Aren Cambre's Blog

Mark my words: a public option health care plan will someday be the only plan.

Don’t put any faith in today’s Democrat promises. With a few votes and a sympathetic president, future liberals can (and will) alter public option’s scope. With impunity. That is government’s track record:

• Social Security expands: At inception, a 1% tax on the first $3,000 of income funded the system. By 1940, it paid $35 million of benefits. Now it’s a 6.2% tax on the first $102,000 of income and pays $650 billion of benefits. (source)
• Income tax expands: In 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, the income tax was 1% of all earnings over $3,000. Now it is between 10% and 35%, depending on your bracket. (source)
• Even the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation expands: “When the PBGC was created in 1974, Democrats running Congress assured everyone there was no taxpayer risk because the agency would be funded by fees from pension plans, as well as by the assets of plans the company takes over.” “Now the PBGC has a $33.5 billion deficit,” and this is before it is about to take on much of Delphi’s pension, a politically-motivated, union face-saving “second biggest pension bailout in PBGC history.” (source)
• How about those automaker loans? What started in 2008 as large loans is now a giant taxpayer giveaway that just won’t end.

I could fill a whole blog post with expansionism.

Even with current Democrat promises, public option probably starts out with a massive tax subsidy and forced lower payments than what private insurers can negotiate (a la Medicare). It will creep like St. Augustine grass and gradually smother all other options. Future expansionists will just seal this fate.

Don’t get me wrong: the current system is flawed. And Obama is right about a lot of its flaws. But as an expansionist liberal, anything he prescribes is quackery.

A nearby gas station called the Green Spot recently opened. The prior owners (when it was a Mobil) had gas prices far well above market, so I appreciate that the new owners charge the same for gas as everyone else.

But I had to suspend my gag reflex after reading greenwashing in my local community magazine (pages 24 and 25 of this 19MB PDF–yikes!). According to a quote they got from co-owner Alvaro Garza, “our mission is to reduce our carbon footprint by offering an alternative lifestyle…”

Specific examples of where carbon footprints aren’t being lowered:

• They sell biodiesel gas, which has several critical flaws. Even if you could argue that these flaws could someday be resolved, the fact remains that current consumption of biofuels almost certainly causes more harm than good. For example:
  • Several studies show that production and use of biofuels produces more carbon emissions than just burning plain gas. (link)
  • It takes more energy to produce biofuels than they save, which in turn increases carbon emissions, oil importation, and our trade deficit. (link)
  • Biofuel production increases prices of food, starving the poor. (link)
• They sell organic goods, production of which require more energy (carbon!) and land than conventional foods. (link)
• The article’s feature picture depicts a Jeep Liberty SUV. In addition to being an iconic member of a gas guzzling class of vehicles, it has the worst or 2nd worst fuel economy in recent Consumer Reports small SUV comparisons. (The diesel raised it from worst to 2nd worst; several gas-engined SUVs with higher overall ratings got better mileage.)
  
  (This image stolen from Advocate Publishing.)

And it sounds like a lot of what they sell are carb-loaded snacky foods. Ladies and gentlemen, refined carbs are refined carbs. The refined carbs from organic sugar cane and fresh fruit juices make you just as fat and unhealthy (and ultimately requiring more carbon-intensive health care services) as the corn syrup in Coke.

You may think I hate the Green Spot. I don’t. It’s convenient, gas prices are finally fair at that location, and they have neat stuff inside. I want them to succeed.

However, I was brought up in a home where the breadwinner toiled for and was employed by a nonprofit. I work with a couple of nonprofits. I value nonprofits. They deserve our charity; supporting them achieves a higher moral purpose.

I resent when for-profits steal altruism for their own personal gain, and I feel that’s what’s going on here with greenwashing the Green Spot. Support the Green Spot where they provide a value to you, but don’t do it because you naively think you’re supporting some environmental moral good.

When I was in high school, I resented our closed lunch. We were forced to stay on campus for our 25 minute lunch period.

Open lunch means students can leave campus for the lunch period. Open lunches have the allure of longer lunch periods, freedom, and fun.

