Monkey Business & the Market

I got this from Chaos Manor (www.jerrypournelle.com). It's a hoot.

Monkey Business 

Once upon a time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. 

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. 

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort. 

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. 

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. 

But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. 

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one. 

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! 

However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf. 

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each." 

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. 

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, and once again there were monkeys everywhere. 

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works. 

Tracy Walters

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Radioactive Taiwan

D.,

Here's a link to the study. I don't know whether anyone has followed up on it.

-M.

===============================

http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdf

ABSTRACT
An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 (half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv—a "collective dose" of 4,000 person-Sv. Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person-years. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under age 19. The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 persons per 100,000 person-years. Based upon partial official statistics and hospital experience, the prevalence rate of congenital
malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children. Assuming the age and income distributions of these persons are the same as for the general population, it appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure. The findings of this study are such a departure from expectations, based on International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) criteria, that we believe that they ought to be carefully reviewed by other, independent organizations and that population data not available to the authors be provided, so that a fully qualified, epidemiologically valid analysis can be made. Many of the confounding factors that limit other studies used to date, such as those of the A-bomb survivors, the Mayak workers, and the Chernobyl evacuees, are not present in this population exposure. It should be one of the most important events on which to base radiation-protection standards. The data on reduced cancer mortality and congenital malformations are compatible with the phenomenon of radiation hormesis, an adaptive response of biological organisms to low levels of radiation stress or damage–-a modest overcompensation to a disruption-–resulting in improved fitness. Recent assessments of more than a century of data have led to the formulation of a wellfounded scientific model of this phenomenon. The experience of these 10,000 persons suggests that longterm exposure to radiation, at a dose rate of the order of 50 mSv (5 rem) per year, greatly reduces cancer mortality, which is a major cause of death in North America. Medical scientists and organizations may wish to seriously assess this and other current evidence in deciding whether chronic radiation could be an effective agent for enhancing defenses against cancer.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a
man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and
desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although
he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F.
Smith (manual, p. 69)

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Perspective: Dow Jones history

The Dow Jones recently dropped below 9000. People are scared. Here's a history:

http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/downloads/xlspages/DJIA_Hist_Perf.xls

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Two soldiers and an A-bomb

Keywords: army experiment, nth country, nuclear fission, militarily significant yield

It turns out that, except for getting the fissiles, making a nuclear bomb is neither as easy nor quite as difficult as one might have wished. A fascinating story.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science

They would be working in a murky limbo between the world of military secrets and the public domain. They would have an office at Livermore, but no access to its warrens of restricted offices and corridors; they would be banned from consulting classified research but, on the other hand, anything they produced - diagrams in sketchbooks, notes on the backs of envelopes - would be automatically top secret. And since the bomb that they were designing wouldn't, of course, actually be built and detonated, they would have to follow an arcane, precisely choreographed ritual for having their work tested as they went along. They were to explain at length, on paper, what part of their developing design they wanted to test, and they would pass it, through an assigned lab worker, into Livermore's restricted world. Days later, the results would come back - though whether as the result of real tests or hypothetical calculations, they would never know.

"The goal of the participants should be to design an explosive with a militarily significant yield," read the "operating rules", unearthed by the nuclear historian Dan Stober in a recent study of the project published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences. "A working context for the experiment might be that the participants have been asked to design a nuclear explosive which, if built in small numbers, would give a small nation a significant effect on their foreign relations."
 
-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Miss Manners

T. & J.,

Miss Manners remains, as always, a genius. Quote:

Dear Miss Manners:

What's your beef with a cash bar at wedding receptions? Weddings are incredibly expensive, and a couple starting out shouldn't have to go in the hole for thousands of dollars just to throw a reception where Miss Manners and a bunch of other deadbeats can have unlimited liquor. I thought you were a classy broad!

If we should encounter each other at a wedding reception, then your first drink will be on me, and you can hustle the rest yourself! I DARE YOU TO PRINT THIS!

Suppose you go first and explain why anyone would want to stage a thousands-of-dollars event for people whom they think of as deadbeats, and why other people would want to attend the wedding of those who thought that of them. This will give Miss Manners a moment to think of a tactful way of saying that she does not care to drink with you. 

End quote. I am continually impressed with how deftly she is able to deal with potentially-awkward situations. This time she dealt with one on her own behalf.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

"Crisis" and Congress

Wall Street is panicking over stock price losses connected to the sub-prime mess. Congress has been asked by Bush's administration to rush a $700 billion bailout plan into action to help. (For comparison, annual federal spending is about $3 trillion. More to the point, income taxes provide only $1.2 trillion a year. Take whatever you pay in income tax in a year and add another 50%. That's what this bailout would cost you if it went bad.)

 

Newt Gingrich says, essentially, "Let's not be so hasty to throw money at the problem. What is the real problem and what is the real solution?" It is a cogent article IMHO.

 

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGE5MmE0YmRiODA3YTRiNzFlN2FmNDU5N2I0ZDc3YTE=

 

Any Republican who doesn't stand up to this bill in favor of real solutions deserves to be fired.

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Ebooks

Wow! Demo:

 

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid980795693?bctid=1778578839

 

Article.

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10038979-23.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

McCain's dishonest ad?

It turns out that the McCain ad attacking Obama's support for sex-ed for kindergartners is actually basically true. The bill (which didn't pass, IIRC) actually did mandate teaching kindergartners about HIV and pregnancy prevention.
 
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=3&GA=93&DocTypeId=SB&DocNum=99&GAID=3&LegID=734&SpecSess=&Session
 
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzI3ZDUzOTE0ZThlMTU3MTY0MDI4ZTY0MTZhY2I2MGY=
 
-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Extinct or evolving?

