floundering. And the state government, firmly in the control of Republican politicos for many years now, is a dysfunctional mess.

The current governor, Mark Sanford, is--thankfully--term limited. Not only was Sanford a national disgrace for his affair with an Argentine dancer, but in eight years as governor he accomplished little. In Sanford's view, the government is not there to help people.

The Lt. Governor, Andre Bauer, was so bad that he came in FOURTH place in a four person primary for the Republican nomination to succeed Sanford (and he was generally acknowledged as the reason Sanford wasn't forced from office).

Instead, the Republicans nominated a heretofore little known state senator, Nikki Haley, who's claim to fame is that she is a Tea Partier fancied by Sarah Palin. She may end up just as embarassing to the state as Sanford, as two male political operatives in the state have claimed to have had affairs with the married Haley.

[Haley denies it and claims there's no "evidence" to support the claims. Where we come from, testimony is evidence. Plus, one of her suitors has phone records showing hundreds of hours of contacts. That's evidence, and usually these things turn out to be true.]

Putting aside Haley's bedroom exploits--which Republicans seem ready to overlook when it's one of their own--she represents nothing new for the Palmetto State. Yes, she's a woman, and yes, she's Indian-American; but she's really just more of the same. As a state Senator, Haley refused to disclose outside income from "consulting" activities, claiming it was exempt from ethical disclosure requirements. Yet, nothing could be more important to disclose than who she's "consulting" for.

In the "Tea Party" mode--something she seems to have adopted as the current fad--she espouses low taxes and limited government. In other words, she won't do anything, other than favors for her consultee friends.

Now, there is an alternative for voters in the Palmetto State. Democrats have nominated Vincent Sheheen, a state senator from Camden. Sheheen's three boys attend the same public school he attended.

Sheheen would be a breath of fresh air. Every indication is that he is a true family man, with a long record of dedicated service to his church and his community. As a state senator he has vigourously pursued reformation of state government to make it more open and efficient.

We hope SC voters get to know Vincent over the next few months. Many white voters in the state have a knee-jerk aversion to anyone running as a Democrat, but those voters ought to look at the laughing stock that the Republican Party has made of their state. It's time to take a fresh look. Haley's "Tea Party" is no change at all; if voters want something new--a government that serves the people, then they should look closely at Sheheen.

Suppose They Had A Primary And No One Came?

2010-06-08T14:18:00.004-04:00

It looks that way today in Arlington for the Republican primary to challenge Jim Moran in November. We haven't seen more than one car today in the nearly 20 parking spaces wastefully set aside at our local precinct.

Why couldn't the five Republicans here in the County have just had a convention, in a phone booth?

SC GOP Campaigns Are ALWAYS Nasty

2010-06-07T21:06:00.004-04:00

Over the past few days, both the New York Times and Washington Post have run stories on the nastiness of the Republican primary campaign for governor in South Carolina. The Post's story had as it's theme that in a state "accustomed to two-fisted politics" this year's race "stands out."

Baloney.

South Carolina politics are mean and nasty, and never rougher than when the Republicans are battling it out with each other. Just ask John McCain from when he ran against W Bush in the Palmetto State primary in 2000.

Or, for that matter, ask just about any candidate in a seriously contested race in the state. Dirty politics were invented in South Carolina, then packaged for export to the rest of the nation by the late Lee Atwater and his political acolytes.

[This is a stark contrast to Virginia, where the moderate middle of independent voters really hate dirty campaigns and will often penalize a candidate viewed as taking the low road. But then, that's long been a distinction between the two states.]

This year, the spotlight has fallen on GOP candidate Nikki Haley, a state senator running for the Republican nomination for governor. It's a classic case. For awhile, Haley was ignored. An Indian-American who'd never run for statewide office, Haley was trailing along in fourth place.

But then she started bashing her male colleagues as an "old boys club" (which they are), and began moving up in polls. Suddenly, two long-time political operatives associated with other campaigns claimed they'd had sexual liaisons with her (she's married), and another state senator made inappropriate remarks about her ethnic background.

This is par for the course in S.C. Maybe even tame. Politics in SC has a long tradition of "whispering campaigns"--usually word of mouth libels, sometimes backed up by cheap flyers placed on windshields in church parking lots and at campaign rallies.

The whispering is almost always about race, sex, illegitimate children--and homosexuality. What's particularly strange about all this is that the people actually elected often really do have these skeletons in their closet.

Beloved Sen. Strom Thurmond had an illegitimate black child, rumored for years, but finally proven only after he died. Thurmond's successor in the Senate--bachelor Lindsey Graham--has long been rumored to be gay. As are a couple other powerful state GOP figures.

Sometimes, SC voters will overlook these factors, despite the whispering, if they like the way a candidate handles the controversy (and if the other candidates are have competency issues). Nikki Haley may be benefitting from that. She's standing up to the accusations, while current Lt. Governor Andre Bauer is viewed by many as embarassingly erratic and incompetent (so much so that almost everyone preferred that the embarassing Gov. Mark Sanford stay in office rather than elevate Bauer).

SC Republicans are also completely willing to overlook in their candidates what they would never tolerate in a Democratic candidate. But then, the initial qualification for many GOP office holders in the Palmetto State is simply that they "aren't Democrats."

No matter how flawed the GOP's nominee for governor, she or he will still be the overwhelming favorite to win election in November. And you can bet that the campaign will be a dirty one!

Patti Prius, MPG Champ

2010-06-04T14:45:00.003-04:00

Patti Prius, i.e., the Curmudgeon's 2009 Toyota Prius, has really come into her own recently. The Curmudgeon, like many Prius owners, obsessively follows his car's gas mileage because, hey, what else is there to brag about with the ugly little cars?

