A Random Stranger

"Only a Numbskull Thinks He Knows Things About Things He Knows Nothing About"

2012-02-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

Recently a blogger I read--Jeff--has been getting into American football, with disastrous consequences for his blog.

At the beginning of January he blogged about what he considered "pointless" football rules, including such rules as holding, to which I replied with a well-timed, "Say WHAT?"

It's the rules that make the game. There are no "pointless" rules in football, because without those rules, it's no longer the same game. Football allows for blocking, but not holding or tackling anyone who is not carrying the ball. That's what football officials, players, and fans want their game to be. You can't allow for indiscriminate holding without dramatically changing the game.

Let's say we agree to play Uno. I say, "Let's change one rule: instead of calling out 'Uno,' I slap you across the face as hard as I want." You might demure. Why? We're still playing Uno, right? I thought you said you wanted to play.

A month later, Jeff blogged again about football, specifically about Ahmad Bradshaw's awesomely-graceless ass-first Super-Bowl-winning touchdown. After quoting an extensive analysis regarding whether or not Bradshaw should have tried to not score on the play, Jeff writes, "Shouldn’t Bradshaw have just stood there on the 1 (far away enough that he can’t be pushed in) and then cross over at the last second?" Again I ask, "Say WHAT?"

Does Jeff think Bradshaw could spend a minute standing on the field, letting the clock tick away, without getting tackled or pushed into the end zone? I don't see how anyone who has watched more than five minutes of American football can consider this sane advice.

What this teaches me is just how ridiculous my blogging must sound to those who know more about my topics than I do. And since I'm not a leading expert in any field, that means ALL my topics are ones I don't know enough about to be allowed to blog them. Including the topic of "how much knowledge should a person have before he's allowed to blog on a subject?" But then, if a blog isn't for sharing embarrassingly ill-informed opinions, what is it for?

Post title from the movie The Hudsucker Proxy.

Bloomberg Murders Thousands

2012-02-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

Michael Bloomberg says the Mormon church is running an illegal-gun-sale website. A bold accusation. What's his evidence. Well, the church owns KSL, Salt Lake City's NBC affiliate. KSL has a website. The website allows for classified ads. The classified ads allow for buyer and seller to interact away from the oversight of KSL. Boom! The church is OBVIOUSLY putting "profits over principle," as one anonymous official linked to the investigation puts it.

Allowing adults to interact with other adults is now a problem. Refusing to bear responsibility for the decisions of non-affiliates now is a mark against a church. Apparently Bloomberg thinks an organization is responsible for all the decisions of those who use its facilities.

Bloomberg's city provides public streets. Some who use those streets sell drugs and shoot people ON THOSE VERY STREETS! [Hyperventilate!] Bloomberg is obviously responsible for every murder to occur on New York streets during his tenure as mayor, right? But perhaps the mayor would argue, "Adults make decisions and are responsible for them."

Messiah-in-Chief

2012-02-10T12:27:00.000-05:00

The president recently argued in favor of a progressive tax code, "But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus's teaching that `for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'" He gets half-credit for his attempted possessive construction, but he then loses that credit for his confusion on who does the requiring.

The Jesus quote in question comes from a parable found in Luke, Chapter 12. Jesus explains the parable to Peter, and in verses 47 and 48, says this:

And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

The giving and the requiring are done by the lord of the parable, who is a stand-in for God. Rich men didn't get rich through the beneficence of their fellow man or their government. God can "require" something of a man, but his fellow man (and I would respectfully submit to the president that he still counts as a "fellow man") cannot.

Progressive taxation is based on envy and theft. Yes, millionaires should give more to help the poor, but it must be voluntary. Progressive tax rates would use theft as a tool of virtue and violate the basic principle of equal protection under the law. If the government doesn't know what tax bracket to put me in until they know who I am, the government is not dispensing blind justice.

