bye bye hkd

Exciting news! I got an envelope this weekend. Candace had just called Friday night, so I'm thinking Liberty a little, and then I see a KC postmark. 900 Cambridge, who lives on Cambridge, Candace doesn't live there, right?

Then I flash back to a conversation Stan and I had many years ago about Cambridge. Cambridge? Oh yeah, that's where Hillary lives! Or used to, or her mom does, or something.

I must say, the Liberty memory is two for two this weekend. It was in fact from Hillary.

Congratulations to you and Jason! I will most certainly plan on coming back for your wedding. Yay.

why aren't I a betting man

Personally, the timing on my phone worked out pretty well; I'd rather have the lower price than the store credit. But Apple did do something. I should be a consultant for them or something.

excitement excitement excitement

Man, I thought the who will lose least NL Central was exciting. I'm checking baseball scores - why didn't the Royals play the Rangers earlier in the year - and discover that Apple released some updated iPods.

Cool beans.

Now, apparently they also dropped the price on the iPhone. But not retroactively. Needless to say, a few of Apple's best customers are a tad upset. Fortunately my phone is on day number 13.

And no, I'm not counting. I just needed to make sure I was in the magic 14 day window. As I'm writing from my iPhone as we speak, I'll keep the business analysis short. But if I were a betting man, I'd guess that Apple will end up doing something to appease half a million of its best customers and sales people.

upper deck twofer

Yay for vacation! That's why we work, right? Mostly at least.

And the blinding lightning and thunderstorms were unable to get in the way of gametime. It stopped raining just in time. At the baseball game Friday night, which was a great 2-1 win, by the way (have I mentioned that the Royals aren't in last place?-still, as I write this, several days later), there were two other exciting moments besides the outcome and fireworks. Not one, but two foul balls got hit right at our section, essentially straight back from home plate. The first one went two rows behind. The second one came in really fast, but I was apparently ready to dislocate a finger or something catching it. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) the guy in front of me reached over at the last second with his glove. He didn't catch it, but did knock it over into the next section. Oh well. I haven't come that close to getting a ball since one of McGwire's home runs the year he set the record. I was ready to throw that one back, too! Candace and Scott, good to see you. Amy and Chris, congratulations.

Fridays' schedule worked out very nicely. After the game it was off to downtown to see Kelli and Nick and, eventually, Andrew. (There ya go Nick Kromnacher, did that show up in your Google search? Or wait, is it Kromenacker? Kromenocker? Nich? Nicholas? Nickolas? Guess we'll see just how good Google is!) Seriously though, it was really nice to see you all. It's been awhile since I've been back to KC. I am very excited to tell Julie that people actually play her game.

Then Saturday was family stuff, from Liberty to Blue Springs. Pools are great when they're in somebody else's backyard, and it's summer time, but after a major heat wave has broken. I didn't even get sunburned, although I did eat way too much BBQ. Oh well, the sacrifices we make for family.

And in other random news, how awesome is the speech that John Edwards gave? I really wish Senator Obama would drop the whole new politics/civility approach and really offer his critique of the system. The longer he goes, the more it appears that he doesn't really want to critique the system at all, in which case, we might as well just elect Senator Clinton. Julie, I know you disagree. But if you want a taste of why I have liked what Edwards has done so much the last couple years, the clip from Hanover is a great example.

the new one from Hanover
the press conference from Elisabeth's treatment
the speech at the winter DNC meeting

Finally something I'm sort of burying, but nonetheless am very excited about. I, uh, caved in to months worth of anticipation and bought an iPhone. I know, I know, don't say it, I know. But nonetheless, there it is. I can now text, and email and camera phone and googlemap and schedule, to my heart's content.

My raise is now officially gone. In my pocket. And on the new tires on my car. But it sounds more exciting to just blame it on the iPhone.

confessions

Sheena, I need to tell you something. It's huge, I know. That shot glass you asked me to pick up with something from St. Louis on it for you a couple months ago? I, uh, haven't, exactly, gotten around to getting it yet.

Maybe I'll still go get one and sneak onto campus and dig a little hole where your freshman dorm room used to be and bury it and plant a sign that says in memory, Sheena's shot glass.

At any rate, I'm left with nothing to say. It's pretty shocking and suprising and it's hard to reach out to people that haven't been in your daily life for a while. I'm glad I do have friends who call--thanks Eric and Doug!--even if, ahem, Eli, who is half-way round the world in Swaziland, apparently, knew before I did. Nice work there peoples. It's almost like we all lived together in college or something.

Bye Sheena. We miss you.

how much evidence is enough

(P) One of the fundamental issues I am most passionate about deals with the process of voting. Now, it's not particularly exciting in and of itself; in fact, it's rather mundane and boring, when all goes well. But when all does not go well, it throws off the whole system. It's impossible to have representative government when the official tallies don't represent the will of the people. In fact, it's more sinister than that. It's impossible to have representative government when there is the impression that the official results are illegitimate, even if they do accurately reflect the results of an election.

