Bill Tozier

"[T]he broad impact of the recession is clear in hundreds of thousands of new cases across the judicial system, including people challenging their real estate taxes, home foreclosures, contract disputes and family offenses." - Bill Tozier

"There’s a kind of perverse joy that comes from watching a truly awful movie musical." - Bill Tozier

"Looking at these, you would hope to achieve a low lefthand starting point (low cost), a high righthand point (high longevity), and a thick line (lots of doctor visits.) The USA line looks like it was drawn by someone who got the instructions backwards -- a very high lefthand starting point (huge cost), a mediocre righthand point (middlin' longevity), and a hairlike line thickness (scanty doctor visits, less than 4 per year.)" - Bill Tozier

"There are a number of ways to “solve” mazes but there’s a wide scope for you to be as straightforward or as clever as you like with this challenge (tip: I’d love to see some clever/silly solutions!). Your “solvable?” and “steps” methods could share algorithms or you might come up with alternate ways to be more efficient in each case. Good luck!" - Bill Tozier

"This “highly sophisticated investor” argument has been used by Goldman, other banks and a remarkably high number of journalists (in my opinion just repeating the crap they have been fed by their sources) as a way of getting the banks off the hook. But it is a fundamentally flawed argument. The CDO bonds that AIG insured were rated AAA. If you have to be a rocket scientist to understand the investment and if anything short of perfect analysis of the bonds means you will be blown up – then by definition the bonds are not AAA." - Bill Tozier

"And for those who keep looking to biology for an answer, the fundamental yet rarely asked question is why natural selection designed our brains so that we’re in tune with our fellow human beings and feel distress at their distress, and pleasure at their pleasure. If the exploitation of others were all that mattered, evolution should never have got into the empathy business. But it did, and the political and economic elites had better grasp that in a hurry." - Bill Tozier

"Franken's amendment is driving the Republicans crazy because they basically voted to protect rapists and are now paying a political price for that. And now they are whining that Franken was somehow "uncollegial" because the amendment put them in an embarrassing position (which makes me wonder how many other things issues are swept under the rug because it would make members of the opposition uncomfortable.)" - Bill Tozier

"When producing a movie, everything stems back to this box: IDEA. In the 1940s, these were the sources of ideas: "Play," "Short Story or Novel," "Newspaper Story or Current Event," "Original Story," "Magazine Article," or "Historical Incident." Way off on the left, however, there's one additional source that's not shown above: "Vice President in Charge of Production." If you want something unoriginal done that isn't in print or in the history books, go talk to the VP, he'll get it done. On another note: this particular flowchart is one of the few places the words "Restaurants," "Mimeograph," "Arsenal," "Publicity," and "Bits & Extras" fit together so well. From the 20th Century Fox flowcharts collection." - Bill Tozier

"We've been meaning to post this list of links to the language essays of Robert Cumbow for ages. He's a lawyer in our home town of Seattle. Enjoy!" - Bill Tozier