Book Advice

2012-02-09T13:12:00.000-05:00

My sister bought a bookstore gift card for my birthday, then lost it, so she gave me a space heater for my home office. Well, last week she found the gift card. If our roles had been reversed in this story, it would end with, "and I bought myself a brand-new book." I mean, after all, a gift had already been given. But because my sister suffers under noblesse oblige, she gave the gift card to me, too.

So now I need to know which book I should buy. I have a few options for you to vote. (This is a non-binding plebiscite, and I feel no compunction about ignoring the results.)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.
A Goodreads friend recently marked this book as "to read" and it looked intriguing to me, but I have no idea if it's good or not.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.
“The book is a masterpiece. Most popular science books are 10% substance, 90% fluff. Kahneman reverses those percentages - yet remains a breezy joy to read. Thinking taught me much about material I already thought I knew well.” – Bryan Caplan.
Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, by Charles Murray.
“So, I downloaded Coming Apart. I am not disappointed. It is well argued.” – Arnold Kling.
The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson.
My sister's recommendation. I'm into monetary theory, but some of the reviews of this book say it's just a tie-in to a related PBS series. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad book.

Cast your ballots now! And don't be confused by the post label "contest;" there will be no prizes for you. That's just the post label I use for soliciting feedback.

"Beggin' for a Piece of That Bubble"

2012-02-09T12:56:00.000-05:00

How Thick Is Your Bubble?

Not Provided

Score » 11 out of 20 (55% )
Result

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.

In other words, even if you're part of the new upper class, you've had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.

Quiz School

Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Quizzes

Hmm, maybe this isn't the type of bubble Sir Mix-A-Lot was talking about.

It turns out that all of the outside-the-bubble experiences of my life were a direct result of poverty. I worked on a factory floor because the office job I had lined up fell through and we were going to starve. That wasn't a culturally-broadening experience; it was a terrible time in my life.

Post title from "Baby Got Back."

This Is America

2012-02-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

"Twelve percent of men and 10 percent of women say they personally have been in a situation where paternity testing was 'appropriate,' according to a recent survey of 1,039 people conducted for Identigene, the Utah firm that markets direct-to-consumer DNA tests." This ringing endorsement of the nation comes from an MSNBC article. Later in the article, an expert estimates the actual rate of "misidentified paternity" is 2-to-4 percent in the US. The difference between when it's warranted and when it's thought to be warranted shows the level of trust in long-term relationships.

We've never had a paternity test, because I've been given no reason to suspect I need one. Our kids are smart, tall, and easily depressed, so until I see contradicting traits, I'll assume they're mine.

To cap this post, I think my wife should leave a comment about her BYU roommate who couldn't identify the father of her baby.

Consumer Whores With a Conscience

2012-02-08T12:27:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wanted to read a long newspaper article about people with misplaced values? Then look no further: the Washington Post has a write-up about people who take their granite counter tops way too seriously.

All around the country, couples leave parties and get in their cars and say to each other, “I’m so glad we went with the Santa Cecilia instead of the Kashmir Gold.”
Joyce pauses. She looks concerned.
“I would be more comfortable,” she says, “if we were talking about something that was important.”

Well, at least Joyce realizes she's materialistic.

When I use the phrase "consumer whore," I'm not referring to a person's specific sex. I mean it like in this cartoon, which as far as I can tell was created by Don Hertzfeldt.

Tyler Cowen Would Call This Post "The Culture That Is Northern Virginia"

2012-02-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

A set of parents are being charged for their children's excessive tardiness at public school.

There's a whole lot more I'd normally say about this, but I don't really feel like it right now. And I suspect I won't feel like it for a while, so don't hold your breath waiting for a blog post from me. We'll see.

Commercial Writer

2012-02-06T15:55:00.000-05:00

When I start my own ad agency, I expect everything to be just like it is in Mad Men. (I've never actually seen any of the show, but I know the whole early-60s myth.) And my first three clients will be Valero Energy Corporation, TRESemmé Hair Products, and Don Pablo's Restaurant.