A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia's tropical north, researchers said Thursday. The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state. [snip]

Most of the Armoured Mistfrogs that Alford's group has found are infected with the fungus, but the disease does not appear to be making them sick, he said.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

The Bridge To Nowhere (Sarah Palin)

On "Thanks, but no thanks":

http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=13236

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been criticized for lying in connection with terminating Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” project. This charge, however, reflects widespread misunderstanding as to the nature of the infrastructure budgeting process.

[snip] Palin could have deferred the project to future years, possibly changing the funding allocation. In the end, she chose the radical option of removing the project from the capital budget, precluding any future funding allocations or construction. Her claim to have “stopped the bridge” is entirely truthful.

[snip] Palin has offered a bit of misleading rhetoric, however, in discussing the bridge episode. She has stated that terminating the project amounted to telling Congress “thanks, but no thanks.” This suggests that Congress was attempting to force the project on Alaska, when in fact it had given the state discretion. Her decision should instead be viewed as conveying the message “thanks, but no thanks” to Alaska’s Republican Congressional delegation.

My takeaway: I don't understand government.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Gun control

When old ladies need guns:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008172211_pitbulls11m.html

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Sarah Palin

More on Palin and earmarks: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100927525717663.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Sarah Palin

Some thoughts on Sarah Palin that echo my own pretty well: http://selenianboondocks.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-thoughts-on-sarah-palin.html

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

George W. Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090802839.html?hpid=topnews

 
Here's an interesting report. Back in September 2007, Petraeus was struggling with an unsupportive chain of command (Fallon and company). Jack Keane makes a back-channel report to the vice-president and then to the president.

Keane repeated what he had just told Cheney: The JCS and Adm. William J. Fallon, Petraeus's boss at Central Command, were insisting on studies and reports to justify even the smallest request for more resources for Iraq. Their persistent pressure, pushing Petraeus for a faster drawdown, was taking its toll.

"There is very little preparation," Keane said, "for somebody who grows up in a military culture to have an unsupportive chain of command above you and still be succeeding. You normally get fired." The result, he said, is that Petraeus "starts to look for ways to get rid of this pressure, which means some kind of accommodation."

Bush said he wanted Keane to deliver a personal message to Petraeus from his commander-in-chief. After Bush laid out his thoughts, Keane went to the large West Wing lobby, sat among the couches and chairs and wrote out the president's words....

"I respect the chain of command. I know that the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon have some concerns. One is about the Army and Marine Corps and the impact of the war on them. And the second is about other contingencies and the lack of strategic response to those contingencies.

"I want Dave to know that I want him to win. That's the mission. He will have as much force as he needs for as long as he needs it.

"When he feels he wants to make further reductions, he should only make those reductions based on the conditions in Iraq that he believes justify those reductions. These two concerns that we are discussing back here in Washington -- about contingency operations and the needs of the Army and the Marine Corps -- they are not your concerns. They are my concerns.

"I do not want to change the strategy until the strategy has succeeded. I waited over three years for a successful strategy. And I'm not giving up on it prematurely. I am not reducing further unless you are convinced that we should reduce further."

I respect that. As Commander In Chief, Bush did the right thing here.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Technology: Distilling without boiling

Solving the looming freshwater shortage problem requires a way of turning saltwater into freshwater efficiently: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/09/gallery_caltech_nano_still

I can't find any numbers on how much more efficient it is, so I don't know if this is a big deal or not. It's just interesting. I actually suspect that in the long run distillation will be more limited by capital costs more than energy costs (you can always build more nuclear power plants) so this probably won't even get used on an industrial scale, but maybe I'm wrong.

Also, there's this note on slide 12:

Professor Boyd, the lead researcher on the project, reveals that this process was largely discovered by accident. "We had this problem with [an] air bubble, so we started hitting it with a laser. Instead of getting rid of it, we saw that we were actually causing the distillation process to occur, which was completely unexpected," Boyd explains.

This is an application of the "Eureka" vs. "That's funny" process in science.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

"Natural" Eastern U.S. Terrain

But now, Robert Walter and Dorothy Merritts of Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania say those studies got it wrong, and the meandering streams are actually the result of early forms of land management imposed by the European settlers of the 17th century. The New World, they say, was a wetland.

The new study suggests that rather than rivers being confined to single, winding channels before 20th century industrialisation, they were collections of many small channels spreading across broad wetlands before European settlers dammed them in.

This may be relevant to understanding the Book of Mormon. I have a growing suspicion that the general consensus among lay members and FARMS researchers that the Book of Mormon story took place in Central America is wrong. I have this suspicion for a number of reasons--the political history of the United States, the position of the First Presidency on the location of the hill Cumorah, the methodology of the FARMS researchers, the fact that no one seems to question the assumption that in the geographical description in Alma 22, "sea east" and "sea west" actually mean "ocean east" and "ocean west" and that "land" means "continent"--but it's certainly interesting to note that the Eastern U.S. before the 17th century was a land of "many waters", per Mosiah 8:8 and Mormon 6:4.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

McCain's speech

I'm starting to really like Jay Cost. Excellent analysis.

 

-M.

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Biden says Obama may press charges against Bush

Subject: Biden says Obama may press charges against Bush

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/03/uselections2008.joebiden

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.

"[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law." End quote.

Sounds sensible in theory (who isn't in favor of the rule of law?), likely to be a horribly messy mistake in practice.

-Max

Putin interview

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/29/putin.transcript/

 

Interesting stuff. Two points jump out at me:

 

1.) He's lying about the chronology. We know this thanks to Michael Totten's reporting from Georgia, which I mentioned a few days ago. Not surprising, because Saakashvili's bungling misinformation attempt has everyone (including the pro-Georgian camp) convinced that there were no Russian jets bombing Georgian forces until after the war officially started on August 7.

