Trust Fall

Simply platinum:

Keeping the Stimulus a platinum as it can be

I'd like to draw your attention to StimulusWatch.org, the brainchild of some of my coworkers down the hall.  The site covers all the potential projects that may receive federal funding as a result of the passage of the stimulus bill.  The purpose is to get citizens involved in rating the quality of the potential projects that may receive funding once the stimulus bill is passed:

It is expected that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be signed by the President on February 16. That legislation won't list the projects to be funded. Instead, it will appropriate money for federal grant programs, such as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) or Surface Transportation Program, which will then use the appropriated stimulus money to make grants to cities. In the case of CDBG, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be the agency that will decide (using a formula) which of the projects requested by the mayors will be funded.

Be sure to check out the "Least Critical" tab.  Don't hestitate to vote either--it helps with feedback about the projects.  I find $500,000 for a dog park and $99,600 for the installment of doorbells to be a little outrageous myself.

GPM instead of MPG is platinum thinking

A big part of the training I have gone through in my current job is understanding how important mental models are, both in our daily lives and in the big picture questions that occupy the politicians. The way we understand the world, unsurprisingly, has a big impact on the way we approach decision making. One of the really important ones is called marginal analysis, which describes the way most decisions we make in life aren't all or nothing, they are questions of whether or not we want a little more or less of one particular thing. Most of the time, people use marginal analysis without even knowing it. Here's a video I found on the web done by some high schoolers. It captures the idea in a general sense and I like that they were able to find a way to incorporate marginal analysis into the hell that is dating.



Anyway, now that you've lost that six minutes of your life, here's the beef (HT: Tyler Cowen). The article is interesting because it says a couple of things to me. One: it's really easy to mess up marginal analysis if you don't have a strong understand of what margin you are working from. Two: Damn you, Escalades!

I love Dave Chappelle...

When I saw this....


...I immediately thought of this...


BTW, congratulations to President Obama. He ran a pretty impressive campaign and even though there are many things I disagree with him on, it's a testament to the strength of our republic that there weren't tanks in the streets. Although, it would have been nice if they had kept some bridges open...

Platinum Canoodling

Life lessons via Youtube.

Personaly, I'd say beware of the final, errr, nuclear, option. Having an angry lady friend and a permanent crick in your neck is not worth an arm without pins and needles.

This also reminded me of a Facebook group a friend of mine started called, "A Spoon is for Eating." The title referred to her complete disinterest in spooning due to the body heat issue. While that may make sense in the summer, what about when it's 12 degrees?

Platinum Choices for Minnesota Parents

One thing that's always hard to articulate is the idea that I just don't know. I don't know what's best for other people, therefore I try not to assume I do. This article really nails it home for me. It's tempting to think that every immigrant's greatest dream is to see their kids go to really nice suburban public schools with lots of resources and kids from middle class backgrounds. Turns out, maybe not. Maybe their dream sounds more like, “I want them to keep the good things we used to have back home — respecting their parents, helping each other, respecting their elders.”

While I'm a proponent of schools like KIPP and Uncommon Schools, it would be a mistake to think that I'm in favor of every school turning into them. That kind of school environment works well(so far) for a very specific group of students AND parents that want that kind of education. It's obvious when reading this article that many parents have very different ideas about what constitutes the education they want for their kids.

A key idea behind the school choice movement is the notion that there is just simply no way for school boards that manage 40,000 student school districts to know what every parent wants for their child. The goal to standardize education from on high (the Washington, State, or district levels) seems rather perplexing for this very reason. Of course, you don't meet many people willing to say on the campaign trail, "I don't know what we should do to solve education inequality. I'm putting the responsibility on you to decide what is best for your child." Despite this, somehow a really cool experiment is taking place to test that hypothesis in a bunch of cities.

It's the incentives not the people... the people are platinum.

Hey guys sorry about being dorment in the from platinum appreciation. Times have been tough and to prove it I wrote an unusuially pessamistic piece on how DC works. grumble grumble grumble...

