WendyMcElroy.com

From the Onion: This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t [Ed: from 2003. Humor becomes reality.]

From the Associated Press: Big Texas welcome for Google self-driving cars

From Mish: Nouriel Roubini: "Positive Impacts of Paris Attacks Modest Unless More Attacks Follow". [Ed: Mish hits it out of the ballpark.]

From WatchDog: Texans go naked as rates rise under Obamacare

From Zero Hedge: "There's No Such Thing As ISIS": Journalist Destroys West's Terror Narrative, Warns Of Crackdown On "Dissidents"

From NY Daily News: Anchorage restaurant bans patron who called out autistic employee, receives outpour of support. [Ed: wonderful. But do people realize that they are standing up for the right of a business to discriminate about who they accept as customers? What about gays? What about blacks? I think anyone should be able to refuse association with anyone else. But do they realize that's what they are applauding?]

From Bloomberg: Governors Press White House for Refugee Information. [Ed: White House will not tell states where they are sending refugees.]

From Steve Goddard: Before He Was Pushing The Global Warming Scam, Paul Ehrlich Was Pushing The Global Cooling Scam

From the BBC: Has a Nigerian Professor Solved a 156-Year-Old Math Problem? [Ed: Quoting from Newser: "I know this will come to you as a surprise because you do not know me, prestigious mathematical institute. I am Dr. Opeyemi Enoch of Nigeria, and I have solved your unsolvable math problem. Please send me $1 million prize, and I believe that at the end of the day, you will have my proof." The BBC set off a minor academic shockwave Tuesday when it reported on a Nigerian professor who claims to have solved the Riemann Hypothesis—one of seven Millennium Problems in Mathematics with a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute attached.]

From Spiked: After Paris: Victory to the Kurds by Brendan O'Neill

From WorldNetDaily: Islamic mosque torched in Ontario. [Ed: this is too close to home.]

From the Fayetteville Observer: Officers Kill Unarmed Man Who Demanded Warrant: Report

From CBC: Latest 2,000% Drug Price Hike Hurts Infants. Seizure medication goes way, way up in cost

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Anonymous Vows Revenge on ISIS

From the Washington Post:
CNN anchor blames French Muslims for failure to prevent attacks

Today is a slow start because of my new dog, Hope. She is still being housebroken and it is the most difficult process I've ever experienced with a dog. Hope was born and kept in a barn stall for the first weeks of her life before being moved to a no-kill shelter where she lived in a large cage with her siblings. Translation: she has never conducted her 'business' anywhere but within walls. Convincing her to 'enjoy' the great outdoors has been a challenge and 1/2, which I've met by walking her every 2 -4 hours, depending on whether she is sleeping, has just eaten, etc. And, yes, this means sleep deprivation, a renewed bout of the flu due to trotting about at 2 a.m. in the cold wet night, and much frustration. But the little girl is getting the concept. Now to instill the related concept of the house being off-limits.

What does this have to do with the blog? Instead of being up in the wee hours of the morning, as usual, I crashed and Brad took over patrol duty. So the blog and related items are late today. To non-dog lovers, this may sound like a bizarre amount of effort on our part but she's a great dog -- that's clear -- and she will be a valued member of our family for many years to come.

Wash and wax your car.

Brad again. Here's a real conversation that I had, not long ago, with a friend:


Modern clearcoat finishes mean that a car can stay shiny for a few years, with nothing more than washing. But if you want your car to last, you need the added protection of a good coat of wax.

Up here, I do a "serious" wax, with a good quality paste or liquid wax, twice a year: first thing in the spring, and last thing before winter. In the summer months, I use one of the new products that is applied while you dry the car after washing. (There are also wash-and-wax products that apply wax while washing.) I find that these do a decent job of refreshing the wax finish.

And I wash and wax by hand, with a garden hose. It's cheaper, and it does a better job, but even more importantly, this is my opportunity to examine the entire exterior of the car up close. I'm looking for paint chips, scratches, and other dings. A paint chip now can be fixed with a bit of touch-up paint and a coat of wax. Let it go, and it becomes a rust spot, which then spreads, and in a few years you're looking at expensive body repair.

Frugal tip: Buy a bottle of touch-up paint from the dealer. It's a few bucks and should last the life of the car.

Frugal tip: If you do get some rust, to the point where you need to clean it up and repaint that spot, Rust Destroyer is an amazing primer.

Since we don't have a heated garage, during the winter I use the local automatic car wash. Regular washing is really important in the winter months here, since a lot of salt gets put on the roads, and that's the main cause of corrosion. But rather than pay the gas station's ridiculous wash prices, I cash in my gas-company rewards points. (I did the math -- this gives me the best dollar-equivalent return on those points.)