Valero

Set to the tune of Dean Martin's "Volare," the commercial features patrons at a Valero gas station singing, "Valero, whoa-oa-oa. No dinero, whoa-oa-oa. No wonder your happy car sings. Valero has given it wings. Service and gas, snacks and soda real fast, yes Valero has all of these things. When you're in a hurry there's no need to worry, Valero treats all cars like kings. Valero, whoa-oa-oa. No dinero, whoa-oa-oa. Now wonder your happy car sings. Valero has given it wings." Then the Valero logo comes on the screen and the tag line: "Happy cars sing 'Valero.'"

TRESemmé

Set to the tune of The Beatles' "Besame Mucho," a girl with gorgeous hair is walking around town driving men crazy, while a voice sings, "Cha-cha-boom! TRESemmé, TRESemmé mucho. You should use TRESemmé for hair that's truly divine. Yes, TRESemmé, TRESemmé mucho. You can buy TRESemmé for only five-ninety-nine. Cha-cha-boom!"

Don Pablo's

Set to the tune of Madonna's "La Isla Bonita," various tasty Mexican dishes are shown on screen while a voice sings, "Last night I ate at Don Pablo's. Tex-Mex food the way it's meant to be, so good to me. Burritos come with beans and rice, you control how hot the spice. It'd be cheap at twice the price, only at Don Pablo's."

Patent pending!

Ambitious Plans

2012-02-03T07:01:00.000-05:00

Articulate Joe is unhappy that he doesn't have more time to play during the day, so lately he's been coming up with plans to wake up early. He'll wistfully talk about getting up at four or so, and getting in hours of play while the rest of us sleep like fools. Last night in his prayers he asked, "Please make me get up at six."

This morning at six we had this conversation.

A RANDOM STRANGER: [Articulate Joe], do you still want someone to wake you up at six o'clock or do you want to stay in bed?

ARTICULATE JOE: Mmm m'mmmmm.

ARS: Six o'clock?

AJ: [nods]

ARS: It's six o'clock right now.

AJ: [opens his eyes in disbelief at how dark his room is] I'll stay in bed for a little bit.

ARS: Okay, let me tuck you in a little better.

AJ: [rolls over]

The Republican Problem

2012-02-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

Remember when I went to that Tax Day rally and came home to blog about how the Tea Party had been co-opted by run-of-the-mill Republicans? (I don't feel like finding the link for you; stop being such a lame-ass and find it yourself!) Well, that is the problem we're seeing played out in the Republican nomination. I'd say most Republicans want a Tea Party candidate, but all the legitimate Tea Party stars (Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, et cetera) aren't running, and the ones who say they are Tea Party stars are really just regular Republicans who want to protect their jobs. The fact that long-time Washington insider Newt Gingrich is getting ANY Tea Party voters, given his excoriation of the movement in its infancy, shows that just about EVERY vote cast in this Republican primary is being done while holding ones nose.

This explains why so many Republican voters want a new candidate to enter the race, even this late in the game. It would be great if we got an olde-timey convention where, on the 40th ballot, Paul Ryan is nominated. However, I think in the modern world, that process would signal to most voters that the nominee is flawed. It's too bad, because really what's flawed is the entire Republican Party.

Depressing Affirmation

2012-02-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

Then Jesus said unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
John 6:67-8

Things aren't going well. But no other course would be better. I'm reminded of the Milton Friedman quote, "I am unhappy with what I have done but even more unhappy with the most obvious alternative" (Money Mischief, p. 98).

Would I Make the Cut?

2012-01-31T12:34:00.001-05:00

I was recently talking to a man who referenced the case of East German Vera Wollenberger, who reviewed her own secret police file and found out the state's primary informant against her was her husband, Knud. He pointed me to a New York Times story where I read this:

The Stasi maintained files on 6 million of East Germany's 18 million citizens.

Only a third? That's not so bad. Chances are the state has nothing on you. But if America had a similar situation, would I merit inclusion?

Here are the things I'm doing to deserve my own file:

Every time I have a cell phone conversation with my brother, I include the word "jihad."
I advocate radical change in government.
I homeschool.

But I also have a number of marks on my subversive escutcheon.

I'm irrelevant.
I use the word "escutcheon."
I don't own any guns.

