bmagnus

Better Living Through Chemistry

I have some new cookbooks.

Specifically I have some new vegetarian cookbooks. I am not a full vegetarian, but I do try to make healthy food for my family. And “healthy” means plenty of veggies. Furthermore, meatless dishes are often (but not always!) higher nutrition for lower calories, and very budget friendly as well.

One of the new books is How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. One feature I love is that vegan, fast, or make-ahead recipes are clearly marked. Frankly, this is an improvement over the original How to Cook Everything, and I hope future editions of that book will utilize similar markings. One thing you will not find in HtCEV is a lot of recipes that use fake meat. Sure, there are tofu recipes and seitan recipes, and 10 pages on making your own veggie “burgers”, including adaptations for “meat”loaves and “meat”balls. And sure, there are recipes that use alternative-but-still-natural sweeteners such as agave nectar or maple syrup. But no Gimme Lean, no Liquid Amino Acids, no TVP, no Tofurky, no Quorn, no Morningstar Farms, no Boca Burgers, no Gardenburgers, no frozen meatless beef/chicken/pork substitute patties, in fact nothing that should be capitalized or have a trademark symbol.

By contrast, I have another new cookbook that features only vegan recipes — for those who aren’t in the know, vegans not only don’t eat any sort of meat or fish, they don’t eat any animal-produced products (dairy, eggs, honey) either. You might think this is very limiting in a world where meat and eggs and dairy products are everywhere, even on our salads (mmGorgonzola). It is certainly challenging, and requires some thinking ahead. If you want to read more about that, I humbly refer you to Veggie Going Vegan and Fat Free Vegan.

Anyway, this cookbook talks seriously about eating healthy food: why the chemicals in coffee are bad for you; why refined sugar is bad for you but artificial low-calorie sweeteners are worse, and a new study supports that fact (ok, ok, giving up my Diet Coke, *sigh*); be selective about your grains, avoid ones that have “white” in the name, and why; the chemicals that go into modern farming of meat; it goes on. I really like the frank and irreverent tone of the book. I may not agree with everything they say — for example my experience with potato products is that they tend to make me gain more weight than white rice — but they do try to back up their opinions.

And then — 8 paragraphs away from a sentence summarizing the various drugs, pesticides, steroids, and hormones that end up in farmed meat and meat products — they point out that section of the grocery store dedicated to overpriced, frozen wad, chemistry sets known as fake meat. Sure, they admit that these products should only be eaten in moderation, and that they only sort of taste like meat. Oh, and that humble readers such as myself should make up their own minds.

The chemicals in dairy products? Bad! The chemicals that turn rice and soy into something that taste like dairy products? Inexplicably good! Eggs? Bad! Egg Beaters? Still bad! Vegan egg replacer made with starch and cellulose through some super-secret chemical process? Somehow good!

Listen, I am willing to concede that a diet of cheeseburgers is probably not good for you. But I have this strange feeling that switching to a diet of fake burger patties with fake cheese on a whole wheat bun isn’t much better for you. If you honestly can’t handle life without burgers, that’s ok. Really it is. Maybe a vegan lifestyle isn’t for you.

But you’ll just have to trust me that there are better things you can be putting in your mouth: for half the price of a box of frozen-burgerish-substance, you can make your own delicious meat substitute (and I bet you already have most of the ingredients in your pantry); you could be eating soba noodles in peanut sauce; you could be enjoying roasted veggies — you can figure out how to hack up some veggies and stick them in a hot oven for an hour, right?; you can make sloppy pinto-joes (sorry my recipe is simpler than any I see online) or black bean soup; just yesterday I had a lovely hummus and falafel platter for lunch; and we haven’t even touched on “exotic” ingredients like seitan and tempeh. Frankly, looking beyond a hunk of meat opens a freaking huge culinary world. After all, several cultures developed their own independent vegetarian cuisines in the complete absence of the latest scientific information on amino acids. There’s a lot of delicious and nutritious food out there. Why waste time, money, and calories on chemistry sets?

