Baseball, Books, and ... I need a third B

It's over

2008-11-06T13:27:00.004-06:00

The elections are over and the (big) result wasn't a surpise. Barack Obama will be our next president. On the comment board, an old friend expressed her absolute joy in the outcome.

Well I voted for him too, but a little less enthusiastically than Ang. Though my candidate got knocked out in the previous round, I like Obama well enough. As with any president, I have some reservations, but I think he's smart; he's obviously committed to being president (something I began to doubt about McCain during the campaign); he has some good ideas; and he's surrounded himself with some very good people. But America is not going to become radically different at noon on January 20, 2009.

I'm not blind to the historic nature of this election, but I worry that some of his supporters are projecting messiah-like powers onto Obama. I watched his victory speech Tuesday night and I noticed the faces in the crowd before his speech began. It reminded me of film I've seen of when the Beatles came to America. I swear I saw people crying. Not his wife, close advisers, etc., but regular people. I think it's good that a politician has the power to inspire people again, but he's just a politician. Just as any other president, President Obama will have to deal with senators, representatives, judges, lobbyists, activists, etc. I do think he will implement some new policies (good and bad) that shift the country's direction, but January 21st will not find us living in the United States of Obama. I'm not sure everyone realizes that.

Bob Dylan, for instance, was quoted at a concert on election night as saying, "“I was born in 1941 -- Pearl Harbor. Things have been in darkness ever since. Things are going to change.” That pisses me off for two reasons. First, the idea that the country has been in darkness since 1941. C'mon, Bob, seriously. That's just stupid. Second, if you do believe the past 67 years have been all doom and gloom, then how can you believe that one man will magically bring the sunshine? It was a good soundbite and it expresses the belief that Obama is a new brand of politician, here to unite the country and save the day. I'm not sure.

I don't want to trot out the usual right-wing meme on his record, but Obama has shown up as a reliable liberal vote. Why would he suddenly become concillatory and reach out to others -- especially when he's going to have a big majority in Washington and the longest honeymoon period of any president since (at least) Reagan? Many people will not like his proposed changes and they'll do all they can to block them. Obama himself will "sell out" on some things he campaigned on (I'm hoping he does that on "card check" and free-trade issues). He'll also have to pander -- supporting policies he doesn't really believe in to repay electoral support (I'm hoping he does NOT do that on "card check" and free-trade issues).

In the end, I'm hoping that he can inspire some new confidence in America the Good and he can make some changes that will move us off some of the tracks we've been on the past 8 years. I believe he can. At worst, though; even if he turns out to be just another "tax the rich, expand the government" president, well the historic nature of his victory is something special and has value in its own right. So I'm sorry if I'm not excited enough about this event, but I really do look forward to seeing what the Obama administration can accomplish.

P.S. I have a post in me about that last point -- the "specialness" of his victory -- but I'll have to save that for another day. Just a teaser -- it involves Tee Martin and a relative of mine.

Election Day

2008-11-04T13:37:00.002-06:00

Yes today is the day (although one student missed my bonus question last week asking what event of national interest was going to occur today). I'm kind of excited by the idea of voting, though the choices this year don't inspire me. Regardless, I take voting seriously and, as is my custom, I'm wearing an ironed shirt and tie today. Needless to say, my students were freaking out. They assumed they were in trouble. I told them they weren't, though I think a little fear in the student population is not really a bad thing.

So anyway, today is voting day. I've made my decisions on the BIG race and most of the state and local races. I'm still not sure why we vote on the "license commissioner", but after my horrible experience registering my Jeep a couple of years ago there's no way I'm voting for the incumbent! The oddest contest, though, is the race to replace longtime U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer. I'm still suspicious of the way in which this opening arose. See Bud was one of those Congressional lifers, but then, all of a sudden, he up and decide NOT to run for reelection, just a week or so before the deadline for entering the race. Local conventional wisdom held that there was some scandal in Bud's closet and we all waited for it to pop out. Nothing has happened, though, so now I'm thinking it was all orchestrated so Bud could hand pick his successor. Given the short time, there was only one Democratic candidate who had the name recognition, the money, and the desire to get in.

Though there was only one Democrat, there was a well-connected Republican just waiting for his chance to take over from Bud. Now the race has turned NASTY! There are charges of intentional undertreatment of cancer patients, softness on terrorism, ties to big-money oil companies, etc. The funniest thing, though is that one of the candidates recently has steered away from the mudslinging, choosing to emphasize his own good points. He's conservative, independent, pro-life, and anti-tax. Did I mention, this is the DEMOCRATIC candidate? Strange world, huh? I'm just glad it only comes around every couple of years.

Peace out.

Aw, I missed it

2008-10-27T15:02:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was World Zombie Day. And I missed it. Further cementing its reputation as a nerd/geek town, though, Huntsville had a strong showing:

On Sunday, as sort of a preview to the inevitable zombie takeover of the world, more than 100 people dressed up as the undead and took to the streets of downtown Huntsville for the second annual Zombie Walk.

Yes, there are 100+ people in Huntsville who not only are willing to be seen lurching down a public street, dressed in tattered clothing and smeared with fake blood and related goop, but they actually took the time and made the effort to do so. I guess I view potential zombies as being less "on the ball." When the zombie takeover does happen, I guess Huntsville will not be a good place to be.

Me, I spent World Zombie Day checking out some sketches by this guy. Silly me.

Small world

2008-10-24T10:39:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while I'm reminded up just how small the world can be. What brought about this epiphany? Essentially it was Facebook. Some of you who know me well may be very surprised to learn that I have a Facebook account. In my defense, I feel that I was led to Facebook under false pretenses. I was told that ALL the Caffeine cousins use Facebook to keep in touch. Since I didn't have an account, well I was just missing out on much good family fun. Hence, I gave in and created an account. It turns out, though, that for the most part it's one cousin who spends a lot of time on Facebook. Now I love Cousin Sandee dearly so I don't mind the fact that I now am better able to keep up with her, but the whole Facebook thing has been pretty useless as far as I'm concerned.

Then weird things started to happen. An old college pal did track me down via FB and I thought that was kind of cool. Last week, though, I got a real blast from the past when I got a friend request from a name that stirred vague high school memories. Sure enough it was an old teammate from my high schol "nerd bowl" days. I finally got around to agreeing to be his "friend" and then I almost immediately got a request from another old high school friend who also went to Ole Miss with me. It turns out she works at a really small college in Louisville where I happen to know someone on the business faculty. Finally I had a FB message this morning from a girl (er, woman I guess now) that I sort of knew in high school, but never was friends with. She'd seen my TV appearance from a few weeks ago and just wanted to say "hey." I feel like I've moved back to Lawrenceburg.

Anyway, that's about it for today. I've got a bunch of tests to prepare for next week, so I'd best get to it.

An education rant

2008-10-22T11:56:00.002-05:00

I'm quite tired of endless debates about how to improve our schools. Some issues seem hard to resolve, while other solutions appear fairly obvious. I am pretty darned sure, though, that the Dallas (TX) Independent School District does NOT have the answer. The Dallas ISB is upset that so many freshman (as high as 20%) fail to advance to 10th grade. The solution? Come up with some new rules. The highlights:

•Homework grades should be given only when the grades will "raise a student's average, not lower it."

•Teachers must accept overdue assignments, and their principal will decide whether students are to be penalized for missing deadlines.

•Students who flunk tests can retake the exam and keep the higher grade.

•Teachers cannot give a zero on an assignment unless they call parents and make "efforts to assist students in completing the work."

•High school teachers who fail more than 20 percent of their students will need to develop a professional improvement plan and will be monitored by their principals. For middle school the rate is 15 percent; for elementary it's 10 percent.

Also note, this is on top of last year's innovation that no student can be assigned a "six-weeks grade" lower than a 50.

I don't know just how to express my dismay. I did, though, enjoy some of the rationalizations offered up by ISD big wheels. One said, "We want to make sure that students are mastering the content [of their classes] and not just failing busy work." Well that's a noble goal, but according to the new rules, only 40% of a student's grade is determined by test grades and at least 20% must be determined by "class work." "Class work" sounds a lot like the dreaded "busy work" to me

I find the whole thing depressing, but this is not really an unexpected outcome of the much ballyhooed goal of standardization that is sweeping the education industry these days. Think about it. When you standardize are you going to standardize "up" to a more difficult level that fewer students will master or "down" to give yourself improved, measurable outcomes? Looks like Dallas has decided.

Big Orange HA

2008-10-20T11:17:00.002-05:00

In honor of The Vol Abroad, I give you a rather lame joke:

Have you heard President Bush is thinking of making Phil Fulmer (UT football coach, for the time being) the new director of FEMA?

No, why?

Because of how quickly he can evacuate over 100,000 people!

Yes, attendance is down at Vols games this year. Here's a story on the local business impact and here's one from the student perspective.

Football quote

2008-10-16T12:27:00.002-05:00

Though I don't really pay attention to football until the World Series is over, I couldn't help but notice this quote from Vince Young in a story about how the media is making him out to be a bad guy. Says Vince:

"I'm a great guy, a great humble guy," Young told MSNBC.com. "I've done a whole lot in my career in just three years and for [the media] to do stuff like that to try to make me look bad for some reason -- I don't know why -- but they're just writing my legacy. (my emphasis)

I know extemporaneous speaking is tricky and quotes can be taken out of context, but ... Well I just don't know what to say.

I don't get this

2008-10-15T15:37:00.002-05:00

For those of you who don't follow baseball (I have heard there are some), ... The New York Yankees did not make the playoffs this year -- ending a streak of 13 years in the post season. Needless to say, everyone figured the guillotine was being wheeled into place.

Now heads are starting to roll. Before we get into just what changes are being made, consider the situation. The Yankees are an old team, filled with expensive free agents whose best days are behind them. So where would you start if you wanted to rebuild your team to its accustomed level of excellence? Maybe try to acquire some good young prospects? Take steps to rebuild your own minor league system (they've been the absolute worst team in terms of minor league position players making it to the majors from 1997-2005)? No! If you are the Yankees, you'd start by firing the 3rd base coach? According to manager Joe Girardi:

"... Bobby is a good baseball man, but moving forward we realize changes are going to have to be made in various areas of the club."

So getting rid of the 3rd base coach and a special pitching instructor (whatever that is) is going to turn around the Yanks? If this is their view on necessary changes, I wouldn't be surprised if the Yanks are missing from next year's playoffs as well.

I hate to, but ...

2008-10-14T12:59:00.004-05:00

I have to talk about the election today.

I'm really not excited by this election, perhaps because I'm not inspired by either of the two leading candidates (and the Libertarians let me down this time). I have not watched any of the debates and I've tried my best to tune out most of the election noise. I have looked at both candidates "plans" and I've decided which one I'd be less unhappy with. [Here's a hint -- the running mate selections really convinced me which candidate I plan to vote against!] So I've been blissfully ignoring the political chatter.

Then, though, I read this column by E.J. Dionne, Jr. in The Washington Post and I just have to comment. In case you don't want to read the whole thing, Dionne says that the McCain campaign may be (inadvertently?) paving the way for the reemergence of the far right as a political force -- "a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger."

False claims that Obama is Muslim, that he trained to overthrow the government and that he was educated in Wahhabi schools are a standard part of the political discussion. These fake stories come from voices on the ultra right that have dabbled in other forms of conspiracy, including classic anti-Semitism. McCain and his campaign do not pick up the most extreme charges. They just fan the flames by suggesting that voters don't really know who Obama is, hinting at a sinister back story without filling in the details. That is left to the voters' imaginations.

I don't doubt that there are some angry, scared, xenophobic racists who plan to vote for McCain because he is a white man with a familiar name. What I quibble with is Dionne's assumption that this is the power base of McCain's support (or even the Republican party). To me it's no different from the wackos who think Bush was behind the Sept. 11 bombings and who insisted on the legitimacy of the TX Air National Guard memo long after it was shown to be a fake. [I'm not claiming GWB did not shirk his duty; I'm just saying the smoking gun memo was a fake.] I know there are "far lefties" out there that would not vote for McCain for any reason. I don't extrapolate from that, though, to presume that all Obama supporters (or Democrats) are members of Moveon.org or similar groups, even though they may get a disproportionate amount of attention at times.

So two things puzzle me about Dionne's column. First, the fact that there are people who buy into the notion that Obama is a closet Muslim seeking to undermine the country does not, to me, indicate that this is a major political force. Even the often repeated claim that 20% of voters surveyed think he's a Muslim appears to be a little shaky. I looked at the Pew Center surveys and it seems to me that the 20% figure probably reflects the percentage that had HEARD Obama is Muslim. I'm in that 20% but I don't believe it, so I don't see how that's relevant to bias against Obama (though the percentage believing it does seem to be rising). True, the rumor wouldn't be out there if Obama were a white male with an "American" name, but I don't think the existence of the rumor implies that much about the political will of the nation. I know people who are voting against Obama primarily because of religion, but it is their own religious views (primarily about abortion) rather than a rumor about Obama, that seem to be motivating them.

Second, I'm not sure I like the implied smear against McCain. Even Dionne points out that McCain has, "begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a 'decent person'."

So decry the fact that there are people who think any black man with a foreign name must be the anti-Christ (another rumor), but I don't think that indicates a groundswell of political support for the position. Nor do I think it says a whole lot about John McCain.

Mixed feelings

2008-10-13T11:50:00.003-05:00

Well the Nobel in economics has been announced and I'm sort of happy, a bit disappointed, but, cynically, not surprised. The Academy chose to honor Paul Krugman.

I have mixed feelings because I do think Krugman was on his way to some very important work in trade theory. I don't particularly agree with some of his conclusions regarding "managed trade," but I think his early work truly was in the Nobel neighborhood.

Then, however, Prof. Krugman became a celebrity columnist for the NY Times and he seemed to forget a lot of economics. There almost always was an economic theory to support his columnist claims, but he seemed only to seek out theories that supported a certain political party or, more often since 2000, he didn't care so much about supporting his favored party as doing everything possible to tear down the opposition. Now I'll be among the first to admit his favorite target needed some taking down, but I felt Krugman's approach was overly partisan -- for an economist.

See, that's where my mixed feelings come from. As an op-ed columnist, most of his stuff was well within the bounds of political discourse. As an economist, though, he knew he was not presenting a measured analysis of whatever the issue of the day was. The one that put the nail in his economist coffin for me was his series on poor employment numbers in 2004. I can't find a non-partisan link to the controversy right now, but there was pretty wide agreement that Krugman intentionally cherry-picked employment numbers (in a way he knew to be dishonest) to make Bush look bad. Worse than that, to me though, was when he used a highly misleading graph to "prove" the Council of Economic Advisors simply served as a lapdog to Bush. Here's a pretty good link to that one.

[Note that it's not just the righties who make this claim. In 2005 The Times' departing ombudsman chose to use his farewell column to hit Krugman: "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults."]

He can be a partisan columnist if he wants, but he can't use that to advance his standing as an economist. Now the Nobel committee didn't cite his work as an op-ed columnist in awarding him the prize, but c'mon, does anyone believe he'd have won it otherwise? In my opinion, his major contributions to economics pretty much stopped after he became a regular Times' columnist.

Further, the committee chose to honor him as a solo winner. If the award really was for his work in trade (and related economic geography stuff), then there were several others equally as deserving. To me, it's the fact that he didn't share the award with anyone else that confirms the political nature of this award.

So, to sum up, I'm glad the Nobel focused on trade, but I'm disappointed that it chose to make such a blatantly (in my opinion) political statement with the award.

UPDATE: After reading some more economists' reactions to the prize, I may have to tone down my cynicism a little bit. Krugman's trade work really is garnering a lot of praise in the econ circles today, with many making it seem his prize was an eventual foregone conclusion. Of course there may also be a bit of "we don't want to criticize one of our own" in this thread. I still can't get past the feeling there was a pretty big dose of politics in his selection -- especially in the fact that the prize wasn't shared.

Cool story, but ...

2008-10-10T12:26:00.003-05:00

also kind of sad.

Huntsville resident Douglas Prasher has led an interesting life. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s he isolated the gene that allows the Aequoria Victoria jellyfish to emit its odd glow. Unfortunately his grant from the American Cancer Society ran out before he was able to develop its medical applications.

What's so interesting about that? Well for one, two guys that he later gave copies of the gene to were able to develop some applications and they just won a Nobel Prize. So what is old Doug doing now? It turns out he's driving the courtesy shuttle for a Huntsville Toyota dealership.

So is Doug bitter? Evidently not:

"I could have hung onto the gene," Prasher said during his lunch break Thursday. "But when you're in that environment and losing public funds, you've got an obligation to share. I gave it away, and they took it and ran with it."

Tough luck Dr. Prasher. Best of luck down the road.

UPDATE: Just found out the story also made NPR this morning. Maybe Prasher will be able to cash in a bit, or at least find a new job.

Quick note

2008-10-08T15:18:00.002-05:00

I know I've been lax in my posting. Sorry, but I just can't seem to get back into the habit of writing something every day. In addition, things have been a little busy. What's been going on? Well ...

First, there's work. I swear I don't know where the hours of the day go. I do teach 5 classes per semester, but I don't have any new preps so I don't see why they eat up so much time. Yet they do.

Second, reading. I did another review for local paper, but they've now decided to go behind a "pay wall," so the best I can do is provide you a link to the book itself. As strange as it may seem, I actually had heard a lot about this book and I was eager to read it. In the end, though, I was let down. There was some good information in the book and it did make me think about traffic in new ways, but it seemed very repetitive. And there were pages and pages of those awful end notes. Here's a tip to non-fiction writers. If the info is important enough to go in your book, put it in the text. If the information itself is not vital, but it is helpful in explaining a vital concept, then put it in a footnote. It it's useless blather that simply repeats (or adds useless details to) information you've already stated, leave it out!

On a brighter reading note, I'm excited by this book by one of my favorite current authors. I enjoy his books because they're big, meaty romps that thoroughly cover whatever topic he features. They almost always involve an engaging tale AND they're so full of information that I feel as if I've taken an introductory college course in the topic by the time I finish the novel. This one, though, seems a bit different. It's an alternate universe/future world sort of book -- complete with an invented language and a hefty glossary (for all those invented concepts) at the back of the book. Plus, it's just shy of 900 pages (net of glossary and appendices). Needless to say, the first couple of hundred pages was pretty slow going. Now, though, I've become comfortable with most aspects of life on Arbe and things are moving more quickly. I suspect there is going to be a BIG MESSAGE at the end of the book, so I won't begrudge him for dropping the "college course novel" format just yet. I will be disappointed, though, if the book just fizzles to a disappointing end.

Oh, the baseball playoffs are in full swing (pun intended) -- well sort of. They build this crazy schedule, with an insane number of off days, and then, after being excited by close games in many of the 1st-round series, you have to wait through a delay until the scheduled start of the next round. I sort of understand why they schedule everything out rather than just starting the next round as soon as the previous one is finished, but I don't like it. On top of that, let me go back to those "off days" built into the post-season schedule. WHY? All season long baseball teams play 3 (or more) games at one location, then fly out and play in another city the next day. Why is it that once the playoffs arrive we (potentially) have to wait through 2 games in city A, a day off, 2 games in city B, a day off, 1 more game back in city A? It irks me.

I'm sure there are many other things that have been eating up my time, but those are the ones I can think of right now. Plus, I have to go to a meeting, so I don't have time to ramble on about anything else. Oh, I did want to drop a plug for the Meriwether Lewis Arts & Crafts fair this weekend. Cousin Becca (of 2B Pottery, website in development) is going to be there and I may be assisting her on Saturday. If you're in the area, stop by and check it out. Though biased, I think her stuff is nice -- and very competitively priced.

Peace out.

