Off Topic: Full Video of Malala Yousafzai Speech at the UN; Made me Cry, and You?

Video is HERE and embedded below. (Forgive the 10 sec commercial at start).



Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS Report on 2012 Rising Gas Prices.

Report is HERE.

Table showing gas prices since 2008 pasted below: 

Click to Enlarge

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Ho Chi Minh City Traffic, Time Lapse Video.

Very cool, Vimeo link HERE and embedded below (As always, full screen HD recommended): 

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic Video:Jack O' Lantern 2.0

NPR Science Friday link is HERE, embed is below:

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Use of Dashboards in Government.

No, not this kind: 

Report on more modern data kind of dashboards is HERE. 

Most notable local housing related dashboard I know of is at homeforward HERE. Love the data, but could probably use some design work (which may be in progress already?).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Short Interview with 104 Year Old Designer Brought a Smile That Stayed With Me for Weekend.

WSJ interview over the weekend HERE.

How can you not like a 104 year old who says:

....At the artists' ball one had to step over people making love. Nazi supporters fought Communists in the streets. I was falsely accused of participating in a conspiracy to assassinate Stalin. When I asked them how successful it could have been, considering he was alive, they said, "Don't make bad jokes!"

I suspect my reaction was cemented by my laugh out loud response to her answer to last interview question: 

How old do I feel? I feel 104.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Time Lapse of The City Limits.

Direct URL is HERE; embedded below. As always I recommend HD, full screen. 


Timelapse - The City Limits from Dominic on Vimeo.


Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

Off Topic Political Headline You Won't See Every Day: Ahmadinejad Allies Charged with Sorcery.

Guardian story is HERE; and we think our politics are weird?

Off Topic: My Career as Fed Began 45 Years Ago Today.

In the wee hours of the morning 45 years ago my buddy Gary and I caught three buses to Ft. Wayne in Detroit, where we were inducted into the Army on the buddy system. 

After our physicals (cough), taking of the oath ("to preserve, protect, and defend..") and other processing we were on our way to Ft. Knox in Kentucky to begin our 8 weeks of basic training.[ "A-19-5, the best damn Company in USATCA" ]

Our motives for enlistment were (1) Testosterone /Boredom (2) Avoidance of the draft and a dreaded assignment to the infantry [ during the Vietnam era that occupation was called "11 Bump" for a reason]. (3) The post service use of the GI bill to pay for college [presuming of course that you were still around for that post service period]. 

While it was a big gamble my military service paid off for me: 

• I lost 40 pounds in 8 weeks of basic training and got physically fit for the first time in my life.
• The GI bill helped me pay for college. Along with two scholarships and work while in college this meant that I had zero debt when I graduated.
• I went to Vietnam and came back with a minimum of personal trauma and my first exposure to living conditions in the third world.
• I served with guys from all around the country; most were working class guys like myself, including working class minorities.
• During my R+R's from Vietnam, I got to travel to Bangkok and Sydney and when I extended I got to come home on leave and spent 1 1/2 months with friends during the summer of 1968.
• I got out of the Army early because I extended my tour in Vietnam; I was out of the service and home before I turned 21, started college the next month, and graduated 3 1/2 years later. 
• A year after I graduated, after service as a Welfare worker in inner city Detroit, I started my HUD career in Detroit in July 1973.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Diversion: Stunning Northern Lights Video

Best time lapse I have ever seen of Northern Lights; music, so so.

Link HERE and video embedded below, as always go HD, full screen for best quality:

In The Land Of The Northern Lights from Ole Christian Salomonsen on Vimeo.



Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: A Big Sort on Who Holds, and Doesn't Hold, a Passport in the U.S.

Atlantic story is HERE, includes plots of Oregon data.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: I Was Busy, Just Not with the Blog.

Got home early this morning from long flight from Florida; my trip included a stop to catch   Tigers spring training game in Lakeland and visit with guys I knew from back in the projects. 

Not complaining, but just saying...it was 80 when I left Tampa in the afternoon, and close to 40 when I got in this morning.....

Will get back to posting in a few days; few pics on Picassa from trip are pasted below, click will open entire album. 

Florida Spring Training 2011

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Wisconsin Public Employee Wages vs Private Sector.

Full disclosure: I'm not a neutral observer; my home state of Michigan has a strong labor history; my graduate work was in Labor Relations; my nephew is a HS English teacher in Wisconsin, and I worked in the public sector for 38+ years.  

