Laissez faire, already

Y'know, after the steel bailout, farm bailout, nationalization of the TSA, energy company bailoutand now the finance bailout and perhaps an automotive manufacturer bailout (and probably a dozen other things that I forgot about), perhaps it's time to recognize that anytime anyone accuses the Bush Administration of pursuing a policy of laissez faire, we should point out the obvious:

Straight Outta Wasilla

Incidentally, while listening to CNN at lunch today, they went to a commercial with a teaser about Palin in 2012. I remarked that she would be better off taking the $2M from Playboy. Who the hell needs that campaign headache twice in one lifetime?

Someone asked if I thought they would pay that much. Someone else said, "Hell yeah, and I'd buy it." As the others reacted with disbelief, he pointed out that she's better looking than most women that age with that many kids.

True dat. But if all else fails, Larry Flynt would probably recast Nailin Palin.

Public transit as lesson in cryptanalysis

Every time we ended up in a new city (Brussels, Paris, Rothenburg, Prague, Berlin, Potsdam, Amsterdam), we faced the task of decrypting the local public transit coding system. Here's how it works:

1. Figure out where you are (here). You also have to figure out closest access point to the transport system.
   
2. Figure out where you are going (there). Then figure out where the transport system comes closest to there.
   
3. Figure out what transport or combination will get you from here to there. The answer will be a set of letters and numbers (Bus 175, U-bahn 3, S-bahn 4, Tram 3, RE 29552, etc.)
   
4. Since most of these transports go in two directions (northbound buses have a southbound return), you also need to figure out how that is coded. Usually, it is in the form of the terminus, so you have"4 Stalle P" or "4 Esplanade" for your options on the #4 metro in Brussels. Usually, Those termini can be located on a map. When they are not (for example, because the terminus is outside the area of the map), you must figure out some other means of deciding which identifier to use. Good luck with this latter method; I suggest you memorize the regional history and geography. Unsuccessful decodes of this trick occasionally result in hopping off at the first stop after the error is detected and getting on the opposite direction. For that reason, day passes are frequently a much better deal than single- or finite-trip tickets.
5. Then you need to figure out the connection points (stops and transfers). In some areas, this isn't too bad, but in Prague it basically meant memorizing random strings of quasi-latin characters mixed with lots of diacriticals. In most foreign places, the place names don't hold much meaning and the letters are sometimes awkward, so this step frequently means counting the number of stops.
   
6. Then you need to figure out the track, platform, dock, or whatever where you meet each transport. Frequently, this also meant figuring out the local word for "track" or "dock" (e.g. "gleis" in Germany). Bus and tram stops may be on opposite sides of the street, 100 m apart. Metro (subway) stops are in different areas of the underground structure, depending on direction.
   

Since we were frequently on the move, we had to decode these things as we went. The biggest challenge was Prague; the easiest was (surprise?) Paris. The most effective system, thought, seemed to have been Berlin. The drivers in the Amsterdam trams were very helpful, but the system (as noted below) seems overall very inefficient.

A few things helped with the decoding process:

• Maps. Cities with a large numbers of tourists should put detailed maps at every site. There ought to be an easy way for tourists to obtain maps. A coin-op vending machine inside the vehicle and at major connection points, for example. And these maps should include not only the system map (great for planning a trip), but a geographical map showing the city with the system superimposed so that you can find your way from real places to the transit system stops. The first time I was in Paris, someone stood at the train platform and handed out bus maps, but I couldn't find one to save my life this time. Prague in particular seems to have something against maps; you can't even find a good system map on their metro system website.[1] They have a route planner tool, but no map. Very rarely did I see a decent map at one of the tram stops. Germany and Belgium both seemed to do a very good job of including not only a system map at each stop, but a map of the area above the subway station so that you can pick the best exit.
  
• Visual indicators of destinations: At the stairwells to all of the Paris metro stations, where you take the final flight to the platform (which means that you select your direction by taking that set of stairs), they list the approaching stops. This was really handy since after a while I recognized both terminus (termini?) names but could no longer remember which one was which direction; the list of stops was a quick reminder and as a bonus you could usually see your stop and count off how many. Similar devices were found in buses and trams, but this is very inconsistent: some have nothing at all, some have a map showing the overall system (but you don't know which direction you are going until you get to the next stop), some have a live display that shows where you are and what is coming up. You could get 3 different vehicles on the same route and see all three methods.
  
• Visual indicators of arrivals: Notices at each stop that signal how long until the next transport. Paper timetables are minimally acceptable (at least you can figure out how frequently they come), but electronic displays give you some confidence that something is actually coming. In Prague, we were the victim of a construction-driven diversion; the signs were all in Czech, so we could tell something was going on, but didn't know how long we should wait for a tram that might never come.
• Directions to/from hotels and major train stations and airports detailing which transports and which direction.

Finally, you have to figure out how to get tickets and to validate them. In some places, you validate on the bus or tram, other places you validate at the station or platform. In some places, you can easily buy 24 hour or multiple day passes, other places you get multiple trip passes. Figuring the local system out was another game requiring decoding.

The absolute stupidest thing we saw in Prague was that the machines that give tram tickets only accept coins, the ATM only gives bills, and nobody seems to want to give change. Luckily, I had some warning about this problem so I knew to go to work on it instead of standing around looking for an easily accessible solution. To date, the best luck I have ever had with the ticket problem was the NYC subway, which allowed me to fill day passes with my ATM card, no cash required. I think something similar was available in Paris, but it wouldn't take my card for some reason (odd, since it worked every where else).

The system in Amsterdam was equal parts good and bad. First, the information desk inside the Centraal [sic] station was of little help in finding our tram. She insisted everything was outside, to the left, by the white building. Outside, to the left, some trams but not all, no white building. After a while, we got curious about something going on further to the left and discovered -- on the far side of some construction walls -- a white building and more tram stops. I guess the people at the info desk don't come through the front and don't realize that the white building, which perhaps they are used to seeing, is no longer visible?

In any case, you buy a 15 trip strip card. Every time they stamp it, though, they stamp 2 trips per adult (with manual time stamper). So, it's really a 7.5 trip ticket. Why not call it that? Then, to make matters worse, everyone getting on the tram conducts a miniature negotiation with the "driver" (the brake and accelerator operator: it's on rails), which is really inefficient. There is, however, a staffed kiosk in the rear of the tram; why they don't automatically direct everyone who doesn't have a pass to that, I don't know. However, it was really handy to have someone to conduct ticket sales and to ask directions. And the driver was sure to point out your stop if you told him where you were going during your negotiation.

Anyhow, in case it isn't obvious, I really enjoyed the challenge of learning each system and having the opportunity to do so much comparative study of organizations in a compressed period of time.

-------------------------------------
[1] I noticed in the old photographs at the Museum of Communism (above McDonalds and a casino, across from Benetton) that many street signs were burned during the Prague Spring, a step which makes it harder for, say, unfriendly tourists in tanks to find their way around. Perhaps the aversion to public maps is a leftover from their recently traumatic history?

