JBD

My Sainted Mother is now comfortably ensconced in the rehab hospital. The surgeon is happy with her progress, and Mom is catching up on her sleep.

She should be there 5-6 weeks as she heals up and undergoes physical therapy, so with any luck she'll be back at her place by Christmas.

Thanks to all for your kind wishes.

Posted by: JBD at 07:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As we developed our new product, the EleVend, there was some concern about the overall accuracy of the count of items issued, due mostly to the random behavior of a stack of gloves. One glove would have a thumb sticking up, which would break the sensor beam sooner than the next glove, which had its thumb down, thereby reporting different measurements for the same glove count, which translates to an inaccurate count of gloves taken. The fear was that this inaccuracy would build up over time, seriously calling into question the value of the system.

My assertion was that since the process we use is a classic example of  regression to the mean, the count would actually fix itself over time, and would be more accurate the more it was used.

Blank stares.

One of my favorite writers, John Derbyshire, 'splains it to you. Click below where it says 'more'.

Note: this effect does not address the separate issue of accurately charging an individual for the gloves taken. We addressed that by employing two sensors, requiring that both break before counting, greatly reducing the chances of random errors.

So buy one, already.
more...

Posted by: JBD at 07:26 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm usually pretty blase about stage shows. Probably because I'm such a ham myself, I tend to be unenthusiastic for most stand-up comedians, variety singer/dancers, etc. With certain exceptions, of course. I just don't get why people are so ga-ga over shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. OK, they can sing and dance. So what? Seen it.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate excellence when I see it. We are blessed to have a great choir program at Los Al High School, where Sweetie Pie is now a freshgirl, and from whence both the Goose and Ginger Snap matriculated. Now this is not your father's choir. When Ginger Snap first joined, I had in mind a bunch of pimply kids standing on risers, dressed in robes, singing traditional favorites. Dullsville, right? Even Whoopi Goldberg has to tart up to sell this stuff. Gospel singers are fun, but still - robes, risers, etc. Give me barbershop any day of the week.

Hah, was I wrong. First show I go to 6 years ago, I settle in for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and selected "hits" from the Cowsills, Up With People, and Mitch Miller. I braced myself to be politley praiseful, then quickly head back to the iPod for a cleansing session of Kansas, Journey, Led Zepplin, and Queen. Well, except for Led Zepplin, Los Al Vocal Music delivered all the rest, and more. And choreographed, and costumed, and accompanied by live music, and staged lighting and effects! Whoa, it was good. Sure there were some rough spots, and some stage fright here and there, and a few sour notes, but by and large, really good, entertaining, and near professional.

So I'm expecting a pretty good show as usual on Oct 30, this year's first show. featuring Broadway tunes. Can't go wrong there. Only difference this year is that we are breaking in a new choir teacher, Mr. Moellenkamp, who replaces the much loved Dr. Randi Carp, she of 16 years tenure, and universally adored for her great teaching and hard work. The school did a thorough search for Dr. Carp's replacement, so Mr. M had to be good to get the job. Would he be able to uphold the standards?

Oh yeah, that and more. The show was as good as any I've seen this group put on, and some of the numbers rank at the top. A few of the individual efforts were phenomenal, especially the girl who just killed "Over the Rainbow." Mr. M has recruited more boys this year than we usually see, and the power and presence of more male voices was dramatically apparent. The choreography was spectacular for only 6 weeks to prepare. And somebody finally figured out how to keep the band volume from overpowering the singers, one of my ongoing complaints. I came to hear the singers, not the drums, dammit.

If you're looking for a great show and want to patronize a high school program instead of the local ham factory, you couldn't go wrong coming to these shows.

This means YOU, Mike McMahon.

Posted by: JBD at 06:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Steven Den Beste prognosticates about an Obama presidency, and it isn't pretty.

Posted by: JBD at 06:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Looks like my predictions were significantly on the low side of the numbers. Obama ended up 53-46 on the popular, and way over 350 on the electoral. I knew McCain was cooked as soon as Ohio and Pennsylvania was called for Obama.

And as we witness the nasty finger-pointing and back-stabbing coming from the former McCain campaign, I feel justified in my long-held belief that McCain was not the guy to be President. Bunch of weenies.

I was surprised that Prop 8 did so well.  The ensuing tantrum/protests are exactly what I expected from the pro-gay-marriage crowd. The sweet irony is that their guy Obama's popularity with the brothers and homies is probably what brought about 8's passing. So now of course they go back to street action and judges and rallies and so on, continuing their shallow self-centered echo of the 60's civil rights movement.

Melissa Etheridge is vowing to hold back her state income taxes in protest. Our friend Solid Hydrogen has worked with Ms Etheridge now and again, and always spoken glowingly of her, and she's a big suporter of various charities. On this issue though I have no sympathy for her. California affords complete equity in domestic partnerships in tax and legal matters, so the only "right" being denied here is the "right" to re-define words to make her feel better about her comfortable and studied counterculture lifestyle.

