http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/11/23/30-best-cities-to-star...
http://www.civiceconomics.com/html/rank_order.html
http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-bestcitiesforstartingover/8/

God Bless the Publicans, ever single one:

So now there are two triggers. One is an extremely progressive spending trigger worth $1.2 trillion that goes off on January 1, 2013. The other is an extremely progressive tax trigger worth $3.8 trillion that goes off on...January 1, 2013. If you count reduced interest payments, the two policies alone would reduce future deficits by about $6 trillion. That's far more than anything the supercommittee came close to discussing. It's distributed far more progressively than anything the Democrats have even considered proposing. And all that needs to happen for it to pass is, well, nothing.

from Ezra Klein http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-gops-du...

From the heart of the Wisconsin River (High Tech) Valley!

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20111123/WDH0101/111230379/Jobs-could-start-soon?odyssey=nav|head

Don't believe many of you follow me on Facebook. So here is most of a thread: love singing to the Christmas music in the mall.
Wausau's Rabi, who by the way grew up in St Catherines' Ont and was married in Teaneck, NJ said:
your mother must be kvelling
to which I responded, stretching the truth only a little:Mom, remember grew up 20 miles south of Saint Cathernie's and raised me in Teaneck used to sing them with me. Tought me how to play with a dradle while I was singing them Dan. She always used to say:A BI GEZUNT. So sad she still has a little gezunt, Fadrayt, not so much.

Happy Birthday to Greg Lake:
I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave New Year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there'll be snow at Christmas
They said there'll be peace on Earth
Hallelujah Noel be it Heaven or Hell
The Christmas you get you deserve.

Years ago my brother Peter turned me onto Jonathan Richman. Two weeks ago today he was playing some of Richman's music and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed it. Made a mental note to listen to more. So here I am at work and loaded a Jonathan Richman channel on the Slacker Radio on my Playbook and what song comes up? A Richman song I was unfamiliar with called "As My Mother Lay Lying."
http://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12748
the lyrics can be found at the above link
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmBW6kzpXU

an acquaintance committed suicide yesterday, i am very verklempt.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-slams-religious-conservatives-who-...

I have said for the past three years that Blackberry's problem is not how slow or old there technology is, but their marketing. The thing, except for the apps and accessories it lacks, is so much better than any other tablet out there.

With that being said, if you want something smaller, less expense and better built than the iDont Pad the Kindle Fire will be there next week, but shortly there after something that looks real interesting the B&N Nook tablet.
http://www.androidcentral.com/barnes-noble-nook-tablet-release-date-pric...

Thing is my Playbook works without WiFi via the BBY Bridge and has the most functional and secure email of ANY AND EVERY thing you can hold in your hand. Period! Full Stop!

Grace Slick is 72 today, born Grace Barnett Wing, with the Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and Starship. She claims to have written White Rabbit in less than an hour and was known as the Acid Queen.
Otis Williams the baritone voice and founding member of the Temptations is 70 today.
Tim Schmidt bassist for Poco and the Eagles was born today in 1947
the Fonz is 66
On this day in 1945 – Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier.
Halloween Monday oct 31 1942 – David Ogden Stiers, American actor not only Charles Emerson Winchester III but He is also known for the role of Attorney Michael Reston in the Perry Mason TV movies. Also is the associate conductor for the Newport Symphony Orchestra and the Ernest Bloch Music Festival.
1944 – Kinky Friedman, American musician and novelist The Asshole from El Paso of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys
Lyle Pearce Lovett (born November 1, 1957)
George Boole 2 November 1815 Boolean Logic, the father of Computer Science and philosopher of metaphysical science
1938 – Jay Black, American singer (Jay and the Americans)

The night I was stuck at an airport hotel while out in Colorado I actually looked at these two papers. Took me till page 6 or Thursdays WSJ to find: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1000142405297020450530457665484264...
the link will only be available for 7 days to non subscribers but the jist is college matters, but even college graduates are gloomy. Maybe because fewer of us are going to college.

"What I'm fed up with is Congress being the whipping boy for all our frustrations with the sorry state of the economy and the toxic mood of our politics." the full article is an excelent read that can be read in full at http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-10-26/blame-congre...

I have always agreed with the point of the article. Yes there are some structural issues, but we do get the government we ask for in a democracy. Unfortunately Citizens United and the well funded right wing propaganda machines and think tanks are buying public thought. The answer clearly is a more educated electorate and that is just one more reason why they are attacking the schools.

You can read the full article here:http://christwire.org/2011/10/the-mcrib-is-back-can-it-bring-salvation-to-your-non-christian-mcfriends/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Christwire+%28ChristWire%29
An interesting article that uses something as simple as McRib to help convert Non-Christian Friends but the line I like the most is: "While you’re at it show them how much more computer they can get in a pc over an apple for the same price."

Today's NYT's Column by David Brooks: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/opinion/brooks-who-you-are.html?_r=1&hp was pointed out to me by my Mom. Interesting reading. In it Brooks says: "Before Kahneman and Tversky, people who thought about social problems and human behavior tended to assume that we are mostly rational agents. They assumed that people have control over the most important parts of their own thinking. They assumed that people are basically sensible utility-maximizers and that when they depart from reason it’s because some passion like fear or love has distorted their judgment."

