Are you living beyond your means?

Some time back, I built a little Excel workbook to help figure out whether your commitments have resulted in your living beyond your means. It’s free, the download is quick, and it’s easy to complete. It’s called Within Your Means. Now, via LIfehacker, an article by Glenn Curtis that provides 5 signs that you’re living beyond your means:

Sign No.1 – Your Credit Score is Below 600

Sign No.2 – You are Saving Less Than 5%

Sign No.3 – Your Credit Card Balances are Rising

Sign No.4 – More Than 28% of Income Goes To Your House

Sign No. 5 – Your Bills are Spiraling Out of Control

Read the full article for explanations and advice associated with each of the five signs.

Mukasey, that sleazy weasel

Working on confirmation now, but I’m hearing word that George Bush just took his second step in the cover-up of Cheney’s leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity–by invoking executive privilege to shield Cheney’s interview with Fitzgerald.

No, I’m not surprised by this, if this turns out to be true. But if IS true, then it marks the second time that Bush will have used his privileges to shield something either terribly embarrassing–or downright illegal.

Update: Oversight Committee won’t confirm–but they have postponed their vote on contempt for Attorney General Mukasey to review their options.

Update: Here are the documents (Mukasey to Bush; Mukasey to Waxman). Note, Mukasey asked Bush to invoke executive privilege over this. What a fucking corrupt disgrace.

Update: Here’s Mukasey:

I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the Committee’s subpona would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations. For the reasons set forth above, I believe it is legally permissible for you to assert executive privilege. I respectfully request that you do so.

Shorter Mukasey: “Please don’t make me go to jail to cover-up the Vice President’s smear job!!”

Update: Waxman hits the right notes:

The claim of executive privilege is ludicrous.

We are not seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and the President. We are seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and FBI investigators. The Vice President talked with the FBI investigators voluntarily and he did so knowing that what he said could be disclosed publicly in a criminal trial. Mr. Fitzgerald told us that “there were no agreements, conditions and understandings” that limited Mr. Fitzgerald’s use of the interview in any way.

This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person.

The President is wrong to shield Vice President Cheney from scrutiny. In our system of government, even the Vice President should be accountable for his actions.

Another good Mary Kane article

This time on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s bailouts:

In our story Monday about the government’s rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we raised the question of why, once again, no conditions were required from the institution being rescued. Like Bear Stearns, both of the mortgage giants weren’t asked for anything in return for gaining access to possibly billions of dollars and loans and investments from the federal government.

President Bush denied in Tuesday’s press conference that help for the two companies amounted to a bailout, but some see the government’s actions as just that.
Economist and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich calls the government’s actions “socialized capitalism,” consisting of private gains and public losses. How do you weigh that against the need to help investment banks that are too big to fail? Reich has some ideas in his post:

Here’s a modest proposal: When taxpayers insure a giant entity against loss — as we now are with Freddie, Fannie, and Wall Street investment banks — those entities must agree that: (1) for the duration of the bailout, their top executives cannot receive total annual compensation higher than that received by the President of the United States, and 2) the government gets five percent of their current valuation as shares of stock (roughly representing the benefit to their shareholders of the federal insurance) — so that if and when the entities become profitable again, taxpayers are compensated for the risk they’ve taken on.

Reich isn’t the only one with some second thoughts after Monday’s frenzied actions. For the next investment bank that seems on the edge of disaster, don’t be surprised to see the government attach a few conditions. After a few of these bailouts, the feds unfortunately are getting some experience at this.

Conservation not on energy agenda

I think that we all know the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”—and those are in order of importance. The most important thing is to reduce consumption. Yet, as Mike Lillis points out, conservation—reducing the consumption of energy—is strangely lacking. His article begins:

As Congress and the White House joust over the proposed expansion of offshore drilling for oil and gas, the debate has hinged on 68 million acres where the petroleum industry is permitted to explore but hasn’t produced a saleable thing.

For Democrats, the figure is evidence that the companies aren’t doing enough to develop the access they’ve got, while Republicans say more drilling options are necessary to satisfy growing energy demands. Ostensibly, each side aims to control rising fuel costs. Yet amid the partisan cacophony are the many environmentalists who say that neither side has adequately promoted the conservation strategies that are the one sure solution to the nation’s energy troubles.

