Stuff

Okay, things have settled down a little bit and I find that I have some time to share some random thoughts. Problem is, I don't really have anything share-worthy. Of course that's not going to stop me.

As you probably know, tomorrow is Halloween. I've never been that nuts about Halloween. I figure it goes back to my childhood. We lived so far out in the sticks that going on a house-to-house candy patrol wasn't possible. No, trick-or-treating involved getting in the car and driving from house-to-house. Plus, there weren't even "neighborhoods" where we could be dropped off to hit several houses. No it was a tedious process that involved lots of downtime as we moved from one house to the next. As a result, I don't really have the warm fuzzy memories of trick-or-treating that seem to spark nostalgia for the holiday. One thing I do like about Halloween -- scary movies!

Now scary movies don't have to be related to Halloween, but people seem to like to talk about them this time of year. Just the other day I was watching the morning news when one of the talking heads threw out the "what's your favorite scary movie?" line. His answer was Alien, which is just kind of stupid. I mean it's an okay movie, but the SCARIEST movie? No way! Though it's a cheesy request, I'd like to solicit your opinions on this question. What movie really scared you? I'm talking scares you so bad you pee your pants and then sit there in wet pants because changing would require you to go into another room (by yourself?) and maybe even shut the door! For me there is only one possibility: The Shining!

Anyway, ... A couple of days after the discussion on the news I noticed that Alien was playing on some movie channel (DISH had a free preview weekend). I hadn't seen the movie in years, so I decided to watch it again. The first thing I noticed was that Alien suffers from the same "curse" that afflicts all 1970s and '80s space movies: crappy computers! It's painful, from a 2007 perspective, to watch an advanced starship that has computer graphics comparable to my first computer -- a Commodore Vic 20 (I think that's what it was called) that hooked up to the television and used a cassette player (really!) to load and save programs! The older space shows (e.g., Lost in Space, Star Trek, etc.) can get away with this because they are so obviously dated. Alien, though, appeared to be a contemporary movie -- except for the computer graphics. I know the movie was made in 1979 so they couldn't have incorporated "modern" computer features, but knowing that didn't keep me from being annoyed. In fact, it made me unfairly discount the alleged "quality" (it routinely gets very high marks from critics) of the movie. Still, even with the crappy computers, I still think Alien is a pretty good movie.

As I watched it, though, another question came to mind. Do we ever go backwards with technology? I'm sure we do, but I can't come up with an example where we, as a society, have reverted to earlier technologies. I'm looking for widespread technological reversion here. I'm not talking about the Amish deciding to forego electricity or an individual backpacker deciding to go back to an external frame pack because he doesn't like the feel of internal frames. No, I'm looking for a case where "everyone" decided to give up some new technology in favor of an earlier method. For instance, if everyone decided cell phones are more trouble than they're worth and everyone went back to having a phone on the wall at home. Or maybe we gave up on Blue Ray vs. HD DVD and just went back to VHS. Can you think of an example like that? I'm sure there is one, but I can't think of one. I'm kind of imagining a space movie that might use some dated technology that might not look dated at all at some point in the future.

Yes, I do realize this is kind of a "rigged" question. Why would we revert to the earlier technology? Because the old version is better than the new or the new just doesn't add any real user value. Well in that case the new tech would simply fail and never be adopted in the first place. I do realize there have been scads of new technologies that have suffered this fate, but I just wonder if there aren't some that have been widely adopted and then abandoned in favor of the old methods. Any suggestions?

Blah blogging

Sorry for the silence of late. No, the city council overlords have not kidnapped me. I've just been busy. Oh, and I also seem to be fighting some sort of bug. I figure it's The Plague. Nah, I honestly figure it's just one of those bugs, but who knows?

So I can't really work up the outrage for a juicy blog rant, but I did want to mention a couple of cool things I've noticed of late.