While we sure could use the $500K she pays in taxes every year, we can't accept it on condition that we reinvent culture and language to suit her preferences. Now that at least 30 states have passed similar reaffirmations of the obvious, it's time for her to either live within the law or move out to someplace that better suits her view of the world. I hear Canada is nice.

Posted by: JBD at 06:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jim will warm you up with some giggles, then send you to Iowahawk for the guffaws, and then you'll feel so much better about the whole Obama thing.

You know, like ralfing after being over-served.

Seriously, though. Did you see the faces on those people in Grant Park, listening to Obama? The word I kept using was "needy". And by "needy, I don't mean needing essentials, the way the Sisters of St. Louis used to refer to poor people as "the needy". I mean needful of a goddam useful purpose in life.

I sure hope these people can convert their neediness into positive action, because even the Obamessiah ain't got a Santa Clause bag big enough for all of them.

Posted by: JBD at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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What will I be thinking about today? Well, yes, there is that little election thing going on that I've had a comment or two about.

But more importantly to me, today is the twentieth anniversary of the passing of my father, known to us Oids as Pop.  That's him holding me sometime in mid-1955. I think that was the last time I was small enough for him to hold. And I'll bet the shirt he's wearing would go for a bundle on eBay

"Oids", for those of you without relatives from New York, is a familiar diminutive of "birds" as pronounced by a Flatbush native. Think Bugs Bunny saying "birds". As in "Sitting on the coib at the corner of Toity-toid Street and Toid Avenue, listening to the boids choip."

Here's my Sainted Mother holding me (I'm Oid #3), with Oid #1 (White Lightning, left) and Oid #2 (Louie, right). At the time these pictures were taken, Oid #4 (Doodle) was not yet not even a gleam in me mother's eye.

Is your Dad still alive? Go now and tell him you love him. I'd give up practically anything for just one more day with My Old Man. Every day, I sit in the same office he did, in the same place, doing many of the same things he did. He, along with My Sainted Mother, made everything I have and all that I hold dear possible - my life, my education, my prosperity, my marriage, my kids - you name it. A picture of him in his Army uniform, taken when he was about the same age as The Goose is now, hangs on the wall next to my desk. I talk to it all the time.

Be thankful for your parents. I am. Let them know, too.

Posted by: JBD at 12:23 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The Chief sends along this link to the latest bad news for GM & Chrysler, along with this comment:

Posted by: JBD at 05:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just got an update from The Goddess Of Love on My Sainted Mother's hip replacement surgery (11:00AM Monday). Everything went very well, didn't even need to giver her blood. Will be in recovery for 3 hours, then into a room  for the next 2-3 days. I'll run over after work to see her.

They expect to have her standing up tomorrow (amazing, but routine these days) and out of the hospital by Thursday and into rehab.

So it's jigs & reels for Deirdre Irene Dunn McMahon this Christmas.

Thanks to all for your good wishes.

Posted by: JBD at 11:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some legacy media types are running for cover after inadvertently releasing more juicy tidbits of Obama telling the truth about his policies.

Bankrupt coal-fired power plants? Skyrocketing electricity rates? Hell, who wouldn't vote for Obama! It's like creating an instant Soviet Union!

This video was actually on the San Francisco Chronicle web site, but buried and unremarked until dug out by a blogger. Once again, amateur new media doing the job that professional legacy media refuses to do. Isn't this newsworthy in an election? Shouldn't there have been a thorough vetting of Obama that would have brought to light these important issues? You would think.

And we ain't seen nothin' yet. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't still plenty of hidden dirt on Obama out there, so much so as to make him vulnerable to foreign blackmail. Tinfoil hat stuff? Maybe. But there are no "blank years" on the resume, or anywhere near the number of "hidden" documents on either McCain or Palin as there are on Obama.

You people sure you want to sign up for Obama?

Posted by: JBD at 10:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Where does a graduate computer science student go to relax after helping his team place 3rd locally (5th overall out of 135 teams) in a programming competition.

Someplace quiet. Someplace cerebral. Someplace conducive to deep contemplation.

Well, no. But let the Goose tell us his way:

Posted by: JBD at 10:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Crazy Doodle asks some direct questions of the Obama campaign:

Posted by: JBD at 08:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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KC Jones, this is for you.

I love the little over-the-shoulder coy pose. I'll bet there were a lot of Arabic robes with puptents that night.

Mark Steyn is far and away my current favorite writer. The little blog post I link to above made me laugh out loud 4 separate times.

Posted by: JBD at 06:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Check this out.

And Doodle sends us this one.

Democrat voter fraud is rampant. The 2002 "Help America Vote Act" that was passed mostly as a sop to the Gore-Lieberman Sore-Losermen has funded and enabled judges, ACORN, and other various socialist types to pack ballot boxes like never before.

