Cheney as President

Well, apparently the Vice President has assumed Presidential powers for the next few hours while Bush undergoes surgery. Under Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

"Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President."

What surprises me somewhat, is that since the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967 it has been invoked only two other times. Bush himself has used it once before, and Regan used it once. I find it somewhat startling that no one else has surrendered their Presidential powers temporarily. In the last six years, I personally can think of three or four medical emergencies that would have rendered me at least temporarily unfit to act as President. No one has has a root canal as President?

Personally, I probably am not fit to act as the President on any given Tuesday or Thursday night after a couple Miller Lites (which is of course when most of my policy ideas come out). Maybe this leader of the free world gig would be less exhausting if the President could take some time off and temporarily surrender his powers.

Why oh Why....

via Reuters:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a former Democrat who turned independent because of his staunch backing for the war, ripped into lawmakers pushing to bring combat troops home before their mission is completed.

Funny, I thought he became an independent for another reason.

The Work Week

via Joanna

Another strange proxy for me is the traditional work week. In more industrial times, with a less diverse market and more standardizing forces like unions and labor laws, establishing a workweek was useful. Now it’s not. Forty hours of factory work is forty hours of factory work. Forty hours of office work can easily be 10 hours of productive, revenue-producing time padded with 30 hours of nonproductive busywork, goofing off with coworkers, and YouTube watching. Take a look at government agencies (or just hit yourself in the head with a hammer) and you get zero revenue-producing time because there are no revenue incentives and you’ve got maybe 10 hours of increasing the size and scope of government and 30 hours of the same things as cubicle farms. Or if you’re an ambitious bureaucrat you’re entrenching The State for closer to the full 40 hours (shudder).

referral traffic

How much do you suppose the front page of the Disney website generates from people clicking the "no thanks" button on porn sites?

I remember this sort of stuff from college

One of the things that I remember liking least about college was that you were often encouraged to take any set of facts and give them a unique analysis. Since that time, I have pretty much accepted the fact that maybe such reliance on my own interpretation makes for some bad theories. I 'm not that smart, and certainly not that knowledgeable about most areas of public policy that I can synthesize my my own ideas from scratch.

Over the last couple of years I have largely avoided many of the more progressive news sources I used to rely on heavily when I was more... progressive.

This article irked me more than probably anything I have read today. Here Mr. Rainmondo alleges that:

Thirty years ago, Hitchens was hailing the secular socialist Saddam as the greatest Arab ”visionary” of his time: today, he hails Saddam’s overthrow by the US as an act of “liberation,” and this even as the horrifically bloody aftermath continues to inflict terror on the prostrate peoples of Iraq. What changed?

Nothing, really: it’s just that, back in 1976, it looked like the Third World tyrants, “secular socialists” like Saddam, were winning. Today, it looks like the US is winning. As Orwell noted in his “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” a certain kind of intellectual worships power, and will ally himself with the strongest brute out of “idealistic” idolatry, and a sense of invincible power.

How does one argue against this? Can I prove that Hitchens is interested more than just personal enrichment? Is Rainmondo's assertion valuable just because he asserts it (presenting no evidence)?

Great Blog

Everyone should check out The American Scene blog. They have some excellent writers over there. I highly recommend it.

Sabato's "new ideas"

It is interesting that with Bryan Caplan's book setting the poli sci/econ world on fire recently we can have a look at what the other side is up to. Larry Sabato in an upcoming book makes various suggestions which I assume are designed to increase the public's role in civil society further.

One proposal that comes up periodically is that of mandatory public service for young people. This idea I have always found akin to consciption. Why is not going to college and/or contributing to the economy enough for young adults to do?

Something Weird

I was just looking through the logs and I realized that this blog had run for exactly 100 posts.

Well here is the 101st.

Sunday Morning

There are dark mornings to be had in life. At times you wake up with a sense of bereftness that you can't quite explain. Why is it that one night you can go to sleep feeling pretty good and the next day wake up with a weight on your mind or a sense of lack or just a feeling of meaninglessness? Can it be as simple as a change in the weather? Or is it something more, like a subconcious realization achieved during sleep that is still wending its way to the surface? Does a change need to be made? If so, do you even have any idea what it may be?

This is one of those mornings in my life that so often used to come accompanied by rain on a Sunday morning in my childhood, when I would wake up in the home of a friend or cousin with whom I'd stayed the night and look out the window to see the gray skies and damp grass blown by a breeze that carried a sense of the depths of the forests that have been forsaken in modern times. On mornings like this there is a need for something unidentifiable, which leaves you searching in vain for answers, without even knowing if there are really questions or if the whole thing is just a temporary imbalance related to a lack of sleep or a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips way too late at night.

How much of a role does the physical play in moods and emotions? Clearly, quite a bit, but can this begin to compete with the power of the mind's unfulfilled desires and memories of better things that have long since passed? What does the human brain crave, or at least, what is being sought by that unique part of my own brain that is different from those of the rest of humanity, the part of the brain made of my own experiences and learning, the part that knows what is best for it but can't seem to communicate this information to the mind at large?

Perhaps as the day passes some piece of hidden knowledge will come to me and make more sense of the whole thing. More likely, I will go out and find some activity and the thought will slowly fade away as it is overtaken by the mental processes required for moving from point A to point B. Undoubtedly, when I go to sleep again tonight, it will be with a much more serene, postive and hopeful state of mind than that with which I awoke but...the questions will still be there, hunkered down, waiting for the low tide of Sunday morning to arrive so that they can once again swim to the surface and cast shadows of doubt upon the still waters of wakening thought.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays of the year because during thanksgiving the only real responsibilities you have are to eat and drink as much food as humanly possible. After that you watch some football and then you eat a snack and just hang out. It is somewhat ironic that, on a day that was allegedly first celebrated by the Puritans, gorging and extended periods of sloth are the order of the day.