I tried not to, but

2008-09-30T14:11:00.002-05:00

I just have to pass along this comment from The New Republic. It's one of my biggest pet peeves -- people who intentionally misuse numbers to make things look bleaker than they really are. The financial system crisis is bad enough on its merits; there's no need to make it look worse by harping on "the largest one-day point drop in history." It's basically the same complaint I've had for the last few years about how gas prices are at "all-time highs." That is (roughly) true over the past few months, but it wasn't really so (in inflation adjusted terms) for much of the time it was being reported.

Anyway, the comment from TNR goes over some familiar, basic complaints, but it also offers evidence that it's an intentional misuse of numbers rather than just a result of journalists' (general) lack of numerical aptitude. Read the whole thing; it's not long.

Things I'm sick of reading about ...

2008-09-29T12:02:00.004-05:00

and, thus, will not be blogging about.

Number one on this list has to be THE ELECTION. I know it's important, but I figure most people have made up their minds. Yes the sheep fleetingly react to each new bit of breaking news (hence the post-convention bumps), but don't you think most people have decided who they're voting for? I consider myself to be truly unaffiliated with either party, but I've known for a while which candidate I was going to vote for. No he's not my ideal candidate, but I think the differences between the two are pretty stark and they've been laid out pretty clearly. What is there to be undecided about?

Number two is THE FINANCIAL CRISIS. It's bad. Credit is going to be tight. No, it's not due to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Yes, it will pass. Unfortunately when it all settles down, I fear there will be more concentration in the banking industry -- the smart set seems to think there'll be 3 big commercial banks left standing.

Now for some things I am not sick of -- and, hence, will blog about:

#1 has to be my beloved University of MS football team. I know "close" doesn't count, but the Rebs have been having a good year. The "prevent defense" cost them a win (in my opinion) over Wake Forest in the opener. Then they lost to Vandy (a better team than most would have thought), in large part, due to a disastrous fumble at the end of the game. So they'd had some tough losses, but they'd looked pretty good. Then there was Saturday. The Ole Miss Rebels went into the swamp and beat the mighty Florida Gators. Again I thought being conservative at the end was going to cost them the game, but the defense stood up and stopped the Gators on a 4th and 1 at the end. It was sweet.

Okay now that I think about it, as happy as that made me, I'm more excited by the MLB playoffs. The Cardinals did not make the playoffs this year (in part due to their fine imitation of the Durham Bulls, from the movie Bull Durham, the last few weeks of the season), but they had a better year than anyone expected back in March/April. Albert Pujols, of course, had another stellar year and, in my opinion, deserves to win his 2nd (should be his 3rd) MVP award. On top of that, Troy Glauss and Ryan Ludwick had years no one expected, and Yadier Molina hit over .300. All-in-all, a pretty good year for the Redbirds. Now they just need to figure out the bullpen. Outside of the Cardinals, it is now playoff time and there are some unexpected teams there. I'm looking forward to it.

Yikes, it's time for class. I'll try for a more personal post soon.

Still here

2008-09-25T13:29:00.002-05:00

In case my couple of devoted readers might be getting worried, I haven't quit blogging. It's just that I'm giving about a bazillion tests this week, so things have been pretty busy. I had to pull the old geezer card again, but ...

I can't believe the behavior of students today. In one class yesterday (approx. 30 students) 3 cell phones went off during the test! One guy even answered his phone -- just to say, "Dude, I'm taking a test," then he hung up! I called him out on that one and his response was, "Well that was the third time they'd called." Geesh. That floored me, but I may have been even more amazed that two other phones rang later in the period. Wouldn't you have checked (and silenced) your phone after the first incident? Oh, there was one final "insult to injury" ...

After the third phone rang, I interrupted everyone and said, "Okay, folks, please silence all your noise making devices." There were 3 people (that I saw) who still hadn't made their phones be silent, even after three disturbances! Are these people incredibly dense or are they just horribly inconsiderate?

Grrr!

Incentives, incentives, incentives ...

2008-09-22T10:57:00.002-05:00

Not to make light of a tragic situation, but here's a new wrinkle in the story of Bruce Ivins, the government scientist who committed suicide after being named as THE SUSPECT in the 2001 anthrax mailings.

In a will he wrote last year, a few months before the Federal Bureau of Investigation focused the anthrax letters investigation on him, Dr. Ivins wrote of his wish to be cremated and have his ashes scattered. But fearing that his wife, Diane, and their two children might not honor the request, he came up with a novel way to enforce his demand:

“If my remains are not cremated and my ashes are not scattered or spread on the ground, I give to Planned Parenthood of Maryland” $50,000, Dr. Ivins wrote in the will.

Why that particular threat?

Ms. Ivins is a former president of Frederick County Right to Life, according to F.B.I. records.

The Times goes on to suggest this is another indicator of Dr. Ivins' "quirky and mentally troubled" state of mind. I don't know; it seems to me like a pretty good way to try to establish enforcement power in a contract.

Shiver me timbers

2008-09-19T13:16:00.002-05:00

Once again it is Talk Like A Pirate Day. [No, Vol Abroad, this is not an invitation to discuss illegal downloading of songs, movies, etc.] While I always try to note this holiday, this year I'm going to offer "me mateys" some practical pirate advice.

First, here are some tips on the best way to sell yourself as a convincing pirate. My favorite tip: Procure one dead stuffed parrot and sew feet to right shoulder of 2nd hand store jacket. Now that's just good solid advice.

Second, if you find yourself at a loss for just what to take to the Talk Like A Pirate party hosted by your friend/co-worker/etc., well how about an easy-to-make pirate cake?

So with these helpful tips, I don't see why anyone would miss out on the fun that is Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Whoops

2008-09-19T09:50:00.004-05:00

These things never seem to happen to my fellow teachers.

Yesterday we were talking about price ceilings (government mandated price caps) in my macro class. They lead to shortages and, invariably, people attempt to cheat on them. I was using coffee as my example and I hypothesized a maximum price of $3 per cup -- far below the market clearing price of $5 in my example.

Anyway, I was walking them through the analysis of the unintended effects of the ceiling and I decided to use one of my students to illustrate a point about people cheating on the cap. Lily (not her real name) works at a Starbucks in Athens, so I decided to have her play the role of coffee shop owner. I then set the scene: I'm desperate for a cup of coffee and I have my $3, but Lily's shop is all sold out of the "cheap" coffee. "What," I asked Lily, "could I offer you to convince you to make me another cup of coffee?"

I was anticipating she would say, "More money." Well she did say that, sort of. What she said was, "You could offer me six." Now she meant if I was willing to pay her $6, rather than the mandated $3 price, then she'd take the time and go to the trouble of making some more coffee -- a perfectly fine answer. The problem was, I did not hear SIX. I heard a different word that starts with S, ends with X, and has a vowel in the middle!

I immediately froze and said, "I could offer you WHAT?" She repeated her answer and then, foolishly, I blurted out, "OH, I didn't hear SIX." Well the rest of the class then figured out what I thought she had said and much hilarity followed. I feel sure I turned a pleasant shade of crimson, as did Lily. To her credit, though, she handled it MUCH better than I would have in her position. If that had happened to me, I think I'd have gone to drop the class immediately. Hopefully she won't.

Anyway, another exciting day in econ. I just don't get why some people think it's a boring subject.

A TV star, hardly

2008-09-18T07:17:00.004-05:00

Back when I was at UAH (whoops, they now prefer to be called UA Huntsville), I would sometimes be asked to talk to one of the local TV stations about economic issues. Since moving to my current place, though, I haven't been asked to do that. Until now.

On Monday, the campus PR woman called and asked if I'd be willing to talk with channel xx about the current state of the economy. I was just grateful they didn't want to talk about the intricate details of Lehman Brothers, so I agreed. It's really not a big deal and I did what any economist would. I admitted that the economy is not doing really super right now, but it will bounce back. I then pointed out that AL is not doing as badly as some other parts of the country and this part of AL is doing better than the state as a whole. I even went so far as to point out that, by historical standards, this downturn is not all that severe. Basically I downplayed the irrational sense of panic that the chicken littles seemed to be espousing.

Then the rest of the week unfolded. The feds signed on for another massive bailout, the stock market took a huge hit, and things in general started looking a bit more grim. To further make me look like an idiot, the station decided to hold the story for a while -- making my optimistic spin from Monday look even more foolish. Plus, to add final insult to injury, I now hear they are planning to make it a bigger story AND talk to a local family about how they've been affected by recent economic changes. I can already picture it. A destitute family will be talking about how they both lost their jobs, the bank took back their house, their child needs surgery but they don't have any insurance, and the dog just up and died. Then there will be me: Don't worry, the economy will bounce back; it's not really that bad, etc.

Needless to say, I will NOT be watching that particular news report.

Okay, okay, ...

2008-09-16T13:53:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's been quite a while since I shared my thoughts, feelings, and pearls of wisdom. Due to popular demand -- actually 2 people -- I'm back. I feel a bit like one of those washed up rock stars, reduced to playing local festivals and being lured back on stage for an encore by the two devoted fans who drove hours to see you play. So what to write about in my return to blogging?

How about my crazy family?

For those of you who do not know, I come from a really large (extended) family. Not only are we a large bunch, but we're "colorful" as well. Further, most members of this large, colorful bunch actually like each other and enjoy spending time together. That means we plan, attend, and even enjoy frequent family get togethers.

Now, though, my Uncle Al has jumped the shark. Several years ago, Al developed an interest in genealogy. He's traced the family back a pretty long way and, surprisingly, no horrible surprises have fallen off the tree. A couple of years ago, he managed to locate a branch of the family centered somewhere in North Carolina. He made contact and even went up to visit a bunch of them last year. Then he decided it'd be fun if a bunch of them came down to TN to experience the Caffeine family, in its TN form, in all our glory. Well this past weekend was the big event.

Actually there were two events. First, on Friday night there was a "meet and greet" at some hotel in Florence, where all the "foreign" Caffeines were staying. I, of course, did not attend that. However, I didn't really see an easy way to get out of the BIG EVENT on Saturday. We were throwing a pig roasting at the cabin, similar to our 4th of July thing, for the NC Caffeines. Okay, I could have refused to go, but that just seemed rude -- especially in a family that puts great stock in attending gatherings. So I went.

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I walked up to the cabin. My cousin, Tara, met me before I got anywhere close to the main action to give me my name tag. Let me repeat. NAME TAG! This, by the way, was not some ordinary "Hello, my name is ____" name tag. No, this was a professionally printed name tag -- with my name and home town, a string to go around my neck, a picture of the cabin in the background, and a color-coded box to indicate which "branch" of the Caffeine tree I belonged to. Then I noticed Ma Caffeine's name tag looked a little different. It was the same basic design, but her color-coded box, while the same color, was only outlined in color. Turns out that was an intentional feature to show she only married into the Caffeines. Wow! Did I mention -- NAME TAGS?!?!

I thought it couldn't get any richer than that. I was wrong. After getting some food and visiting with various cousins ...

An aside: While I appreciate the spirit of the venture, the application sort of fell flat. I noticed that while there were two large branches, and one smaller one, in attendance, most everyone was sitting with and only talking to people in their own lines. So it was a good effort, but I don't think it accomplished what Uncle Al hoped.

Back to my story ... I was visiting with some of my (known) cousins when I heard a motor of some sort start up out in the woods below the cabin. Someone had cranked up the portable generator. See the cabin does not have electricity (or running water or cell phone service or ...). It's a cabin. Some uncle, though, did bring a generator over once upon a time, just in case there was ever a dire need for power. Well when I heard the thing crank up on Saturday, I couldn't imagine what it was for. Then I saw this ponytailed guy walking around holding an open laptop computer and a small camera in his hand.

We were being broadcast, via a live feed, on the internet!!! Yes, the Caffeine family's gathering was being uploaded and viewed (by the unfortunate Caffeines who could not attend?) in real time on the web! How bizarre is that? However bizarre you think it is, it's more bizarre. Unless, of course, you know the (extended) Caffeine family, in which case you may not be that surprised. I was flabbergasted. Seriously.

So anyhow, that was my weekend. I don't know that I'll ever view a family gathering the same way from now on. Name tags and a live feed on the net. Who'd have thunk?

P.S. For the entertainment of my many dedicated readers I've tried to find a link to the reunion, but it seems to be well hidden. Hmm, I'll have to ask one of my more informed cousins. I'll let y'all know if I find it.

A (not so) secret vice

2008-07-17T15:28:00.004-05:00

I'll admit it. I love stupid TV. I almost said "trash TV," but that seems to imply Jerry Springer and the like, which I still detest. No, I'm talking about bad, hour-long dramas. I blame the Sci-Fi channel for my affliction.

In case you didn't know, SciFi shows a mini-marathon of some sci-fi type of show Monday-Friday. Today it's something called Jake 2.0. It's a pretty lame show about a guy who ... Well let me just quote from the SciFi website:

A freak accident in an NSA lab floods Jake's body with nanobots; microscopic machines that imbue him with superhuman abilities. In effect, he is transformed into the world's first computer-enhanced human being.

He becomes stronger and faster than normal people. His sight and hearing are made more acute and able to perceive a wide range of spectrums and frequencies. He gains the ability to remote-control many kinds of technology with his thoughts.

Any of that sound familiar? Well it should if you ever watched the Six Million Dollar Man, Spider Man, Hulk, or that short-lived show Chuck. It combines elements of all those. Basically the guy is a computer tech for the NSA, but then after he gets "infected" with the nanobots he becomes a field agent with super powers.

The saddest part: I spent 4 hours watching Jake 2.0 episodes a couple of weeks ago. Further, Jake 2.0 is not the only one. Roswell, Kingdom Hospital, Tru Calling, Firefly, Level 9 -- they've all sucked me in at times. I don't know what happens, but I flip over to channel 33 and before I know it 2 or 3 hours have passed.

They say admitting your problem is the first step and now I've done that. On the other hand, "they" also say you have to want to quit and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to "sober up" in this case. I mean, who's it hurting? Nope, I think I'm going to continue to enjoy mindless sci-fi TV programs, but now I won't have to claim I'm spending the day watching British dramas or nature documentaries or lectures by eminent economists. No, I'll proudly stand up for stupid TV.

P.S. Speaking of lectures, ... I did spend two hours this past Sunday listening to a guy who claims to have "completed" Newton's theory of gravity. I understood about half of it -- enough to follow the lecture, but not enough to tell is he's a visionary or if he's full of crap. That experience, though, deserves a (later) post of its own.

Great baseball/stats article

2008-07-15T12:38:00.003-05:00

I know (most of) y'all don't share my fascination with the grand sport of baseball or the field of statistics, but I have to mention this terrific article on sabermetrics (basically the statistical analysis of sports, most frequently baseball) over at Slate.

It gives general kudos to the stat-heads who analyze baseball in general, but the focus seems to be pointing out the mystery that is Derek Jeter's reputation as a good (maybe even great) defensive shortstop. This is something we stats guys have never been able to fathom. Jeter is better than most (historically) shortstops with the bat, but his defense is awful! And this is not a recent phenomenon. He's never been a great defensive shortstop -- despite winning 3 Gold Glove awards. Everyone remembers his spectacular plays and his spinning, leaping throws, but as sabermetrician Michael Humphries put it, "Basically, he's OK at easy plays and terrible on all others."

There's a lot of good stuff in the article (including a dig at the infamously stat-unfriendly Joe Morgan), but I seem to have lost my train of thought. It's a short article and it points to a lot of the things sabermetrics does well. If you're interested, click through and check it out.

Yet another thing ...

2008-07-10T15:38:00.002-05:00

I don't worry about. Product placement in TV shows.

In case you haven't followed the news, the FCC is worried that product placement -- embedding a company's product into a program's story line rather than running a traditional paid ad -- is corrupting television viewers. PSHAW!

I'll admit that I'm sometimes influenced by advertising. I went to Sonic and had a banana split blast last night entirely because of their commercial. It was pretty tasty, though Sonic still can't match Dairy Queen when it comes to the blended ice cream treat.

That's what advertising is about -- making potential buyers aware of your product and hopefully convincing them to pony up the jack. Would it somehow be worse if I'd gone to Sonic not because of their ad, but rather because Dr. House had ordered one of his minions to fetch him a blast on his show? I don't think so.

Networks and advertisers pretty much have no other option. Tivo (and other DVRs) mean fewer and fewer people are watching commercials. A show may have a high rating, but if no one is watching the commercials, then I really don't see how it's going to charge premium prices for advertising. Product placement, on the other hand, seems to be an obvious solution. Plus, the practice could make TV more enjoyable -- if it resulted in fewer explicit commercial breaks.

Yeah I know it could go too far and I wouldn't enjoy watching my favorite TV character constantly point out the advantages of his Casio G-Force watch (for example). I'm thinking, though, that no one would enjoy watching that and shows would have to handle the process tastefully. I'll admit that it felt a little wrong when Heroes blatantly inserted the Nissan Rogue into some of their episodes, but it didn't destroy my moral center. Nor did it cause me to go out and purchase a new crossover SUV.

I honestly think I'm grown up enough to know when a product is being pushed on me. Despite that knowledge, I'm sure there'll be times when it'll influence my purchasing patterns, but so what? That happens with traditional ads, so why do I care what form the ad takes?

But hey, that's just me. Now I think I'll go and enjoy my yummy Snickers bar before class. [Don't you want to go buy a Snickers bar?]

Eerie tale

2008-07-09T13:22:00.002-05:00

Yesterday and today's Washington Post carried a spooky story of a guy who killed two hikers on the Appalachian Trail back in 1981 and then tried to kill two more there just two months ago. Given my fondness for hiking/camping alone, it did cause me a bit of concern, but what was truly eerie to me was how well I know the area described. That's right in the heart of my (mostly) annual minor league baseball trip! Seriously, I've spent nights in and explored most every little town mentioned.

Anyway, it's kind of long, but it's a good read -- sort of an "In Cold Blood" story. If you're interested, here's part1 and part2. Oh, after reading the story you really should check out the interactive timeline. I'm no computer graphics expert, but it's cool.

There's no future(s) in onions

2008-07-08T12:29:00.002-05:00

Literally.

While I think speculator's may be pushing up an oil bubble a bit, I also think the level of invective directed at futures markets is, to say the least, excessive. In case you haven't been paying attention, multiple sources are calling for a dramatic increase in regulation of or even an outright ban on futures markets in oil. Even overlooking the difficulties of a single nation doing that, I found the article on the lack of a futures market in onions interesting:

The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin) were responsible for falling onion prices, so they lobbied an up-and-coming Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford to push through a law banning all futures trading in onions. The law still stands.

And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics' belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings. Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007, when weather reduced crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only to crash 96% by March 2008 on overproduction and then rebound 300% by this past April.

Did you note those price swings? Up 400% over 6 months, then a 96% drop over about a year, followed by a threefold increase the next month. Yeah I know onions ain't oil, but remember that futures markets exist for a reason. Though speculators seem to be playing a larger role today, I'm not convinced getting rid of futures would stabilize oil prices.

Or maybe that's just my contrarian nature.

Oh, by the way, I picked up a new book to review yesterday. It's supposedly all the rage in Europe, but it's not being released here until September. Any of you international readers know anything about it? I'm not much of a "modern thriller" reader, but so far I like it. There seems to be an actual story, with character development, rather than just a bunch of technical detail with chase scenes and the obligatory unlikely romance. I agree with some UK readers, though, that the translation seems a bit awkward at times. I mean c'mon, who (other than crossword nuts) uses the word "anon" these days? I'll let you know more when I finish it. So far, though, the story strikes me as a goth/punk girl version of Philip Marlowe.

Movie note

2008-07-03T15:36:00.002-05:00

I joined the stampede and went to see WALL-E yesterday. Everything I'd read had been positive, but I wasn't going to be surprised if I was disappointed. Truth is, I'm just not that big of an animated movie fan. I really liked Toy Story, but I think that's just because it was so new. Last year's big hit, Ratatouille, just struck me as "blah." It was okay and I'd probably have loved it as a kid, but I just didn't see what made so many adults all excited about it.

