Lion Queen...

Via my lovely bride, who would give just about anything to have this experience:

Funny Ads...

Via my lovely bride:

Spending: Up, Always Up...

It's the first law of government: spending always grows, even when they say it isn't.  Here's a nice interactive graphic to help you explore what's happened to the U.S. budget over the last 30 years or so.

The perpetual mystery to me is how so many Americans can remain so blissfully ignorant of the disaster that's being visited upon them by the corrupt, incompetent government we've voted into office.  Even with the data readily available, and even with other nations illustrating the future we're careening towards (hello, Greece!)...most of our citizens are somehow unaware of what's happening to us.

I have blue days when I think the human race may be doomed.  Over the past few days, I've been doing a lot of reading about Greece.  Result: this morning, I'm fearing we're doomed...

Rotten Highway Bill...

Jim DeMint is an aberration – a voice of sanity in our Congress.  One can listen to him, or read his writings, and come away with the sense that you're actually talking with a rational person who's interested in our national welfare.  As I said, a Congressional aberration...

He's got a piece in today's Wall Street Journal talking about the latest highways bill.  In it, he reviews the disgusting history of highways bills, and in particular the corrupting Davis-Bacon act that's still operative.  He makes a plea:

Here's a radical idea: Why not pay for new spending by actually cutting wasteful spending in other areas? It's no wonder our country is near fiscal ruin when the option of cutting spending is not even being considered. 

In Congressional Cuckoo-Land, that's just crazy talk.  But it sure sounds good to my ears.

I just wish there was some realistic chance of Congress listening...

Math News...

Terence Tao has just published a paper, titled “Every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes”.  He's also got a blog post describing it.

The notion really is as simple as his title makes it sound.  Pick any old odd number you'd like – let's say, 333.  He's asserting that you can find 1 to 5 prime numbers which, when added together, equals 333.  Let's try:

333 = 331 + 2
333 = 283 + 43 + 7

There it is, in two different ways.

I have a fascination for these sorts of number conjectures that I can't quite explain, and it's so far an unrequited fascination, as much of the math involved is beyond me (there are bits and pieces that I can grasp, but on most of it I'm just taking their word).  But the very idea that one could actually prove something (either true or false!) like the Goldbach conjecture seems pretty darned close to magical to me...

What? We Haven't Done This Already?

That's my reaction to this news...

Dolores Umbridge...

If you've read the Harry Potter novels, then the name Dolores Umbridge will be one I'm sure you'll recognize immediately – she was the sadistic, condescending, and power-hungry bureaucrat-without-constraints who plagued the kids at Hogwarts.  Her character is straight out of the deepest nightmares of any freedom-loving individual.

Dolores has admirers who are emulating her behavior...