During warm months we usually get better than 50 mpg, but this last tank of gas set our personal record: 57.8 mpg. We went an incredible 609 miles between fill-ups, which is darn good for gas tank that holds about 11.5 gallons and usually costs less than $30 to fill.

Ok, you can now make fun of us!

UPDATE: On our next tank of gas, we got 58.3 mpg and 625 miles. That'll probably stand as our record for quite some time!

Capital Weather Gang on Landstrike

2010-06-03T21:45:00.003-04:00

We greatly appreciate the generous plug for Landstrike today on Washingtonpost.com's Capital Weather Gang blog (our go-to source of authoritative information for the local weather scene).

See: Landstrike: New York's Horrible Hurricane Scenario

Would A Change In Government Favor Arlingtonians?

2010-05-24T08:50:00.004-04:00

Some political activists in Arlington are out collecting signatures in the hope of putting an initiative on the November ballot to change the form of Arlington's government. Is this a good idea?

Currently, Arlington has the "County Manager" form of government. Under this form, an appointed (i.e., unelected) county manager is basically in charge of running the day-to-day business of the County. The manager is appointed by the County Board and is accountable to the County Board. As a practical matter, the County Board can override just about any decision of the manager.

Under the County Manager form, Arlington's five County Board members are all elected countywide on an "at-large" basis.

Proponents of a change in government form want to switch to the "County Board" form. Under this form (at least as being proposed in Arlington), there would be five County supervisers, four of whom would be elected in separate districts, and one at-large. The County Manager would be eliminated, but there would be a county administrator.

In considering whether this change in government form is good for Arlington, it's important to ask who is favoring the change and why. The initiative started with Arlington's public service employees unions, who have expressed frustration at having to deal with the County Manager, rather than directly with individual elected supervisors.

Well, that's strike one against a change--the unions are in this for their own selfish reasons, not for the good of the rest of us Arlingtonians. What the unions want to do is politicize personnel decisions in the County. Want to know what that's like. Just drive over to D.C.

After the unions got the ball rolling, two other significant groups jumped on the bandwagon: the Republican party and the Green party. Why? Both are hoping that with separate individual districts, instead of at-large elections, they can crack the complete Democratic stranglehold on the current County Board.

We've been looking to see if any of these proponents--unions, GOP, Greens (an unlikely alliance if ever there was one) can articulate strong reasons in favor of the change that have to do with the good governance of Arlington, as opposed to their selfish interests. So far, we've found none.

(Mind you, it's not like the Republicans or Greens are strong in certain parts of the County, but still shut out of office. In the past few election cycles, NO candidate from either party has as much as carried a precinct in Arlington.)

While we haven't yet heard a good argument in favor of the change, we can definitely think of some downsides.

First, the County Board form of government is more likely to pit different parts of the County against each other, and result in "pet" projects for Supervisors in their individual districts. Again, want to see this in action, cross the river to D.C.

Second, the County Board form means that the Supervisors are involved in day-to-day executive affairs. This is a bad formula anywhere. Corporations don't let their Boards perform executive functions; nor do non-profit organizations. Nor does the federal government. Not the state, either. Almost any organization functions better with a chief executive in place, so that routine decisions do not get lost in some form of gridlock or decision-making vacuum.

Having served on the Board of a non-profit during periods of executive transition, the Curmudgeon can say that boards are poorly organized to make executive decisions. It's very inefficient.

At least in D.C. there's a mayor to exercise executive authority. But in the County Board form, no one is in charge. Or, more precisely, every department head is in charge of his or her own fiefdom. In the County Manager form, department heads are hired by the Manager for their expertise; in the County Board form, many such department heads are political hacks, hired for patronage.

Indeed, it is precisely because of these inefficiencies in running a county government that the County Manager form was invented.

Finally, what's wrong with Arlington's government as it is? Sure, there are some problems, but Arlington has one of the best managed governments around. We have an AAA/aaa bond rating that saves taxpayers millions of dollars in interest on capital projects. We have had decades of smart, planned growth. By and large, we have a government that works and provides reasonable services to residents at a reasonable price.

It is true that the Democratic stranglehold on the County Board results in probably less diversity of views than would otherwise be the case. But, as we pointed out above, it's not like the GOP and Greens are winning some parts of the County. Democrats have fielded strong, conscientious candidates and have generally taken a moderate approach consistent with the vast majority of voters' views in Arlington.

As for the employee unions, thank goodness they're held in check!

So, we're always open to persuasion, but we'd need someone to tell us why a change in government form would be good for us--not good for their political interests.

How Cheap Computing Power Promises To Change The World

2010-05-23T22:24:00.002-04:00

A few months ago we posted a series of pieces on the future after reading Raymond Kurzweil's "Singularity" book. One of the trends that Kurzweil, a self-appointed "futurist," has pointed to as having a major impact on accelerating technological change in the coming years is the continued decline in the price of computing power.

While we raised some questions about some of Kurzweil's projections (and others have raised bigger ones), we saw recent evidence that he's on point with respect to computing power.

In our most recent edition of Popular Science--the annual "Inventions of the Year" edition--two former invention award winners singled out the low cost of computing as driving ever more sophisticated inventions by garage and backyard tinkerers. One, Taber MacCullum (there's a good first name to appropriate for your next kid), in discussing the need for a better computer-human interface than the keyboard, said he was sure it would be invented soon: "[W]hat we're calling garage stuff now is what we were calling Bechtel Labs 10 years ago. Think of what can be done now--it's staggering."