 

2.) He doesn't like McCain. No big surprise there, but he throws this bit in: "If my suppositions are confirmed, then there are grounds to suspect that some people in the United States created this conflict deliberately in order to aggravate the situation and create a competitive advantage for one of the candidates for the U.S. presidency. And if that is the case, this is nothing but the use of the called administrative resource in domestic politics, in the worst possible way, one that leads to bloodshed." Given #1, this is more likely a lie than a real paranoid suspicion. Does Putin want to work with Obama, or work Obama over?

 

-Max

[P.S. to the blog: the Michael Totten material I alluded to above is here. -M.]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Regrowing fingers

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml

 

Three years ago, Lee Spievack sliced off the tip of his finger in the propeller of a hobby shop airplane. What happened next, Andrews reports, propelled him into the future of medicine. Spievack's brother, Alan, a medical research scientist, sent him a special powder and told him to sprinkle it on the wound. "I powdered it on until it was covered," Spievack recalled.

To his astonishment, every bit of his fingertip grew back.

 

"Your finger grew back," Andrews asked Spievack, "flesh, blood, vessels and nail?"

"Four weeks," he answered.

[snip] That powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

True conservatism (Sarah Palin)

http://dwb.adn.com/news/government/legislature/story/8525563p-8419318c.html
 
In the first veto of an administration that isn't yet a month old, Palin said she rejected the bill despite her disagreement with a state Supreme Court order earlier this month that directed the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Advice from her new attorney general said the bill passed by the Legislature was unconstitutional, she said.

"Signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office," Palin said in a prepared statement released by her administration Thursday night.

Yay for Sarah Palin. I don't know the terms of the bill or whether it was or was not unconstitutional, but here she's showing 1.) character, in not letting personal distaste trump the rule of law as she understands it (liberals claim that conservatives support "activist judges" as long as they are active in service of conservatism, but they're wrong), 2.) awareness that defending the Constitution is the responsibility and prerogative of all three branches of government, not just the courts. (And if the government will not defend the Consitution, that duty devolves upon the people themselves.)

 

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Just Plain Weird

Just Plain Weird: Do nuclear decay rates for certain elements depend upon our distance from the sun?

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F.
Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Sarah Palin

McCain just announced his VP pick for 2008. It's not Mitt Romney with his economic and governing experience, and it's not Tim Pawlenty with his solid conservative credentials and good record. It's not even Joe Lieberman, a pick for bi-partisan unity. It's Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska.

 

Wow. Just--wow. I'm absolutely blown out of the water. A bold but excellent pick. Executive experience, a record of reform and standing up to her own party insiders (she ultimately killed Republican Ted Stevens' two "bridge to nowhere" projects), inside knowledge of Alaska and the oil industry (who knows better how to get the oil pumping? See my prevoius post on oil timelines).

 

Obama's campaign's reaction shows they've been thrown totally off-kilter. Why else would they make this hilarious statement?

 

Informed of the selection, a Barack Obama spokesman questioned Palin's executive experience.

 

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies — that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," said spokesman Bill Burton.

 

Note that Obama's campaign wants to put a... former community service organizer with less executive experience than a mayor, and zero foreign policy experience, directly in the presidency, skipping the "heartbeat" entirely. Who says things like that about your own candidate? The spokesman should have started with his second sentence.

 

I dislike the politics of identity, but seeing the way women I care about were cheering for and empathizing with Hillary Clinton earlier this year (part of me was sort of hoping she would win, just because they would like it--I know that's absurd sentimentalism) I can't help seeing the possibility of a woman in the White House, bringing a slightly different perspective to problems, as a nice bonus. And she's the right woman for the job, too.

 

-Max 

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

McCain vs. Obama projection

One other reason I think McCain is going to win this election: McCain treats the election like a job interview with America. Obama treats it as an opportunity to change America. Obviously it's not quite that cut-and-dried (they both pander on some points and stick to their guns on others), but my general sense is that McCain sees the American people as boss and Obama doesn't. Since the voters actually are the boss this doesn't bode well for Obama's chances--"marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow" works in old musicals but not so well in real-life relationships.

I could be wrong, of course. I frequently am.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F.
Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

More on Russia

Wow. This article blew me away. If Putin is really that smart...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH19Ag04.html

It's a thought-provoking contrast to the view that says Russia is a country controlled by short-sighted megacorporations.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

On Russia

[I like this post from Thomas P. Barnett. -Max]

 

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/08/very_sensible_analysis_on_russ.html

Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center, also saw a dual approach. The armed response and the invasion of Georgia were intended to show that Russia is back on its feet and will not tolerate Western meddling in its traditional sphere of influence, she said. But, she added, Russian leaders are also trying to suggest that they do not want to jeopardize the economic progress the nation has achieved through its ties to the West. Russia has become rich by selling oil, and it needs to sell its oil to the West, she said.

 

[snip] In harsh realist terms, these are exactly the sort of hard-power allies you want for a long war against radical extremism... bent on turning back globalization. Sure, it'd be nice is we only had to consort with the best people all the time, but it doesn't tend to work out that way in the real world. Truly mature democracies (we're weird in that way) tend to grow past the willingness to use force, so when you want to tap people willing to fight, you're probably talking about rising great powers with something to prove and something to protect.

The short-cut is to regurgitate Cold War memes and call it a day. That's the easy way out. The harder route is growing these rising great powers into something we can use over the long term. That's a whole lot trickier, requiring all sorts of compromises and persistent effort. [snip]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

(University) Education

[Cc'ed brain gang]

 

J.--

 

Charles Murray (of infamy and "The Bell Curve") argues that employers would be better-served by relying less on B.A./B.S. degrees than on certification tests a la the bar exam:
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html
 
The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.

The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library?
 
The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test -- as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time.

Certification tests would disadvantage just one set of people: Students who have gotten into well-known traditional schools, but who are coasting through their years in college and would score poorly on a certification test. Disadvantaging them is an outcome devoutly to be wished.
 
