Earth To Elon; Earth To Elon

Regarding "Texas is among candidates for huge Tesla battery plant" (Thursday Business D5), electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors boldly declared that they "will spend $2 billion to build a massive factory capable of producing advanced batteries for 500,000 vehicles per year".   Those are some mighty fine words, but the objective is a little premature given that to date, Tesla cars are known for one thing and one thing only, which is that their batteries have a disturbing tendency to catch fire.  

Besides the safety issues, Tesla's other big obstacle is value: Their base model costs $71,000, and gets less than 100 miles on a charge.  The long range Tesla estimated to get 240 miles per charge is priced at over $100K.  By comparison, the best selling electric car in the world is the Nissan Leaf, which costs around $30K and gets 114 miles on a charge.  Since it's introduction in late 2011, the Leaf has sold less than 80,000 units worldwide.

 

Bottom line, the worldwide market for reliable and affordable electric cars that don't catch fire is less than 100,000 units per year.  Tesla is not reliable or affordable, and it catches fire. Is it just me, or is there some major disconnect here?

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

Poor, Put Upon Drug Dealer

Poor Chris. His Dad Jeff was a pillar of society except for that whole spending his entire adult life handling industrial grade quantities of pot. I particularly like the part where the son complained about one occasion when his father was caught with a measly 5 pounds, which is enough dope to make 3,600 decent joints, or 1,800 Fatties. No doubt that was just intended for him and his friends.

LTE - Taxpayer Burden

Regarding "6-figure payout checks not rare at HFD" (Sunday Front Page), it's hard to say that the practice of giving retiring Houston firefighters a six figure parting gift in supposed unused vacation and sick time is any kind of surprise.  Stories of similar public sector employment boondoggles have been cropping up for over twenty five years now, including a similar program for retiring police officers, the recent story of berserk overtime payments to firefighters, the "court time" pay scandal for HPD that allowed many cops to more than double their salaries, overtime pay policies that allowed bus drivers to make more than $100K per year, bonuses for teachers based on no objective criteria: the list goes on and on.

 

They all share several things in common:

 

- Every single perk was backed - forcefully - by a taxpayer funded public sector union, which then turned around and used those dollars to fund the very politicians making these terrible decisions.

 

- Each perk was implemented without the Public being properly informed.  Most were done with no public disclosure at all.

 

- Perks of these kinds are never available in the private sector.

 

- The vast majority of the recipients invariably think that even the most outrageous perk is OK, simply because it is in a contract.  

 

- This isn't even close to being the last public pay boondoggle; it's merely the most recent one to be exposed to the light of day.

 

Ironically, HFD just announced that it is cutting back ambulance service in part because of out of control overtime for firefighters.  The depressingly predictable outcome here is that it is once again taxpayers - and their children - who are the victims, getting inferior service or no service at all, yet expected to pay through the nose for the privilege. 

 

We all eat at the same table, but public sector employees are taking way more than they contribute. 

Pete Smith
Cypress, TX

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/letters/article/Friday-letters-A-smoldering-issue-5274900.php

It's Time For Some Changes In Public Employment

It's ironic that another story in the online edition today explains one of the consequences of out of control costs for fire departments: The Houston Fire Department may have to cut back on fire engines.

The labor model used by HFD and public fire departments across the country has been a disaster waiting to happen for 50 years, starting with retirement and a full pension after as little as 20 years, and almost never more than 25. Exactly what did all those city councils and mayors think was going to happen when they were guaranteeing a paycheck, full benefits and pay raises in the form of COLA adjustments to people retiring as early as age 40?

The real budget killer, though, is the antiquated practice of having firefighters staged at their stations for 24 hours at a time. A century ago, it was necessary for firemen to be staged in this manner, but the development of automobiles, modern road systems and most importantly, instantaneous communications, made the 24 hour shift schedule obsolete at least fifty years ago.

Don't take my word for it: there are thousands of volunteer fire departments across the country who work with an "on call" model. If you combine that with a 40 hour shift schedule similar to police departments, you would not only control overtime, you would be able to reduce headcount by at least a third, and have much better coverage to boot.

It's well past time to consider this change. If firefighters want to ensure that cities have the funds to pay for their retirement, the outdated system of scheduling has to be brought into the 20th century.