Not my job to upset two readers here at once, but I really don't believe that quoting one paragraph with attribution and encouraging all readers to read not only the entire article, but even the Sunday NYT excerpt that is linked in the article. As for another prolific contributor here I couldn't agree with Kahneman or Brooks more. Thinking logically is theoretically possible. We all do it, from time to time. However it is illogical to think that humans can or will think logically much of the time.

Today is the Birthday of John Mayer, Wendy Wilson and Bob Weir!

Some people here get excited when someone copies a few lines and attributes it to its source that this web site might be in violation of copy-write law. With that I will just post a link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/opinion/rabbit-hole-economics.html A link of Paul Krugman's column from Friday where he states that it was not to much regulation, but too little that caused our financial mess.
I am sure he is correct. But isnt Europe far more regulated than we are and in just as big a mess?

Four More Years of Kicking Obama, or 8 years of Mitt?

“The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,” said Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the Romney administration on health care and who attended five meetings at the Obama White House in 2009, including the meeting with the president. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.”
Romney is “the father of health-care reform,” said Gruber. “I think he is the single person most responsible for health care reform in the United States. … I’m not trying to make a political position or a political statement, I honestly feel that way. If Mitt Romney had not stood up for this reform in Massachusetts … I don’t think it would have happened nationally. So I think he really is the guy with whom it all starts.”
Two attributed paragraphs not taken in sequence does not violate copy-write law.

October warm weather record could be tied Tuesday Wausau Daily Herald

Wausau could tie the record Tuesday for
the longest streak of consecutive days in
October with temperatures above 70
degrees, according to the National Weather
Service in Green Bay.

Sunday was the seventh consecutive day
with temperatures in the 70s in Wausau, a
ccording to the weather service. Today’s
high will be around 79 degrees and
Tuesday’s high will be near 71 degrees.

The record for consecutive 70-degree
days is nine days set in 1947 and tied in
1953, according to weather records that
began in 1896. Wausau also had seven
consecutive days in the 70s in October
2010.

The record won’t likely be broken in 2011
because Wednesday’s high will be around
67 degrees, according to the National
Weather Service forecast.

Wausau also tied two daily weather records
this weekend.

I never did. Read the following on the guy from Wikipedia below and that corresponds with why I got the link from Wall Street Journal Market Watch Blog. Do spend 20 seconds reading the guys brief bio, but then continue on to his one paragraph blog post. This was in a link I got from the WSJ? A very strange world indeed.

American Cody Willard (born August 31, 1972 in Ruidoso, New Mexico), is the founder of AppConsumer.com and the principal of CL Willard Capital, an investment management company. Willard serves as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University where he teaches a class called "Revolutionomics" focused on technology and business. He is the author of a subscription-based investment newsletter RevolutioNewsletter.com and the author of CodyWillard.com, a blog focusing on topics from music to Wall Street to popular culture.

He was an anchor on the Fox Business Network, where he was the co-host of Fox Business Happy Hour along with Rebecca Diamond and Eric Bolling. He wrote a monthly investment column for The Financial Times as well as columns for TheStreet.com and was a regular guest on CNBC's Kudlow & Company from 2004 to 2006.

The title above is the last sentence of an article by Kevin Drum, the full article can be read here:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/coming-soon-tea-party-recessio...

We all know that RIM has been the center of a ton of negative attention, and many people complain that there are not enough applications out there, but is that the developers fault, or the ecosystems fault? A recent study that was performed by Evans Data Corp set out to gather the facts, and to see on which platform the developers made the most money, and the results are shocking. 400 commercial developers were interviewed and the results showed that 13% of BlackBerry developers make over $100,000 from their application, which they say is "considerably more than Android or iOS developers."

Of course this doesn't hold for every developer, not just anyone who submits an application to AppWorld is going to make over $100,000, but it does show that the BlackBerry ecosystem is strong, users are willing to buy applications, we just need people to continue to develop them.

So developers, now that you know the potential how many of you are off to sign up for the upcoming Hackathon events and bring BlackBerry the applications that we dream for?

Source: Evans Data Corp; via Yahoo

Now that W is back, wonder if I could get his comments on this:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/how-state-banks-bring-...

http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/
Why should I leave money in BOM-Harris when I can put it in a much smaller local bank or credit union?

The Aloof One has to convince voters that he can connect emotionally. In a way, his relationship with Americans now is analogous to a marriage that’s not working. He’s the detached husband; we’re the neglected wife.

Is he paying attention? Does he understand our needs? Or is he just pretending to listen while he watches SportsCenter?

So ends todays column by Maureen Dowd: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/dowd-the-re-election-tango.htm...

And she clearly has a point. But lets flip her next to last question on it's head. Do we, the American people understand our needs? There are ways for the Administration to say wake up you stupid idiots sans using those words or being as condescending as Bill Maher.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/turnitup/chi-rem-appre...

One of my favorite bands admits what this blog will not.

Still here?