If I want to be included in the 1/3, I'm going to need to dramatically up my game. I think I'll start by buying some property in West Virginia. I mean, if it's good enough for Fox Mulder, it should be good enough for me.

Maybe I Could Be a Failure Coach

2012-01-31T12:27:00.000-05:00

I've blogged before about my sort-of-joking-but-sort-of-serious desire to be a life coach. It all started when I became aware of the existence of "prison coaches," people who counsel the soon-to-be-incarcerated on what to expect. ("Don't drop the soap. That'll be $200.")

The most intriguing part is the bravado it takes to declare yourself a life coach. I remembered when I tried to convince my doctor I was a hostage negotiator. If I just put up fliers that said I was a life coach and didn't break character when potential clients called, BAM, I'd be a life coach.

My wife thought I needed to do some research first, so I checked a self-help book out of the library. It turned out to be a parody. I still read it and count it as a bolstering of my credentials.

It seems the New York Times is onto scam artists like me. (Like me? I don't know if I'm a scam artist life coach or a legitimate one. Who can really make that distinction, anyway?) As with all other jobs that require a lot of confidence and not much else, life coaching is becoming the purview of Generation Y. I'm about 10 years too old to have never doubted how wonderful I am, and if life coaching has rules, that would be the only one.

To be a coach of something, I would probably need to have some knowledge. And thus begins the exciting new field of Failure Coaching. Have you ever wondered how to deal with your failures? Why not get coaching from some who has previous experience failing? I mean A LOT. I can teach you how to hide your failure from your family, how to maintain life without actually earning anything to life on, and how to see your failures as just a trying prelude to your impending greatness. Sign up today!

I'm Going to Hell

2012-01-30T17:18:00.000-05:00

I was about to read an Ezra Taft Benson talk on speeches.byu.edu when I thought, "I'd actually prefer to read this as a PDF." Because, as we all know, if God doesn't use the correct file format, it's just not worth reading.

Denouement: I did search for the talk as a PDF. When I couldn't find it, I copied the text to a document and exported my own PDF. Yea, me!

"I Make It Rain"

2012-01-30T12:10:00.000-05:00

I don't feel like blogging today. Here's something to watch, instead.

The Worst Sunday of My Life (So Far)

2012-01-29T23:54:00.001-05:00

Old ward ethos: we start giving time and attention to the crazies, and you regular folks only get what's left over.

New ward ethos: you regular bastards better not ask for ANYTHING.

I honestly feel like I'm being punked, like there's no way things could be going this poorly across the entire spectrum of my life unless Someone is just trying to see how much crap I'll take. My life is a Borat film.

Straddling the Unstraddleable

2012-01-27T15:49:00.000-05:00

A friend recently sent me a link to an article written by Joanna Brooks. I was unaware of who she was, so I looked around her website some. And I think she's a pretty likable person (at least, she has a pretty likable persona). I think she would be a great addition my ward, if only because I'd know there was one more person gagging during the most egregious testimonies and talks. (I'd especially like to hear her take on the "why I don't eat chocolate" sermon I hear every time the priesthood has an ice cream social).

However, comma, reading her articles makes me question how I'm supposed to go about relating with people outside my church. What is the appropriate mix of apology/defense/explanation/defiance? Brooks appears to be pretty solidly in the "explanation" camp, though I hope she doesn't think I'm misreading her if I say I sense occasional elements of "apology."

I'll admit that I'm never really sure how to respond. Each approach has its problems. Apology appears unprincipled. Defense is pointless. Explanation can be worthwhile if the other person wants to understand, but if not, it's a waste of time. Defiance is uncharitable (we can't really go around telling the world to screw off, although the months of my mission where I took this approach were the happiest of the lot).