The problem with sites like these is that it doesn’t tell you why they voted one way or another. Too many times we hear crap like “you voted against labor on… fill-in-the-blank bill.” When in reality the letter of legislation is complex and contains many factors that are impossible to boil down to a single initiative like “the environment,” “job creation” or “labor.” A lot of the time politicians don’t vote for a policy because they didn’t get to put their pork in it, they didn’t get bought out. A perfect example of this is the difference between the first financial bailout that didn’t pass and the second one that passed with more tag-on’s and earmarks.

DC is a game of incentives. Phony moral high ground and righteousness poorly mask a “Why should I actually vote for it?” mentality and the greatest thing is people buy it and the system keeps churning! So much fluff you could stuff a mattress with it. (sorry, I’m getting a little pessimistic, maybe I need more sleep)

Platinum Politics in the Workplace

I came across this article on workplace discussion of politics. I found it interesting to the extent that it really says that it's a not a particularly good idea. Essentially, talking about politics, like any sensitive subject (see your mom jokes), has the potential to disrupt the true work of the office. Therefore, if talking about politics cannot be done in a civil way(see example below), there may need to be directives stating what kind of discourse will be allowed.


To me, this all makes sense. I have tremendous difficulty being civil when discussing politics, even with people I agree with (I hate the messenger, but not the message). The most interesting line of the article is when an expert said the following:
It's also important to provide a channel for people to voice concerns, Pratt said. "The trick is to let people approach things with maturity."

Doing some quick research, I turned up two articles(here and here). Reading to the end of the first will give you a special treat. Note that the second article seems to contradict the one at the top.

My question is this, is there any truly platinum way to talk about politics at work? Anyone seen one? From what I see in the articles, unless you work at a place that has politics as part of it's mission like the DNC or RNC, it seems practically impossible, mainly because most people simply don't know how to have a civil debate. Politics is personal(as it should be) and I'm not sure people(including myself) are mature enough to have a debate without a full-on moderator.

Is Outing People Platinum?

It's interesting to see how labels affect the ability of individuals to engage in real discourse (HT Natalie G). Personally, I'm very comfortable with not announcing my political beliefs. My experiences have told me that as soon as someone gets labeled, the entire conversation proceeds in a very adversarial way where someone needs to be convinced that their identity or beliefs are:
A) Wrong and Stupid
B) Misguided or naive
C) Evil
D) All of the Above

Although I originally was thinking about some dinner conversation I saw last night regarding an acquaintance's alcohol preferences, I noticed that I've seen that same set of events happen over and over again. I remember multiple situations where I've done it and where it's been done (that sounds way too harsh) to me.

For my part, I remember situations where I'm trying to explain the sexual orientation or political orientation of friends. Since I travel in what I would call a relatively eclectic political group, much of the outing I end up doing is to avoid what I believe to be unnecessary political sniping. I say sniping because while I don't enjoy arguing until I'm blue in the face, I don't have any problem defending my political beliefs when someone asks me about them in a serious way. At the same time, I don't think starting off a conversation with the off-hand comment that "Socialists are idiots" is particularly good. Not a really conducive way to start dialogue in my mind. To me, some good questions to ask before outing someone include, but are not limited to:

• Does the outing act as a pejorative or informational clarification?
• Have you talked to the outee about being outed beforehand?
• If the tables were turned, would you be happy about being outed in front of that person's friends(always good to throw a golden rule in there)?

If you can answer those questions honestly and come out on the other side clean, then you're in good shape as far as outing is concerned. If not, maybe it's time to rethink your outing ways. Then again, maybe I'm just being an hyper-conscious ass for thinking so much about this.

Therefore, with the season of reflection and togetherness in mind, I'd hope that everyone when interacting with loved ones, friends, and the randoms you inevitably see when you go home, tries to think twice about "outing" someone. I don't think it's wrong as a concept. But I do think context means something. In my experiences, in an outing situation, where Person A is getting outed, Person B is doing the outing, and Person C is the third party party learning about Person A's outable quality, Person A often doesn't mind talking to Person C about the outed issue, but they definitely aren't always so happy with Person B.

Have a good after-Christmas talk, everyone.

Unbelievable Dinner...

I think... I would give this sketch 4 platinum stars.