Frugal tip: Modern headlights, with a replaceable bulb behind a countoured plastic lens, will get cloudy over the years. You could pay someone $75 to clean that up for you, but instead, for $20 buy a kit to do it yourself. It's easy, and the kit should last for a few restorations.

From the Telegraph: 'Nazi Grandma' Sent to Prison for Denying Holocaust [Ed: it is obscene to imprison someone for taking a different stand on an historical point...it doesn't matter if she is wrong.]

From Lew Rockwell: Want to stop terrorism? Ron Paul had it right: get out of Muslim countries. Stop bombing. Stop installing dictators. Stop stealing. Stop intervening. Stop killing. And a related item from the Washington Post: The Islamic State’s trap for Europe [Ed: it is an effective plan.]

From the New York Post: How Obama is bankrolling a non-stop protest against invented outrage. [Ed: excellent analysis]

From the Onion: ‘Seek Funding’ Step Added To Scientific Method

From the Washington Post: Clinton’s debate performance leaves trail of fodder for political adversaries

From Washington Blog: Context for Paris Terror Attack: U.S. and Its Allies C-R-E-A-T-E-D ISIS [Ed: a good summary from September.]

From the WorldNetDaily: France goes to war with ISIS: Start of World War 3? [Ed: intends to invoke NATO provision that would involve many nations, including America, in war. Not that they are not already involved.]

From Delaware Online: Forget insurance. These Delaware docs only take fees And a related article from WorldNetDaily: Mass exodus! U.S. doctors fleeing medicine

From Sober Look: Canada's Growth Potential: Tempering Our Expectations [Ed: fascinating and sobering.]

From the Hour: Changes coming to Social Security benefits

From Der Spiegel: Putin Plan: The Russian President's Strategy for Syria

From Medium: What I Learned about Climate Change: The Science is not Settled by David Siegel. [Ed: hat tip to Brad who comments, Quite a good (and long) essay by a liberal who used to be a climate-change believer, and after examining the evidence, is now a skeptic:]

I have been both galvanized and paralyzed by the events in Paris and by their aftermath. For an entire day, I was unable to look away from the TV screen, the internet... Like 9/11, the Paris massacre will reverberate for years, and badly so. I cannot predict its impact any more than I would have predicted that post-9/11 airports would evolve into pockets of pure police state.

Now I'm doing the opposite of being riveted by the world. I am going to turn away. I'll continue the newsfeed and resume article writing but, overwhelmingly, my attention will go to controlling the only thing under my control: daily life. I have a strong sense that this is not the time to attempt political change except around the edges and within myself. This is a time for people to make sure their own houses are in order and those they care for are safe. As with the frugality 'series', my writing will focus on how people can help themselves to become as free as possible in an unfree world.

I dwell upon the small things, like meal planning and car maintenance, because they are the ones under immediate, direct control and because more of life hinges on small things than is generally acknowledged.

[Note: to access past posts on this subject, click on the "$" header.]

Time is not money. It is nothing so trivial. Unlike money, time from your life can never be replaced and one moment is not interchangeable with any other. Time is the most important and useful resource you have; with it, you can accomplish almost anything. Without it, you are literally dead. And, yet, people waste their time as though they expect to live forever.

I once conducted a mental exercise in which I pretended to have only a week left to live. There was nothing morbid or macabre about the process. Quite the opposition. I wanted to clarify what I valued most in life and what could drop away from my life without my caring in anything but a superficial way. Since then, some bad habits re: wasting time have reemerged and need to be rooted out but some of the good things that resulted are still active; I renewed a relationship with my older brother, for example.

Be frugal with your time, which means spending it on what you value rather than thoughtlessly. A large part of the expense of any item or activity is the transaction cost of acquiring or performing it. For me, the time consumed is usually the most important transaction cost by far. Try to look at purchases as though they cost units of time rather than dollars and cents. For example, if you earn $10 an hour, then a $10 sandwich costs an hour or your life. A $7.50 Starbucks costs 45 minutes. Are they worth it? People sometimes justify the high price of fast or convenience foods by claiming they save time...but they actually cost time. If you made a sandwich of your own from scratch that's comparable to the $10 one, the cost might be $2. That's 12 minutes of your time. If the sandwich took 10 minutes to make, then you are still more than a 1/2 hour ahead in the "time-price."

[Note: of course, there is time expended in buying the groceries but, since I didn't count standing in line at the sandwich shop or Starbucks, I don't count the associated time costs of the sandwich either.]

