A modest environmental proposal

Recently the Obama administration pronounced conjecture as settled science in stating that climate change is causing massive health problems, even though there have been other reports citing studies to the contrary. I'm not buying it. "Climate change" advocates are too shrill, too fact-light and not effective in explaining things like why their models are off, why there's been a much-reported 17+ year pause in warming even though CO2 continues to rise, why the seas have only risen millimeters when they promised that Miami would be swimming before 2000...

Their predictions are consistently wrong. Why should they be trusted? This is just a bunch of government-backed bullies who are willing to twist facts around to get their way, whatever the collateral damage. They'll keep changing the story as pieces of their yarn unravel.

I read a blogger whose mantra about climate change is, paraphrased, "I'll believe it's a crisis when the elites start treating it as a crisis." Normally this is mentioned after Gore or DiCaprio take multiple private jet trips, or the Obamas take two or three government jets, on a boondoggle across the globe. Call it their "carbon bootprint." Obviously the "elites" don't care about their own carbon output.

But these are the people are proposing national climate policy, who supposedly care. They are trying to commit the US to massive efforts and trillions of dollars to combat "climate change." Recent recommendations are to cut US emissions by 80% by 2050, which would roll back our CO2 output to levels not seen since 1905. Even if this were possible, it would impoverish us. The very rich would still be comfortable, but the rest would be freezing in the dark. And that's here in the USA.

Elsewhere on the planet there are billions of people who just want to be warm and have some electricity, running clean water, maybe a nicer place to live, and perhaps eventually a car. China is now the world's largest emitter of CO2, and they've barely started to develop a middle class. India is the third largest emitter, a bit behind China but still progressing toward becoming middle class.

The USA cannot unilaterally reduce the trajectory of atmospheric carbon. We could drop emissions to zero and it would barely change the rate of accumulation of atmospheric CO2. (BTW, I do not think rising CO2 is a disaster. The earth has for most of its history had much higher CO2 than now.)

However, for those who claim to be serious about the "problem," this is the crux: too many humans striving to improve their lives. Even 19th century living conditions for billions of people may produce too much for the anti-carbonistas: China has become the number one CO2 source while much of their population just burns a few lumps of coal for warmth. China will not stop economic progress -- they will do as they have done: make placating noises while developing their economy.

The solution is obvious: a mass extinction event for humans. A few nuclear bombs sent to China and India would probably "save the planet," if anthropogenic global warming is in fact anthropogenic. The USA should be on the hit list as well, since it's still number 2 on the list of CO2 contributors, although I think India will probably pass the USA eventually.

I'm not advocating this. I think the whole "climate change" thing is way overblown and the science is being manipulated. But until the elites propose a solution that would actually "work" rather than a series of half-steps that will beggar the Western world, I cannot believe they are serious.

Why I support the FairTax

I hope you've heard about the FairTax. Here I attempt to explain why I think it's a credibly positive piece of legislation.

I'm sure we can all agree that the US tax code is a disaster. With all the negative publicity the IRS generates for itself, compounded this year by confusion added by the Affordable Care Act (e.g. Obamacare penalties), it's about time to try something totally different. And I mean different in a very good way.

What is the FairTax?

The FairTax is a national sales tax. It's initially proposed to be revenue-neutral at 23%. That's pretty big. It sounds bigger if you note that, to be comparable to quoted income tax rates, 23% is a 'tax included' rate, meaning that if you paid a total of $100 at the register, $23 was tax. Thinking about it like a state sales tax, though, the rate would be 30%: If you buy a $77 item, the tax again is $23 for a total of $100, and 23/77 is 30%. Either way, same large-sounding tax.

The FairTax isn't all that big when you consider what it does: It replaces all federal personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes. If you have a job, your paycheck increases because none of these federal taxes are taken out.

Immanuel, especially now

It has seemed to me that lots of things have been happening to people I know, friends and family, that would likely be viewed as tragedies. A child with a chromosomal defect. Kids with serious illnesses. Friends with cancer. The death of loved ones.

I'm a Christian. These things are tragedies to me as well. But there is a difference: These things are not eternal. I and many of my friends and family are owned by Another, one who cares. One who will be with us through these trials; One who left and sent a Comforter; One who will return.

This time of year much of the world, whether it cares or not, thinks at least tangentially about his birth: Jesus of Nazareth, called the Messiah, the Christ, but most importantly for me now, Immanuel: God with us.

I count on that. "God with us" is with us still. The One who cares, cares still and joins us in our sorrows. He listens. He knows. He sends comfort and strength, and through his body on earth, the church, he sends local, corporeal comfort and strength.