Pete Smith
Cypress, TX

Cable Company, Obamacare, Same Thing

Regarding "A AAAs cable services grow, so do the bills" (Saturday Business), I was struck by several things revealed in the story about the takeover of cable giant Time Warner by Comcast, and how similar this situation is to health care reform as implemented by President Obama. 

 

First is the revelation that "the price paid by consumers for expanded basic cable service has grown at more than twice the rate of inflation annually over the past 17 years."  What a coincidence; that's also the rate of inflation for health care during that same period.

 

Next is the hand-wringing by Comcast, which insisted that "most of the factors affecting the price of cable service are not under its control."  Health insurance companies have been making the same argument for decades, blaming everybody else for the out of control price increases. 

 

Finally comes the rationalization for higher prices: “Where we might have had 100 standard-definition channels in a package more than a decade ago, today you have 250 standard-definition channels, plus 100 channels in high definition.”  In other words, even if the average subscriber only wants 50 channels, they get 350 and must pay for them.  This is exactly the same argument that Obamacare's defenders put forward to justify cancelling the private policies of millions of Americans and forcing them into the higher premiums and deductibles available through the Obamacare Exchanges. 

 

Heavy regulation, little consumer choice, and the federal government picking winners and losers.  The only thing these two scenarios don't have in common is candor: When asked what would happen to Comcast customers after the merger, Executive VP David Cohen had the decency to say "we’re certainly not promising that customer bills are going to go down, or even that they’re going to increase less rapidly."   

 

No proponent of the Affordable Care Act was ever so forthcoming.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

Adventures In Babysitting - Sunday

Sunday morning, and the Girls are up just after 8am.  They come trooping down, and Sharon immediately gets busy brushing their hair.  She is using some kind of spray hair untangler that Mommy dropped off as part of their kit; the fact that this product exists explains how it is that Jenna’s hair is not a perpetual mass of tangles.  The Girls tolerate me brushing their hair for about a minute.  I lack the brisk efficiency they have come to expect.

Now, the weekend was not all videos, although it sometimes seems that way.  The Girls kicked soccer balls for two hours on Saturday, for example.  Curiously, they refused to use our gigantic lawn, preferring the long concrete driveway, despite me going to the trouble of explaining that soccer was actually played on a grass field. 

Me: It will be easier on your feet. 

Kayla: Nope.

Me: Your ball won’t get all scuffed up.

Kayla: Nope.

Me: This is not the way the Europeans do it.

Kayla: We want to play on the driveway, Papa Pete.

After breakfast, Kayla walks up to me and says “Jenna would like to watch something on the computer.”  Jenna shakes her head in affirmation.  I open the laptop, pull up YouTube and ask Kayla what they would like to watch.  “Disney Princess!” she says.  Shocked, Jenna finds her voice and yells, “No!  Dora The Explorer!”  So which is it?  “Disney Princess!”  “Dora The Explorer!”  “Disney Princess!”  “Dora The Explorer!”

I remind Kayla that it was her that asked on Jenna’s behalf.  She gives me the same look I got outside when I explained about soccer balls and grass.  Sharon steps in and suggests they watch one, then the other.  Kayla says “But I can’t staaaand Dora The Explorer!”  I tell her “I’m with you there, Kayla.  Can you say ‘compromise’?  Ha Ha Ha!”  The Girls just stare at me.  For like the tenth time this weekend, I get no laughs. 

So I pull up a Dora The Explorer on the laptop.  Before they sit down to watch anything, Jenna announces that she wants to wear her fairy dress, and that she is “going in the other room to change, so nobody can see me.”  She walks around the corner into the foyer, strips, puts her dress on, and comes back into the living room. 

We settle down to a Dora episode.  Within minutes, I’m grinding my teeth.  Caca de mono Santo this is boring, but then, I’m not the target demographic.  The Girls stick to the plan, though, and swap off episodes for a while.   They take a break for a snack.  When they walk back into the living room, I realize the tissue dispenser under the coffee table is empty.  I pull the box out of the dispenser and present it to the Girls.  The following conversation ensues:

Me: Here girls; here’s an empty tissue box for you to play with (they look at me a bit puzzled).

Me: No, really, this will be great.  In fact, do you know what Mama Sharon called this when she was a little girl?