There are a number of ways over the years that American democracy has been susceptable to manipulation, with perhaps the most famous cases being political bosses, or machines, in major cities, whose tactics were basically to persuade lots of people to vote a certain way through less than fair means. What's interesting about the voting issues of the past few years compared to prior periods is that the defining characteristic is no longer trying to manipulate people into voting. Rather, it's about trying to prevent certain groups of people from voting, or, if you can't stop them, prevent their votes from being counted accurately. It's also worth noting that men from New York to KC ended up being convicted and incarcerated for various crimes. Election fraud is a serious issue, and there is much precedent in our history for prosecuting it aggressively. Just like Al Capone, a common tactic was going after tax evasion if the evidence couldn't be collected for a conviction related to illegal election activity.

Now, none of the above will strike anybody as particularly controversial, as it's safely in the past and primarily dealt with urban Democratic bosses. It gets really interesting, however, when we raise questions about current GOP operatives. All of a sudden, it's treasonous, insane conspiracy theorizing to pose questions when something smells fishy (my favorite line from back in November of 2004 from the mainstream media is courtesy of the Washington Post: "spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists"). We all know how irrational accountants, engineers, and statisticians tend to be.

There are lots of places to read about specific problems in Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, and elsewhere. The unfolding story about White House political involvement in US Attorney selection certainly will shed additional light on GOP voter suppression tactics. Some people have already been convicted and/or forced to resign their positions in the following years. What's perhaps most suspicious, though, prompted this particular post.

Under state law and a specific court order, Ohio election officials were required to secure results from the 2004 election for further study. Guess what? The documents have been destroyed or are missing from over half the counties in Ohio.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

14k

I had to write about this milestone. It is an excellent time to remind that for long-term investing, a critical component should include equity markets.


However, it is worth noting that the vast majority of these gains go to the richest people. The top ten percent control over 3/4 of the stock market. In contrast, the poorest half of the country control less than 2 percent.

If those kinds of numbers don't move ya, well, I guess you're just not moved by numbers.

a new reason to go to Stanford

I grew up playing ultimate frisbee. It was a regular part of my life by junior high. We would play every Sunday afternoon, year round, and sometimes in the evenings over the summer. Good times!

Well ESPN decided to do a little exploration of less well known sports, and they decided to profile the Stanford women's team. If you didn't know, they're kind of dominant.

This quote is particularly awesome:
"Dantzker, who joined the team as a sophomore, said she improved as a player each season. More significantly, she said that with each game her love of the sport grew. She admits that part of the reason she decided to pursue a graduate degree at Stanford was to continue playing for Superfly."

GSB, here I come.

They say about 100,000 Americans play in total. I find that hard to believe, though. Even ten years ago there were a lot of leagues and it definitely felt like a lot more involvement than .033% of the population, and I'm sure more play now than when I got started. I wonder if that's only people who participate directly in leagues through the UPA.

We were a tad more casual. In fact, it was kind of funny when people would try to organize our efforts and get us to run specific plays (out of the stack) and so forth. We mostly just wanted to have fun running around throwing the frisbee, which I would argue is still very much in the spirit of the sport, combining competitive traits with self-regulatory ones (there are no refs in ultimate). Plus, teamwork is the most important thing. It's really fun when you know people so well that you can make something look chaotic to the other team but you are instinctively aware of what your teammates are up to.

Ah, that's been a while...

back on the table

(P) I was a little surprised the Administration, historically stingy with its pardoning powers, commuted the sentence of convicted Vice Presidential aide Libby. They had been handed a Congress with little interest in directly challenging the core criminality of their time in office. One of Speaker of the House Pelosi's most famous phrases was about impeachment being off the table.

But now, amidst a number of interrelated and growing scandals, Bush committed an act clearly linking himself to the heart of the problem, the lack of accountability and transparency, the utter disdain for the Constitution and the rule of law.

He went all in, and I think even members of Congress will become increasingly persuaded by the public to call the President's bluff. One of the great checks of our system is that people consumed by power tend to overreach. While certainly enough impeachable acts have already been committed, keeping Libby out of jail has a beautifully simplistic nature to it. It's very easy to understand and quite difficult to obfuscate. We either have an executive branch bound by the rule of law, or we have a dictator beyond it. Even comfortable DC Democrats won't be able to ignore the increasing pressure that is building on the system.

As we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, maybe it's appropriate that our leaders have given us a gift of such clarity and meaning.

je deteste les voitures vraiment

les enfants aussi. That may not be grammatically correct enough for L'Académie Française, but you get the idea.

I'm going to lunch this afternoon and notice a sizeable crater in my windshield and a large crack going up from it. Now, there are rocks in the parking lot at the next building, and kids, too, because it's a daycare. But the daycare swears they supervise the kids whenever outside. Unfortunately, no one where I work saw when it happened.

So, it appears that a rock magically picked itself up off of their parking lot and smashed into a windshield in another parking lot. I hear that happens all the time these days.