The problems of today are not eternal, and we know the end of the story: He and his sheep win, forever. Getting through the problems is easier knowing "God with us" is with us indeed.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Ps. 46:1

Please don't Keurig

Yes, K-Cups are difficult to recycle and are made of unspecified #7 plastic (which may be bad for humans), so if you're greenish or paranoid-healthy, you won't do Keurig on general principles. If you're cheap, K-Cups are outrageously expensive coffee. An analysis showed that K-Cup coffee runs the equivalent of $50/pound.*

So K-Cups aren't green, healthy, or frugal coffee. Let's get to the important point: K-Cups produce miserable, lousy coffee. I've tried some, we have it available at the office, and I've tried to like it, but most complaints I've heard seem accurate:

1. It's stale. Ground coffee stays flavorful for minutes, not months, even ground coffee which purports to be stored in nitrogen-flushed, hermetically sealed pods. The oils are off; the taste left weeks before.
2. It's a fixed amount of grounds, whether you brew 4oz or 12oz. That's just wrong. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), who just might know a little about good coffee, recommends around 55g of coffee grounds per liter of water. With K-Cups, you get a choice of an overly strong little cup or a watery big cup. (Hint: It's bad either way.)
3. It's a lousy brewing system. Keurig advertises that they brew at 192F, and they brew a cup in around 40 seconds. That's a bit too cool and way too fast. Citing the SCAA again, a correctly brewed cup will use water between 195 and 205F (actually a bit hotter: the Celsius spec is 92 to 96C, which is 197 to 205F), and brewing will take between 4 and 8 minutes. Less than 4 minutes and you under-extract and get weak coffee, more than 8 and you over-extract and get bitter coffee.

See my article if you're interested in brewing great coffee. Those who sell K-Cups seem to work around the poor brewing system by using over-roasted coffee -- lots of K-Cup coffee tastes vaguely *bux-ish. One amusing review mentioned "burnt and watery."

And to top it all off, Keurig Green Mountain, owner of Green Mountain Roasters, Keurig and the K-Cup patent, is engaged in some interesting revenue enhancement: The original K-Cup patent expired in 2012. Now that they don't get royalties on every K-Cup produced, they're going the route of Digital Rights Management: The new Keurig 2.0 machines will digitally recognize "authorized" K-Cups. No digital signature on your K-Cup? No cup of coffee.

If you disliked this behavior with printer ink, you'll enjoy it even less when you're caffeine-deprived. (The DRM appears to be easy to hack at the moment. Google "keurig drm hack".) Investors aren't all that happy with this either: Keurig Green Mountain's (GMCR) stock price is down quite a bit from the year's peak.

K-Cups: Not green, probably unhealthy, definitely not frugal now and in the future, and just bad coffee. Convenient, like microwave burritos, and as appetizing. 

Please, please don't Keurig.

PS: In May 2015, Keurig announced they were bringing back the "My K-Cup" reusable K-Cup, which allows you to use your own beans, but as far as I can find, they are maintaining the 2.0 DRM. They're now "reaching out" to some brands of non-licensed cups with new easier licensing terms. Meh. Even if they dropped the DRM, it's still a poor way to brew.

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* In contrast, Panama's Hacienda Esmerelda Gesha coffee, considered one of the best coffees in the world, runs a little over $90/pound as roasted by a top roaster. (Yes, I know about Finca el Injerto gesha from Guatemala. It's sold out and outrageously priced when available, even for gesha.) If you like gesha (haven't tried it yet, myself) and you're a home roaster, you can get beans from an unnamed Guatemalan farm for under $22/pound, for now.

Speed up your cable internet

Is your internet connection through the cable company? Are you getting the speed you're paying for? Do you know how to improve your speed?

My local cable company, smelling some competition in the wind, sped up my connection from 50Mb/s to 100Mb/s. That's when the trouble began for me. Sometimes I got 100Mb/s, sometimes I got as little as 6Mb/s. After working through the problem, I'm now consistently getting 108Mb/s downloads and about 11Mb/s up.

You can test your speed at http://www.speedtest.net among other places. Test at different times of day, as speed can be affected by traffic and temperature. My slowest speeds were in the late afternoon, the hottest part of the day.

Assuming you've tested and found your speed lacking, read on. What follows is what I've learned about debugging an internet connection through a cable modem. You may or may not need the help of the cable company. It depends on how handy you are and who owns your wiring and your modem. My house cable wiring was done by my builder, and I bought my own modem awhile ago to avoid the rental fee.

How to brew great coffee

I roast coffee at home. It's a great hobby, but not without some initial frustrations: I found that my original coffeemaker took my carefully roasted, wonderful smelling home-roasted beans and made them taste like weak Folgers, or worse, K-Cup coffee. (No offense intended if you like these, but I'd hoped for better). Now my coffee tastes pretty spectacular, enough so that even my wife and kids are getting spoiled. To get to this point, I had to learn a lot about brewing coffee.

This is for my friends who have not yet heard the lecture. Below is the condensed form. You're welcome. The full lecture is coffee-geeky to the max; this is easier to stomach, unlike *bux. But, since this is Teh Interwebz, I pull no punches.

To brew great coffee is really quite simple:

1. Start with good, fresh beans.
2. Grind an appropriate amount.
3. Brew using good water and a good method of brewing.

See, it really is simple, at least in outline. Now I'll go back over each of these and fill in some detail.

Heh heh. Chinese IP Lawyers

In the category of "huh?" is this item:

Justice Boyd, recently elected to the Texas Supreme Court, is playing the straight man in this joke, it seems. Anyone who has done business in China feels some cognitive dissonance while contemplating "Chinese Intellectual Property Lawyers," or at least gets a chuckle out of the oxymoron.