In closing: America Says Thanks for the gift card, I used it to buy “pasta sauce, diapers, [and] laundry detergent“; America Also Says the recession is already here; it’s one thing to walk away from the house, it’s another thing to walk away from the student loans, and America is doing both; at least we have homes to walk away from, one in six Iraqis don’t; Dear Hillary, grow up and smell the democracy; collegiate bloggers should read this now; deja vu; CNN shows their priorities by asking “So when are my shows coming back?“; another take on kids still don’t have employers; since the tourists are just here for the dollars, let’s not annoy them; somehow killing one out of five people doesn’t sound like a “peace” plan; Senate Traitors; and everything you will ever need to know about mattresses. Oh, and happy 200th birthday of Abe Lincoln.

Shorties Behind You

But we need those guest workers! The EPI on the unfortunately enduring problem of long-term unemployment.

Which one of those Canadians wears the beret? Many thanks to The Crone Speaks’s Sunny 66 for pointing us to Mythbusting Canadian Health Care. It’s part one, so keep an eye out for part two!

I also have a side-business selling tiger-repellent rocks. Carry one of these rocks anywhere in the United States, and you won’t see any tigers outside a zoo, guaranteed! No? Well D-Ed Reckoning has a nice item on Poverty and Education.

ShortWoman agreeing with the Cato Institute is normally a sign of impending calamity. Oh well, make sure your disaster supplies are in order, because they are the real Straight Talk Express when it comes to John McCain.

Things I’ve learned from Japanese grammar. When you don’t know how to pronounce something, start by not emphasizing any syllables. Putting “yo” at the end of a sentence is a perfectly good way to add emphasis and point out new information. Listen to everything before you decide you know what’s going on. And little details make a big difference in what something means. Here’s a site that those studying Japanese might enjoy.

Look before you Leap. Wired tells us Three Smart Things You Should Know About Leap Year.

Laptop security ends at the security checkpoint. Seriously. Don’t bother taking your portable computer overseas.

Keeping an eye on this one. The (new) 3 Rs.

Help handicapped children and get rid of wrinkles all at once. Did you know that Botox can help some kids get out of wheelchairs? Well, that is if they have a certain kind of cerebral palsy. And it does take five to fifteen times the amount of Botox it would take to get rid of the “number 11” between your eyes. And unfortunately, there are a very small number of kids who have had bad reactions recently.

Excuse me, does anyone here speak Kudlow? Heh.

Deja Vu. Petite Sophisticate is closing. Again. Maybe if they actually sold petite clothing at reasonable prices they would do better. As opposed to “slightly smaller than regular sized” clothing at “really too damn expensive” prices.

Herding Cats. Running an orchestra. Pretty much the same thing.

If you were expecting me to say something about the so-called stimulus package, The Crone pretty much said what needed saying.

And that’s it for the day. Have a great weekend. Stay warm!

Tagged, BAD, and other loose ends

Well, Dyre42 of Dyre Portents has been so *ahem* kind as to tag me with the following meme:

So here’s the rules of the Meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Boy is he gonna be sorry he did that.

From page 123 of the nearest book:

Kekkon suru, vb. get married.

Kekkyoku, adv. eventually.

Kemui, kemutai, adj. 1. smoky. 2. ill at ease.

Not as fun as Dyre’s selection, now is it? My apologies that the kanji didn’t come out right; WordPress doesn’t seem to like Asian characters. I hereby tag The Archcrone, Brilliant Jill, Maya’s Granny (who I know has really interesting books!), Elisa Camahort, and — the only guy on the list — JurassicPork .

And that list brings me to the next item on today’s agenda, Blogroll Amnesty Day.

There seem to be conflicting reports on where this tradition comes from, but Skippy takes credit, explaining:

[A]ny blog that has linked to skippy and has not received a reciprocal blogroll link will now be included on our roll! all you have to do is notify us in our comments section or email us, and we will happily include you! that will show those big shot elitists too good for the little guy blogs! ha!