“We can drill on everyone’s front lawn from here to California and it won’t change the energy dynamic,” said David Jenkins, director of Republicans for Environmental Protection. “It doesn’t take too smart a person to realize there’s a train wreck down the line.”

“The single biggest step to cutting our oil dependence is to make cars go further on a single gallon of gas,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, a new nonprofit group.

John McCain’s memory problems

From The Carpetbagger Report (and you might want to read the entire post):

I’ve already heard some argue that these constant references to McCain’s “confusion” are a not-so-subtle way of reinforcing questions about McCain’s age. The last time Obama aides used the word, some media outlets raised a fuss.

The truth is, every criticism is not a veiled reference to McCain turning 72. People of all ages get “confused.”

The kicker, though, is that McCain really has been confused. Whether he’s 72 or 22 is irrelevant — he’s demonstrated time and again that he just doesn’t understand the basics.

* McCain continues to believe Czechoslovakia is still a country.

* McCain has been confused about the difference between Sudan and Somalia.

* McCain has been confused about how many U.S. troops are in Iraq.

* McCain has been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq.

* McCain has been confused about the source of violence in Iraq.

* McCain has been confused about Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda.

* McCain has been confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi’ia.

* McCain has been confused about Gen. Petraeus’ responsibilities in Iraq.

* McCain has been confused about what transpired during the Maliki government’s recent offensive in Basra.

* McCain has been confused about Gen. Petraeus’ ability to travel around Baghdad “in a non-armed Humvee.”

* McCain has been so confused about Iraq, in November 2006, he couldn’t even do a live interview about the war without reading prepared notes on national television.

* McCain has been confused about his vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

* McCain has been confused about his position on contraception.

* McCain has been confused about what the Internet is.

* McCain’s confusion about economics has been breathtaking.

* McCain has been really confused about how the Social Security system works.

* McCain is confused about how his own energy policy works.

Given this, yes, I think it’s entirely reasonable for Obama campaign aides to mention that McCain “got confused again.” It seems to me, this is far more polite than saying he’s utterly clueless about the world around him.

The problem isn’t that McCain’s critics are picking loaded terms; the problem is McCain doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about.

And, assuming that he’s regularly briefed, as a presidential candidate would be, he can’t remember his briefings.

Vaccination wars

Arthur Allen in the Washington Indpendent notes the latest celebrities to emerge in the vaccine wars:

Move over, Jenny McCarthy. The former Playboy playmate-turned vaccine basher has competition from a Hollywood newcomer, Amanda Peet. In a profile featured on the cover of this month’s Cookie magazine, Peet discloses that Dr. Paul Offit, inventor of an important rotavirus vaccine and public enemy number one of the anti-vaccination crowd, assuaged her anxieties over vaccination after the birth of her baby in 2007. She has fully vaccinated the tot, is quite happy about it, and says that parents who don’t vaccinate are “parasites.” Peet’s comment, and her decision to do a pro-vaccine promotional ad infuriated the vaccine skeptics, some of whom wrote menacing letters to Peet and her retinue. Has the public zeitgeist turned on the activists who, blaming vaccines for autism, urge parents to delay or avoid vaccinating their kids?

Recent reports indicating that we’re in the midst of the worst measles outbreak since at least 1997 haven’t helped. Some recent commentators (including me, in an upcoming issue of Mother Jones magazine) note that the decision not to vaccinate your kid has implications beyond the health of your own family. Also, while Handley and others are apoplectic at Offit for daring to stand up for vaccines while owning a patent on one (I’m shocked–shocked!–that someone is allowed to own their intellectual property!), fact is that Offit’s Rotateq vaccine seems to be doing some wonderful things for public health. A recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that Rotateq, which Offit and his colleagues developed, and Merck produces, has prevented tens of thousands of cases of the painful and sometimes dangerous gastrointestinal disease. As a further annoyance to his critics, Offit has a book coming out in September that lays bare the legal, scientific and public relations campaigns behind the vaccines-cause-autism theory (full disclosure: I’m quoted in it).