WALL-E, though, was different. Some people are talking about the good "message" in the film, but that didn't impress me. Maybe I'm just dense, but I didn't get the sense Pixar was clubbing me over the head about pollution. I just thought that was the plot device they used to set up the story. No, what I liked was that it was a good movie. Yes the animation was stunning, but I thought it was a hilarious story. Plus, the lack of (human) dialog was kind of cool. On top of that, it was funny. I do agree with some who say this will not be a huge hit as a "kid movie." Oh, it'll do fine at the box office because the sheep will flock, but I honestly think a lot of kids will be bored with the lack of talking. As a non-kid, though, I thought it was very good and if you've got some free time over the holiday weekend, I heartily recommend it.

Okay that's it. Everyone have a happy holiday and be careful out there.

I'm back

2008-07-01T14:13:00.003-05:00

I don't know how regularly I will be writing, but for today -- I'm back. If you've missed me, sorry about that. If you haven't, well then a pox on you. I don't exactly know why I've stopped writing of late. I've been enjoying some down time this summer and I really haven't felt the urge to "share" anything. Today, though, I'm in the mood so what should I share?

Hmm ...

Has anyone else noticed that The Atlantic is a good magazine again? I knew they'd taken steps to beef up their web presence, but I was so impressed with the latest issue I ended up buying it from the newstand -- at a price of $5.95! I'm a big fan of magazines in general and I usually spend a good bit of time reading them at the library (I'm going to make a great old man), but this issue was so rich I knew I'd need my own copy to get through all the articles I was interested in.

First, there's a big story on rising crime rates in many American cities and a depressing (and politically taboo) correlation with a hugely popular anti-poverty measure. While reading the article I was impressed with the analysis -- a mixture of hard data and moving anecdotes -- but when I finished I was left with a great big letdown. In retrospect the conclusions don't seem to be that revolutionary. Still, I thought it was a well done piece.

The main reason I was interested in the issue, though, was an article questioning whether "googling" is making up stupid. I assumed (incorrectly) that it was going to be a screed about how the average American no longer knows the answer to questions such as, "What countries did the Allies fight in WWI?" Chiefly Germany and Austria-Hungary, with a dose of the Ottoman Empire thrown in for good measure. But does it mean we're "stupider" for not having that info available for instant recall. I'd say no. On the other hand, I do think Americans should know who won the Civil War and I'd even like them to know the (practical) end of the conflict was Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The problem, in my opinion, is where to draw the line between useless trivia and essential civic knowledge? Similarly, I don't think being able to spell obscure words correctly earns someone the title of "smart." Of course I could be biased by my long history of choking in spelling bees, but I just don't find that a necessary or particularly useful skill.

Anyway, it turns out that was not the focus of the article. Interestingly, I found that my original issue (about how new technology meant no one "knew" facts any longer) was posed long ago by one Socrates:

Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.”

Weird, huh?

No, the point of the article was that the instant information access of the Web may be changing the way we think and read. The author admits he may be a chicken little on the issue, but he does raise some serious questions. My favorite part was when he discussed the societal change ushered in by the advent of the mechanical clock. "In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock." If you think about it, that one little change surely led to massive changes in the very way society organized itself.

Good or bad, the article made me think. [Kind of proving the point of the article itself.] I found the magazine to be full of articles that affected me similarly. I won't say the writing is better than The New Yorker (my overall favorite magazine), but I've never been able to keep up with The New Yorker's insane weekly publication schedule. Hence, I'm thinking I may give a subscription to The Atlantic another try.

Okay, this magazine review has gotten too long already and I didn't even get to the articles on Murdoch's takeover of the WSJ or how American traffic regulations may make our roads less safe or ... Trust me, it's a good issue.

On a lighter note, Pujols is back in the lineup and the Cardinals keep winning more games than they should. The only problem is that the hated Cubs are winning even more! Sigh.

No joy in Mudville

2008-06-11T11:03:00.002-05:00

Er, St. Louis that is.

Even though the Cards handily defeated the Reds 7-2 last night, the victory came at a high cost. It looks as if Albert Pujols is seriously injured. I winced in pain just watching Albert's reaction after falling to the ground. The lay consensus is that he aggravated the calf injury he's been nursing of late. I don't know how significant a calf injury is, but he didn't look like he'd be playing baseball again anytime soon. Sigh.

On a brighter note, ... Well I don't really have a brighter note right now.

TV at last!

2008-06-10T19:56:00.002-05:00

I know it is fashionable to claim that one does not watch much TV, but in the words of Dr. Greg House -- everyone lies! I LOVE TV! Never more so than when I don't have it. Finally, though, television service has been restored at my house. It wasn't easy.

I won't ramble on as I did in my last post about my lovely cable company, but let me just say they're still not making my Christmas card list this year. I told you that I was promised a guy on Friday, with a distinct possibility of a Thursday repair, seeing as how they'd royally screwed up my repair job. Well I didn't get the guy on Thursday or Friday! Finally, though, a guy did show up on Saturday. That guy, though, thought he was just coming out to check for a problem with my cable box. He was quite surprised when I told him I had no service at all. After getting over his surprise (and I suspect displeasure at having to do an outside repair in 95-degree June heat), he did manage to restore service for me and I was most appreciative. I'm much happier now and I think my stats students might send him a bonus for making me less grumpy.

Okay other than TV, what's been going on? Well I'm teaching stats right now. I've never taught that in the summer and I'm finding it difficult. Stats is built on students doing homework, but we cover so much material each class that it seems homework is due almost every class. The students don't like that and I sure don't like having to deal with homework that frequently. I may have to try to come up with a compromise solution.

Anything else? I'm only teaching one course right now, so of course I'm reading a lot. I finally made it through a Richard Powers book and I was underwhelmed. It was an okay book, but I was expecting more. I mean the guy won one of those $1 million "genius grants" and the book was a National Book Award winner, so I think I was expecting a little more. My overall judgement ... Not a bad book and I'd read something else by him, but it wasn't anything spectacular. Now I'm actually reading some non-fiction: Justinian's Flea. It's the story of the (sort of) end of the Roman Empire and the role that the bubonic plague had in the empire's fall. It's a novel concept and I'm enjoying the history, but the author has way too much love for Justinian. He's obviously biased when it comes to reporting any sort of criticism of the emperor and that makes me a little suspect. Still, it's a much more gripping read than you'd expect from a combination of Roman history and flea life cycles.

Oh, and I have seen a few movies of late. I don't remember if I wrote about it, but I went to see Iron Man and I thought it was very good -- one of the best of the genre. I also saw the new Indiana Jones and I wasn't disappointed. It wasn't as good as the original (obviously), but it wasn't bad. I know a lot of people have trashed it, but reading between the lines I suspect many of those folks had made their minds up to hate it before they ever went to the theater. I also saw a couple of quirky flicks on the small screen -- Martian Child and Lars and the Real Girl. The first was a warm, fuzzy film with just enough oddness to make it interesting. I like John Cusack in just about anything, but I was disappointed that Amanda Peet didn't have a meatier role. She was very cardboardish in the film. Lars and the Real Girl, on the other hand, was excellent. It reminded me a lot of another favorite film, The Station Agent. If you liked Station Agent, I guarantee you'll like Lars. If you haven't seen either, go watch them.

Okay, I guess I really didn't have much to say. I just wanted to update things and let y'all know I hadn't fallen prey to any more disasters -- so far!

Update

2008-06-06T12:25:00.002-05:00

Well the tree made it until it could be cut down. I really hated to do that. I love the old trees in my neighborhood, but that tree really needed to come down and I figured having it taken down professionally was better than the gradual, piece-by-piece, way the tree had been falling on its own. Still, I'm going to miss that old hackberry. By the way, tree removal is not cheap, but I wouldn't want to do it for a living.

So now I'm about 4 grand poorer (tree and electrical repairs), but life has returned to normal -- almost. I'm still waiting on the cable guys. Once I got power back I called about the cable. The nice guy I talked to said they already knew of the downed lines and they had a guy scheduled to come out and put my line back up on Monday (the 2nd). Come Monday (hey, that's a Buffett song) I got a call from the cable guy. He had reconnected the line to my house and the new power pole, but he said there was some problem with the quantum inversion filter (okay that wasn't the actual problem, but I don't speak "cable") and he couldn't repair that. Another guy would come back Tuesday to do that.

Well Tuesday was my tree removal day, so I wasn't really surprised that the cable guy didn't make repairs that day. [I wouldn't have wanted to be up on the utility pole while the tree guys were working.] I was, though, a little surprised that no one called to explain why they weren't fixing my cable. Regardless, I figured they'd be out Wednesday. Nope. So late Wednesday afternoon I called the cable company again. This time I got an idiot on the other end. It took her three tries before she could get my phone number right an access my account. Once she did that and I told her my story, she essentially called me a liar. She insisted that her report showed the technician completed his job on the 2nd. I agreed with her about that, but I repeated the part of the story where he called to say there was an additional problem. Her reply to that: Well what was the additional problem? I seemed to fall even lower in her estimation after admitting I didn't know what the problem was. She also didn't seem to appreciate my belief that THEY would be better equipped to answer that question than I was. Anyway, after much repeating she agreed to schedule another guy to come look at my supposed cable problem. [I got the strong sense she believed I really did have cable service the whole time.] At least I thought she was going to schedule someone.

She put me on hold to go check one more thing. When she came back she said it looked like there might be a general outage somewhere in my area so it wasn't just me that didn't have cable. I tried to explain to her that even if there was a general outage, that wasn't the problem with my cable. Mine was out due to damage from the tree falling. "I know," she said. "Several people may be out right now." I tried AGAIN to explain my problem was unrelated to the potential general outage, but she would have none of it. "Your cable should be back up in just a couple of hours," she assured me. Seeing as how I was getting nowhere, I bid her good day and resigned myself to calling back Thursday.

Thursday morning I got a much more reasonable guy who listened to and believed my story. He scheduled a guy and even put a "rush flag" on it. Given that I'd called early, he supposed someone would get to me that day. Nope. As of noon on Friday I'm still waiting. If it weren't for the baseball package, I'd just tell them not to even bother fixing it at this point. As it is, though, they kind of have me over a barrel. Hence, I'm venting to y'all.

Oh well, at least I have power again and the tree is gone. I'm trying to look on the bright side.

Worst week ever!

2008-06-02T09:08:00.003-05:00

I know I've been away for a while, but cut me some slack. First, I took some time off before the start of summer school. Then, though, the world began to conspire against me.

Last Monday I went to TN to visit the parents. On my way home I evidently ran over something because I had a "flat to the ground" tire the next morning. As I suspected, it could not be repaired and I had to buy a new tire. Then, on Tuesday night, part of a giant tree behind my house fell and took out a utility pole and power lines for my whole block. The force ripped electrical connections from my house and required repair by an electrician. Not only that, the electrician told me that because the utility company pulled the meter, there would have to be an official inspection of my electrical system before the city would sign off on repairs. Of course my house is quite old, so that required a whole new breaker box and much new wiring. Finally on Saturday I got all that done and power was restored. All is good, right?

Almost.

I mentioned that PART of a giant tree fell. Well the rest is still standing -- I hope. I had someone come over to give me an estimate for taking the tree down and they expressed much concern about the condition of the remaining tree. They didn't come out and say it, but I got the impression they were concerned whether it would continue to stand until they could get to it. I talked to the utility company, but they said it was my tree so it was my problem. As of now I'm holding my breath and waiting. The tree folks said they'd try to get to me tomorrow (given the "emergency" situation), but we had some light storms last night and a few more showers forecast for today. Of course to me it looks as if the tree is leaning even more this morning, but I'm hoping that's just my overactive imagination. I'm just praying it'll stand 24 more hours AND that the tree service can get to me tomorrow.

My coffee shop crowd has decided "Lucky" is not an appropriate nickname for me these days.

P.S. Oh and I forgot my bout of food poisoning from Friday night!!! Yes, I'm through whining now -- as long as the tree stands up long enough to be cut down.

Downers

2008-05-19T10:32:00.002-05:00

Well I survived graduation and today marks the first day of my week (or so) off before the start of summer school. Given the happy occasion, I choose to share a few "downers" with you today.

First, there's this op-ed piece (from the WaPo) by an imprisoned leader of a Russian youth movement. The more I read about Putin's Russia (and there is NO doubt that it's still Putin's Russia despite his stepping down as president) the more nervous I get. It really does seem he wants to return Russia to the "glory days" of the USSR. I'm currently reading a book by the Economist's former correspondent in Russia and I'm becoming more concerned with each chapter. The book itself seems to have been written too quickly and the author seems to rely too much on creating sometimes suspect links between disparate events, but I admire the overall work. The West needs to wake up to the new threat of old Russia's resurrection.

Second, and also from the WaPo, there's a column by my favorite columnist in America, Sebastian Mallaby. Today Mallaby takes on the immense farm lobby and the insanity that is international ag policy. While there's nothing really new in his column you can read about the (so far) little-discussed Japanese rice policy. While the BIG political problems (e.g., Russia) worry me, this is the kind of problem I find most frustrating. It really seems a small dose of international common sense could do a lot to solve these types of issues. Yet nothing gets done. Grr.

Third, I still haven't figured out the identity of "Mandy" -- they mystery commenter from last week. Hmmm.

A political party for me

2008-05-09T11:12:00.002-05:00

Scott Adams, he of Dilbert fame has an idea for a new political party: The Economics Party.

He was driven to this when he found he couldn't stomach any further idiotic pandering by the three remaining presidential candidates. The platform? It's pretty simple (at least in theory): "All we’ll do is agree to vote for the candidate with the best long term economic policy, according to the consensus of leading economists."

Though I know you're all roaring with laughter at the thought of "economic consensus," you'd be surprised at how little disagreement there is in the economic community on many of the fundamental issues. Yes there are devils in the details, but I'm fairly sure you could build an impressive consensus AGAINST rolling back the gas tax this summer, FOR dumping the massive agriculture price support system (and the idiotic corn ethanol subsidy), and FOR the currently in limbo trade pact with Colombia (though not all trade issues). These three issues came to mind simply because they are issues that clearly illustrate the pandering nature of most current pols -- even when they know the economics!

My favorite part, though, was this little quip:

The Economics Party would be committed to changing its policy recommendation whenever the facts warranted. We’re pro flip-flop when it makes sense. In other words, our brains function properly.

Amen, Mr. Adams.

Disturbing

2008-05-09T10:53:00.002-05:00

Why am I disturbed? Well first because of the comment from "Mandy" on the previous post. Evidently she knows me from a LONG time ago, but I don't (yet) know who she is. Hmm.

Second, and more seriously, this story in today's Huntsville Times:

Alleged threat talk gets 2 banned at school
WOODVILLE - Two Woodville High seniors will spend the rest of the school year at the Jackson County school system's alternative school in Hollywood after they allegedly were heard discussing making terrorist threats, Jackson County schools Superintendent Jerry Jeffery said Thursday.

Though I'm not sure about "discussing making" threats, this does sound serious and in today's copycat world, I know authorities have to come down hard on such acts. The next sentence, though, made me ask, "Huh?"

But Jeffery said sheriff's investigators found no evidence the boys had a hit list as reported by two girls or that they had threatened anyone.

That's right; there was NO EVIDENCE that the boys had made any threats to anyone. Yet they got sent to the alternative school?!?! It gets worse.

Evidently the investigation has been going on since February (I guess officials considered the school safe for the past couple of months) but then the issue arose again when the girls reported they were afraid to come to school on awards day. So even though there was no evidence against the boys, they were sent to alternative school to placate the two girls? That's how it seems to me.

Here's the real kicker though. The final word from the principal:

I think a lot of this was instigated by kids not wanting to go to school.

I assume he's talking about the girls. Have they been sent to alternative school as well? The story doesn't indicate that. Hmm.

Good news and a plea for help

2008-05-05T11:38:00.002-05:00

From past postings, you likely know about Free the Hops -- a group dedicated to reforming Alabama's beer laws in such a way that will allow more specialty beers to be sold in the state. Despite stiff opposition, FTF finally succeeded this year in getting a bill through the House. That just left the Senate, which has been in a partisan snarl that has paralyzed almost every bill. The logjam now has broken and the FTH bill is coming up for a vote. From an email today:

HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, is up for vote in the Senate this week, most likely on Tuesday May 6th. Now is the time to call your state senator and let him or her know that you want HB196 to pass! Because the Gourmet Beer Bill has already passed the State House of Representatives, this is the final step before sending this bill to the Governor. It's very close, so please contact your senator to express your support.

That's the good news. Now the plea for help. If you are an AL resident (or you know some AL residents, other than me), please visit this website to find your state senator and call his/her office to register your support. FTF suggests the following polite protocol for doing so:

"My name is (your name) and I'm calling to let Senator (senator name) know that I support HB196, The Gourmet Beer Bill. I would like him/her to vote Yes on this bill. Thank you for your time. Have a pleasant day."

Remember, you'll be talking to an assistant who is NOT interested in debating the bill. Just state your position and let him or her be.

Could it happen? I wouldn't have thunk it, but maybe so!

Best line of the day

2008-05-05T10:59:00.002-05:00

Finals are just about to start, so "No time for love, Dr. Jones." [Clerks quote, though I think it may be a nod to this Dr. Jones.] Regardless, I did want to share this little gem I saw while reading up on some Major League Baseball "useless info".

Evidently there is much debate over whether Tampa Bay will trade a young pitcher once they get one of their regulars back. One expert doesn't think they will:

"I don't see how they could move him," he said. "I don't see why they'd ever put him out there. The stuff is too good. Yeah, he's still inconsistent. But at least he's consistently less inconsistent than he used to be."

I know I'm biased, but is there a better sport for quotes than baseball?

Conspiracy anyone?

2008-05-01T14:22:00.002-05:00

Here's a headline sure to delight conspiracy theorists everywhere:
D.C. Madam Believed Dead in Apparent Suicide.

A woman who apparently committed suicide in Florida is believed to be Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted last month of running a high-end prostitution service in Washington, officials said.

It would be a more sinister story if this had happened BEFORE her trial and conviction, but I'm betting The Lone Gunmen could get some mileage out of it.

Once more

2008-04-28T15:05:00.003-05:00

Sorry, but I have to report one more story on the crisis in Zimbabwe. Here's a story by a NY Times reporter who recently went to jail in Harare for the crime of "committing journalism."

Oh, and though anecdotal and perhaps exaggerated, here's a WaPo story recounting some of the most recent abuses of opposition voters.

Things that annoy me

2008-04-28T08:37:00.003-05:00

I know I've been lax of late, but things have been busy. During my time off from blogging, though, I've been amassing a list of things that annoy me. Actually I had one thing I wanted to rant about, but others popped into my head as I logged in. So:

First, I hate celebrities who think their "fame" qualifies them as experts in other areas. I could write a book on this topic, but a newspaper story from last week particularly irked me. Greg Biffle, a fairly prominent NASCAR driver, was in Decatur last week on a promotional visit and he granted an interview to the Daily. [I would provide you with the link, but my local paper decided to go behind the "pay wall" a month or so ago.] They talked about the NASCAR season; the new, uniform car that all drivers use; and car racing in general -- all areas where Mr. Biffle has some expertise. Then he launched into a rant about gas prices. I don't have the actual quotes in front of me, but basically Mr. Biffle said he's pissed off about the price of gas. Gas, he said, really should only cost about $1.50 or $1.60 a gallon. Furthermore, the government has to do something to make the price go down to the "right" level. Finally he gave some tips about how to conserve gas and force them to lower the price.