Chuck and Bruce

No, this is not a post about the new marriage thing in Kali. There's apparently some speculation on who would win a fight between Bruce Schneier and Chuck Norris.

Yes, Chuck can divide by 0 by using a roundhouse kick, while Bruce is known to have counted to infinity -- several times! -- in search of prime numbers greater than infinity (of which he knows several). Still, the outcome of single combat between them seems obvious:

As the two titans square off, Lemmy apparates into the battlefield, reduces them to squirming masses of flesh by yelling at them to get back to using their powers for the good of mankind, then smokes a pack of Marlboros through a bong filled with Jack Daniels, drinks the bong, makes sweet love to three or four groupies, and goes back on tour.

Ch. Duh!

Shorter Ezra Klein

Everyone who disagrees with me is immoral, stupid, or insane.

Perhaps he might try a pledge?

I don't feel tardy

I think the exchange below reveals a problem with the blogging form. People were quick to respond, so quick in fact that I think they forgot to stop and think about what they were reacting to (I'm frequently guilty of it myself [1]). Writing is better than conversing for developing complex ideas. Blogging is better than print media because it's interactive. But sometimes, blogging comes awfully close to being like conversation: so interactive that complex ideas get distilled to pablum.

Godwin's Law, anyone?

This is my paraphrase of an exchange between Brad Delong (BD), Daniel Davies (DD), and Tyler Cowen (TC). MF is Milton Friedman, DA is David Asman (an interviewer).

DA: What say you about the Patriot Act?
MF: The sooner we can get rid of it and out of it, the better.

BD: MF is against the Un-Patriot Act.

DD: MF is lying. Liberal economists aren't intellectually honest. Don't ask how I know, I just do.

TC: No, I'd like to know how you know. For example, did you talk to them about it?
DD [from the MR comments]: TC didn't talk to me about my post. I might have meant something different than what I wrote.

DD's comment is right, his words might differ from his thoughts. Unlikely as it seems, he might have been joking, signaling, countersignaling, acting strategically, etc. In which case he affirms TC's point: we should state the basis for our claims when we claim to know what other people "really" mean, especially if those claims are opposed to what they themselves say they mean. But if TC is right and DD agrees with him on this point, it seriously undermines the other part of the exchange:

MF: Kerry's plan is bad.

DD: MF is pro-Republican. I know because he signed the statement.

How does DD know that MF is not joking, acting strategically, or acting on some other motive in this case? Because people always mean what they say? Interesting Ouroboros.

While Delong and Davies were locked in a debate about debating, Cowen's proposal stimulated a heated exchange between Davies and a swarm of Friedman defenders. [2] The resulting comment exchange (as you may have read by now) lacked reflection. It even included this curious statement:

MH: TC [but not DD!] is claiming to have mindreading abilities.

Now, since it was clearly the case that DD was making claims to know what MF "really" meant, and TC who was asking for evidence, the accusation is aimed at the wrong target. Huben is smarter than that; in fact, he himself has rightly called for Tyler to produce evidence in this exchange. I attribute Mike's misfire in the MF/DD debate to an overdeveloped desire not only to combine his trademark rhetoric and site-promotion, but also and perhaps mainly to get in a point in the debate while it was still going.

I too was at first tempted to accuse Tyler of invoking the "Nuh-uh, prove it" gambit, but after going through the linked articles and trying to understand what he was getting at, I realized that he was saying that it would be good if people provided actual evidence when they made claims of intent which were divergent from their public statements ("really want"). By "personal anthropological evidence", he meant that anything would do, even a casual conversation.

I'd like to propose a new research convention. Anytime a writer or blogger talks about what The Right or The Left (or some subset thereof) really wants or means, I'd like them to list their personal anthropological experience with the subjects under consideration.

Rather than engaging in the Friedman debate, Mike's comment is an adult version of the mid-schooler's playground "Nuh-uh, #$%" [3] retort. And my claim is not so much that this is Hubenesque as it is blogesque. The quick exchange, the desire to participate in the game, the pressure to avoid being "late to the party" (as I'm sure you must have surmised about this post) drive blogging to be more like conversing (or, in this case, yelling) than like a modern Battle of the Books.

Take a look through the comments on some of the popular blogs and note how most of them appear within a day or two of the original posting. That's understandable for a posting that covers some current and fleeting event. But very rarely does anyone comment after that even when the original posting is of a timeless nature. I find that unfortunate.

The only exception of which I know is my wife's site. Her site is educational rather than polemical, so perhaps it is a special characteristic of that type of blog. Also, she intentionally cultivates the practice not only with the recent comments listing, but also by posting weekly summaries of the archives from one and two years ago. Why does nobody else do this? The lack of backward reflection makes blogging like the Mission Impossible assignment tapes that self-destruct after one playing.

And yes, I hate the fact that the Haloscan comments on this site do not link to the original post. I only put them up there for the backward reflectiveness, but it turns out to have been completely pointless because you can't see what they link to. Maybe one day I'll grow up and make a real website out of what started out to be a personal experiment.


---------------------
[1] See how Brad Delong rightly dressed me down in this exchange. Ah, if only I had read the linked article instead of the post title.

[2] In the end, I had to admire Davies for sticking it out, but the lists of Friedman's criticisms of the GOP (Ben and Patrick Sullivan, IIRC) were never explained away, and DD never provided the requested evidence of obfuscation. Personally, I'm not familiar enough with MF to know whether DD was correct, but by the psuedo-syllogism offered above, I'd say that even if the facts were on his side, he hasn't produced them. Barkley Rosser gets the prize for only person actually engaged in substantive, civil debate.

[3] By "#$%", I am mean the classic, quick, thoughtless, playground insult of my generation, used by me here for brevity of example/paraphrase. I suspect that the modern invocation is "bitch" or worse. Mike's actual name-calling and rhetorical loading in this instance included the following names or insinuations: hoot (interpret how you will), pretension, fraud, pomposity, arrogance, elitism, clairvoyance, sycophancy, ineptitude, and dogmatism. Getting all of that within two paragraphs is impressively efficient, but comes at the expense of actual substance.

Leverage this!

I sat through a presentation at a meeting last week in which the speaker, a really smart guy with an advanced engineering degree, kept using the word "leverage" as a verb. And I don't mean just in its normal-but-flaccid sense, but as a stand-in for just about every verb you can think of. He was making the case for an open source software project or at least standards which we could "leverage" (okay, I kind-of-see where that is going), but at one point he was saying just the opposite: "Companies are leveraging their own software because they can't find what they want though they would gladly use something else." How can you obtain the advantage of a lever from something which a lever would work against?

I mean, I thought "signage" was bad, but Chuy[1], this is getting out of control. My other language pet peeve is "preventative maintenance": it is not maintenance undertaken for the purpose of preventation, is it? No, it's undertaken for prevention. We are not trying to preventate anything.

