And Still I Persist

There’s been some controversy lately over the plans of a Massachusetts elementary school to ban tag. Elle Dee, over at this is by us, has started a thread named “Games We Played that were Much Worse than Tag“. Here was my own contribution:

Back in 1958-60, our family lived in the West Kalayaan US Naval housing area outside of Subic Bay, Philippines (my dad was in the Navy). At dusk, during the summers, a pickup truck would go up and down all the streets, towing behind it a large sprayer emitting a dense fog of DDT.

We would play tag and/or hide-and-go-seek in that DDT fog. It smelled wonderful, too. Fond memories of childhood.

Many years later, in high school in east San Diego County, my friend Drew Bos and I would play a one-sided team version of Manhunt. We would dress all in black, then try to get ourselves from one predetermined point (say, my house) to another predetermined point (say, Grossmont High School) without anyone seeing us. We’d crawl through brush, sneak through yards, throw ourselves into ditches as cars went by, etc. In retrospect, it’s a miracle we were never arrested and/or shot.

Read all the other comments there; they sure bring back memories. Hat tip to reddit. ..bruce..

As per request, some additional information on the housing market in the US. Rather than pull someone else’s good work today, we are going to delve into the output of an interesting and unique piece of software that called “Hardtack”. Hardtack is a system that “strip mines” a variety of MLS databases (real estate multiple listing service) via their web interfaces. The result is the ability to gain a view of what is happening on the sales side of the housing market. The numbers here reflect a fusion of this data (via the software system that is currently paying the bills - Boomerang) with itself and with some census data from 2000. Granted that was 6 years ago, but it illustrates some useful points.

First, lets look at some info from a market that is not really a bubble, Peoria Illinois. Peoria is the home to Caterpillar tractors, its a midwest town that is not too big, not too small. It has a couple of universities, and some bio and ag research.

Peoria, IL
2000 Population: 370,000
2000 Median Income: $36,397

2000 Median Home Price: $85,400
2006 Median Home Price: $134,900
6 Year Price Appreciation: 58.0%

Wow, that works out to be about 10% per year appreciation on just owning property in Peoria. Maybe this bubble is wider than one might expect? Ok, lets take a look at some place else out of the way.

Casper, WY
2000 Population: 49,644
2000 Median Income: $41,544

2000 Median Home Price: $109,434
2006 Median Home Price: $235,000
6 Year Price Appreciation: 114.7%

I have been to Casper, its a tiny little town in the middle of big empty Wyoming. My favorite part of town are the pink elephant statues in front of a bottle shop call (appropriately enough) DT’s. It comes as a surprise that if you bought a house in Casper, you could rake in 19.2% PER YEAR just for owning property in Casper. Compare that to the stock market. Compare that to your real wage increases for the last 6 years - did it go up 20% a year? How about your 401K? Maybe Casper is out of the norm.

Lets look at another town, this time in the heart of California farm country.

Fresno, CA
2000 Population: 464,727
2000 Median Income: $36,356

2000 Median Home Price: $76,481
2006 Median Home Price: $325,000
6 Year Price Appreciation: 324.9%

As you can see, the price of a median home went from 2x median income to almost 10x median income. Granted the median income probably went up some, but this is Fresno. This is not a high tech hub, or a manufacturing center. Those of you who had the foresight to get into Fresno real estate in 2000 would have realized a yearly average return of 54.16% on your money.

What you are looking at is the results of a classic asset bubble brought on by obscene amounts of credit. Prices have been speculated in almost every market beyond where the fundamentals (like income) can support them reasonably. How this unwinds is ultimately anyone’s guess. If you bought a house in a bubble market in the last 3 years, I feel for you.

The Busher Reactor Under Construction in Iran - 2004, Digitial Globe Quickbird 2

As some of you may have guessed, I try to stay current on world events dealing with ongoing and potential military conflicts, especially where they involve ongoing or potential proliferation of WMDs. Cruising by one of the Arms Control Blogs, I see that the Daily KOS has declared that we are about to attack Iran as a political stunt to turn around the GOP’s flagging fortunes.

