Sometimes the inquiring technical mind cannot pass an opportunity to analyze what’s going on in the surrounding society. With me, that compulsion for analysis recently arose when the Forest Service announced it planned to approve a new pipeline to provide water for snowmaking on the local ski hill, some 2600 feet (more or less) above the town. As they say in the dry southwest, whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting. Continue reading
Blog »
Blog 59. Medicare, Medicaid, Medigap, and Affordable Whatever
The new national health insurance, officially the named the Affordable Care Act, is commonly called “Obamacare” because that’s a way to reduce a complex issue to one word. Continue reading
Blog 58. Hierarchy in Regulation
Society is a set of regulations—written and unwritten—that specify how a person, a social entity, or business should act. Continue reading
Blog 57. Energiewende – We should try it
Energiewende is the appellation for Germany’s transition toward a sustainable energy supply. George Maue, first secretary for energy and climate at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., described the transition in his editorial published in the Nov-Dec 2013 issue of Solar Today magazine. Continue reading
Blog 56. Ravens and the rate of change
Most of these blogs have been concerned with the progress (or regress) of society, where most of us notice that our communications, demands, and obligations seem to be increasing. As noted by Gleick, society and daily living are changing, and the rate of change is increasing, too. That is, the rate of change of the rate of change is increasing. Continue reading
Blog 55. Democracy and bankruptcy
Do all democracies drive themselves into bankruptcy?
In recent years we’ve seen cities descend into bankruptcy. Continue reading
Blog 54. Money, McCutcheon, and the Supreme Court
What happened?
On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its decision on the McCutcheon case, in which Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee claimed that the Federal Election Campaign Act restricted his freedom of speech. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court agreed that limitation of political spending limits personal speech. Continue reading
Blog 53. Educable or corrigible?
Almost every individual person is educable. I’ll define educable as being capable of learning from the mistakes of others. Likewise, almost every individual is corrigible. Corrigible means capable of learning from one’s own mistakes. Institutions, like individuals, are educable. Continue reading