Leverage is a thing, not an action. If you want to move something, you use a lever. When you have mechanical advantage, that state is called leverage. You do not leverage a boulder with a stick, yet that is exactly the way it was sometimes used in its quasi-understandable phase. I think the verb is actually, "to lever", though "to move" or "to heave" seem much less awkward. Nowadays, leverage simply means "to use". Why not just use, "use"?

I'm not the only person having this conniption/observation.

---------------

[1] In Mexican-American culture, Chuy is the preferred nickname for men named Jesus, as in, "Que haria Chuy?" [2]

[2] Apologies to Mr. White, my 7th grade Spanish teacher. Clearly, there should be an accent over the "e" in Que and the "i" in haria, but I fear it would not display well in all browsers [3].

[3] Mr. White, through no fault of his own, did not anticipate these problems, otherwise I would still retain that information, too.

Incidentally

This line:

This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

never fails to draw a chuckle from me. In context, it is a perfectly reasonable response.

Talk radio

I drive a lot, and when I get bored with NPR (which I support; I have even been in the StoryCorps ... ah, "studio") I will listen to AM talk radio. That's about once or twice a week, rarely the same show, so I've heard all of these people, but not frequently. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but haven't figured out how to organize it. I am also finding myself in conflict with The Pledge. So what follows is a quasi-random set of observations to which I hold no particularly strong affinities (i.e. you could convince me I'm wrong):

• Bill O'Reilly: Very opinionated, very populist, fairly informed, sometimes contrarian, but succumbs easily to confirmation bias. I've mentioned his economic illiteracy before. I'm not sure why he has a co-host - she's worse than Ed McMahon.
  
• Michael Medved: incredible memory for political, legal, and historical fact, but condescending and occasionally uses the loaded question trick [1]. I think he gets contrary views more often than others, though they are sometimes not very bright. He also brings on contrary guests, which is very fair. I was convinced he was gay when I first started listening; I'm not convinced now that he is not.
  
• Rush Limbaugh: occasionally funny but frequently whiny and obtuse. Too bad he hasn't learned his lesson about The War on (Certain People who Use Certain Kinds of) Drugs. The bumper commercials and satire are great and we need a left-wing version of them, but once a month is enough to catch up on the latest satires. His concept of the "drive-by media" is accurate; that should be resonant with everyone, no matter what part of the political space you occupy. I used to like Walter Williams' guest host spots, but he seems to cover the same material every time.
  
• Sean Hannity: maddeningly single-minded. I would totally believe that he gets a talking points memo every morning. Uses the loaded question trick almost exclusively when he has a caller who disagrees. I do a great impression of him.
  
• Dr. Laura: My father used to apologize to the radio if he accidentally let her on. I don't understand why anyone would subject themselves to the humiliation of calling in. "Hi, Dr. Laura, I'm a lesbian who is living with both my lover and the father of my child. They don't seem to be getting along, and I'm afraid my son is caught in the middle, so I was wondering: should I ask my mom to move in with us so she can help keep the peace while I run my Teenangel Tattoo and Tanning business?"
• Jim Villanucci: A local in Albuquerque, I think he's on after Rush and therefore instead of Hannity (thank God). Interesting, entertaining, sometimes very contrarian.
  
• Dr. Dean Edell: Although he has that "I'm a highly trained doctor, so you're probably not going to understand this huh-huh-huh" attitude, he is generally very good. The entertainment value, though, is mostly in the things that people call in with and make you think, "yeah, what is the deal with that?!"
  
• Michael Savage: Completely unpredictable. I used to think badly of him, now I think he's laugh-out-loud funny (not always intended on his part). One day he may be defending Bush as the defender of borders, language, and culture against the "depraved commies" who defend the Islamonazis, the next day he may be ripping him as the Amnesty President and then go off and listen to some rockabilly music or talk about birds in the park. If Hillary is elected, I plan to buy a radio, tune it to Savage, turn it up, and break the dials off so I can answer the koan, "What does a supernova sound like?"
  
• Michael Reagan: Just some guy, really. Not entertaining at all.
  
• Mark Levin: The Worst One. Like Sean Hannity but louder and without the wit and charisma. I do a great impression of him.
  
• Alan Colmes: Could be better, but he seems to be playing beneath himself. Even when he's winning the argument, sometimes he goes to the loaded question almost gratuitously.
• Laura Ingraham: Okay, but too populist and pandering.
  
• Al Franken: Way below his potential. It would be worthwhile to let him get ripped and then go on the air just to see how it went. I think that he's too close to his subject, and he tends to think that his best subjectivity passes for objectivity. Maybe he peaked with Stuart Smalley.
• Rusty Humphries: Why?
• Coast to Coast: Are they serious? They certainly sound that way.
  

[1] The loaded trick question works extremely well in the talk format. It works like this: the caller asks the host a question about something he has been pontificating on, to which the host responds by asking a related but heavily loaded question. For example, an exchange might go like this:

Caller: Hi X, long time listener and first time caller.
Host: Thanks for calling.
Caller: I've been listening to you and I guess I disagree with your stance on GitMo. I mean, we're Americans and the rest of the world looks up to us and expects us to do the right thing, but this just doesn't seem right. How can you support freedom and the right to a fair tri...
Host: Oh, I see where your coming from. Well, answer this, my left wing friend, if you could save a million people by torturing a terrorist, wouldn't you do it? I mean [at this point, the host reiterates what he has been saying for 45 seconds while the caller is turned down] so wouldn't you torture a terrorist to prevent a nuke from going off in downtown New York?
Caller: ... but that's ...
Host: I see, so you won't answer the question? [at this point, the host reiterates what he has been saying for 45 seconds while the caller is turned down] so wouldn't you torture a terrorist to prevent a nuke from going off in downtown New York?
Caller: ... okay, I'll answer your question, but first you answer ...
Host: Oh, no, we're not going to play that game, my friend. You answer my question first. Why won't you answer?
Caller: ... but it's a loaded ...
Host: C'mon, what's it going to be, 4 million innocent children or the terrorist's "right" to a trial? What about the rights of 4 million children?
Caller: ... but tortured people just tell you what you want to hear and how do we know he's really a terrorist ...
Host: These points are lib'ral straw men, but just to humor you and to show you how fair I am, I'll address your questions, but I want you to stop ducking mine. Let's say that I get the world's most accomplished interrogator and we definitely know the guys a terrorist. Now what's it going to be - 4 million innocent little virgins or an islamofascist with a nuke?
Caller: Okay, fine, if you're going to load the dice like that ...
Host: Just like I thought, you're not going to answer the question, thanks for calling, let's go to a break.

I'll generally listen to someone who is reasonable even if I disagree with them because I might learn something. The loaded question trick is so maddening and transparent that I turn off right away when it starts. At least NPR is a little more nuanced in overlaying their frames on the news; maybe I'll do something similar on those shows one day (Fresh Air, Car Talk, etc.).

Clint Eastwood is a vegan?

I'm totally making these stats up because I'm too lazy to look them up, but let's pretend ...

