tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108639172024-03-14T09:11:11.908+03:30Fairness: Threat or Danger?Is what is fair what is right?Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-73964524545407992512011-04-11T22:09:00.003+04:302011-04-11T22:14:39.679+04:30Playing it safeI just got some mail from Howard Dean asking me to contribute to the campaign of a candidate in a congressional election in the LA basin. His story is that Debra Bowen is running for Jane Harman's recently-vacated seat. She's a progressive. We should help fund her election. A little research shows that this is not the case. Debra Bowen is not a progressive. She's a status-quo DemocratTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-8377512670587985832011-02-05T07:24:00.002+03:302011-02-05T07:43:32.081+03:30Effective GripingAndrea and I found ourselves behind a car today, on the way to do some walking and mom-tipping. It had a bumper sticker that said "Don't Steal. The Government Doesn't Like Competition!" What a useless thing to say.If you don't have the power to change something, griping about it is like getting upset at a rock you stub your toe on. A natural reaction, perhaps, but in no way useful. The Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-66844967018159110872011-02-03T18:43:00.002+03:302011-02-03T19:01:58.548+03:30Be A GrownupA good friend of mine recently forwarded me a political cartoon he'd paid someone to draw. The cartoon portrayed Hillary Clinton talking to Egyptian president Mubarak, and made Ms. Clinton out to be a long-time supported of the Mubarak regime, using our taxes to support a repressive dictator.This image seemed like a mistake to me; I wasn't sure why at first. After all, our taxes have been Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-78460778514216256772010-06-22T01:48:00.014+04:302010-06-22T02:17:52.462+04:30Sen. Simpson's call for lesser Americans to forgive the debt owed the Social Security Trust[This is a copy of a letter I just sent to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. If you agree with what I have said in this letter, their email address is commission@fc.eop.gov.]MoveOn is calling on me to ask Senator Simpson to resign from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. They've put up a video of a pleasantly candid interview that Senator Simpson did on the way Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-39413713721591028742010-02-16T01:14:00.003+03:302010-02-16T01:44:41.435+03:30So maybe it's time for a few updates. Andrea and I were staying mum about the house sale until it sold, but it's sold, so I can talk about it now. We were really pretty fortunate - we got some good advice from a home staging person on how to use our existing furniture and junk to stage the house. We did that, and it looked very good--so good that we're tempted to hire a home stager to give Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-31381670811001753282010-01-08T19:02:00.006+03:302010-01-08T20:00:53.851+03:30Survivor BiasOne of the things I've discovered in writing this blog is that it's actually very difficult to talk about my life in a meaningful way. I don't mean that I have nothing to say. I mean that it's hard to choose what to say, and hard to know if the choices I make are really meaningful and honest.The problem is that I tend to think about my life up to the present moment as narratives, and I tend Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-5968680002384556432009-12-19T19:09:00.004+03:302009-12-19T19:59:55.813+03:30Ice biking...Andrea and I are on the east coast for the next month or so visiting my parents. It's cold here. I've been trying to get back into bicycling, now that I have a bike again (for those who aren't up on the news, all our bikes were stolen a couple of months ago when, after a day of working on getting the house ready to show, I left the garage door open all night).I was really lucky in my timing onTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-46495190506870116752009-10-09T04:26:00.004+03:302009-10-09T05:15:50.431+03:30Editing a door...As part of our project to make our house extra-comfortable and nice for its new owner (that is to say, catching up on deferred maintenance), I'm fixing the screen door to our screen porch.The door was installed by a cheapskate who used a lousy door handle/latch and didn't drill it properly. Here's the way the latch hole looks - notice how it's off center. It's also drilled at an angle.The Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-12123125703058524392009-08-19T19:36:00.002+04:302009-08-19T20:49:57.934+04:30Death and ReconciliationWhen I was a kid, I had a fairly rocky relationship with my parents, like most kids. My mother was the strict disciplinarian. My father would occasionally get really pissed off at me, but if I let him cool off he'd usually forgive and forget, so it was always better to get in trouble on his watch.In my twenties, I carried a lot of baggage from my childhood - things that bugged me about my Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-37636443665424802972009-06-07T10:34:00.006+04:302009-06-07T10:53:50.677+04:30The Long and Winding Road...The Tikit tricked me again - I went out for a short ride and wound up up on Anklam Road and El Camino de la Oeste.It's wily that way.It knew I would have a good time.It was right.15.4 miles, I have no idea how long.BTW, this is a trend - the other day, the weather was blustery, and the Tikit lured me out for a ride in the flood control area down by the Kino Sports Park (I'd just gone out to Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-69209771657029394242009-05-31T05:01:00.002+04:302009-05-31T05:12:24.705+04:30You know you want to...We drove out to DM today, and so the Tikit was in the back of the Prius. I didn't have to pack it as tightly as I did last weekend, so it looks pretty relaxed in the trunk, and I though to take some pictures.Of course, the Tikit was just sitting there eyeing me coyly, as if to say "you know you want to go for a ride, big boy." What was I going to do? So I took it out and rode it up to Fort Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-88553500454331538262009-05-29T07:59:00.008+04:302009-05-30T04:59:51.486+04:30My favorite ride?I went up Gates Pass. Again. Today it was partly cloudy, and the clouds were in the west, so I left well before sunset and did most of the ride in sunlight. I did get zapped for about fifteen minutes when the clouds broke briefly, but mostly it worked out. The big plus to going so early is that it's much, much prettier.This is looking east along Kinney from the first place I stopped in theTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-70763855218866547292009-05-22T05:02:00.005+04:302009-05-22T06:02:05.149+04:30A change of pace: Mission San Xavier del BacI'm a little bored