Does it amaze you that celebrities are quoted as if they are scientists?

For the iPhone-atics

11 cool new apps for the iPhone.

Changes in the U.S.

And not for the better:

Of all the constitutionally threatening and extremist powers the Bush administration has asserted over the last seven years, the most radical — and the most dangerous — has been its claim that the President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based on his assertion that the imprisoned individual is an “enemy combatant.” Beginning with U.S. citizen Yasser Esam Hamdi (detained in Afghanistan), followed by U.S. citizen Jose Padilla (detained at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport), followed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri (in the U.S. on a student visa and detained at his home in Peoria, Illinois), the Bush administration has not only claimed that power in theory but has aggressively exercised and defended it in practice.

The Bush administration’s strategy of imprisoning these “enemy combatants” in a South Carolina military brig has (by design) ensured that subsequent legal challenges are heard by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most right-wing judicial circuit in the country. In September, 2005, a three-judge panel from that circuit issued a ruling in the Jose Padilla case (.pdf) that actually upheld the President’s power to arrest and indefinitely detain even U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil without charging them with any crime — a decision which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review (because the Bush administration, after 3 1/2 years of lawless imprisonment, avoided that review by finally charging Padilla with a crime), thus leaving that Padilla decision as still-valid law in this country.

Citing the allegation that Jose Padilla had “served as an armed guard at what he understood to be a Taliban outpost” in Afghanistan (Dec. at 7), the 2005 Padilla decision held that “the President is authorized by the AUMF to detain Padilla as a fundamental incident to the conduct of war.” The court rejected Padilla’s claim that — as a U.S. citizen who was “captured” on U.S. soil — he was entitled under the Constitution to be charged with a crime and tried in a civilian court. Under Padilla, the President thus has the power to imprison even U.S. citizens in a military brig indefinitely, merely be alleging that they are “enemy combatants” who have “taken up arms against the U.S.”

Yesterday, the full Fourth Circuit appellate court, in a 5-4 ruling (.pdf), expanded that Draconian power even further. This ruling was issued in al-Marri’s case, whose extraordinary plight I’ve previously written about in detail. Al-Marri is a citizen of Qatar who, in 2001, was in the United States legally, on a student visa. He was a computer science graduate student at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he had earned an undergraduate degree a decade earlier. In Peoria, he lived with his wife and five children. Shortly after the 9/11 attack, al-Marri was detained as a material witness and subsequently charged in a civilian court with a variety of crimes relating to credit card fraud and making false statements as part of the 9/11 investigation. He vehemently denied those accusations, and — in June, 2003 — he was preparing for his criminal trial, scheduled to begin the following month.

Suddenly — a month before his trial was to begin — George Bush declared him to be an “enemy combatant” and ordered the U.S. military to seize him from civilian officials and transfer him to military custody. There — in a South Carolina military brig — al-Marri has remained for the last five years, with no criminal charges having been brought against him and no meaningful opportunity to contest his guilt in a court of law. He has been kept in solitary confinement and denied any contact with the outside world other than his lawyers.

The Fourth Circuit’s 5-4 ruling yesterday upheld the President’s authority to detain al-Marri in a military prison as an “enemy combatant.” What makes the ruling so striking is that — unlike Hamdi and Padilla — not even the Bush administration claims that al-Marri fought alongside the Taliban, fought against U.S. forces, or had even been to Afghanistan. He’s simply a civilian accused by the President of being involved in a terrorist plot. As one of the seven separate opinions issued as part of the court’s ruling yesterday noted [p. 28]: …

Continue reading. It’s important that you know this. It could in time be you who’s whisked away to Lubyanka a secret prison. From later in the column:

So, then, the President has the power to imprison in a military prison even U.S. citizens inside the U.S. — who are pure civilians, having not been anywhere near a battlefield — indefinitely and without having to charge them with any crime.