Camera on Clint at a table, enjoying a meal of vegetables, fruits, and (yuck) tofu

As it zooms in, Clint looks up and sets his fork down, steely eyes on the camera. He says:

Y'know, every year 8 million people die of colon cancer, 15 million women die of breast cancer, millions more die of other cancers. Medical science is gradually coming to the conclusion that there is a strong link between cancer and the consumption of animal products. So the next time you bite into that steak or drink that glass of milk, you need to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?

Well, do ya punk?

This message brought to you by PETA, the same people we can thank for this (be sure to check the link in the comments, too).

I, Government

Er, this seems obvious, but I only found two similar references, and nobody actually doing it like this:

1. A government may not injure a citizen or, through inaction, allow a citizen to come to harm.
   
2. A government must obey orders given to it by citizens except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
3. A government must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I think (1) translates as "Don't be a tyranny and don't let citizens face risks." (2) is "be democratic, but break the violence of faction", which is just Federalist X. (3) is "be a strong government, but not too strong", which is Montesquieu. Anarchists would reject all three. I suggest that most non-anarchists will agree with (2) and (3), but there will be considerable disagreement over (1). The second part of (1) sounds either utopian or fascist/paternalist to my ears.

However, does the plot-theme of the Will Smith movie not follow from acceptance of all three?

-------------------------

Let's not stop with that, though: confirmation bias is the mind-killer.

What if you replace the faceless "government" with "bureaucrat", an individual? I think applying such rules to agents of the state expects too much of them, including taking orders and going beyond the law at their discretion (becoming a rogue).

What if you replace "government" with "corporation" and "citizens" with "shareholders" or "customers" -- does any of it make sense? Or suppose we replace "government" with "market" and "citizen" with "producer or seller"? Again, I think assertions of moral agency by a corporation or market sound flat. I think this shows that we expect the state to be a moral agent, but that we expect corporations and markets to be amoral.

That's interesting ... that's very interesting....

-- Captain Jack Sparrow

What if we replace both "government" and "citizen" with "neighbor"? In that case, (2) sounds like slavery. This suggests that we regard government as a servant. Suppose we use "boss" and "employee" - again, this places too much on the shoulders of the employee.

Like I said, this seems obvious. And pointless. And yet, for those of you who agree with all three rules above, I ask again whether the movie plot does not follow (I'm not providing spoilers, I'm sure you can find the relevant details or write me to ask and I'll explain it). The movie's point was about technology, but I find that many people seem to regard the regulatory state as an engineering problem that simply needs the right tweaks. That's what the whole Scientism/Efficiency Movement/Technocracy thing was about, wasn't it? Ordem e Progresso, my friends, Ordem e Progresso.

Models of models

I understand now why Tyler likes Megan: she is contrarian without being a jackass.

Megan says,

First, your model of the individual is very likely based on you. It is possible that everyone acts just like you, and also that you can accurately predict your own behaviors and motivations. But that is far from certain. When you argue for a policy that would work best for a country of people who are just like you, you should have some reason to believe you are the right model of the individual.

Interesting - is this a self-recursive model? Is your model of the modeling individual "someone who models individuals based on themselves" because *you* model modellers based on your modeling?

Progressives are seduced by this because they like to think conservatives are armed, beer-swilling, uneducated rednecks; libertarians are intelligent middle class white male plutocrats; and progressives are cosmopolitan altruists. Thus, in their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on NASCAR commercials, libertarians want to base policies on intelligent middle class white male plutocrats who can make complex decisions for themselves, and progressives want policies that balance complex issues in favor of multiple outliers in intelligence, culture, race, capability. This ignores basic problems, like the fact that academia is dominated by intelligent middle class white males -- self-identified as progressives -- who largely search for novel arguments in defense of the status quo (state capitalism). Or that many of the policies favored by libertarians are more accessible and democratic than those that involve the selection and navigation of politicians, policies, agencies, and rules to create the required balance.

I'm sure it is tempting for libertarians and others for similar, mirror-image reasons. Libertarians think of conservatives roughly the same way as progressives, except perhaps with more respect for their belief in moral values; of progressives as people who have a propensity to place more weight on intent than outcome and to signal their own morality by spending other people's money; and of themselves as economic literates with a deep sense of the morality inherent in freedom. Thus, in their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on what "everyone" knows from Sunday morning sermons, progressives want to base policies on things which perpetuate the state, and libertarians want to base policies on whatever lets people find the best answer for themselves (emphasis on private action, but accepting state action where it is the least worst solution).

Conservatives think of themselves as highly moral people, of progressives as possibly insane but definitely immoral, and of libertarians as the same, only worse. In their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on what is best for everyone, progressives want to base policies on the worst in man, and libertarians don't want any policies standing between themselves and complete debauchery.

The discussion also begs the question - what should the model of the individual be? When we assume that it should be people of average intelligence and capability, and then make policy decisions on that, we are largely eliminating the needs of both the most and least capable. That's politically palatable because we can speak for the least capable without actually speaking with them, and the most capable will find work-arounds.

In other news

Listening to Bob & Tom talk about Idaho Senator Larry Craig's escapades in the Minneapolis airport bathroom the other day, I thought of something that could either be a legitimate press release from his office, or an Onion article. After they complained about the long layovers in Minneapolis, a Bob & Tom contributor called in to talk about his experiences in that same bathroom back in the 1980s. Then it hit me:

Sociologists attribute high incidence of homosexual activity in Minneapolis Airport to long layovers (AP, Minneapolis-St. Paul)

In the wake of Idaho Senator Larry Craig's recent misunderstanding in the Airport bathroom, an investigation into the incident revealed a disturbing pattern going back for at least three decades. Researchers found an unusually high incidence of homosexual encounters between heterosexual men, some of whom were strongly hetero or even strongly violent homophobes. In many cases, the cause was apparently "boredom arising from excessively long layovers."

One victim, a "John Smith" of Utah, summarized his experience for investigators: "I was there so long, I had lost any conscious knowledge of myself as a person, an individual. It wasn't just my sexuality I had begun to question: it was my metaphysical being. If you don't exist, does it matter which side of the Glory Hole you're on?" Other victims noted that since they had given up hope of ever actually leaving the airport, they didn't see any harm in experimenting with sides of their sexuality that had lain dormant. "With my wife, obviously I'm usually the pitcher, but I have always wondered what it was like to have a [female reproductive system]. I don't have one, so I [played catcher]."

Senator Craig's office, quick to respond to this new information, issued a press release detailing the Senator's efforts to obtain additional funding for the FAA in order to relieve the congestion and his work to reform the more aggressive tactics used by TSA officers. Few other restroom victims complained about the TSA pat-downs. While some did note the horrific styling of their uniforms, others seemed to think that they aided in the presentation of authoritative, or "butch", persona.

In other news, The Onion reports that nobody can tell whether the Wikipedia entry for Dadaism has been vandalized or not. Maybe the new Wiki-scanner will help? Or not.

Blog rearguard action

Would it make sense for

• a diarist to say, "I just wrote a diary about my experience last night"?
• a newspaper reporter to say, "I just wrote a newspaper about the incident"?
• a TV reporter to say, "I did a series about that last night"?