I used to have Thanksgiving with my family. It was a traditional extended family dinner not unlike the Norman Rockwell painting but in recent years my dinners have taken some serious downswings from time to time. The all time low that I can recall was spending the holiday alone in my hell-hole of an apartment in Brooklyn. The room itself was enough to bum anyone out. Picture a single exposed lightbulb, prison style, ugly brown painted wood floors and the usual metal cabinets that won't really close right. Anyway, I cooked an entire thanksgiving meal by myself and for myself, which consisted of the usual things but all cooked in the most appalling poverty method. I put so much effort into cooking my food that when I saw how it turned out I was kind of stunned. I bought some turkey breasts and cooked them in a toaster oven, which made them so unappealing that I couldn't really finish. The rest of the food was more or less the same. The meal was truly a mockery of what the feast was supposed to be. I ate the meal sitting on the corner of my bed watching TV. I felt heartsick and a little sick to my stomach.

In later years, I had a little better luck, though the theme of eating alone was a recurring one. Perhaps the best of these solitary thanksgivings was the one in which I decided to go out of the house to hunt down a good Thanksgiving meal. Finding little, I finally saw a poster in the window of a Thai restaurant for a Thai style thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, my only company was the guy at the next table, who spent the whole meal talking loudly into his cell phone, but on the positive side the meal cemented a long lasting love of Thai food, which has now become my favorite. So, I guess the key is that regardless of how fucked up your holidays are, you have to try to make something out of them and hope you get lucky.

Dominican Girl

Black wisps and tendrils
glisten with light summer sweat (sudor),
accenting the tight brown skin of her stomach
just above the low rise of denim.

The Free Market!

Watched the Republican Debate this evening. We were gonna try to write something clever about Republicans and their bankrupt ideology but couldn't come up with a better way to put the following on the internets: They don't know what the fuck a free market is - or if they do, they refuse to acknowledge the aspect of choice. Obviously, this Republican party (including Ron Paul) refuses to accept the idea that PEOPLE should be allowed to make their own decisions. Sexual orientation isn't an attitude and the length of a fence isn't a manifestation of a market decision. They refuse to lead. Will someone else?

The View From Your Law Firm: Quarantine Friday

(Left: The Ghost of Richard Nixon taunts the guys at Speaker Law, LLP)

John's Commitment to Posting

UPDATE: One week ago, in this space, fellow blogger John vowed to review the first sixty blog posts sent to him. And where are we a week on? Up to our eyeballs is where! We've been sorting through stacks and stacks of electronic bundles - all pining to be in the first sixty - like kids lined up outside Wal Mart for PS3s before Christmas. Actually, that's not at all true. No one has requested his kind offer of service. Not a one.

But not to worry, we here at Iron Triangle Daily are not without pride or creativity. John, I hereby request that you review your own post on your commitment to review posts. How was the writing? The conceit? Do you have a favorable opinion of the author having read his post? As far as I can see, this request meets the substantive requirements laid out...and provides you with a way out.

A Cartoon Ethnography

Ever wonder what a Looney Tune is? How about a Merry Melodie? They all have their roots in the early days of animation when cartoon production would begin with the soundtrack and only later, the animation (allegedly because animating a piece of music made it easier to devise plot elements and characters).

First out of the box with this concept was Disney with their Silly Symphonies series (1929-1939). Knowing a good idea when they saw it, Warner Brothers followed suit a year later with Looney Tunes (1930-1969). And here's where it gets interesting. Warner figured they would extend the concept of a musical short to live action - essentially a pre-curser to today's (or yesterday's) music video. The result was Spooney Melodies (1930-1931). However, the idea didn't take and was subsequently converted to another animated musical shorts program, Merry Melodies (1931-1969). MGM was substantially late to the party with their also-ran series, Happy Harmonies (1934-1938). Further muddling matters, Warner opted to reissue some of their older Merry Melodies in the 1940's under the name 'Merry Melodies, Blue Ribbon Classics' (in case you ever wondered what the blue ribbon in the title sequence was all about). Perhaps Warner Director Fritz Freleng said it best: "I never knew if a film I was making would be a Looney Tunes or a Merrie Melodie, and what the hell difference would it make, anyway?"

I Demand A D.C. Bottle Deposit

Washington, D.C. has no bottle deposit program. As far as I can find, there hasn't been any movement to create such a program since a proposed D.C. Deposit Law went down in defeat nearly 20 years ago. And since New York State enacted similar legislation in 1982, no other state or major municipality has imposed such a law. But there's new movement in this field. Consider Oregon's recently introduced legislation to include plastic water bottles in its state-wide deposit program, which are currently excluded in every deposit program in the country. In any new deposit program, including plastic water bottles is a must. As the New York Times noted over the weekend, "[w]ater, together with other nonfizzy drinks, accounted for 90 percent of the growth of the entire beverage industry between 2002 and 2005. By the end of the decade, they are expected to outsell soda."

Washington D.C., unlike any place else in the country, is in the position to prove the concept of a reconceived and modernized deposit program solely within the confines of a major urban area without ever having to address the urban/suburban compromises that bedevil any attempts at state-wide legislation (curbside pickup v deposit centers etc.) Call it my moonshot, but I think there is major promise for the District here.

Music Friday II

Music Friday: Music and Your Friends

Every once and a while I hear a song and am certain that it will be a favorite of someone I know - even though they haven't heard it yet. John had this experience with 'Hey Ya!' and our friend Luke - it just seemed a natural fit and sure enough, it was. In that spirit, I submit to you songs/artists and people who I think would like them:

Artist: Plan B
Person I know Who Will Like Him But Doesn't Know It Yet: my younger brother
Reason: This review pretty well sums it up: "Much of the CD is pretty unpleasant, with bleak music that sounds less than innovative and a load of self-important shock rhymes that try too damn hard, as on the murder ballad "Sick 2 Def," which rhymes "cum in a biscuit" with "sadistic". Bear in mind, this kid was also a huge Limp Bizkit fan.