There are so many things I want to comment on, I just don't know where to start. First, how did he arrive at $1.50 or $1.60 as the right price? Maybe the reporter did a poor job, but I saw no references to market analysis or anything similar that would support his sage conclusion about the "right" price. Second, does he really want the government deciding prices? That kind of leads to my final "I can't believe he said that." How cheeky is it for a NASCAR driver to offer tips on how the general public can conserve fuel?!?! First, they could stay home and not drive hours in their motor homes to NASCAR races. Second, they could urge the government to shut down auto racing and redistribute that fuel to "the people". Do you think that's what Biffle meant when he suggested the government "do something"? Me neither. Yeah I know he was just ranting on a subject that irritates everyone, but c'mon; why should we care what Greg Biffle thinks of gas prices?

Other things that annoy me: South African President, Thabo Mbeki. His inaction on Zimbabwe is despicable and morally bankrupt. I'll spare you another Zimbabwe rant today though.

The state Democratic party. I'll admit to disliking the state dems slightly more than I dislike the state repubs, but mainly that's because the dems have had the stranglehold on power in the state almost forever and that gives them more chances to do things that irritate me. I'll save my list of grievances for another time.

Finally, local political candidates really make me want to go all "Walden" and just drop out of the modern world. This morning, for instance, I heard a radio ad for a county commission candidate. After telling us what a good Christian he is, he then promised he'd be PHYSICALLY responsible with out tax dollars if elected! While I'd like someone to guarantee the safety of our tax money, I don't think we need a commish sleeping on top of money bags with his shotgun at hand. I'd be more likely to trust a vault or even an insured bank account for that. Heck, if that's the approach he's taking, he should have stressed his size and strength rather than his religion. That whole "turn the other cheek" thing might not be an asset if someone tried to take the county's money bags! C'mon, the word is FISCAL, not PHYSICAL. Geesh!

Okay that's about it. I'll try to come up with a cheerful post next time.

Aww, a compliment

2008-04-16T12:15:00.002-05:00

Teaching the same old stuff to students who don't care as much as I do sometimes gets old. Every once in a while, though, something good happens that picks me up.

Right now I have a particularly good student who is "dual enrolled." That is, she's a high school student, but she's taking some classes here to get a head start on college. Well this young lady went on a campus visit to an unnamed Ivy League school earlier this week and she got to sit in on a principles class up there. Today she was telling me about it and she claimed that the class there wasn't nearly as enjoyable or as informative as the class she's taking from me! [This is where you're supposed to say, "AWWW!"] Now she could have just been sucking up, but it was still a nice thing to hear. I might bring that up when it's time to sign next year's contract.

Baseball and philosophy

2008-04-14T14:25:00.004-05:00

While browsing the great big web, I've run across some discussion of a recently (?) discovered letter from the great American philosopher, John Rawls. Unbeknownst to me, Rawls was an avid fan of baseball and (correctly in my opinion) believed it to be the greatest game.

Now y'all know I love the game of baseball, but I do agree with the Boston Globe writer who says, "Aside from trout fishing, baseball suffers most from the tender mercies of intellectuals." I wish I had written that. Anyway, Rawls' letter recounts a long ago conversation he had with Harry Kalven (a U of Chicago legal scholar) about the perfection of baseball. According to Rawls' recall, Kalven came up with 6 reasons baseball is the greatest game. Briefly:

1. The rules are in equilibrium. Essentially he argues the dimensions of the field are "just right" in the sense of leading to wonderfully exciting plays that would not occur if the dimensions were tweaked. Red Smith said this much more simply when he opined something like, "90 feet between the bases is as close to perfection as man can get."
2. Any size or shape person can play baseball -- unlike, say, basketball.
3. Baseball uses all body parts [ed., something common to many other sports as well]. 4. The action is open to view, unlike, for example, the interior line of a football game.
5. Baseball is (almost) the only sport where scoring occurs without the ball. In other words, the defense controls the ball.
6. Finally, Rawls celebrates the lack of a set time period. Hence, the game may fly by or it may drag on nearly eternally. Either way, no baseball team ever lost a game (except maybe for weather-shortened contests) because it ran out of time. Outs yes, time no.

Now I'm not going to parse every one of these claims, but I do want to add a few words of my own. First, I find a lot of those claims to be patently ridiculous. #1 is just silly and though many people have celebrated point #5, why/how is that evidence of baseball's superiority? I've never understood that. That said, I most emphatically agree with the final point. The lack of a time clock is one of the two things that really does make baseball a beautiful game. Yes I know there are games where one team is "out of it" from the first inning, but I also remember a 2005 game when the Cards were trailing the Reds 9-3 in the 9th inning -- with 2 outs -- and they came back to win 10-9!

What I found most interesting about Rawls' list, though, was that he, and apparently Kalven as well, failed to mention the most beautiful aspect of baseball. It is the ultimate symmetric game. Each team has 9 players and each player has to play offense and defense. [Don't even bring up that abomination known as the DH. I'm talking about BASEBALL, not the bastardization known as the American League!] Hence, baseball forces tradeoffs. You've got some big lumbering ox of a power hitter who has to have a mirror to see his toes? Well you've got to find somewhere to hide him on defense where he won't kill your team. You've got some slick-fielding wizard with the leather who just happens to get the bat knocked out of his hands when he's at the plate? Tough, you've got to stick him somewhere in the batting order. Don't believe me about the pain this inflicts on a team? Ask any fan of the Boston Red Sox how painful it sometimes is to watch Manny Ramirez stumble around in left field.

Further, when you do make a substitution to minimize the risk one of your player's presents to the team, you cannot later undo that change. Do you "pinch run" for the lumbering ox late in the game? If so, you may end up REALLY regretting it if the game goes extra innings and your strongest hitter is out of the game. [I don't want to get into a "my sport is better than your sport" argument, but I should mention one thing about soccer. Soccer (or football if you prefer) has substitution restrictions as well, but from a casual observer point-of-view it seems to be much easier to keep a scorer on the field without being penalized for his poor defense (or a stellar defender who is no scoring threat) in soccer than baseball.]

As I said, I don't want to denigrate anyone else's favorite sport, but it is the time of year to celebrate baseball and I thought I'd take the opportunity to do just that. So if there's a minor league park near your house, go have a dog and a drink and watch a game. Even better, take someone who doesn't know the game that well. You might be amazed, once you start paying attention, at how many little things go into almost every play. It really is a great game!

P.S. If you're interested, here's a link to Rawls' letter. Play ball.

Which came first?

2008-04-14T10:56:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend the AL Chicken and Egg Festival in Moulton. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Moulton let me set the stage for you. Moulton is the county seat of Lawrence County (AL). Though it has a population of only about 3000, it really is the big town in Lawrence County. Furthermore, seeing as how the poultry industry is so important to Lawrence County's economy, the Chicken and Egg Festival seems like a natural fit. Personally I just love those hokey small town festivals, so I've been meaning to go check it out for a few years. This year, though, they had the cherry on top that got me over the hump and actually drew me to Moulton on Saturday.

Yes as with most all these festivals, they have entertainment -- almost always acts that are "past their primes", but entertainment none the less. Well this year the headliner at the AL Chicken and Egg Festival was none other than the Pure Prairie League! [Hit song was Amie. Trust me; you know it. Check it out on Amazon or iTunes if you don't believe me.] Now when I was a teen I was a HUGE Pure Prairie League fan. Even though they were "past their prime" even then, I just couldn't get enough of them. Hence, when I saw they were coming to Moulton, well I knew I had to go. Oh, and the best part ... One of my students works for a bank that was a C&E sponsor so she had free tickets to give away. Saved me $2!

The festival itself was kind of a letdown. Partly, though, that was my fault. Seeing as how I wanted to see the PPL and they didn't start until 8:30, well I saw no reason to go to Moulton earlier than 5:00 or so. Waiting that late, though, meant that I missed the chicken clucking contest, the egg toss competition, and the Colonel Sanders look alike contest. See, stuff like that is what I most enjoy about these festivals. Without that it's just a grassy field populated with vendors selling overpriced funnel cakes. Regardless, I made my choice because I really did want to see the PPL.

I fully expected them to be a little older and slower -- and they were. I didn't, however, expect them to have such a sense of humor about their situation. At least two of the current members are holdovers from their "glory days" and they realized just how far they've fallen since the time of Amie. Heck, even in the mid-80s I saw them play a sold-out show with Poco at the TN Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Now they're playing the C&E Festival in Moulton, AL in front of a crowd of maybe 500?!?! They made lots of self-deprecating remarks that showed they understood they were not superstars, but they seemed to appreciate that someone still was willing to pay them to make music. The funniest thing -- I really enjoyed their set. They had good rapport with the crowd, they took turns on vocals and no one tried to hit the long high notes, their playing was good, and they sang all the most important songs -- including my personal favorite, "I'll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle" (a sort of tribute to Merle Haggard).

All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Two things, though, made me realize just what a small world it is. [Well 2 things other than the fact that my absolute favorite Southern rock band from my teen years ends up playing a chicken and egg festival 25 miles from my house.] First, though I figured I was the only legitimate PPL fan in the crowd, I was proven wrong. Some woman behind me kept yelling out requests for some "deep cuts." Wow. Second, one of the band members had a bum shoulder so he wasn't able to play the bass. Instead they called upon one of their buddies to fill in. Know where they got the sub? From Poco -- the band I saw them with at TPAC in the mid-80s. Actually the Poco connection is even funnier, but I don't have time to go into the full story right now. Let me just say it freaked me out to see the PPL and Poco still linked together 20+ years after that show in Nashville.

Regardless, I deem the AL Chicken and Egg Festival a success and I hope to return next year. I will, though, make sure I'm there for the clucking contest next time! Anyone who wants to go with me should get in his/her reservation now. I'm sure space will be at a premium!

It worked!

2008-04-08T07:20:00.004-05:00

Okay here's the big news: I can watch Major League Baseball again!

I won't launch into full rant mode, but last year MLB did something stupid and as a result I lost the ability to buy the MLB Extra Innings package that would have allowed me to watch my beloved Cardinals on a regular basis. This year Dish Network and MLB were still at odds, so I had to switch to Charter Cable.

The guy was scheduled to come between 3:00 and 5:00 yesterday, but it was after 7:00 by the time I got my cable. So far I must say I'm underwhelmed by the Charter system, but I'm sure it'll grow on me -- AND I can watch baseball again! Of course the Cards lost last night, so maybe they'd rather I didn't watch. Nah, just a coincidence. Oh man, I wasn't even wearing my lucky shirt last night; no wonder they lost.

Anyway, that was my big news. Sorry to let you down, Stella, but it was big to me.

UPDATE: As I said above, I'm kind of missing some of the features of DISH. Today, though, I had to call DISH to cancel my service and, perversely, I'm missing them now more than ever. Of course I had to punch my way through an automated menu, but once I finally got to a "punch this number to speak to a representative" option, my call was answered within 15 seconds. Furthermore, when I told the guy I wanted to cancel my service, the most amazing thing happened. Of course he had to ask why, but when I told him he simply said, "Okay," and that was that. There wasn't any pressure to stay with DISH or anything like that. I was amazed. As I said, I doubt I'll get that kind of service from my new company. Sigh.

News?

2008-04-07T08:27:00.002-05:00

I don't want to jinx it, but there may be an announcement of some good news on this site tomorrow. [No it's not THAT big, but it's important to me.] Tune in tomorrow.

Saw this one coming

2008-04-03T15:07:00.002-05:00

Not surprisingly, Robert Mugabe is not going to fade away peacefully. Here's the latest from Zimbabwe:

President Robert Mugabe's government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.

Police raided a hotel used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. Riot police also surrounded another hotel housing foreign journalists and took away several of them, according to a man who answered the phone there.

''Mugabe has started a crackdown,'' Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. ''It is quite clear he has unleashed a war.''

Sigh.

Please, by all that is holy

2008-04-01T15:14:00.002-05:00

tell me this is just a rumor: Madonna wants to remake Casablanca! Surely it's a particularly bad April Fool's joke?!?!

Hope for Zimbabwe?

2008-04-01T13:59:00.002-05:00

According to many published reports (here, here, and here for example), there may be hope for Zimbabwe. The evidence continues to mount that President Robert Mugabe lost the recent election and will, finally, step down and end his almost 30-year reign.

President Robert Mugabe's grip on power continued to loosen Tuesday as a range of informal contacts began between his inner circle of advisers and opposition figures over how to break a stalemate resulting from last weekend's election, sources said.

With evidence increasingly clear that Mugabe came in second, behind opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, news reports and other sources said members of the president's camp have reached out to the opposition in search of a deal that would allow him to step down gracefully, while avoiding prosecution for any crimes committed while in office.

Okay that's an interesting piece of international news, but why am I bothering to blog about Zimbabwe of all places? Especially when my attention should be focused on the start of the MLB season? Well Zimbabwe is such a "train wreck" it's hard not to watch. Seriously, the economy is so messed up that we use it all the time as a worst case scenario in my macroeconomics classes. I won't bother with the whole list of things, but most estimates put the OFFICIAL inflation rate at over 100,000% and the unemployment rate at more than 80%.

That first statistic is almost unimaginable so bear with me for a minute. Think about it: 100,000% inflation. That means a $1 soft drink purchased from the drink machine just down the hall from my office would cost more than $100,000 a year from now! Of course that leads to all kinds of other problems. For instance, how do you carry that much cash around? You don't, of course; the government just prints larger denomination bills. I read recently that Zimbabwe had just started printing a $10 million dollar bill -- which wouldn't even buy a loaf of bread in Harare (the capitol city), if you were lucky enough to find a store with bread for sale.

See last year Zimbabwe's version of the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced it was unable even to compute the consumer inflation rate because its statisticians couldn't find enough items for sale in local stores to measure inflation. Seriously; it's one messed up country. How did this happen? The easy economic answer is Zimbabwe lost control of its money supply. (See the quantity theory of money if you don't remember your basic long-run macro models.) I also blame Zimbabwe's neighbors, mostly South Africa, for failing to pressure Mugabe into some semblance of sanity. No, instead they took the "don't criticize a hero of the liberation struggle" approach and turned a blind eye to the incredible suffering in the country.

How bad is the suffering? Even more chilling than the economic statistics is this little factoid: According to the World Bank and the U.N. average life expectancy in Zimbabwe was 63 years in 1990 but only 37 years in 2005! And remember this is not a country beset by civil war or foreign occupation or terrorist warlords. No this has all been accomplished under a steady, secure government.

So now maybe you see why I care enough to talk about Zimbabwe rather than Opening Day (a proper noun in my world). Of course while the signs are positive for change in Zimbabwe, I'm still skeptical Mugabe will step down peacefully. The government is taking its own sweet time in releasing voting results and I read last week that it wouldn't matter if the government did "lose" the election because the military had already indicated they'd stage a coup if anyone replaced Mugabe. In a country that poor and messed up, the military likely is the only organization capable of seizing control so I'm not real optimistic. On the other hand, I did notice this claim in the NY Times report about negotiations for a change in government:

“The chiefs of staff are talking to Morgan [the opposition leader] and are trying to put into place transitional structures,” ... “The chiefs of staff are not split; they are loyally at Mugabe’s side,” Mr. Makumbe said. “But they are not negotiating for Mr. Mugabe. They are negotiating for themselves. They are negotiating about reprisals and recriminations and blah blah blah. They are doing it for their own security.”

So it seems the rats may be fleeing the sinking ship. I truly hope so. Of course getting rid of Mugabe won't immediately fix Zimbabwe's problems, but it's a necessary first step. Some say if Mugabe steps aside peacefully he may be able to salvage his historical legacy. I hope for the opposite. I hope that when he finally leaves his neighbors finally will be able to admit how "misguided" they were in supporting him for the last 10+ years of his reign and they'll begin to atone by helping Zimbabwe rebuild.

I'm hopeful, but I'm not convinced Zimbabwe has yet seen the last of Mr. Mugabe.

Super bug :(

2008-03-31T12:05:00.002-05:00

Tough as I am, some third world, or perhaps extraterrestrial, super bug is trying to get the better of me. It started, very subtly, Wednesday night and then got progressively worse through Saturday. Yesterday I was convinced I was on my way back to the land of the living, but then super bug struck back this morning.

Given that I was sick all weekend I wasn't really looking forward to the beginning of the work week today. Despite that, I felt okay when I got up this morning. I even managed to shave and take a shower. That, though, is when the trouble started. As I was toweling off, I suddenly got very weak and I realized if I didn't sit down very quickly I was going to fall out. I quickly got out of the shower and took a seat on the only handy sitting surface in the bathroom. Before long, though, I realized that wasn't going to do it. I needed to lie down. Lacking the strength to get to the bed, I just sprawled out on the bathroom floor. It's sort of funny now, but it was quite scary at the time.

Of course Gumbo, the demon cat, came over to "help." Her help consisted of sniffing around my head and crying "MEOW" very loudly. Though I don't believe it to be the case, I'd like to think she was concerned for my well being. In reality I figure she was just seeing if I was going to be able to feed her or whether she should start thinking about what portions of me would be most tasty. Anyway, I eventually made it to the bed and rested for 15 minutes or so. After that, I was okay. Lectures today have been interesting though. I am not the most organized lecturer on the best day, but today I have no idea where some of my tangents have been coming from. Of course some of my students probably haven't even noticed a difference. Sigh.

Regardless, I'm hoping to be back at full strength soon. If not, would someone stop by my house and make sure Gumbo isn't snacking on my incapacitated self?

Is this guy for real?

2008-03-25T12:18:00.003-05:00

I stole this from the guys over at Marginal Revolution, but I don't think they'll mind ...

I see that some guy at MIT has a list of rules for "How to Think: Managing brain resources in an age of complexity." Okay the title alone is enough to send me screaming for the hills. Curiosity, though, led me to investigate just what sort of things this guy supposes will help one think. For the most part, they're the usual bull: set goals, learn from mistakes, etc. Number 10 (keep it simple) I found to be rather interesting as it seemed to contradict some of his earlier rules (e.g., document everything obsessively), but all-in-all nothing really surprised me too much about his list. Mind you I think his rules are fine and dandy if you want to teach people to be organized, but I don't see how they help you "think." Still, I had no reason to blog about this guy and his rules until I saw the second of his two "practical notes" that followed his list of rules:

The second practical note: I find it really useful to write and draw while talking with someone, composing conversation summaries on pieces of paper or pages of notepads. I often use plenty of color annotation to highlight salient points. At the end of the conversation, I digitally photograph the piece of paper so that I capture the entire flow of the conversation and the thoughts that emerged. The person I've conversed with usually gets to keep the original piece of paper, and the digital photograph is uploaded to my computer for keyword tagging and archiving. This way I can call up all the images, sketches, ideas, references, and action items from a brief note that I took during a five-minute meeting at a coffee shop years ago--at a touch, on my laptop.

Is it just me or is this guy INSANE?!?! Who would do this? Further, even though I'm giving a great big "more power to you" to this guy, why in the world is he recommending this madness for others?!?! Though I've already yelled about it, I repeat -- this is an organizational tips, NOT a way to improve thinking skills!

Finally, the most ironic point -- remember rule #10: Keep it simple! Yeah, simple is the first thing I thought after reading that practical note.

Almost time!

2008-03-24T11:43:00.002-05:00

Yeah I know all the other red-blooded sports fans are excited by March Madness right now, but I'm keyed up for baseball. More specifically, Cardinals baseball: 7 days, 3 hours, 30 minutes from now!

I'm not terribly optimistic about "our" chances this season and I will miss some of the departed veterans (So, Jim, Scotty, etc.). Further, with Tony still holding onto his job as manager, I suspect fans will see a steady diet of over-the-hill former stars rather than the young up-and-comers that the Cards appear to be blessed with. Plus, I have seen mention that Tony will start the season with his ridiculous "pitcher batting 8th" lineup. Sigh.

On the other hand, I didn't realize how excited I was about the season until I checked out the St. Louis Post Dispatch Cards page. Yeah they're "homers", but they managed to get me fired up about the season. Now to track down some peanuts and contact Charter Cable. Yep, I think I'm giving up the Dish and going with Charter because Charter (supposedly) offers the MLB package that Dish lost a couple of years ago. Wish me luck.