Them: What?

Me: A birthday present!  Ha ha ha ha ha!  (This earns me another look from Sharon, plus an eye roll).

Kayla: Why?

Me: Why what?

Kayla: Why did Mama Sharon think that was a birthday present?

Me: Because growing up, Mama Sharon was….

Sharon: Don’t say it. 

Them:  Say what?

Me: Never mind.

 

I cut my losses, because I again get zero laughs.  Tough crowd.  The conversation continues.

Kayla: Actually, we can use this (holding the empty tissue box).

Me: What for?

Kayla: A house for our Fairies.

Me: You have a Fairy?

Kayla: We BOTH have a Fairy.

Jenna: They’re fake.

Me: What’s fake?

Jenna: The Fairies.

Kayla: They are not fake.  They’re half fake.

Jenna: They’re half fake.

Me: Which makes them half real.

Kayla: Yes.

Me: So, if you put them in the tissue box, will they need air?

Kayla: No, because they’re not real.

Then they were off on all the different ways they would use the tissue box to house their Fairies.  This conversation goes on for several minutes, then turns into actual play on the floor for the next hour or so.  Cheryl calls from the road; she’ll be picking the Girls up in about 45 minutes. 

I could go on: I could tell you about the game the Hensley Girls made up during their last snack when they were eating animal crackers and got into an argument over who got to claim the one they named “Freda”; or I could tell you about Sharon bustling through the house, picking up the tissue box and dismantling it, only to be asked by the horrified Hensley Girls what she was doing to their Fairy House, and the look on her face as she hastily repaired it; or I could tell you about the game they played when for one brief interval they turned back into Hensley Girls 1.0, which involved jumping onto me as I sat on the couch, and their comment that they did this to Daddy all the time and he didn’t complain. 

But I won’t.  As usual, the Girls are a hoot; the weekend has flown by; they are so their parents’ children.  Cheryl bundles them into the car, and as they are driving out of the neighborhood, I recover the episode of My Little Pony on my laptop to see whether or not Twilight Sparkle was able to defeat Sunshine Shimmer’s nefarious plans for Equestria. 

Adventures In Babysitting - Saturday Night

So, since Friday, Sharon has been promising the Girls that we would all watch a movie Saturday night, and that they were really going to like it.   

It ends up being a recurring topic of conversation for most of Friday and Saturday.  For example: ice cream is promised as part of the package.  Really?  What flavors?  Can we each have a different one?  If there’s two kinds of ice cream, can we have some of each?  What is Neapolitan?  So if Neapolitan has three flavors, how many do the other kinds have?  What else is in Banana ice cream besides banana?

The interrogation continues:

Them:  “What is the movie called?”

Me: “Flushed.”
Them: “What is it about?”
Me: “It’s about a rat that gets flushed down the toilet.”  The girls look at each other, then their heads both turn to look at me, solemn-like and skeptical.   Sharon shoots me The Look.   
Me: “But it’s really interesting.  See, he’s the pet of a rich girl in England, and he gets flushed down the toilet and finds a whole new world!”

This seems to satisfy them.  Dinner is uneventful, and the Girls prepare for the movie.  Kayla establishes the seating order, and has me move the coffee table one inch closer to the couch.  Since we’re having ice cream at some point, she has me pre-stage the lap trays and spaces us out so there will be enough room for both.  I ask her if she and Jenna can’t just sit closer and share a tray.  She gives me this “what, are you crazy?” look, and patiently explains why that won’t work. 

The movie is a big hit: The Girls particularly love the dozens of slugs that pop up throughout the movie, acting as a kind of Greek Chorus, but also to sing show tunes.  As the credits come up, Kayla asks “can we watch it again?”  Mama Sharon replies, “you mean like now”?  “Yes”.  “No, no you can’t watch it again now.  Now is bedtime, and guess who is going to read to you tonight?  Papa Pete”.

About this time, Cheryl and Kyle call to check on the Girls and tell them good night.  When the phone gets passed to Jenna, I hear Cheryl’s voice and then Kyle’s.  Part of the conversation involves Kyle’s mom and dad, known to the Girls as Paw Paw and Honey.  After she’s done talking and hands the phone back to Sharon, Jenna announces to the room that: “we call them Paw Paw and Honey because we don’t know their real names.”

