For whatever reason, I never got the complete American High School education experience. Among other things, I missed the day where they taught that there are some problems that are just too big and too complex for me to figure them out. I *have* found some problems that were beyond me – but my default position is that if bright people have figured something out in the past – I ought to be able to get a solid grasp on it.

There’s a lot of talk about government budgets right now – what should be cut – what should be kept. A lot of people seem content to go with their sports loyalty driven “blue team” vs. “red team” understanding. That seems to work out to, “Obama says this is good, so yes,” as opposed to “Obama says this is good, so hell no.” My fear is that this model will lead to a lot of baby getting thrown out with the bathwater.

Let’s dig into a specific example.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the government sponsored corporations that implement government support of home mortgages. They’re a special kind of corporation, created by congress, to do a specific thing in the economy. The way it works is pretty straightforward:

* The FM’s define the sorts of mortgages that they support, and guarantee that they’ll buy mortgages that conform to their rules.
* Banks go out and issue mortgages under those rules (“conforming” mortgages)
* Banks swap those mortgages around with great confidence, knowing that should they need to unload the mortgages, the government has their back.

Of course, we all know what happened: The rules about issuing mortgages were either too loose or were not followed closely enough. This was a combination of old fashioned greed and poor regulation. Lots of loans were issued that the borrowers could never pay back. Greedy salesmen took signatures from greedy buyers and backed it up with cash from banks who were too busy cashing their profits to bother checking the math. Vast amount of bad debt was created and stuffed into all corners of the economy. Shit went south, and now we’re gonna change everything to make sure It Never Happens Again.

So, what happens if we simply abolish the FM’s?

1.1) Banks will now have to negotiate with each other and / or hold on to their own damn mortgages.
1.2) There will be no central clearing house of rules for loans.

Taken together, this means that:

2) Mortgages (and most loans) become harder to get. It’ll be harder to qualify for a loan and the interest rates will be higher. You’ll wind up giving a blood sample for your mortgage – and you’ll pay a higher interest rates and upfront fees.

However:

3) People will still have to sell their houses.

Whether it’s divorce, death, relocation, or whatever – there is a constant flux in the real estate market. Some people simply don’t have an option about selling – and so they’ll take what they can get. The buyers will be having a harder time raising money, so two things will happen:

4.1) The housing market will “cool off.” Houses will take longer to sell.
4.2) Housing values will drop. The same house will consistently bring less money. The same person will buy the same house, but they’ll only qualify for a smaller mortgage – and eventually the seller will take what’s offered.
4.3) Until housing values finish dropping, more people will rent than own.

Note that none of this is inherently good or bad thing. It’s just one option out of many.

So when you say “get government out of the mortgage market,” you’re supporting dropping housing prices, cooling the housing market, and renting rather than owning. That will *feel* like large money losses, particularly for those of us who hold mortgages right now. However, you’re also going to reduce the perception of the housing market as a money maker – which I think is a good thing.

I think that there are some things that are too important to society to have them serve as engines of profit. I include the basics: housing, medical care, basic food provision for the masses, basic education, and so on. Note that this doesn’t mean “let’s make them into pure social programs.” I’m a big believer in market forces. It’s just that if housing is important enough to regulate – then don’t regulate it for the benefit / profit of the wealthy … regulate it for the the benefit of the majority.

There’s a social engineering aspect here as well. America “supports home ownership.” That’s partly because people who own a house tend to take better care of it and to give more of a damn about their neighborhood than renters. So, we’ve supported home ownership because we like communities of home owners. I’m a fan of that. The other social engineering aspect is that we keep trying to trick our citizenry into saving enough money for retirement. I think that as long as we encourage home ownership – that takes care of itself. You don’t tend to sell your house for retirement, you tend to live in it.

I’ve begun a bit of a project now that the massive new brew kettle is fully armed and operational.

I’ve got Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery. I’m going to make an effort to brew each of the recipes from the book at least once. This will likely take a few years – but I’m in no particular hurry.

