Eric the Red

The OLPC is now for sale to rich Westerners. For those of you who don’t know, the OLPC started out as an attempt to provide a $100US laptop to developing nations so that they can make their children more tech-savvy. you know, ’cause when I think of things third world countries need, it isn’t roads, food, schools, clean water, affordable health care or electricity, its a laptop.

So for $400US you can buy one for yourself, and send one to a needy child. The problem I have with this thing isn’t what it is, but that the money could be better spent on things that generate tangible results, like clean drinking water. Let the statistics speak for themselves:

Water is implicated in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide, while 19% of deaths from infectious diseases worldwide are water-related and water related diseases contribute to nearly 4 million child deaths each year. One encouraging statistic noted that clean water, sanitation and hygiene interventions reduce diarrheal disease on average by between one-quarter and one-third.

Source

I’ll donate $400 for health initiatives. You should too!

Is this bear-stearns bailout just the tip of the iceberg that sinks the economy? I think so. That’s why I decided to put together some words of wisdom about personal finance I hope many of you will take to heart.

1. Always have 4-8 months salary in the bank, earning interest. I recommend ING direct. CDs are in the low 5% range, savings accounts are in the upper 4% range.

2. Never touch what is in (1) unless its an emergency. Note that a plasma TV and a house is NOT an emergency.

3. If you think you deserve something, you don’t. You don’t deserve Prada, you don’t need an iPhone or an iPod. You dont need Gucci, you sure dont need a new car if your current one works fine.

4. Never buy a house with less than 15% down. 20% or more is ideal.

5. You will get farther in your life spending modestly on a house and saving your money that you will by maxing out your income and credit cards on one that is 10x your salary. Buy the cheapest one you can get your hands on and pay if off as quickly as possible.

6. Avoid credit cards like the plague. Use them for large purchases, plane tickets, internet shopping, etc. Never buy something if you dont have the cash in the bank to pay it off immediately.

7. If you buy a house with an ARM, you will lose an arm….and a leg.

8. Unless you know them personally (and even if you do), real estate agents and mortgage brokers are trying to make you pay top dollar for something thats probably par for the course. Don’t fall for it. Ditto for car salesmen. They all get rich when you make yourself poor.

I ran across this article about the absurd level of compensation university presidents (and top administrators) collect as part of their, uh, presidential duties. I was a little disheartened to learn that the salaries many of these guys collect are on par with many corporate executives.

Vanderbilt University’s chancellor, E. Gordon Gee collected $1.4 million in salary, plus $6 million in renovations to his official residence and $700,000 in “entertaining expenses”.

The University of California system shelled out $334 million in salaries and perks for top administrators. Why so high?

Audrey Doberstein of Wilmington College rakes in $1.4 million

So what do University officials say about executive compensation?

Maryland publishes an annual salary guide, and none of the salaries listed there are what I would call outrageous. I would like to see public publish some sort of budget overview that shows how much schools pay towards various salaries, maintenance and so forth just so we know where our tuition and tax dollars go.

I sometimes wonder how much Peter Kirstein makes? Anyone know?

I received an email from a friend asking if I had heard about this nonsense with Representative Foley. I have written about sexual predators before (see Are Your Children Safe), and welcome the opportunity to do so again.

I will leave it to the reader to interpret this IM conversation [ABC News] (allegedly) between Rep. Foley and an unidentified teen page. This conversation is about the young mans penis size and masturbatory habits. A local copy is here.

I hope that when the investigation into these events is complete, Foley and those who covered up his grossly inappropriate behavior are made example of.

I’m not surprised with the latest airplane-based terror plot. What does surprise me is the sense that the matter is hopelessly beyond our ability to solve without longer lines and more restrictions on carry-ons.

Explosives contain certain elements in specific concentrations. Industrial X-Ray fluorescence machines like this one are more than capable of testing any solid material within minutes. This machine shows the composition of a substance in a nicely color-coded display: Green means the concentration of an element is acceptable, red indicates unacceptable levels and yellow is somewhere in bet. The test takes less than 5 minutes, and more time means more accuracy. These machines were originally designed to allow field analysis of scrap metals and to test soil for contamination. This device is known as an XRF Analyzer, and a handheld unit costs about $40,000.

There is no reason why these machines cannot be integrated with existing X-Ray machines now used to search for guns and knives.

Every now and then, I get these email messages from the Alliance for Marriage. These emails are about gay marriage. Recall, I wrote about this topic months ago from an equality point of view. BoiFromTroy has a whole category on it. The tone of the debate surrouding the issue is what I would call theological.