Soon after, we head up stairs, baths having been taken care of earlier.  Since Friday bedtime was so uneventful, I’m feeling pretty good about my prospects of pulling this off without controversy.  The Girls brush their teeth and hop into bed.  The reading of the story about Miss Smith is a big success, which is to say that the Girls only correct me six times, and on several other occasions  stop me so as to provide useful background information.   I am chastised if I try to embellish even a little bit, and mid-story, there is almost a moment of drama when I skip a page, both girls bringing things to a cold stop.  Oops, sorry.

Now it is time for lights out, and the Girls ask if they can listen to some music.  I seemed to recall Mama Sharon saying something about them playing music last night, but I was fuzzy as to whether or not she approved, so I went with my gut and figured it was a con; plus, I’m already on a “no” roll: It started when Kayla pulled out the board game “Sorry” just before story time; Then they both bailed out of bed seconds after the story was over and announced that they wanted to play for a while, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.  So, it was no board games, no playing, no getting out of bed; and no music.

Big mistake.   Kayla turns away from me, put her hands on either side of her face, buries her head in her pillow and starts to cry.  Sitting up in bed, Jenna gives me a defiant look, and then her lower lip trembles.  “I’m going to tell my Mom on you.”  “Really, what for?”  “Because you won’t let us listen to music.”  I’m still not sure whether I’m being played, and then Jenna starts crying too, gigantic tears rolling down her face.

Mere seconds have passed.  How did this situation get out of control so quickly?  Groping for options, I do what any adult male not their father would do in this situation: I panic and tell them that of course, of course they can listen to music.  “We can listen to our music?”, Kayla asks, sniffling.  “Why yes, yes, of course you can listen to your music.  You must certainly listen to your music.”

Thank god neither of them chose that moment to ask for an iPad, or, say, a puppy.

Within but additional seconds, the drama is over, and Kayla turns on some tunes that sound like Sea Shanties.  I intend to ask her about this curious music choice, but Jenna decides to press her advantage, jumps out of bed and declares that she wants to play.  I’m pretty sure I’m on firmer ground on this one though, put her back into bed and tell her she needs to stay there: “And remember what Mama Sharon said; she doesn’t want to hear any feet hitting the ground.”

Cry your way around that one, Little Missies.  Was I a chicken for invoking Sharon’s name?  Sure.  But you got to fight fire with fire.

Adventures In Baby Sitting - Saturday

Saturday Morning

I wake up around 7:30am. I stick my head in the second bedroom, and those considerate little girls have closed their bedroom door and are quietly playing music on a little boom box.  Who are you, and what have you done with Kayla and Jenna?

We all head downstairs, and in less than 20 minutes, Jenna trips and falls into the couch, the settee, the coffee table, the other coffee table and Sharon’s knee.  Every time, Jenna leaps up and says “I’m all right; I’m all right!”  What strikes me about the whole thing is that the child never manages to trip and fall straight to the ground, much less that this all took place before breakfast. 

The Girls have breakfast, and Kayla asks if she can watch TV.  Nope, Mama Sharon says; I want you to read out of your book for me first.  So Kayla reads a long section out loud about the solar system to Sharon.   I am purely amazed, as she reads for several minutes with virtually no hesitation at what to me is at least a fifth grade level.  Unfortunately, the only thing I actually retain is: “Uranus is full of greenish-blue gas”, which I immediately post on Facebook.

After that, a fort gets built using the dining room table, two blankets and a bunch of pillows.  This occupies the Girls until lunch time.  At lunch, they sit down to tomato soup, avocado and tomato slices, and string cheese.  I make the mistake of telling the girls that the best way to eat string cheese is to peel it in long thin strips. This innocent statement proves to be the perfect opening for Jenna to be willful, and do exactly the opposite of what I suggest.  I fall for this trap every time, but I enjoy it nonetheless, mostly because JG is so cheerful about inviting you to witness her dark side.  Seriously; Google “willful”; there’s a picture of Jenna Grace.