Today’s example is a brown ale. It’s quite strong, perhaps 8% ABV – and is taking its own sweet time about carbonating. Still – it’s a big and well balanced beer – and I think that most anyone who likes beer of any sort will like this one. Its codename is “brownout,” for the brown ale, the rolling power outages of summer, and also for the vague feeling of “woah,” that one might get from jumping straight in on 8% ABV beers. Not a full on blackout mind you – but still worth noticing.

Down in the basement, I have my first real lager. It’s the Peppercorn Rye Bock. The flaked rye was a massive pain to work with – yeilding a sort of gelatinous mass after extraction. The beer itself, however, smells great. It’s perking along at 52 degrees on the floor of the basement. I expect to have to let it ferment in primary for another week and a half. After that I’ll have to decide whether to do a secondary – or just bottle it. I’m leaning towards just bottling it – assuming that I can get a clean siphon. It’s got a lot of sludge on the bottom of the carboy.

I’m also taking the opportunity to re-visit my whole brewing technique:

I’ve already given up on fancy bottled water for my beer. I used to use only Poland Springs. Now, I use the city tap water. That’s actually the source of my imprimatur: “Dorchester’s Best.” It’s the tap water.

With the upgraded kettle, I can do “full” boils. This just means that I boil four and a half to five gallons of wort for a five gallon recipe. My old pot held only five gallons, so a rolling five gallon boil in that thing would have been a sticky mess in no time.

The new pot has a built in thermometer, which means that I can finally ditch the floating one. This is an unconditional win – since I never really enjoyed the burns on my fingers from grabbing the damn thing out of the pot anyway.

I’ve been using a small grain mill attachment for the kitchen aid mixer. It works okay, but I have to sort of hack it – since the thing is designed to produce flour, not cracked grain.

I have a large metal “tea ball” that works wonderfully for whole leaf hops.

I still use the copper immersion chiller rather than waiting literally forever for a batch to cool down to pitching temperature.

Today’s headline reads that A recent spike in the price of oil has many wondering how high it will go, and what the fallout could be to a vulnerable recovery in the United States. While I’m all in favor of self serving navel gazing in the small (look mom, I have a blog!), I must protest just a tiny bit at beginning the monetization of the revolution while people are still dying in the streets. I know the Oscars are on and all, but could you please just glance up and see the history being made in the streets?

No? Carry on then.

Of course, this is not the beginning of the monetization. The smart people “shorted” oil as soon as protesters walked into the public square in Egypt. The smart people are way ahead of this game. Excuse me, I need to go shift more of my money into the “whatever Fidelity tells me to do, I trust you,” fund. Of course, the smart people also shorted Bernie Madoff and then let him run as long as he could. When you’re betting in favor of catastrophe, it pays well to lean back and have a nice cigar while the catastrophe marinates.

Similarly, war is good for business except when it’s bad for business. Wait, wait, I’ll get it – give me a sec – liberals are a little slow. It’s good for business when WE START IT. In Egypt, at least we sold them the tear gas canisters. I guess that’s something. However, when brown people kill brown people – it’s hard for the US to profit directly.

Darn that mid-east democracy. Cutting out the middleman.

I went sledding this afternoon. Like, hardcore sledding. Sledding on a former ski slope. Sledding like God only dreams of sledding. Thanks to MS for agreeing to play hookey with me – and for providing the plan, the sleds, and the helmets.

American conservatives are half right: America is in decline today due to a broad failure of personal responsibility. However, they’re wrong on a very important detail. While it’s important to take responsibility for yourself – I think it’s equally important to develop a sense of personal obligation and a responsibility for helping other people. Yes, you are responsible to take care of yourself as best you possibly can. I expect everyone who is able to support themselves to do so. However, in addition to that, I say that it is also our responsibility to help our neighbors. This is true regardless of whether they ‘deserve’ it to any extent.

