In this post, I link to a brief news item that discusses the most expensive cities in the world to live. knirirr was kind enough to leave a comment.

knirirr makes his living as an academic. He works at a prestigious college in the United Kingdom. Even adjusted for different currencies, his pay lags about 25% behind what a comparable American prole slaving in the Ivory Tower would earn. And professor salaries in the UK are considered to be pretty posh compared to most of the world.

If anyone is wondering as to the reason for this disparity, it is because the US government has guaranteed loans that college students take out to finance their educations. With all that money coming in, centers of higher learning have applied themselves to spending the wealth. Hence, academics in America earn significantly more than their foreign cousins.

There is a lot more to the issue, enough to warrant a few other posts on the subject. But the main reason I mention it here is that knirirr’s comment got me to thinking about disparity of income.

How would those cities on the list fare if one factored in the per capita GDP of the countries where they are located? According to this list, a few revisions would have to be made.

Perhaps surprisingly, cities in the top spots would still be even more expensive places to live if one considers average per capita income.

According to the article, the cost of living in Zurich is 176% compared to New York City. This means Zurich is the most expensive city to call home in terms of money spent to live there. But since the average wage of the Swiss people is five to ten percent less than citizens of the United States, the cash shelled out for rent and food would take a greater percentage of their pay checks.

The same goes for the number two city. It might cost 166% to live in Tokyo, Japan than it would to dwell in New York, but the average Japanese citizen earns about 72% of the wage that the average American takes home. If GDP was included in the calculations, then Tokyo would climb above Zurich so far as relative expense was concerned.

The real shakeup, of course, comes at the very bottom of the list. Karachi, Pakistan is supposed to be the least expensive place to live as one could make a home for only 46% of the cost to live in New York. But considering that the average yearly wage in Pakistan is about 5% of the average wage earned in the US, and suddenly it is obvious that the vast majority of Pakistanis can only think of living there to be an impossible dream.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

A while back I read a book called “Ravens in Winter” and found the lives of crows and ravens to be very interesting. The book describes how they communicate food sources to one another through some type of unknown mechanism and their general high intelligence level.

When I was in Norway I came across a Carrion Crow (or at least I think it is; I looked it up on wikipedia) that found a clam-shell container that usually contains take out food. The crow obviously knew that it was correlated with food and poked it with its beak and shook it about deliberately before throwing it to the ground in disgust. I took a video and uploaded it and you can see it in HD here which I find very humorous.

Before 9/11 I traveled to Tasmania and had an encounter with what I believe was a Forest Raven, although once again I am not an ornithologist. The bird was AMAZINGLY persistent – when our car pulled up to a clearing it jumped on the side mirror (the window was open) and looked me right in the face (with big yellow eyes) and started cawing for food. I rolled up the window and it sat right on the hood of the car staring at me through the dashboard. I have never seen an (ostensibly wild) bird so unafraid of humans.

Cross posted at LITGM

I tell you, I had to pick myself up off the floor when I read this bit of news. Not.

I never really came from a background where hush money or protection had to be paid. I wonder if you still have to pay people to “protect” your business “in case something happens” in Chicago.

If so, it is a disgrace. The corruption is a disgrace anyways. I wonder when (if) the people of the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago will ever get sick of it.

Cross posted at LITGM.

Morning Dew, by Bonnie Dobson. She wrote it, and she did the original recording, which is just her and an accoustic guitar, live. This version, recorded later, in the studio, has a more emotional vocal performance. A beautiful evocation of the period, in my not so humble estimation.

There have been an enormous number of covers of this song.

This version by Nazareth takes an earnest folk song about nuclear war, and turns it into a blisteing, trippy, fuzz blues, acid-rock jam. Such strange permutations.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/YJTe_VYH-24?fs=1

The weirdest thing is that until about 48 hours ago I had never heard of “Morning Dew”. I have been a devotee of rock and pop of the 1960s for the last 35 years or so, but this song, which has the status of a standard, has been under my radar all these years.

