I can relate

This lady in a Trib article bought a vacation home in Park City because... 'When you travel with three small kids, a nanny and a housekeeper, you need all the conveniences.'

Boy, don't I know that! When we travel with the twins we couldn't imagine roughing it without a nanny, a housekeeper and a grocery store.

Salt Lake Tribune - Opulent getaways a big chunk of Park City's housing market; few mortgages are involved: ""

Good thing the SL Trib Editorial Board Doesn't Live in Georgia

Because their reaction to Gov. Perdue's prayer for rain given on the steps of the capitol would have been off the charts. (That is, if their indignation of Leavitt's early morning seminary classes in the Gov's mansion is any indication. )

Did the home teachers visit at the mansion too or did they have to go to a park or something?

There's got to be something I am missing here, but I am not sure what it is.

The trib's editorial board does good work, but I am not sure where they are coming from on this one.


Salt Lake Tribune - Leavitt's lessons: State archivist is right to keep those records open

Tough Questions from 4 Year Olds

Christmas brings difficult questions from 4 year olds (Can I have it? Why do Santa's reindeer fly?) But this year we got 2 tough questions.

First, the nature of the internet. Daddy, where did you get our game? We got it on the internet? Daddy, where's the internet? I'm thinking what do you say at this point? Well, it's a bunch of boring looking boxes with lots of wire coming out of them.

Second, we got them David Weisner's book Flotsam which includes a medium format film camera as a central story element. Daddy, what's film? Back in the old days, we used to take pictures with film now we use little cards. (Now I know what it feels like to feel old) Daddy, where do the pictures go on the little card? Do I say well, a special circuit senses light intensity in red, green or blue, converts the intensity to a number and the number is stored in memory.

Mormon Journalist Prof on Media Coverage of Mormonism

Joel Campbell gives an insightful analysis of media coverage of the LDS faith.

Apparently, journalists writing articles are supposed to give both sides of a discussion a chance to respond. Wow. Letting Mormons respond to claims about how non-Mormons define Mormons? Great idea.

Also, note how Campbell reveals his bias in the first paragraph.

Deseret Morning News | Mormon Media Monitor: Time to grade LDS coverage

Question for Mike Huckabee and for Baptists in General

Question for Huckabee: if elected, will you continue to preach a sermon every Sunday? The POTUS should be at Church most every Sunday. I like that idea. But I am still warming up to the idea of the POTUS giving sermons. It seems to erode the appearance of separation of church and state.

Question for Baptists: I understand that Mike Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister. I have to say that I don't really know what that means. As an ordained minister, has Huckabee made a commitment to preaching a sermon every Sunday? What else is involved in being an ordained Baptist minister which might affect his ability to serve as POTUS?

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker Huckabee unapologetic for religious tone �

New trail in Utah County Perfect for Winter

The Utah Lake trail, surprisingly, runs next Utah Lake on the east side of the lake. It's 1.75 miles each way and has lots and lots of sun which makes it perfect for those short winter runs on a sunny day.

I ran it earlier this week and guessed the length at 1.25 miles each way based on my time. Looks like my pace was either a little fast or the newspaper article didn't count the .50 miles that goes north to nowhere.

Daily Herald - New Utah Lake trail open to public

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker Huckabee denies subliminal Christmas message �

It's funny, but this was the first thing I thought too when I saw screen shot from the ad.

I'd really like to vote for Huckabee, I like his approach to dealing with critics, I like his personality as it comes out in the recent NY Times Magazine article. But at some point the guy's got to bring out some serious "this is what I'd do if elected" stuff and convince me that he can function as a POTUS.

CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker Huckabee denies subliminal Christmas message �

Rally around JM Bell (echoed from SLCSpin)

Thanks for the tip, Ethan. Now I've got a Militant Progressive t-shirt to wear to my next Utah County Republican Party Central Committee Meeting and a Militant Progressive coffee mug to put on my desk at BYU. Maybe I'll give the tshirt to my Democrat sister in Idaho.

I first met JM Bell yesterday when he took me to task for getting after Jon Krakauer without reading Under the Banner of Heaven. Apathy is, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems in politics right now. Jeff is clearly not part of the problem.

Get the credit card out and make something good happen here.

Jon Krakaur as a source on Mormonism? Seriously?

In her recent editorial on Romney and rant on Mormonism, Mitt’s No J.F.K. - New York Times, Maureen Dowd used Jon Krakauer as a source on us. Wow.

Calling Krakauer to get his opinion on the speech would be something like calling Dick Baer (just google his name, you'll get the picture. I didn't have time to find an objective source) to get his opinion on General Conference. But not quite as bad because in his quotes, Krakauer comes across as well-reasoned and rational.

Mitt's Speech

I was not embarrassed to be a Mormon. I can hold my head up high in political circles as a Mormon American after that sincere explanation of how patriotism and my religion might merge.

Megan on Hillary Clinton

While driving to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving last week, my 4 year old daughter Megan heard a clip of Hillary Clinton on the radio. It was a particularly shrill clip (Sean Hannity's replacement played it so I am sure it was impartial). Megan said "that's not a very nice person." I said "do you think she should be our next president?" She said "no Daddy."

