I’ve posted an idea for an English phonetic spelling system before. It’s an idea I’d still like to see implemented. But I’ve changed some of the details.

As I recently commented on Facebook (reproduced here since the comment isn’t publicly visible):

The transition to phonetic spelling would be painful for a little while. But the pain it [...]

After Mitt Romney agreed to release his tax return sooner rather than later, as he’d originally planned, Newt Gingrich responded with this:

I think it’s exactly the right thing to do. And as far as I’m concerned, that particular issue is now set aside and we can go on and talk about other, bigger, and more [...]

After Mitt Romney revealed that he pays about 15% in taxes, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said:

Everybody who’s working hard ought to pay their fair share, and and that includes millionaires who might be paying an effective tax rate of 15% when folks making $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000 a year are paying much [...]

I like this quote:

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

Simone Weil

The more you experience real good, the closer your imagination aligns with reality.

This morning, Seth Godin published something that reminded me of some ideas I’ve turned over in my head before:

…the rationale … appears to be that at some point, obedience transforms into self-control. That at some point, people start obeying themselves and become leaders. Self-control is without a doubt one of the building blocks of success, [...]

The times, they are a changin’. As they always do.

Change causes pain. Because it requires change. It requires adaptation. It requires abandoning old comforts that no longer have a foundation to stand on, finding new foundations, and building on them.

What is the role of government in times of major change? Daniel Levis wrote:

When the economy [...]

I started working on my taxes today. Step 1: buy

I got an email from eBay today. The subject line was “don’t disappoint them – get the hottest toys”.

I understand that marketers want to tap into emotions to motivate people to buy. And that’s okay.

Up to a point.

Let’s make eBay’s message a little more explicit: “If you don’t buy everything your kids want through eBay, [...]

I got another of those emails from SpamArrest today asking me to verify that one of the emails to my mailing list wasn’t spam. This time, something on SpamArrest’s website struck me as ironic, if not downright hypocritical.

SpamArrest is a whitelisting service — they block email from anyone who the recipient hasn’t opted in to [...]

I live in Nebraska, so what I’m about to say is heresy. But we need more heretics.

I read somewhere the other day that gas that contains corn ethanol produces more greenhouse gasses than straight gasoline, and even more than other, easier to produce sources of ethanol. And we know that the growth of the ethanol [...]