October 28, 2013

The Tea Party Rocks

October 22, 2013

Blog larger people might find interesting and/or inspirational

http://danceswithfat.files.wordpress.com/

October 17, 2013

Fit mother attacked on Facebook

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/17/opinion/navarrette-maria-kang/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

[quote]Maria Kang likes a good workout. And she is getting one after a bunch of angry women turned her into a punching bag.

The 32-year-old Californian fitness enthusiast is under attack for posing for a cheeky photo and posting it on Facebook. The picture shows Kang -- who works out for 30 to 60 minutes per day, six days a week -- dressed in a workout bra and shorts that reveal an extremely toned body. She's surrounded by her three young sons -- now 1, 3 and 4. Plastered overhead is a simple but loaded question: "What's your excuse?"

snip

But a lot of women out there were absolutely furious with Kang.

"You, as a woman, should be ashamed that you are furthering the downward spiral of how society views women, and how we women view ourselves," scolded one blogger.

Some call her obnoxious, a showoff, a bully shaming other women and worse.

What's worse? How about getting accused of being a "bad mother"? That's right. Some women had the nerve to insist that no one gets into this kind of shape without neglecting their children.[/quote]

October 16, 2013

The bastards got income verification in

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-announce-agreement-end-shutdown/

Can you believe that?

October 14, 2013

Markets all closed up today.

Disappointment faces many Chicken Littles.

October 14, 2013

Home Cooking

This topic comes up in threads on a regular basis. It seems to be the feeling that the average person living in the US does not do much home cooking and I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback. As this topic often gets tied to SES I'll toss that in also by using only two categories (< 100k family annual income, > 100k family annual income).

So, do you on average cook your own dinner five or more nights a week? Is your annual household income less than 100k or more than 100k?

September 16, 2013

Opinion piece on why Gen Y Yuppies are often unhappy

http://www.waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

September 3, 2013

What model should the US use to provide universal healthcare?

Beveridge, Bismarck, NHI, or a hybrid? Should private medical care be illegal, like in Canada, or should a private system be allowed like in Australia and the UK?

August 29, 2013

Why Walmart and CostCo Are So Different

A Bloomberg article today examines the business model of the two chains. The long and short of it is Walmart's target customer is the bottom two quintiles while CostCo targets the top quintile. This is why CostCos are almost exclusively located in upper middle class suburbs. Poorer people do their everyday shopping at Walmart whereas affluent people tend to do occasional shopping at CostCo to make bulk or larger purchases.

The title of the article is, "Why Wal-Mart Will Never Pay Like CostCo." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco.html

From the article:

I wrote about this last spring in regard to Wal-Mart and Costco. Upper-middle-class people who live in urban areas -- which is to say, the sort of people who tend to write about the wage differential between the two stores -- tend to think of them as close substitutes, because they’re both giant stores where you occasionally go to buy something more cheaply than you can in a neighborhood grocery or hardware store. However, for most of Wal-Mart’s customer base, that’s where the resemblance ends. Costco really is a store where affluent, high-socioeconomic status households occasionally buy huge quantities of goods on the cheap: That’s Costco's business strategy (which is why its stores are pretty much found in affluent near-in suburbs). Wal-Mart, however, is mostly a store where low-income people do their everyday shopping.

August 17, 2013

New Musical Toy

Got this last weekend and I am having a blast. My main two instruments are the bagpipes (both Great Highland and small pipes) and the guitar. This thing is awesome. Loop your drum track, add a bass track, then sample yourself on the guitar for some rhythm chords. Run it through your amp and then jam away.