Here’s the rest of the story: After I make my suggestion, Jenna pulls her single serving of string cheese out of the wrapper, and puts the stick in her mouth without actually biting down.  Then she just stares at me: Your move, Papa Pete.  I remind her about the peeling thing, explaining that you get the best flavor by maximizing the exposure of the surface area of the cheese, thus allowing it to breathe.  I have no idea why I go into such detail, but Jenna correctly interprets it as a sign of weakness.

She takes the stick of cheese out of her mouth, peels a perfect filament the entire length of the stick and roughly the width of a human hair.  I am impressed, and lulled into a false sense of accomplishment. Then she sets the minute strand on her plate and proceeds to chomp down on half the stick, chewing away in merry victory, looking me right in the eye. 

Well played, young lady; well played.

To Kyle and Cheryl:  Sorry, but I showed Kayla how to use my Nexus 7 today.  I promise, we’ll pay for the intervention therapy, but it was the only way I could regain control of my laptop.  Just the day before I had installed a pattern key on the Nexus that had to be traced in order to unlock it.  I started to show KZ how to use it, and she replied “I know”; then she traced the pattern and unlocked the device.  I asked her “how do you know what my pattern is”?  She replied “it’s the same as your phone.”   

I am speechless.

Anyway, with no further instruction, she is off to the races; Some time later she shows me a list of game Apps I can get either for free or for as little as 99 cents, including Disney Princess!  Happy days.  I hand the unit back to her and tell her I need to get a good software protection suite before I download anything.  She requires no further explanation, and happily resumes browsing.

Every time I play Marvin Gaye, I get reprimanded.  The Girls are similarly intolerant of Slayer, Ted Nugent and Queens of the Stone Age.  With this slight hitch, things are going swimmingly, with zero property damage and little drama.  Mama Sharon's conflict resolution protocols are firmly adhered to by all parties, which is to say, we are all required to behave.  The rest of the afternoon is relatively quiet.  Suppertime approaches.

 

Adventures In Babysitting - Friday

So, as most of our friends know, Sharon and I babysit the Hensley Girls - Kayla Zane and Jenna Grace - every now and again, and when they come over, it’s always an entertaining if somewhat stressful hoot: Two tiny hyperkinetic bundles of estrogen, fueled by some heretofore little understood and highly unstable source of energy that will one day be harnessed for the good of mankind.

This visit, though, would be different.  This was Hensley Girls 2.0: not quite so small; not apparently quite so hyperkinetic.  At least at first glance...

It’s Friday night, and Cheryl drops off the Girls around 7pm.  Within minutes, they are trying to push her out the door, as in: don’t let it hit you in the butt on your way out.  This is actually pretty funny, mostly because it was such a departure from previous babysitting adventures over the past few years.  Times past, both would be weepy at the prospect of Mommy leaving, with much clinging to legs and Cheryl patiently explaining that she would be back on Sunday, and no, Sunday is not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow.  After this, she would cut her losses and hustle out, at which point a snack would magically appear, this not being Mama Sharon’s first rodeo by a long shot.

This go-round though, they are older and more sophisticated: Kayla Zane is just three months shy of  age seven, and Jenna Grace just three months shy of four.   Mom leaves, and they get right down to business.  We all sit down on the couch, and I pulled up YouTube on the laptop.  Kayla politely but firmly elbows me aside and browses the various My Little Pony selections.  She settles on an hour-length movie.   A one hour long My Little Pony: Who knew?  In this one, Twilight Sparkle has her crown stolen by Sunshine Shimmer.  Twilight has to follow Sunshine through the Magic Mirror, where they both are transformed from horses into teenage girls.  Well, you can just imagine how traumatic that was: Twilight and Sunshine both had to learn how to walk on two legs and flirt with all the human boys, even as they engaged in their epic struggle for control of Equestria.

I am on the edge of my seat.  The Girls are riveted.  And I would like to tell you how it ends, but I fell asleep on the couch about a half hour in and slept through a series of snacks, potty breaks, miscellaneous interruptions, some preplanning to turn the dining room table into a fort, and then the rest of the movie.  Or so Mama Sharon tells me, because when I wake up, she’s already taken them up, read stories and put them to bed.  I ask her if they’re all right.  She says yes, why do you ask?  I remind her that every previous bedtime experience featured protests, loud voices, dramatic hand gestures, unsubstantiated assertions as to what they were allowed to do at home, followed by stages Two through Five of the Kübler-Ross model, after which, there would be the sound of small feet reverberating overhead for some period of time, punctuated by the sound of furniture in some terrible distress, and giggling.

