Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics
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Victorian elections
First off: I miss Jeff Kennet. I haven’t cared about Victorian politics very much ever since he left the scene. That said, it seems that the Victorian government is just about where the NSW government was one term ago – getting a bit long in the tooth perhaps, but still with enough talent to justify…
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Gah!
Sorry, all, for the long time between posts. No real excuse: just a busy period at work, combined with a semi-nasty bike crash that put a temporary halt to my exercise dreams. Anyway, I should be back at this a bit more frequently now. With any luck I’ll be able to post some good news…
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Returning December 1.
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Enjoying the victory
I’ve been watching the commentators at The Corner, where they’re learning to come to terms with the election defeat of the US Republicans: A friend of mine […] has long argued for amending the constitution so presidents have one five year term and then can only run for one two year term. Eight years is too…
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What would the Middle East look like with more sensible borders?
From the Armed Forces Journal is this article Blood borders that looks at how the Middle East would look if you drew the borders based on ethnicity, rather than the arbitrary borders drawn by the Europeans: It’s pretty interesting (and obviously politically impossible now). But the article mainly talks about the winners and losers in…
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US Elections
Great stuff in the US elections… As expected, the Democrats are going to easily get control of the Houes. But it’s looking more and more like they’ll get control of the Senate too. Well, Lieberman willing. As of this moment (10:10pm AEST) the Iowa Electronic Markets are suggesting a 60-95% chance of winning the senate.…
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Book finds
Found a couple of treasures in a second hand bookshop in Mogo near Batemans Bay today: Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Vol I-III. The diaries of Richard Crossman are one of the great classics of politics, and are the direct inspiration for Yes, Minister. We’ve been looking for this for years, so were very happy…
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30/10/06
Weight: 111.3kg Breakfast: Vegemite on toast Lunch: Vegemite Sandwich Dinner: Chicken fillo Exercise: 15 mins cycling Rung: 1 Snacks: None
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Holiday Economics
So which special occasions do we (well, the US) spend the most money on? The National Retail Federation has the breakdown (via Snopes): Christmas (‘winter holidays’): $438.6 billion. Back to school: $54.2 billion. Mother’s day: $13.8 billion. Valentine’s day: $13.7 billion. Easter: $12.6 billion. Father’s day: $9.0 billion. Super Bowl: $5.3 billion. Halloween: $5.0 billion. St…
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Making lemonade from lemons
While at Harvey Norman today I found this piece of inventive advertising: A Choice award? How fantastic! Let’s investigate… The CHOICE 2006 Shonky Awards Ten products to make you weep in despair. […] The CHOICE Shonky for Best Dirt Redistribution Goes to the iROBOT ROOMBA robot vacuum cleaner (CHOICE, November 2006) […] But what really…