The Certified Skeptic

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

If you have a few minutes and are interested in an intelligent article on the current energy policy in the USA, read this article by Tom Friedman at the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html?hp

T

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I’m sure you noticed that during the past few weeks I’ve had some ads lined up along the right side of my web pages. These ads were Google “Adsense” ads — a program that makes it very easy for people like me to place targeted ads on web pages and get paid for doing so. I was intrigued, wanted to find out how it all worked, and hoped to maybe generate a little “coin” to offset some of the costs associated with keeping a website going.

After one month, I’m pulling the plug on these ads. It wasn’t an easy decision — the TDHoch board of directors discussed it for at least a minute or two. These ads generated over 8 bucks ($8.16 to be exact) in a little more than a month. At that rate, I could be into three figures after a year, and could actually get paid from Google. You see, your Google Adsense account must reach the magic $100 mark before they’ll cut you a check. So with this obvious success and new-found wealth, why am I killing the ads?

Well, for a number of reasons. First, I’ve read websites and blogs that encourage readers to click on ads. It may not be stated as such, but the implication is that this is a no-cost way for readers to supplement the income of the website or blog owner. The reality is that this is fraud. When someone clicks on an ad for the sole purpose of creating a “click” in order to generate ad revenue, it’s wrong. I felt smarmy asking people to shop by clicking on my ads, knowing full well that it’s a rare bird indeed that shops this way. I believe the vast majority of the clicks from the Google Adsense program are fraudulent.

Google might well say that’s right… but the program still works. The purveyors and advertisers may even have it built into their calculations… that the one click in a hundred or a thousand that actually buys something is worth all the other fraudulent clicks. But it just doesn’t feel right, and I don’t get good vibes about the whole deal. It feels like part of the “something for nothing” attitude that pervades our culture these days.

Second, I think electronic ad pollution is as bad an any other kind of pollution. It’s really just cyber-litter floating around the net — very much like the Taco-Bell wrapper blowing around your backyard (or my campsite). Businesses advertise everywhere they can to get a leg up on the competition… they have video screens on gas pumps so they can fill you up as you fill your car up… they have advertising at the urinal so they can drain your wallet as you drain your bladder… it’s everywhere and technology is making it easy to put it anywhere.

Well, it’s not going to be on our website anymore.

My third reason for killing the Google Adsense ads is that Google’s goals and my goals are not in synch. I don’t have enough traffic to generate any real ad revenue — traffic is not the purpose of my website. I put this site up to communicate and share our experiences with friends and relatives. I also had the objective of learning about website technology — what it takes to build a website and how it all works. I never once had the objective of making my website a medium for advertising to those I care for.

So the experiment is over. No more ads. You can visit, view photos, read, enjoy, and share all you want… without being bombarded by the ad pollution you hate. We are ad-free once again.

T

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 — Vancouver, WA

According to my bank, my piece of the Economic Stimulus Program — a stupid program from an incompetent federal government that you and I are responsible for by continuing to vote for the bastards — arrived today via electronic banking, zip zip zip, right from “their” account directly into mine. Wow, a whole $1200 bucks so I can run out, buy something, and save the economy so developers, real estate agents, and car dealers can get back to making money and saddling even more poor schmucks with even more debt.

Well, here’s my take on it: This money isn’t from the Federal Government. It isn’t “free”. We’re “borrowing” it from our kids and grand-kids and great grand-kids. We’re borrowing it from them so maybe, just maybe, we can pump a few last breaths into this staggering economy in the hopes that it’ll stay alive until after the next election cycle. Just maybe!

One of these days it’ll become crystal clear to us. One of these days, probably after it’s too late, we’ll understand that this is no way to run a country.

Oh, and as to where most of this money’s going to be spent?… as a result of the big increase in fuel prices, a lot of it will go directly into the gas tanks of the happy motoring public, and indirectly into the bank accounts of many in the Middle East and elsewhere that would prefer to see us dead.