When the other person is not interested in understanding, I think defiance is the only appropriate response of the four. We have to say "this is correct." And sometimes that involves following something we don't understand. For instance, I intellectually support the legalization of drugs, but I know church president Heber J. Grant held Prohibition to be theologically correct. Maybe that was just his "get off my lawn" old-man-ness talking, but maybe not, and it's not really my place to try to decide. As we heard quoted twice last General Conference, Ezra Taft Benson pointed out in 1980 that maybe the prophet is an old man because there's prophetic wisdom in "get off my lawn." (That's a bit of a paraphrasing.)

I'm not questioning Brooks's loyalty or anything. If anything, her writings prompted me to question my own. How easy is this apology/defense/explanation/defiance balance? It depends on your social scene. Like-minded friends aren't going to make you defend uncomfortable positions. Friends seeking to understand will ask a lot of questions, but respectfully, and can continue a friendship despite differences. But if you're surrounded with antagonizing friends, nothing's going to change until you renounce either your beliefs or your friends.

There's a lot to criticize in the insular social world of many Mormons, but isn't there as much to criticize in the needlessly secular world of some? You don't need to check for a dance card before becoming friends, but you'll find more trouble awaiting you if you troll for friends at atheist book clubs. I'm doubtful the type of explaining that needs to occur with true friends can effectively happen in a mass-media setting. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. See, I still don't know what to do.

Lyrical Interlude

2012-01-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

In our family, I'm usually the one who hears lyrics correctly. My wife, meanwhile, was fully aware that The Killers had a song entitled "Mr. Brightside," but still managed to think Brandon Flowers was singing, "I missed the bright side."

Today, however, she got her revenge. It turns out the Weezer song "Autopilot" is called that because Rivers Cuomo is singing, "Autopilot," not, "Out of my head."

I had been thinking Rivers wasn't too original with the titles of the songs on Death to False Metal. "There's 'Losing My Mind,' 'Blowing My Stack,' and 'Out of My Head,'" I thought. Actually, only two of those songs are on the album.

The entire family took turns rubbing my nose in it. Evidently they all knew he was singing "Autopilot" the whole time.

Happy Birthday to Jerome, Jerome the Metronome! Four years ago today long-time blog sufferer Erin came over in the middle of the night to stay with our two older kids while we went to the hospital to have Jerome. Thanks, Erin!

Fiscal Conservatism

2012-01-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich promised a moon base today.

Why, yes, he is campaigning in Florida. Why do you ask?

In this week's debate, he also promised federal aid to underwater homeowners, and his recommended policy for Iran would pretty much guarantee another war. Yet somehow this guy gets to portray himself as the conservative in this race? From his hair to his name to his serial adultery, there ain't nothin' conservative about Newt Gingrich.

PS: The astute reader will know I am yet to endorse any candidate (and--let me tell you--this is a potential endorsement the lot of them are just dying to bag!). Pointing out how terrible Gingrich is doesn't mean I like any of the rest of them.

Ðis Is a Test

2012-01-25T16:32:00.000-05:00

Remember how yesterday I said I þought people should start using ðe letters Ð and Þ? Well, I can't very well expect people to do someþing I'm not doing myself. Not ðat I'm going to do ðis from now on (I suspect my five regular readers would complain about lowered readability), but ðe point is ðat it's not ðat hard to do, and not ðat hard to read, I þink.

Ðe people who should be really on-board with ðis are ðose named Þeodore, Þelma, or Þaddeus. I'd love to have a new letter in my monogram (alðough any previously-vandalized concrete slabs would need to be revandalized). Ðis is no laughing matter: my in-laws' cabin is set on ten acres of trees, all of which have had ðe name "Clyde" carved in ðem. If Clyde were named "Þor," he'd have years worþ of re-work ahead of him.

