A life in words

  • Pay-As-You-Drive?

    There is a proposal for Pay-As-You-Drive car insurance. Your insurance rate is per-mile, not per-6-month-term. This would decrease insurance rates of those who drive little (like yours truly) but raise them for those who drive long distances. It would of course motivate decreased driving, which is a good thing from the point of view of…

  • Oh, Senators!

    “Senate” is a from Latin word basically meaning “old folks”. You’d think with all of their combined years and experience they’d have learned something about discipline. Nope. Not a bit. Here’s the lineup for that offense to intelligence, that fiscal outrage, the shameful farm bill. Go ahead, be ashamed of your duly elected representatives: YEAs…

  • Mid-trip Report

    So I was just reading through my quasi-roommate Gabe Proulx’s blog and I realized that I felt like blogging myself. I’ve been sitting here all night sort of bored yet engaged in writing a mysterious new piece of software which shall be known to you only as “Siegfried”, but code-slavery just wasn’t doing it. I’ve…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address