Pix

2008-03-20T11:16:00.005-05:00

Finally, here are some pix from my recent trek. Sorry about the formatting; it's not my usual computer.

The old "camp house."

The old windmill above the "camp house."

The river.

A small fall.

Into the wild

2008-03-17T17:10:00.002-05:00

Yes it is spring break, but the weather is not being conducive to rambles in the wild. According to the trusty forecasters, it's either going to be stormy or too warm for comfortable camping all week. I did take the opportunity to sneak off to the woods for a few hours yesterday.

The primary focus of my search was a reputed abandoned house in the middle of a large, unnamed wilderness area near me. According to popular lore, it was at one time a regular old private residence. Somehow or another the land was never ceded to the government so it remains a private property enclave within the national forest. The home has been long abandoned, but it still serves as a camper's haven. Supposedly some local Boy Scouts clean it up about once a year.

I had heard the rumors for a few years and I even had an approximate location. Last week, though, I got some more detail and decided to seek it out. After a few false starts and wrong turns, I found it. It reminded me a whole lot of the abandoned bus in "Into the Wild" (book or movie). In fact there was a legal pad inside where visitors could sign in and record their thoughts. Someone had written a tribute of sorts to Alexander Supertramp -- dated long before the movie. Basically it's an old block house with several metal bed frames where you can spread your sleeping bag and crash for the night. There were beds enough for 5 or 6 campers, but plenty of floor space if you needed more room. Though I usually camp solo, I do want to try a night there. I am a little worried that the creaking of the rusty old windmill might remind me too much of too many horror films, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

After finding the house, I explored a bit more and found some nice waterfalls I hadn't been to before. I also ran across a beaver, though he was in the river and away before I could get my camera out. Speaking of that, I did get some okay pix, but I'm not able to post them right now.

Anyway, ... All-in-all, the trip was a big success, but I was a little disappointed in the end. I was trying to get to one rather famous set of falls, but I didn't make it. I got to within 1/3 of a mile, but the going was getting really rough and it was getting late. I found myself near a relatively easy way out of the canyon and I took it. I guess I'll save those falls for another day.

So what's on tap for the rest of spring break? I'm still toying with a trip to MS, but I don't know if that'll happen. Other than that, I plan to donate blood tomorrow and maybe get a tetanus shot. Do I know how to live it up or what?

Real mail

2008-03-14T12:58:00.002-05:00

I saw a story in the paper this morning about how the USPS and HBO are offering free greeting cards in an attempt to encourage people to start writing and send real mail again. Now I'm a HUGE fan of real mail, so this interested me enough to dig a little deeper. What did I find?

Well first off, it's true. Click here (and select the "customize and send" path) and they'll send you a free card that you can write in, address, and send to a dear friend -- postage paid! Heck, you even get to select from a few card designs and messages. Finally, you can select a photo to be printed on the inside if you wish. It seems like a good deal.

So what's the HBO connection? Well they're producing a big series on John Adams and evidently old John and Abigail were famous for letter writing. Yeah it's a commercial ploy on both (USPS and HBO) parts, but I like it. As I said, I love real mail and I'm kind of ashamed I don't send more of it. Still, I have good intentions and those count for something, right?

Anyway, follow the link above and get a free card to send to someone you love! As for me, it's now Spring Break so, "Peace out, y'all!"

Happy Birthday!

2008-03-11T14:51:00.001-05:00

Yes my birthday was a couple of days ago and (most of) my blog pals ignored it! Of course I do realize that most of you have no reason to know when my birthday is. Still.

Anyway, I just wanted to gush about a present I received: two tickets to this!

Great news

2008-03-05T14:18:00.002-06:00

I know blogging has been light of late, but I couldn't wait to share this bit of news:

Members and supporters of Free the Hops,

HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, passed the House yesterday. The fact that
it passed is entirely due to all the hard work you put in to contacting
your house representatives - we passed the BIR by one vote over the 3/5
majority needed, then passed the bill by 6 votes - if you had not all
worked so diligently to speak to your representatives, this may have had
a very different outcome!

The next step is to go to the Senate. We will be discussing this with
our lobbyist to work out a timescale for this to happen, and what you
can do to help pass the Senate bill, which may not happen for another
few weeks.

Thank you again - we are one step closer to Freeing the Hops!

For those of you who have missed my earlier rants on this topic, ... AL is one of the very few states that still prohibits the sale of beer with 6% or higher alcohol content. I won't even go into the logical (to me) arguments against this law, but Free the Hops is an organization that has been working for the last several years to change the law. I honestly figured it was hopeless because two groups were against the change.

First, the beer distributors in the state. Because of prohibition-era laws, alcohol has to go through a crazy distribution system. Evidently the distributors did not want the hassle of dealing with small volumes of specialty beers and there was some talk that the big companies were applying pressure because they felt threatened by the competition. Recently I learned a deal (hope it's not one we regret) had been struck with the distributors. That left the moralists.

I still think this group is the biggest obstacle and I've already read quotes such as, "This will just make it easier for teenagers to get drunk and kill themselves in car crashes." I'm not convinced we'll be able to get the bill through the state senate. In addition to the political unpopularity of passing a law that would "make it easier for teenagers to get drunk," the Senate currently is going through a phase where they seemed determined NOT to pass any bill! It's basically one guy who is pissed that the Republicans took away a sweetheart earmark for his district at the last minute last year because he stabbed them in the back on a power-sharing agreement. Regardless, he's stalling almost every bill as revenge. Once the logjam is broken, I doubt the beer bill will be at the top of the heap.

So while I'm not convinced that we have "won", I am encouraged that the distributors have seemingly dropped their objections and the House at least has seen fit to pass this bill. Now there's just one more hurdle. I hope that can be passed before someone realizes many of the supporters' claims are just as silly as those of opponents. For instance, one of the "selling points" for this bill is that it would increase tourism from people who are used to being able to buy these beers in their home states. C'mon, does anyone really believe that? Still, if it works I'll give a sound bite about the economic impact of such a law. I'm not above pandering.

C'mon NY Times

2008-02-27T14:19:00.002-06:00

I may turn out to be VERY wrong on this issue, but I do believe the NY Times is "drinking the Kool Aid" on the Republican conspiracy to "get" former AL governor, Don Siegelman.

For those of you who don't know, Siegelman was indicted and convicted in federal court on charges that he essentially sold a seat on a state board for large contributions to his campaign to bring a lottery to AL. [Note: Guy Hunt, former Republican governor, suffered a similar fate after he left office.]

My opinion on the case was a bit divided. On the one hand, it seemed VERY clear that he did engage in some tit-for-tat fund raising. On the other hand, it seemed to me that lots of politicians were doing the same thing. In the end, I was pleased with the verdict for three reasons. First, it sent a message that politicians could be tried and convicted for shady backroom deals. Second, his entire administration seemed to be one sleazy deal after another -- from the incredibly inflated price he got for his house to the mysterious motorcycle gift he received. I hate to make such judgements, but where there's THAT much smoke, well something likely is on fire. Finally, and I realize this isn't a criminal justice argument at all, I thought he was a lousy governor. He ran on a single idea -- bringing a lottery to AL. Once the voters rejected a lottery in a state-wide referendum, well he sort of just took his ball and went home.

Anyway, ever since his conviction his supporters have been trotting out this "vast right-wing conspiracy" argument. You know who the real culprit was? It was Karl Rove! Was Karl happy that a Democrat attempting a political comeback was facing legal trouble? I'm sure. Would Karl have helped the case if he could? Probably. But what's the evidence backing the Rove conspiracy theory? Well there's a former Republican party "worker" who ties the whole thing to Karl. Problem is no one in the state Republican party claims to really know her. They say at most she was a low-level volunteer on some campaigns. No way, they say, would she have been allowed in on the inner workings of a vast national conspiracy. In a cynical way, that argument makes a lot of sense. On top of that, she keeps throwing out more and more explosive accusations. First, it was mostly things like, "I heard X say that Rove wanted to be kept up to date." Then it moved on to "I was present in a conference call where ..." type claims. Now, months after giving a sworn deposition about the whole thing, she claims Karl Rove personally asked her to try to get photographic evidence of Siegelman engaging in an extra-marital affair. I don't recall the exact details of the story, but I think she said he wanted naked pictures.

As you can probably tell, I'm skeptical of her story. I wouldn't entirely discount the idea of Rove-led conspiracy, as he seems to be a pretty intense, win at all costs, kind of guy. I do, however, have trouble believing he would dirty his hands directly in the mess by asking someone to get dirty pictures of Don. Further, I REALLY can't believe he would ask someone so marginally connected to the Republican party. I'll admit it, I'm suspicious of the woman's motives.

So how does this relate to the NY Times? Well this past weekend 60 Minutes ran a big story on the Siegelman case and the claims of a Republican set-up. [I hate all such "news" programs, but that's another post for another day.] During the week leading up to the program, there was much talk in the local media about the coming story -- "don't miss this week's episode!" and things like that. Well it just so happened that there was a "technical glitch" of some sort at the local CBS station during part of the Siegelman story. Yes it was embarrassing to them and it made them the butt of many conspiracy-related jokes, but WHNT (I believe) did all it could to atone. They replayed the segment during the 10:00 news and then again on the 6:00 news the next night. Still, some have latched onto the fact that WHNT is owned by a media company that has ties to Bush and the national Republican party.

When the right-wing crazies concoct these weird theories (e.g., the Vince Foster suicide), I don't recall the NY Times writing editorials furthering them. Yet, they chose to weigh in on this issue:

In 1955, when WLBT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Miss., did not want to run
a network report about racial desegregation, it famously hung up the sign:
“Sorry, Cable Trouble.” Audiences in northern Alabama might have suspected the
same tactics when WHNT-TV, the CBS affiliate, went dark Sunday evening during a
“60 minutes” segment that strongly suggested that Don Siegelman, Alabama’s
former Democratic governor, was wrongly convicted of corruption last year.
[...]
In this case, if the blackout was intentional, it may also have
been counterproductive. Rather than take attention away from allegations that
Mr. Siegelman was the victim of a partisan campaign, WHNT’s technical glitch
seems to lend support to the charge.

This is too much. First, notice the claim that the 60 Minutes segment "strongly suggested" that Siegelman was wrongly convicted. Of course the segment strongly suggested that -- it's what those programs do. They take a multi-faceted issue and then air a strongly leaning version designed to inspire righteous indignation among the viewers. That's why people watch!

Further, the Times' stance reeks of regional snobbery. Do they really suppose that this devious plot to keep the segment off the air in the HSV market would have kept anyone from knowing about the claims. The story had been in the news for days before the program aired. Plus, the HSV area is the most tech-savvy part of the state! I guarantee that many interested viewers had already watched the segment online by the time WHNT was able to rebroadcast it. Finally, as the Times admits, such a plot would not even work in today's information age. Everyone knew about the story and any attempt to block it at the local level would have been doomed to this exact fate -- generating additional attention to the story. Don't you think the "masterminds" that were able to get an innocent man convicted in federal court would have figured that out? I seriously doubt the NY Times would have even considered such a plot could have worked on a more "sophisticated" population. Rubes in AL, though, well heck, just keep them in the dark.

The whole thing makes me angry.

Balanced media?

2008-02-15T12:54:00.003-06:00

No time today, but I did want to point y'all to something -- if you're interested.

Everyone (except the media) complains about media bias. Economists are no different, especially when it comes to news articles about proposals for new stadia (see, I can use fancy word forms) and other public works boondoggles. We think members of the media tend to be much too receptive to the "pie in the sky" claims made by proponents of the projects. [A recent study (can't find the link right now) showed this indeed to be the case. Reporters were much more likely to quote or cite proponents than opponents, etc.]

Anyway, the guys over at Sports Economist pointed me to this recent piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a proposal for a new soccer stadium (yes, I said SOCCER) that is supposed to revitalize a dirt-poor area of Philly. In this case, I think the reporter does a good job of presenting both sides of the neighborhood boost vs. boondoggle argument.

In fact, I couldn't decide for sure which side he believes -- though I'd like to think he'd come down on the side of all that is right and good. It reminded me of my first philosophy prof. We covered a big section on the existence of God and I never was able to tell which side he came down on. Only later did I find out he was very active in his local church parish. I thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, read the article if you have any interest in this stuff. It's not long and it does a good job (I think) of looking at both sides.

Honest admission: I realize the article may not be balanced at all. I may be falling into the "fair and balanced" trap of political news. It may be that the guy agrees with my view and that's why I think it's "balanced". Read it yourself if you want to check the impartiality.

Unintended consequences ... AGAIN

2008-02-12T13:13:00.000-06:00

It isn't out yet, but according to a forthcoming article in the Journal of Public Economics, smoking bans increase drunken-driving fatalities:

One might expect that a ban on smoking in bars would deter some people from showing up, thereby reducing the number of people driving home drunk. But jurisdictions with smoking bans often border jurisdictions without bans, and some bars may skirt the ban, so that smokers can bypass the ban with extra driving. There is also a large overlap between the smoker and alcoholic populations, which would exacerbate the danger from extra driving. The authors estimate that smoking bans increase fatal drunken-driving accidents by about 13 percent, or about 2.5 such accidents per year for a typical county.

Though I was against it on principle, I must say I'm enjoying the reality of Decatur's smoking ban. It really is nice to be able to go to restaurants and the one nice bar in town without reeking afterwards. Though I will admit to liking the outcome of the ban, I shuddered when I saw one of the conclusions these researchers drew from there study. Think about it; wouldn't this study might you discount the "wisdom" of future bans? I'm not saying you'd change your mind about it, but wouldn't it at least give you pause? No.

Assuming a smoking ban is still worth it, the results suggest the need for a more aggressive approach to drunken driving - or a nationwide smoking ban.

Yes, smoking bans lead to more drunken-driving fatalities, so we need MORE bans! Now in reality, that's perfectly in keeping with the results of the study -- and sort of creative to boot. The problem arises from bars in neighboring jurisdictions that are not subject to the ban. So one way to fix the problem is to outlaw "neighboring jurisdictions" and make everyone subject to the same ban. Yep, it'd work, BUT ... Want to bet whether this would have an unintended consequence as well? I know which side my money would be on.

NOTE: I just noticed an interesting contrast between the policy prescription in this study compared to that for dry counties next to wet counties. I've got a million things to do today, though, so I'll have to come back to that in a couple of days. Yes, a cliff hanger. I'm sure you can't wait to read my thoughts. Right?

Juicing

2008-02-08T11:43:00.000-06:00

Okay it looks like I'm finally going to have to talk about the steroids scandal in my favorite sport. Actually, I'm only going to talk about the steroids issue briefly. But I am going to have my say about the most noted player to be implicated so far: Roger Clemens.

In case you've been pulling a Rip Van Winkle for the past couple of months, Roger the Rocket has been accused of being a juicer. Anecdotal evidence does suggest something suspicious. Roger was a great pitcher, but, as players do, he seemed to slip a little as he aged. Then he amazingly returned to his earlier (if not better) form, won a bunch of Cy Youngs, and became the darling of MLB. On the other hand, Clemens has been ADAMANT in his denials -- more so than you'd think he would be if there were a smoking gun out there -- and the only public evidence so far has been the word of his accuser, his former personal trainer.

Here's an update as of where things stand right now.

The big news in the update is that the former trainer now claims he has a bunch of syringes with traces of banned substances and Clemens' blood on them. One does wonder why someone would keep stuff like that for 7 years, but due to today's CSI culture, that seems like pretty good evidence -- if it's true.

Roger, the former trainer, and other folks are supposed to testify before Congress next week, but yesterday the Rocket and his team of lawyers and a PR guy went office hopping around Congress, just to show what a great guy he really is I guess. Evidently I'm not the only one who wondered just what he was doing "lobbying" on Capitol Hill:

"It's highly unusual, and that's why I think one would try to determine the rationale for it. What is he trying to accomplish?" Davis [D-IL] said in an interview with The Associated Press before Clemens arrived. "I am willing to hear him out and hear what he has to say."

Regardless, that's not what I want to talk about. No I want to talk about Roger's press conference he held at the end of the day. Well I say Roger's press conference, but he said almost nothing. No, it was just a chance for his lawyers to take turns besmirching McNamee (the former trainer). I had the TV on ESPN and I happened to catch a few minutes of the spectacle. It was sickening.

The "good old boy" lawyer from Houston stood there and fulfilled every slimy lawyer cliche in the book. He called McNamee a "not well" person, accused him of being "out to get" Roger, and brought up his connection to a past allegation of date rape. Charges were never filed, but the good old boy said the police sure thought there was a crime. He even painted McNamee as a whining sycophant who begged Clemens for some Springsteen concert tickets one time. The lawyer said something like, I guess if Roger had been able to get those tickets for him we might not even be standing here today. Now "unbiased" stories I've read have made me think McNamee might not win any citizen of the year awards, but this just seemed like overkill.

In fact, the more I watched, the more sympathy I felt FOR MCNAMEE. During it all, Roger just stood in the background, watching. Why, I wondered, would he allow this blatant smear campaign from his own people? Doesn't he realize it's going to create more sympathy for the guy? Then I remembered -- Roger is a bully. And bullies don't think that way. You cross me, I'll run you down. There's no strategy, just the law of the jungle.

I used to be a big Clemens fan, but he has really worn on me the past several years. I'm just fed up with his annual retirement dance. He "retires" but then, come mid-season, he comes out of retirement to "save" the chosen team. This past year's circus at Yankee Stadium was the last straw for me. I know the power of the spotlight has to be a mighty pull, especially for someone with the competitive juices of a pro athlete, but I'm tired of it all. Retire Roger. Go back to Texas with your reputation as one of the all-time greatest pitchers intact.

Now, of course, that is not possible. Roger HAS to fight this charge. I think, though, his defense is about to undergo a subtle change. I could already see signs of it in the press conference yesterday. I predict soon it's going to be that he never KNOWINGLY took anything. If McNamee injected him with banned substances, it was without Clemens' knowledge. I have no proof; it's just a feeling I got from listening to the good old boy lawyer yesterday.

The worst part is, I think it's much ado about (almost) nothing. Yes, the whole thing is a disgrace for MLB. The owners and the players' union should be ashamed that they allowed this to happen. That's the key thing, though; it did happen. For the past several years I believe illegal performance enhancers have run rampant in MLB. I suspect a great many players have used "something unnatural" to help them out. Given that, I don't see any way to downgrade one player's performance during the period. If you were the dominant hitter or pitcher during the steroid era, then you're just as deserving of acclaim as if you'd dominated during the dead ball era, the amphetamine era, or any other baseball era. It does mean you can't compare raw numbers from today's players with those of other eras, but that's true about other times as well. Baseball needs to 'fess up and promise to do better (which they've done), the talking heads need to tsk tsk (which they've done), and Congress needs to butt out (which they won't do).

Finally, all those Hall of Fame voters need to accept the reality of the steroid era (and hope it's on the way out). It will be harder for them to evaluate players, given that the old "automatic" numbers like 500 home runs don't mean so much anymore, but there's a plethora of tools to help them do that. When their times come, vote in Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds on the first ballot. They are Hall of Fame players who dominated the game the way very few ever have. If you truly believed they were the only players using "juice", I could see an argument for keeping them out, but c'mon! We all know that's not true.

So keep working to get the juice out of the game, but baseball has to get past this witch hunt mentality about who used and who didn't. Oh and Roger -- shut up and retire for good!

The road to Shangri La

2008-02-04T12:02:00.000-06:00

As you should know, I'm fond of playing in the woods. As you also should know, the Sipsey Wilderness Area (contained in the Bankhead National Forest) is my favorite place to play. Well this past weekend the weather was so nice that I felt I had to get out in the woods. I toyed with the idea of a camping trip, but I didn't want to go to the hassle for just one night. So I settled on just going to the Sipsey on Saturday for an extended day hike.