Start small, if necessary. In fact, it is the small wastes of time that sometimes are the most important because they drain away your life without being noticed. Perhaps there is a 5 or 10 minute task you perform every day but which contributes next to nothing you value. For example, I used to hunt for spices and herbs whenever I cooked because that particular cupboard was disorganized, with heaps of tiny plastic bags and jars that were difficult to read. I finally snapped to, labelled everything and gave the cupboard some semblance of sense. Every week, I now have something akin to an extra hour that would have been spent in finding the nutmeg...yet again!

Brad again. A lot of frugality, and self-sufficiency, is doing-for-yourself rather than hiring others. In this, cars are no different.

Learn to do simple repairs.

A few weeks ago the battery died in our car. I had seen the warning signs last winter -- difficulty cranking -- and I was pretty sure the battery would need to be replaced before this winter. (For obvious reasons, you want to replace the battery before winter, not during winter.) But it still took me by surprise: an hour earlier it had started the car, then it was dead.

No problem. A friendly bystander gave me a jump start -- yes, I keep jumper cables in the car -- and my next stop was our local auto parts store, then home. Half an hour later I had the old battery out and the new battery in, and the problem was solved.

Now, I could have driven to my mechanic, and because he's a great guy he probably would have found time, in an hour or two, to swap the battery for me. (I know he'll do this because he once asked me to reschedule a routine checkup so that he could handle an emergency for another customer.) Or, I could have taken my chances with a local, unknown mechanic. But either would have cost me more time and more money. Because I knew how to replace a car battery, what might have been a lost day became a minor inconvenience.

Frugal tip: Even if you can't do repairs, you can learn to check your car's fluids: tire pressure, oil, coolant, brake and clutch/transmission fluid, power steering fluid, windshield washer fluid. And it's easy to learn to top these up. (Be careful not to get dirt in the brake fluid!) We once salvaged a vacation trip because I knew how to check and add power steering fluid. More importantly, if you see a fluid start needing frequent refills, that's an early warning sign of a problem. If you take it promptly to your mechanic you might save some repair costs. At least, you might save a ruined day and a towing cost from being stranded at the side of the road.

Own a service manual.

Even if you're not going to do repair work, these are great to have. There's information about regular required maintenance, and diagnostic information if something goes wrong. And in a pinch, if the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you might be able to figure out what's wrong, and get yourself going again (at least as far as a mechanic).

I like the Haynes do-it-yourself service manuals, but there are others. Get a hardcopy book, not an online version; and store this in the car, not on your bookshelf at home.

Keep a tool kit in the car.

Watch for these to come on sale. Our local hardware store had a sale one day on an automotive tool kit for $25, including sockets, wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers. I bought one and it has lived in the car ever since. It's something like this but more modest. (Amazon has a wide assortment. Tip: if it includes a hammer, or if it doesn't include sockets, it's a home tool set, not an auto tool set. You don't need a hammer. You do need sockets.)

Once we were driving on a long trip and the windshield washer arm came loose. Not the replaceable blade, but the arm. Fortunately it was an obvious loose nut, and the tool kit had just the right size socket. I fixed it by the side of the road, and we drove on. A tool kit is a bargain when you need it...and someday, you will.

Brad here. I have a religion: I am a zealous adherent of the Church of Regular Auto Maintenance. And if you want your car to last a long time, you will be too.

Follow the maintenance schedule.

My friend the mechanical engineer once told me that he'd rather put in cheap oil every 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) than "long lasting" synthetic oil every 25,000. The reason: oil and the oil filter clean crud like metal particles out of the engine. This is one reason the first oil change for a new car is typically at 1,000 kilometres. And a clean engine will last longer.

So I do follow the manufacturer's service schedule. This will be in the owner's manual, or you can obtain it from many dealers (as a brochure or even a photocopied page). You can also find it in a service manual for the car.

Modern cars are way less expensive to service than old cars. "Tune-ups" are a thing of the past. Our car's schedule calls for service every 6,000 km, but three out of four services are simple oil changes.

Frugal tip: If you can't change the oil yourself, use the Quick Lube shop or whatever it's called near you. Our current mechanic is next door to one of these, and he told me straight out that for the oil changes, I should go to them. My mechanic will do oil changes, but he has to charge a higher price and even then doesn't make money. (Plus, I think he finds them boring.) At the Quick Lube shop they do everything that's needed for the "short" service interval, and they do it in about 15 minutes at a modest price.