So there you go. Megan would vote against Hillary. I guess I would too given the chance. But my vote would be based on politics and not neccesarily a sound bite on a far right conservative radio program.

My next $11,995 bike

Will definitely be one of these Arantix open lattice carbon-fiber bikes by Delta 7 sports. At 2.7 pounds for the frame, the frame itself weighs about 8 to 9 times less than my current low-end of the high-end mountain bike.

We have a bog in Orem?

Turns out that the recent stink in Orem is a bog fire burning out by Geneva Road.

PECASE awarded to professor at BYU

This is a very big deal. The PECASE ain't quite the Nobel Prize (congratulations Dr. Capecchi!), but it's the top award in the US for young faculty. Congratulations to Adam Wolley and the Chemistry/Biochemistry Dept. at BYU.

Memo to BYU students angry over parking

In a representative democracy, such as Provo, you need to vote. Otherwise, your only recourse is making angry statements about parking at city council meetings.

A $cout executive is...

Well-paid. And honestly, I have no problem with that. But if we could just file trip permit applications over the web and/or email, I'd be much happier. The IT infrastructure in my Council is just new maturing into web 1.0, sort of.

How change education in Utah, step 1

Step one is to go to your neighborhood caucus meeting and elect delegates which represent your views on education. Neighborhood caucuses (or is it caucii?) are held in March. You will know most of the people there, they will be your neighbors.

The caucus system puts a lot power at the grass roots level, the you have to go to your caucus meeting.

In the Post-Voucher Era

Let it not be said that Utah Republicans blindly follow their state party leadership like sheep.

Memo to George F. Will at the Washington Post

George:

Nice op-ed piece on the Utah voucher fray out in the wild-wild-west. In paragraph 6, you mention that Utah's pending population boom will bring many students into our already crowded school. The good Senator Bramble and the Chamber of Commerce radio ad raise the same issue. I am not convinced. Here's why:

But public education is funded by property tax. Won't those newcomers need somewhere to live? If we assume that they won't live in existing structures with existing residents, then new residences will need to be constructed for these newcomers. Won't that increase the tax base and increase property tax revenue?

Vouchers actually make the situation worse. According to the Voter Information Pamphlet, vouchers will cost the Utah tax payer an extra approx. $40,000,000 in 13 years (that's cost of voucher program minus savings to public ed.). So not only will we have to build more schools, we'll also have to pay more money to fund the voucher program.

The fun thing about vouchers is that it's a financially complex issue. I must be missing something. Somebody please tell me where I am wrong.

To What Extent do Vouchers Make Private School Affordable?

If tuition is $4,500 (the PCE number), vouchers have a significant impact on affordability across both family size and income. If tuition is $6,935 (a Deseret News number), vouchers have very little impact on affordability. I also did the numbers for sending my 2 kids to Ivy Hall at $5,600 per kid. Vouchers have a negligible impact in making Ivy Hall affordable for us (it's not, if you were curious).

Assumptions, model and detailed results given below. If you want the Excel spreadsheet to play with on your own, leave a comment below and I'll send you a copy.

The following graphs express the cost of vouchers as a percentage of annual income assuming that half of eligible children attend private school in a 2 parent home (except for single parent and single child homes). In the graph, the horizontal axis is annual family income. The vertical axis is number of children attending private school. The values on the vertical axis are 1, 1, 2, 3 (sorry for the lack of labels, my medicine kicked in and it happens to cause excruciating headaches and fatigue).

I decided that "affordable" means that tuition accounts for 5% or less of the family income. Affordable is colored blue. "Might be affordable" means that tuition is between 5 and 10% of the family income. Scenarios which might be affordable are colored orange. "Not affordable" means tuition is greater than 10% of the family income.

First up, we'll assume private school costs $4,500 per kid as assumed by Parents for Choice in Education.

Without vouchers, private school is affordable for only families making more than $110,000 and with less than 2.5 kids in private school. Not so good. Private school is maybe affordable for families making more than $60,000 a year and for larger families with more income.





The impact of vouchers on affordability with tuition at $4,500 is striking. With vouchers, all but large families with low income can afford or might be able to afford private school. Using the PCE tuition assumption, vouchers have a significant positive impact on affordability.

Next, we'll redo the numbers using the amended Deseret News numbers, which includes some kind of weighted average tuition which is $6,935.

If tuition is $6,935 then private school is affordable without vouchers only for small families making around $150,000 a year and might be affordable for small families making $70,000 or more.




Vouchers have little impact if tuition is $6,935. There's no significant change in families that can afford private school. Some small families making around $50,000 may be able to afford private school.

We happen to send our twins to a private preschool, all preschools are private so no sympathy cards are being played here, and I sanity-checked my affordability assumptions on our family budget. No problem. We'll send them to private kindergarten next year and kindergarten will be affordable because we'll make it affordable, but that's another story for another time ... maybe later this week depending on how things go.