Artist: Amy Winhouse
Person I know Who Will Like Her But Doesn't Know It Yet*: high school friend Stacy
Reason: The drunken, trainwreck persona, the song about the glories of refusing rehab etc. This one just fits - while Stacy doesn't, to my knowledge, hang out with Amy Winehouse, she's made a life-long habit of hanging out with people who aspire to be like her. (*In fairness, it's likely Stacy has already heard of, and fallen in love with Amy Winehouse)

Artist: KT Tunstall
Person I know (of) Who Will Like Her But Doesn't Know It Yet: Hillary Clinton
Reason: Her song 'Suddenly I See' is already making a play at becoming her campaign's theme song via an online 'you pick it' contest at Clinton's website. While I'm sure Clinton has yet to fully familiarize herself with it, this ode to chick-power is sufficiently not-related-enough to the point at hand to become a stone-cold campaign trail classic ('Beautiful Day' anyone?)

The View From Your Law Firm

"It's just 'Cirroc', your Honor.. and, yes, I'm ready. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages. Thank you."

(Above: Cirroc [ki:'rok])

Commitment to Posting

Since Josh has been haranguing me all day to post more than I have been, I have decided that I will commit to reviewing blog posts of the first sixty posters that request it. This is sort of done in the spirit of Tyler Cowen's fifty questions that he answered. Unfortunately, I can't take my intellectual toolbox to fifty questions, so you will have to settle for a review of your blog post.

In my review I promise to link to your blog. You are not required to reciprocate.

I will review anything, however, if your blog is NSFW let me know so I can look at it while I am not at work. I promise to review these posts two a day until they are finished. If I get no requests starting tomorrow I'm not sure what I will do.

Disaster Merchandise

Wal-Mart seriously has its shit together: "Data from past storms instruct supply-chain staff to pre-position caches of "what we call 'disaster merchandise,' like blankets, ready-to-eat foods, 5-gallon gas cans, and generators," said Kenneth Senser, a former CIA spy catcher who is now Wal-Mart's vice president for global security. Strawberry Pop-Tarts are a particular favorite." And if the power goes, they can provide a good source of light and heat as well.

Unintended Consequences

The Virginia-Pilot's Kerry Dougherty goes for the throat. Here's the rub for Dougherty:
"On Monday, [Virginia] Tech president Charles Steger told the panel [investigating the Virginia Tech shootings] that federal privacy laws effectively gag school officials from disclosing personal information about students. Even more troubling, they prevent medical professionals from sharing critical information about students with school administrators."

But consider this case of a straight-A sophomore at George Washington University who sought emergency psychiatric care for depression. "When they [GWU administrators] learned of [his] hospitalization, university officials charged him with violating the school code of conduct, suspended him, evicted him from his dorm and threatened him with arrest for trespassing if he set foot on university property." All of which lead the Washington Post to ask, “[s]ince when does being sick constitute a disciplinary problem?” The answer is, unfortunately, when liability to the university attaches - which it most certainly will under Dougherty's approach.

A recent example is the tragic case of the MIT student who made use of the university counseling service before setting herself on fire. "The Massachusetts Superior Court recently allowed her parents, who had not been told of her psychological deterioration, to sue administrators for $27.7 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount."

The bookends of these two incidents make for a pretty complicated problem for universities that leads to just one solution: mandatory reporting requirements from health officials to universities and from universities to parents (and potentially in the reverse order). But do we really want to revert to a kind of in loco parentis approach that exceeds even the rights of parents? While I sympathize with Dougherty's sentiments, the solution, whatever it might be, requires more than just a cursory examination of who does and doesn't 'deserve' privacy rights.

While We're Waiting...

I'm about to go into a meeting for the afternoon but wanted to take a second to share my thoughts on the three things required in a proper conference room:

1. WINDOWS! No meeting can or should take place in a room without windows. Casinos make use of this tactic to great effect, but your office shouldn't have to resort to sensory deprivation to get you to stay on task.

2. Round Tables: A nice egalitarian touch that says I'm no control freak. Famous adherents include the aptly named Knights of the Round Table (no head nor foot to reflect the equality of the members).

3. Coffee: Preferably at a sideboard or somewhere that makes participants get up and move a bit throughout. I think this makes the experience less funeral-like. Also, if people are getting up occasionally, it'll make it less awkward for you to get up if you have to pee during the middle of it.

Open Question

OK - there seems to be a disagreement out there as to the reliability of the consumer price index in general. For those in favor of the CPI's reliability in the ice-measuring exercise, this is an open call. I wasn't an econ major and have precious little background in the subject. That said, I'm hoping those of you with a little more knowledge on the subject will chime in.

My Absentee Co-Blogger

Regarding John's previous post. First, my calculation was based on per capita GDP. As I noted in the post, there are many problems with this - however - I opted for this approach because of the problems in accurately calculating inflation over that long of a period. That said, I am skeptical of both John's 2 and 8 cents. It's nice to have John back with us and I welcome a continued discussion on this subject.

UPDATE: Here's six ways to calculate the value of the dollar. (Note - I didn't use the GDP deflator option as it only goes back to 1900, and I didn't use a Consumer Price Index as (1) it wasn't started until 1913 and anything prior to that is a reconstructed guess and (2) CPI data is generally considered of lower quality the further into the past you get.

my eight cents

Josh posted about a week ago an account of our trip to Old Town where we found that under Gatsby's there was an old ice pit. Anyway, Josh some how got the inflation numbers off. Apparently 8 cents in 1805 would work out to be about a dollar and four cents in real dollars.

She's Like the Anti-Rachel Ray

Giada De Laurentiis was at the Farm Fresh in Dupont last weekend and nobody told me. I have nothing more to say about it.