No?

Then why the hell do people keep writing, "I just wrote a blog about such-and-such"? A whole friggin' blog? Wow.

The diarist writes entries, the newspaper reporter writes articles, the TV reporter does a show or a story, and the blogger writes entries, articles, or posts. Unless you're my wife, in which case you actually do have three different blogs. But even in her case, she doesn't write a complete blog "last night".

Sheesh. It's like teaching your parents to use slang and not sound like complete rubes. Shall I give up?

Dilemmism vs n-lemmism

This is not a post about Motorhead.

I had an undeveloped thought while watching the Rodrik-Tabarrok death match; maybe someone can work it up into something useful.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who subscribe to Dilemma and those who subscribe to n-lemma. [1]

The Dilemmists include people like Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, George Lakoff, and Dani Rodrik. Their chief characteristic is to think in one-dimensional terms (respectively): right-wrong, terrorist-'merican, strict-nurturant, and -- in Rodrik's case alone -- we have 1st-2nd, pro-anti government, pro-anti industrial policy, and simple-sophisticated.

The n-lemmists include Tyler Cowen and David Friedman. Their chief characteristic is that they tend to look for multiple explanations to puzzles. Look at Tyler's lists, at Friedman's chapter in Machinery of Freedom on libertarian arguments he doesn't agree with and in Law's Order at the back & forth arguments over various legal principles.

For any given problem, there may be m true explanations. m may be as few as one [2] but may be greater than that. The dilemmist stops looking at two; that's not exactly true, they stop looking at one and then determine its opposite analytically. The n-lemmist tries to list as many as possible, even considering contradictory explanations. Neither the Di- nor the n-lemmist is going to get the m=1 case correct. The Dilemmist is also never going to find a correct explanation when m>2. When m<=2, the n-lemmist is wasting time and probably putting too much emphasis on finding new explanations after identifying the correct ones [3]. Thus, neither of these groups is going to be successful all of the time at explaining observed facts. Rodrik, for example, has determined that the explanation for why some people agree with him is that they are sophisticated, second best economists. Therefore, everyone who disagrees must be the opposite: an unsophisticated, first best economist. It does not seem to occur to him to look for other explanations [4]; no need to be too sophisticated, I suppose. Tyler on the other hand tends to go well beyond the call of duty in opposing himself (though Tyrone might disagree).

This whole system seems rife with irony. The strongest Dilemmists believe themselves to be more sophisticated despite their adherence to a belief in simple models. The n-lemmists seem to be committed to an approach that generates many explanations, which seems wiser and more rational in the face of uncertainty, but in all probability m << n so they should be looking at how to reduce the number of conjectures required to get to the correct answer(s). In other words, the wiser people are wasting lots of time generating quantity rather than quality. And of course I have just built an entire system around a simple dualist explanation while implying that dualist explanations are probably the less satisfactory approach.

---------------------------------

[1] I realize my use of "lemma" is a little unconventional here, but it's a lot catchier and less cumbersome than "n-explanation" and "di-explanation".

[2] Although social phenomena seem to have multiple plausible explanations, do physical phenomena have only one true explanation where the science is "settled"? Or perhaps regardless of whether the science is settled? The duality of light suggests that either this conjecture is not true or that science needs to resolve the issue in favor of a single explanation.

[3] I think the n-lemmist approach is more likely to be successful because we don't know a priori which are the correct ones, or even how many there are (m).

[4] Or perhaps he has considered them and has already discounted them and edited his comments. Did I mention that I am an n-lemmist, too.

White Zombie

I'm still chuckling while writing this.

From the WSJ ($? "Those Muscle Cars Really Are Electric", John Fialka, 1 August 2007), Portlander John Wayland took a '72 Datsun 1200, shoved a couple of forklift motors and 30-some batteries in it, and is now the fastest street legal drag racer in the country. It completes a quarter mile at 109 mph in 11.9 seconds, dusting all kinds of muscle gassers.

Yes, the batteries are a little dangerous (the WSJ explains how he got the PlasmaBoy nickname) and the electricity probably comes from a coal-fired or natural gas fueled plant. As I claimed in this article about biodiesel dragsters and this one about solar-n-hydrogen powered stretch Hummer limos, these may be totally impractical, but they demonstrate the potential, push the envelope, and turn skeptics into believers.

Here's Wayland's EV dragster homepage, PlasmaBoyRacing.

The True Grim Reader

Oscar the cat can apparently "predict" when people are about to die.

Rockridge Institute's Thinking Points Chapter 4

The background is Jesse Walker's article at Reason, The Man Who Framed Himself.

The chapter is entitled, "Nation as Family".









Childish, yes, but in context it makes for a succinct review.

(Foxit is an open source pdf reader that doesn't require 743 MB and 2.3 minutes to load - it's not perfect, but I like it better than Acrobat. hattip: J. Mazzetta)

Airplane drinks

Although I never order it anywhere else, I almost always order Ginger Ale when I fly. I try to justify it on the basis that I once heard that ginger is a natural cure for motion sickness ... but I have never had a problem with motion sickness.

Upon asking around, I found out that other people also have "airplane drinks". My wife's is tomato juice (and she normally drinks something that other people only drink on airplanes!). What's yours?

Hetero? Ortho?

Would I be far off base to suspect that the correlation between heterodox economists and orthodox climate change enthusiasts is very, very strong? I mean, let's compare this comment to the reactions to this comment. Suppose Max Sawicky, the TPM Cafe family, or any of the others are going to say, "and we consistently insist that AGW skeptics be treated the same way we want to be"? Conversely, will the neoclassicals embrace AGW ... oh, sorry, some of them seem to be.

One side seems to be very dogmatic, and it appears to be the people constantly leveling the dogma charge.

Progressive Wonkism

So, I don't like having to pump water by hand, or carry my farm produce to market with a horse and wagon, and I don't like paying tolls on the turnpike. I encourage my representatives to support land grants to railroads. It's great to have all these long and fast railroads, especially now that they've begun competing directly with one another. They tried cooperating, but that doesn't seem to work out, so they now they've integrated large systems. The freight traffic East is great, but the railroads don't like sending empty cars West and they seem to prefer regular traffic, so they started using differential pricing schemes and that irks me because it doesn't seem fair. Anyhow, now that we have railroads, cheap coal, and steam-powered factories, I think I'll move into the city and get one of those high-paying factory jobs.

Well, I don't like all that Trust and rebate business, so I tell my representative to regulate the hell out of those railroad guys. And I started supporting my local Wheelmen's Association. We are trying to get my representative to support public road building. In fact, this is great: let's build roads everywhere so it makes it cheap and easy to drive my new car. You have to have government build roads - a private road would have to charge fees, and everyone knows there's no way to feasibly operate a road that way! Now that I have this car, I think I'll move out to the suburbs. It's great out here, I'm away from the noise and pollution in the city, even though I spend two hours in the car. I can't say that I like the size of my gas, income, and property taxes, but as long as I don't have to toil on the farm or in the factory any more, I can live with it.