I'm not much of a believer in the idea of people who "know the material" but "don't test well." Yes, I consider it both obvious and true that test performance does not correlate perfectly with job performance--some people's test scores will overpredict their actual competence and others, who get nervous or whose competence is better-suited to actual long-range projects, will have their performance underpredicted by test scores. However, I don't think that matters much: so what if I get a 75 when I'm actually a 90 in practice? The key thing is that I'm competent and I can prove it. If I'm just barely competent and also a poor test-taker, and I therefore fail to make the cut, I study harder and work until I can muster a passing grade, which will pay off when I get on the job and now turn out to be more than just barely competent. Of course all this assumes that you have tests which actually measure competence in some meaningful way. That's a potential failure point in a test-driven system, but is the current regime wherein ability is inferred from one's ability to stagger through a four-year English program any better?
 
Don't get me wrong here--I'm not sad I went to college, and I even benefitted from a couple years of graduate classes, but if I'm not able to demonstrate that competence in some quantifiable way it's hard to see why a potential employer should care.
 
-M.

P.S. I should add that you have to validate the test, for example by giving it to workers of various ability levels within the industry and seeing if the best of them also score better on the test. If the test doesn't predict actual performance it's worthless.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Drill for oil: timeline

Oil appears to be much like nuclear power. We could get the oil rolling in pretty quickly if it becomes a political priority (technologically it's not hard), but it's hard to say yet whether the American people have the will to do so. Maybe when gas gets up to $10/gallon, maybe before.

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128096.html

 

In Anchorage last month, Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, explained to me the following time frame for ANWR drilling: Expect 12 months or more for an Environmental Impact Statement after Congress approves drilling. And this is working fast. It would likely take much longer. Expect 12 months to 18 months for the Department of Interior to draw up and bid out the lease-sale process. Plan on two years for oil companies to do test drilling and analysis. Drilling and transport of heavy equipment can only be done in the winter months when the permafrost ground is solidly frozen, from December through April. Concurrently with oil drilling, a 75-mile pipeline spur needs be built to connect to the main Alyeska Pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Southern shipping port.

 

However, this time frame does not allow for environmental lawsuits "every step of the way," as Crockett warned. The rest of the 10-year time frame is to allow for lawsuits trying to prevent or harass production in one way or another. For example, a single judge in California's 9th circuit has failed to issue a decision on a Shell Oil project that already had $200 million of investment before it was ordered to stop. It will produce 30,000 barrels per day, about $1 billion per year of oil.

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Greg Cochran on Ivins Anthrax Case

Cochran has a lot of credibility in my book for thinking clearly. From what I've seen of the FBI evidence, they really did have the right guy this time (although there are still datapoints that puzzle me). Moreover, I think Cochran is right about the reasons why a crazy guy did what he did, when he did, and why he was allowed to work in a military lab in the first place.

 

But Cochran is always worth reading.

 

-Max

 

 

letters from Florida

We have no reason to believe that any letters containing anthrax were mailed from Florida. As far as we can tell, all were mailed from the same place in New Jersey. Of course a couple of letters were not preserved and we know of them only by their effects. The first letters were postmarked on Sept 18th, the second set on October 9. There were little physical defects in the letters that limited them to a few possible post offices in Maryland and Virginia, including one right next to Fort Detrick.

The second set of anthrax letters contained purer anthrax, but it looks as if they were not weaponized in any special way, no special coating or anything. A lot of outside people talked about that and eventually many people had the impression that it was known to be true: it looks as if that's all wrong. Some people were real students of this case had this clear in their minds a long time ago. In fact, if it didn't come from some foreign military program, and if it didn't come straight from an illegal US military program, it was certain _not_ to be highly weaponized.

The FBI understood that a foreign provenance (from some state with sophisticated military anthrax) was very unlikely, because infuriating the United States is suicidal, a lot like shooting Superman's dog. The Administration appears not to understand that suicidal attacks from small states are not in the cards.

The case evolved over time . In early days, the FBI came to the conclusions that it was probably someone connected to anthrax research, probably someone who didn't really intend to kill anyone. That was logical and now looks to be correct - but the pool of potential perps was moderately large. It looks as if the FBI stumbled onto a false positive, Hatfill, and fixated on him, as people will. He wasn't a perfect match, being a virologist rather than an anthrax guy. The FBI investigation may have been complicated by Ivin's role as a scientific adviser/helper: he lied. For example when they asked for a sample of his main anthrax culture, he gave them something else, as later determined. Anyhow, in principle even cultures that been separated for fairly small times should evolve small genetic differences. In 2002 you couldn't easily scan those differences: but our gene-sequencing tech was improving very rapidly. After two or three years, were were able to sequence the anthrax (a number of samples and potential matches) in sufficient detail to determine that a single substrain was responsible, the substrain in Ivin's lab. Others had access, but the FBI (it says) has eliminated them as suspects. For example people in distant places wouldn't have had those particular letters available. Or maybe you could show that they had an alibi for Sept 17th, etc.

It looks to me as if this significantly shrank the suspect pool. For example, they found that Hatfill had quit the lab before that particular culture was created, clearing him. I've seen some people out on the Internet saying that those advances in sequencing speed (by orders of magnitude) only made things easier and faster. Well, they don't understand: that quantitative speedup made a qualitative change in what could be done.

At this point it looks as they ruled out Hatfill scientifically by early 2005 but didn't stop harassing him until late 2006, when the head of the FBI replaced the leaders of the investigation and told the new boys to re-examine the case. Naturally, in a better world than our, the FBI should have dropped Hatfield as a suspect the _second_ that the scientific evidence ruled him out, but you know how most people cling to their pet theories even when _every_ piece of scientific evidence is against them. And they hate admitting that they're wrong. The FBI started looking at people connected to this particular anthrax culture, and of course it's in Ivins lab.