with Gates Pass for the moment, so last night I decided to try a run down to Mission San Xavier del Bac and back. This is about a third of the famous Shootout ride, and in fact reading about the Shootout is what gave me the idea.The bad news is that the mission is really not very far out of town, so most of the ride is in town, just getting there. I decided to do a straightTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-88407245924944593372009-05-21T02:33:00.003+04:302009-05-21T02:56:54.438+04:30In the improved coffee karma department......it turns out that there is now a place in Tucson where you can get genuinely exquisite coffee. There's this guy with a trailer that's outfitted as a coffee brewing station. Hey, it's Tucson! Much of the best food in Tucson is served out of trailers, or so I suspect. I passed a tamale trailer on the way to Gates Pass the other day that looked like the place to be; I almost stopped, butTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64381243260804857132009-05-20T03:36:00.003+04:302009-05-20T11:15:47.002+04:30Another try at Gates Pass...I went up Gates Pass again last night. My Saturday night ride over the pass took a lot out of me, so this time I decided to use an electrolyte supplement. Back when I was riding in the Bay Area, I used to use a really yummy sweetened sports drink mix when I rode, and it worked pretty well, but I wanted to see how much difference the sugars made in the ride, and so this time I just used a Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-24892547296812031502009-05-17T08:54:00.006+04:302009-05-17T09:41:21.448+04:30Night Ride up Gates PassI wasn't going to do it before I scoped it out a bit, but it looked so good on the map. I had to try it. So I did Gates Pass tonight. I left before the sun set, because I had decided to go up Ajo Highway, and I wanted some light for that. This turned out to be a good choice, although I think next time I do this ride I will detour south to Irvington and see if that's any better.The stretchTed Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-60644341598218841602009-05-17T03:24:00.008+04:302009-05-17T04:50:42.422+04:30Bicycling in Tucson...Andrea and I have been living in Tucson since summer of 2004. Our first summer in Tucson was mostly nice - Tucson is a bit of a ghost town in the summer, and so we got to watch a lot of tumbleweeds blow. Everybody has different ways of getting exercise; my two favorite ways turned out to work very badly in Tucson. I tried, really I did, but never got into the swing of either bicycling or Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64299522796259930582009-03-06T10:17:00.004+03:302009-03-06T10:48:37.987+03:30More on the bicycle seat...Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I was whining about bicycle seats, and about this new bicycle seat I'd gotten called the Spongy Wonder. After I posted that entry, I got some advice from friends of mine who are serious bicyclists. Jym accused me of not getting my science right; I'm not entirely convinced that he has his right either, but be that as it may, I think his basic observation that I Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-43882401812899313772009-02-24T22:22:00.016+03:302009-02-26T03:02:29.833+03:30Another National Health Insurance Hit PieceThis time it's an article in The Atlantic in which a breast cancer survivor talks about how the drug that she hopes has eliminated her cancer would not have been covered in New Zealand. The basic thrust of the article is that the author—Virginia Postrel—survived as a consequence of spending $60,000 on a drug called Herceptin, which is very effective for certain cancers when taken Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-9182598646616050032009-02-23T23:23:00.002+03:302009-02-23T23:25:44.942+03:30Technology time-lineCharlie Stross blogged a better than average roving questionnaire (please don't call it a "meme") today. I answered on his blog, but the process was interesting enough that I thought I'd share it here. The question is, what technology has changed your life, and when did you first meet it? I didn't have time to really do it justice, but I had a lot of fun answering it anyway.Electronics lab Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-4652758922421297872009-02-14T05:03:00.005+03:302009-02-14T05:17:24.339+03:30Danger, Will Robinson...I noticed something going around on Facebook - a questionnaire (I hate to call it a meme, because meme actually means something different that's quite important) that asks you to make up a bunch of names for yourself. It seems like great fun on the surface, but the instructions it gives for making up names actually looks like a con.Here are the questions:YOUR SPY NAME (middle name and current Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-36073834456174971242009-02-13T04:32:00.011+03:302009-02-13T05:24:39.064+03:30Spongy Wonder, and other stories...Wow, when I look back at my recent blog entries, it's a weird combination of sensible things and extremist things. I call on people to be reasonable, and in the next sentence I talk about how awful some group of people is, or call our former president a robot. Sigh.But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Ever since a bit before I broke my wrist, I've been getting worse and worse Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-84102517016292592762009-01-14T22:39:00.004+03:302009-01-14T22:49:38.814+03:30Internet for kids: threat or danger?The New York Times yesterday published an article on the risks children face on the internet. Quoting from the article:A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.Further:Not everyone was happy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64978746933273392752009-01-13T02:22:00.007+03:302009-01-13T23:03:27.852+03:30The latest attack on universal health care...Now that something like 70% of Americans have decided that they like the idea of universal health care and elected a president and congress that might take steps in that direction, the Christian Science Monitor has come out with a new and pernicious attack on the idea of universal health care. The idea is that because health care costs money, if you put the government in charge of health care, Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-944728412057088182008-12-21T21:38:00.004+03:302008-12-21T22:02:29.413+03:30ExtremismOver the years of the Bush presidency, and the Clinton presidency, a certain stridency gained power in our political world. Particularly in the Bush years, people who believe in personal freedom, tolerance, personal responsibility, genuine conservatism, and all those other good American values, despaired. Bush's complete refusal to engage with reality - to do what made sense, what was right -Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com17