Actually that's not quite true. I didn't go to the Sipsey. Instead I chose to explore parts of the Bankhead Forest outside the actual Sipsey Wilderness Area. [That's splitting hairs, but I want to be accurate in case anyone tries to visit the places I'm going to describe.] Specifically I decided to try to locate Shangri La Falls. I've only seen one printed reference to Shangri La and it doesn't appear on any official map. Through I friend-of-a-friend, though, I received a hand-drawn map showing me the purported location. I didn't have great faith I would find the area, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, I had a couple of "backup" locations in mind in case I had to scrub my original mission.

In the end, that wasn't necessary. Shangri La was right where it was supposed to be -- and it wasn't even that hard to get to. I've spent a lot of time in the Sipsey/Bankhead and I think this area may be the most beautiful I've seen. Seriously. Unlike my unfortuate experience with Lower Caney Falls a couple of years ago, I was able to climb down into the "canyon" and walk along and around the falls for some distance. Even without the falls, the canyon would have been breathtaking. It looked like something out of a sci-fi "in the days of dinosaurs" flick. The vegetation, the weird rock formations, the eerie green water, ... All of it just looked very "other worldy".

So anyway, all that would have made the trip worthwhile. After climbing out of the canyon, though, I explored up the creek and found the ruins of a grist mill right next to what now may be my very favorite Sipsey/Bankhead waterfall. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get down into the canyon go get better views of the fall and the grist mill. I plan to go back when I have more time (it was kind of late in the day by then), and maybe someone with me, and see if I can find a way down to get a better look. The best part of all: I was out there for more than 6 hours and I didn't see another person.

Oh I also verified that wild turkeys do indeed fly! And their flapping wings make a tremendous amount of noise. More on that later. For now I'm just going to post some pix. They are: Shangri La Falls, the weird canyon, the falls at the grist mill, and the ruins of the mill. Gotta' run.

Am I a Luddite?

2008-02-01T10:37:00.000-06:00

When it comes to technology, I'm not sure where I fit. In general I'd say I'm certainly a late adopter. For instance, 6 months ago I had never owned a cell phone and I still do not have an iPod or any type of MP3 player. Further, though I know I'll eventually own one, I have absolutely no (current) interest in a fancy plasma/LCD TV set.

I maintain that it's not a true Luddite tendency in me; rather it's that most new tech gadgets just don't excite me enough to part with my hard earned specie. [Yes, I have been described as "cheap" a time or two.] On the other hand, I've had a GPS receiver and a DVR for years because I immediately saw the inherent joy those devices would bring me. And once I became convinced that getting a cell phone and dropping the land line would simplify my life, it only took me about 3 months to get one. Hey, I never said I acted immediately!

The thing I dreaded most about getting a cell phone was that I would no longer have my "horribly out of touch with modern life" example to use in class when explaining the rationing function of markets: making sure products/services go to those who value them the most. I KNEW I was out of touch on the cell phone thing, but just the other day I found out that I'm still incredibly out of touch with another modern-day "necessity": high speed internet service.

We were talking about that incredibly stupid (in my opinion) website that lets you track your pizza online. Why, pray tell, would anyone need to know exactly where his pizza is at any particular moment? It doesn't get the pizza there any faster, so why bother? My students, on the other hand, seemed to think it was a great idea. When I brought up the "why bother?" objection they rejected that out of hand -- it's NOT a bother. That's when I told them I didn't even HAVE internet service at home. They were STUNNED! How could I NOT have high speed internet at home?

Now I know many people have that service now, but I didn't realize just how accepted it has become. My view is that I'm at the computer for large parts of most every day; why WOULD I want to take that home with me? Strangely enough, it made me feel better that I'm still offbeat.

Anyway, all this came back to me when I read a column (by a college educator) in the Washington Post. Jeanne Marie Laskas broke a shoelace and her students decided she needed a new pair of boots. When she pointed out there was no reason to get rid of a pair of shoes just because a lace broke, they then got into a debate over repairing versus replacing items. She again pointed out there was no repair to be made -- she simply needed to get a new pair of laces. Admittedly, she was a little lost when it came to just how to do that, but once she solved the problem she was sort of pleased with the simplicity of the outcome:

When I found the shoelaces, it felt like a victory. They were on sale for 48 cents. They were brown, 45 in/114 cm, Fashion Laces, Women's Low Cut 5 - 6 Pair Eyelets. Nothing more on the packaging. No promises of better tying power or advanced microfiber technology, nothing organic, nothing green, no information about animal testing associated with or without the making of the laces, no Web site listed for further lace information.

Just: 48 cents. A pair of laces. End of story.

I think she'd "get" me.

More entertainment

2008-01-31T14:27:00.000-06:00

I can't believe I'm going to blog on movies yet again. But I am.

I don't follow the movie news, but occasionally I somehow become aware of certain movies looming on the horizon. Strangely enough, right now there are movie versions (in the process of) being made of three of my favorite books.

The Time Traveler's Wife is set for release in June. I shudder at the thought of what they'll do to the best book I've read in several years. I'm not kidding. If you haven't read it, do so now!

Evidently The Mysteries of Pittsburgh has already been released, though I doubt it'll ever make it to my town. The reviews aren't very good, but I loved the book. Maybe it was a "time in my life" thing, but I thought it was much better than his later books -- even the Pulitzer winner.

Finally, The Risk Pool is in "pre-production", whatever that means. "This is one of my all-time favorite "funny novels". Again maybe it's just my contrarian nature, but I like it better than his more acclaimed later books. Yes, (again) even more than his Pulitzer winner. Normally I'd be very worried about how badly they'll butcher the book, but Lawrence Kasdan is directing and Tom Hanks is (supposedly) starring. While I think Tom Hanks can pull off just about any role, I cannot picture him as Sam Hall. It just doesn't work for me.

Anyway, I am cautiously eager to see all three. I'm going to keep my expectations low, so maybe they'll be exceeded. Now if Hollywood could just work out all the issues and get this book on the silver screen, I'd be very happy.

Give me a C, no wait a Z!

2008-01-29T15:47:00.000-06:00

Spelling bees. Sigh.

I HATE spelling bees. I have since the 6th grade, when I misspelled a simple 4-letter word in the county-wide bee. I've never been a great speller, but I promise I knew how to spell my word. It's just that, at the time, I had a paralyzing fear of having to speak/perform in front of others. I don't know, but I'm willing to bet I'd have misspelled my own name that morning.

Needless to say, I have not taken to watching ESPN's broadcast of the Scripps national bee, nor did I watch that documetary about it. Nonetheless, this story out of Cullman caught my attention:

FAIRVIEW, Ala. (AP) — Krystian Doss says he knows how to spell "kudzu," and he's positive he got the word right during the Cullman County spelling bee. Just like in the NFL, though, the final call came down to a video replay.

Christiana Oanca was named the winner of the annual competition on Monday when judges determined Doss spelled "kudzu" with a "c" where the "z" should have been. After an initial protest they reviewed a video of the event — a byproduct of a past miscue.

Yes, they now have instant replay for spelling bees! Of course I wasn't there, but based on nothing more than uninformed opinion, I say the kid was robbed! C'mon, what Alabama kid does NOT know how to spell "kudzu"? Geesh!

Say what?

2008-01-28T10:40:00.000-06:00

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you likely know there's a big election coming up this fall. Unless your particular rock was in the deepest, darkest, most remote corner of an isolated cave, you've likely also heard that this year's Democratic nominee (almost certainly) will be "historic".

Given that AL joined the stampede of insanely early primary states, I now have to vote next week! I'm almost certain who I'm voting for, but I understand that some folks might not have put a lot of thought into it yet. In a nod to those "late deciders", my local newspaper recently published an editorial that might provide (Democratic) voters some guidance in choosing between their "historic" options:

Some people are struggling with their motivations for how they plan to vote.

Is it OK to vote for Sen. Obama because he is black?

It is OK to vote for Sen. Clinton because she is a woman?

The answers are the same — certainly.

That's it. No explanation for why this is okay; it just is. I guess one could invoke the "obvious theorem" and accept that no explanation is necessary. Immediately after this hard-edged political analysis, though, the DD continues with:

Is it OK to vote against Sen. Obama because he is black?

Is it OK to vote against Sen. Clinton because she is a woman?

The answers are the same — certainly not. To vote for those reasons is racist and gender biased.

Honestly, folks, I'm not making it up. It's okay to vote for a candidate because of race or gender, but it's not okay to vote against him or her for that reason -- that would be racist or gender biased. I honestly think the Daily's argument might have been stronger if they'd just (silently) invoked the "obvious theorem" for the second set of rhetorical questions too! Avoiding the culturally charged word, racist, I'd really like to write a letter to the DD and ask them just how they define "gender biased".

Now I've read a lot of opinions about why it IS okay to vote based on race/gender in this particular election. Though most have seemed a bit strained if taken too far, they have made good points and some of them have been quite persuasive. The DD's argument, though, baffles me. Maybe if they'd taken the time to explain why it is okay to vote FOR Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton because of race or gender, the piece might make more sense. As it is I can't see how anyone would have let this thing run without recognizing the inherent contradiction. It's just intellectually lazy.

Note: I intended to include a disclaimer here about which candidate I am supporting -- as protection from those who might question my motivation in this rant. In the end I realize it doesn't matter. The editorial is sloppy and flawed (in my opinion) independent of who I vote for.

Unintended consequences

2008-01-24T12:58:00.000-06:00

It's a little simplistic and heavy on anecdotes, but this column by Dubner and Levitt (the Freakonomics guys) highlights one of my favorite economics topics -- the law of unintended consequences.

But before charging ahead with such plans, the new president might do well to first ask him- or herself the following question: What do a deaf woman in Los Angeles, a first-century Jewish sandal maker and a red-cockaded woodpecker have in common?

The answer is they all may have been harmed by government regulations designed to help them. The section on the ADA is kind of obvious -- and is likely subject to even more regulation today -- and the part about Jewish sabbatical law just made me go "huh?" The discussion of the Endangered Species Act, though, caught my attention.

I've always thought it incredibly stupid to designate a species "endangered" with such a long lag time before designating its protected habitat. OF COURSE property owners are going to act to clear/develop the land before it's "taken" (in a sense) from them. I guess I'd just never thought of it as a strategic decision.

In their paper, Lueck and Michael cite a 1996 developers’ guide from the National Association of Home Builders: “The highest level of assurance that a property owner will not face an E.S.A. [Endangered Species Act] issue is to maintain the property in a condition such that protected species cannot occupy the property.”

Now I certainly agree with Dubner and Levitt's endnote that not all regulation is bad. But I also agree that it's WAY TOO COMMON for us to fail to think through the incentives created by a new regulation -- especially when we're trying to "help" one group or another. Whenever I'm considering a new "twist" in my class grading or testing procedures I always ask myself, "Now how could I 'scam' this system?" I don't foresee all problems, but that approach has saved me from more than a few policy headaches.

An interesting market opportunity

2008-01-23T14:38:00.000-06:00

This has been making the rounds of the econ blog sites, but in case you haven't seen it:

Randy Newsom, a Cleveland Indian relief pitching prospect, is selling himself. Well sort of.

RSI is currently offering 4% of his future major league salary at
the price of $50,000. RSI is selling shares of Randy Newsom for
$20/Share through 2/1/08. 2,500 total shares will be sold.
[...]
1 Share will lay claim to 0.0016% of Randy's future major league
earnings.

Thus, if the guy earns $1 million in MLB, a shareholder would collect $16.

I'm intrigued -- both by the baseball aspect and the "markets in everything" aspect. If the guy just makes a major league roster for three years, this would almost be a winning bet (the MLB minimum salary over the next couple of years is $400,000).

I mostly agree with the standard econ interpretation of this as a form of wage insurance for athletes, but I'm thinking of a twist that I might put on it to use in class. Why just offer 4% of your future salary? Why not offer up 50% or more of your earnings? I'm hoping my students would realize that doing so would greatly reduce a player's incentive to work hard and do his best (because he would only be getting half his "worth"). I can then segue from that into a discussion of the disincentive effect of income taxation in general! The only thing is, the disincentive effect of income taxation is not really one of my soapbox issues. Still, I think it might be interesting. Hmm, something to think about.

In the meantime I need to do some research into the question of whether Mr. Newsom is a legitimate MLB prospect.

Okay, okay

2008-01-22T13:09:00.000-06:00

Yes, I do realize it's been a while since I've shared my thoughts. First there was the hustle of final exams. Next there was the joy of being off work for 3 weeks or so. Then there was the bustle of beginning the new semester. Further, it didn't appear that anyone was missing 3rd B. All I had was one er "odd" comment from my old pal Omar. I have, however, heard from 2 people in the past day, wanting to know what has become of my blog. Given that overwhelming appeal for me to continue sharing my thoughts: I'm back.

Let me see, where to begin? Christmas was good. Mostly just relaxing, though I did appreciate the loot I got. Oh, Caffeine Dad had rotator cuff surgery last week, so the family has been dealing with that. I did manage to go on a couple of day hikes, but no overnight adventures to share. I've also been trying to build an "MP3 download" album on Amazon. If you don't know, Amazon now has an "MP3 store" to, I assume, compete with iTunes. Seeing as how I have a good bit of Amazon credit built up, I figured I'd try to build me an Amazon album based on two criteria: 1) It has to be a song available from their MP3 store. 2) It (sort of) has to be on an album that I would not want to own in its entirety. I thought it would be easy to do using songs from my Pandora station, but I've run into some trouble. Here's what I've got so far (though it changes a bit from day-to-day):

City Hall -- Vienna Tang
A Thing Called Raw -- Jackie Greene
Hell Is An Open Door -- East River Pipe
Mercy -- Po Girl
Clear and Present Danger -- Eddie From Ohio
Overcome -- Live
Tulsa County -- Son Volt.

I'm still iffy on a few of those songs, but the most frustrating thing is that some of the "best songs in the world" I hear on my Pandora station are not available from Amazon's MP3 store (or anywhere else in some cases). For instance, I'd REALLY like to include The Indigo Girls' version of "Romeo and Juliet" and two obscure tunes (Streets of London by Sinead O'Connor and Dreams by Cat Power), but those are not to be. Hence, I'm still building my album. By the way, the Cat Power tune happens to be more easily available in the UK than here, so if any of you English readers happen to have it, well ...

In other news, I have been to THREE movies in recent weeks -- that has to be an all-time record for me. First the bad: Beowulf -- in 3D no less! It was horrible. Seriously, this movie rivaled You, Me, and Dupree or Triple X for all-time badness. The only potentially cool thing about the movie was the 3D aspect, but they only had one little 3D trick that they kept doing over and over. Honestly, it felt as if you were in a Nintendo game, running from level-to-level, slaying beasts along the way. I still cannot figure out how they convinced so many "name" actors to participate in this fiasco. Actually there was one redeeming feature to this film. It gave me an opportunity to adopt a new "tag line". For the past few weeks, when I'm around the folks I saw it with, I will say, with much seriousness, "My name (LONG pause) is BEOWULF!" Yes, one could make a great drinking game from this movie by imbibing every time that dolt screams that line. Other than that, it was pretty worthless.

Now for the good ... I did see No Country For Old Men and I thought it was every bit as good as the buzz. I had read the book and I'll admit I was a little underwhelmed by it. Don't get me wrong; it was good, just not THAT good. The movie, though, was excellent. The pacing was excellent, the characters were spot on, the dialog was crisp. [The weakest part of the movie was the Woody Harrelso character, and even he wasn't bad.] There were no wasted scenes in the whole film. Heck, even the silence was a character. I honestly don't think there was a score to the movie -- at least not one that I noticed. If I had a 3rd hand I'd give it 3 thumbs up. Now the disclaimers. It was bloody and violent. It wasn't "cheap thrill" violence, but it would have been rough if I were squeamish about that stuff. More importantly, if you haven't read the book you're going to hate the ending. No not the ending itself, but the "unsatisfactory" nature of the ending. I'll leave it at that.

Finally, just last night I finally got around to seeing Juno. Given the stratospheric praise this little "indie film" has generated, I was fully prepared to hate it -- or at the least be sorely disappointed. In actuality I really, really liked it. I won't go so far as to say I loved it, but it was very, very good. It was fast, witty, and intelligent. They mostly resisted the sentimentality trap that would have been oh so easy for this film to fall into. For the most part, I'd say the critics and the movie-going public got this one right. A couple of complaints, though. First, the movie does seem to suggest that teen pregnancy might not be such a bad thing as long as the girl is hip and witty enough. I realize it wasn't supposed to be a "message movie" about teen pregnancy, but still ...

What bugged me more, though, is that this movie essentially was an alternate history version of what would have happened on the Gilmore Girls if Rory had ever gotten pregnant. [Well it was that with a better actor than old Alexis Bledel.] I liked the Gilmores, so why is that a bad thing? Well it's not a bad thing, it's just that America is crazy about this movie, yet most of America ignored the Gilmores. Seriously, they were every bit as hip and "with it" as Juno, yet they never got this kind of response. True, the Gilmores were (I think) WB's most successful program for a while, but they never captured the wider audience Juno has. I just don't get it.

As for Juno itself, ... It's a really good movie and I recommend it highly. You'll laugh, you'll groan, you may even tear up (if you're a tear up at the movies kind of person). The story is good, the music is quirky, and the acting is really good. Honestly, the most disappointing performance was that of Michael Cera, but I think I only say that because he essentially played the same character, in the same way, as he did in the TV show Arrested Development. All-in-all I don't think it was as good as last year's indie darling, but it was very good. Actually I just remembered the movie it reminded me of. It was a lot like The Opposite of Sex, with a much more likeable main character.

So anyway, ... Avoid Beowulf at all cost -- even with the cool 3D glasses -- but do go see No Country and Juno. At least that's my opinion.

Well now you're sort of caught up with me. I'm sure I have things to say about steroids in baseball and all the books I've read since I'm last reported. I'll get to those. For now, however, I need to get back to work.

Coolest present ever!

2007-12-14T11:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was our Christmas thing at work and one of my co-workers got me the coolest present ever! Actually this one might have been more appropriate, but I'm not complaining.

And to make things even better, I have now graded my last final exam of the semester! Now I'm off to make a stupid purchase -- dining room furniture. Grr! Details later.

Sad ...

2007-12-13T15:18:00.000-06:00

The Caffeine household is once again down to just one cat. Yes, Emmylou (the sweet cat) is no longer with me. Kidney failure and probably lymphoma -- it was all very unexpected. Gumbo (the evil cat) has now outlived two sweet cats. Hmm, maybe that's the secret to longevity -- be meaner than hell!

Anyway, ... R.I.P. Emmylou. The Caffeine household is sad.

[Hat tip to Amy for the pic. Satisfied?]

Hall of What?

2007-12-08T12:49:00.000-06:00

I've got more than my share of gripes about the MLB Players' Union, but did y'all see the recent boneheaded move by the Hall of Fame's Veterans' Committee? They voted to admit former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but not former union head Marvin Miller. That's just stupid and, I think, spiteful. Miller had a MUCH larger (and better) impact on the game of baseball. Ever heard of free agency?

Anyway, Faye Vincent has an op-ed in the NY Times that shows, once again, how wrong it was for the owners to force him out as commish. Vincent simply loves the game and (this is what got him in trouble with the owners) he's interested in what is best for the game.

Miller presented the economic issues in baseball largely in moral terms. Kuhn was the lawyer who argued against change. Miller argued against evil. Guess which was more appealing?
[...]
The members of the committee that elected Bowie Kuhn and passed on Marvin Miller should feel ashamed. But they do not. They almost surely believe that Miller and the union won the war, but they refuse him the honor of his victory. This is a set of actions by little men making small-minded decisions. Electing Kuhn and Miller together might have been a tolerable result. But electing Kuhn alone is intolerable.