Things I Wish Everyone Would Do

2012-01-24T17:40:00.001-05:00

Correctly use a possessive apostrophe. It doesn't matter how the word is spelled; it only matters if it is singular or plural. A man named Mr. Davis owns Davis's book. He and his wife are the Davises. The house they own together is the Davises' house. All three words are pronounced "Davis-ez."
Here's what it means when you write Davis'. It means there is a thing called a Davi, and that more than one of them (Davis) own something. If that is not your intended meaning, do not write Davis'.
End meetings on time. There is a saying: "punctuality is the courtesy of princes." (For more on this saying, see David Friedman's blog post here.) Starting a meeting late does not bother me that much; sure, it's disrespectful, but I can be doing something else while I wait, and as long as the meeting ends on time, it's the meeting organizer who is losing more than I am. But running meetings long makes me furious.
Allowing a meeting to go long says that the organizer is certain anything he wants to say is more important than anything else you could possibly be doing. It shows a complete disrespect for the needs of everyone else in the room. And it shows the organizer's lack of self-control.
Why is this such a huge problem in the Mormon church? I went to a BYU devotional where the university president went 15 minutes over, making everyone late for their next classes. The lesson I learned was "never again attend devotional." I had a mission companion who viewed weekly planning as an open-ended time commitment. I have been to correlation meetings, presidency meetings, and ward councils that are set to run until the organizer gets tired.
Our stake conferences routinely surprise with their running length (75 minutes? 90 minutes? Why do you need to know beforehand?) You're treated as one of suspect loyalties if you demand to know the length of the meeting. "Why, are you going to stay home if it's too long?" No, but I have other things in my life to schedule. Will I be home at 8, 9, or never? Every church meeting should have not only a starting time, but a well-publicized ending time.
Having an ending time is a start, but it's not enough. I recently attended a church meeting that was advertised as ending in an hour. At the end of an hour, we were exactly halfway through the program. The meeting needs to end on time, with no exceptions. Think you have something to say that is worth keeping us late? Think again. When was the last time General Conference ran long? It doesn't happen. If President Monson doesn't have anything worth extra time, I seriously doubt you do.
Use dollar coins and two-dollar bills, and stop using pennies, nickels, and dollar bills. I've written before about the stupidity of pennies and nickels. I'm not certain public action can cause their retirement from circulation. Dollar coins, dollar bills, and two-dollar bills, though, can be influenced by public behavior.
Use the letters Đ and Þ. I'm not completely opposed to digraphs (I'm not calling for the end of "br," "ch," "sl," or any of the others), but it makes no sense to have a single digraph that represents two different sounds, like "th" does. The voiced "th," as in "this," and the unvoiced "th," as in "thing," are different noises, and so should not be written the same. This is especially problematic when the voicing/unvoicing creates a different word. My Uncle Theodore's nickname of "Thee" is not the word "the" or "thee." A return of Eth and Thorn would solve the problem. Since language is totally informal, this is one that public action can cause. Maybe I will begin using Đ and Þ on my blog.

Kenny Rodgers: Financial Consultant

2012-01-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

Walking through Target....

ARTICULATE JOE: When we get home, I'm going to sit at the table and count my money.

A RANDOM STRANGER: You never count your money while sitting at the table.

AJ: Why not?

ARS: There'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done.

Genius Is As Genius Does

2012-01-23T11:09:00.001-05:00

I'm kind of tired of reading criticisms of Paul Krugman that begin by acknowledging his genius. "Of course the man's a genius," they all rush to state, before going on to catalog a number of defects that even moderately-smart people would have corrected by now.

Krugman is not seeking to learn truth; he is convinced he already knows it and he's judging the rest of us by how closely we agree with him. He accepts the flimsiest of evidence in favor of his opinions and disregards the most substantial of evidence in opposition. He launches into invective with little provocation, even when his targets are making arguments he used to make himself. In fact, he doesn't even acknowledge that he used to disagree with himself, nor does he explain why he now thinks differently from how he did before.

These aren't the character traits of genius. Until Krugman is smart enough to behave like a decent human, you will be unable to convince me that he is a genius.

Televisión

2012-01-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

Lately Hulu has been showing us ads for their Spanish-language offerings. Recently I began watching one, Una Familia con Suerte.

Firstly, I've got to learn the meaning of the word "entonces." It came up twice in the first five minutes.