Nobody at Fort Detrick seems to have known that Ivins was deeply crazy (for example, he was talking to his shrink about poisoning some soccer player if she lost the game back in 2000 - enough to get the shrink to call in the cops). The FBI, pointed in a new direction, did all the FBI things and found that Ivins had been lying to them, gradually found that he was crazy as a bedbug. They found that he put in a bunch of unexplained and atypical late hours in the labs the weekend before the first batch of mailings, they found that he took Sept 17th off (which easily allows for a drive to Jersey and back): they found a similar clump of late hours before the second set of mailings. They could not prove that he'd been to New Jersey on the 17th, but as long as he didn't use a credit card for gas or get pulled over, there's no way that they could have. I've seen people wondering how he could manage to get anthrax in a spillproof container and then get it in sealed envelopes, but that's silly - the guy worked with anthrax every day. He knew how to handle it. And driving to New Jersey (about 200 miles each way) hardly requires a second conspirator, particularly since Ivins took almost all of Sept 17th off. He had the Columbus Day weekend for the later letters.

It seems that although crazy people are not supposed to work on super-dangerous military stuff, the system expected them to either be obviously crazy or self-identify and ask for help. I can believe it - I certainly ran into a couple of mentally ill people in defense work. I believe that things are tighter in some other slots - for example, friends tell me that the Feds work really hard at having sane captains of missile submarines.

Out on the net, I've seen people saying that the case would have had trouble in court. For example, they say that the microbial forensics part is new and would have been effectively criticized by a defense attorney. Likely, since no lawyer, judge, or juror would understand any of it. Of course that's a lawyer argument - has nothing to do with facts or truth. We have colleagues saying that Ivins hadn't seemed like a crazed murderer to them. Well, I doubt if anyone on the suspect list _did_ seem a like a crazed murderer to their colleagues if they had, they'd have been fired and/or locked in the booby hatch a long time ago. But it had to be someone on the list, someone with access to this particular culture. Anyhow we know of plenty of examples of psychopaths who managed to hide it. Along the same lines, I've seen people ask how someone could be crazy enough to do this and sane enough to do it fairly carefully. I think they should ask the Unabomber: plenty smart ( math Ph.D. from Berkeley), very careful in his bomb-making, but quite crazy.

Next: people on the net don't like this explanation. Some want it to have been Iraq: but we know that's wrong, since they for sure didn't have that substrain of anthrax. And it never made any sense: they're not suicidal. Some want it to involve more than one person, but there's nothing in the case that requites more than one person, unless you think the skillsets of (A. knowing a lot about anthrax) and (B. being able to drive a car) are disjoint. It's worth remembering that mailing anthrax to people is crazy: craziness is rare, and it's easier to find one crazy person than two or more. Occam's razor says no.

And some want to blame the Administration: they must have cooked this up to jinn up support for the Iraq war. Well, it _did_ increase support for the invasion of Iraq, and for crap like Homeland Security. But that doesn't mean that the Administration did it, any more than they caused 9-11. It's my judgment that it would have very hard to do such a thing without someone leaking, and that the vast majority of people in the Administration would hate to do it: for one thing, it's a death penalty offense. Now I know that they're not above lying and forgery (some of them), and that they have next to no sense, support aggressive war, some are traitors, and that many high-ranking individuals, including the President, are for all practical purposes as dumb as a box of rocks, but I don't think the Administration-conspiracy angle makes any sense or has any likelihood.

I could listen to someone arguing that the FBI just randomly picked another guy to persecute after their Hatfill mistake, or maybe even made a more-defensible mistake of some kind, but I doubt it. I suspect that they were more careful after Hatfill, which can't have done the key investigator's careers any good, and I think they had much better evidence and, as it turns out, a much better suspect.

I think that 9-11 actually played a key causal role in this: I think it sent Ivins over the edge. Admittedly he was a lot closer to the edge than most of us, likely hanging on by his fingertips. I'll bet that he cooked the whole thing up between 9-11 and 9-17: he was the sort of guy who could do that. I don't think he intended to kill anyone, just to stoke anthrax research. 9-11 drove him crazy: but then it drove most of the country crazy. A good fraction of the country is _still_ crazy, unfortunately.

Gregory Cochran

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Adultery

Dear Jennifer,

"Adultery." Heady subject line, I know. I was watching a music video by the Killers, "When You Were Young," which portrays a young woman's devastation when she walks in on her husband committing adultery with another woman. (The video operates in reverse chronology; the first scene depicts her on the edge of a cliff, and her husband rushing up in time to save her from casting herself off. There's an alternate ending apparently where he isn't fast enough.) The raw anguish depicted on her face as her memories turn to ashes both saddened and interested me, and I went looking for information on the emotional effects of adultery. This quote is the most interesting that I found (I'll underline the key parts):

In the following weeks our marriage teetered on the brink of disaster. Michelle would be ok one moment, and then something would trigger in her and she'd either start crying or go off on a burst of anger. Our married life became a volatile emotional roller coaster that I couldn't fix, and in fact my presence made it worse; all Michelle had to do was look at me to be tortured with the reminder of what I'd done. I couldn't comfort her because I was the one who'd hurt her, and when I touched her physically, even if it was just holding hands, it was as if I was rubbing salt in her wounds.
         At a loss for what to do I sought the advice of another Christian brother. John had committed adultery on his wife several years earlier, and his marriage had made it. When I asked John how long it took his wife to heal from his betrayal, John's response was short and to the point: "years."
        My mouth dropped. "Years ???" I said in disbelief. "Years ??? I thought surely you were going to say a few weeks or maybe even months… but… years??!!"
        "Yes, years" John repeated firmly. "The old marriage you had is dead and you have to build a new one. This is going to take a lot of time and effort on your part; you've got to kill her with kindness and win her all over again."    

         Today I know that John was right. It took two years before my wife was able to feel completely at ease when I traveled again. My all out efforts to break free from lust were critical; if I'd have continued to slip with porn or committed adultery again then she would have had no reason for hope, and our marriage would have been over.