The other inventor, Mike Howe, in predicting a practical vehicle that gets 200 mpg, said, "[r]ight now, there is the capability as a one- or two-man team to do the kind of innovation that has never been seen before. Five to 10 years ago, if you wanted computing power to do what the big boys did, you had to work for them, which meant you were constrained by inside-the-box thinking. Now we have the computing power, for a thousand or two thousand bucks, that they have."

Now, if one of these guys can just figure out how to cap a gushing oil pipe at 12,000 feet under the sea!

McDonnell Streamlines Restoration of Right Procedure

2010-05-20T16:22:00.003-04:00

We'll join NLS in saluting Gov. McDonnell for streamlining the restoration of rights procedures in Virginia, whereby convicted felons can restore their voting rights. Here's scoop from NLS.

The contrast between McDonnell--who gets things done in a fairly low-key way, even if you don't always agree with him, and AG Ken Cuccinelli, who is a bloviating blast of hot political air, wasting taxpayer money on his personal political jihads, illustrates the difference between a "good government" conservative and a divisive conservative a-hole.

Everything But The Right Thing On Childhood Obesity

2010-05-18T10:07:00.004-04:00

A lot of people, most notably First Lady Michelle Obama, are out there "doing something" about childhood obesity.

Or at least trying.

Most of it won't work, because it doesn't get at the root of our obesity epidemic. The First Lady's plan, called "Let's Move," has all kinds of ideas, many focused on getting kids off their butts and into healthy physical activity.

There's nothing wrong with getting kids to be physically active, as it will make them healthier. But it won't do much on the obesity front.

Obesity is a food problem, not an exercise problem. Some studies have even shown that more exercise simply makes people hungrier (but still healthier) and causes them to eat more.

As for the food problem, a lot of the suggestions you hear, including from Ms. Obama, are focused on "less sugar," or "more vegetables," or "less processed food," and "more natural food."

Those won't necessarily do the trick either.

For example, replacing those "bad" "sugary" sodas with "healthy" "natural" juice and milk may be counterproductive. Here's a quick quiz: which has more calories, an 8 ounce Coke Classic, glass of whole milk or glass of orange juice? Surprise! The milk has the most, with 150 calories, followed by the OJ at 110. The Coke: 97 calories.

The key to fighting obesity is LESS FOOD (or most accurately, fewer calories)! Today's portions--of EVERYTHING--are far too large for most people, especially children. Portions of practically every food--including "healthy" foods like salads (many of which are killers because they're so large) and even fruits (which have gotten bigger over the years thanks to selective breeding)--have grown over the past 40 years. Yet, there's no engineering change to the human body over that span that would allow humans to ingest considerably more calories without getting fat.

So, if you want to do something about obesity in children, you need to give them, and their parents, and educators in schools, some very clear guidance about how MUCH food they should be eating in any given meal or day. The advice has to be practical. The federal food pyramid suggests so many servings of fruits, veggies, grains and dairy, but you'd be hard pressed to figure out what is an appropriate SERVING SIZE for all those servings.

So, telling a kid to lay off the soda and drink milk or juice instead is probably only going to hurt. It would be much better to tell the child "you can have soda, but only this much [8 oz.--not a freaking Big Gulp!].

There's nothing wrong with a single patty hamburger accompanied by a small bag of fries and an 8 ounce drink for lunch or dinner for many kids. The problem is that you can't get that size meal at most of the places where you might reasonably go. The "small" "value" meal at Wendy's has a drink size and box of fries that would have been UNHEARD of at a fast food restaurant when the Curmudgeon was a kid. The large portion in the 1960's was smaller than today's "small" portion.

In contrast, get your child a salad at most sandwich shops and you'll get a lot more calories than the burger, fries and drink outlined above.

So, what about some programs aimed at portion control? Some commercials showing what a complete meal should be for kids of various ages; some governmental guidelines on what would constitute an appropriate portion of various popular kid's foods (french fries, drinks, hamburgers, pizza, chips, chicken nuggets, etc.); and some clear definitions of a serving size for all those servings on the government's pyramid (our bet, for example, is that most of today's giganto oranges in the supermarket are two serving sizes on the pyramid).

Virginia's Dumbass Government

2010-05-18T09:49:00.003-04:00

During the past legislative term, Virginia's general assembly nearly unanimously passed legislation, sponsored by a Democrat, to exempt veterans charitable organizations from registration and disclosure requirements that apply to all other charities doing work in the Commonwealth. The Governor duly signed the bill and it became law.

Now, it turns out, the bill was proposed by lobbyists for a group called the U.S Navy Veterans Association, which is under investigation in several states, and whose mysterious director gave thousands of dollars to various Virginia candidates, including a whopping $55,000 to now Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

Today's Washington Post has a story critical of the Cooch for keeping the money, while other candidates have given their contributions to legit vet charities.

But the Democrats critical of the Cooch ought to be criticizing themselves too. It was Democratic state senator Patsy Ticer who sponsored the bill, and apparently NO ONE thought this bill was a bad idea.

The fact is that the bill--now law--was a terrible idea, regardless of the bona fides of the lobbyists who proposed it. Why would anyone assume that just because someone is a veteran--or purports to represent the interests of veterans--they are more honest than the purveyors of other charities?

History is replete with charitable scams operated by and aimed at Vets. Yes, MOST veteran charities are legitimate and do great work. That's the whole point of requiring registration and disclosure--legit charities don't mind; the law deters scammers, and the public has a chance at separating out the good from the bad.