Technology and My Attention Span

Rosalind W. Picard, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Co-Director of Things That Think offers a great bit of technologic common sense. How hard would it be to create a technology interface that recognizes your mood and attention? Apparently not very. The premise is simple enough - recognition software that takes a continues series of measurements (feature point tracking, head pose estimation etc.) to accurately determine your emotional state and level of engagement. This could have a very wide application - from autistic people to editing software. Imagine a real time editor that understands when you're not comprehending (or paying attention to) what you're reading.

Is English Efficient?

English as an informationally efficient language? Not so says Michael Erard in his review of a new book by K. David Harrison, When Languages Die :

"For example, what information is encoded in the English "my nephew"? For sure, it's a male person. But (as Harrison writes) "is he related to me by blood or marriage? Unclear. Is he older or younger than me? Unclear. Is he the son of my sister or my brother? Unclear. Is he the son of an older sibling of mine or a younger sibling? Unclear. Is he a boy or a man? Unclear." Taken in absolute terms, English isn't so efficient: we'd need a separate book to list all its major inefficiencies."

The Forgotten History of the Jake Leg

In the 1920s and 30s, Jake (Jamaican Ginger Extract and ethyl alcohol) provided a cheap and legal way for the poor to get around Prohibition. While researching its use several years ago, Dr. John Morgan of the City University of New York noticed that a number of blues songs from that era referenced a phenomenon called the 'Jake Leg' ("I can't eat, I can't talk, drinking mean Jake, Lord, I can't walk") as a kind of distinct paralysis of the lower legs. From the lyrics, Morgan figured that there must have been a major contamination of Jake sometime in 1930 that caused this, and he was right. It turns out that a pair of amateur bootleggers had developed what they thought was a non-toxic additive to the Jake they were importing. But it was actually a potent poison that caused paralysis of the lower legs. The result left potentially tens of thousands of victims without use of their feet - and a peculiar gate. "The Jake Leg story is almost completely about class", Morgan said, "if someone had poisoned the Canadian source of bonded Scotch, something would have been done."

Glory Fades

I realize it's not often that one would associate the Ford Taurus with the term groundbreaking, but credit where credit is due. It was the 1986 Ford Taurus that pushed the US auto industry out of the boxy 'Fairmont' design that dominated the previous 3 decades and ushered in today's pervasive rounder, grille-less design. For that, I offer the Ford Taurus a long-overdue thanks.

Roses Speak for Themselves, But These Guys Provide a Megaphone

Sometimes when we try and make nature a little better, we end up making it a lot tackier. Like these embossed roses. Sure, a rose is pretty - pretty boring if you ask me. But a rose with my name on it (Josh)?! Or the name of the thing I'm doing with it (thanking you)?! If you still don't get it, here it is all laid out: "Embossed roses are really starting to take off. You see them at Oscar parties, the Kentucky Derby, the Rose Bowl, and hundreds of corporate promotions. Although, the embossed roses are a little pricey they are so neat that they are becoming part of a lot of events." See, sometimes, when just having roses at your Rose Bowl party isn't quite as closely thematically related as you'd like, now you can write 'The Rose Bowl' on the petals of the roses you bought for the Rose Bowl and the connection will be instantly clear. Get it?

Know Your Rules of Succession

Rules of succession don't just apply to the Presidency. Here's a list of the rules of succession in executive agencies. When asked, always remember that in the event that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs is unable to perform the functions and duties of that office, the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health beats out the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Benefits - every time.

Top Ten Remittance Recipients

Total remittances (millions of dollars):
Mexico: 9,920
India: 9,160
Philippines: 6,366
Egypt: 2,911
Turkey: 2,786
Bangladesh: 2,104
Jordan: 2,011
Dominican Republic: 1,982
El Salvador: 1,925
Columbia: 1,784
(Source: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Yearbook 2002.)

Old School Luxury

We decided to enjoy the weather and take a walk around Old Town, Alexandria this weekend. Those of you familiar with the area are probably also familiar with Gadsby's Tavern, which dates back to the late 18th Century. Outside they have an old ice-well (where ice harvested from the Potomac was stored during the warm months) and a little plaque explaining the historical significance. Of particular note, ice was 8 cents a pound in 1805. I can only imagine how luxurious that dirty frozen river water must have been back then. Point of comparison - using a nominal per capita GDP comparison (less than perfect for a lot of reasons, I know), 8 cents in 1805 works out to $37.62 in 2005 dollars. That night we bought 14 pounds of ice for Margaritas for $3.50 - or $526 by 1805 standards. Remember that next time you hear some baby boomer reminiscing about a 10 cent Coke.

Music Friday Part II: Yglesias Is Right, Alanis I Am Sorry

Matt Yglesias on Alanis Morrisette's Ironic: "I have a longstanding contention that the not-actually-ironic nature of the various purported examples of irony in the song is the ironic part and not just some kind of coincidence." Alanis confirms here. For those of you who may have forgotten, here's a partial list of things spectacularly not ironic in Ironic (thereby properly making it ironic):

1. It's a black fly in your chardonnay (a waste of $5 if you're fussy)
2. It's a death row pardon two minutes too late (bad luck, bad phone connection, bad governance? In any case, more like a very special episode of Benson than irony)
3. It's like rain on your wedding day (unfortunate)
4. It's a free ride when you've already paid (dumb on the payers behalf)
5. It's the good advice that you just didn't take (again, dumb. Always take good advice - even a 1st grader knows that.)
6. It's a traffic jam when you're already late (the word here is frustrating, not ironic)
7. It's a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break (just go outside, really)
8. It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife (I don't even know where to start here - where are you and what are you doing when this comes up? In any case, it's weird, not ironic)

Cautionary Tales

Anticipating the Ghastly Crumb Tinies by more than 100 years, Struwwelpeter is one hell of a kids book, arranged as a series of stories whose sole aim is to scare your kids into right action. There's 'The Story of Kaspar Who Did Not Have Any Soup' about a young boy who stops eating his soup and dies, 'The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb' about a boy who wouldn't stop sucking his thumbs until a roving tailor cuts them off with a pair of giant scissors, and 'The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches' whose premise is pretty well summed up by the title.