The scripture says, "But he that has committed adultery and repents with all his heart, and forsaketh it, and doeth it no more, thou shalt forgive; But if he doeth it again, he shall not be forgiven, but shall be cast out." Isn't that interesting? He gets one more shot and that's it--this is not a "seven times seventy" situation. I think the underlined comments are right on the mark: you're trying to build a new marriage, and if he messes up this one too there's no real way to recover trust. And without trust, there isn't any marriage. Even if you still care about each other, without trust there can't be any partnership.

Sorry for the ugly thoughts. Someone asked me recently what two adjectives describe my intrinsic nature. "Apodictic" (meaning "characterized by or possessing the nature of absolute certainty") was one, but I couldn't think of a good second one. Of course I should have said "curious." My thoughts go all kinds of strange places just so I can tell myself I've been there, sometimes to places that make me feel ill. Not necessarily a good thing, but it means I'll be prepared mentally and/or emotionally for many, many low-probability outcomes. Yeah, you're laughing, I can feel it.

Take care,
Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Hand-eye coordination game

Click on the ball and it changes color. How many color changes can you get in two minutes?

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Nuclear-power-in-a-box

I really can't tell if this is a good idea or not...

 

http://earth2tech.com/2008/08/01/hyperions-nuclear-in-a-box-ready-by-2013/

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Bachelor Monks

I've revived the Bachelor Monks and updated the creed. Here's a trancript of the redacted document.

Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known among the Powers of the Earth, that [Maximilian Damacion Wilson], on this day [Dec. 17] in the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-six does, in the act of enlistment against the forces of evil as a Brother of the Secular Society of Bachelor Monks, vow as a free agent upon his honor to uphold the following standards and ideals:

A Bachelor Monk must remain emotionally celibate. It is forbidden for a Bachelor Monk to entertain more than a superficial affection for any female under the age of decrepitude and decay (twenty-nine years, eleven months, twenty-seven days), after which the point becomes academic. Violations of this law require that the transgressor wear a pink, red, or purple heart, cut from construction paper or similar material, pinned to his breast as a badge of his shame.

A Bachelor Monk must remain aesthetically pure. It is not permitted for a Bachelor Monk to gaze upon the female countenance for more than a few moments at a time, for fear that such loveliness will corrupt the perfect abstraction of beauty which he carries within his bosom. Infractions shall be punished by a shout of "Cooties!" and the appellation of "cootie-head," by which said Monk shall be known for a period of seven hours.

All Brothers of the Secular Society must renounce the harmful and archaic institutions of society, specifically the great social ill which masquerades under the seemingly-innocuous label of "dating." We of the Brotherhood know, or are at least pretty sure, that dating—and its accomplice in evil, marriage—is probably the great and abominable church which is spoken of in the book of Revelation, which shall hold sway over all the world, and that it is the very root of all evil in the world—including death, taxes, and small children. In the event that a Brother shall assist a maiden in the commission of such heinous folly as going on a "date," he shall be fined an amount equal to one-half the expenses incurred by his crime, which said monies shall flow into the Brotherhood coffers to be disposed of in a manner decided by the Chief Abbot (or by the most senior member of the Brotherhood available).

A Bachelor Monk is permitted to propose marriage to a young woman, in whatsoever manner as he shall feel acceptable and shall strike his fancy. He is not, however, under any circumstances permitted to follow through on such offers. A Bachelor Monk must remain forever single, although he may have as many fiancées at one time as he can conceal from all the others. (As a sole exception to this rule, a Bachelor Monk is permitted to elope with a damsel, provided that she is not engaged to him at the time, provided that there is potential for great financial gain on the part of the Monk or the Brotherhood, provided that the damsel is terminally ill or that the marriage is otherwise projected to last no longer than six weeks.) Any Brother who violates this law shall not be punished by the order, as the mere fact of marriage to a woman is considered to bring agony (and ecstasy) enough.

In addition to the provisos mentioned above, a Brother of the Secular Society of Bachelor Monks is likewise prohibited from stalking, kissing, courting, ogling, drooling on or over, obsessing about, or "macking on" any and all young ladies he shall come in contact with. Finally, a Bachelor Monk is not permitted to have his mother do his laundry for him. Infractions shall be punished as the Chief Abbot sees fit.

I, [Max Wilson], do hereby swear upon my honor to uphold from this day forth the ideals of my order as set forth in this document*, to accept any punishments I shall merit gracefully and without cowardice, and to slavishly obey my Chief Abbot's every command.

Signed

[Max Wilson]

[12/17/96]

* With the understanding that none of the above restrictions applies to any female who fits the Glass Slipper.

 We solemnly swear that we have seen and witnessed the oath which was sworn by [Max Wilson], on this day [12-17-96] of the year nineteen-hundred and ninety-six, and do bear testimony that he was indeed coherent and whole of mind at the time of signature.

[David Wynder, 12/17/96]

[Gina Smith, 12/17/96]

[Joe Stevick, 12/17/96]

[Margo Runyon, 12/17/96]

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Events

D&C 42:45. "Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection."
 
There was a double homicide at my apartment complex this morning. A man killed his estranged wife and then himself (she was staying with a friend who lived here). That explains all the sirens and stuff that I heard this morning when I woke up. I was pondering my natural, callous reaction to this--I can take death moderately casually because of what I know about the gospel, even if it were someone I care about like T. or B. or K. It's not qualitatively different from having them move to another country for 80 years and not be able to write back, which stinks if it's someone you rely on in your daily life but is otherwise no sadder than moving in 2nd grade[1]--when this scripture came to mind. It reminds me of Jesus weeping at Lazarus' tomb.
 
"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!"
 