The main fallacy of modern American conservatives (at least the mouthy ones) might be summed up as “I got mine, screw you.” To be more polite, it’s usually stated along the lines of, “I worked hard and sacrificed for what I have, why should I give any of that up for people who didn’t work as hard as me?” This shows up in the tea party gripe about “confiscatory” taxation, but also in callous attitudes toward all sorts of suffering. Blame for suffering or want lies squarely with the sufferer. The illegal immigrant should have been born here if they wanted better opportunities. They broke the law, you know? They get what’s coming. The single mother should have known better than to get raped at age 14. Did you hear that daddy’s little girl wears a ‘promise ring?’ The drug addict should have thought harder before getting hooked. The impoverished old person should have saved more during her working years. Social security was only ever intended to cover a third of post-retirement needs!

Note that I’m not talking about expanding any particular social program here. I’m very specifically not talking about whatever proposed increase in government spending is lighting up the airwaves today. That’s where American Liberals tend to fail – they want things done – but they don’t want to do them personally. They would (to make a broad generalization) rather pay at the door than get their hands dirty. Somehow “the society” should be generous – but without any need for too much up-close-and-personal individual generosity. In this worldview, blame for ‘the plight of the poor’ lies with large scale social forces. It never seems to come down to helping that one individual person, the one right over there. We hear a lot of talk about tidal pressures of society – about institutional racism and sexism – but surprisingly little talk about personal sacrifice and involvement.

At our best, we are a nation of people who stop at traffic accidents and see if anyone needs help. Our heroes are the people who step in and wrestle criminals to the ground – the people who run into burning buildings to save people they don’t even know. Our ‘greatest generation’ put their lives on hold to save other nations from totalitarian, genocidal invaders – and then turned around and rebuilt the continent ravaged by war. While those were large scale efforts, I think that the property that makes them so compelling is the level of volunteerism in society as a whole. The level to which we stepped up to improve our own lives – and the lives of those around us.

When people talk about America being ‘great,’ they mean a lot of different things. The best of these involve world leadership in science, technology, human rights, etc.. The worst involve a mindless sort of rabid-sports-fan loyalty.

So my point: At our best, we take things personally. We step in to make things right – even when we don’t have to – and even if nobody else seems to give a damn. I strongly suspect that if we develop this better part of our nature, that a lot of the little problems will get solved – as if by magic – along the way.

Okay, so the trip is real. Tickets have been purchased. I’m totally confident that I can work the clutch and the brakes on this machine until about noon on Saturday. That’s a good 36 hours about which I have confidence. Better than usual.

On Friday we take a plane from Boston to Santo Domingo in the DR. We’re staying at a Quality Inn near the airport overnight – meeting the rest of the team there. 15 of us. 5 physicians, 2 nurses, and the rest of us. Most have been to Haiti before. In the morning, we’re hiring a driver (or two …) to get us from Santo Domingo to the Jimani (pronounced “Jimminy”) border crossing.

That that point we hit one of the truly major make or break points on the trip: We expect that the Family Health Ministries van will meet us at the border crossing. They’re also bringing a truck for the supplies – as well as guards. Okay, they’re probably just bringing guys we know. That’s better than nothing.

I fully expect that we’ll get to sit and stare at the border crossing for a couple of hours, hoping that our transport shows up. It’s gonna be an awesome period during which I learn a lot about the moral constitution of my teammates.

Nervous? Me? Nah.

Assuming that the truck shows, we’re planning to arrive in Blanchard (AKA Terre Noir), just North West of the Port Au Prince airport on Saturday evening. We’ll go to church on Sunday. Yes yes, I know. I’m an atheist. However, perhaps (in the words of the New York Times) “a God who never answers is better than nothing.” Also, the faith of the people I’ve met in Haiti is real, applied, and useful to them. Better than most anything I saw growing up in the suburbs.