These are old men trying to turn back time, to reverse what has happened. Theirs is an act of ignorance and bias. I am ashamed for them. I am ashamed that they represent our game.

My favorite catch? 22 of course!

2007-12-07T10:32:00.000-06:00

Here's an article about a new book that explores the strange circumstances that led to some of literatures most noted titles. It's not the stories, but the titles that this book tries to explain. For instance, why is it Catch-22 instead of Catch-18 (Heller's original choice)?

Well it turns out Leon Uris released Mila 18 shortly before Catch-18 was to debut, so they had to come up with a new number. So how'd they get 22?

A long process of numerical agonising began in which the author and his editor at Simon & Schuster, Robert Gottlieb, worked their way through the integers looking for the right formula. 'Catch-11' was one of the first suggestions, but was rejected because of the 1960 Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven. Heller at one point settled firmly on 'Catch-14', but Gottlieb threw it out for being too nondescript. When 22 came up, Gottlieb felt that it had the right ring: 'I thought 22 was a funnier number than 14,' he told the New York Times Review of Books in 1967. Heller took two weeks to be persuaded.

"I thought 22 was a funnier number than 14." I love that line. And you know what? He was right; 22 IS a funnier number!

The article goes on to explain a title that's always puzzled me (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and how Jeeves became Jeeves. I'm undecided, but here's a link to the book.

So long

2007-12-06T14:04:00.000-06:00

This makes me sad. My beloved St. Louis Cardinals apparently have released So Taguchi:

Outfielder So Taguchi has been released by the St. Louis Cardinals after six seasons with the team, according to MLB.com.

By cutting the 38-year-old Taguchi, the Cardinals made room on their 40-man roster to allow them to make a selection in Thursday's Rule 5 draft at the winter meetings in Nashville.

Sure, So never became the star he was in Japan, but Cards fans liked him. Heck, I liked him. Furthermore, he was a pretty good utility guy AND he seemed comfortable in that role. I'm not saying he should have been an everyday outfielder, but I doubt they'll do any better in replacing him.

On a related note, evidently Cards' manager, Tony LaRusa, is feuding again with 3rd baseman, Scott Rolen. I'll admit I'm biased in that I really like Rolen and I strongly dislike LaRusa, but this doesn't seem like appropriate manager behavior. Rolen's statement ["These are matters that I never discussed publicly and are matters that should have remained private," Rolen said. "I will not dignify Tony's comments with any response at this time."] seems much professional to me than LaRusa's sniping. Oh well.

Oh, I also see that Andruw Jones has signed with the Dodgers. I'm already hearing Braves fans complaining about their team letting Jones get away. I don't have a crystal ball, but I suspect NOT resigning Jones will be one of the smarter moves of the winter. I could be wrong, but I see Jones as a guy living on his past reputation -- both offensively and defensively. Again, that's just my opinion.

Well that's my take on news from baseball's winter meetings. Finals next week, then I'll be back to a more regular writing schedule -- maybe.

Good news/bad news

2007-12-04T15:04:00.000-06:00

Super busy right now, but I did want to link to this editorial in the NY Times:

Voters on Sunday gave a split decision to two of the world’s most prominent and problematic authoritarian leaders. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, turned a parliamentary election into a referendum on himself and cynically manipulated a huge victory, undermining what was left of the independence of the Duma and Russian politics. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez’s latest and most outrageous power grab was rejected at the ballot box, offering hope that political competition there will now flourish.

Though I found parts of the piece a little "fluffy", it was a quick link that touched on both of the foreign elections (or maybe "election" in the case of Russia). Though long run I think Putin may be a bigger problem, short term I was more pleased by the defeat of Chavez's proposals.

Though I think Putin is dangerous, I at least think he's a smart, savvy, wily guy. Chavez, on the other hand, strikes me as simply nuts! He runs around the world insulting leaders he disagrees with and then threatens to take his ball home if anyone challenges him. Seriously, the guy threatened to nationalize Venezuelan branches of Spanish banks if King Juan Carlos didn't apologize for telling Chavez to shut up. He's like the kid with the rich dad who thinks he gets to make all the rules. I never liked that kid and I don't particularly care for Hugo.

Well back to work. I have to figure out how to teach hyposthesis testing in my last remaining day of class. Sigh.

Insure us all

2007-11-30T12:18:00.000-06:00

Busy, busy, busy of late. It'll probably continue for another couple of weeks -- until finals wrap up. In the meantime, ...

I'm commented before on insurance markets. In case you've never thought about it, insurance is designed to spread the risk of catastrophe over large numbers of people. You pay a "small" premium to protect you from the "large" consequence should the dreaded event occur. You pay in because you know you just might need it yourself one day -- though you probably won't. If insurance was a "good buy" (I interpret that as meaning you get back at least what you pay) for everyone, then no insurance fund could ever remain solvent.

What sparked this primer on basic insurance? A column in USA Today on "price gouging" in the insurance industry. Now I will admit that collusive activities and attempts to fix prices are possible in the insurance industry, but Al Neuharth (the founder of USA Today) never presents any evidence of such activity. No he just wants to rail against the evil insurance companies who are ripping off homeowners in disaster-prone areas:

The hurricane season officially ends today. Despite dire predictions from forecasters last spring, the USA was virtually unhit for the second straight year, with only one minor Category 1 hit in Texas.

But millions of coastal homeowners from Florida to New York continue to get heavy hits from insurance companies.

Rocky Scott, public information officer for Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corp., provides this perspective:

* Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some private hurricane insurers have raised rates in coastal states by as much as 300%.

* Even state-sponsored Citizens Property Insurance, based in Florida, has increased premiums by up to 150%.

Insurance company rip-offs aren't limited to hurricanes. Homeowners hit by other weather catastrophes — blizzards, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes — often get similar shocks.

So let me see if I understand Mr. Neuharth's reasoning. After a couple of years of huge payouts to homeowners affected by hurricanes, insurance companies are raising rates A LOT. Despite the accusations of price gouging, there are a few other explanations. Yes, it could be that the insurers are taking advantage of homeowners -- given the limited number of "big players" in the insurance industry, I'd say the degree of true competition is limited. On the other hand, it could be that insurers are now realizing the expected payoff on a hurricane-prone home is a lot higher than they thought. What would be the rational response? A rate increase seems logical in that context.

Now I'm not saying 300% increases are appropriate. I'm also not saying they're not. I don't know. I just think it's a little silly to immediately accuse the insurance companies of malfeasance without evidence. I do know (or at least I've heard from friends with knowledge) that many companies have simply stopped insuring homes on the AL coast. If, as Mr Neuharth claims, hurricane homes represent a cash cow for insurance companies, why would companies be fleeing the market?

Regardless, Neuharth offers a solution:

Former Florida insurance commissioner Tom Gallagher advocated a federal catastrophe insurance program financed by premiums nationwide to help pay for weather-related disasters anywhere across the USA.

[...]

I'm all for free enterprise. Usually when politicians step in with things like price-wage controls, it's a mistake. But as a longtime beachfront homeowner, I'm reluctantly convinced the federal government must intervene to rein in insurance gougers. Skyrocketing premiums are a bigger threat to more homeowners than the variable-rate mortgage foreclosures.

First, it always scares me when someone starts a sentence with a phrase like, "I'm all for free enterprise." Just as "I'm not a racist," "I'm all for free trade," and "It's not that she's a woman," sometimes make me suspect the speaker may be a racist, isolationist woman-hater, "I'm all for free enterprise," makes me think Mr. Neuharth is about to show he is not, in fact, in favor of free enterprise.

Second, after reading the rest of the paragraph I don't see any reason he'd be against free enterprise. He admits government imposed price controls usually (his word) are a mistake, but he gives no evidence for why they would NOT be a mistake in this case. Wait; he does. I see it now. "But as a longtime beachfront homeowner ..." I suspect that's what has made Mr. Neuharth abandon his free enterprise principles in this instance.

Third, think of the logical implications of this whole argument. If insurers truly are engaged in collusive behavior to expropriate monopoly profits from homeowners, then there is a case for government intervention. Even Mr. Neuharth, though, points out that Florida's "state-sponsored" insurance fund increased premiums by up to (another phrase I abhor in arguments) 150%. It seems to me the insurance market may be sending a basic economic lesson to "longtime beachfront homeowners": Your desired behavior is costly. If you want to engage in it, you'd better be ready to pony up some jack. The result? Fewer people would build houses on the beach. Those that did would be wealthy enough to pay the premiums or replace their homes on their own. That may seem unfair, but is there an inherent right for Everyman to be able to afford a beach house?

So how about the alternative? What would a national "weather-related disaster insurance fund" do? Well first it would insulate homeowners from paying the full cost of their behavior. It would NOT, however, reduce the cost of rebuilding homes and businesses (over and over for some locations) after hurricanes. It would just spread that cost over more and more people. Who are these people? Us. All of us. American taxpayers. Well at least it would keep beachfront property ownership more egalitarian, right? Nope. Yes, some "common" folks can afford beach property right now, but what happens to the desirability of that property if hurricane insurance becomes a lot cheaper? The property becomes much more attractive and the price of the property will be bid up by, I suspect, an amount roughly equivalent to the "savings" from the insurance program.

So what would we end up with? I suspect it'd look a whole lot like the government-sponsored flood insurance program. It's a bit dated, but John Stossel once did a really nice job on that program. [If you've never seen it, it's well worth reading.]

Tickle me kindle

2007-11-27T19:17:00.000-06:00

I know there've been multiple attempts to produce and market a functional, user-friendly electronic book reader and I've been skeptical of them all. Most importantly, I HATE reading long documents on a computer screen and I can't imagine reading a whole book that way. Given that, I have to admit that I'm intrigued by the kindle.

I haven't seen one in person, but I'm really excited by the "paper-like" reading screen. They claim no backlit, eye fatigue inducing computer screen. The best I understand, the screen is imbedded with actual ink particles that rearrange themselves to represent each new page. I may have misunderstood that, but it sounds way cool to me.

I'm still skeptical, but I have a perhaps irrational level of optimism for this product -- primarily because it's being pushed by the Amazon guy. It's hard to argue with his track record. While I'm almost never an early adopter, I'd be tempted by this product. If not for the price. I just can't see dropping $400 on it. Once they figure out the PDF thing and its price drops 25-50%, though; well I might just jump on board. Mostly I just hope the initial version is successful enough to spawn a version 2.0.

Around the blog world

2007-11-21T09:56:00.000-06:00

Some things I saw surfing the blog world today ...

Given the post below -- the one about Children of Men -- I found this note over at Marginal Revolution interesting:

An indigenous language in southern Mexico is in danger of disappearing because its last two speakers have stopped talking to one another.

Now it's not as juicy as it sounds. It seems they're not "not talking to each other" because of a feud so much as they've just drifted apart. Still, that kind of sucks. One of the comments, though, claims there still are as many as 90,000 speakers of the language so it could be journalistic hyperbole. Who knows?

Over at Sabermetric Research there's a post about a paper claiming to show that batters with a surname beginning with the letter K (the baseball scoring symbol for strikeout) strike out more often than other batters. Though I haven't seen the paper itself, I fear this is one of those cases that gives statistics a bad name. You know, one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" kind of things. I have no proof, but I suspect it's a case of a very large sample size, which results in VERY small standard errors, which then makes almost every result "statistically significant". As I remind my students, there is a tremendous difference in statistical significance and practical significance. Still, I'd like to see the paper before making a final judgement.

Finally, my old pal The Vol Abroad shares 8 random facts about herself. Knowing her as I do, I was not at all surprised by how witty her facts were. My favorite:

5. I have SunDrop in my house right now. It's liquid gold. I only refrigerate one can at a time so I don't go through it too quick. My husband put an empty can in our transparent recycling bag, and I grant is a perfectly normal thing to do. But I had this paranoid fear that some SunDrop addict would walk by our house, see it and then break into our house to steal my stash. That's the grip SunDrop has on you.

Though I don't have the Drop addiction I had as a younger man, I can certainly appreciate the extremely high marginal utility a can/bottle of the "nectar of the gods" would have if I lived in a foreign (heathen?) land where it was not available.

The whole thing got me to thinking about random (perhaps surprising?) facts about me. I figured I'd share some, but with a twist. Here's a mixture of "true facts" (aka, facts) and "false facts" (aka, lies). If you know me well, you may have no trouble separating the two, but I'm still curious about how easy I am to peg.

1. If the election were held today, I'd vote for Hillary.
2. I am an occasional (secret) watcher of American Idol.
3. I speak 2 languages (including English) well enough to get by (if the natives are patient) and I know the "clueless tourist" version of 1 more.
4. My favorite current author is an obscure (at least in America) Japanese writer.
5. I own a Beastie Boys CD (you know the song).
6. I believe steroids have made most baseball records of the past 15-20 years meaningless.
7. Though incredibly vulgar, Clerks is one of my all-time favorite movies.
8. My first "favorite song" as a child was Rhinestone Cowboy.

When I did these off the top of my head, I had 5 "trues" and 3 "falses". For symmetry's sake, I changed a fact to a lie so now there's 4 of each. If there's any interest, I will reveal the true me later.

Movie vs. book

2007-11-21T09:31:00.001-06:00

When there's a movie based on a book, I usually come down FIRMLY on the side of the book. On occasion, though, there are times when I think both simply are wonderful (e.g., Breakfast at Tiffany's and Breakfast at Tiffany's). There are even rare occasions when I think the movie is better (e.g., Field of Dreams really was superior to Shoeless Joe).

Sometimes, though, the movie is so different from the book, it's pointless to compare the two. What brought this on? Some months ago I saw the movie, Children of Men -- based on the book by P.D. James. Yes, I said P.D. James.

I saw the movie because I was intrigued by the story and the critics loved it. Not only did they love it, they praised it for things I usually enjoy in movies. Regardless, I saw it and I enjoyed it -- though not nearly as much as I'd been led to believe I would. The other day I was in my school's library and I ran across a copy of the book. I figured I'd read the book and see how it held up. Well it turns out the book is MUCH different! The basic story -- the world is dying because no one on the planet has had a baby in close to 30 years -- and character names are the same, but that's where the similarities end. I find it hard even to say the movie was based on the book. I think it's one of those cases where they should have claimed "inspired by" rather than "based on," but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, ... The book is fabulous. Though there is an "action story" to keep things moving, the "theme" of the book seems to be how people and society change once they have no future to live for. It's not just that individuals don't have heirs to bequest their riches to, it's that society itself realizes there is nothing to work toward. I found it chilling and engrossing. Don't let the fact that it's a P.D. James book throw you; read this book.

Also of note in movies, I just recently saw Lost in Translation and I thought it was every bit as good as claimed. It did drag for a while, but the final 30 minutes or so saved the movie. I don't know if it was as good as Sofia Coppola's directorial debut (The Virgin Suicides -- another one where the movie might have been better than the book), but it was well worth watching.

Something interesting

2007-11-16T10:46:00.000-06:00

The guys over at Marginal Revolution have a brief, but I think well reasoned, post on the "repugnance" of selling organs for transplant. I know it's got to be more complicated, but it really does seem hard to justify continuing a policy that results in "[l]etting thousands of people die while organs that could have saved their lives were buried and burned."

I think you can craft a well-reasoned argument against selling organs -- perverse incentives for hospitals, a rise in "organ mugging", etc. -- but what strikes me is that most of the objections I know of tend to come off as very paternalistic. For example, one commenter says, "I don't like the idea of [poor] people feeling obligated to sell their organs." This argument irks me for at least two reasons, but I have to go help my boss with a task right now and I figure I'll forget to post if I save it for later.

Reading

2007-11-14T11:07:00.000-06:00

I know, I know. I haven't written much at all of late. Sorry about that. I've been busy and uninspired -- though the two may well be related.

Anyway, ... In my return to blogging, I figured I'd fall back on an old reliable topic: reading! As always, I have more things to read than time to do so. I did finally finish Neal Stephenson's wonderful Baroque Cycle. I know I've praised him before, but I'm in awe of the man. How did he manage to envision, much less write, a series of 3 (approximately) 1000 page novels that managed to be historically informative and entertaining? Yes, they were slow reads at times, but I enjoyed every page. Now I'm all fired up to read more about that period -- basically the scientific revolution of the late-17th and early-18th centuries.

Specifically, I'd like to read more about the dispute between Newton and Leibniz over "the calculus". I get the impression Stephenson is more sympathetic to the latter, but I'd like to read an accessible, objective treatment of the issue. Do any of you have any expertise or suggestions? I realize it's a stretch, but I thought I'd ask.

Now that I've finished the Baroque Cycle, I'm kind of adrift. I have several books piled up that I've been meaning to read, but none of them call to me. Do any of you have a "hot read" you'd like to recommend? I read pretty much any genre -- history, literature, detective stories, science fiction, etc. -- though I will admit that I find most biographies tedious. I just picked up Singularity Sky, a SciFi book that I'd heard good things about. So far it's okay, but I find that a lot science fiction takes too much effort to read. There are too many invented technologies, terms, etc. that just aren't explained. Hence, I have to concentrate very hard to keep everything straight in my mind. This is one of those books. I haven't given up on it though, so I may change my opinion later.

I also just laid hands on Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty, the latest from Tim Sandlin. As some of you know, Sandlin's debut novel, Sex and Sunsets, is one of my all-time favorite comic novels. I also really liked his GroVont trilogy. Since then, though, I haven't really cared for his books. I found Jimi Hendrix at a cheap book sale, though, and I figured I'd risk $3.99. We'll see.

Okay that's what I'm up to. Any reading suggestions will be most appreciated. I'll try to come up with a more topical post soon.

Outrages

2007-11-09T09:59:00.000-06:00

Two things caught my eye in recent days and both have me madder than a wet hen:

First, According to Sports Illustrated, the International Tennis Federation is investigating a claim that Tommy Haas was poisoned before Germany's Davis Cup match against Russia.

Haas was forced out of his match against Mikhail Youzhny with a suspected stomach virus as Russia won both reverse singles matches on Sept. 23 to win the semifinal series 3-2 and reach the Davis Cup final.
[...]
German teammate Alexander Waske said he was told by a Russian who manages numerous athletes that it was poisoning, not a virus. Waske didn't say who the manager was.

I'm not a big conspiracy theory guy and this story is almost too incredible to even consider. Note the almost. Yes it sounds like typical tinfoil hat paranoia, but it does seem that folks who might be considered enemies of Russia do end up poisoned with much more frequency than the population in general. I'm not going to argue that Vlad himself would have ordered such a thing, but I don't think it would strain belief to think a "monkey-see-monkey-do" kind of attitude could have led someone involved with Russian tennis to have slipped Haas a dose of something nasty. I hate that I'd even consider such a thing possible, but unfortunately I do.

Second, our Democratic Congress. Remember these folks? Their entire platform in the mid-term elections boiled down to something like, "We'll get us out of Iraq and we'll stop the hemorrhage of money coming out of D.C." So how have they done? Well I can't see that they've accomplished much on Iraq (for better or worse) and as for the money, ... The Dems, along with willing Repubs, managed to override a Bush veto this week and preserve a water bill chock full of silly, wasteful earmarks. Then there's the latest farm bill! Debra Saunders has a nice take on it. The complaints are familiar, but no less frustrating -- huge payments to wealthy farmers, subsidies at a time when farm incomes are at all time highs, payments to people who have absolutely nothing to do with farming, etc. I know this is business as usual, but didn't the Dems pledge to stop this kind of crap and return fiscal sanity to Washington? My favorite part of Saunders' column:

Speaker Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, promises reform in the next Farm Bill. Ha. Methinks that if Democrats can't cut corporate welfare in the very year in which they promised to deliver big reforms, they never will. In five years, Pelosi simply will have honed the bad habits that the powerful develop to strengthen their chokehold on power inside the Beltway.

It's a pessimistic view, but one that I fear will prove true.