While Bush says we need to defend the “sanctity of marriage“, I ask why are we passing constitutional amendments to defend the sanctity of a largely economic institution? Sure, we have the whole “love” thing, but should the government get involved in determining who loves who? What if politicians decide to extend religious principles into other aspects of our lives?

Lets look at some examples:

• In Iraq, Islamic fundamentalism is eroding the rights of women in academia and many were killed since the invasion. It seems that under Sharia law, womens rights erode mens rights
• Islamic theocrats in Iran have prevented women from dressing, working, traveling or choosing spouses freely. Honor killings due to “unchaste” behavior are common.
• In Afghanistan, the Taliban regularly amputated the limbs of criminals and dissidents.
• Fred Phelps routinely demonstrates at military funerals, an activity for which his family is currently being sued. Phelps preaches that the United States is under attack because it is tolerant of homosexuals.

If an Islamic leader were voted into office in 2008 and attempted to institute Sharia law in order to defend the sanctity of mens rights, or defend the sanctity of women, what would we say? What if Fred Phelps was voted into office and decided to institute the laws of Leviticus, so that we can defend the sanctity of cloth made of only one thread?

The bottom line is that the government can not and should not try to defend that sanctity of anything. When you remove the religious interests in marriage, what is there to attack? And while we are at it, how does a same-sex marriage attack anything, other than the Old Testament?

I would challenge anyone with an interest in the Federal Marriage Amendment to explain to me how same-sex marriages threaten any other couples. Instead, I’ll get the usual barrage of hate mail. What the gay community needs is a loudspeaker, to frame it as an issue of conflicting principles.

Should a government be able to sue its citizen-critics for copyright or trademark infringement? The University of Maryland, College Park did it at least once. Then, “Terp-Idiots.com” was shut down.

Now, an advertising agency hired by Maine is suing a blogger over a similar issue.

Can a citizen be sued for criticising the apparently inept actions of a government agency, even he uses trademarked material? I don’t think so. Good for Lance Dutson that Maine has an Anit-SLAPP law.

Lance sums the matter as an evolving policy issue quite nicely:

… is attempting to inoculate his department from public criticism. This is terrifying. If this were to work, every state department could simply subcontract a majority of their tasks, and public dissent would effectively end. Then these same subcontractors would be allowed to harass anyone who dared criticize the policy, and the government could stand back and say ‘That’s just our subcontractor, we can’t control them’.

Yikes!

It seems that paying off ones credit card balance in full raises national security flags. From the article:

“They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn’t move until the threat alert is lifted.”

Lord help us, from those who cost the credit card company money by avoiding interest and finance charges!

In a possibly related bit of fiscal terrorism, the Treasury Department is asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling by a modest $781 billion (with a “B”), to $8.2 trillion (with a “T”) in order to avoid universal default and higher interest rates across on all of their credit cards (known as the taxpayers). What are the finance charges on $8.2 trillion anyway?

The Department of Justice was ordered to release certain documents related to the warrantless domestic surveillance campaign conducted by the NSA. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Because of delays in fulfillinf the request by the Justic Department, EPIC sued.

The judge ruled:

“Under DOJ’s view of the expedited processing provisions of FOIA, the government would have carte blanche to determine the time line for processing expedited requests,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

EPIC requested an audit of domestic surveillance conducted by the NSA, some documentation regarding probably cause for the eavesdropping and documents establishing an idea of how the NSA used the information it collected.

Lets see if the govenrment produces the information or invents a reason why it should be kept under wraps.

Freedom is a good thing. Too bad the islamic world doesnt value freedom, as seen by the fury over recent newspaper cartoons.

I like the Danish response:

“I think everybody should realize that neither the Danish government nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in a free and independent newspaper,” he told CNN’s Matthew Chance.

“It’s up to the courts to decide whether the law had been infringed; it’s not up to the government.”

I would like to thank the islamic world for proving the cartoonist correct. Why represent your religion as one that promotes peace when you can get your panties in a wad and riot? Its a classic case of freedom vs blind and unwavering religious zealotry. With each passing day, zealotry is shown to be the norm with the Islamic faith. The idea of free expression vs the lust for theological dominance at the point of a gun.

I like the words of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach:

But what we are saying is that the collective entity of Islam as represented by those who consistently speak in its name or take to the streets to fight its battles, are violent, and they are the new Islam.

This reminds me of the fuss over the Rachel Corrie cartoon that ran in the Diamondback on campus several years ago:

The fury was stupid then, its no less stupid now.

This cartoon will remain on this website indefinately. Complaints may be directed to 206-888-6119 or my email address.