A long list of productivity blogs

Dustin Wax has compiled a reference list of productivity blogs—more than 50 of them. Obviously, the law of diminishing returns takes hold: at some point, reviewing that many blogs affects your productivity adversely. But still… take a look. (UPDATE: And his readers suggested 15 more sites.) The first 10, just to get you started:

1. 43 Folders: Merlin Mann started a lot of us on this journey, so now he has to pay. In the meantime, though, he and his crew of happy Folderers keep on providing great tips on productivity and getting things done, especially for Mac users.
2. All Things Workplace: Tips from Steve Roesler on becoming a more effective leader.
3. Awake At The Wheel: Great stuff from serial entrepreneur, yoga expert, and writer Jonathan Fields on being happy and successful in all your endeavors.
4. Black Belt Productivity: Co-written by Jason Echols and Michael Ramm, BBP covers workplace productivity and GTD. Home of the “GTD Primer”, an excellent series of posts introducing GTD methods.
5. Change Your Thoughts: Steven Aitchison’s blog on health, finances, relationships, writing, and generally keeping a positive perspective on life.
6. Conflict Zen: Formerly “I Can’t Say That”, Conflict Zen is all about dealing with and resolving interpersonal conflict. If you know people, you probably need to get a little conflict Zen.
7. Cranking Widgets: Brett Kelly offers practical GTD-minded advice on life and productivity.
8. Creating a Better Life: Personal development in its purest form, CaBL deals with productivity and related issues from the perspective of creating internal attitudes that make us more productive. Check out the rather thorough listing of free personal development e-books, too!
9. The Daily Saint : I have it on good authority that Mike St. Pierre isn’t a saint at all. But who cares? He offers great tips on being more productive and managing time better, with an emphasis on creating meaning in your life.
10. Design Your Writing Life: Lisa Gates poses thoughtful questions and exercises to help you tap into and express your inner creativity, in writing or any other form.

Many more at the link.

Too weird for The Wire

Via Kevin Drum, this post on the latest wrinkle in the Baltimore drug fight.

A new cleaner for Windows use

You’re probably familiar with CCleaner (originally “Crap Cleaner”), a free Windows cleaner (uninstaller, deletes temp files, etc.). Now NCleaner is available—still free, even better. Detailed review here.

Wonderful story from volunteer work in Mexico

A life-changing experience at a young age—a great anecdote worth reading.

The Century of Self

An excellent series recommended by Dumb Little Man. Well worth watching.

Life advice from Warren Buffett

Some good points in the list of seven.

Very nice scientific calculator

I blogged earlier about some nice free calculator software you can download and install. Here’s a free calculator that requires no installation: it’s Web-resident. Worth bookmarking, I think.

“Holy moly!”

We all—well, all of us of a certain age—remember this ejaculation as frequently uttered by Billy Batson and Captain Marvel in the comics of a bygone era. And a very good comic that was, written by the science fiction team of Eando Binder (mostly O, I see). “Moly” is one of the hapax legomenoi in Homer: words that appear in Greek literature exactly once, and thus virtually impossible to define. It is clearly an herb. (It occurs in the Odyssey, where Hermes gives it to Odysseus to protect him from Circe’s magic.) Ford K. Brown, a tutor of astonishing erudition, said that he believed that it was some sort of wild onion or garlic, plants well known to have great benefits.

This is the pedantic post of the day…

Best graphic art and design Open CourseWare

Free art courses for those so inclined. The rankings (and more articles are at the link):

#1 Adobe Online Training

• See All Free Adobe Courses

Graphic artists around the world use Adobe products in their design projects. To help them out, Adobe has developed a number of free courses for their latest products. Courses that you can try out include Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe InDesign CS2, Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Acrobat 7.0.

#2 QuarkEd

• See All Free Quark Training Courses

Quark software is also popular among graphic artists. If you are new to Quark or if you are an old hand looking to refine your techniques, QuarkEd courses offer something for you. The courses cover all the major features in QuarkXPress 7 and teach students how to use each feature.

#3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

• Art of Color Course
• Digital Typography
• Modern Art and Mass Culture

MIT offers a number of great courses for graphic artists and designers. Nearly all of the free courses include readings, assignments, lectures, and exams. Some of the courses can be translated into other languages or downloaded in an audio format.