Music Friday: The Happiest Guy on Youtubes

It's Friday People. So let's all get buck naked and jam out to the musical stylings of Ronald Jenkees.

Of Cruelty, Canada and Caning

Once upon a time, the Canadian government had a real thing for turning two-to-twenty when it came to stepping out of line:


"One 10-year-old boy, committed on 4 May 1845 for a seven-year term, was publicly lashed 57 times in the space of eight and a half months. His offences were staring and laughing, which although in contravention of prison rules, were normal behaviour for a boy of that age. An eight-year-old child, admitted on 7 November 1845 for a three-year term, received the lash within the first week of his arrival. Over a nine-month period he was similarly punished 47 times. An 11-year-old French-Canadian boy received 12 lashes on Christmas Eve 1844 for speaking French."

Cell Phone Society

According to a new study by the CDC, 12.8% of American households are now wireless-phone only. This has to have a huge impact on traditional polling techniques that rely on land-lines. I've heard rumblings about this for a while and while no one is quite sure what to make of the impact of all of this, I have to believe it's going to be a major issue in the polling world over the next few years.

Music Friday Part I: There Was No Bruce

Well my theory of the ELO hit Don't Bring Me Down is all shot to hell. I always assumed that Bruce was this guy that was bringing Jeff Lynne down because he stole his girl. Turns out there was never supposed to be a 'Bruce' in the song. Lynne was using made-up gibberish ('groos' whatever that means) and only later changed it to Bruce after the entire world, and I, assumed it was Bruce. Shit.

(Above: Not Bruce)

Tied House Rules

In the UK, a tied house is a pub that can only sell beer from a certain brewery (as opposed to free houses that can sell from any vendor). I guess the Stateside equivalent of tied houses would be microbreweries. I hate microbreweries. Pass me a Diet Miller.

Things in Singapore: Part 1

The Social Development Unit is the world's only government-run dating system.

Academic Abstract of the Day

Speaking of aggression - here's the abstract to a paper entitled "Talking Smack: Verbal Aggression in Professional Wrestling" being presented today at the International Communication Association:

The current study presents the results of a content analysis conducted on the verbal aggression found in 36 hours of televised professional wrestling. The coding scheme was adapted from the National Television Violence Study and past research on televised verbal aggression. The results show that an abundance of verbal aggression is present in televised professional wrestling. In particular, swearing, competence attacks, and character attacks. Notably, these forms of aggression are committed most often by perpetrators with no clear dispositional characteristics, and without any apparently justifiable reason – most often done seemingly just for amusement.

Informal Google Hierarchy of Aggression - Sorted by Profession

"Aggressive attorney" yields 83,100 results.
"Aggressive cop" yields 2,350 results.
"Aggressive doctor" yields 691 results.
"Aggressive preacher" yields 238 results.
"Aggressive poet" yields 169 results.
"Aggressive cab driver" yields 141 results.
"Aggressive mathematician"yields 6 results.
"Aggressive astronaut" yields 3 results.

Freedom of Contract?

President Bush signed an executive order yesterday barring the federal government from using lawyers on a contingency-fee basis. The order states that outside lawyers hired by the federal government must be “compensated in amounts that are reasonable, not contingent upon the outcome of litigation or other proceedings.” The U.S. Chamber approves of the move. The Trial Lawyers Association has yet to post comment but I'm guessing they won't be as enthusiastic.

Ladies Love Bean

I got an L.L. Bean catalogue in the mail last night, which is kinda weird because no one in my house has ordered anything from them - ever. But then again, when has anyone's interests ever really lined up that closely with their actual mail (paid subscriptions aside)? Not often, if history is any guide. L.L. Bean founder Leon Leonwood Bean (no shit) started by selling a waterproof hunting boot through a catalogue whose circulation was nothing more than a list of out of state hunting licensees. I'm sure it's a touch more sophisticated today, but the principle seems the same.

Anti-Commercial Norms in America?

Tyler Cowen's post on the cultural foundations of capitalism provides a list of reading to give one a sense of "just how much cultural background is needed to sustain liberty" (and therefore capitalism). But what exactly constitutes a pro-commercial norm as opposed to an anti-commercial norm, and are there any of the latter in the US? In her survey of 18th Century French Merchant Courts Amelia Kessler argues that Christian virtues, such as selflessness, may on their face be anti-commercial - but ultimately prove necessary to a commercial culture. "Anticommercial norms of Christian virtue...nevertheless served to promote commercial investment and growth by lowering transaction costs. By encouraging merchants to place communal well-being above short-term self-interest, these norms facilitated the development of long-term, trust-based commercial relationships, which in turn promoted the transmission of vital information at relatively low cost. "

Sloth Makes All Things Difficult

In economic terms, productivity is a measure of output. Or it can be "the process of creating material values, whether goods or services." Or it can refer to the process of earning something through the creation of something of value. But at bottom, for a any thing to be properly considered productive, it must be profitable: the cost of its production must be less than the value it achieves. This is why billing an hour is productive and writing this post is not.

Boredom Comes From the Spleen

Boring: "possibly a figurative extension of 'to move forward slowly and steadily'" - as in auger.

Boredom was one of the dark humors of ancient medicine, associated with the spleen and was treated as an ailment during the Romantic period.

Today, boredom is treated less as ailment and more as temporal condition - spawning such remedies as www.i-am-bored.com, on the theory that "people will get so incredibilly bored as to type things like "I'm Bored" into their search engines just to see what happens."