Once again painted in bright yellow and red are the reasons I can’t bring myself to vote Democratic again this time. Why is it that the Moonbat wing of the party knows and cares so little about the military? Let me address some things they state in this posting, in case some of you are now curious:

1) 4 Strike Groups in the Persian Gulf - This is the big scary headline at the KOS. Their conclusion is that if they have concentrated this much force in the area, it must be because we plan offensive action. I will state that I am not on the National Security Council or the Joint Chiefs, but there is no way the US Military can take on another fight right now. Furthermore it seems none of the KOS staff has ever been to sea, or knows thing one about this little trick called “Rotation”. What happens is that we don’t leave the ships and the crews out at sea forever. We bring them home usually after about 6 months. Before one Strike Group exits the patrol area, they wait for their replacement (called their “Relief”) to show up, and then a 1-2 week process called “Pass Down” takes place. This is where the outgoing folks enlighten the incoming folks what has been going on, what to look out for, what the big threats are, and where to get a good Schwarma in Doha. What does that mean? 1 Carrier group is relieving the 1 Carrier group on station, and 1 Expeditionary group is relieving the 1 Expeditionary group on station. Yeah, that makes 4.

2) USS Boxer spent two months this summer testing its missile and launch systems prior to uploading ordnance for its deployment to the Persian Gulf on September 27 and 28th - Again, the lack of direct military experience is showing. Every ship, every strike group that was part of ESG 5 did a training workup before going to the Gulf. It’s how they do it. You don’t send a crew cold into a dangerous spot like that. You take them through a series of exercises that prove they are capable of handling the job.

3) Naval Interdiction Exercise Said Planned for Persian Gulf - This is with our allied states in the gulf. Gee, what do you think. The North Koreans just tested a Nuke, we know they are working with Iran (back channel word is that several Iranian military and science folks were on hand for the test), and how dare we practice intercepting ships on the high seas with our allies who want to make sure Iran does not get a fast path to the bomb.

4) Citing William R. Polk - I am sure Mr Polk has done extensive research of his facts, but he clearly has a political and ideological agenda in play. This gets to one my greatest worries, the politicalization of the Intelligence Community. In the past they were dedicated to finding the information and letting the military and civilian elected leaders make the important calls on what to believe and what to do about it. Starting with the run up to the Iraq war it somehow became much more polarized. Now you see people risking life sentences to inject TS or higher info to the press, just to score political points. In this environment you will not get reasonable analysis of critical events that threaten this country.

My advice to the left, find some former warriors that know their stuff to help you out and adjust your messages from what you learn. Your credibility is suffering.

I’ve reached that point in the election season where I largely keep the TV off, except to watch shows that I’ve already recorded on my DVR and thus can hit the ‘CM SKIP’ button to help skip over the endless political attack ads. This ad, however, is an absolute hoot, as if a few of the old Saturday Night Live writers had migrated over to the Republican National Committeee.

Hat tip to Blue Crab Boulevard. ..bruce..

UPDATED (10/24/06): Of course, this Arnold Schwarzenegger ad would be even better, if it were being run on TV with the new-and-improved narration. This matching Phil Angelides ad isn’t quite as good, but still better than most of the political drek on TV. Hat tip to Defamer. ..b..

From the ever-worthwhile McSweeney’s, here’s an excerpt of the findings from the Committee on Promotion and Tenure:

Demonstrates suitable experience and expertise in chosen field:

The committee concurred that Dr. Jones does seem to possess a nearly superhuman breadth of linguistic knowledge and an uncanny familiarity with the history and material culture of the occult. However, his understanding and practice of archaeology gave the committee the greatest cause for alarm. Criticisms of Dr. Jones ranged from “possessing a perceptible methodological deficiency” to “practicing archaeology with a complete lack of, disregard for, and colossal ignorance of current methodology, theory, and ethics” to “unabashed grave-robbing.” Given such appraisals, perhaps it isn’t surprising to learn that several Central and South American countries recently assembled to enact legislation aimed at permanently prohibiting his entry.

Moreover, no one on the committee can identify who or what instilled Dr. Jones with the belief that an archaeologist’s tool kit should consist solely of a bullwhip and a revolver.

Read the whole thing.  Hat tip to Daniel W. Drezner (who did get tenure).  ..bruce..