#4 University of Utah

• Introduction to Art History

The University of Utah has only one free art-related course, but it is very good. The course introduces the history of art and various methods of art interpretation. Course materials include readings, assignments and an exam.

Goodbye, Bengal Tigers

Sad to see them go—a magnificent animal. But all the large predators are probably marked for gradual extinction. (More reports on tigers at the link.)

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is alarmed by the dramatic decline of at least 30 percent in the Bengal tiger population of Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, once a refuge that boasted among the highest densities of the endangered species in the Eastern Himalayas. The recent survey of April 2008 showed a population of between 6-14 tigers, down from 20-50 tigers in 2005.

The Government of Nepal made a low-key announcement on July 1 based on the results of a long-term camera trap study conducted in large part by WWF. Officials identified poaching as perhaps the major cause of tigers disappearing from this protected area. Ironically, armed poachers have been photographed by the very equipment set up to capture tiger images.

“The loss of tigers in Suklaphanta is undoubtedly linked to the powerful global mafia that controls illegal wildlife trade,” said Jon Miceler, managing director of WWF’s Eastern Himalayas Program. “The evidence suggests that Nepal’s endangered tigers are increasingly vulnerable to this despicable trade that has already emptied several Indian tiger reserves—clearly, this is symptomatic of the larger tiger crisis in the region. We need a stronger, more sustained response to this issue in order to protect the future of tigers in the wild.”

Tangible benefits of gay marriage

This is sort of entertaining: Massachusetts is all in a lather that California will reap all the money involved in gay marriages (weddings, receptions, catering, honeymoons, and so on), so they have changed state law to allow non-resident gays to marry in Massachusetts. Sort of a free-market solution. The politicos were, of course, quick to say that the reason was NOT the money involved—very like what they say when they vote in line with the large contributions they get from lobbyists and businesses. It’s just a coincidence. Nothing to see here, move along.

Wonder when, say, Kansas will follow suit. The article by Pam Belluck and Katie Zezima in the NY Times:

Massachusetts may have been the first state to legalize same-sex marriage for its residents, but when California last month invited out-of-state gay and lesbian couples to get married, the potential economic benefits did not go unnoticed here. Now Massachusetts wants to extend the same invitation.

On Tuesday, the State Senate voted to repeal a 1913 law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states. The repeal, which passed with no objections on a voice vote, is expected to pass the House later this week. Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat and a supporter of same-sex marriage whose 18-year-old daughter recently disclosed publicly that she is a lesbian, has said he will sign the repeal.

The repeal of the out-of-state marriage ban would come more than four years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay men and lesbians to marry, and same-sex marriage advocates said the timing was carefully calculated to catch the prevailing political — and economic — winds.

State officials said they expected a multimillion-dollar benefit in weddings and tourism, especially from people who live in New York. A just-released study commissioned by the State of Massachusetts concludes that in the next three years about 32,200 couples would travel here to get married, creating 330 permanent jobs and adding $111 million to the economy, not including spending by wedding guests and tourist activities the weddings might generate.

More bad news from global warming

More signs of what’s coming. I do understand that many conservatives (and oil companies) don’t see any of this as a problem.

According to a new study, global warming could lead to larger changes in snowmelt in the western United States than was previously thought, possibly increasing wildfire risk and creating new water management challenges for agriculture, ecosystems and urban populations. Researchers, including a Purdue University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, discovered that a critical surface temperature feedback is twice as strong as what had been projected by earlier studies.

The high-resolution climate model used by the team was better able to reproduce the complex topography of the western United States and capture details of the effect of snow cover on the climate system, as well as the historical record of runoff.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters and are now available online at the journal’s Web site.

Noah Diffenbaugh, senior author of the paper and an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue, said the influence of melting snow on regional climate is far greater than that of increased greenhouse gases alone.

“The heat trapping from elevated greenhouse gases triggers the warming, but the additional warming caused by the loss of snow is what really creates the big changes in surface runoff,” said Diffenbaugh, who also is a member of Purdue’s Climate Change Research Center. “Scientists have known about this general effect for years. The big surprise here is how much the complex topography plays a role, essentially doubling the threat to water resources in the West.”