I for one am also using it as a blogroll cleaning day. In addition to inviting new blogroll members, I will be cleaning out oldies but no-longer-goodies (as much as I hate to admit that Fafblog! is never coming back. *sniff*). There are also a couple of urls to update, such as noting Expert Ezra‘s full-time migration to a new site. After my little cleanup, the next order of business will be to add some of the things I have started reading regularly. This includes Dyre (who tagged me) and several of the people I just tagged. Other new entries in my blogroll include AmericaBlog, SharkFu (many thanks to Maya’s Granny, without whom I would never have even thought to read her), BuzzFlash, Cogitamus (Ezra’s former posse; it’s Latin for “we think”), Donklephant, Carrie’s Nation, the BondDad, Confessions of a Community College Dean, Hello Kitty Hell, GamePolitics.com, The Daily Kitten, EconoSpeak (the former MaxSpeak crew), Freakonomics, Homeland Stupidity, I can has Cheezburger, Independent Liberal, Poligazette, by way of balance Marginal Revolution, The Market Oracle, Mahablog, Last Left before Hooterville (I love the name, dahling!), Kiko-san no uchi, Paul Krugman, Preemptive Karma, Bruce Schneier, Shorty Stories, Unbossed, and EconBrowser.

And in closing, a little smörgåsbord that includes some choice morsels from my new blogroll members: Unbossed on the Civil Rights Act of 2008; Marginal Revolution on What would it cost to cover the uninsured?; Cogitamus on Profiles in Uninsured; GamePolitics on a game for the bibliophile in your life; AmericaBlog on the latest polls; The Crone Speaks on the most helpless victims of foreclosure; TheStreet.com on Unstoppable Moms; and three incredible people.

A Modest Proposal

Campaign season is too darn long.

It’s too long for a number of reasons, including this modest list:

“Voter Fatigue” — Joe and Jane Average get so tired of hearing about politics that they lose interest in voting altogether. Particularly since it looks like candidates will be finalized something like 9 months before the elections. That’s an entire human gestation period.
Circular Firing Squad — Candidates have such a grand time ripping on one another during primary season that they hand the opposing party ammunition for the general election.
Too expensive — The long campaign season means it costs a lot more money to mount a credible campaign. It’s not possible to really run without being on the hook to special interest groups. That is to say nothing of the insanity of spending millions of dollars to try and get a job that earns $400,000 that you only get to keep 4 years. Sure, there are perks like free housing, security, and riding a private 747 around the world, but you see the point.
Day jobs — The people trying to become President are almost all current elected officials. They should be doing the job their constituents elected them to do instead of going off on a year long job interview. Seriously, there have been some important votes in the Senate lately.

This year, the Democratic Convention is in late August; the Republican Convention is in early September. That’s fine! It allows a good solid 2 months of plain old campaign afterwards. What really needs to be shortened is primary season. The various states have tried to get their primaries and caucuses earlier and earlier so that they are still relevant. Various states use the process to flex political muscle in a race that would otherwise bypass them. It has gotten to the point that the Democratic Party has told Michigan and Florida that their primary is too darn early and doesn’t count! By the time Super Tuesday has come and gone, the fat lady is singing.

So yes, the Presidential campaign season isn’t just too long, it’s way too long. It was probably too long back before candidates could travel by airplane and have their comments on the TV within minutes, and it’s even worse in the “internet age”. I have an idea to fix that. It will never happen, because the Powers That Be seem to like things the way they are.

So here’s my idea.

Let’s keep the conventions and the general election cycle exactly where it is, but reduce primary season to 12 weeks. This is a full month longer than the period of time between the conventions and Election Day. Furthermore, let’s break this down into six sections, each 2 weeks long.

Let Iowa and New Hampshire continue the traditional kickoff to the season in weeks one and two.

By my count, there are 8 states (including the District of Columbia) that each have 3 electoral votes. They can all do their primaries in week 3. By now, one out of 5 states have done their thing, and several weaker candidates should be seriously considering dropping out of the race.

Another 9 states (excluding New Hampshire) have 4 or 5 electoral votes each. They all go in week 5.

An additional 10 states (excluding Iowa) have between 6 and 9 electoral votes (inclusive) each. They get week 7. In an ideal world, we are down to a half dozen candidates on each side.

The 13 states with 10-15 electoral votes all have their primaries in week 9.

So by week 10, 41 states and the District of Columbia have had primaries, caucuses, straw polls, or whatever else they do. In weeks 10 and 11 the remaining nine states — our nine most populous states — finish out the roster. Ideally, we have three or maybe even 4 candidates for each party still in play, even if some are regarded as longshots. Since at the moment these nine states control 226 electoral votes, they are still very much relevant to the outcome. They can still make or break a candidate’s chances.