(I can change my own oil, but I did the math once: at the retail cost of oil and filters, plus the disposal cost for the old oil, I'd pay almost as much as the Quick Lube charges me. For a few dollars extra, they're much faster and less hassle -- which ensures that I actually do the service, rather than procrastinate. And they give me the all-important receipt for my service file.)

This means that I only see my mechanic every 24,000 km...which, given how we drive, is less than once a year. That tends to be a half-day service where lots of things get replaced or checked, but we budget for that because we want our car to last twenty years.*

Frugal tip: Do not, under any circumstances, skip the scheduled replacement of the timing belt! These last a long time, 100,000 km or so, but they do wear out. And if it fails, it can destroy your engine. Replacing it is an expensive service, but an essential one. It's cheaper in the long run.

__________
* While we had our previous car, our mechanic made a point one day to introduce me to another of his customers. We were his two highest-mileage customers -- if I recall correctly, we were both near 400,000 km (almost 250,000 miles) -- and he seemed inordinately proud of both of us.

[Note: to access past posts on this subject, click on the "$" header.]

Many frugalistas plan their family's weekly menu (including snacks) and, then, they stick to it. The process offers advantages. It allows them to stock up on the week's groceries in one trip rather than running back to the store for a missing ingredient. It cuts down or eliminates impulse buys; if it is not on the list or on a killer sale, then it doesn't go in the cart. Having that list keeps them on budget; having to consciously meal plan makes them choose healthy and economical meals...at least, as the usual fare. For example, frugalistas tend to favor dinners, like roast chicken, that can be stretched into lunch the next day -- perhaps as sandwiches or chunked on a salad -- and then, of course, the bones can be used for soup.

Menu planning saves time as well because there is no standing in the grocery store or in your kitchen, deciding what to make, and dishes can be made ahead of time in spare moments. In fact, many people set aside enough time to cook meals for the whole week in one go so that all they have to do thereafter is defrost or heat up the prepared food; this also cuts down on dirty dishes through the week. Some frugalistas even say they look forward to the planning and pre-cooking because their children actively participate in the family event.

I am unusual. I plan on a daily basis. Brad's tastes vary from day to day and food is too important to the joy of living for me to overly restrain his choices. Besides which, I love to cook every day. I enjoy being flexible and taking requests. But flexibility or not, every day I do go over the plan for food by telling Brad what is on the list posted on the fridge (See My frugal year, day 2. A simple list on the fridge.) If one of the food stuffs is corned beef, for example, I'll offer options of corned beef hash with eggs, a sandwich, etc. I will do the same with whatever else should be used up in the next few days. Then Brad will decide what appeals to him that day and which dish should be served with what meal. The whole process takes two minutes at most.

The main advantage to me of daily planning is that food is constantly revolving and nothing is thrown out. Of course, sometimes Brad gets a craving, and I start defrosting. I generally make "too much" of a recipe and so whatever is defrosted will go on the list for suggestions for the next day's planning session.

If the idea intrigues you but you don't where to start, then feed the words "meal planning" into Google and sit back in amazement at the copious quantity of advice and assistance that's out there.

From the Toronto Star: Al Gore Changes His Tune on the Environment. He's apparently the 'preacher of doom and gloom' no more

From WorldNetDaily: Black student group vows bloodshed over Constitution [Ed: Wants it replaced with something that addresses the interests of blacks.]

From the Freeman: The Police Need Competition

From Popular Science: How We've Succeeded In Breaching The Blood-Brain Barrier At Last [Ed: a huge accomplishment.]

From Politico: How the Kochs launched Joni Ernst

From the International Man: Is It Time to Renounce U.S. Citizenship While You Still Can? [Ed: article says renunciations are up. That's correct but I expect the vast majority of 'ex-pats' just leave and don't file the paperwork.]

From the Federalist: Campus Insanity? Blame The Philosophers. [Ed: I am becoming a fan of Robert Tracinski...thanks to Brad pointing out his articles.]

From TechDirt: DOJ Has Blocked Everyone In The Executive Branch From Reading The Senate's Torture Report

From the Smoker's Club: Louisiana Officially Decriminalizes Cannabis Possession [Ed: I await the federal response.]

From Tech Crunch: On The Dark Matter Of The Publishing Industry [Ed: valuable because I am currently trying to figure out a strategy for e-publishing.]

From the Free Beacon: After Taxes, a $4,800 Salary Grants Nearly Same Take-Home Pay As a $21,000 Salary

From Neatorama: This Robot Keeps Store Shelves Full [Ed: cool] And it should be read in conjunction with this related article from USA Today: Fast-food workers strike, seeking $15 wage, political muscle

From spiked: Russian Olympic scandal, or dopey Western stunt?