Either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning we’ll start seeing patients. At that point, things go totally off the map. I received a forwarded email (via my dad) from a man who was in country last week. Here’s a representative chunk:

spent the bulk of last week working in an orphanage that we turned into a hospital down the road from the real hospital where the surgeons did non stop surgery. lots of ortho trauma, neuro and spine trauma, open wounds, burns, blunt and open trauma to chest, abdomen, pelvis and extremities, crush injuries to just about every part of the body,despair of families split apart searching among the wounded for each other etc…..we put in 12-14 hr days and shifts. teams from all over the world converged at our clinic and hospital which was right on the border of haiti and the dom rep.

He continues, after a bit more detail:

these beautiful people are truly amazing despite the devastation of their country and have a silent dignity that i can not do justice to by trying to describe with mere words. the survivors were mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, etc and from all walks of life from carpenters and ship captains to lawyers, doctors, poets, authors, masons, bussiness owners all left with nothing at home but complete devastation.

He was at the border. We’re headed for the core. On the other hand, we’re a week later. We may well be able to run an ambulatory care clinic and refer off to the hospital ship. Who knows? I just really hope to not have to do amputations with no sedation. Hell, I would really like to maintain my lifetime record of “zero” instances where I had to take a knife to human flesh.

Nervous? Me? Nah.

What I do know is that we’re packing food for a week, clothing for 90 degree weather, and all the supplies we can fit into our two x fifty pound checked luggages. I’m treating this as a BYO medical practice. It’s gonna be awesome. In addition to bandages, splints, pain meds, and so on – I’m adding things like knives, basic sets of tools, tarps, and so on.

We’ll work as long as we can, through Friday, and then make our way back to the part that I’m actually the most nervous about: Getting from the border back to Santo Domingo.

I’m looking for a Satellite Internet connection. Seems to be a mere matter of about $100 bucks to rent the gear for two weeks, and then something like $8 per MB. Yikes. Still, I would very much like to be able to post while I’m out there.

I’m also looking for ideas. If you have ideas on topics ranging from personal security, to useful tools to bring, to how to best help these people: I would love to hear them.

Ran into a human this evening. Thought I would share.

His name is George, he works the late shift at the liquor store around the corner from the hotel where I’m living this week.

He had just mopped the floor when I came in. He told me this stunningly ordinary fact. I said “hey, I don’t think I tracked in too much crap.” He was like “I don’t care about that, man, I just don’t want you to fall.”

Silence reigned for about a minute while I looked at the shelves.

He asked “what are you looking for this evening?”

I replied “happiness, same as most evenings.”

“Aren’t we all. What do you you usually like?”

I don’t know why I broke out of the script at that point – but I went sideways: “Well, I’ve got a brown ale fermenting at home now – so maybe something that reminds me of home.”

He went with it: “I’ve got 10 gallons of IPA in secondary. Do you do all-grain or extract?”

And we were off. We talked about brewing, about his time in the Marine Corps, about family, about friends. He pushed me to a chocolate stout, but I went with the hyper-local belgian style ale. He’s working in single gallon batches on a hard apple cider recipe for next year. I shared my friend’s time tested approach.

We talked for about 20 minutes – then a raft of other customers came in for last call and I paid up and left.

Pay attention – you never know when you might run into another human being.

After the last round of brewpot upgrades, I decided to take it to the next level (perhaps, the next – next level?) and install a dial face thermometer in the beast. This required only a half inch hole in the pot, and was pretty straightforward. Along the way, a 1/8″ drill bit gave its life for the cause:

I am saddened to report on the end of the internet. It has achieved its purpose, and may now be shut down. What we have here is dudes in dinosaur costume, playing glam rock. Not just any glam rock, mind you, but a lullaby to the last mammoth.

A loose translation, courtesy of paleochick:

"Brushing his long hair
Blowing his trunk as well
He cleans his tusks
On top of the cold permafrost
He lays down his great and mighty head
And straightens his tail
The wind blows
All land covered in snow
He falls asleep under the tree
Good night, the last mammoth
It's time to go to sleep
Good night, the last mammoth
You will be remembered"

It’s time to go to sleep. Good night, the last mammoth. You will be remembered.