Needless to say, after the 2010 Census, the Electoral Votes will be shuffled, and this order will have to be slightly adapted. I consider this a minor tweak. Even we we take a few weeks off before the conventions, we can still start the process in May!

Can anyone tell me why this would be bad for the voting public? Anyone?

Another Way to Boost the Economy

It occurred to me this morning that nobody has discussed the economic impact of Iraq beyond what it does to the national debt. What would happen — economically speaking — if we were to bring the troops home?

First, up to 158,000 military personnel and perhaps as many as 180,000 contractors would come home. Those that were with the National Guard would return to their home states and go to work. They and their families would then spend their money here in the United States, stimulating the economy.

Second, some of those people would not have jobs to which they could return. Yes, yes, it’s the law that employers must find work for returning servicemen; but the fact is that some of these guys have been gone a long time now, and their employers needed somebody to actually do the work. It’s not fair to the soldier to deny him work, but it’s not fair to fire the new guy who’s actually been doing the job either. While it is a sad fact that some of these brave people face unemployment, some of them will use what they have learned in Iraq to start their own businesses, stimulating the economy.

Third, we would no longer be spending billions of dollars each month — $275 Million every day — to wage war in Iraq. If you are an old-school conservative who believes in things like low deficits and fiscal responsibility, these figures had better make you think long and hard about the war.

Fourth, we would no longer have the ongoing cost — both in terms of VA spending and in human terms — of creating more wounded Iraq War veterans. Not to be cynical, but healthy vets take jobs and not disability checks; this is better for our bottom line, for our communities, and even more importantly for their families.

But what about the Iraqis, you may ask. Well, with our troops and contractors gone, they are no longer a flashpoint for violence. Without our people putting their noses where they do not belong, they will come up with an internal peace plan. And that brings me to the fifth and final way that bringing our troops home will help our economy: with an internal peace plan and no meddling from Western interests, oil production will rise. Rising oil production will result in lower petroleum costs and lower prices at the gas pump.

In closing: an amazing piece by Dennis Sanders on social conservatives; stupid job interview questions aren’t good for anybody and often skate the edge of being illegal; it’s FISA D-Day so call your Senators; two from BondDad; two on Food Stamps; and finally, a suggestion about what to do with your tax rebate check. Read it all to find out Nancy Pelosi’s plan for what happens if this doesn’t work (hint, Benjamin Franklin said that would be crazy).

Stimulus Package Round-Up

Last week, when President Bush outlined his proposed stimulus package, someone asked me what I thought. My reply:

First, it will raise the national debt and deficit during “wartime”. FDR was more fiscally conservative.

Second, as it sits 40% of people won’t get the whole “rebate” because they didn’t pay enough taxes. Those 40% of people are the same people most likely to have a really good way to spend $800-1600. Like the rent or mortgage.

Third, as if sending a bunch of checks in *June* (at best) is going to fix the recession we have *now*. A check in June doesn’t help Joe Average find a job in February.

Well, now we have a “compromise” in the works, and just like Solomon proposing to cut the baby in half, this one isn’t really good for anybody.

The International Times Herald notes that the Fed may have already done all they can do, and tells us that the compromise reduces the “rebate” to $300 for individuals and up to $1200 for families. Oh, and some vague business tax incentives and homeowner relief measures. To round things out, here’s coverage from the Associated Press and CNN. If you’d like to get more into the details, please check out TheStreet.com‘s coverage.

They’d better shake a leg, because the Christian Science Monitor points out that the “Economic Outlook Dims Sharply.” Japan’s Mainichi Shinbun (or, “Daily Newspaper”) points out that this emergency relief would cause the deficit to balloon further. If you think the deficit has anything to do with our current financial woes, then you must think this would be bad.

Onward to the opinions of actual economists! Paul Krugman is inclined to cautiously agree that maybe the Fed has run out of ammo unless they haven’t, and furthermore the compromise stimulus bill will be a disappointment. Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics shares my insight that stimulus 5 months from now hardly helps us today. EconoSpeak calls it “Little Bang for the Buck“. The Economic Policy Institute says it is “Missing the Target” on multiple levels.