Interesting paper HERE compares public/private sector costs for Wisconsin public employees.  Page 3 includes table showing just wages, but comparisons within paper also include other compensation: 

Nationally, 54% of full-time state and local public sector workers hold at least a four-year college degree, compared with 35% of full-time private sector workers. In Wisconsin, the difference is even greater: 59% of full-time Wisconsin public sector workers hold at least a four-year college degree, compared with 30% of full-time private sector workers...Wisconsin state and local governments pay public employees 14.2% lower annual wages than comparable private sector employees. On an hourly basis, they earn 10.7% less in wages. College-educated employees earn on average 28 percent less in wages and 25% less in total compensation in the public sector than in the private sector.

Now, about my "greedy" nephew and his family. I can't imagine:

1. Trying to keep 20 HS kids interested in English and literature on a daily basis or 
2. Teaching night school several days a week. 
3. Raising three kids on the 40k'ish salary of a teacher.

I am sure there are days when my nephew wonders whether the effort to get his Master's degree was worth it, whether the only public service that he will ever get any respect for is his service in Afghanistan; and whether he can keep his family healthy, food on the table, and a roof over their heads.

If your looking to do a "shout out" just to express solidarity with an individual public sector family in Wisconsin, you can find my nephew and his wife on Facebook; look for Jaime Krym and Tricia Krym.  [They don't know I am doing this post].

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Update--Off Topic: CBO Says Military Regular Compensation Higher than Federal Civilian Compensation.

Update--
Officer Level Compensation Comparison Groups
To clarify, for the officer level vs civil service compensation comparison all officers with two years experience were included while civil service group selected only included college graduates. These groupings were apparently selected because report noted that almost all military officers are four year college graduates.
===
New CBO report is HERE; graphs on pages 7 and 8 show comparisons for enlisted personnel and officers. CBO's conclusion: 

For any given number of years of work experience, median cash compensation for enlisted personnel was at least as high as the 75th percentile of earnings for federal workers with comparable work experience. In other words, the typical enlisted person receives more cash compensation than three-quarters of comparable federal civilians...for commissioned officers with two years of experience or more exceeds the 75th percentile of cash compensation of federal workers with four-year college degrees .. That disparity between officers’ and civilian employees’ cash compensation grows with increasing years of experience, and the disparity for officers exceeds the disparity for enlisted personnel.

Non cash and deferred benefits were NOT included in the comparison; If these costs were included, relative military compensation would be even HIGHER: 

[for the military]...the value of noncash and deferred benefits adds 100 percent to cash compensation....noncash and deferred benefits [for civil service members] add about 55 percent to the value of cash pay, or about half as much as military personnel receive....Survey data collected by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in the national income and product accounts suggest that noncash and deferred benefits add about 75 percent to the cash pay of military personnel and about 50 percent to the cash pay of federal civilians.

(Of course, there is that other military /civilian difference of overseas deployment, separation from your family, and getting shot at and blowed up).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Rey Ramsey on C-SPAN Program, The Communicators.

Former OHCS Director Rey Ramsey, now the CEO of TechNet, appeared Saturday on the C-SPAN interview program, The Communicators.  

The C-SPAN page with links to the interview and the TechNet website is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic/Weekend Diversion: Christmas Concert, With All Music from IPAD or IPHONE.

Not sure how I feel about this, technically impressive but on the verge of "creepy"? (For some reason it also reminds me of the Chipmunks).

YouTube video is HERE and embedded below: 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: You Got to Love this Guy.

From 60 Minutes last night, Medal of Honor interview is HERE.  Extended interview, including his wife, is HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Wednesday, 8: 30 AM--Looks to Me Like Kitzhaber Will Win.

It's 8:30 AM, time for a projection.

Kitzhaber is getting 70%+ of vote in Multnomah County and looks like there is another 60,000+ votes to be counted in the county. 

Table below shows the math; looks to me like Kitzhaber will net 23,000+ more votes than Dudley out of those 60,000 , that would be more than enough to overcome the current Dudley lead of 19,000 votes.

Remaining Votes	60,000
Kitz	41,850
Dudley	18,150
Net to Kitz	23,700

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: Single Source to Find Out What is New at Google.

Google new is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: A Guy Thing? Lots of Things Getting Smashed (Slow Mo).

Tempus II from Philip Heron on Vimeo.