Infrastructure bond issues and regional infrastructure banks

Missouri’s Department of Transportation (MoDoT) is laying off employees, closing facilities and selling some of its assets to make another over $500 million available for project funds for Missouri transportation by 2013. Additional federal funds for economic infrastructure are unlikely as part of any renewed efforts at economic stimulus. Some suggest that overseas corporate profits could fund an infrastructure bank. Despite the current economic situation states can use their own efforts to provide additional infrastructure funding in addition to making their state departments of transportation more lean and efficient. Perhaps groups of states may even establish regional infrastructure banks for the states to fund educational and economic infrastructure projects.  To the degree other financial incentives may be necessary to retaining present businesses and assuring the location of new businesses in a state, bond issues for economic and infrastructure development could be put to a vote of the people. Missouri had a vote for educational infrastructure under our late Governor Mel Carnahan when the governor supported a constitutional amendment to issue bonds for some $660 million for education. Missouri voters overwhelmingly supported the bond issue and our schools and state are better for it. California did this with a $10 billion investment in life sciences research. States may look at what was done in Missouri, California and elsewhere to see what worked and build upon it. [More . . . ]

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More Quotes . . .

Here's another batch of quotes I've collected over the past few months: We’ve already had campaign financial reform. It granted corporate personhood and unlimited anonymous campaign contributions. - Anon at Reddit.com If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal. - Emma Goldman He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. - Chinese Proverb Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy. Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary Our foreign policy is not something simply concocted by people in Washington, D.C., and then imposed on us. Our foreign policy may be concocted in Washington, D.C., but it reflects the perceptions of our political elite about what we the people want. And what we want, by and large, is to sustain the flow of very cheap consumer goods. We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they happen to be, in order to be able to drive wherever we want to be able to drive. And we want to be able to do these things without having to think about whether or not the books balance at the end of the month or the end of the fiscal year. And therefore, we want an unending line of credit. Andrew Bacevich Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. — Albert Einstein They only call it “class war” when we fight back. - anon I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on. - Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972) You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand. - Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924) Virtue is its own punishment. - Aneurin Bevan (1897 - 1960) You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. - Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. - Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988) A short saying oft contains much wisdom. - Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC)

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Music is like sex to the brain

New study on the pleasures of music reported by Discover Magazine:

[M]usic can activate the same reward circuits in the brain as food and sex. Participants listened to their songs of choice in a PET scanner, which detects the release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, and again in an fMRI scanner, which measures brain activity. The scans showed that just before feeling enjoyable chills in response to the music, listeners experienced a dopamine rush near the frontal striatum, a brain region associated with anticipating rewards, followed by a flood of dopamine in the rear striatum, the brain’s pleasure center. “It’s like you’re craving the next note,” Salimpoor says.
Here's the study. I've also noted from my "anthropological" visits to Christian churches (here, for example), that people tend to sense the presence of Jesus during those emotional peaks that occur in the middle of religious music.  You can tell, because people start waving their hands in the air during those emotion-inducing parts of the music.  I've also noticed that Jesus becomes more intense when a song modulates to a new key.  Seems that Jesus likes the same aspects of music as his human worshipers.

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Stephen Colbert…for the Supreme Court???

Bob Edgar, opinion contributor at POLITICO both pans and applauds Stephen Colbert's creation of Colbert Super PAC in this article: Stephen Colbert for Supreme Court justice! Mr. Edgar says:

The Super PAC launched Thursday by the satirist Stephen Colbert and blessed by the Federal Election Commission is a terrible idea. It makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws, inviting politicians of all stripes to launch their own Super PAC-linked TV "news" shows and then use those programs to raise buckets of money from corporations, labor unions and other special interests. It’s the sort of thing Common Cause has always been against. We hate it. And it’s positively brilliant!
But "...inviting politicians ... to launch their own... TV 'news' shows..."??? What if we flip it, and TV "news" shows launch their own politicians? Uh, oh. Too late.

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Tiny children playing big guitars

This video made me do a double-take. How are these children able to play such big guitars so well? The little girl in the middle is the one to watch extra closely. The music is certainly precisely played. For many years I taught guitar lessons, and I could never teach such a young child to confidently play a bar chord (you'll see a few of these in this video). I'm stunned and staggered and delighted to see and hear the music, but a little wary about how hard these children had to be pushed to reach this performance level. I'd love to know more about the teaching methods . . .

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