Apparently my neighbors like it, too, because now everyone is moving out here. Sure, it takes hours to get to any store, especially during rush hour, but ... hey! what the heck is happening to these gas prices! This is making me mad as hell. We need government to do something about this illegal gouging! It's not like I have a choice: I *have* to pay for gas. Anyhow, as I was sayin... gee, it sure is warm out here. Y'know, I was reading about how cars are responsible for the Greenhouse Effect, and how we would all be better off if we simply had a high tax on fuel like they do in Europe. But that'll be hard on poor people, so we need a program that will reimburse them for their gas tax payments. And also, it would be better if we had more public transport and rail systems like they do in Europe. Here, we leave that stuff to the free market, so only rich people can afford those things.

Wouldn't it be nice if we simply all went to using bicycles and using a less energy intensive lifestyle? For example, if we all lived on small farms, and used low intensity or renewable energy sources, like vegetable, animal, wind, or people power, to haul our goods to market? But we won't be able to get there because that fascist bastard George Bush has built this huge federal government system for his buddies in the oil business, and they won't let us. And worst of all are those crazy libertarians who think that you could actually have things like private roads. Don't they realize that optimizing social welfare and efficient use of resources requires government intervention because of the Prisoner's Dilemma? And don't give me any of that state's rights crap - it's obvious on it's face that one government agency is more efficient than 50 state agencies. Bigger organizations are always better because of scale economies.

And don't give me any of that slippery slope baloney: We could cure what ails our government simply by electing Democrats, because Democrats are against subsidies to Big Business. Instead of providing corporate welfare to Big Pharma (Merck), Big Oil (BP), and Big Agriculture (ADM), Democrats would improve social welfare by spending it on free health care and drugs, solar power, and ethanol, because that's what we need now. Well, that and high tariffs to stop imports in order to help poor people in Third World nations while protecting our own manufacturing laborers and farmers because those are the best jobs. Instead of building a huge, military, fascist state, Democrats would build a nimble, responsive, democratic system -- financed by taxes on the rich -- to help fight poverty, save people from their own poor judgment, and curb the unfortunate results of hyperindividualism.

Just give me a few minutes to tick off all of the programs that will be required to produce this utopia, and don't worry about unintended consequences. I've thought of all of them. Well, this has me a little perplexed (watch the linked video), but anyhow ....

Bizarre travel tidbits

In Paris, while walking around directly underneath the Eiffel Tower, I was approached by two utes, say 17-20 years old. It was 10 AM, and they were noticeably drunk. They said something to me and I responded in very broken Fench ("Je ne parle pas français" or anything remotely like it is a very handy phrase for stating the obvious). They immediately switched to broken English and asked if I were American or English. American. "Oh, we love America, the jeans, the shoes," they said, indicating our common attire. I pointed out that our Levis and Nikes were likely made in Singapore or Indonesia or somewhere close thereby. "Yes, but still, America is the best." Okay Francois, moving along now.

--------------------

In Cordoba, while sharing a Ute Hostel room with an Aussie and two English kids (again 17-20), the Englishmen made several comments to the effect that, "English travelers are famous for being loud, obnoxious, rude, and assuming that everyone else speaks English if only you speak loudly and slowly enough." That makes me wonder if every culture believes their own countrymen to be the worst. Or perhaps the rumors about the universality of English are true and foreigners really are feigning ignorance?

--------------------

Leaving Albuquerque after Thanksgiving one year, I was looking for a station that reputedly sells biodiesel. Since I couldn't find it, I called my wife on the cell, asked her to find the address on biodiesel.org, then take the address and guide me with google maps. How cool is consumer technology? Had I been thinking, I would have gotten the GPS location and homed with my own.

Anyhow, it's in a decayed part of the city, a mix of industrial lots and low rent housing. As I came upon a park, I noticed a black man running. It caught my attention: he wasn't dressed to work out, and he didn't appear to be running away from anything, so ... ? As I continued around the curve in the direction from which he just came, on alert for whatever might have caused his actions, I noted a group of people gathered around ... what is that? ... a body on the ground! I slowed enough to realize it looked like a seizure, so I pulled over, called 911 on the cell, and started walking toward the group.

The 911 operator kept asking me where I was at. Jeez, lady, that's why this thing has GPS; you tell me. "Okay, I'm in the park on 3rd near the Big I. Yes, 3rd. An ambulance. I don't know him, it looks like a seizure. Yes, the park. I don't know the name. Yes, 3rd." About this time, I notice that there is a Fire Station directly across the street, and the door is opening, so I tell the operator, "Nevermind, there's a fire station right here." She wanted to continue arguing about the location (looking it up, now, I think it's Coronado Park).

By this time, I'm standing with what appears to be a very skid-rowey crowd (no shaving, big bushy hair, slept-in clothes, underweight). We're watching the EMTs walk as slow as I have ever seen anyone walk toward us, and one of the men (the black man I originally saw running away?) engages me in conversation. He was surprisingly lucid. "Look at that. That's what we get out here. Look how slow they are, like we don't count. I'll bet if we called from a house, they'd be there already." Then he said something that just about blew my top off: "THAT is why I don't pay my taxes. They want us to pay taxes and THIS is what we get for service? Oh Hell no! This is why I do not pay taxes." Apparently, I ran into a vulgar libertarian, street edition. Perhaps it was a syndicalist commune? They thanked me for stopping and calling, the ambulance operators glared at me, and I split. Happy Thanksgiving, I guess.

--------------------

I found that the Prime Meridian in Greenwich is about 80 meters off (as I recall). I stood on the spot with my GPS receiver and it did not read 0.000 longitude. A Japanese man stepped up next to me, held his up to mine, and found the same result. The staff at the Royal Observatory neither took me seriously nor saw the humor in my suggestion to move the marker to the correct location as indicated by our 21st century devices (as if a 19th century device could be more accurate - ha!). I was not impressed by the Harrison clocks, either - jeez, any schoolboy can buy wristwatches more accurate than those monstrosities, and for about 10 millionths of the price.

--------------------

Last week, I saw an old man, perhaps late 50s, walking down the street with a new garden hose. It looked to weigh 1/3 of what he weighed, so he was having problems with it in the wind. I had already passed him, so I flipped around and pulled up next to him. He only had another 100 yards to go, but along the way he enthusiastically told me about the electric scooter he used to commute to work, how he could plug it in at either end of the trip so it didn't cost any money to operate (apparently his rent included electricity). He is a dishwasher at a well known cafe here. As he got out, he started hunting through his pockets and offered to give me some money. Let's see, 100 yards, divide by 46 mpg, multiply by $3, adjust for our income differentials ... I should have paid him for the entertainment value, eh?

VT Ramblings

For some deep reflections on the Virginia Tech incident, I'll refer you to my wife's post.