I'm probably alone in this, but I get the idea from the way John phrases this that the Jews who said this were missing the point. ("The Jews" in the NT usually means "the leaders of the Jews," i.e. Pharisees and Sadducees, not known for their spiritual insight.) Jesus was not weeping because he was sad that Lazarus was dead. What is death to Jesus but a place? He can reach into the world of the dead and pull them back to the living, or walk into the land of the dead and return as he wills. Jesus was sad that Martha and Mary and other people whom he cared about were experiencing grief, even though the grief was over something which really wasn't important or lasting. "Mourn with those that mourn," says the scripture, "and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." It doesn't say you have to be sad for the same reasons they are.
 
Anyway, I think it's kind of interesting that we have to be commanded to be sad for the dead (because it sure wouldn't come naturally), and especially for the poor fellow who was responsible. There's a lesson in compassion there although I'm still puzzling out exactly how to surface it. Interesting, no? Especially for a black-hearted, superficial cad like myself.
 
-Max
 
 
[1] I need to think more about this analogy because, to a 2nd grader, moving away from your best friends and all your classmates is in fact horrifying. As you age, gain experiences, and know more people it becomes less scary. That *sounds* a lot like death, doesn't it?
 
--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Abortion

J.,

 

This evening I've been pondering my position on abortion, impelled by a quote from Germaine Greer: "The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement." In particular, my attention is drawn to the compulsion. I've long held that not everything which is egregious or even despicable ought to be illegal--some bans are unenforceable. My position on abortion has been shaped largely by the assumption that we can and do prevent murder, particularly the killing of innocents. But tonight I've been pondering the logistics of banning infanticide. I've read about primitive historical societies in which a woman who became pregnant again before she had finished weaning the child would simply kill the second child at birth, in order to conserve resources for the first (and increase its chances of survival). It strikes me that from a certain perspective, outlawing abortion is like trying to outlaw that. The reason we don't have more infanticide is probably not because it's illegal; I do not think many American women would kill their newborns even under severe resource constraints, even if it were completely legal. I also don't think, if there were 1.37 million infanticides every year, that you could enforce any kind of law against it. It simply isn't feasible to take in those kids and raise them. Ultimately, a society has the ethics it can afford, and we don't have the excess capacity for to handle 1.37 million kids a year with no families, even if it were appropriate for the state to step in as a parent.

 

Thus, I have to think seriously about the possibility that outlawing infanticide may be infeasible under circumstances not much different from the present ones. And if infanticide, then abortion. Some crimes we cannot prevent.

 

-Max

 

P.S. That wouldn't make me any happier with the way it got legalized, but judicial activism is a lesser, more flexible concern than protecting the innocent. More procedural, less visceral, less primary. In any case, I haven't come to any conclusions, I'm still just pondering and collecting data.

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Powerpoint on Iraq trends

Hold this for me, please. I may want it some day. It's a bunch of charts on violence trends in Iraq, from Michael Lyon, a journalist in Iraq who has a fair bit of credibility with me. Sources given at the bottom of each slide.

 

http://michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=7&Itemid=

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Disagreements

B. & J.,

 

I spent some time trying to remember this quote earlier today, and I think you may appreciate it. It's from Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and one of the great minds of the 20th century:

 

One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. In these discussions, one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there is this other possibility that we have to consider against it.

 

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally, at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

 

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best---summing it all up---without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.

 

http://www.brics.dk/~danvy/lafb.html

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Why?

Dear J.,

A thought has been in the back of my mind for a couple of days and I'd like to share it with you. It's a question and an answer.

Q: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explicitly belongs to Jesus. Why not the Father? Jesus defers to the Father in almost everything, why not this?

A: The Church is the flock and Jesus is the shepherd. The Father is the destination toward which we are being led.

(This is also why the Doctrine and Covenants is mostly, or perhaps entirely, authored by Jesus.)

~M.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

[Article] The Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Happy Independence Day weekend! Take a moment to think about the sacrifices of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and why they valued American independence so highly. Take a moment to think about the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the right to self-government. And vote Bobby Jindal for President in 2012. :)

You may enjoy this speech:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070308/content/the_americans_who_risked_everything___rush_h__limbaugh__jr_.guest.html

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Aha!

Dear J.,

I've been trying to remember this aphorism for the past week or so and I finally remembered enough of it to locate it:

"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense." And the corollary, that in order to do arithmetic you need to be able to measure and quantify that which you are doing arithmetic on.

Not to say that there aren't things you can't quantify--sometimes you really are just doomed to talk nonsense, as witness the whole history of philosophy. :) Anyway, I'll try to remember this advice in this political silly season. There are things I like about McCain and things that scare me about Obama, but before committing the fallacy of intentions (e.g. assuming that because Obama is hostile to business and McCain is pro-growth, that McCain will be better for the economy) I will try to do some basic Back of the Envelope sanity-checking.

-M.

Ashdod: Reign of the Anakim (Part One)

Many ages ago, during the time of the Ascension Wars, there was a race of mighty men, the sons of Anak, dwelling in the twin cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon in the land of Southwest Lankwood. Our story begins in spring of the first year of the Ascension Wars. Rumors filled the land. It was said that the great hero Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter, Healer of the Lands, the Armorer, King of Inventions, would soon break free of his imprisonment in Tartarus and lead his ancient people to greatness and glory. Merchants brought tales from distant lands as well that many other ancient heroes, rivals of old to Nimrod and the Anakim, were beginning to stir as well. Among this number was Mania, Firstborn of Gaia and Lady of Tyrants, queen of the flesh-eating demon empire of Lanka--a land of Rakshasas, cruel spirits with the arms of apes and the heads of tigers and donkeys. Another old foe and sometimes-ally was Invicta, Lady of Mountains, empress of the Ermorian Empire (alas, the noble Republic of Ermor was no more). More troublesome was the report of a strange land of fire-breathing ghosts and demons known as the Oni. This land, known as Yomi, was reputedly ruled by a fierce magician known as Topigog, Prince of Might, King of Kings, Patron of Languages. Like many rulers in this time of chaos, Topigog was seeking to proclaim himself King and God-Emperor over the whole world. This the Anakim would not permit, and they readied themselves for war and prepared for the return of their own God-King, Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter. Long had the Anakim kept to themselves, pondering the mysteries of the universe and brooding over the clay tablets which contained the records saved from the disaster when the Abysians burned the great city. The lands surrounding Southwest Lankwood contained valuable resources which would be needed for the war effort. As they were occupied by none save simple tribesmen, the Anakim felt justified in sending Aziru, Prophet of the Reawakening God, to subjugate the lands. Aziru proved his worth in inspiring his men with words of courage, and soon the lands were pacified by the Anakim and their human servants. Although some humans whispered that it was done with help from a roving band of human mercenaries as well, this was false, for was it not the great hero Yam-Nahar who had succeeded where the humans had failed and died, fighting armored knights in the Isle of the Hundred? By early fall of the first year the wood, metal, and stone of the tribes was being delivered to the Twin Cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon and the war machines were beginning to grind in earnest.
To be continued...

