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The choices before us as a nation are not about “Capitalism” versus “Socialism” (let alone all the baggage those terms entail). Rather, it’s about enlightened capitalism with a holistic view of cost-benefit analysis, versus market fundamentalism and anti-social greed.

From Taplin:

Beyond regulating the most anti-social and greedy members of the business society for the common good, the government will have to be like a venture capital investor in the same way that DARPA built the first Internet. We are now about to embark on an experiment in how this kind of investment in “Public Goods” can raise productivity for the private sector as well as the society as a whole. Universal Broadband, 21st Century schoolrooms, massive solar and wind farms, a smart electricity grid–these are the foundations of a Green New Deal.

Yes, yes, and yes.

A funny story about the stock market:

Once upon a time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching.

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, and once again there were monkeys everywhere.

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

This is kinda corny but I like it anyway:
http://www.zefrank.com/from52to48withlove/

Guest shopping is a new feature at Upromise — the college savings program — where I work. The idea is simple: if you are not a Upromise member, but you want to help me to save money for Abi and Harper’s college funds, you can follow their guest shopping link and earn contributions for them when you shop online. It’s free and there’s no registration. Upromise doesn’t collect any information about you, rather you follow a special link that makes your shopping session behave as if it were me. You also get access to free shipping and other Upromise offers, which benefit you.

So, if you’re not a Upromise member and you feel like helping Abi and Harper as you do your holiday shopping online, please use this link:

Guest Shopping Link for Abi and Harper

Thanks!
=)

P.S. If you do this, I will eventually see some extra contributions to their account, but I will NOT know who was responsible, as the guest shopping service maintains your privacy. So, thanks in advance!

A couple years ago I composed and recorded a custom score for a short film by my good friend Ben Pugh. My music isn’t going to win any awards, but the film is as warm-hearted and funny as its creator and it was a fun and rewarding project. Ben recently posted an edited version (6 min, instead of 11) to youtube, and I’m referencing it here. Some of the audio work I did timed scene cuts and moods precisely, so the audio is a bit rougher in this shortened version… but it is still a great little story told by my good friend and I’m psyched to have been part of it. Let me know what you think!

For my home’s internet connection I used to use Comcast cable. Its connection speed was reasonable for cable but its DNS service was unreliable. For a while I used my company’s DNS servers as I trust the sysadmins there, and it worked fine. Then I switched from Comcast to Verizon FIOS (more than quadrupling my connection speed, and costing about $70/month less for the total package of net, phone and tv). I’ve been mostly very happy w/ FIOS, it feels good to have fiber to the house and 802.11N WiFi inside. However a blazing fast connection does you no good at all if negotiating DNS takes a long time; I was consistently unable to connect on the first try to such obscure sites as google and wikipedia. So I did a little research and decided to give OpenDNS a try. This is a free public service for using a 3rd party other than your home ISP for DNS. Well, it works. I haven’t had a problem w/ it yet, and everything is just much faster now that the DNS problems are gone. I don’t know why Comcast and Verizon have such a hard time maintaining their DNS service but I’m grateful OpenDNS exists to make it moot for me.

See http://www.OpenDNS.com for more information.

Enjoy!

YES!!!!!!

AP just called it.

Sipping Caol Ila and toasting President Obama and the huge number of Americans who worked to make this historic moment reality.

With victory in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, it appears to be academic now, and I am VERY PROUD that the next President of the United States will be Barack Obama. After months donating time, money and energy I really didn’t think I could afford, with campaign contributions, phone calls for get out the vote efforts, writing, emailing, talking, hoping and working, it looks like we finally did it. It looks like our country has finally come to its collective senses and decided to chart a different course. I feel an enormous sense of relief.

There are huge challenges ahead but I feel like we’re in a position where it is conceivable that we’ll be able to meet them. Here’s hoping.

That felt good. Just a 5 minute line. Took the girls (and Shawna, of course). I’ve got high hopes for this one but I won’t rest easy until it’s really over.

FYI in MA we also are voting on three initiatives, here is my take:

(1) Halving the state income tax: NO
// We need to invest in our infrastructure and schools etc.

(2) Reducing sentencing for possession of small amounts of pot: YES
// Good start, to end the waste and hypocrisy of modern Prohibition.

(3) Ending dog racing: YES
// Racing dogs leads to institutional animal abuse.