I can say that my own thoughts as bits of the story were revealed to me took a turn down a strange alley. I heard that the kid had written some rather disturbing plays that indicated psychological problems. So my initial thought was, "Why didn't someone intervene?" I immediately realized that this is easier said after the fact. Before the fact, you have a problem distinguishing "dangerous" from "bizarre", "freaky", "outlandish", "peculiar", "quaint", and so on.

I vaguely remember an outcry 20+ years ago when Reagan was supposed to have closed all state mental hospitals, kicking all the patients out into the streets and the treatment of choice became jail. As usual, this was a myth of partisans who put far too much stock in the power and prestige of the executive, people who want a benevolent king to take charge and solve the world's problems*. It seemed to matter little to them that there is little practical difference between being locked up in a mental hospital and being locked up in a prison when these people are really a prisoner of their own minds. Such partisans usually forget (as was the case at that time) that the opposition controls much of the power and that there are larger currents at work in society**; Reagan, after all, was not Congress, which is who decides what programs to fund, and Reagan also had no authority to direct states to close anything***, insofar as anyone still genuflects at the whole "federalism" idea. But we would benefit from a reading of Foucault on the subject: how many ways do we try to correct atypical behavior, and how are we justified in doing so? At what point did Andy Kaufman's schtick cross the line from strange performance comedy to sick behavior when he began "wrestling" and even faked a neck injury? Was it deranged or brilliant? In smaller societies, such behavior was likely to get you the shaman's job. Do you want to live in a society where such people are tolerated, re-educated, sequestered, locked up, or simply liquidated?

There is far too much attention being paid to whether or not gun laws or video games are worth reviewing here. Those are puerile arguments made by partisans on both sides of the aisle looking to score political points off a tragedy, much as the identical people did after 9/11. The problem isn't guns: there are millions of guns not being used for crimes and far more people are killed by cars each year. The problem isn't video games: teenage violence declined during the entire video game expansion period. The real tragedy here is the mental illness. It crossed the line from idiosyncratic to dangerous when he pulled the trigger while pointing the weapon at other people. Let's try a thought experiment: what kind of life was he likely to have in the complete absence of guns? Does anyone believe that his life would have been enjoyable? This was a serious signal of distress, but it seems to be getting lost in the other noise. What was this guy's problem, what could have been done, and how many other people are suffering, undiagnosed, from it? I want to live in a society where we place some emphasis on the root cause of Cho's problem. What causes such anomie, how do we detect the dangerous variety of deviance, and how can we re-orient that back to something positive?

*The world selected a passel of such leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, and it didn't end well.
**As I have written before, partisans are largely animated by their opposition, not principles.
***Note in this timeline, which I found referenced as a proof of Reagan's responsibility, that the Act was passed in 1980: it would therefore have been President Carter who failed to sign it since a new Congress starts after the election and the president elected in 1980 takes office in 1981. Also note in this much more detailed timeline that the act in question, the National Mental Health Systems Act "asserted that the federal government would continue to shape mental health policy but assume less of the burden of paying for treatment." The Act was written by No Child Left Behind author Ted Kennedy. In other words, Reagan was blamed for cutting funding in this bizarre manner: despite the fact that that is what the bill contains, by vetoing it in 1980, before he took office, he was responsible for what would have happened if he had signed it. The timeline then goes on to point out that funding was cut in the 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation Act passed by C-O-N-G-R-E-S-S, and that throughout the 1980s, spending for mental health was increased via block grants. Yet for those years, Reagan typically takes hits for spending too much (which is actually correct insofar as by not vetoing the spending bills he is in part responsible, but it puts Democrats in a bind of accusing Reagan of spending what the Democratic Congress passed). So the game is: take money out of communities, send it to Washington, send some of it back, and dictate how it is used. Great.

P.S. I didn't intend to get off onto a political rant, but there is something else on my mind that I'll get to in a post or two which was set off by the emphasis on the executive. I therefore apologize for and admit to having done exactly what disgusted me about the reactions to this incident. To the families of the victims and the perpetrator, I am deeply sorry for your loss.

Really? That's all you can come up with?!

James Kunstler has this to say about flying to Maui (which he apparently did before his latest jaunt to Chicago):

For all of you out there disposed to twang on me for riding a jet airplane all the way to Maui, please consider that United flight 35 would have flown from San Francisco to Maui with or without me on it. Here's the deal: I had to go to San Fran to give a talk at the Commonwealth Club. From there, I had a lecture gig on Maui. I stayed three extra days and nights -- since I'd come all that way.

Where have I heard that argument before? Wasn't it Arianna Huffington justifying the use of a private jet because it happened to be going where she was going? All during that period of time that she was lecturing us on the evils of SUVs? Or was it Al Gore, whose prolific use of energy at his house and in his travels is justified by the fact that he has important stuff to do and lots of people to entertain (as opposed to you and I, whose lives are so much less significant)?

It's not that I really care if they do those things. I object to their telling me how to live my life while and insisting that I shouldn't do what they do. And this is such a lame rationale: every passenger just happens to be going to the same place the planes are going. Sometimes they have things slightly more important to do than "give a talk" ... which could have been done on videotape, via satellite, or over this newfangled internet thingy.

This is hateful

But I laughed out loud.

The land with the hairy jaws

We always thought it was funny to turn over an item and read this on the country of origin tag: "Hecho en China". And given the fact that most of the gifts given to celebrate the Christian holiday in the West will probably come from that non-Christian, communist, land in the East, we decided that they ought finally to get a special place in the lexicon, in our hearts, and in mythology.

Thanks, China Claus.

(It sounds better if you pronounce the first word as in Spanish, CHEE-na)

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to a Cheech & Chong song.

P. P. S. We definitely need a claymation holiday special to help children remember this new marketing gimmick darling character.

Time travel issues

I'm intrigued by the possibility of time travel, though I don't obsess on it (in other words, I probably haven't read all the books you have on the subject). However, it occurred to me the other day that most fictional accounts seem to either overlook or oversimplify one problem. If you are going to travel in time, you probably won't be traveling in space simultaneously (though some use space travel as the means by which time travel occurs). In "practice", as fictionalized, this becomes an issue of making sure that you don't place yourself inside a wall in the future, or possibly a glacier in the past.

That acknowledgment of the problem leads to yet another error that would be made by a non-physicist. They (the author/screenwriter/whatever) are assuming that your space displacement is zero ... but relative to what? The earth is both spinning and moving rapidly through space as it orbits the sun. If you move in time but not in space, you would find yourself in outer space, unless you timed your travel precisely so that you caught earth on another orbital path.

But that assumes that the sun about which we revolve is stationary, which it is not.

Oh well, 12 Monkeys is still a pretty good movie. And ST:TNG still sucks eggs.

EULA

How many end user license agreements have you agreed to in the last few months?

How many have you read?

There is an old joke about there being a line hidden 3/4 of the way through that commits the end user to give up his/her immortal soul or first born child as part of the deal. Suppose we start a new joke that EULAs are now committing users to an 18 month tour in Baghdad?

I bet you read your next EULA.

Go Bananas

Every week, I make out my grocery list.
Then go shopping.
I usually buy bananas and bring them home.
We place them on the table, and wait ...