I’ll make it a point tomorrow to thank my two grand kids.

T

Thursday, April 24, 2008 — Vancouver, WA

I can’t get my arms around the concept of some very large numbers. I’m not sure anyone can. When reading about the cost of our military activity in the Middle East, I start seeing the word “trillion” mentioned, and that the total cost of all this could be two or three trillion dollars. It’s easy to think that a trillion isn’t really much more than a billion. It sounds the same, just change a “b” to a “t”, it’s that easy. It can’t be that much more. Million, Billion, Trillion, Gazillion… they’re all just big numbers, right?

Some years ago, I read an article about the difference between a million and a billion. That article applied a concept we do understand — time. Here’s the facts: A million seconds is a little less than 12 days.

But a billion seconds is almost 32 years. That’s right, 12 days versus 32 years. Just stop and think about that for a moment.

Now, let’s consider what a trillion seconds is. A trillion is 1,000 times more than a billion. So, let’s see, 32 years times 1000 equals… what? that can’t be? 32,000 years?? Well, to be more precise, its 31,710 years.

From 12 days to 32 years to 31,720 years.

The next time you hear some politician talk about a trillion dollars think about this comparison. And then seriously consider voting the bastard out of office.

T

Monday, April 21, 2008
(from The Sabbatical Journal)

Increasing costs for food, fuel, air travel, and almost everything we buy is affecting all of us — and it’s really beginning to bite. Gas is approaching $4/gallon, diesel is well over $4. The price of cereal grains is at near record levels. The common denominator in this problem is the price of oil in particular, and all energy in general. Coupled with the problems in the credit markets and the resulting slow-down in housing activity, it’s hard to see how we’ll escape a tough, long-lasting recession with the potential of significant changes to the way we live and work in this society.

How does all this affect us? Here are my thoughts:

First off, we went into this lifestyle fully expecting energy costs to rise. I’ve made a study of the topic of “peak oil” and the rapidly growing demand for energy in China, India, and other, less populated, countries who’ve belatedly found that capitalism works and are giving the USA a run for it’s money. It should be clear to anyone that the easy-to-get oil is already out of the ground. What’s left, regardless of the volume, is going to be harder to get out and more expensive. A large part of our decision to fulltime at this time were the beliefs that 1) it may become cost-prohibitive to travel around and explore the USA in this way at some point in the future, and 2) we’d need to find a less-expensive, lower cost, and more climate-friendly place to settle down after the sabbatical in order to weather the changes to our society that will probably occur as a result of tightening and more costly energy supplies. In other words, if we didn’t do it now, we may never have done it. We wanted to do it while we still had the chance.

Second, I’ve stopped listening to investment analysts and financial advisors. With a little homework the average intelligent person can manage their investments just fine, thank you. I don’t think the normal investor has any business being in the manipulated, rumor-driven equity markets at this time. When the interpretation, on the part of certain “experts”, of the nuances of certain words in a statement from the FRB can move the markets by 2, 3, or more percent in one day, you or I should not be in that market. Unless you’ve got so much money that the loss of half of it or more doesn’t affect your lifestyle, be more conservative and focus on capital preservation.

Yes, the bus-house is a depreciating asset. But then, so are most of the homes in America these days. As someone told me a few months ago, “If you have a home that’s depreciating, it might just as well have wheels.” The difference is that we expected the bus-house to depreciate — and worked that into our plan.

Yes, our travel depends on a lot of diesel fuel. As fuel rises from $4 to $5 to $8 per gallon, we can choose to use less of it by lingering longer in places we find interesting. Instead of driving 10,000 miles per year, we can reduce to 8,000 or 6,000 or even less if necessary. We have choices. We’re willing to travel less, if necessary, but we’re not willing to give up our exploration of America and our search for our next home town — at least for a while.

I’ve already documented [citation link] that we’re using at least 25% less energy in this lifestyle than the one we left. I have no apologies for our use of energy as we travel and believe we’re far more “green” than we ever were, or most “greenies” purport to be.