Meanwhile, the Cooch--who is busy persecuting climate scientists--has a huge conflict of interest. He ought to be investigating this U.S. Navy Veterans Association. But he's sitting on $55 Grand in campaign cash from the head of the group, and the Cooch's spokesperson says the Cooch would only give the money back (or give it away) if the guy who made the contribution "committed a crime."

Who's going to determine if he committed a crime? The Cooch!!

So, we're going to give a DUMBASS award to everyone in Virginia's government--the House, the Senate, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Governor and especially the Cooch.

We hope the general assembly will unanimously repeal this bad law next term.

McDonnell's Really Bad Toll Booth Idea

2010-05-11T09:55:00.004-04:00

Bob McDonnell's latest idea for raising revenue while pretending not to "raise" "taxes": a toll plaza on I-95 just above the North Carolina border.

McDonnell has asked the federal government for permission to erect toll booths as far north as Fredericksburg on I-95, but for now Virginia's transportation secretary says "we're just contemplating one toll facility at the North Carolina border."

The state estimates it could raise $30-$60 million annually for roads--which really isn't that much--with a $2-$4 toll at the border. The obvious appeal is that many of the vehicles crossing the border are non-Virginians, so it's a way to tax out of staters.

We remember when I-95 had toll booths from Richmond (where there used to be four of them) to Boston. They are an enormous nuisance, costing drivers tens of thousands of lost hours sitting in toll lines. Today, between Richmond and New York (and maybe all the way up to Boston--we haven't been in awhile) there's only one toll--at the Delaware border. It causes huge traffic delays. There isn't a regular driver between Washington and NYC who hasn't wanted to blow the darn thing up many a time.

(Delaware could do a lot to make it's toll plaza more efficient, but they evidently don't give a damn.)

If Virginia gets permission to put a toll at the border, you can bet that NC, SC and GA will all want to follow suit. And you can bet that once one toll plaza goes up on I-95 in Virginia, the temptation to add more--all the way up to Fredericksburg--will grow. The federal government should just say no.

Tolls are an inefficient way to collect road taxes. (Make no mistake about it, tolls are taxes.) Not only do tolls booths interfere with traffic, especially on peak holiday weekends, but it costs money to build, maintain and staff them. So, a significant portion of toll revenue is wasted in the collection effort.

We already have an efficient system in place to collect taxes dedicated to road construction and maintenance: the gas tax. Raising that tax would impose minimal additional costs of collection because the system is already in place.

Of course, McDonnell and all the other Republicans have pledged not to raise "taxes," so they don't dare propose a hike that would simply keep that tax in line, as a proportion of gas prices, with where it started.

We have an easy solution to that problem, however, Mr. Governor: simply impose a gas toll.

Could Britain Inspire Our Congress?

2010-05-10T15:54:00.003-04:00

The Brits have a hung Parliament. With European debt woes threatening a new round of economic chaos, the English left and right are seeing if they can find some common ground to form a governing coalition. It won't be easy, but at least they're talking about it.

Maybe we could do the same here. Recently, the Washington Post noted a rare outbreak of working bipartisanship in the Senate to get something done on financial regulatory reform.

Perhaps we could extend that spirit to true work on the deficit. In the U.S., both sides bear plenty of blame for the bulging, and ultimately unsustainable flood of red ink.

During the Clinton administration--with a Republican Congress--we made real progress on the deficit. By the time Clinton left office, we had had three consecutive years of balanced or surplus budgets. When W. Bush took office, the ten-year projected surplus was $5 trillion.

It didn't take Bush--and a mostly Republican Congress--long to squander those gains. By the time Bush left office, the cumulative deficit had instead ballooned by $5 trillion--a swing of $10 trillion from the surplus he inherited.

Faced with a potential economic catastrophe, Pres. Obama further expanded the deficit to unheard of record amounts.

Now, it's up to BOTH parties to show that they can govern the nation, not just snipe at each other about who is worse.

The ONLY WAY to seriously tackle the deficit the is to engage in true reform of the major entitlement programs--particularly social security and medicare. Pentagon spending needs to be reigned in as well, and the tax system needs a major overhaul. All these things could get done if the men and women in Congress would show a little maturity, put aside their bickering and figure out how to ignore the lobbyists and spread the pain around.

On the entitlements side, we need consensus that unrealistic retirement ages need to be raised, and some benefits trimmed.

On the tax side, if we erased most of the inequitable tax goodies won by business lobbyists over the years, we could actually lower overall tax rates and increase productivity. We would also, inadvertently, address the climate change issue--if we simply eliminated all the government subsidies for oil, gas and coal we would make a huge stride in having these fuels reflect their true costs.

Many other parts of the economy--notably housing and agriculture--are distorted by tax subsidies as well. Cleaning up the tax code would generate billions in new revenue, while actually lowering taxes for most Americans.

Sadly, we're not counting on any such breakout of maturity. It's much easier to point fingers than to take leadership on tough choices.

Kagan Pick For Supreme Court

2010-05-10T15:36:00.002-04:00

Pres. Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court was pretty much expected.

Kagan is highly qualified, having served as Harvard Law School dean before becoming Solicitor General. She is undeniably whip smart, and politically keen.

The right will no doubt attack her as being too liberal (or just "liberal"). Yet, Kagan is no more liberal than Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito are conservative.

Rest assured, there's no one Pres. Obama could reasonably appoint who wouldn't draw the right's scorn. They will attack the fact that she hasn't previously served as a judge, but if she had, they'd find some other reason to go after her. Some of our greatest Justices never served as judges, and many a judge has been a mediocre justice.