Sigh. I promise I'll try to find something cheerful to comment on next time.

Dating advice

2007-11-08T14:24:00.000-06:00

Yes you read that title correctly, but no, I'm not actually giving dating advice! Instead I wanted to mention the funny (from an economist's perspective), though probably fraudulent, Craigslist ad from a while ago. If you haven't heard about it, a very hot woman supposedly placed an ad on Craigslist in which she expressed her dismay that she hadn't been able to land a mega-rich sugar daddy. Someone answered her ad and explained that she wasn't really offering a fair trade. I thought it was pretty funny (one of my students brought it to me), but the guys over at the Freakonomics blog give it a much better treatment -- including the full text of the (alleged) ad and reply. Give it a read if you haven't already seen it.

Other than that, not much to offer. I know I haven't been blogging much of late. I have two theories as to why. First, I've just been really, really busy. Second, I haven't thought of anything that I just HAD to share. I think I'm in a rut. Tomorrrow's Friday, so I'll try to come up with something interesting then.

UPDATE: If you're interested in the totally materialistic approach to dating, then this fake ATM receipts site might be of interest to you.

Asking for it

2007-11-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

For the most part, I like my adopted home state. Sure there are some things I could live without, but all-in-all it's not a bad place. Most outsiders, though, don't see it that way. In fact, the last 2 states I've lived in (AL and MS) both often are perceived as bastions of backwardness. Most of the time I think this "perception" is mistaken condescension by outsiders, but sometimes we kind of ask for it. For instance, this Halloween wedding. I'm just praying that someone from My Name Is Earl saw this story.

Two Decatur vampires met their brides on Halloween night for a double wedding ceremony featuring glow sticks, a motorcycle-riding Jesus and Freddy Krueger.

Stephanie Lynn Arnold, 22, and her mother, Debbie Lynn Harville, 38, both in costume as vampire brides, married Peter Daniel Brauchle, 26, and William Thomas "Tommy" Curbow, 31, respectively.

Yes you read that right. It was a mama and her daughter in a double wedding with a fog machine, a Freddy Krueger ring bearer, and a black-clad motorcycle Jesus officiating. The crowning touch -- the matriarch walked down the aisle to a Survivor tune! (I'd have bet the ranch on Skynyrd.)

I'm all for free spirits and the general pursuit of happiness, but I guess I have respect for some traditions. I can think of two: Major League Baseball should begin its season with a day game in Cincinnati and weddings should be solemn. Now that I think about it, though, I'm flexible on that wedding thing. I wouldn't do it, but if it made them happy, well good for them. There's no room for discussion on that baseball thing though!

Stuff

2007-10-30T13:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-24T11:14:00.000-05:00

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.

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.
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.
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?

2007-10-17T14:09:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-15T12:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-15T11:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-12T12:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-10T11:07:00.001-05:00

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" ...

2007-10-05T10:54:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

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.

My town

2007-09-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

Sometimes Decatur frustrates me -- for example, when 3 councilmen decided, all on their own, to ban all smoking in public places and then limited discussion to 3 speakers per side. In reality the number of speakers was irrelevant as the 3 had already announced they were voting YEA. They could have at least pretended to listen and weigh various opinions, no?

Sometimes, though, I love my little town. For instance, in today's Decatur Daily two stories made me smile. First, no progress has been made in capturing the wily goat that's been roaming all over southeast Decatur for the past few weeks. Second, an "enterprising reporter" (the DD's term, not mine) may have cracked the case of the mysterious white spots that have been showing up on Decatur's streets this summer. Seriously folks, the DD has done multiple stories on the mysterious white spots:

They also are the same streets on which mysterious white, paint-like splatters have appeared for weeks, leading to a month-long investigation by The Daily with little resolution. That was until Wednesday. I was dispatched at about 9 a.m.

I'm not going to ruin the surprise for you, but Mr. Belanger seems confident the problem has been solved.

Decatur, bless her heart!

Ken Burns = good, very good

2007-09-25T13:12:00.000-05:00

Sunday night marked the first installment of the much lauded Ken Burns project, The War. While I tend to avoid overly hyped projects, I figured I'd give it a shot. WOW! I'm not going to bother with a formal review, but it really was that good. Ken Burns is amazing.

The footage was amazing, his storytelling style straightforward, and the characters captivating. What struck me most was how the WWII folks described the day-to-day life of being in a war zone. I guess I'd sort of been brainwashed into viewing WWII as "The Good War" where the noble white hats fought against the forces of evil. Very clear cut. No gray area. As I listened to the vets talk about their daily conduct, though, I was struck by how much they sounded like Vietnam vets. Yes, the guys who fought "The Good War" sounded very much like those who fought in that "other" conflict. One guy admitted that after his unit saw how some U.S. prisoners had been tortured, killed, and mutilated -- well his guys figured out how to dispose of some Japanese prisoners they had at the time and they NEVER TOOK ANOTHER PRISONER after that day! It was chilling to see this great grandpa guy just up and admit that.

No, I'm not saying I enjoyed the segment because it showed American GIs in a bad light. It's just that I saw WWII in a much more "real" way than I ever did in a history book. Sure "Saving Private Ryan" showed WWII was vicious and bloody, but the Burns' interviews made it all more real. I guess war IS hell -- even a noble war such as WWII.

Anyway, I enjoyed the segment and I plan to watch the others, though I'm going to have to rely on my DVR to keep them until I get some free time. The first segment was scheduled to run 2:30, but there was still 30 minutes left when the credits started rolling. What was going on? Well I soon found out.

You may or may not have heard about this and I don't remember all the details, but I'll do the best I can. See, Burns' project was going to air on PBS and I'm sure he got some funding from them or the CPB or some group like that, so Congress figured it could weigh in. As Burns was putting the finishing touches on his project, some members of Congress decided that it needed to be more "balanced". I thought he did a nice job (at least in segment 1) of showing the war's impact on Blacks and Japanese-Americans. Problem was, he didn't specifically mention the Hispanic contribution to America's war effort. Now I'm sure many Hispanics fought for the U.S. in WWII, but is there really a special "Hispanic version of WWII" that a documentary has to have to be viewed as somehow complete? I wouldn't have thought so. Some members of Congress, though, threatened to somehow pull the plug on his documentary unless he inserted a sufficient amount of "Hispanicness" into the project. They "negotiated" and reached a compromise.

Now I'm not trying to join in on the "this P.C. crap is ruining our country" conspiracy, but the compromise took away from segment 1 of The War. Burns had wrapped up the segment on a certain note and (I felt) set the stage for the next segment. Then, after the credits, a new bit started up that rehashed a lot of the stuff in segment 1, but this time with a Hispanic vet telling the story. It just broke the mood that lingered after the conclusion of segment 1 and it was obvious this guy was the "token Hispanic" included to take the heat off Burns. I wasn't offended that a Hispanic vet's story was included, I was offended at the heavy-handed, flow altering way it was done. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but it wasn't just that the extra segment failed to add anything substantive; it actually detracted from the whole thing, in my opinion.

On balance, though, I heartily endorse The War -- at least so far. If you missed segments 1 and 2, I feel sure PBS stations will be reairing them throughout the month. Check it out.

Would you like some pumpkin with that?

2007-09-21T12:02:00.001-05:00

Cheating. It's the bane of every teacher and it's something I struggle with. Being an economist, I realize there's a trade off. I could vigorously guard against every possibility for cheating, but it'd be costly for me. COMPLETELY new tests every semester (actually for every section of every class), a total randomization of seating order for each test, extensive hovering, etc. On the other hand, I could just ignore it completely (as my favorite lit teacher did in college) and pretend it doesn't exist. Like most, I choose a middle ground. [Oh, quick point. I know some who do the completely new test approach, but that involves almost complete reliance on publisher provided test banks and those things just suck.]

I'll admit that I get a little lazy about recycling test questions from semester to semester. I rationalize that by theorizing that we're a community college/commuter school, so there's not THAT much opportunity for test files, etc. I'm not a complete idiot, though, and I use certain questions from semester to semester as a sort of cheating barometer. These are questions that students often miss (because they've overlooked a crucial "tweak" to a central concept perhaps) and so I look for situations where an unusually large number of students get those questions right.

Now what would you do if you were a student who had access to old exams that you thought would be of benefit in your class? Smart students would keep the tests to themselves and use the info prudently. You know, only share with your "best bud" and make sure you miss a few questions just in case. I nailed a couple of students last summer (when the compressed time frame makes us teachers get really lax about new tests) when they forgot that last part. These two girls did exceptionally well on the first test despite the fact that their attendance was spotty and I'd had one of them in class before and she was performing way "above her pay grade" (to use a HSV-area government saying). Let me just say test 2 was much different from the previous semester and both girls exhibited extreme "mean reversion." Then there was the guy who came to me and asked me a question that was DIRECTLY off a previous exam. I answered it for him and then designed an almost 100% new test for his class.

I got to thinking about all this when I read this post from the freakonomics blog about how NOT to cheat. Evidently some folks figured out how to hack an online poker site so they could see the actual cards of their opponents. What would you do?

If you were a total idiot, you would do exactly what some cheaters on the Web site Absolute Poker appear to have done recently. Playing at the very highest stakes games, they allegedly played every hand as if they knew every card that the other players had. They folded hands at the end that no normal player would fold, and they raised with hands that were winners but would seem like losers if you didn’t know the opponents’ cards. They won money at a rate that was about 100 times faster than a good player could reasonably expect to win.

Their play was so anomalous that, within a few days, they were discovered.

What did they do next? Apparently, they played some more, now playing worse than anyone has ever played in the history of poker — in other words, trying to lose some of the money back so things didn’t look so suspicious. One hand history shows that the players called a bet at the end when their two hole cards were 2-3 and had not paired the board … there literally was no hand that they could beat!

I guess I should be encouraged that so many cheaters are apparently great big dolts, but it's still disheartening to see how idiotic people can be. To quote one of my favorite philosophers, "Dragons is SOOO stupid!"

A civics quiz

2007-09-19T10:56:00.001-05:00

About a year ago the Huntsville Times changed its op-ed page. Now they have a "from the left" and a "from the right" columnist each day. I don't remember his name, but one day this week one of the "from the right" guys was ranting about how poorly students at elite colleges do on a "civics quiz" given by some institute every year. I've seen this complaint before.

Evidently the institute gives the quiz to incoming freshman and then gives it again to seniors. The big news is not that students fail to make a 100% on the quiz. No the BIG NEWS is that they don't really do any better after 4 years of elite college education. Essentially, some folks claim that universities no longer try to teach basic civic knowledge -- U.S. history, philosophy, economics, government, etc. I agree, though I don't know if I'm as upset as some are by that.

Anyway, the "from the right" guy provided a link to the quiz. I don't want to reveal my score yet, but let me just say I was scared I'd do a lot worse than I did -- though I guessed on a couple and my knowledge of economics really saved me on some of the later questions. Anyway, take the quiz and see how you do. According to the "from the right" guy, the best of the elite colleges only averaged a 69% or so (at least that's what I remember).

Addendum: Since no one else seems inclined to play, or at least report results, I'll tell you my results. In the spirit of the quiz, I'll report my score in "civics" terms. I correctly answered 1/10th[the number of (voting) members of the House of Representatives + number of U.S. Senators + # of Federal Reserve districts + # of U.S. Presidents (so far) from Tennessee] out of 60 questions. I was actually kind of proud of that, though I did kick myself for missing the last question -- I overlooked that it was only asking about federal spending. Of course if I hadn't gone to grad school in econ, I'd probably have missed several more. I just looked back over the quiz and I'd say I'd probably have missed 4 or maybe 5 more questions if I'd just had the basic principles of econ classes years ago.

Free for me, but not for thee

2007-09-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

I just found a cool new blog: sabermetric research. For those of you who don't know, sabermetrics involves (roughly) the rigorous statistical/econometric analysis of sports (especially baseball) performance issues. The name comes from SABR, The Society for American Baseball Research.

Anyway, the first thing I saw on SR was a post having absolutely nothing to do with sports. Nope, SR guy was complaining about CR (that is, Consumer Reports). He pointed out 3 potentially egregious errors in the most recent issue, but the one that caught my eye was their opinion of "free samples" provided to doctors by drug companies. After a doctor wrote to them praising this practice as it allows his patients to try out a new drug without a financial commitment, while admittedly allowing the drug company to make a potential future sale, CR responded rather snarkily:

Free samples are not free. They are part of the drug company’s advertising budget and contribute to the high cost of drugs. The free sample is a tool to tune the patient in to brand-name recognition, so that when it runs out they will stick with the same brand, despite the expense. There might be less-expensive drugs that are just as effective.

Now I know it's popular to bash the drug companies, and I certainly don't think they are saints, but this kind of knee jerk reaction bugs me. Mr. SR did a nice job of spelling out the faulty economic thinking behind this sentiment, but what I loved, almost as much as pizza, was when he applied the same reasoning to CR itself:

Strangely enough, CR’s argument doesn’t seem to apply to their own products. In this very same issue, on page 38, they offer me a "risk-free sample issue" of "CR on Health." If I like it, I have to pay for more.

What makes CR’s offer so much more reasonable than a drug company’s? Isn't it true that free issues are not free? Once CR stops with the expense of giving away free issues, won't the price of a subscription drop? And how come they're not worried that "when my free sample issue runs out I will stick with the same magazine?" After all, there are many less-expensive alternatives than $39 a year.

Hear, hear. I really cannot believe CR would be blind enough to criticize free drug samples while engaging in exactly the same behavior with regards to its own products, but I guess we all tend to miss the motes in our own eyes. Wasn't there something in the Bible about that?

Gee, THAT's why ...

2007-09-12T14:16:00.000-05:00

I don't remember where it came from, but I've always liked the line about how, despite much evidence to the contrary, "everyone thinks he takes great pictures and has a great sense of humor." I can almost always recognize the subjects of my photographs and I'd like to think that I can be witty. Everyone once in a while, though, it's good of people such as Scott Adams to remind me of what funny really is.

Two things I saw when browsing his blog today:

First, though it's been done to death, he turns in a hilarious rube in the big city story about the NYC subway system:

Second, when someone with a badge throws you on the ground, puts your arm behind your back, puts his knee on your neck, and yells, “DO NOT RESIST! DO NOT RESIST!” you should not resist. I learned this by watching. I also learned that you are not supposed to watch. You are supposed to “KEEP ON MOVING!”

See, those last two sentences. They're perfect and I'd never have come up with just that way to put it.

Second, I'm wondering whether I should use this next week when I start probability in stats. Probably not; though I honestly think it's preferable to another "10 defective parts in a shipment of 500" problem. [For the record, I use VERY INTERESTING baseball examples as often as possible.]

Finally a random note unrelated to my love for Scott Adams' humor, ... My Pandora station just played a Tom Petty song and while I didn't catch the entire lyric, I swear I heard a couplet that went, "... impress all the women, pretend I'm Sam Clemens ..." I honestly can't decide whether this is a sign of Tom's songwriting genius or dementia. Either way: WOW!

Psst, buddy

2007-09-10T15:30:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't blogged about poor old Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig and his unfortunate incident in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. I figure if you are interested in such, well there are PLENTY of places for you to read all about it.

One thing in the whole bathroom sting saga, though, did catch my attention and I'm amazed that no one [Yes, I'm sure SOMEONE has commented on this, but I haven't seen it. Hence, I'm going to pretend I'm the first to point this out.] has commented on it. Doesn't the bathroom cop guy remind you of the "reverso" version of Angelo Mancuso? If you don't remember, or you never read it, Angelo is the unfortunate cop who tries to arrest Ignatius J. Reilly in the opening scene of the funniest book ever written in the English (and I suspect all others as well) language.

See, Officer Mancuso attempts to arrest Ignatius as a "suspicious character" lounging in front of a New Orleans department store. If you've read the book (and shame on you if you haven't), you know that Ignatius would qualify as a "suspicious character" just about anywhere. Unfortunately for Angelo, though, Ignatius doesn't go quietly, the crowd intervenes, and he ends up arresting an innocent grandpa because he speculated that Officer Mancuso might be a "Commoniss". Mancuso's superior is not happy about this PR disaster and he forces Mancuso to hang out, in costume, in the dank bus station men's room until he can bring in an authentic "suspicious character". Needless to say, Mancuso is not too happy about his assignment and he dang near catches his death while waiting to collar a perp for his boss. Too bad Sen. Craig didn't wander into the New Orleans bus depot.

Anyway, what got me thinking of all this was the arresting officer's apparent zeal for his bathroom assignment. I don't have exact quotes and I don't want to be bothered to look them up, but I was a bit taken aback at how much he seemed to enjoy hanging out in airport bathrooms, nabbing offenders. [Exactly what law these offenders was breaking isn't really clear to me*, but that's another, larger, issue I don't want to wade into. Others have covered it sufficiently.] The whole thing seemed like a fake "scandal" in The Onion, dreamed up just to serve as a counter to the Officer Mancuso character. Spooky. Regardless, I think I'll reread part of "Confederacy" tonight.

*Note: I feel sure there was intent to engage in prohibited behavior (at least by some of the offenders), but every account I read seemed to indicate the "bust" was made before any actual criminal behavior occurred. When they did the big sting on the local wildlife refuge that was a major point of emphasis. The officer had to wait for contact of some sort before making an arrest.

iOutrage

2007-09-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you've all seen/heard the news that Apple is slashing the price of its nifty new iPhone from $600 to $400 in order to generate more holiday purchases. Okay, nothing odd about that. What strikes me as hilarious, though, is the outrage this has engendered among the folks who went out and bought the $600 as soon as it came out.

For some reason these folks think they have been "done wrong" (in the C&W song sense) by Steve Jobs and the Apple empire. Then there's Eugene Robinson, who doesn't own an iPhone, carping in today's WaPo:

If I were an iPhone owner, I'd be hopping mad. I'd be iRate.
[...]
[W]hen chief executive Steve Jobs announced Wednesday that Apple was slashing the iPhone's price by a third -- meaning that owning a slice of the future now sets you back only $399 -- the iPhone Internet forums lit up with buyers who felt they'd been taken for chumps.

First, and a point that even Robinson makes, this is kind of standard for new technology. Price is initially very high and only the gadget geeks buy, then price falls until the proletariat can afford to join in. Think of cell phones, DVD players, GPS devices, etc. Most seem to think it's a "cheaper technology" phenomenon, but I figure it's driven just as much, if not more, by an attempt to price discriminate and really stick it to those gadget geeks who just HAVE TO HAVE IT RIGHT NOW! Regardless of the reason, everyone knows this happens with new gadgets, so why is everyone so upset?

A second point, though, deals with this implied complaint that it's not the price drop itself that bothers the initial adopters, but the fact that it happened so quickly. Something like, "Man, I paid $600 for this thing, but I could have had it for $400 if I'd waited 6 weeks." If these grousers were among the masses that bought the iPhone the first day, then the same thing was true then. Even here in my area folks who bought iPhones on launch day "paid" much more than $600. They had to camp out all night, stand in line all day, etc. They could have waited and bought an iPhone on the 3rd or 4th day and "saved" all that opportunity cost. Yet they didn't. No, they wanted to be the first with the new gadget and they were willing to pay (both in money and general inconvenience) for that privilege. So why are they complaining now?

Actually Robinson himself has a pretty good theory on that. They're not really mad about the $200. No, it's the fact that now that the iPhone can be had for a mere $400 the exclusivity has worn off much too quickly. No longer will it by THE tech gadget. Instead, it'll be under everyone's Christmas tree.

I think that's a pretty good explanation, though I do get the sense that Eugene thinks the whole spectacle of the iPhone is somewhat unseemly. He essentially ridicules the folks who rushed out to buy one thinking it'd change their lives, yet at the same time he admits to having a Blackberry -- another product that went through a similar life cycle. C'mon Eugene, lighten up. We have to have these early adopters to pave the way for us laggards.