When the time comes to stop fulltiming, buy or build a house, and get back to a more traditional lifestyle, we’ll transfer many of our habits and some of the technology from our RV fulltiming life to our new home. It’d be great to live a net-0 energy lifestyle, and not be dependent on the grid for our existence.

We choose this lifestyle, didn’t come into it blindly, and don’t regret for one minute doing so.

Right or wrong, these are our ideas and goals.

T

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Follow this link to a short, well written piece by David Leonhardt in the NYTimes that attempts to simplify the complexities of the current credit crisis.

It certainly helped me.

T

Monday, March 17, 2008

Bear Stearns, the large New York based investment bank, was taken over by JP Morgan Chase yesterday in a fed sponsored deal that was unprecedented. The fed’s involvement is so unusual that it’s support of the deal smells of near-panic to many. Bear, which had traded at over $100/share as recently as this past November, was bought by JP Morgan Chase for just two bucks. I’m not great at math but that sounds very bad for anyone holding Bear stock. What’s worse is that it looks like everyone else is ready to run for the doors before there’s a total collapse. This could be a very interesting and possibly dangerous week. Who knows where it will all end.

These financial issues are so complicated I’m not sure anyone understands them. I certainly don’t. But I do wonder if we’d be in this pickle if we hadn’t blown almost a trillion dollars fighting evil in the Middle East — and the prospect is that we’ll easily spend at least another trillion before it’s over. And there’s a possibility that it’ll never be truly over. So out kids, our kid’s kids, and future generations far into the future will be paying for this gross, indeed criminal, mis-management of priorities and resources by the incompetent Bush-led executive branch and a sycophantic, corrupt congress.

“This is a pickle, George. This is a pickle.”

T

I don’t think I’m the only one who looks at the entire slate of presidential candidates, on both sides, from one end to the other, and feels depressed. Is this really the best we, as a society, can do?

Our system of restricting, de facto, the debate and the options to two parties and two sets of ideas simply feeds these self-perpetuating organizations to the detriment of all of us. New ideas and outsiders are deemed unelectable and on the fringe — and we’re told we’d only throw away our vote if stupid enough to vote for one. Our “free press” perpetuates the two party system by exclusion. And most of us blindly nod our heads in agreement as we’re told it’s the best system possible.

I don’t buy it.

T

January 2, 2008

You may, or may not, know that I’ve been very interested in the subject of the planet’s consumption of resources — oil in particular, but also clean water and the ability to produce enough food. I’ve read enormous amounts of material on the subject of peak oil. It’s a topic that’s barely visible on most people’s list of concerns. The free press in the USA doesn’t get it either.

Occasionally, there are glimmers of hope. The following link is to a well thought out article by Jared Diamond, a professor at UCLA, that clearly lays out our present situation and what the future may hold. I highly recommend reading it.

Link to Article

T

In reference to a Reuters article by Tim Gaynor on 12/24/07 titled “Illegal immigrants “self deport” as woes mount”.

The article is about an increasing number of illegal immigrants deciding to return to Mexico because of a worsening economy in the USA and flagging hopes for an easy path to citizenship in the United States.

The following line caught my attention:

“Mexican consular sources in Phoenix say they are seeing a spike in the number of immigrants applying for Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children, which will allow them to enroll in schools in Mexico.”

Mexico, apparently, requires all children to be citizens of Mexico in order to attend school — even children of parents who are citizens themselves. Am I reading this right?

But not here, in this big old “melting pot” called the United States. Here, it’s a crime to ask questions about legal status or citizenship of immigrants applying to enroll their children in public school, applying for driving privileges, health care, welfare, and the right to vote.

We, the legal people of the United States, have lost our concern for the collective “we” as we focus more on the singular “I”. We don’t demand any level of performance from our elected officials as long as they safeguard the new freedoms — freedom to shop, freedom to drive whatever wherever, and freedom of the tabloid, celebrity-crazed, press.

We do have the government we deserve.

T