In any event, the highly politicized (on both sides) battle over confirmation will now begin, largely focused on everything but her true qualifications.

The Cooch's Political Jihad

2010-05-04T10:42:00.004-04:00

Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli is at it again, using his office to further a right wing political jihad reminiscent of McCarthyism. His target now: former U. Va. professor Michael Mann, now at Penn State, long a nemesis to global warming deniers.

The Cooch is disgusting. His many politically motivated actions since taking office just months ago make him an embarrassment to the Commonwealth. Contrast his activity to that of former AG Bob McDonnell--we thought McDonnell was pretty right wing, but as AG his office was largely (not entirely, but largely) apolitical and professional.

Not so with the Cooch. He ought to be investigating himself under the same law he's using to go after Mann--the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. The Cooch surely misled the state's voters when he ran for office, although to those in the know the course he's taken has been entirely predictable.

So what's next for the Cooch? Will he sue other professors for teaching evolution? Will he try to get the National Weather Service to alter records showing it's getting warmer? Will he bring a lawsuit to prove that the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is really God's wrath for homosexuality? And what about bringing the Birthers' claims to court, while we're at it.

McDonnell had--and has--the good sense to recognize that Virginia voters don't like extremists. The Cooch is the darling of the right wing for now, well positioned to kick Lt. Gov. Bolling's butt in any contest within the GOP for the nomination to succeed McDonnell, but he won't get any further than that, as Virginia's independent voters don't like the Cooch's sleazebag brand of playing politics with their state offices.

Corporate Welfare for Northrop

2010-04-28T09:55:00.003-04:00

It's nothing new, and both Republicans and Democrats do it, but it's still corporate welfare.

The latest, trumpeted as a feather in Bob McDonnell's cap (covering that lustrous hair of his), is the announcement that Northrop Grumman will be moving it's corporate headquarters to Northern Virginia.

The cost to the Commonwealth's taxpayers: $14 million.

Is it worth it? Let's see. The move only includes about 300 jobs, mostly of highly pampered executives who have been rumored to be seeking country club memberships in the incentives being offered for the move. These won't be new jobs for out-of-work Virginians--these will be executives moving here from California.

Northrop already employs tens of thousands of Virginians where the real jobs action is: in its manufacturing plants. Those jobs were not at stake.

So, $14 million for 300 people--hey, that's a nifty $50,000 apiece. What business in the Commonwealth wouldn't want a benefit like that? Heck, Governor McDonnell, why not devote the entire state budget to getting businesses here for $50 grand per employee--we bet it would work!

Of course, Northrop Grumman will generate some tax revenues of it's own. The estimate--from the people spending $14 mil to get them here--is that we'll get $30 million in tax revenue OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS.

Now, the first thing you need to know is that such estimates are always rosy. We'd love to see Guv'nor Bob's numbers. We bet it includes things like the gas taxes those 300 executives will ring up over the next 10 years.

Lest we limit our criticism to the GOP governor, however, it appears that the liberal Democratic bastions of Arlington and Fairfax are also falling all over themselves to get Northrop to put its corporate offices in their jurisdictions. A fine use for the kiddie sports tax the Arlington Board just approved.

Louisiana Oil Slick--It Could Happen Here

2010-04-28T09:38:00.003-04:00

Now that the drill baby drill folks have succeeded in getting Virginia's offshore areas on the fast track for approval to prospect for oil, it's worth looking at the disaster unfolding off Louisana's coast in the wake of the huge oil rig explosion last week.

A massive oil slick is spreading off the Gulf Coast, growing daily as thousands of barrels of new oil pour forth from the devastated rig. Efforts to contain the slick have failed so far, putting Louisiana's (and other Gulf Coast states') fragile coastline at risk.

The amount of oil estimated to be off Virginia's coast is equal to a few weeks of total U.S. consumption.

Could a disaster like that lurking off the Louisiana coast strike Virginia. Of course it could. And it would only take one to negate the entire value and benefits to Virginians of any oil drilling off our coast.

Of course, by the time that happens, Bob McDonnell and his cronies will be long gone. It will be a future generation of Virginians whose beaches are at risk of being spoiled, whose livelihoods in the tourism, fishing, seafood and other businesses could be destroyed, and whose property values could be brought crashing down.

From Wallowa To Arlington

2010-04-22T17:41:00.004-04:00

We had occasion this past weekend to meet our soccer counterpart from Wallowa County, Oregon. It was interesting to compare notes.

Wallowa is on the northeastern corner of Oregon--the dry, open part of the state. It's a bit larger than Arlington (but aren't they all?):

Arlington = 26 sq. mi.

Wallowa = 3153 sq. mi.

So Wallowa has an area more than 100 times that of little ol' Arlington. Plenty of space for soccer fields!

When it comes to population, however, the shoe is on the other foot. Arlington, with roughly 210,000 residents, has 30 times the population of Wallowa, at about 7200.

Yet, Wallowa is soccer crazy. They have about 225 kids playing soccer there, compared to our 4500. Proportionately, they'd have about 7000 if they had Arlington's population!

It's all a matter of perspective. Ask elementary school soccer kids in Arlington to practice a mile from their school and we'll get a bunch of emails objecting. Of course, the way traffic is in Arlington, 1 mile could be 20 minutes.

In Wallowa, the teams often have to travel several Arlingtons away just to play each other in the regular County recreation league--ALL soccer in Wallowa is "travel" soccer! The Wallowa Valley Soccer Association has a nice website, however--one can't help but notice the barns and mountains in the background of the soccer fields.