Yeah, I think that our work here is done.

I made a pretty significant upgrade to my brewing rig yesterday.

I make my beer in five gallon batches. Because my biggest pot had a five gallon capacity, I had to use what’s called the “partial boil” technique. This means that I would boil perhaps 3 gallons of water – plus all the other ingredients. At the end of the brewing process, I would transfer everything to the primary fermenter (a six gallon bucket) and top it up to five gallons from the tap. There are a couple of potential problems with this. One was sanitation: I could either boil and then cool a couple extra gallons in a second pot, or else take the risk of contamination from un-boiled water. Another problem was more subtle – experienced brewers claim that partial boil leads to darker, more burnt tasting beers – something to do with the ratio of surface area to volume on the pot.

In any event, an upgraded brew kettle was the next logical step in my hobby. Jen provided the incentive / excuse with a holiday gift, the weldless kettle valve, that would allow me to drain five gallons of liquid without lifting and tipping the pot. This is a huge advantage for the solo brewer. Five gallons of beer is about 40 pounds of unwieldy, potentially sticky stuff. A little spillage is unavoidable when you’re brewing – but so far I’ve managed to avoid catastrophic batch loss.

An aside: This was the year of small gifts that led to a big, geeky, moderately expensive upgrade and days of blissful hobbyshopping.

I went to the local brewing store and picked up a 30 quart (7.5 gallon), stainless steel pot, as well as the ingredients to do the Brown Ale from Sam Calagione‘s book. I’ve decided to work through the recipes in that book, in order, to expand my repertoire. For the record, mad props to the staff at Homebrew Emporium. It’s a store run by, and for, people who make our own beer. I walked in intending to go minimal and purchase the 24 quart pot. Two different employees stopped me and said, basically, “look – you’re scaling up. We’ve been there. Soon you’ll be doing all-grain recipes. The 30 quart pot is what you want – and we’ll give a 5% discount so they’re the same price. You seriously want the extra space.”

I then went to Home Depot and tried to find the equipment to drill through stainless steel. I had to put a hole in the pot for the valve to go through. The hole had to be 7/8″, which is BIG for metal rated drill bits. I wound up getting a decent set of carbide bits that top out at 1/2″, and a single 7/8″ that explicitly does not support stainless. I took the opportunity to upgrade my ear protection as well. That was a good idea.

The procedure for drilling through stainless steel is as follows:

* Mark a starter notch so the bit won’t “walk”
* Go slow. If you see smoke, that’s bad. The steel will “work harden” and turn black if overheated. Also, you’ll ruin your drill bit.
* Use heavy pressure.
* Use lots of lubricant.
* Drill a small starter hole, and work up incrementally to the actual hole.

So I started here:

Drilled and cussed and sweated. Stainless is some tough and unforgiving stuff!

And finally got the thing right and installed!

Amazingly enough, for anyone who has seen me work with actual physical tools, it held water!

The only appropriate way to celebrate this sort of victory is to use it. A friend gave me some insulation a while ago that he had used to conserve fuel while camping. I made a little jacket out of it. I have no idea how much this helps – but I was able to sustain a good rolling boil on a single burner of my stove.

One other upgrade was to use a “rice ball” instead of a muslin sack to hold the whole leaf hops. Beer is basically grain soup, infused with hops. This let me get the hops back out of solution without a bunch of filtering.

Once the batch was done and cooled, the valve came in very handy! Usually at this point I have to pour the wort through a filter into a bucket, and then through a funnel into a carboy. Instead, I used a length of high temperature silicone tubing and just shoved it in the threaded attachment of the valve. I was dubious – but it worked fine. No fancy attachments required!

Fermentation kicked off almost immediately, and it’s happily doing its thing!