In a way, it is good to know that I have not exhausted the riches of that era.

At the balloon festival in Abilene, Texas – 2010

There she is. Sobbing on the phone. Making threats. Trashing her bedroom. And of course, making all sorts of promises to stay in the relationship.

Meanwhile, Ireland is holding her breath and crossing her fingers. News radio here is breathless and buzzing with anticipation with whether this is the “Big One” – whether today’s teleconference will push Greece further to the brink, or indeed – over it. The way it has been painted is that if Greece goes, Portugal could be next. And then, Gd help us – what happens to Ireland?

Hmm. Better pick up a few more pound notes when I go get the kids today…

Drudge is reporting that the US is headed to $5/gallon for gas. When I mention US prices to my Irish friends, they usually are either shocked or laugh. Our gas prices are still bargain basement compared to Ireland. Currently gas is about EUR1.55 per liter. Multiply by 4 to approximate a gallon = EUR 6.20. Multiply again by $1.30, and voila = $8/gallon gas.

When petrol is this pricey, it’s time to ditch the car. Yes, we lead the green life, although very unwillingly. Husband commutes nearly 2hrs to work each way – a ride that takes only 35 min by car. The kids and I walk to school daily, 23 minutes each way.

A few observations: 1. The idea that one somehow gets more fit from all of this walking is a joke and I am a living, breathing, zaftig testament to this truth; 2. Walking and taking public transit drains an enormous amount of time from one’s day, and one’s productivity; 3. Because I can only carry so much in my shopping trolley, I have to act as a hunter-gatherer, getting only so much food per day. Again – big drain on productivity. 4. Because we can’t afford a car, we’re not supporting all of the many businesses that build up around car ownership – insurance, gas, car washes, oil change services, tires, etc. So they lose out as well.

Here’s your future, America. May I recommend getting some good shoes?

Government lunchbox inspectors in North Carolina

Adobe Lightroom 3 is on sale, today only, at $79.95 with free shipping.

This is great software. There’s a new version coming out soon, but at this price for the current version you can’t go wrong.

“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they are!”

So there I sat at the table after Saturday morning services at the little Irish synagogue, talking with the one raging conservative in the room. (Actually there are a number of raging conservatives in Dublin. But very few know it yet. My acquaintance is one of the few self-acknowledged ones). “So what do you think about Daniel Hannan?” says I. “Nope, never heard of him” says my friend, reaching for another gefilte fish ball.

Now, this is a well-read fellow who reads The Irish Independent and can reel off any number of American right-leaning politicians. He is head over heels for Chris Christie. But he has never heard of Dan Hannan?

It’s no surprise. Dan Hannan gets very little play in his home media – or in Irish media — and yes, the Irish do follow other British politicians. But not this one.) Meanwhile, he is renowned in the US. Why does CPAC give Hannan a soapbox to stand on, but he is barely heard from on the eastern side of the Atlantic?

1. I think in general MEPs tend to get a lot less coverage – a reflection of the unhappy truth that the Parliament is Brussels is a high school debate club with a gargantuan expense account. Which is why I think UKIP gets as many votes as it does for European elections. Since voters feel the EP is less consequential, they feel more free to vote for less popular parties.

2. Hannan also represents an unpopular line of thinking – against Big Government, against (European) Union, and incredibly – I mean incredibly - pro-American. And it’s hard to get his ideas play in a culture (here in Ireland and I would reckon in the UK as well) that for the most part still treats political discussion as ill-mannered. And as for the media? Here in Dublin the only British radio station I can being in is BBC Radio 4. (Well, OK that and a Liverpool sports station) Like they’re going to give Hannan a chance to even heavy-breathe on their mikes.

So, sorry, Smitty — please don’t take Dan Hannan away. We need him here. (While we’re on the topic, tell Rupert to send us a Fox News Channel too…)

Does this mean Justice Breyer is now a mugged liberal?