Cops Gone Wild: Spring Break DC

"D.C. police are investigating the actions of several out-of-town police officers in the District for police week. . .The investigation began after a resident complained about public drunkenness and rude behavior in an e-mail to police. The e-mail included accusations of drinking beer from a cooler, yelling, throwing trash and waving at on-duty police while holding open beers in salute, Sherwood reported. "

"The resident said that at 10 p.m. Sunday, more than a half dozen officers were gathered around a maroon van with New Jersey license plates at the corner of H and Fifth streets in Northwest."

"At 12:50 a.m. Monday, the resident called a police substation to report a female officer giving lessons in riding Segways and people riding Segways at high rates of speed while chugging beers, she said. She also said she saw a patrol car drive by, but no officers exited the vehicle to talk to the out-of-town police officers, and the resident again called the substation."

And that's all on tape. . .

HA HA HA!

Then again, maybe these are the same cops that turn a blind eye to my own public crapulence, etc. Plus, hard to fault any crew that'll cruise the maroon econoline down from AC for a tailgate at 5th and H.

Causation?

According to a new study released today, heavy multivitamin use may be linked to advanced prostate cancer. The study found "an increased risk of advanced and fatal prostate cancer among men who used multivitamins more than seven times a week, compared with men who did not use multivitamins. The association was strongest in men with a family history of prostate cancer and men who also took selenium, beta-carotene, or zinc supplements. "

But as the Prostate Cancer Foundation indicates, there has been ongoing debate as to whether these very supplements (selenium, beta-carotene, and zinc) might actually decrease prostate cancer risk. My guess is that the guys in this study that were taking these supplements did so precisely because they perceived (and acted on) an increased risk of prostate cancer not captured by the screen. Thus, the very vitamins and minerals extolled as beneficial come to look like carcinogens.

Why Beer is Light, Not Diet

Interesting. What we know as light beer was originally marketed as diet beer. The idea was first (and only) attempted by the Rheingold Brewery with Gablinger's Diet Beer in 1967. Unfortunately for Rheingold, the product had zero market appeal and was quickly shelved. Shortly after its inconspicuous debut, the recipe was given to the Meister Brau company, which used it to produce Meister Brau Lite (the precursor to Miller Lite). Being a Tuesday, I'm off to enjoy a few Diet Millers (or Miller's Diet?) myself.

Above: Joseph L. Owades, the inventor of diet beer and the reason Wednesdays suck.

The View From Your Law Firm: Traveling Edition

(Where John Is)

Google For Real Life

Brad DeLong provides a fascinating exerpt of Charlie Stross's recent speech in Munich. Bottom line - I can't even conceive of the proper way to think about the mid-term future let alone actual predictions.

Today, I can pick up about 1Gb of FLASH memory in a postage stamp sized card for that much money. Fast-forward a decade and that'll be 100Gb. Two decades and we'll be up to 10Tb. 10Tb is an interesting number. That's a megabit for every second in a year... enough to store a live DivX video stream... of everything I look at for a year.... It's a life log; replay it and you've got a journal file for my life.... Why would anyone want to do this?... Initially, it'll be edge cases. Police officers on duty: it'd be great to record everything they see, as evidence. Folks with early stage neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimers: with voice tagging and some sophisticated searching, it's a memory prosthesis. Add optical character recognition on the fly for any text you look at, speech-to-text for anything you say, and it's all indexed and searchable. "What was the title of the book I looked at and wanted to remember last Thursday at 3pm?" Think of it as google for real life.

The View From Your Law Firm: Come On In, the Water's Fine Edition

The Pellegrino Law Firm,

New Haven, CT.

Haiku #1

The condom fell off
Don't forget to use Plan B
Back in the saddle

Smarter

What would you do if it were suddenly announced that science had come up with a way to make you more intelligent? Not slightly smarter, but rather vastly smarter by say a factor of ten. Having witnessed how technological improvements happen, it seems safe that we can assume that this first generation brain enhancer will be considered primitive over the next few years.

So my question is, would you opt for the bleeding-edge technology and early adopt? Or would you hold out for the more polished version 2.0? Personally, I would go out and purchase the upgrade immediately. I don't think that I could bear to have people walking around that much more intelligent than I am. Plus if someone was thirty times smarter than you wouldn't you pretty much have to defer to them on just about everything? My self esteem can't handle that!

On the other hand, if I had been augmented it would be difficult to hang around with you dolts. At best you would probably suspect I was patronizing you all the time. That is unless I also developed some advanced state of sympathy.

The View From Your Law Firm

The Law Offices of Mramor, Sorta, Bilic & Holec

Ljubljana, Slovenija

He has the Power?

The Sun is reporting that Brad Pitt is being considered for the upcoming role of He-Man.


I remember that as a kid, He-Man was one of the first in a series of many programs that I did not get to watch since my family lacked even the most basic cable. Unlike many parts of the country, not having cable where I grew up was pretty much unheard of (I only knew one person and I didn't meet her until 7th grade).

This cable t.v. rejectionism that my parents subscribed to, (no pun intended) was not so much a financial issue, but rather some sort of confluence of neo-aesetic Catholicism and progressive 70s era child psychology. My mother is not a big believer in the idea that having fun is in and of it self a virtuous pursuit and in fact once when I pressed her a couple of years ago she readily admitted that she felt suffering to be a very critical part of the human condition.

Anyway, for some reason after pleading for months my parents gave in and bought me the Castle Greyskull (sic?) for Xmas. It even came with a Man at Arms (which apparently was the guy's actual name). Anyway, the thing cost $100 from what I recall, and I played with it for about an hour.

Can any of you guys remember what He-Man's alter-ego's (pictured top left) name was?

The View From Your Law Firm

McMillan Law Firm, Monday, 8:25 a.m.

U.S. to "clarify" WTO commitment

According to this AFP article, the United States has now "clarified" that it is not bound by the recent WTO ruling where the trade body reiterated its view that the country is bound by trade rules to allow the nation of Antigua access to its gambling markets:

"[Deputy United States Trade Representative John]Veroneau said that the US commitment to free trade in "recreational services" was not intended to included Internet gambling, which did not exist at the time.

The commitment to opening up recreational services "doesn't explicitly include gambling nor does it necessary exclude it," Veroneau said.

"It didn't occur to us that this could include gambling until Antigua brought this case in 2003."

"Clearly that was an oversight in the drafting," he said.

"The process we are starting today would allow us to clarify our schedule and make clear that we did not intend and do not intend to have gambling included in our services agreement."

Not having read the actual agreement it is hard for me to comment except to say that the term "recreational services" sounds like it was adopted precisely because it is broad enough to create a normative way of treating new services in the future that have not been invented at the time the agreement was implemented.

But there is a broader reason why Veroneau is being deeply disingenuous when he pleads that the U.S. signed on to these agreements ignorantly. I think the most important thing to keep in mind, is that from my understanding, countries in the WTO are allowed to ban certain kinds of trade that they already ban within their own country. This rule was included to allow less liberal trading partners the ability to keep out what they viewed were some less desirable American products (liquor being a good example). This was allowed provided the country did not then go and allow the sale of liquor within the country. In other words, you are not allowed to save the liquor market for your domestic producers while shutting out all foreign competition.

Obviously the United States does not ban gambling. As a matter of fact, in the law that was passed last year penalizing banks for processing money transfers between customers and internet sites, Congress specifically inserted language in the law exempting certain gambling activities (horse racing and fantasy sports come to mind) for the law.

Here be Anthropomorphic Dragons

A more social map of the internet .

Should I be embarrassed that I pretty much know what the entire thing means?

wow

Congress to provide loan subsidies to attorneys

Modern Political Art Sucks!!!

Joanna at Fey Accompli reviews the first track of the new Tori Amos Album. Seriously, is it so hard to write a song condemning the President without resorting to such trite lyrics? Is the song supposed to be profound? Courageous?

Dear Sir

My friend and I are willing to deal with a few more humiliations. But if you could please soften the cumulative effect that the emotional toll takes on my masculinity, I could do it longer.

thanks again,

John & Josh

Am I Missing Something Or Are They?

Josh writes:

I managed to finally see Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in its entirety yesterday. Great movie, so why all the hate ?

Horror movie idea

I was thinking about my Egyptian buried alive idea this morning when I thought up what might be a interesting idea for a story or horror movie. I don't have a beginning or middle part yet, only the last scene. The setting would be the storage facility of some law firm.

A couple of lawyers would be combing through all these archived exhibits from a largish civil suit of mild historical interest. As they read through all the archived legal briefs they begin to feel uneasy at the the grisly nature of much of the imagery used in the brief.

To make a long story short, the lawyers' unease increases until they ultimately end up suspecting, and then finding, one of their predecessors (a young promising associate attorney) had decided to make herself in to an "exhibit". This will be lead to some sick joke (preferably in Latin) to end the movie.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Desperation

Josh writes:

What does this say about the current state of political play for the Republican Party?

updated 5.03
Part II

To Do: Replenish Myelin, Keep Working

Josh writes:

What are the societal ramifications of fixing this glitch in evolutionary biology? And what would a fully sentient old person be like? How about employed for starters.

Department of Soft Bigotry

AP reports on tonight's "debate":

"Here's how it's played: Before a debate, rival campaigns build up the skills of their opponents while downgrading their own candidate's verbal abilities. That way, any bright moments make a performance seem like a home run.

For the Democratic contenders, the first major round of the Expectations Game came ahead of Thursday night's debate at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C. The 90-minute event offers eight candidates their initial chance to distinguish themselves on the long road to the nomination next year."

Republican Strength in Swing States

Our Polling Correspondent writes:

How to square the latest Q poll with this?

I think it has everything to do with an ingrained, readily available narrative. I suspect these Giuliani leads spring from the same well as this seeming Gore-momentum. A five year old well.

Question of the Day

The reader writes:

Tyler Cowen manages to scare the hell out of me today. Considering the central implication of the Fermi paradox and the news that earth-like planets may exist more frequently than originally thought, it may be that intelligent civilizations simply don't last that long.

Which got me thinking - how long after I die could the world end before I cease caring? We all hear the sun has a shelf life in the billions of years but no one is losing sleep over that. On the other hand, I'd be pretty distressed to know the world would blink out an hour after my death. I've got a lot of friends here, after all. But what about 50 years? Well, maybe I'll have kids around. That would suck for them - and I'm supposing I'd be emotionally invested. So maybe the answer is - I'll stop caring when the world ends when I can no longer conceive of being emotionally invested. In other words, when everybody I know or could know has died. A kind of common law construct.

Literally speaking, I assume that you would stop caring the moment you died. I think the more interesting question in response to your question is - why would you want the world to continue after you were gone? Speaking personally, I have always had a hard time going to bed at night. This is not because I have a hard time falling asleep, I don't. It's just that I don't like giving up consciousness. I think the reason for this is that I am a afraid that I am going to miss something.

If I had knowledge that you all were evaporated right after my death (actually I would prefer you all to expire the instant before I did), I could die knowing that I didn't miss anything cool. Think I'm crazy? The Pharaohs apparently didn't think so. Don't worry if I had the power to bury the world alive I wouldn't. I'm more progressive than that.

I don't think there is much here

In all honesty I have a hard time seeing what the big deal is here. I suspect that no one is actually offended, rather it seems like something serious people should be offended by (or something). In my view, tactically it probably isn't the best idea for Democrats to denounce these types of statements. I'm also not buying that just because the man makes jokes here or there about IEDs or Iran he is necessarily a clown.

I think McCain is a bad candidate for all the right reasons! I think he's an opportunist without any real convictions one way or the other. But unlike Rep. Murtha, I can't accept the idea that a soldier somewhere is demoralized or emotionally wounded by McCain's comments on the Daily show.

I know. That isn't terribly insightful. You already knew it

Two new books in the mail

I am anxiously waiting for the two new books that I have pre-ordered to arrive. First, Christopher Hitchens new book God Is not Great if I am not mistaken is to be released on the 1st of May. In my opinion some of the best things that the man writes deal with religion and culture. If you have not had the chance, do go and read his Slate column this week on the Virgina Tech shootings. I think it's superb!

Also, I ordered Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter. I am a big fan of Econolog and followed the dialog earlier this year on the topic in Cato Unbound. Having taken a few classes on voting behavior I am curious to see him expand upon his thesis.

basics of rejected .xxx tld

clipped from scrawford.blogware.com If, after creation of an xxx TLD, certain governments of the world want to ensure that their citizens do not see xxx content, it is within their prerogative as sovereigns to instruct internet access providers physically located within their territory to block such content.  Also, if certain governments want to ensure that *all* adult content providers with a physical presence in their country register exclusively within xxx, that is their prerogative as well.  (I note that such a requirement in the U.S. would violate the First Amendment to our Constitution.)  But this content-related censorship should not be ICANN’s concern, and ICANN should not allow itself to be used as a private lever for government chokepoint content control by making up reasons to avoid the creation of such a TLD in the first place.  To the extent there are public policy concerns with this TLD, they can be dealt with through local law.  Registration in (or visitation of) domains in this TLD is purely voluntary.

immigration and future employment

clipped from www.marginalrevolution.com I think that China is due for a crack-up and India will soon bump up against its horrible legal and educational systems.  I saw that economists are listed as among the most threatened groups, but I doubt if the United States can look forward to the liberation of so much talented and witty labor.  I also think that corporate welfare is a bad idea, and that universities should not train everyone to be a small town divorce lawyer.  Teaching reading and writing would be a good start.

today's hearing

clipped from www.tpmmuckraker.com Mr. Gonzales “is not a litigator, and he is not an accomplished public speaker,” said a friend of Mr. Sampson who also worked with Mr. Gonzales, known as Judge Gonzales because he was on the Texas Supreme Court. “When the judge says, ‘I wasn’t involved,’ he means something specific. If you teased it out, you would figure out what it was he meant. But in the political world where you only get one shot, it comes across as misleading.”

Unpaid Tickets

via Agitator

clipped from www.thenewspaper.com According to the proposed ordinance, a vehicle owner must pay a parking fine within 72 hours if a meter maid claims his automobile was improperly parked, incurring tickets worth between $5 and $250. Failure to pay this amount results in the assessment of a fifty-percent "late fee." After seven days, the city will place a lien on the car owner's home for the amount of the ticket plus late fees, attorney fees and an extra $15 fine. The fees quickly turn a $5 ticket into a debt worth several hundred dollars, growing at a one-percent per month interest rate. The ordinance does not require the city to provide notice to the homeowner at any point so that after ninety days elapse, the city will foreclose. If the motorist does not own a home, it will seize his vehicle after the failure to pay three parking tickets.

On Politico

clipped from www.salon.com Given the last two weeks filled with humiliating errors and journalistically reckless behavior, The Politico, as Bunch notes, is the last newspaper which ought to be accusing others of "Rookie Mistakes." They are the very embodiment of such behavior (although their journalistic recklessness seems more calculated than negligent -- a feature rather than a bug, to invoke a cliche). And this latest article, designed to begin smearing Obama's integrity and character, is nothing more than the standard RNC/Beltway-media joint tactic which we have seen so many times before.

Rosen

I didn't realize that Hillary Rosen's comments were originally posted in her capacity as a journalist. Are we really supposed to believe that she is anything other than a Clinton hack. Geffen's comments were made from the standpoint of a political donor who was supporting someone new. Rosen's comments are represented as analysis.

But we already knew that.

broken headphones

I have had a problem with headphones breaking ever since I had my first Walkman when I was a teenager. If I had to guess, I think that I am either yanking one of the wires within the headset which is causing a cutting in and out effect. Or the problem has something to do with the plug connection. I'm not really sure what to do about this. Is it me? Am I just to rough with my headphones?

Also check out this video showing a way to tie headphones to an ipod shuffle.

weather

It is amazing how poor a job the District has done as far as removing snow from the street goes. There is slush everywhere. Even more surprising to me has been the reaction from everyone that lives and works here. People treat a couple of inches of snow like it was disaster. A couple of my friends (government employees) were actually trying to convince me that they felt it was appropriate for the government to close at 2:00pm yesterday, even though it was not snowing.

signing statements

I need to learn a bit more about signing statements. I believe that basically it is a chance for the President to articulate his understanding of the law. Meaning, that one can interpret the law to mean something different from what most people commonly think that it means. Does the signing statement offer any sort of limitation from liability? If not why say anything?

Eben Moglen

Last night I had the great fortune to watch a speech on youtube given in October by Eben Moglen (the attorney for the Free Software Foundation). In this hour long speech he discusses the changing socio-economic landscape of the world, and how we can provide near limitless resources via technology to the poor at almost zero marginal cost. These parts dealing with the economics of creating software were less than convincing.

I remember reading probably twelve years this same argument in Mondo 2000's User's Guide to the New Edge, having to do with post-scarcity economy where the marginal cost of "copying" a loaf of bread were approximately zero. In the case of software, this is obviously very close to true. After Microsoft produces the first copy of Windows for $1,000,000,000 the second copy very close to $0 However, this just seems like two different ways to allocate costs. Anyway, I think about it and hopefully post something later.

That said, DO SEE THE SPEECH!

30 Boxes

I have been messing around the online calendar site 30 boxes. From what I have seen so far I am impressed. It seems good at interpreting certain things that you want to do. For instance, I configured the software to alert me when it was my mother's birthday. I am not sure exactly what syntax tipped the program off, but it offered to set the date up as a once yearly event. That is pretty cool!