1. The World Series starts tonight. I have no animus against the Indians, but I think I'm pulling for the Rockies. First, they're the National League team and MLB hasn't completely destroyed "league loyalty" in baseball yet. They're trying, but not yet. Second, the Rockies are pretty big underdogs and you've got to love that. Third, I believe most people (even baseball fans) would have been hard pressed to name more than 2 Rockies players before the playoffs started. They are the ultimate "Who are those guys?" team.
2. I recently found a new cool backpacking book. I love most all backpacking/hiking books, but this one promises to be better than most. It's short, simple, and illustrated. It gives you the nuts and bolts of backpacking issues without forcing you to wade through all the tedious detail. Basically it seems like two really experienced backpackers sat down and jotted down a list of tips on bar napkins. Highly recommended.
3. On the subject of backpacking/hiking, here's the coolest new product I've seen in a while. I always thought "hands free" lighting would be a cool thing for day hikes that run a little late or for those after dark campsite activities, but I've never really been keen on those "strap on" headlamps. I'm a ball cap guy when hiking, so headlamps didn't seem practical. I've considered those "clip on" LED lights, but they didn't excite me either. This one, though, has LED lights built into the cap's bill. I haven't seen one in person yet, but the lights look very unobtrusive. Furthermore, I really can't imagine they'd add much weight to the cap. Hence, I really can't see a drawback to this approach to hands free lighting. I'll let you know when/if I actually buy one.

Okay, that's about it. Hopefully I'll be back in the "sharing" mood soon.

This is too much, isn't it?

I've railed before about the recently implemented Decatur smoking ban. It's not that I'm missing the second-hand smoke from restaurants and bars (in fact, that's a relief), but I still bristle over the manner in which the ban came about.

In case you've missed my earlier rants, ... The nuts and bolts version is that 3 of the 5 city councilmen decided they didn't like smoke in public places, so they banned it. No debate, no discussion. Actually that's not 100% accurate. 3 fer and 3 agin people were allowed to speak at the council meeting, but the "group of 3" had already stated that their minds were made up. One of them even had the audacity to say the whole motivation behind the ordinance was (I'm paraphrasing here) that he'd gotten tired of smelling smoke. I agree with him, but don't these 3 realize they were not elected to codify their personal likes and dislikes. I truly believe most of Decatur would have gotten behind some kind of ban if it had been presented in a less dictatorial fashion.

Anyway the ban is now in place and though some are still grumbling, life seems to be going on just about like before. Or so I thought. Evidently the "group of 3" isn't satisfied with the ability to decree lifestyle issues from on high. Not only must the city do as they say, but they're not even willing to let anyone criticize them:

Two weeks into Decatur's ban on smoking in public places, it appears members of the City Council don't want to hear — or read — complaints about the new ordinance, some residents say.

During a council meeting Monday, Council President Billy Jackson ordered four demonstrators to lose signs critical of the ordinance, claiming they constituted an unreasonable distraction for councilmen and others attending the meeting.

After a brief exchange, the demonstrators left the council chambers when Jackson requested the presence of Police Chief Kenneth Collier and refused to conduct further business until the signs were removed.

The big chief says the signs are an "unreasonable distraction", so he calls the police and refuses to conduct further business until they're gone?!?! How power-crazed is this guy? Well in his own words:

"If they were not willing to remove their signs in an orderly manner, then I was going to have to remove them. It's that simple," Jackson said after the meeting.

I found that statement chilling.

In reality, though, as I read the article I kept trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Surely, I thought, he had something of a legitimate reason for removing the signs. And honestly, I've seen pretty big and bulky signs at sporting events and I do agree that some of them could be bothersome to other people sitting nearby -- maybe not enough that I think they should be banned, but I could at least see his justification. Then, though, I saw a picture of the signs.



I am beyond appalled.

As I wade in deeper

The post below may lead some of you to label me a global warming skeptic. That's probably accurate, but not in the sense that I've dismissed the global warming issue. No, I'm a skeptic only in the sense that I'm still trying to evaluate the different arguments and I'm not yet convinced as to the "right" answer. Anyway, along the lines of scientific skepticism (but not about global warming), here's a NY Times article I found fascinating. More on this later.

Nobel blogging

First, the Nobel prize in economics has been awarded. No surprise that a guy from the U of Chicago won. I am a little surprised they went with a "conceptual/theoretical" bunch instead of a more "applied" candidate (e.g., Gordon Tullock -- he's going to win eventually, isn't he?), but all-in-all I have nothing to say about this year's winners.

I do, though, have a comment about the peace prize winner. Actually it's a comment by Greg Mankiw, but I'm going to borrow:

Consider a person who

A. takes an important truth developed by others,
B. exaggerates it for dramatic effect,
C. as a result, draws public attention to this important truth, and
D. also brings acclaim to himself as a profound, far-sighted, truth-telling guru.

Who do I have in mind?