Soccer in Wallowa is also a bargain: only $25 per player, less than half what we charge.

The great thing is that we put one of our third grade teams up against one of Wallowa's, the kids wouldn't miss a beat, quickly booting the ball around, having a good time--and wondering what the after game snack would be!

Arlington County's Misguided Kiddie Tax

2010-04-19T17:31:00.005-04:00

One of the many hats the Curmudgeon wears these days is that of President of the Arlington Soccer Association. ASA serves more than 5000 kids in Arlington and Falls Church with various soccer programs and activities all year round, and is celebrating its 40th year of service to the community this year.

As President of ASA, the Curmudgeon has been spending quite a bit of time lately fighting against a youth sports player fee that is under consideration by the Arlington County Board. Bear with us here as we explain why this fee is unfair and bad policy. The County Board will decide the fate of the fee this Saturday. (If you want to reach them with your views, it's easy--you can email all five members at: countyboard@arlingtonva.us )

The fee under consideration would be $8 per player per season starting with Fall 2010 sports. The fee was put forward by the Parks Dept. as part of its budget for the 2011 fiscal year. The Acting County Manager, however, did not include the fee in her proposed budget; instead, it was included as an optional "tier II" revenue item that the Board could adopt to add more money to the budget.

The rationale of the Parks Dept. for the fee was that it is necessary to implement a "cost-recovery" policy adopted last year by the County Board. That policy was adopted without the County Board ever having a public hearing on it, which is pretty unusual in Arlington.

The cost recovery policy itself, however, is pretty reasonable on its face. It says that the Parks Dept. should recover 65% of the direct costs of youth sports programs in the County. In other words, as a matter of policy, Arlington thinks youth sports are of sufficient importance to the community to merit up to a 35% taxpayer subsidy. So far, so good.

The problem is with how the Parks Dept. has interpreted the policy. Some youth sports programs, such as basketball, are run "in-house" by the Parks Dept. For those problems, the policy is pretty simple--figure out the cost of the program and then set fees so they will recover roughly 65% of the costs. (In fact, the Parks Dept. has set fees at a level where they recover nearly 100% of the costs of basketball; they now say they'll just let the fee stay the same for a few years until it gets closer to the 65% target.)

Other youth sports programs, such as soccer and baseball, are run by private, non-profit groups who are "affiliated" with the Parks Dept. through formal agreements. In those sports, the non-profit organization pays most of the direct costs of the program--referees, equipment, uniforms, administrative personnel, etc.--while the Parks Dept. provides facilities (fields, mainly) and pays the costs of maintaining those facilities and administering them.

In determining the cost recovery target for those affiliate programs, however, the Parks Dept, has completely ignored the direct costs paid by those programs, treating them as if they don't exist. Instead, the Parks Dept. has demanded that the affiliate programs cover 65% of the portion of their costs that are covered by the Parks Dept., using that as an excuse to propose the new player fee--assessed only against players in affiliate programs.

The Parks Dept. interpretation turns the cost recovery policy on its head. If all the costs of ASA's youth soccer program are added together, then the fees parents already pay--to ASA--for their children to participate cover roughly 80% of those costs, well above the 65% cost recovery target. But the Parks Dept. claims it gets 0% cost recovery for these programs because parents don't pay a separate fee to the Parks Dept.

Thus, a policy that was supposed to embody a strong community commitment to youth sports is used to REDUCE support for such programs and serve as the basis for a new tax on soccer and baseball parents.

The County Board could easily put a stop to this charade by stepping in and telling the Parks Dept. that is has misinterpreted the County's policy. But, hungry for revenue, at least some Board members have seemed to signal support for the new fee.

Mind you, if the fee is adopted, the money won't be used to enhance youth sports programs. To the contrary, it will go to restore budget reductions in other areas, such as tennis court lighting. This is a sore subject, because adults who play tennis in Arlington really do pay 0% of their costs--and that's the County's policy. (Likewise, users of the County's 8 dog parks--or "community canine areas"--pay no fees to use them either.)

In fact, the Parks Dept. has been reducing its support for affiliated youth sports over the past two years. First, it shifted field lining responsibilities to soccer and baseball. ASA didn't object to this given budget realities, but it did result in an additional $25,000/year expense for us--that's $5 per player. Then, in the current budget cycle, the Parks Dept. eliminated a stipend that had been used to cover insurance and other costs. Eliminating the stipend will cost ASA another $22,000/year--almost another $5 per player. Again, we did not object to this reduction, which amounted to 14% of the Parks Dept's costs associated with the youth soccer program. That's a big cut on top of the similar cut a year before--clearly ASA is feeling it's share of the budget pain.

At the same time, field maintenance has been reduced; new fees imposed for use of lights in the winter; higher fees extracted for summer camps we run. We understand this--times are tight and we have to do our share.

But adding a new fee just for players in affiliated youth sports is not fair. That's just a tax on those parents, with the money being used to fund other programs. We're not against the other programs, but the money for them should come from the County's general taxes, not a perverse tax on children's sports.

Some people in the Parks Dept., and in groups grubbing for the money, have argued that "it's only $8" as if it couldn't be that big a deal. But it's not "only $8." If you have three children, and they play the fall and spring seasons of soccer, and maybe a couple also play baseball or softball, it's more than $60. That's more than the average homeowner's tax increase based on the proposed new property tax rate.

And while some soccer parents--such as the Curmudgeon--could easily afford it, there's a lot of working class families that will find it quite a burden. Those are the families we don't want to lose. (The Parks Dept. says it won't impose the fee on families that qualify for financial aid, but our data show that many who would qualify don't apply, and there's concern about the paperwork burden.)