Risk Aversion & Technological Progress

Interesting interview with Rear Adm. Jay M. Cohen, chief of naval research. These "flowers" aren't X-projects, but they stem from a similar perspective on risk-aversion as it related to technological progress.

Quote: "What are some examples of the Swampworks projects?"

Cohen: "Unclassified examples include efforts to actively cancel the noise [that] tactical jet aircraft engines make; [also,] an order of magnitude improvement in naval heavyweight torpedo performance in the littorals at half the weapon size; [and] a 360-degree, computer-aided camera for use on top of a submarine periscope or on land as an area surveillance and defense device."

"Has the Swampworks office met your expectations?

Cohen: "I will tell you that my disappointment to date, in myself, is that, of the dozen or so projects that we have done in the last three years, very few have failed. That tells me that . . . things that we thought were insolvable, things that seemed to be a bridge too far, we just hadn't tried the innovative solutions for. So we need to continually raise the bar to get even greater game-changers. We in naval research and S&T get paid to take risk. ... You don't get breakthroughs if you aren't willing to take risks."

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Social Security Economics

This article makes some interesting points about higher marginal tax rates, specifically as they apply to Obama's Social Security plan and high-income entrepreneurs. I think the point about incentives is a good one.

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Developing expertise

[Cc'ed J.]

 

T.,

 

Thought you might enjoy this article. You're probably familiar with Ericsson--even I think I've heard his ten-year idea before. It does remind me of our discussions about IQ, and also of the "Power Law of Practice." To me mind, this is an important counterpoint to the IQ discussion because it's about what IQ isn't: destiny.

 

-M.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Only in America

Y.A.,

This made me think about how much I love America.

Of course, Egyptians still have their grievances with America, and will in the future no matter who is president — and we've got a few grievances with them, too. But every once in a while, America does something so radical, so out of the ordinary — something that old, encrusted, traditional societies like those in the Middle East could simply never imagine — that it revives America's revolutionary "brand" overseas in a way that no diplomat could have designed or planned.

Remember Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The kingdom shall be partly broken, but also partly strong. I think the feet of clay are America.

-B.C.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Spooky

[Cc'ed T., T., T., D., and A.]

 

J.,

 

As I read this article and this passage:

Yet al-Qaeda has weathered such setbacks before. When US-led attacks destroyed much of what existed on September 11, 2001 of its core command, it was not long before scores of self-radicalised terrorist cells had sprung up in the west. Jonathan Evans, director-general of MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, said in November that his agency knew of 2,000 people involved in terrorism and suspected there were many more.

 

I could not help but think of the occasions on which the Gadianton robbers were crushed by the Lamanites and righteous Nephites, only to have their practices eventually revived by corrupt Nephites seeking for power. This dispensation is different in that righteousness will finally prevail, but I'm still attentive to the growth of secret societies in the West.

 

-M.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Thought for the day

My position on "global warming" is thus:
 
I think it rather likely that CO2 emissions have contributed to temperature increases in the 20th century. I don't know anybody who disagrees with that, actually. The key policy question is whether we're headed for a disaster (which could vary from losing several habitats and hundreds of endangered species or to end of civilization as we know it in the worst case) if we don't classify CO2 as a dangerous pollutant and cease and desist from creating it. I confess that I'm not all that interested in the policy question. I'm interested in a different policy question, that of political and scientific free speech. Suppose that the most extreme apologists are correct and the physics of the universe is such that doubling the CO2 levels over the next century will raise global temperatures by five degrees Celsius, on average. Suppose that this is correct. It still remains the case that the science isn't good enough to prove it. I get concerned when people talk about "Global Warming Deniers" in the same tones they use for "Holocause Deniers" (Holocaust Denial, spelled in capital letters, is a crime in Germany) and say that the climate debate is "over" and that people who disagree are by definition not real scientists and should not receive public funding--and the ones who rely on private funding are by definition stooges of the energy industry.
 
Persecuting or criminalizing honest differences of opinion is a more serious matter in my eyes than spending $1 trillion to prevent a catastrophe that doesn't occur. I don't say this lightly because a trillion dollars is a lot of money. Of course Niven's Law says "No cause is so noble that one cannot find a fool following it" so the viciousness of many global warming apologists does not necessarily reflect poorly on their cause, but it does reflect poorly on our nation as a whole.
 
-Max 

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Education

J.
 
You're interested in education. I thought you might find this (quite short) article interesting. Not that there aren't always two sides to every story, but still, I found this rather heartwarming.
 
http://www.academicvc.com/2008/05/tech-high-school-graduation-on-sunday.html
 
~Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.
 

Going to the Moon

J.,
 
Here's an interesting update on the Lunar X-Prize. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080530_004991.html
 
-Max
 
--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Pro-growth politics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060101917.html
 
Some good thoughts here. Non-partisan but pro-Obama.
 
-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.