Awww, shit. People are already lining the parade route for the Giants. It's going to be nuts.

But I'm going to be there with Emmett, and EM. (Yeah, we pulled him from school for this.)

Of course you pulled him from school. C'mon!

All my candidates lost except my four republicans, and none of the races were close. Healthcare and affirmative action both went down, but surprisingly, constitutional right to hunting did too. Thankfully both of the move moneys failed, although I'm sure that just means our local guys will cut like crazy and be able to blame the voters. The only surprising bit was that pot was really close. I guess it could still go through, but I don't think it will.

Tech writers are about readability, but that's not the same as pretty.

Awww, shit. People are already lining the parade route for the Giants. It's going to be nuts.

I'm glad we got to stay home today. I just hope it clears out by the time I head to dinner and West Side Story.

This is what the Yankee parade looked like last year: [link]

And yet, I don't remember commuting problems.

Yep. This is why I try to only send PDFs. Yes, they can be edited, but it takes a fuckload of effort, and most don't bother. If they ask if I have it in Word, I tell them that I prefer edits on paper. They generally don't bother.

Well, NYC has infinitely more bridges, tunnels, and trains, than San Francisco does. I feel for the people that have to come in today for work or other reasons.

A photo from a cat fashion show: [link]

What a lovely outfit!

Elections with their non-specific slogans always make me think about what real solutions might look like.

Social Security - fix with raising cap on payroll tax coupled with small reduction in benefits.

Medicare - This will suck, but more HMO-like managed care. Allow government to negotiate drug prices. Make sure that people who don't want extraordinary end of life measures don't get it them. Reinsurance for medical malpractice insurers to help mitigate costs. This really would require more research it's a tough, tough issue.

Medicaid - Similar measures to Medicare. Again, very tough.

I think single payer would help too since everyone would be in one pool. Good for small businesses as well since it would take employers out of the health insurance racket.

Defense spending - start winding down spending to perhaps 70% of current (in adjusted dollars). It's not super high right now compared to GDP, but gotta find places to cut.

Education - reduce federal role in education to reduce spending. Sucks.

Taxes - Target deductions to eliminate. Increase top bracket a little, add new top bracket with even higher rate at 1 million (good psychological place to do it).

Infrastructure - reclassify internet service as communications instead of content provider to enhance competition and let the private sector create better electronic communication. Spend some money on energy infrastructure to allow better transmission of electricity so renewable-rich areas can provide power to larger regions. Invest in nuclear or perhaps clean coal (I'm dubious of that) for baseline power. Prepare for a post-fossil fuel world.

Science - Fund a few big projects to place the U.S. back in a leadership role. Some of these projects are expensive (not so much relative to federal budget though), but bringing those brains here is a good thing. Having the LHC and ITER in Europe is a travesty for U.S. science.

Not sure this would do it in terms of the deficit and a lot of it sucks. But I like to think about these things after hearing so many platitudes (we'll cut taxes and balance the budget, Washington needs to stop spending, Washington needs to get back in touch, etc...)