The combination of this massive voter fraud and the media's cover-ups of Obama's socialist background will create an intense backlash from all the disaffected well-meaning Obama voters once they realize they were conned.

2010 = 1994

Posted by: JBD at 03:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As Booger would say, "Yaddaknow."

As I asserted previously, the polls are useless, and even though they are probably 5-10% skewed towards Obama, he should still have enough margin to win easily. All the in-the-tank pundits are predicting landslide for Obama, 350-plus electoral votes. I think it will be closer to 310, with 52-48 on the popular.

If it is any closer than that, say Obama with fewer than 300 EVs, similar to the Bush-Kerry split but in reverse, and there are ongoing voter fraud lawsuits like 2000, it would have to be considered a loss for Obama, and his administration would be crippled and weak from the beginning.

Actual numbers depend on:

•   Weather - would probably suppress Obama popular vote more than McCain, but unless there are day-long blizzard conditions in Columbus, Kansas City, Denver, Des Moines, Pitsburgh, Philly and Washington DC (Northern VA), and a hurricane in North Carolina, don't count on it. Both campaigns have massive GOTV programs to get people to the polls regardless of weather, indigence, lack of ID, or lack of transportation.
•    Voter fraud - if there is proven massive fraud in swing states (and all the indications are that there will be) then lawsuits could spoil the party for a while. My guess is that McCain would fold instead of litigate. But I do predict that the ongoing revelation of exactly how bad the voter fraud for Obama is this year will taint his election and cause him problems for years to come.
•    Obama "astroturfing" - there has been a paid, coordinated effort by the Obama campaign to have supporters visit web sites and leave comments pretending that they are lifelong Republicans who will either vote Obama, or who will stay home because they won't vote for McCain-Palin. This is designed to suppress the McCain turnout.
•    Obama triumphalism - Obama supporters who think it's so in the bag that they won't actually vote. This is typical of the "youth" vote cohort - they poll big, but vote small.
  
•    The Bradley effect - This thoroughly debunked "covert racism" defense that posits that people tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate because they don't want to be thought racist, but who actually vote otherwise in the privacy of the voting booth.
•    PUMAs - Party Unity My Ass - They wanted Hillary, they got Obama, and were told to shut up and play along with the gag. Are they counted into Obama's margins? Will they wear the pin and sticker their bumpers for Obama but vote McCain? Or even just not vote the top of the ticket at all, further hosing the "exit poll" mayhem on election day? Or is this whole thing just Republican astroturfing? See Booger, above.
•    Underestimating McCain, either because of liberal bias, or because the target voter market and the national media market are nearly mutually exclusive.
  

Posted by: JBD at 02:41 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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KC Jones chides me for my all-or-nothing blogging style:

You have to help me (and all of us) out though, by spacing your your JBD blog postings. I look with great anticipation for days and days. And for what? . . . Nothing.

Then, when I least expect it, WHAM !, Boffo!, Smash!!! A hail storm of JBD blogs hit me all at once and the rest of my day is totally ruined by having to stop everything and read all your stuff. Please help simplify my life!   < )~

Posted by: JBD at 01:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In response to this post on grades of gas, Crazy Doodle, who has worked for Volkswagen of America at various dealerships for the better part of 3 decades, writes to inform us as follows:

Posted by: JBD at 01:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My Sainted Mother is going under the knife tomorrow for her second hip replacement surgery in as many years.

The first operation went very well, and completely relieved her of the hip and knee pain in her left leg. Surgery and rehab were tough on her, but the pain in her right leg is bad enough to make her brave it all again for the relief she will get.

She has complete confidence in the surgeon and the staff at the Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, where she has had previous surgeries and stays for various reasons.

She's an 84 year old medical freak in many ways, having lived for decades with high blood pressure and the heavy medication required to treat it. But I guess after having 4 teenage boys in the house at the same time, a pacemaker and a couple of major abdominal surgeries is easy.

My Sainted Wife, The Goddess Of Love, will take her to the hospital early tomorrow, and will keep us all posted on progress.

Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

Posted by: JBD at 12:01 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The Obama domestic spending program in a nutshell:

Got an illegal alien indigent aunt? Don't worry - the government will  "spread the wealth" by paying for her food and shelter.

Oh, yes, and her campaign contributions too!

That's change we can believe in, eh? And all this was allowed to happen under the reign of the evil hater GWB. Can you imagine how bad it will get under the Messiah?

However, given McCain's love for illegal immigrant amnesty, things will probably be just as bad if he wins.

Posted by: JBD at 11:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Think your high school or college math classes made you learn things you'd never use again?

Like, oh, I don't know, maybe, algorithms?

Depends on who's usin'. I guess.

I bet The Goose could do this.

Posted by: JBD at 09:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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