Maybe you think it's Al Gore, and if so, you are correct. But I also have in mind the supply-side economists of the 1980s. The more I think about it, the more similar Al Gore and the supply-siders appear.

See, that comparison pretty accurately captures my "problems" with both groups. I think they both highlight some important truths that need to be addressed, but I dislike the "groupthink" mentality they both attract. You know, the feeling that this person/group speaks the truth and any deviation is heresy.

I hope it's not, but I'll admit that it could be misplaced optimism and wishful thinking that make me hold off joining the "stop global warming now" group. I am convinced that the planet is currently warming and I'm mostly convinced that human activity in the 20th century (and now) contributed to the warming. I am not convinced, however, that the consequences are as bleak as some would have me believe.

The biggest problem I have, though, is that if the consequences truly are going to be so catastrophic, well that creates a policy paradox that I don't see how we're going to solve. Voluntary (or even mandated), individual-level efforts will, I believe, have no measurable impact on warming. They might make an individual feel better about himself, but they won't cool the planet. That leaves coordinated government action and I have about as much faith in governments managing climate impact as I do in governments managing wealth creation. Further, any coordinated government plan that gives a pass to China, India, etc. is not going to fix the problem (see note below). On the other hand, why would China, India, etc. agree to a plan that forces them to pass up the "pollute and prosper" policies that allowed most of today's rich countries to become rich? This, of course, leads to rich countries saying, "Well we're not going to cut back if they don't cut back." See the problem?

So in the end, I'm glad the supply-siders got their "bully pulpit" in the 1980s to draw attention to the disincentive effects of high marginal tax rates and I'm really glad (I think) that folks are beginning to pay serious attention to global warming. In the end, I believe the "right" answer to the supply-siders is somewhere in the middle. I truly hope the same is true for global warming, I just don't think we've found that "middle" yet.

Note: I do think coordinated government activity, even if it omits developing countries, can lessen the accumulation of greenhouse gasses, but if the results of current warming trends are going to be as bad as some predict, then developing countries must be reined in as well.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, I received the latest issue of the Journal of Economic Literature in the mail today and it contains two lengthy reviews of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. While I don't expect either will settle the scientific consensus issue for me, I have great hope they will help me with the cost/benefit issue. I'll report back once I've digested the articles.

SEC story

I don't have anything to say about it, but espn.com has a nice story today about SEC football and commish Mike Slive. If you're a fan, check it out.

Small baseball grumble

I haven't commented on the MLB playoffs because I just don't have that much to say. I'm in awe of the improbably streak of wins the Colorado Rockies put together just to get into the playoffs and I'm dumbfounded by the fact that the Arizona Diamondbacks won the most games in the NL despite being outscored by their opponents this season! [According to Bill James' "Pythagorean prediction model" (see here for more on that), the D-Backs should have won 79 games. Instead, they won 90! I won't go into the details, but a difference of +11 is very improbable.]

In the American League, ... Well it's the AL, so of course I'm not that interested. Seriously, the Red Sox and the Yankees were the big names. The Sox advanced and the Yanks lost. That leaves Boston and Cleveland to battle it out. I guess I'll pull for the Indians just because I'm sort of sick of the Sox.

Regardless, what I want to talk about today is the media's coverage of baseball. I already ranted to Caffeine Bro about the idiocy of one Chip Caray doing the play-by-play coverage of the games. Let's just say his dad (Harry) wasn't the only Caray prone to exaggeration when describing a play. No, what I want to comment on today is the media's reporting on baseball managers. It's a sports cliche (and one of the tritest) that the quarterback or manager or coach or etc. gets too much of the credit when a team wins and too much blame when a team loses. I agree with that general statement, but the media seems to have bastardized it. The media now seems to believe ALL the credit for winning is due to baseball managers and NONE of the blame is due to the man in charge.

Take the Cubs this year. Their manager, Lou Piniella, completely lost control one night in a mid-season game and suddenly the Cubs went on a glorious winning streak. It's all due to Lou, right? Well maybe if you ignore the fact that the Cubs had been woefully underperforming compared to their Pythagorean prediction to that point and they finally got all 3 of their big bats healthy at the same time. Sure, it had to be due to Lou.

Then there's the Mets. In case you've had your head under a baseball rock, you likely know the Mets managed to do something no other team in the (LONG) history of baseball had ever done. They lost a 7 game lead with only 17 games left in the season. Plus, this is New York -- the most pressure-filled market in which to coach/manage/play. So, should Willie Randolph (the manager) be fired? Not according to the media. No, you can't blame Willie, he didn't strike out at a crucial time, give up a late homer, or drop an easy fly to cost the Mets a late-season game. One more time -- NOT HIS FAULT! Got it?