He’s no economist, but Jim Cramer has some opinions about how this package may effect the markets. And in the interest of fairness, I conclude with several other opinions: Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest notes that normally conservatives are all for “cutting spending” — although he does not point out that this package is in fact more spending; John Aravosis of AmericaBlog accuses Congressional Democrats of “giv[ing] away your stimulus check”; and the ArchCrone of The Crone Speaks points out that the people who could most use a few hundred bucks probably won’t get a darn thing.

So my opinions from last week are more-or-less confirmed by both experts and other commentators: a big nothing that will cost a lot of money.

cross-posted at TheModerateVoice

Blog for Choice Day

It’s Blog for Choice Day. And although Maya’s Granny has written far more eloquently than I can on this topic, I will add my own comments.

I sincerely hope I am never in the position of having to make a personal decision to terminate a pregnancy. I don’t know that I could do it unless my health were at stake. But who am I to make that decision for anyone else? Why is my decision more valid than yours?

That’s the point of “Choice.” You are an independent human being; you can think for yourself. And contrary to what the so-called “Pro-Life” community would have you believe, sometimes people do “Choose Life.” My favorite story about just that — emphasis mine — is here:

Whoopi [Goldberg] was asked to contribute [to the book, Open the Unusual Door, True Life Stories of Challenge, Adventure and Success by Black Americans] and wrote about when her 14-year old daughter announced to her that he was pregnant. Even though she had supported and had spoken out in favor of pro-choice, her daughter’s situation gave “pro-choice” a new meaning. Choice to have a baby, not just choice to have an abortion. Whoopi wrote, “I had to take my beliefs out for a little test drive… It means women have the choice to do whatever they want..; even if it smacked into what my choice would have been for her… she taught me pro-choice is not just a phrase.” For me this is an important lesson. First it reminds me that I don’t want to be a parent so young. It also showed me how stating one’s beliefs or position about an issue becomes very different when you have to confront it personally. Facing it forces you to think about the issue differently. It’s one thing to state a belief; it’s another if you have to live it! It’s easier to talk the talk than walk the walk!

Obstacles like “waiting periods” and parental consent laws and spousal/paternal consent laws (which can sadly be used to force women to become gestation machines for rapists) are a nice way of saying “Oh now hold on a minute little lady! You aren’t smart enough to make this decision all on your lonesome! Don’t you know you’re havin’ a baby?”

Kindly leave aside for a moment the issue of whether a woman who is “not smart enough to know her own mind” should really be raising children.

I honestly don’t see how mainstream America can take the so-called Pro-Life movement seriously until such time as they denounce and expel the internal faction that thinks it is acceptable to enforce their opinions through violence, vandalism, and murder. By failing to do so, by actively spreading lies about birth control and abortion, they are showing their true colors: the Anti-Sex movement.

Make no mistake: I deeply respect efforts to minimize the number of abortions that take place around the world. The only way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. You prevent unwanted pregnancies by making sure women have access to birth control, by working to prevent birth defects that can turn a desperately wanted pregnancy into a tragedy, by reducing sexual assault, and by encouraging a social and economic environment conducive to the raising of children.

In Closing: Tim Iocono on Recession; the intersection of politics and health care; Henry Paulson sure looks scared about something; one way to get a raise?; ammunition the Democrats should be using but aren’t; and finally, Real ID Rebels.

News

I have some news to share.

Joe Gandelman has invited me to contribute to The Moderate Voice, a site that I have known and respected for some years. In asking, he wrote that he liked ShortWoman and my writing; he furthermore added “I’m five foot one and I am biased and MUST invite a short woman.” TMV is a huge site with readership that dwarfs mine — no pun intended — and I would be foolish to pass up this opportunity.

I absolutely will continue to post regularly to ShortWoman in addition to some posts (and cross-posts) to TMV, however it seems clear that I will have to step down from my duties at Central Sanity. There are only so many hours in the day.

Many thanks to all my readers for making this possible.

Update: my first TMV post is up! I wrote my thoughts on having participated in the Nevada caucus. Many grateful welcomes to any first time visitors clicking through from The Moderate Voice!