Cross-posted from zenpundit.com

Mr. Nyet 

World affairs are much more like spider’s web than the neat little drawers of an apothecary’s cabinet. In the latter,  the contents of each drawer are cleanly isolated and conveniently compartmentalized. What you do with the contents of one drawer today has no bearing on what you do next week with those of another. By contrast, with a spider’s web, when you touch a web at any point, not only do you find it to be sticky in a fragile sort of way, but your touch sends vibrations through every centimeter of the lattice.

Which alerts the spiders.

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Even in the freest society power is charged with the impulse to turn men into precise, predictable automata. When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual – the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker – and that every device they employ aims at turning man into a manipulatable ‘animated instrument,’ which is Aristotle’s definition of a slave.

On the other hand, every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.

There is no doubt that of all political systems the free society is the most “unnatural.” Totalitarianism, even when it goes hand in hand with a modernization of technique, constitutes a throwback to the primitive and a return to nature. It is significant that the “back to nature” movements since the days of Rousseau, though generous and noble in origin, have inevitably tended to terminate in absolutism and the worship of brute force.

Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change

One time I was stuck in a hotel room somewhere and an old rerun of “Welcome Back Kotter” came on. For some reason I stuck with the channel for a few minutes and was struck by something.

At one point the main character starts a monologue. They apparently had only one camera and he seemed to speak into it forever, without interruption. While it seemed like minutes, it probably was maybe 20 seconds or so.

This is how our brains were wired growing up. We watched TV shows (which supposedly rotted our brains, too, or so we were told) but they were in molasses and had few or no cuts compared to seemingly anything on TV today.
 

 
This video by a new singer out of England (I am not going to mention her name but it is easy to figure out – we don’t want the traffic) is designed for kids and younger people with the attention span of a gnat. The video is under 4 minutes long and it easily has 200 or so cuts… I lost track trying to count them. It is simply astonishing how much they pack into there. I think the longest pause is essentially an ad for a brand of watch (product placement) at the 2:32 mark – maybe a couple of seconds.

This is the future of attracting attention and it will certainly be a short-attention span future.

I am a bit ashamed to admit it but I find this song a bit catchy and certainly her looks did not hurt her choice of career.

Cross posted at LITGM

Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun I found this on characters of roleplaying games (RPGs): RPG Style: Analyzing the Structure of RPG Protagonists.

A player character:

as opposed to a player avatar:

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I love the English language. Yes, I understand I have a lot to learn, and it isn’t as romantic as French, but neither is it as barbaric sounding as some of the Slavic languages (not saying these people are barbarians, just the sound to me grates a bit).

English, to me, seems for some reason (I am obviously no linguistic expert) to be one of the easiest languages to twist and turn for modern usage. I have a vendor that manufactures their products in Germany. The manuals come in several languages, and you can see heavy English usage in the foreign languages, mostly for technical terms. I asked my wife about this – she is fluent in German. Her response is typically that “there isn’t a word for that in German”.

Does anyone remember slide projectors? Of course we do. Such a hit they were in the sixties and seventies and eighties. You could actually put a slide in a slide projector and project an image on a screen of the Pyramids, or a product, or a photo of good old Aunt Sally from that vacation you took at Niagra Falls.

Today, we have Power Point to replace the pictures and modern ways to project images on a screen. But we still call the separate pages of the presentation “slides” and the unit is still a “projector”. I have some young admin assistants that on occasion help me to create Power Point presentations and I have asked them before if they have ever seen an actual “slide” or a slide projector. Most of the time the answer is no.

After inadvertently stopping up the kitchen sink, and then going to a lot of effort, ultimately successful, to unstop it, I feel satisfaction and accomplishment as though I had done a good day’s work. I will sleep well. But it’s all an illusion since I have merely undone an annoying situation that I created myself by my own boneheadedness. Nothing was really accomplished. However, if I did something boneheaded out in the desert or wherever and almost got killed but escaped by the skin of my teeth it might be called a great adventure. Does this mean that context is everything, that adventure is overrated or that I am overthinking this?