Now that I have a more mature perspective, I believe any school district selling reasonable lunches on-campus would be patently irresponsible to allow open lunches.
Look at the downsides of open lunches:

1. Higher insurance. That’s what my school district told me.
2. Hooks children on garbage foods. Where do children on open lunch go? Mostly fast food restaurants, where they eat garbage: fried, greasy, salty foods packed full of refined carbohydrates and low quality fats.
3. Costly. A $2 class A lunch is a lot cheaper than gas, vehicle wear and tear, and any restaurant meal.
4. Denies children a healthful lunch. A traditional cafeteria lunch is far more healthful and balanced than anything children usually select at restaurants.
5. Exposes children to risk. What’s safer: sitting in the cafeteria or being in an old hand-me-down car piloted by fellow children rushing to get back to campus before the lunch period ends? Where are children most likely to get in trouble: at school, or in an unsupervised, off-campus environment?
6. Longer school day. You have to allow transportation times in open lunch periods. That had to be made up with a longer school day.

The upsides are? Anything? (Do you really believe many children go home during open lunches? Ha ha!)

Having no useful purpose, open lunches are wasteful, expose children to unnecessary risk, and jump start them on debilitating health problems.

Open lunches are a terrible idea.

Since the ceiling is out, I wired up the den for speakers.

Our TV is in one corner, and the couch is on the opposite side of the room. My wife never wanted to drape cables around a wall, so I figured that since the ceiling is out, it’s the perfect time to run speaker wires.

The whole job took me about 3 1/2 hours, not including patching wall holes.

Even though I only have a dinky 5.1 speaker system, I wanted to be wired for 7.1 channel surround sound setup just in case I luck across such a system some some day. That means I needed to run 4 pars of speaker wires between the walls. Add that to some category 5e network cables, and that would be a hassle!

Home Depot sells a single sprinkler system wire bundle with ten 18 gauge wires. An uncle in the audio business me that 18 gauge solid is plenty for unpowered speakers, so this 18/10 sprinkler wire is what I used!

Installation took a few steps.

A drywall cut for a junction box and to poke a hole through the fire block:

Cuts through the fire block:

3 cuts on the opposite wall:

Yes, 3 cuts. I made the first cut at the traditional fire block level because my stud sensor said something was there. Opening it up, I found nothing!

When I fished the wire from the top, I ran into something about 1 foot down. It turns out some 2x4s are stacked laterally at that point to support the wide opening to the left. Cutting above that, I found that I could slip the wires between an opening between the 2x4s.

Then about 1.5′ from the floor, I ran into something else! Cutting right above that point, I found a traditional fire block and had to cut through it.

Here’s my speaker cable handiwork:

Since the sprinkler cable had 10 wires (5 pairs), and since the speaker connector QuickPorts came in packages of 5, I went ahead and hooked up all five pairs.

On the suggestion of a neighbor, I ran two cat5e cables to the TV area. Supposedly the complexity of media center stuff would appreciate the availability of the two ports. And if I ever got a cable modem, I could head it back behind the TV and run its data to a router or switch in a hall closet.

Can you tell it has been 8 years since I last punched a RJ45 jack?

Don’t worry, I cleaned up the wires before installing it.

Here’s the connections behind the TV:

The other side of the room looks the same except for one less data port.

There wasn’t much noteworthy about the way I ran this through the ceiling except that I tried to distance the network cable from power wires:

My recollection is that fluorescent ballasts are the biggest signal killers, so this may not have made much a difference.

Since I was in the attic anyway, I took a long exposure picture:

I’ll never get this view any more unless, heaven forbid, the ceiling collapses again!

After 16 days, I changed my Lent fast.

A diet minus “trashy carbs” is a painstaking adventure in ingredient watching. Instead of being an effective spiritual exercise, this fast put undue burdens on others, dramatically increased food spending, and often left me feeling malnourished.

It was too much an exercise in legalism.

I have reverted to prior years’ Lent fasts: no bona fide dessert foods.

I came down with the flu over 4 days ago.

I am so thankful for Tamiflu. The drug cut way back on the symptoms.

I felt like “crap” instead of “death.”

We were even able to get out of the house and go shopping yesterday, but that wore us out! (And Sears won’t haggle on closeout lawn mower prices. No sale!)

Tonight I feel 95% better. Appetite is back, and I feel fully human. About all I am lacking is the stamina to do a workout.

I was able to keep with my Lent fast.

Even though we proactively got flu shots in the fall, my wife came down with the flu on Tuesday evening.

I got it Wednesday evening.

Alec is showing symptoms as of Thursday afternoon.

