Comments by jlundell
August 31, 2009
The US can't have decent health care because it's too big? That sounds like a total non sequitur.
August 31, 2009
Hey, Kevins: so, what's the present value of the next 75 years of GDP? And why would I compare the 75-year-NPV of anything to one year's flow of anything else?
August 30, 2009
Whatever Medicare's problems are, they're less than private health insurance. Health care costs are going up faster that [whatever you care to name]. Medicare is more efficient that the US alternatives, but that's not enough. WRT Mackey's rationality (that's you, Barry #5), I grant that he's not Palin. But which of his eight points makes any sense at all? Let's consider #6. This is no doubt the kind of outside-the-box thinking that gets you a job as a CEO of a semi-major US corporation. "Enact Medicare…
August 29, 2009
A likely part? I doubt it; the bills on the table appear to be focused almost entirely on health insurance, not health care delivery. I don't think we'll see any free clinics come out of them.
One could argue, of course, that our entirely health insurance system is insanely expensive and inefficient, compared to the rest of the world, and I wouldn't disagree. But using ERs for primary care is expensive and inefficient even by those standards.
August 28, 2009
Providing primary health care through emergency rooms is an insanely expensive and inefficient policy. ERs are of no value for preventive or routine care. To the extent that ERs are used by uninsured Americans for their primary care, the rest of us are paying for it (and paying for it exorbitantly) through our health insurance premiums. In doing so, we also subsidize employers who don't bother to provide health insurance to their employees. It's easy to understand why such employers would prefer…
August 13, 2009
I'll try to make it as well. But as one of the coastside geeks who works over the hill, I'll find 6pm on a Tuesday a bit of a stretch.
August 09, 2009
KQED's Forum had an interesting half hour a month ago on the subject, discussing the prospect for a strong El Niño and its implications for the Bay Area in particular. Worth a listen. http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R907100930 The Return of El Nino US government forecasters announced yesterday that El Nino -- which warms the waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean and alters global weather patterns -- is back. We'll discuss the climate phenomenon and what it means for California. Host: Dave Iverson Guests:…
August 09, 2009
The chart seems to suggest that the likelihood of below-average rainfall in an El Niño year is just about equal to the likelihood of above-average rainfall.
My understanding is that El Niño tends to increase rainfall to the south of us, and decrease it to the north, with the boundary between above- and below-average rainfall being hard to predict.
July 31, 2009
Thanks, Barry. How soon they I forget. Here's the full table: Measure C 11/99 $125/4 years 56% Measure A 3/02 $75/3 years 61.4% Measure A 3/03 $250/5 years 65.4% Measure C 6/03 $250/5 years 65.4% Measure S 6/06 $175/5 years 62.6% And a bonus, to make up for the oversight: the ballot language from Measure S: To further student academic achievement by retaining and recruiting highly qualified teachers, supporting their ability to focus on individual student needs through lower class sizes and providing…
July 31, 2009
A note on CUSD parcel taxes. The district has placed four parcel tax proposals on the ballot in the last ten years, one in 1999, and the other three all in a bunch, 2002-03. They all failed to get the required 2/3 vote, though some came very close (date, amount/duration, vote shown): Measure C 11/99 $125/4 years 56% Measure A 3/02 $75/3 years 61.4% Measure A 3/03 $250/5 years 65.4% Measure C 6/03 $250/5 years 65.4% Has it really been six years? All those failures left the board a little gun-shy about…
July 30, 2009
According to standardized test results (and it's fine by me if you take them with a grain of salt), 60% of Cabrillo second graders scored less than proficient in English last year. 28% were below or far below basic level.
We don't see much improvement in higher grades, either. Tenth graders had nearly the same statistics.
Granted, test scores for native English speakers aren't exactly through the roof. But English proficiency rates for Hispanic students are quite a bit lower.
July 29, 2009
About the Moonridge bus... (This comment represents my recollections, impressions and opinions, all of which are no doubt faulty.) A while back, the school district needed to adjust the enrollment at its three major K-5 schools, mainly because Hatch was overcrowded, while El Granada and Farallone View had excess capacity. To do so, they redrew the boundaries between the K-5 "subdistricts" a little farther south, so that the northern schools picked up more students, and Hatch lost some. But the boundaries…
July 28, 2009
Part of the problem with school bussing is that the funding is a little perverse. The district receives some state funding that's earmarked for bussing, but the balance (maybe 1/3 if there's a full bussing program; I forget the exact number) must be funded from the districts general fund. A few years ago, when the district found itself strapped for cash, it cut bussing back (in stages) to the point where it didn't have to dip into the general fund, but could fund the program out of the state earmark.…
June 30, 2009
It's a reasonable point, Carl (though in my experience Real Goods is something of a gouger). But I think the attraction is that Chevron is supplying the financing as well as the equipment. And I take some comfort in the fact that MWSD did a similar deal (at least it sounds similar).
June 26, 2009
I imagine that's the same deal.
It's probably for the best, since it's not obvious that CUSD will have much of a capital budget once they're done with Cunha.
(Barry, there's a problem with email comment notifications, in particular their markup. I'll send you the one I just got from Scott's comment.)
(Oh, and can't the notify-me checkbox default to off? Or something?)
June 26, 2009
The board last night agreed to look into a Chevron proposal for installing solar. Details are nonexistent, but apparently Chevron installs the equipment and the district pays some rate for 10 years (presumed to be lower than PG&E) and owns the installation afterwards.
At least that's my understanding. Gaskill and some board member(s) to investigate.
June 22, 2009
Barry, PR isn't a cure-all, but it can help in the situation you describe. If motivated special interests are able to bring a majority of voters to the polls, in the current system (or with district elections) they can elect all the board members: majority take all. Under PR, a majority faction elects only a corresponding majority of the board, leaving at least some seats to other voting groups. And there's a secondary benefit: voter interest is likely to increase, because candidates who…
June 22, 2009
San Mateo's system of supervisorial districts does seem like the worst possible choice. But while district elections will have the real advantage of smaller electorates, why not fix it right and go to proportional representation? As with district elections, a PR system would dramatically reduce the number of votes needed to win a seat, but would allow voters to form dynamic coalitions, county-wide, to gain representation. Here's a simplistic example. Suppose that, despite the nominally non-partisan…
May 30, 2009
More at the [Mercury News][1].
"Goldstein noted that a study by the University of California-Berkeley found that for every $1 in public money spent on state parks, $2.35 is returned to the state in taxes from tourism and other revenue they generate."
And apparently it's not something the governor can do on his own.
[1]: http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12481195?nclick_check=1
May 11, 2009
We negative-growthers are feeling left out, Barry.
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