We hope sanity will prevail in the County Board this coming Saturday when it votes on the fee. A couple of Board members have indicated their opposition to it. We hope the rest will pay attention to the couple hundred emails they have received from soccer parents on this issue--just the tip of the iceberg. Surely Arlington County can achieve its budget goals without disproportionately penalizing children who play organized soccer on the County's fields.

The Experts Are Forecasting An Actice Hurricane Season

2010-04-12T22:44:00.002-04:00

Hurricane season officially begins on June 1, but now is the hurricane forecast season, when the so-called experts see if they can do better than a coin toss in predicting the severity (or lack thereof) of the coming season.

Historically, most of the April predictions are not much better than the flip of a coin, but there are reasons this year to worry about a severe season: in March, sea surface temperatures--one of the main ingredients of strong hurricanes--were at a record level for this time of year. Higher, indeed, than last June (the early part of last summer being quite calm in hurricane terms).

For the full scoop, check out Dr. Jeff Masters' summary HERE--if the experts are right, this could be a season like that of 2005!

Why Tiger's Doing Well At The Masters

2010-04-09T12:45:00.002-04:00

As usual, the media had it all wrong, what with the conventional wisdom that Tiger would fare poorly at the Masters after his exile from golf and all the issues and emotions on his mind.

Yet, his first day was his best first day EVER at the Masters.

The reason is simple--think about it. This year, he doesn't have to worry about any girlfriends! One LESS thing on his mind. None of those intrusive thoughts--should I get her a gift? Should I text her (or sext her)? Should I try for a threesome? Will she still like me if I shoot a 74?

Nope, for once, Tiger's mind is clear and focused.

Disremembering History The McDonnell Way

2010-04-07T15:46:00.002-04:00

So, this is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's idea of inclusiveness: reviving Confederate memorial month?

A certain segment of white southerners are quite romantic about the Civil War. We wish we could send them back there--that's Richmond, above. The reality would not be quite so happy.

Let's review. A small, but vocal, powerful and wealthy group of Southerners--plantation owners--perpetuated an economic system that could succeed only through the barbaric practice of slavery.

As an increasing number of people in states not dependent on this doomed to fail economic system began to clamor for its end, and an end to slavery, this small group of Southern planters manipulated their neighbors into succession and, ultimately, a civil war. More than 90% of southerners stood nothing to gain from either slavery or war.

Despite bold predictions that the Confederacy would succeed, and would prevail in war, succession was an UNMITIGATED DISASTER for the South. Millions of men were killed or disfigured; huge swaths of the South were laid waste to; cities were in ruins; families were torn asunder.

The end of the Civil War hardly brought an end to the ruin that had descended on the South. For another dozen years, federal troops occupied the South, much like American troops today occupy "liberated" Iraq. After the end of reconstruction, the South struggled economically for another 100 years.

It is true that ordinary Confederate troops--most with no stake in slavery--fought bravely against long odds in many battles. But the politicians who led them were fools, taking them down a disastrous path.

If you want to "commemorate" the civil war, do it with a burned out, falling down building occupied by scarred and disfigured people. That would be an appropriate memorial.

Bob McDonnell is the latest in a long line of Virginians who take foolish pride in the Commonwealth's most shameful period.

Did Tea Partiers Severe Gas Line At The Home of Congressman Tom Perriello's Brother?

2010-03-24T23:00:00.001-04:00

See story HERE.

The Sociological Experiment

2010-03-24T22:10:00.004-04:00

This weekend, the Curmudgeon will be off to South Carolina for a reunion of his junior high school class. Now, most junior high school classes don't have reunions, and this one will be the first for the Fairwold Junior High class of 1972.

It really all evolved from a series of Facebook friendings with classmates, followed by establishment of a Facebook class page--more on a lark than anything else--and then the half-serious suggestion: "hey, why don't we have a reunion?"

So, re-une we will.

But it's an auspicious time to get together. Forty years ago, in the fall of 1970, the kids attending Fairwold Jr. High were part of a large sociological experiment. That fall, in Columbia SC, where the Curmudgeon grew up, the public schools implemented a court ordered school busing plan to integrate schools that had largely been segregated for a hundred years. (The two prior years, the city schools had adopted a "free choice" plan that allowed black students to attend white schools, but few took up the "choice" in the face of considerable hostility.)

The way these plans usually worked in the South, mostly it would be black students taking the bus to a previously all-white school. The white schools were almost always better facilities, and black parents generally didn't object to their children being sent to such schools. In contrast, white parents were quite vocal when their kids were sent out on the buses.

Still, the busing plans required busing at least a few token whites to black schools to win court and Justice Dept. approval.

It just so happened that the Curmudgeon's white neighborhood got the designation to be bused to a formerly all black school--Fairwold. It was a bit of a shock, since the year before we thought we were going to walk a few blocks to our neighborhood Jr. High; but in the new plan, that school was turned into a high school.

Anyway, Fairwold wasn't bad at all. Built in the heart of one of Columbia's middle class black neighborhoods, it was a fairly new facility. So while the adults ranted and raved, us kids took the bus each day across town (and yes, across the train tracks) to Fairwold. That first year, Fairwold had an almost exactly 50-50 split between white and black students.

To make the whole thing more palatable to the white parents, the school district added a bunch of really good white teachers to the school, which already had a bunch of really good black teachers because it served the more elite black neighborhood.

As a result, we all got a good education at Fairwold. And kids like me met a bunch of very smart black kids for the first time in our lives.