For the most part, I agree with the lack of blame attributed to Randolph. He was, in fact, most certainly NOT the guy doing the boneheaded things that cost the Mets the division. Still, though, I wonder how the media types square these two positions. In case they hadn't noticed, I'll remind them of Lou Piniella'a season totals for the Cubs: 0 HRs, 0 RBI, 0 Batting Avg., 0 Wins, 0 Saves, etc. Egad, his stats are exactly the same as Willie Randolph's! Yet Lou gets heaps of credit and Willie gets no blame.

I think Lou may have done some positive things attitude-wise for the Cubs' clubhouse and I figure Willie failed to pull off those same kinds of things for the Mets. In my opinion, Lou should get some credit for holding the Cubs together through a rough first half of the season and Willie should get some blame for letting his clubhouse fall apart at the end of the season. Neither deserves the lion's share of the credit/blame, but I'm miffed by this "we want it both ways" attitude the media apparently has adopted.

Sorry, I know this rant was totally uninteresting to something like 99% of you, but I had to vent.

Silly cat

As some of you know, my cat Emmylou is, well, a bit strange. Both my cats are strange, but in different ways. Gumbo is just demonic. Emmylou, on the other hand, has a lot of dog in her. First off, she loves people. People she knows, total strangers, probably even serial killers: she loves them all. Walk into my house and you're guaranteed Emmylou will be on the back of the chair in the living room, wanting some attention from you. I'm sure she's a great disappointment to the species as she somehow missed the memo on the appropriate level of aloofness and disdain for humans.

Anyway, I've found a new Emmylou quirk. Over the past couple of months, she has changed her preferred method of hydration. A bowl of water is just no good for her. No, she insists on getting her water by licking around the bottom of the sink after I run water or licking the bits of water that ooze out under the shower door or other equally bizarre things. It's kind of cute, but it's annoying when you're trying to brush your teeth and this fuzzy animal insists on getting in the sink. Last week I came up with a potential solution.

See I thought her fascination might be with the freshness of the water or the fact that it's almost flowing water instead of just standing water in a bowl. Hence, I was intrigued when I saw a display of those "flowing pet bowls" at Big Lots. If you don't know, basically it's a water bowl with a towering base on the backside and a ramp coming down into the bowl proper. A small pump circulates water through a filter and then lets it flow down the ramp into the bowl. It was pretty cheap, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Well it worked -- sort of. Gumbo took to it right away. Emmylou, however, was more skeptical. She approached it from many angles, with much sniffing, licking, and rubbing. Finally she investigated the water itself. She certainly was fascinated by the flowing water, but she was a little frightened about sticking her face down into the pool of flowing water. Instead, she stood by the bowl, raised one paw, plunged said paw to the bottom of the bowl and then proceeded to lick the water off her paw. Now I've seen a couple of cats drink this way before, but not like Emmylou. First, she sunk her paw WAY down into the water. It's probably a couple of inches deep and she went all the way to the bottom. Second, she didn't do this once or twice. No, she must have done this plunge/drink thing 10 times. I can't decide if she likes it or not, but it does seem like I'm able to brush my teeth in peace now so I guess it's working.

Bless her heart.

It's called "insurance" ...

for a reason. See, insurance is designed to protect you from financial hits that you cannot afford to weather on your own. Many people overinsure and try to protect themselves from everything bad that could ever possibly happen: events that either are almost certain not to occur or are things they could afford to pay for themselves. Other people (rationally or not) choose to underinsure -- figuring the dreaded event will not occur or thinking they can afford the risk. Sometimes they are wrong.

I got to thinking about this as I watched the news this morning. I'm sure you've all heard the story of the woman who was trapped for 8 days in her wrecked SUV. Yes it was an awful ordeal and a miracle they found her. Yes the authorities probably should apologize and review their procedures for launching missing person searches. This morning, though, there was a tearful interview with the husband on one of the morning shows. The focus of the story was that the woman does not have insurance and the MASSIVE medical bills will likely cripple the couple. Why does she not have insurance? Well evidently she was in line to get insurance (through her work I guess?) in a few months, so she told her husband not to worry about adding her to his policy at work.

