poor-attitude.org

Coach of the Year.

Have to agree with PLA(scroll down, Bloggered links), Maurice Cheeks is a classy guy.

He was the one who went to help a scared little girl, lost and alone in front of 20,000 restless sports fans.

What mensch.

Map to Clair's

Maps to Clair's house.

Directions to Clair's house at 1096 CR 1200 North

From Champaign: Go south on I-57 until you get to the Illinois Route 16
Exit (#190-A or Charleston Exit). Go 1 mile east on Rte 16 to
first stop light. Turn Right (sign will say Lerna). You will go past a
Clinic (Carle). Go about 8.3 Miles on this main road. You will go
through three large curves. The first one bends to the East the next
bends to the South and the last one bends back to the East. Watch for
Water Tower on right hand side- after you pass the water tower take first
right. (You’ll be turning south - follow sign for Toledo).

You’re now going South. You’re going to drive a total of 3 miles and then
turn West. If you watch for the Cumberland County Line sign then you can
see the cross roads counting down from 1400 N to 1200 N. You’ll want to
slow down to turn right when you see a row of evergreen pines in the front
yard on the right hand side. You’re now on our road and you’re driving
west. Come just over 1 mile and we are on the left hand side. Take the
2nd driveway on the left hand side (south side) of the road after you
cross the little bridge. The address is 1096 Co Rd 1200 N.

Leaving: Go right out of drive way follow road to stop sign. Take left
and go 3 miles to next stop sign. Take left (sign for Mattoon). Follow
main road through curves for 8.3 miles and you will be at stop light. Go
Left and you will be at I-57 at the Mattoon Exit (#190). Go North on
I-57 to Champaign.

Map from I-57 at Mattoon to Clair and John's.

More Innumeracy.

Brad Delong has a thoroughly depressing post about federal deficits.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, defense, and interest on the current national debt added up to 101% of the money taken in by the federal government in the last 6 months.

We're broke.

Atrios is funny.

What is feared?

Lots of people are caught up in The War, and can't imagine a scenario where anything could possibly eclipse The War for any political traction. People speculate that national security will be the most important issue in the 2004 election, and everything else will be just small potatoes in comparison. Let's examine this idea, and see if we can notice nay cracks in the logic that leads to these conclusions.

State Farm corporate headquarters in Bloomington-Normal, IL employs about 15,000 people. This is the largest employer for this town by a factor of 4, and is in fact the reason that the twin cites aren't just another college town with a car plant.

This Business Week article talks about jobs being exported from the US to India, including jobs in things like financial analysis, and other white collar jobs. The people employed at the State Farm corporate HQ are prime candidates for this type of job exportation.

Let's figure something like 10,000 of those jobs are elegible for exportation. And let's speculate that 2500, or about 16% of the total employed at State Farm, are actually replaced by work exported to India. What is the effect on the town of Bloomington-Normal?

Well, Bloomington-Normal appears to have a workforce of 95,322. Current unemployment is 3,131, for 3.3%. The increase in unemployment by adding 2,500 people looks like it would raise unemployment rates to 5.9%.

But more than just the increase in unemployment statistics would also be the decrease in the gross product of the two towns. In other words, other people would lose either employment, or available work hours, or income to their businesses. Big fat ripple effect, mostly due to the fact that the jobs lost at State Farm paid well and included benefits like health insurance.

And are those jobs coming back? No, not at State Farm they won't. End result? Nice and comfy Bloomington-Normal becomes just another American town, with average unemployment, average wages, and average opportunities.

How far a fall is that psychologically for a town that has seen itself as above the day to day struggles of the American economy? Thought you were safe, didn't you? Well, surprise! You're a statistic. Now you know how those steel workers felt in the 1970's.

The 2500 laid off? Suprised, adrift, and feeling more than a little betrayed. The remaining 12,500? Some are definitely safe from exportation, but most aren't, and some that are still worry about the possibility. Let's call it an increase in the tension of daily life.

This is the type of thing that would cause people to look around, and survey what the hell is going on.

And I'm willing to bet that none of this happens until after the 2004 election. But when it does, some people that are vaguely Republican are going to reassess their personal views.

Now, look around at your local economy. How many of your neighbors and friends could possibly be looking at having their jobs eliminated completely in this country? How would that affect your local economy?

You aren't carrying too much debt, are you? Student loans dragging out maybe, or that 60 month car loan? How's the credit card project coming along? Would you be underwater on your house if you refinanced recently, and the value of your property drops by 10%? 20%? 30%?

How long could you last if things just stopped today for you?

And who would you blame if that is what happened?

Ratings for the War?

So, am I to assume that the war isn't capable of getting better ratings than the soap operas I am seeing on the air this afternoon? Not better ratings than the infomercial that was on the local Fox station?

Can that possibly be right?

I suspect the marketing people could tell us some interesting things about Americans and this war.

Urban Combat.

I have a friend who is now about 75 years old. He is the father of a friend of mine, but he and I have hung out quite a bit, to the point where I would consider him someone I know on his own as a friend, not as just a relative of a friend.

He has a Silver Star from serving in World War II. He was part of a Ranger team that was left out of the grinding part of the war, and brought in when someone had a "tough nut to crack", as he put it. Kind of a special forces type squad.

They developed some specific techniques, had some good soldiers, and what he claimed was most important, they had good officers. He fought in Europe for 30 months, and has some idea of what he is talking about when the conversation turns to "getting shot at", as he puts it.

He told me a story a while back about some fighting they did in Antwerp. This was house to house fighting, toe to toe with some quality German outfits. He said they started the day with a squad on each side of the street, him in charge of his squad, and his Sargeant in charge of the squad across the street. The worked together, pacing each other as they moved forward, apparently avoiding the dangers of getting too far ahead of each other.

He said that at the end of the day, a day where he started with 8 men and himself, he had 4 men and himself left, with the other 4 men either dead or wounded. His Sargeant across the street had suffered similar casualties.

At the end of the day, after 10 or 12 hours of some of the nastiest fighting he said he had seen(including his D-Day landing), each squad had taken a total of 8 houses on their side of the street.

At this point in the story he got a look that seemed as if he was mulling an old problem, still no answer readily at hand.

"David, the worst thing about that type of fighting was that I don't think we made a single mistake all day, and we still ended up with half our men wounded or dead."