Leave it to the adults, however, to mess things up. A lot of people, mostly white, resisted the plan. Each spring, riots would hit the high schools, and when they closed, the Jr. High's weren't far behind. (The Curmudgeon can remember sitting on a hill, in a mix of most of the white and black students at the school, watching a small handful redneck white kids battle a small handful of thuggish black kids. The rest of us were chatting together and wondering when they'd close the school and send us all home.) It wasn't long before parents (mostly white) were moving out of the city district to suburban districts, or putting their kids in private school, or parochial school, and over time, Fairwold essentially re-segregated.

But for the two years we were there (and for some time thereafter), it was a pretty good school. Today, the school is named for the then-principal of the school, W.G. Sanders, and it may well still be an excellent school, just with not very many white students.

Because so many students went so many different ways after Fairwold, the reunion is a chance to catch up with some people we haven't seen since the early '70's, and others we went to high school with (but still haven't seen in decades). Judging by what we've learned so far of what our former classmates are up to these days, the sociological experiment worked out just fine, with no lasting scars--lots of doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers (and professors), business people, artists.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone. Maybe we should take a ride together in a big yellow school bus!

Earthquake: Drop And Cover, Or Triangle of Life

2010-03-17T19:13:00.002-04:00

Today, a friend sent us an email that is circulating on the internet concerning what to do if you're inside a building when an earthquake strikes. The advice in the email--which one is urged to forward to one's entire email distribution--is from a fellow named Doug Copp, who has done earthquake search and rescue around the world. He says that you'll get killed if you "duck and cover," i.e., get under some object, like a desk, table or bed, because the object will get crushed on top of you.

Instead, Copp advises that you get on the floor, in the fetal position, NEXT to such an object. When the building comes crashing down, the object will create a pocket--a "triangle of life"--around you. A few days later, Mr. Copp and his crew will presumably be there to rescue you!

It all sounds very persuasive. We were going to put Copps' warnings on our blog, but when we went to find a link to his article, we discovered that his advice is quite controversial.

The American Red Cross, for example, says Copp is full of it, at least when it come to quakes in America. You can find their retort here.

For more, including a fuller explication of Copp's advice, go here for the Snopes.com point/counterpoint.

We guess the best thing to do is simply stay out of an earthquake!

The Runaway Prius

2010-03-17T18:33:00.004-04:00

As a fairly recent Prius owner, the Curmudgeon is understandably concerned about all these reports that his world-saving automobile may suddenly shoot down the highway without warning.

So far, no problems. In fact, we've found a benefit: we can careen down the interstate at 90 miles per hour (about as fast as you can get a Prius to go) and if we get pulled over we'll just thank the officer for helping us bring the car under control.

As for the now infamous runaway Prius in California, it will be interesting to see what the investigation turns up. The driver, who seems like a reasonably normal fellow, has his story. Toyota has questioned some particulars, and the forensic evidence does give some pause.

At this point, we do believe the driver that after he hit the gas to pass another car, the accelerator seemed to get stuck and send him down the highway at an uncomfortable speed. After all, Prius drivers don't go that fast on their own--it totally ruins the gas mileage!

We also think he probably didn't hit the brakes nearly as hard as he thought. Toyota says the evidence suggests that he just tapped the brakes. Probably so. It appears undisputed that when the driver called 9-1-1 he was instructed to put the car in neutral, but refused--he claims he was afraid it would accidentally slip into reverse and cause the car to flip.

Now that's plain stupid. It's easy to put a Prius into neutral, and it's impossible to slam any car from full throttle into reverse. You can severely damage your transmission, but you won't suddenly flip the car.

Just to be on the safe side, we practiced putting our Prius into neutral the other day. No problem--we easily coasted to a stop.

Still, we can sympathize with someone who's car has done something it shouldn't, and who fears that if he does something else, it'll also do something weird and wild.

In any event, someone too scared to take the simple step of putting the car in neutral--after the 9-1-1 operator advises it--is also going to be timid on the brakes. In this case, we think something went wrong with the accelerator, but also that the driver compounded the problem, which is how this became such a spectacular incident.

Sudden acceleration is a vexing issue for auto safety regulators. Over the years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received complaints of sudden or unintended acceleration for almost EVERY make and model of vehicle on the road. Some vehicles get more complaints than others, but MOST cases end up being driver error. Sometimes a floormat gets involved, and sometimes something gets stuck in the pedal. But usually the driver stomps on the gas thinking it's the brake. With millions of drivers driving billions of miles, it happens. (But we don't think that's what happened in the California incident.)

Furthermore, once you get publicity for a particular vehicle being associated with unintended acceleration, the number of complaints goes up dramatically. Believe us, pick any car, and if NHTSA reported tomorrow that it was having Toyota-like problems, you'd have drivers coming out of the woodwork saying "yeah, happened to me."

There's some speculation that Toyota's problems have to do with the electronics in their vehicles. Maybe, but we'd take that with a huge grain of salt absent solid evidence. If there is such a problem, it should be replicable, and so far no one has replicated any such defect.

One problem Toyota does have: in many vehicles, the manufacturer has programmed it so that if both the accelerator and brake are depressed at the same time, the brakes will override. Toyota evidently has not used that feature, although it says it will now. We suspect they'll wish they'd adopted brake override some time ago.

Anyway, if you see us whizzing by in our Prius, give us a wave--we may be able to cut a good 2 hours off our drive to the beach in SC this summer!

Daily Show: Gaywatch Virginia

2010-03-10T21:00:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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