Eventually the survivors darken, and we think about banana bread. It never happens.

We have become a banana hospice.

Notes for BBC reporters

After listening to you chaps on NPR lo these many years, I thought I might offer some feedback.

• You are using a microphone and a recording or transmitting device which is used to convey by electronic means the sounds of your voice worldwide to a local transmitter that carries it to my car radio, where I can turn the amplifier up sufficiently loud to cause permanent tinnitus. It is not necessary for you to try to do so by yourself and without the apparatus. Speak in a normal voice; we can hear you. It is not a tin can and a string.
• Try to break things up a little. I know consistency is nice and all, but in a 5 minute report, it is excruciating to hear every sentence pronounced, "DAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdada-DAAAAaaaa. DAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdaDAdada-DAAAAaaaa." It's like listening to that Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous reporter wax eloquent about nuclear prolifer-AAA-tion. It is reminiscent of the Monty Python episode that featured Whicker IIII[s]-land.
• Korea only has one "r" in it. Same for Africa. India has no "r" in it. Thus, we pronounce them ko-REE-a, Af-ree-ka, IN-dee-a, and not ko-Ree-er, A-free-ker, and IN-dee-er. Stop appending r's to every word that ends in a "ah"-sound (I'm sure pronunciologists have a name for it, but I shan't look it up). Last night, we were watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when the brave tots made several references to "gels". That's with a hard "g" as in "garage", so not at all like the stuff hardcore suburban punks put in their hair. My wife asked what they were saying, and I had by then deduced they were talking about "girls" but had somehow left out the "r". "No matter", I reassured her, "they'll likely find a spare at the end of Narnia".
  

As I look back now, I realize that "garage" was perhaps not the best example; I meant of course the first "g". Anyhow, ...

• "No" has a single syllable, at most two when a special emphasis is required. At no time does it have four or more. "No", or perhaps, "No-o", but not "NaOOoo", nor shall it be "NaOOOooUU", and higher order elaborations are right out. I have heard Australian correspondents turn "No, Sue" into iambic pentameter.

Otherwise, nice job, cheerio, keep it up, pip-pip, and all that.

WARNING!

Look at this alarming section from a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), required by OSHA to be posted and accessible in every work place where this stuff is used:

SECTION VII- PREVENTATIVE MEASURES
==================================================
Gloves: Not required.
Eye Protection: Not normally [my emphasis] required.
Respiratory Protection: Not normally [my emphasis] required.
Other Protective Equipment: Not normally [my emphasis] required.
Engineering Controls: General ventilation normally [my emphasis] adequate.
Leak and Spill Procedure: Before attempting clean up, refer to hazard data given above. Small spills may be absorbed with non-reactive absorbent and placed in suitable, covered, labelled containers. Prevent large spills from entering sewers or waterways. Contact emergency services and supplier for advice. [my emphasis]
Waste Disposal: Review federal, provincial, and local government requirements prior to disposal. [my emphasis]
Storage and Handling Requirements: Keep out of reach of children. Store in a closed container away from extreme temperatures and incompatible materials.
==================================================
SECTION VIII - FIRST AID
==================================================
Eye: Flush with water. Remove contact lenses, if applicable, and continue flushing. Obtain medical attention if irritation persists.
Skin: If irritation develops, flush with water. Obtain medical attention if irritation persists.
Inhalation: Not a normal route of exposure. If symptoms develop move victim to fresh air; if symptoms persist, obtain medical attention.
Ingestion: Do not induce vomiting. Rinse mouth with water then drink one or two glasses of water. Obtain medical attention. Never give anything by mouth if victim is unconscious, or is convulsing.

Man, whatever this stuff is, it sure is dangerous! I'm surprised they even allow it to be sold. What could it be?

It is, in fact, antibacterial hand soap. The MSDS for a hand soap we use at work actually recommends that gloves be worn while handling it. To be fair, these are directions to be followed when you are working with rather than simply using the soap, directed towards custodial staff.

So, let's say you're the janitor and you've just spilled some of this while refilling a dispenser in the men's room. You need to get something non-reactive to clean it up with, but if it's a big spill, you need to act quickly to prevent it from going down the floor drain. How much is a big or small spill? No matter, it's starting to flow that direction - should you call 911? And now you've breathed quite a few of the fumes, so you need to go outside and maybe seek medical attention. Even if you didn't spill any, you need a reading on federal, state, and local regulations governing the gram or so still clinging to the inside of the bottle that you want to throw away. Perhaps in the future you should only handle this stuff with a couple of standby technicians in bunny suits, lest you put your employer at risk of a lawsuit or yourself in danger of being fired.

This surely looks like the by-product of lawyers, bureaucrats, over-reactive legislators, and unintended consequences. We're very far from Common Sense with examples like this (and there are so many more).

Thanksgiving Means Carnage!

Well, actually, the original line was "Christmas means carnage!"

This year, it means the introduction of my nephew Ciaran Telge to the world. I hope he doesn't end up like this guy. I wonder if they'll make him sit at the kids table?

This year, I am particularly thankful that this woman accepted my proposal and agreed to marry me.

Argoogling

Argoogling: argument by google. Find a key phrase in your interlocutor's argument, google for counterarguments, grab the first few lines of text, pass it off as expertise. CAUTION: When using this technique in conjunction with scholarly articles, you may be tripped up by the nuances in the author's argument. For example, they may back off from the hypothesis in the final summary, providing either counterexamples, other areas for research, or mitigating circumstances.

Alternative spelling: argugling

Definitive characteristics of pathological argooglers: failing to note major points, resorting to name-calling, flaming, etc.

Idiot Crusaders

Because the areas surrounding Las Cruces, New Mexico, don't have laws preventing crusading idiots from moving into them, ... crusading idiots occasionally move into them. "Las Cruces" is Spanish for "The Crosses"; the city has been around since at least 1848 and some authorities claim that the name derives from grave markers. It lies along the Onate trail, blazed by crusader Don Juan de Onate starting in 1598.

In a completely unrelated story, I'm sure, a certain Paul Weinbaum moved into the area near Las Cruces and decided that he didn't like the city logo, which depicts three crosses. Since he doesn't actually live in the city, he had to sue on behalf of his daughter, and Martin Boyd, who do live in the city. He also felt it necessary to sue the state government, whose transgression was to use the logo on highway overpasses. Apparently, "The crosses serve no governmental purpose other than to disenfranchise and discredit non-Christian citizens." It has not been revealed in what way they have been prevented from voting or otherwise been denied access to anything, ever, by the logo. According to one story in the paper, Paul's daughter was offended at having to sign school papers with a "religious" logo on them. Hmmm ... he's suing on behalf of his sensitively atheist daughter who doesn't live with him? Sounds familiar. He is ... ahem,... they are suing on both constitutional grounds and under the 1964 Civil Rights Act because prospective employees would have to sign a form with a "religious" symbol.

The 1st Amendment of the Constitution reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Since Congress does not pick the City's logo, that doesn't apply and we can move on. The onl