Gaming the Economic Numbers

I have written before on some of the ways that the official inflation numbers are manipulated, and even hinted at some of the reasons why. I linked to this article back in 2004 which outlines some of the ways the numbers are gamed, and wrote this summary of Bill Fleckenstein’s analysis in 2006. For review:

They adjust price increases of anything “new” or “improved” (including cars and computers and even hand soap and cereal).
They don’t make the same sort of adjustments if the quality of a good or service declines.
They arbitrarily decide that food and energy “don’t count” when calculating the so-called “core” rate.
They assume homeowners pay themselves rent.
They use an artificial basket of goods, and feel free to “substitute a cheaper equivalent” if a price gets out of line (because you’re totally willing to buy hamburger when you want a roast, right?).

And truly, that’s just a short list. These little games allow the government to say that inflation is “nominal”, the economy is fine, there’s no need to raise interest rates, and — most importantly — we don’t have to give a big cost-of-living-adjustment to all those people on Social Security.

But wait, there’s more.

It also allows transparent manipulation of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.

Here’s how: Let’s say Joe and Jane Average used to spend $300 per week (that’s roughly the take home pay of someone earning $7.50 per hour) 5 years ago. They buy things like groceries and clothing and gasoline and cable TV. They set money aside for the car payment and the rent/mortgage. According to the official low, low inflation numbers, they should be spending something like $335 every week ($300 x 1.02%, compounded annually over 5 years is $331.22). However, you and I both know that’s way low: gas prices were as low as $1.639 in 2003 (personal data, I can even tell you where I bought it); groceries cost more; don’t even get started on housing prices; almost anything that had to be transported has higher costs — and that would be just about everything.

We both know Joe and Jane Average aren’t spending $335 per week, they’re spending more like $375 or even $400. But that number is too high to be accounted for by the official inflation number, so Joe and Jane must be buying more goods and services in the eyes of the economists. And, since personal spending represents more than half of GDP, that bloated number artificially inflates Real GDP Growth too.

So now what? It is clear that inflation is on the rise, even using the official government figures. It is officially on the rise at levels not seen in 16 years, and some of these inflation hiding tools weren’t in use then. And — even though this number is not adjusted for inflation, real or stated — retail sales are down. Add to that the fact that unemployment is on the rise and we have good old fashioned Stagflation. It should be no shock that the middle class is being hit hardest; they have — had — the most to lose. In short, nobody can slather enough lipstick on this pig. This comic put it well. GDP growth is clearly at risk. Since negative GDP growth means a recession, I will outright shocked if this combination of factors does not officially put us in recession.

In closing: Expert Ezra spells out exactly why mandatory health insurance won’t result in universal coverage; the Justice Department is trying to figure out exactly what “immunity” the State Department gave to Blackwater (but not necessarily how the State Department came to have the authority to give legal immunity to anybody); battery life could improve tenfold; urban schools aim to send all students to college, completely devaluing not only their own diplomas, but also some college degrees (don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they have high expectations for their students, but this is ridiculous); Peace Ambassador binLaden?; and 5 things not to do in the Emergency Room.

No, Really, Everything is Fine… PANIC!!!!

How long have I been saying things like “If the economy is so wonderful, then how come we have pathetic job growth/oil prices are at a record high/gold prices are rising/Joe Average has it so tough?” Suddenly people agree with me.

First, Merrill Lynch said we entered a recession last quarter. Then Goldman Sachs said we aren’t there yet, but recession is coming. They noticed some disturbing trends in the employment and job creation numbers. Finally. Goldman Sachs is where people like Robert Rubin and Jim Cramer learned to play the game; they didn’t survive this long by not knowing what they are talking about. If you prefer lots of charts and analysis, here’s Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser. Non-economist Barbara Ehrenreich replied to the whole brouhaha with a resounding “Duh.”

In fact, the UN thinks a worldwide recession is on the way, and the Christian Science Monitor reports that the “credit crunch” might could indeed be bad for the economy all around the world.

Of course not everyone agrees. Some Wall Street economists still think everything is great (as long as, please, you don’t look at the financial sector). President Bush thinks everything is great, and we need to make sure of it by implementing more tax cuts.

Speaking of that pesky financial sector, it looks like Bank of America may rescue Countrywide by acquiring it. May we live in interesting times.

In closing: telecoms cut off FBI’s [warrantless] wiretaps for non-payment of bills not anything important like, say, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments; Blackwater needs lobbyists; how are the new Congressmen doing?; a Kindergarten security risk; most Americans don’t like globalization; trading tips from the BondDad; and finally, Neko City.