I naturally assume something is wrong, like maybe they have a fever or something.  Sharon just smiles knowingly.

 

STAY TUNED FOR SATURDAY....

"Non Partisan" Congressional Budget Office?

Regarding "Health law projected to shrink workforce" (Thursday Front Page), it is reported by the "non-partisan" Congressional Budget Office that the Affordable Care Act will result in "the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer full-time positions by 2024."  There's little doubt that a law that drives premiums and deductibles through the roof is going to devastate both employers and employees who are forced to participate; My question is, why should we take the CBO's word for anything? 

 

In the past five years, the CBO has been repudiated time and again for repeatedly validating the fantastic claims of Obamacare supporters that the law would reduce health care spending, reduce the federal deficit, improve the economy and - ironically - actually create jobs.  Even with this report, they throw the Obamacare administration a lifeline by proclaiming that the massive reduction in work hours will be "voluntary".  What fantasy world is the CBO living in?  If they had spent just a few hours browsing plans on healthcare.gov, they would know that workers will need far more hours of work to cover the huge increase in premiums and deductibles imposed by Obamacare that are not covered by subsidies.  

 

And let us not forget that we haven't even seen the effect of the Employer Mandate, which will invalidate tens of millions of additional policies when it goes into effect later this year.  How much more back-pedaling will the CBO be forced to do once that disaster hits? 

 

Obamacare is what it is, and the CBO is free to say whatever it wants.  All I ask is that reporters stop calling it the "non-partisan" Congressional Budget Office.  It is anything but.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

Bogus Abortion Figures

Regarding "Abortion rate in Texas lowest since 1970s", the article cites a 17% decrease in Texas abortions from 2008 to 2011 and quotes Rachel Jones, "the lead author of the study by Guttmacher, a research organization that supports abortion rights", who trumpets the decline as "steep".  

 

The reality is far different: First of all, a decline from 14.9 to 13.5 abortions per thousand women is a reduction of 9%, not 17% as quoted in the article.  Second, the statistics supporting the supposed rate of decline can be largely explained by the growth of the Latino population in Texas during that period, and the fact that Latino women are considerably less likely to pursue abortions than non-Hispanic white or black women.  A review of census data shows the Latino population growing from 36% of all Texans in 2008 to almost 40% in 2011.  The Guttmacher Institute itself cites data showing that nationwide "Non-Hispanic white women account for 36% of abortions, non-Hispanic black women for 30%, Hispanic women for 25% and women of other races for 9%." 

 

If you take the demographics into account, you could argue that birth control has had very little effect in reducing the overall abortion rate.  Hopefully, an honest appraisal of the facts will force a long-overdue conversation about the best means to prevent unwanted pregnancy. 

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

The Italians Stalk Amanda Knox

Regarding "Knox murder case ‘a polarizing’ journey" (Sunday Nation/World), one is left to wonder yet again what has been going through the minds of Italian authorities in their bizarre six year pursuit of American Amanda Knox.  In the first trial, they concocted a motive of a murderous sex game gone wrong that was completely unsubstantiated by witnesses, testimony or physical evidence, and managed to convict her of murdering her roommate a mere six weeks after arriving in Italy.  When that conviction was overturned and she was released, they decided to re-try her based on a brand new and equally bizarre theory that Knox was driven to murder by the failure of a mutual acquaintance to flush the toilet.

 

Forget the double jeopardy,  the lack of due process, the pattern of prosecutorial misconduct relating to evidence or the fact that Italian police used interrogation techniques - including intimidation and sleep deprivation - that would have made any Guantanamo interrogator proud: It was the succession of lurid fantasies completely disconnected from the facts or reality that Italian authorities used to explain Knox's alleged homicidal tendencies that ought to sustain the outrage not just of Americans, but any fair-minded people.

 

Quasi-legalistic kidnapping is the kind of behavior we have come to expect from regimes like North Korea and Iran who capture and imprison Americans, the differences being that neither is an ally, their systems of justice are as brutal as their regimes, and they always have some kind of nefarious scheme as an endgame. 

 

What could Italy's excuse possibly be?

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX