Cheeto Dust

FDIC

2009-03-11T18:45:00.003-04:00

The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.

This is getting some play across the blag-o-net, and will undoubtedly be getting more, but I'd just like to point the following two facts out:

In 1996, the first year in which Congress refused to authorize the FDIC to collect premiums, Republicans had just recently gained control of Congress
2006, the last year in which Congress refused to authorize the FDIC to collect premiums, was the last year that Republicans had control of Congress

PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY~!

Read This

2009-03-06T16:52:00.003-05:00

Matthew Yglesias is relevant to your interests.

I am going to write more about this topic this weekend. Exciting!

Oh, and, once again, Klein Sucks, Yglesias Rules.

Why Twitter Works for the Republicans

2009-03-05T10:03:00.002-05:00

As any West Wing fan knows, the key to winning superficial political debates is the 10 word answer. The Republican party, at the moment, is completely bereft of serious policy thought - they've pretty plainly become the party of "No." So, while a serious policy debate obviously needs to go past 10 words, having a serious policy debate is monumentally dangerous for the modern Republican.

Twitter limits posts to 140 characters.

Twitter and Republicans - made for each other.

Speech Clouds: Solidarity Forever

2009-02-20T12:48:00.001-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the eighth speech I gave, entitled "Solidarity Forever":

New blog Rules

2009-02-18T14:50:00.001-05:00

Henceforth, any use of the phrase "Wall Street Journal Editorial" shall be replaced by the phrase "LOLERSKATES!!!"

That is all.

Five Thirty Die Commie Bastard!

2009-02-17T00:46:00.002-05:00

Red baiting now, are we? Bravo Nate, bra-vo.

A Tax Increase is a Tax Increase

2009-02-16T19:04:00.003-05:00

While this is assuredly nitpicky, this is a pet peeve of mine. While I'm generally in favor of public-health targeted taxes, it is decidedly not the case that if you increase taxes on product X, overall consumption will not be affected and people will just buy less X and more not X. Because a tax increase is a tax increase - and just like increasing the sales tax generally will depress consumption, a targeted sales tax increase will decrease consumption. Now, clearly, a targeted tax increase on one sort of product will cause a much smaller drop in consumption, but it won't be neutral. Just like when you build a new lane on a road, it does actually decrease congestion. Aure, adding a 3rd lane doesn't cut congestion by 2/3rds, but there isn't a 50% increase in traffic either - more people take the road, and there's a small drop in congestion, but its still a reduction.

Just more proof that Klein Sucks, Yglesias Rules.

Speech Clouds: Don't Fire Bruce Arians

2009-02-16T10:38:00.001-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the seventh speech I gave, entitled "Don't Fire Bruce Arians":

Speech Clouds: America Together

2009-02-14T09:57:00.002-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the sixth speech I gave, entitled "America Together":

Speech Clouds: Fire Bruce Arians

2009-02-12T10:28:00.002-05:00

So, after a bit of a hiatus, here is the Wordle word cloud for the fifth speech I gave, entitled "Fire Bruce Arians":

Democrats Need to Grow a Pair

2009-02-04T14:35:00.003-05:00

A friends Facebook status, posted 15 minutes ago:

"Ian Ehrlich thinks its funny republicans are being fiscally concscientious now. Which leads him back to his original position: balance and divided govn are the way to go"

Yes, because we have a divided government right now, with 41 Republicans in the Senate...

Speech Clouds: Dick Tuck

2009-02-04T09:16:00.001-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the third speech I gave, entitled "Dick Tuck":

Speech Clouds: V-I-E

2009-02-03T12:00:00.003-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the second speech I gave, entitled "V-I-E":

Speech Clouds: Closed Doors

2009-02-01T09:12:00.003-05:00

Here is the Wordle word cloud for the first speech I gave, entitled "Closed Doors":

Speech Clouds: With Great Power

2009-01-31T10:24:00.006-05:00

This semester I have 7 credits worth of oral presentations classes. This means I may be writing and giving as many as four speeches per week. Anyway, I was playing around with Wordle this morning, and came up with the bright idea to post word clouds of my speeches as I give them. However, I've already done three, so I've got some catching up to do. Accordingly, I'll be posting some over the next few days.

But first, here's a speech I wrote but didn't give, entitled "With Great Power":

Saved By Zero

2009-01-29T18:32:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the title... really...

So, zero Republicans in the House voted for the stimulus package. This comes as no surprise to much of liberal blogistan, as we all yelled* at how idiotic it was for Obama to include so many tax cuts and cave to so much Republican whining (e.g., family planning funds, funds devoted to upgrading the National Mall) because it wouldn't result in any Republican votes. And, indeed, Obama's efforts at "bipartisanship" resulted in zero House GOP votes.

But I'm wondering if the House GOP hasn't just played themselves right into Obama's hands. Obama was swepped in on "change" which the media widely interpreted as meaning an end to partisan rancor (although there's little evidence in his actual rhetoric to suggest that's explicitly what he meant). Well what happens if, during the signing ceremony Obama makes a speech, saying that he tried very hard to include Republicans... he didn't want it to be so tax cut heavy, he didn't want to cut funds tied to family planning, he didn't want to eliminate the funds for the National Mall, but he did it all because of Republican objections. But the GOP was more interested in scoring political points than in negotiating in good faith. Despite going in person to Capitol Hill to talk to congressional Republicans, they still refused to make any compromise, and voted unanimously against this vitally important stimulus bill because it wasn't exactly the bill they demanded. Try as he might, uber-popular President Obama can't work with Congressional Republicans because they aren't willing to work with him.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Obama were able to use this vote result as an opportunity to turn the Village's bipartisan obsession against the GOP and to his benefit, giving him and the Dems cover to enact whatever legislation they want regardless of bipartisan cover. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was his plan all along.

* Some even wrote blog posts about it! Not me, of course, but still...

Kudos Arlen

2009-01-27T19:10:00.004-05:00

Usually, I line up right behind Harry Reid on my former Senator: you can always count on Arlen Specter to stand up for his principles, except when it matters. However, Arlen Specter deserves a tip of the hat for being the only male Republican to join his four female G.O.P. Senate colleagues to vote in favor of the Lucy Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Kudos, Arlen, for breaking with the rest of your caucus on the issue of being a misogynistic troglodyte.

An Observation

2009-01-25T19:04:00.002-05:00

Walking around decked out in Steelers gear does not really convey "I don't want to talk to you" very well.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

2009-01-24T20:14:00.002-05:00

Alfonse D'Amato...

Thanks Corporate Feminism!

Jim Kramer Could, Theoretically, Be Good At His Job

2009-01-20T22:18:00.004-05:00

Its generally accepted that the Jim Kramers of the world - the television stock market pundit set, that is - don't actually have any great insight about the workings of the stock market. And, indeed, statistics show that their picks generally do worse than the market. The idea, of course, is that if these people had any tremendous knowledge they'd be making money on the market, not giving out tips on TV.

However, that doesn't necessarily follow. Suppose, for example, Jim Kramer's advice resulted in profits at 101% of the market. In other words, Kramer beats the market by 1%. That's not enough for him to live off of, unless he starts with a massive amount of money to invest (and, frankly, he could just pull 1% out of that fortune per year instead of investing, and he wouldn't exhaust it in his lifetime).

Jim Kramer doesn't have that kind of money. However, Jim Kramer's viewers, in the aggregate, have that kind of money. Especially if Jim Kramer reliably beat the market, even by that small amount - if that were the case, he'd have even more viewers. So Jim Kramer's ability to slightly beat the market on a consistent basis isn't valuable to him, but it is valuable to a television company who can sell commercial time while he gives out his advice.

Of course, in reality, Jim Kramer's advice isn't reliably slightly better than the market. In fact, it's worse than the market. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't be economically optimal for someone to have Jim Kramer's job and be good at it.

Ellen Tigh is the Final Cylon

2009-01-16T23:07:00.001-05:00

Lame.

Lee Adama is Still the Final Cylon

2009-01-15T23:19:00.002-05:00

I'm not really feeling a long detailed post right now, so I'll try to make this short and sweet.

From the Razor hybrid: "And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering."

What does it mean when a person is described as being in shadow? Often it means hidden, but if the fifth were hidden, is he clawing towards the light. or, in this case, being revealed? No, in this case in shadow means in one's father's shadow. And if there is one character who is in someone's shadow, its Lee. After all, if I titled this post "Adama is the Final Cylon" you would think I meant Bill.

So, how is Lee clawing toward the light? Well, all season long he's been pursuing a political career, and managed to find himself as temporary president of the colonies. No doubt he's looking for a way to step out of his father's shadow, clawing for the light.

And in the howl of terrible suffering? In the beginning of Revelations, Kara said to Lee: "You know, Leoben said something to me when he was holding me in that dollhouse on New Caprica - that children are born to replace their parents. For Children to reach their full potential, their parents have to die."

The reason Lee doesn't know he's the Final Cylon yet is that he's not - he can't become the Final Cylon until Bill dies. The parents of the other four are all dead, but Lee's father lives, and Lee can't reach his full potential until his father dies. That will be the howl of terrible suffering.

That also explains D'Anna's insistence that only four were in the fleet. Lee didn't know he was one of the final five and, therefore, wasn't one of the final five - at least as far as D'Anna cared. Her goal was to get the final Cylons to join the baseship of their own free will. Lee would never have done so until he knew he was a Cylon, the same as the other four.

As for YouWillKnowTheTruth - I was going to do a big run-down of all the clues, but, like I said above, I'm not entirely feeling it, so I'll do a quick overview.

Several clues eliminate possible people from consideration - e.g., 3 (Starbuck), 7 (Roslyn), 25 (Hotdog). Others demonstrate upcoming plotlines - most specifically, Gaeta is going to go off on some sort of anti-Cylon crusade, as presaged by the end of Face of the Enemy. At the end of Face of the Enemy Gaeta is going off to talk to Baltar. Their conversation is hint #10. The "secret" that Balter refers to with Gaeta many times over is the 8 from New Caprica and Face of the Enemy. Hints 15, 24, and 26 also go to this plot line.

However, the key hint is number 11. In the background at several times the final five music can be heard playing, at at the end 12 bells chime. The crowd noise is from the press conference in hint number 4. The voice at the beginning is Tom Zarek, who we know from hint number 4 is on Caprica One. The person there along with them is Lee.

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again...

2009-01-14T22:35:00.004-05:00

I'll have a new post up tomorrow explaining how Razor, Season 4, and YouWillKnowTheTruth all simply confirm what I've been saying for the past... well, month, I guess, but still... Lee Adama is the final cylon. However, before that I wanted to share a hypothetical I thought up while I was wasting time considering who might be the final cylon if it were not Lee Adama, which was, necessarily, a waste of time because Lee Adama is the final cylon. But, regardless...

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again - this is the religious mantra of humanity in Battlestar Galactica. The Dying Leader, the Temple of the Five, the Eye of Jupiter, Kobol - its all happened before, and its all happening now. And, according to the scripture, it will all happen again.

But, what exactly is "it?" Well, what prompted the great journey? An attack on humanity by the Cylons, nearly wiping out the entire race, as they flee across the galaxy to their new home. And what happened before? Humanity, for reasons unknown, had to flee Kobol. But if this has all happened before, shouldn't that mean we know why? Indeed, if this has all happened before, and will all happen again, then humanity must have fled Kobol because of a Cylon attack.

Of course, that wouldn't be possible, as Cylons were invented by humanity long after the human race fled Kobol. But what if the human race as it now exists was not the human race as it existed on Kobol? What if, in fact, the human race as it now exists are the decendants of those attacking Cylons?

I'll get back to that point in a moment, but first let's condier what we know about the Cylons who attacked the 12 colonies. We know they have 7 human-like skin-job models, who are in practially every way indistinguishable from humans. We know that these models, and the "hybrids" which control their baseships and spew forth prophetic ramblings were created by research on a handful of humans captured in the waning days of the first Cylon war. We know these 7 models are incapable of reproducing with each other, and have mostly proved incapable of reproducing with humans, with one exception.

And what do we know of the final 5? We know they are capable of reproducing with Cylons, as did Tigh with Caprica-6. We know they are capable of reproducing with humans, as did Tyrol with Cally. And we know that the offspring of a final 5 Cylon and a human is indistinguishable from a human child - Doc Cottle raised many alarm bells about Hera, the one known half-human half-Cylon, but said nothing about Nicholas, Tyrol and Cally's baby.

So, back to my first point: what happened before, and what will happen again? Perhaps it is the attack by the robotic race on the creators, the flight of the remnants of the creators, pursued by their creations, to a legendary new homeworld. Perhaps it happened before, and that is what caused the flight from Kobol. But instead of the robotic creations being the Cylons, they were humanity.

Suppose a "pre-human" race inhabited Kobol, and created a robotic slave race. This race became self aware, waged war, and eventually developed new technologies creating models which in every way appeared like these "pre-humans." When the "pre-human" flight reached their new home, Caprica, the two groups converged. And among these "pre-humans" existed a few individual "final" humans, who posessed the uncanny ability to reproduce with the "pre-human" model humans. After all, if this has all happened before, than these "pre-humans" were just the decendants of the robotic menace of the "pre-pre-humans" who had fled to Kobol.

In other words, here's what has happened before, and will happen again: A part-organic part-machine race grows, thinking itself entirely organic. It develops machines, those machines become self aware and revolt. Those machines develop part-organic models that are largely indistinguishable from their creator race. The created race nearly wipes out the creator race, which then flees to a legendary new world. The two races converge. Among the creator race are a handful of individuals who can reproduce with the part-organic models of the created race. Those organic created and those creators become the forefathers of a new race. The new race forgets it is part-machine. The cycle begins anew.

And, if this is the case, than the final Cylon is necessarily Helo - who was, let us not forget, on the basestar when D'Anna insisted only four were in the fleet.

Helo is the father of the only human-Cylon mixed-race child. Nicholas is not one, as his blood did not contain the unusual antigens that were in Hera's body. And Hera is a figure of incredible spiritual importance to Cylons and to the Cylon God - the first of the new generation.

This would explain why the Farms didn't work, not because love was missing - certainly there must be humans around in the BSG universe who can tell you that, tragically, you can indeed reproduce without love - it was because none of the captured human women were one of the final five.

And the final five aren't Cylons - they're people with a special genetic code that allows them to reproduce with Cylons. If they aren't Cylons though, how could a switch be flipped? Because humans are part machines, and this would have certainly become clear during the experiments to create the Cylon hybrids and the 7 Cylon skin-jobs. They would have been able to identify what human genetic material would be able to successfully mate with the Cylon skin-job genetic material, and they would have been able to construct some sort of radio-wave that would be able to communicate with those humans. And that information could have been left embedded in the hybrids.

All that could be true - except, Lee Adama is the final Cylon, so it can't be. Still, its an interesting idea.

Professional Amateur Atheletes

2009-01-07T23:29:00.001-05:00

I'm really not adding much to the conversation here, so I'll keep it short. But with the NCAA Football National Championship Game tomorrow, at least I'm being topical.

Certain college sports, especially football and men's basketball, are huge businesses. The Universities bring in huge money from them. One of the biggest stars in college football right now is Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Florida Gators. Despite being a dominant college football player, Tebow is generally not considered a top-rate pro prospect. Many people seem to think he needs to switch positions, and most don't see him as a first round pick.

Colt Brennan was a Heisman Trophy contender last year. In three years at Hawaii he threw 1584 passes, completing 70.4% of them for 14,193 yards, and 131 touchdowns. He went undrafted this past year in the NFL.

There are many many more players who are stars in the NCAA, but for whatever reason won't be able to make it in the NFL. The situation is even worse in basketball, given that NFL teams carry 53 men on their active rosters, plus a 8-man practice squad, while NBA rosters consist of only 15.

Tim Tebow 3rd place finisher for the 2008 Heisman Trophy (finishing only 8% behind the winner of the award) made $0 this year for his services as quarterback of the SEC Champion and possible NCAA Champion Florida Gators. Last year, when Tebow won the Heisman, he also made $0.

Without Tebow, a Florida player would not have won the Heisman Trophy last year, the Florida Gators would not have won the SEC this year, and they would not be playing for a national championship tomorrow. Tim Tebow's contributions have netted the University of Florida far far more thsn $0.

The indentured servitude that is NCAA athletics, especially in Football and Basketball, is absolutely immoral. Superstar college atheletes in major sports are worth a great deal of money to their universities. And they deserve to be paid for their contributions to their universities.

The 111th Senate

2009-01-05T23:34:00.002-05:00

A while back, Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com had a post up about how various Senators voted on the auto bailout*, and how that might be a preview of which Senators were likely to defect in the upcoming congress. Nate's post was interesting, but I was a bit disappointed at the lack of analysis of the effect, especially given that Nate was writing this. So, naturally, being the numbers geek I am, I decided to do it myself.

I started by compiling a list of all 78 Senators who:

Voted on the bailout bill
Were not lame ducks
Had not announced their planned retirement before their next election
Were, at the time of the vote, not leaving the Senate for a cabinet post

Nate's basic hypothesis was that a Senator's vote (V) would be roughly determined by their political party (P), Obama's margin of victory in their state (O), and by how many years they had until re-election. Accordingly, for each Senator I collected their party (assigning Lieberman and Sanders as Democrats), margin of Obama victory, class (i.e., how many years until re-election), and how they voted for the bailout bill. I also colelcted their state, for a counter hypothesis I had which I will discuss below. Votes were coded as 1 for Yea and 0 for Nea. Parties were coded 1 for Democrat and 0 for Republican.

I ran a linear regression estimation for

V = a*P + b*O + c

where a, b, and c are constants esitmated by the linear regression. I did a separate regression for each class of senators, and came up with results that looked pretty good for Nate's hypothesis:

Class III (election in 2010): V = .44*P + 1.14*O + .286
Class I (election in 2012): V = .53*P + .81*O + .303
Class II (election in 2014) V = .64*P + .78*O .231

So, the longer a senator has until his next election, the less he cares about Obama's margin of victory, and the more he is likely to care about his own party - exactly what Nate hypothesized.

The value of V at which a senator should be voting Yea is 0.5, as a Yea was coded as a 1, and a Nay a 0. However, it didn't quite work out that way. Instead, 0.3 seemed to be the more accurate predictor. Only 6 Senators (3 from each party) with a vote-score above 0.3 voted Nay, while only 1 with a vote-score below 0.3 voted Yea. Based on this model, the senators most likely to defect from each party are, in order of likelihood:

Republicans:

Olympia Snowe (ME)
John Ensign (NV)
Arlen Specter (AP)
Judd Gregg (NH)
Charles Grassley (IA)

Democrats:

Blanche Lincoln (AR)
Byron Dorgan (ND)

Note that every single Republican on that list had a vote-score closer to .5 than did Byron Dorgan.

Now, as I mentioned above, I had a counter-hypothesis. I thought that, instead of being about Obama's popularity, the auto bailout was more about regional voting. My hypothesis was that Rust Belt Senators would be likely to vote in favor, while Southern Senators (from states which house foreign auto manufacturers) would be more likely to vote against. So I organized the states into regions and found the following results:

Five of the six Republican Senators from New England (defined as New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) and the Rust Belt (defined as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, and Michigan) voted for the bailout bill. The lone defector from that group was Judd Gregg (NH).
Five of the six Republicans who voted for the bailout were from New England or the Rust Belt - the only other was Kit Bond (R-MO).
There are three Democratic Senators from the Deep South (defined as Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi). Two of them were just re-elected. The third, Blanche Lincoln, is up for election in 2010, and voted against the bailout.

The only other Democrats to vote against the bailout bill were both Montana Senators, Jon Tester and Max Baucus. I have no idea what's going on with them.

At any rate, it would seem that there was, indeed, a regional effect going on. And the effect might be stronger than any effect of Obama's popularity on the vote - both John Ensign and Chuck Grassley had high vote-scores, yet neither voted 'yea' on the bailout bill.

My final conclusion: Nate's hypothesis might very well be right, but the auto bailout bill is a poor vote on which to test it.

* - By "a while back" I mean "when the auto bailout was actually a contemporary and relevant topic. Note to self...

Why I Don't Blog Israel

2008-12-29T17:12:00.003-05:00

The short answer is probably that I've had a blog for all of 6 months, 5 of which were spent not blogging. The long answer is more like "why I don't get into political discussions about Israel."

I've got two posts in the can that have been waiting to be written for a couple weeks now - one on BSG, and one a reaction to an increasingly old 538 post. I'll probably get the prior out before the New Year, and the latter out around the time the new congress gets sworn in (so it'll be quasi-topical again). But, given recent events, I feel somewhat compelled to write this one.

On most issues, the policy space is filled with a large-enough chunk of John Rawls reasonable actors that a discussion of the issues makes sense. Sure, there are wide swaths of extremists on both sides, behind a wall of thier views which no amount of logic can penetrate, but they usually don't constitute a majority - or, at least, a large enough so that discussion isn't productive.

For some reason, any discussion about Palestinian terrorist attacks towards Israel or Israeli response towards Palestine makes normally rational people into the extremists who won't listen to a damn thing you have to say.

I've tried discussing the Israel-Palestine situtation in the past with many of my fellow tribesmen (for the goyem out there: that means Jews). I've tried rational and strageic appeals about how Israel's response is counterproductively radicalizing the Palestinains. I've tried moral appeals about the asymmetry of power, the immorality of targeting civilians, and how "they did it first" can never make it right. I've even tried religious appeals, mustering all of my limited memories of Jewish "Sunday School" (usually on a weeknight, mind you) to point out that the sort of response that Israel all-too-often falls back on is just not the Jewish thing to do. None of it works. All too often, instead of engaging in a thoughtful debate, they'll just wall off. I don't get it, but for some of my fellow Jews - people who are otherwise the very model of the typical Jewish liberal - nothing about Israel can ever be questioned.

But, of course, its not a one-sided thing. Not to be outdone by the blindly pro-Israel cohort, there's another set who can only ever see the harm done by Israel. Every harm done by Hamas, Fatah, or whatever other group can be explained away. Every possible slight by Israel must be magnified and condemned.

I generally haven't gotten into many debates with these folks, but that's not because I don't find their positions equally indefensible. Its because Palestinian attacks don't make the news. Hamas was busy shooting rockets at Israel before Israel decided to go insane in retaliation. Now, the rockets weren't hitting anything, so maybe that's why it wasn't a big deal - if it bleeds, it leads, after all.

And its not that terrorist attacks on Israel don't get reported. If someone straps a bomb to themselves and blows up a bus in Tel Aviv you can bet it'll lead the 7 o'clock. But we all know what'll be coming next - if Hamas kills 20 on a bus, Israel will kill 50 with an airstrike. And, again, I'll find myself having to argue with the pro-Israel hardliners that Israels actions are just as bad.

Now, maybe you'd think that you could escape this insanity by stepping outside of the Jewish community. Sadly, no. Probably thanks, in large part, to the AIPACs of the world calling anybody who dares question Israel anti-semetic, the rest of the population is polarized too. Either Israel can do no wrong, or Israel can do no right.

There's no point to discussing what's going on in Israel right now. The immorality and strategic innanity of Israel's widely disproportionate response are plain. The fact that there has to be a discussion to establish this proves how pointless the discussion is in the first place.

This post has obviously had a slant further to the side of "Israel is wrong" than "Hamas is wrong." In part that's because the AIPAC set are "serious people" while the "Israel can do no right" set are dirty fucking hippies. As such, only one side ever gets their views aired publicly. That's also probably why I ended up arguing with the AIPACers more. But it doesn't matter. Neither side is going to listen to a word you, I, or anyone has to say.

Instead, they'll read blog posts like this and send flames calling me a neo-con war criminal, or an anti-semite self-hater. Thank God I only have ~~zero~~ two readers.

Ethics of Gift Receiving

2008-12-25T21:53:00.003-05:00

When most people bat about the ol' "it's the thought that counts" phraseology, its generally used as sort of an excuse for a bad gift. However, it shouldn't be understood as excusing a bad gift - rather, it's an imperative to the recipient of the gift.

A few years ago, my mother gave me a ton of iPod accessories for Hanukkah, along with a receipt from the apple store in case I didn't want them. My brother commented on the absurdity of the situation, but truth be told I didn't want them, and was glad for the opportunity to return them for something I might enjoy. Then, a few days later, it hit me how right my brother was.

When someone buys you a gift, they put thought into it - no matter whether they spend a whole day souring store after store, or if they just see something that they think you might like and grab it at the last minute. We buy each other gifts because we think that the particular recipient will appreciate it, because of their personality, their tastes, their hobbies... for whatever reason, we think it will bring joy into their lives. And with that thought comes a responsibility on the part of the gift recipient to enjoy the gift in the manner intended.

This includes the old wear-the-ugly-sweater-when-grandma-comes-to-town routine, but it goes beyond that. When someone buys you a gift, your obligation is to try to figure out why they thought you would enjoy it, and to then do your best to enjoy it in the manner the giver intended. We give gifts to bring joy into each other's lives. Accordingly, we should receive gifts in a manner to bring joy into our own lives. Indeed, we have an obligation to do so.

I threw away the receipt from the apple store without looking at it, and made as much use of the gadgets my parents had gotten me as I could. The JBL On Stage speaker/dock system is still sitting on my desk, stage-right of my laptop as I type, even though it won't interface with my iPhone - its still how I charge my nano, and its speakers may yet get a few more workouts in their lifetime. The monster cable 16th-inch-to-RCA-adapter, entirely superfluous given my exessive audio cable collection, has continued to be my go-to cable, even as the RCA plugs have started to fall apart. The remaining gadgets have stopped working in the last 5 years, but I made every effort to use them all as much as I could when I had them, even when I had already owned something which did the trick just as well.

Truth be told, I was perfectly happy playing my MP3s on my computer and charging my iPod in the wall socket. But that wasn't the point - my parents wanted to enhance the joy I got from my MP3s and my iPod, and I had (and still have) the obligation to use those gifts as they were intended.

Ethics of Gift Giving

2008-12-23T16:15:00.004-05:00

The Economic Theory of Gift Giving states that, unless you give cash, you're being inefficient. There's no way that you can spend $X on someone better than they could spend it themselves. Sometimes people suggest that you can get away with giving people stuff they need anyways, like batteries or stamps (especially stamps - they come in designs that you can tailor to the recipient!) but, still, you don't know what percentage of the person's annual bundle of goods is going to be devoted to stamps or batteries, so you might easily overbuy. Plus, time-value of money, etc., etc.

Of course, this is obviously the bunk. If you can't see why, try giving your significant other a bunch of batteries for Christmas. Especially if you're a dude.*

So, once we've established that gift giving is, and should be, inefficient, what does that tell us about gift-giving? Well, my theory has long been that, ideally, a gift should have a very high value-to-utility ratio.

And what do I mean by value-to-utility ratio? Well, let's suppose someone really likes chess. If they don't have a lot of disposable income, they might buy a set of cheap plastic chess pieces and a foldable vinyl chess mat. Its not particularly nice, but it gets the job done. High utility, low value.

If you were to shop for a gift for this person, perhaps you might buy them a very nice ornate chess set. They would certainly appreciate it. However, the new chess set would have no additional value over the vinyl-mat-and-plastic-piece set they already have. Both sets get the job of playing chess done quite fine. Thus, the utility remains the same - and, in fact, the marginal utility is almost zero. However, the new chess set has very high value - especially for a chess enthusiast. Thus, the high value-to-utility ratio.

So, the take home? If you're going to spend $X on someone for a gift, you should try to put as much of that $X into getting something *nice* rather than something *useful*. When you give a gift, get something that someone would love, but would never get themself. If you don't, then you're doing the one thing you should never do when giving someone a gift: being efficient.

* - Given that I have ~~zero~~ two readers, this part of the post is surplussage, but whatever.

Sexism - Ann Arbor Style Pt. 2

2008-12-17T14:43:00.007-05:00

Following up on its previous guffawing post, AtL has published an email sent out anonymously to the Michigan Law community by the law student sex worker assaulted by a Michigan professor. Thankfully, this time AtL did so without comment - I might prefer some words of support for the victim, but given what happened last time, I think this might be the best we can hope for.

And, as it turns out (as anyone with half a brain would have guessed) the "assault" described in the original article and reported by the police is a tad bit under-descriptive:

Most of you probably don't know what it's like to push a boxcutter into your own wrist and neck. Or what it's like to walk home from the psych ward, and set to the task of cleaning a room covered in your own blood. Or how humiliating and degrading it is to be penetrated against your will.

Ahh, yes, describing a rape victim as an assault victim who got beat about the face a little bit. You stay classy Ann Arbor PD. Oh wait, you already are:

It's clear to me now that the AAPD thinks this is funny. That's why they're not going through with the assault charge.

What Michigan 2L Sexual Assault Victim doesn't understand is that it is funny. Because she's a Law Student. And she was raped by a professor. While she was selling sex to pay her tuition.

And she went to the police because she thought they would do their job and investigate the crime, instead of making jokes at her expense in the press.

Get it?

A Small Request.

2008-12-14T23:19:00.004-05:00

Could Circuit City hurry up and go out of business, so I no longer have to watch their "creepy dude has feminine leggy TV pimped out to him by Circuit City employee" ad campaign?

kthxbye

Bizarre Language Conventions

2008-12-13T22:32:00.005-05:00

Over at TPM, there's a link on the right panel to a Chicago Sun-Times article entitled "Blago Could Decide Future By Monday." The link itself says "Report: Blago Could Decide Plans Monday."

I often make use of the "may or may not" linguistic construction myself, and I'm aware that things like "could decide" or "may or may not be" indicate that a possibility of something exists, where the default assumption would be that its not there. However, its still the case that saying "Blago Could Decide Future By Monday" is to say that Blagojevich could, theoretically, decide to resign, and that Monday is a day in the future.

Sexism - Ann Arbor Style

2008-12-12T17:16:00.008-05:00

Sgt. Roger Kinsey, FTW!

The University of Michigan is investigating one of its associate professors accused of paying a U-M Law School student for sexual acts after meeting her online, officials said...

The case came to light in April when the student went to an Ann Arbor police station to report she was assaulted by [Prof. Yaron] Eliav after they met at a hotel on the city's north side. The student told police she was advertising sex acts online via Craigslist to help pay tuition costs...

The rarity of how the case began - with a law student showing up at the police department's front desk to report she was assaulted while committing a crime herself - was not lost on investigators.

"Perhaps she should have cracked a legal textbook before coming in to the police station to talk about this," Ann Arbor Detective Sgt. Richard Kinsey said.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Get it? Because she's a law student! And, because she was selling sex, the police can ignore the fact that she may well be the victim of an assault and crack jokes at her expense! Who doesn't like a good old fashioned game of Shame the Slut?

Usually, when I come across a quote like this, I'd expect it to be in the context of a blog post on modern sexism, probably by Ezra (Klein Sucks!), Matt (Yglesias Rules!) or SpAckerman. As a general rule, I don't expect to find them in posts laughing right along with the police officers on Above the Law.

Normally, I'd credit AtL with a hat tip, but there's nothing about the sexism in the AtL post that deserves a tip of the hat.

Why We Need Universal Health Care

2008-12-08T15:02:00.004-05:00

Noted without comment:

Starla D. Darling, 27, was pregnant when she learned that her insurance coverage was about to end. She rushed to the hospital, took a medication to induce labor and then had an emergency Caesarean section, in the hope that her Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan would pay for the delivery.
...
Ms. Darling and Wendy Carter are among 275 people who worked at an Archway cookie factory here in north central Ohio. The company provided excellent health benefits. But the plant shut down abruptly this fall, leaving workers without coverage, like millions of people battered by the worst economic crisis since the Depression.
About 10.3 million Americans were unemployed in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of unemployed has increased by 2.8 million, or 36 percent, since January of this year, and by 4.3 million, or 71 percent, since January 2001.

h/t Yglesias (Klein sucks, Yglesias rules!)

Lee Adama is the Final Cylon

2008-12-06T10:28:00.010-05:00

Alright, I'm calling it. The fifth of the Final Five Cylons in Battlestar Galactica is Lee Adama.

As all ~~zero~~ two of my readers are aware, the primary promotional material for the second half of season 4 of BSG has been this image:

And, to compare, here is a non-original-copy-but-close-enough-and-way-easier-to-see version of the last supper:

Now a lot of effort over the interwebs has gone into comparing these two and analyzing them. However, what most people have missed is the fact that the BSG image is flipped horizontally. To wit:

Before I go on, there are three things I ought to address:

First - while I did identify this flip independently, I was not the first to do so. ShadyWriter's post also contains some analysis of the flip, which is very similar to the analysis I initially did, identifying the "grail" cup as the spot for the missing Cylon, and tying it to Philip. According to both ShadyWriter and wikipedia, Philip is always listed fifth among the disciples. As will be made clear below, I thnk the "grail" is a red herring, and Lee Adama corresponds to Philip, but if you think I'm the bunk, then his post is another good analysis that wouldn't be.

Second - The following analysis is based heavily on comparing characters in Battlestar Galactica to several of the disciples of Jesus. I'm Jewish, and basically only know what wikipedia tells me. Take my analysis with as many grains of salt as you like.

Third - Furthermore, I haven't even gotten past the middle of season 3 in my viewing of BSG yet, and, again, wikipedia. So, yeah, really, many grains of salt.

Ok, moving along:

Listing the similarities, left to right, we have:

Both Bartholomew and Adama at the left end leaning in
Immediately to the right are James the Lesser/Helo with their arm around Andrew/Athena
The hand immediately to the right of Andrew/Athena holds a dagger, to the left of the shoulder of the next person.
Anders kissing Starbuck puts them in a position very similar to Peter and John.
John and Starbuck are both leaning at a very similar angle
Jesus and Head 6 are both looking towards their left/the viewer's right
A hand is extending out towards the left from the group of 3 at the far right.
Ronald D. Moore has said that Tigh's positioning shows him turining a "blind eye" to events. Matthew, positioned 3rd from the right like Tigh, is turned away from Jesus, looking to Simon.
Both Simon and Roslyn are leaning away.

There's also something interesting going on with the knife here. In the Last Supper, the knife is held by Peter, who is leaning in so that his hand and body are to the outside of Judas, while his head is to the inside. There is no similar crossover in the BSG picture. However, the knife vertically aligns pretty precisely with Judas' bag of silver. This vertical alignment is actually rather telling, because the whole picture is very very precisely vertically aligned:

EVERYBODY is almost exactly vertically aligned with one of the disciples. And many of the alignments make sense.

To wit, Baltar is aligned with Thomas, who wikipedia tells me is known for questioning and disbelieving Jesus' proclamations about his death and resurrection, demanding to touch Jesus' wounds before believing him, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" upon receiving proof. This is not unlike a certain Gaius Baltar, who consistently questioned the proclamations and divinity of Head 6 and the Cylon God for much of the series, and tends to have a thing for tangible proof (not surprising for a scientist).

Also, Cait, who knows more about both Christianity and BSG than I do, assures me that Starbuck and John are also a tremendously good fit.

Once we realize this, we're left with the conclusion that the "grail" is a red herring. In fact, this makes sense - conspicuous by its absence in the original last supper is a grail of any kind. The missing gap isn't to the ouside of Lee, its to his INSIDE!

So the missing disciple isn't Philip, its James the Greater. But who does this align with? Well, like the grail in The Last Supper, there is one person conspicuous by their absence in the BSG picture: Tory Foster.

"But, wait!" - you say - "Tory can't be the last Cylon! She's ALREADY known as one of the final five!"... Well, no, you don't say that, because you read the title of this post and you know where I'm going with this.

Be that as it may, we're still left with an important question: Why are we assuming that the missing person is the final Cylon? Because Roger D. Moore said so? Well, uh, hate to burst your bubble there, kid, but no he didn't:

Someone is indeed absent from the table, admits Moore: "We have not yet revealed the final [unknown] Cylon." Does that mean the people already at the table aren't the final Cylon? Moore laughs. "You ferreted that out pretty slyly. I didn't really want to give that away."

Yeah, that's not really saying "yes" now is it? In fact, its exactly the sort of thing you might say if the answer was "yes," but you didn't want to say something that would lead people to think the answer is "yes." If you don't want to confirm it, then things like "Yes" or "No Comment" are out the window.

So, why Tory for James the Greater? Well, there are a few reasons. For starters, why the heck wouldn't Tory be a part of the picture in the first place? She's one of the final five Cylons - the other three that we know about are all at the table, and the last spot is generally assumed to be for the unknown Cylon. It would be odd to only include four of the five at the table.

If Tory were to be placed in the image, the natural spot would be by Baltar. Both the Starbuck-Anders and Helo-Athena couples are next to each other. In season 4, from what I understand, Tory and Baltar develop a relationship. Based on the placement of the other two established couples with each other, the natural placement for Tory would be by Baltar.

Finally, there's something of a fit between Tory and James the Greater. James was one of the first two disciples to join Jesus. Tory (again, from what I understand), more than any of the other final five, has embraced being a Cylon, and was the only one who immediately went to join the Cylons when D'Anna arrived to offer the Cylons in the colonial fleet sanctuary.

So, if Tory is the missing participant, and corresponds to James the Greater, then the final Cylon is one of the people already at the table. So, why Lee Adama? Because he is vertically aligned with Philip.

As noted above, Philip is always listed fifth among the disciples. Wikipedia further informs that Philip is identified as being from the same town as Andrew (Athena) and Peter (Anders) - both Cylons.

But maybe I'm just wrong about this vertical alignment thing, and the "grail" isn't a red herring - that's actually the seat for the final Cylon. After all, just looking at this in order would seat Philip there.

However, there's one last thing which connects Lee to Philip. According to Wikipedia, Philip is also associated with Bartholomew. In fact, Bartholomew is only ever mentioned in the company of Philip.

And who is Bartholomew in the BSG last supper?

William Adama.

Lee Adama is the final Cylon.

Solidarity Forever (or: The Free Market Roots of Wage Stagnation and Income Inequality)

2008-12-04T12:23:00.010-05:00

Or: The Post in Which I Totally Needlessly Use the "Title (Or: Alternate Title)" Convention

So, I was going to wait until after finals to re-start Cheeto Dust, furiously post for two days, realize I have nothing to say, and close up shop all over again - but then, while making lunch, I had the following train of thought, and decided that the mediocre and uninsightful ramblings of a man whose economic training consists of an introductory macroeconomics course at Carnegie Mellon University is something for which the interwebs (or, at least, my ~~zero~~, err, two readers) can no longer wait!

So, hey, no big secret, but I think these "computer" and "internet" things are gonna be big. Productivity in the last, say, 15-20 years has probably grown pretty f'n astronomically, and pretty consistently so over any sub-period of that timeframe. Yet, at the same time, wage inequality has also grown astronomically, while median income has pretty much stagnated (especially so over the past 8 years). If you want to get an idea of just how much the benefits of the productivity boom have gone to those at the top... well, I don't have the numbers or charts handy, but just go search Matt or Ezra a bit and you'll have no trouble finding them. (Klein Sucks! Yglesias Rules!*)

Anyway, while chipping off bits of my big block of parmigiano-reggiano, I was thinking about the market failure of this all, and how it'd make another good entry for my continuing series: "How to Talk to a Libertarian (If You Must)." As such:

Productivity goes up => Value of 1 man-hour of labor goes up
Value of 1 man-hour of labor goes up *SHOULD* => Cost of 1 man-hour of labor goes up
Value of 1 man-hour of labor goes up & Cost of 1 man-hour of labor stagnates => *MARKET FAIL*

And, thus, the libertarians are chastened, and we all celebrate into the night while burning Ayn Rand in effigy. Huzzah!

Unfortunately, I then realized this factor as well:

Productivity goes up => Cost of produced goods goes down
Cost of goods goes down => Joe the ~~Plumber~~ Factory Worker needs less money to buy a basic bundle of goods
Joe needs less money => Joe's opportunity costs go down (i.e., since Joe needs less money, Joe can willingly take a job that pays less and still get by)
Joe's opportunity costs go down => Cost of 1 hour of Joe-labor goes down.

So, what does all this increased productivity mean? Well, if my one semester of introductory macroeconomics taught me anything, its that People = Pig Iron, and we can model this all with supply and demand curves!

Because one man-hour of labor produces more, one man-hour is worth more, so people will want to buy more man-hours (men-hour?). Ergo, demand curve shifts right!

At the same time, products are cheaper, so people's opportunity costs are down, and they're willing to supply one man-hour for less. Ergo (because I need to be symmetrical, natch), supply curve shifts left! And what do we get? Equipoise!**

So, in other words, as we continue to follow Moore's Law and double our technology every year-and-a-half, the benefits will all accrue to our Capitalist overlords thanks to the magical invisible hands of the free market. Its enough to make you want to go read a Manga adaptation of Das Kapital.***

* This is an inside joke - population: Me. I may use it again in the future. You have been warned.

** Well, realistically, probably not, but close enough for blogging.

*** The Answer? Well, I've got a suggestion...

UPDATE: Relatedly, this. Yet more evidence that Klein sucks, Yglesias rules.

LIKE, A WEEK LATER UPDATE: Right! Supply curve shifts Right! Equipoise in wage, but more people employed! Man, I can't believe I mistyped that...

The Mandatory, Masturbatory, "OMG I'M RE-STARTING MY BLOG ROFL!!!!1!!!11!!ONEONE" Post

2008-12-04T12:17:00.002-05:00

Blame Cait and Fletcher.

Also, in case anybody needs a refresher on the oh-so-clever* naming of this blog:

* - By clever, I may or may not mean "unoriginal and kinda lame."

There's Legroom...

2008-07-26T14:10:00.002-04:00

...and then there's the exit-aisle window seat on the Airbus 319. The tray table, however, leaves something to be desired.

How to Talk to a Libertarian (If You Must)

2008-07-26T09:15:00.000-04:00

And now, another entry in our continuing series on the epic stupidity of dead-end libertarians:

I'm old enough to remember the days when gas had different prices for cash and credit. The reason for this is, of course, is that credit card companies take a cut out of every transaction.

Of course, nowadays credit cards are so ubiquitous that no store owner dare put a different price for credit than cash. Can you imagine the uproar if a local grocery store had different prices for cash and credit? While some people might notice that the new "cash-only" prices were cheaper, most people would find it repugnant, as would their water-cooler buddies, and would just go to the other store down the street. In short, it would be unilateral disarmament, and the store would lose business.

But the thing is, if a store did that it'd be *lowering its prices*. The credit card fees are built in across the board right now, and we're paying them whether we use cash or credit. What's more, they're invisible. We don't see the price of using credit cards. And even if we did, its not like we could avoid them. So we're in a position where we may as well just use whatever's convinient - if we individually try to behave better to lower prices, then everybody else is a freerider.

So, to recap: we don't see the cost of using credit cards, if a store individually changes to a model with a surcharge for using credit they'd lose business, and the costs are shifted onto everybody encouraging indiscriminate credit card usage. Who wins from all this? Why, credit card companies of course.

The point of all this isn't to bitch and moan about The Evil Corporations(tm), but to demonstrate a massive failure of the infallible free market. Of course, the government could mandate that all retailers accepting credit dierectly pass on the percentage paid to the credit card companies in the form of a surcharge equal to what they'd pay the credit card companies. Not only would this make transparent the costs of credit card use, allowing the market to work its magic, but it would also have the long term effect of reducing credit card surcharges. Of course, that would require the evil verboten government regulations. What's a poor libertarian to do?

(And, yes, to my zero readers, I realize that the politics of the regulation I proposed are awful and it would never pass. Its used as an example to demonstrate the incoherence of dead-end libertarianism. Don't be an asshat.)

Quote of the Day - June 11, 2003

2008-07-25T16:30:00.003-04:00

Neil Cavuto: ...many argue the conflict isn't over.
John McCain: Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?

(h/t Greg Sargent via Attackerman)

Backyard Sharing

2008-07-25T15:00:00.012-04:00

At first blush, yard sharing (via Yglesias) seems like a pretty good idea. However, after a moment's consideration, I have the following three implementation questions:

How are the houses supposed to be designed which share backyard space? Row houses? Multi-family homes, with independent yard access? Massively tiny street blocks?
How does the tragedy of the commons problem get fixed? In other words, who cuts the grass, and what happens when its the Harrises turn but those freeloading assholes are too lazy?
What happens to these developments the first time someone's kid (white, blond, female kid, of course) gets abducted by a yard-share neighbor and Nancy Grace goes apeshit on the developers?

(And, yes, to my zero readers, I am fully aware that this list is almost certainly incomplete, and doesn't involve even the most serious problem with this idea that you brilliantly pointed out. And I'm also not against the idea, just saying "how does this get fixed." Don't be an asshat).

Thoughts on Lesbian Lyrics

2008-07-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

Does it make me a crumudgeon at the ripe old age of 27.975 years to observe that Jill Sobule far outclasses Katy Perry?

The Mandatory, Masturbatory, "OMG I'M STARTING A BLOG ROFL!!!!1!!!11!!ONEONE" Post

2008-07-25T12:01:00.002-04:00

I'm not going to write one.