It turns out that in 16% of flu seasons, the flu shot does not cover all flu variants. This is one of those years. (link)

I last got the flu 11 years ago. It was awful–I was laid up for several days, barely able to function.

This time I have Tamiflu. Probably thanks to this drug, both my wife’s and my flu have been comparatively mild. I’ve been somewhat productive on computer work, something I can’t do during a regular cold.

Since we started my son on Tamiflu before symptoms began, he may escape with little more than a runny nose and a little fever.

Tamiflu works by blocking a viral protein function, thereby preventing flu virus reproduction. All the virons already in me will still live, but they are unable to reproduce. Supposedly this reduces the disease’s severity and duration.

So far I have been able to abide by my Lent fast, but I am very tempted to indulge in some ice cream. Normally when I am sick like this, I have little appetite, so I go for foods that are calorie-dense.

I can’t wait for this to be over! I can’t believe I am saying this, but my work team and I are in the middle of a lot of bog, influential projects, and I hate having so many unplanned days away them.

My wife and I picked a difficult Lent fast: giving up foods full of junk carbohydrates.

Junk carbohydrates are a feature of foods with disproportionately more carbohydrate content than other healthful substances. Example junk carbs include simple carbohydrates (enriched/white flour, white and brown sugar, corn syrup, honey, et al), fruit juices, and white potatoes. Disallowed foods include:

• Almost all bread products
• White rice
• Virtually all snack foods or desserts
• Fruit juices
• French fries
• Most barbecue sauces, many of which I call “meat syrup” because of their vile sweetness. (Do you like maple syrup on your bacon? Why put equally sugary junk on roasts? Yuck!)
• And many others.

Foods with junk carbohydrates only as accents are OK. Generally, I want to see the junk carbs follow behind an ingredient that I intuitively know is sparsely used in the food. Examples are a sauce thickened with a little flour, 85% dark chocolate in moderation, or salted peanuts that have a little corn syrup. Even Nature’s Own Double Fiber Wheat is OK in moderation: it has more wheat gluten (4th ingredient) than white flour (5th ingredient)!

Even though junk carbohydrates are counterproductive in a human diet, it is hard to give them up! You don’t know how addicted you are to them until they are out of your diet.

Between high school and Thanksgiving 2006, I wore the same jeans size.

At that Thanksgiving, I realized those jeans literally fell off me without a belt. I quickly switched to jeans with two inch smaller waist, and they fit well.

Today, I tried on jeans that were an additional inch smaller, and they fit great!

What’s my secret? I’m doing better avoiding junk foods (stuff made with white flour,  stuff with partially hydrogenated oils, fruit juices, etc.), I’m further reducing eating when not hungry (you wouldn’t believe how much eating is done not out of hunger), and I exercise 3-5 times a week. That’s really it.

Remember the great asbestos scare of a couple of decades ago? In hindsight, the fears were exaggerated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 3,750 deaths in 1999 were attributable to asbestosis or mesothelioma, the two main asbestos-related diseases.

This means the average US resident has a 0.0014% chance of catching either disease.

Further affecting this scant probability, the vast majority of cases involved extended occupational exposure. That is, you work with asbestos-containing substances for years. On top of that, smokers appear to account for the majority of asbestosis deaths. (The same smoking link does not hold for mesothelioma.)

It’s almost impossible for the average American to suffer asbestos-related harm.

The hoopla over asbestos, especially the associated litigation, is vastly disproportionate to the actual harm. This suggests asbestos fears are a profiteering ruse by trial lawyers.

It doesn’t end. The next big scare is silicosis.

Many home improvement products, including stuff as diverse as cement and wood filler, now have silicosis warnings. These products can release fine silica when disturbed, such as when sanding. This fine silica gets in the lungs and causes silicosis.

CDC stats show that 1999 had 187 silicosis-related deaths. At 0.000069% of the US population, that represents a drastic decline since the late 1960s.

A detailed study of three states found that silicosis deaths are highly correlated to the victim’s occupation and industry, again suggesting extended occupational exposure is key to suffering harm.

I believe that the average person, especially even the hobbyist or “do it yourself” person who repeatedly disturbs materials containing substances, has little to fear. The vast number of people who already do this without suffering harm should be enough evidence. It takes persistent, long-term exposure, sometimes coupled with smoking, to cause harm.

Data sources:

• CDC Worker Health Chartbook 2004:
  • Mesothelioma
  • Asbestosis
  • Silicosis
• US Census National Population Estimates