They didn't actually come out and say this, but the implied tone of the story was that it's just awful that a family would find themselves in such a situation and isn't it a shame that we don't have a national healthcare system that would prevent such tragedies. Now I personally don't understand why we continue to insist on linking insurance coverage to places of employment and I could pretty easily be convinced that we might ought to experiment with some form of national health care, but I'm not sure this woman is the best poster child for the movement.

Remember, she had the option to be insured through her husband. Why didn't she take it? I can only assume it was to save money. So were these desperately poor folks who couldn't afford insurance? No, they're a fairly young couple (she's 33) who recently bought a house and still had approximately $60,000 in savings. They made a decision, which seems irrational only in hindsight, that the probability of a young woman having such a catastrophic medical emergency in the few months before getting her own insurance was small enough to bet against. We all make decisions like that all the time. In this case the decision turned to be ENORMOUSLY, STUPENDOUSLY bad, but it was a decision they made on their own, not out of some financial desperation. I feel incredibly bad for the couple, but I don't think this is a case of market failure. It's a case of incredibly bad luck and a poor (in hindsight) choice.

Of course I was once the beneficiary of an incredibly stupid insurance program. I have DISH Network TV service and, of course, I chose not to buy the optional $5-per-month insurance. After a year or so, though, a tree fell and took out my DISH. I called to get someone to come out and fix/replace it and the guy on the phone kept talking about how I didn't have the insurance so it was going to cost me a couple of hundred dollars, at best. After he'd told me this a couple of times, I told him I realized NOW the insurance looked like a good deal, but I didn't have it. That's okay, he said, why don't you just sign up for it now? I pointed out to him that it wouldn't do me much good since the accident had already occurred. That's okay, he said, "they" won't know that you bought it after the fact! So I signed up, but I do realize that's not how insurance works. If it did, no insurance company would be able to stay in business.

So while I'm not generally in favor of government mandated behavior, perhaps a minimum level of mandatory (once you meet some minimum income threshold perhaps?) catastrophic coverage is necessary to avoid the moral hazard problem created by situations like this. Hmm, something to think about on a Friday.

Useless outrage

I know you can't fight the machine, but stuff like this gets my goat, so to speak. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to AL's obscenity law. [I honestly don't know whether the SCOTUS should have heard the case. I'm just peeved that the legislature feels like it has any business being involved in this.]

See back in 1998 the state of AL passed a law (sponsored by one of my local area legislators) to fight obscenity. Now I'm inherently sceptical of such efforts because they all seem to rely on the "I'll know it when I see it" definition of obscenity. Well this particular statute included a little section that would ban the production/distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." In other words: SEX TOYS!

Now I'm not a buyer of such things, but can anyone give me a good reason the government should have a say on whether or not such items can be sold in AL? I've not even heard the "sex toys lead to ..." argument in support of this law. The guy who originally sponsored the legislation hasn't talked about it in years, but he did claim the original measure was designed to control nude dancing and not sex toys, yet he's never taken the opportunity to rewrite the law or even disavow the sex toy part. Further, courts have generally ruled that the state has an interest in upholding "general morality" or something like that. Geesh!

I don't know the woman, but I'm very proud of Sherri Williams, the owner of two "adult" stores in North AL, who has fought the law for 9 years. Though things look bleak for her now, she says she's going to launch a 1st Amendment challenge now. Good luck to her.

In the meantime, the state is gearing up to enforce the law:

Meanwhile, the Alabama attorney general's office will go to federal court
to end an injunction that has delayed enforcement of the ban.

"Now it has been settled. Now the injunction has to be dissolved," said
Chris Bence, chief of staff for Alabama Attorney General Troy King. "That's just
a formality, but it must be done. That will take a couple of days.

"At that point, local district attorneys and local law enforcement will
be able to enforce the law."

Now I suppose the AG has to do that, but I wish his office didn't sound so eager. Instead, I'd rather they take the stance implied by the Madison County (Huntsville) DA:

"It's a pretty low priority," said Morgan. "We've got plenty of work to do. We don't need to be going out drumming up business.

"We've got real crimes."

I'm betting the AG is not going to be real happy about that "real crimes" crack, but I thought it was the best part of the article.

So good luck Ms. Williams. I hope you topple this particular windmill.

Update: Now Ms. Williams has announced her stores will no longer sell sex toys. Now they'll only sell medical devices. Somehow I feel we haven't heard the last of this.