Secondly, why is there such a huge difference in production values between American TV and Latin-American TV? I assume all their professionals are bilingual, watching American TV for good ideas, like how American TV gets all its ideas from Europe. But the people behind this show have never seen a modern American TV show. One character banged on the table, which was made out of glass and metal, and the rattle was so loud it drowned out his next few words. (One of those words was probably "entonces.") Maybe they didn't have time to re-shoot the scene; it was the 87th episode of the season and it was an hour and a half long. Seriously.

Thirdly, every American TV parody of Latin-American TV is not so much parody as exact duplication. The opening credits, by all appearances, were supposed to be serious.

Fourthly, I'm going to learn the hell out of the Spanish language. And Una Familia con Suerte is going to be my key.

Television

2012-01-21T21:29:00.000-05:00

I've written before about how we can only watch television on Hulu. This means we don't do much casual TV viewing; we watch shows we've seen since the beginning (30 Rock, Bones, and Up All Night), and not much else.

All of our TV shows took most of January off, and we were in the mood for some TV watching, since I was finished with a semester of class. We had to find a show that was in its first season and which still had all of its episodes available on Hulu. And that was how we ended up watching Revenge.

Thirteen episodes later, I wish I could come up with something more that recommends the show. If you like to see a character show her cold-bloodedness by crossing out pictures with permanent markers, then you should start watching Revenge. If you like to see the bad guy from Clear and Present Danger play the father of the pre-teen girl from 13 Going on 30, then you should start watching Revenge. And if you always wondered what a rich married couple says to each other over dinner, this screenshot from Revenge will satisfy your curiosity.

Here's what's most frustrating about the show to me: the first episode starts with the end of the season, so most of the drama is lost. When Tyler holds a gun to Emily's head, is he going to fire? No, because she's still alive three months later, remember? Are Declan and Charlotte going to break up? No, because they're still together three months later, remember?

Something interesting about the show is that all the characters have terrible traits, except for one, and guess who gets shot at the beginning of the first episode? Emily is supposed to be the heroine, but her pursuit of revenge (hence the show's title) is not praiseworthy.

This show would really suffer beyond a single season. And if the season-ending cliff-hanger is "Who shot the guy from Episode 1?", then the 22 episodes of the first season would have been totally pointless. When I start back up having things to do, this show might fall by the wayside. Until then, though, we'll continue watching.

Rent Capture and Government

2012-01-21T17:27:00.001-05:00

What explains a graph like this?

Station domination is blanketing a Metro station with your ads. It is nearly four times as expensive to dominate Capitol South as Metro Center or Union Station, even though Metro Center is a larger station (four lines instead of two) and Union Station has the most traffic of all the stations in the system (Metro Center is second; Capitol South is 29th).

As government has patronage to disperse, securing that patronage becomes very valuable. Capitol South is used by representatives, and they have trillions of dollars to spend. In 1794 James Madison wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Yet the extent to which it happens is shown by how much advertising costs at Capitol South and Pentagon.

My Nine-Year-Old Has Outgrown Class Envy

2012-01-21T12:27:00.000-05:00

A RANDOM STRANGER: Imagine there was a law that said every millionaire has to give $10,000 to everyone who's not a millionaire.

CRAZY JANE: That would be awesome.

ARS: No, it would be stealing.

CJ: Well, not if the millionaire wanted to do it.

ARS: If he wanted to do it, you wouldn't need a law.

CJ: True.

Why Wouldn't One of Newt Gingrich's Wives Want an Open Marriage?

2012-01-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

Let's say someone comes up to you and says, "Imagine you're married and your spouse asks you for an open marriage. Would you say yes?" Your first response should be, "It depends; who's my spouse in this hypothetical situation?" And if the questioner says, "Oh, I don't know, let's say Newt Gingrich," there's only one appropriate response: "Of course." Because otherwise you've got to be monogamous with Newt Gingrich.

Two other quick notes about Newt Gingrich: I just found out yesterday that his first name is Newton. Why has he been hiding that? That makes him somewhat more likable. Newt is an amphibian, Newton is a genius from history. Get that information OUT there, Gingrich aides!

Secondly, I follow a blog with daily rambling, semi-coherent posts (which differs from this blog in that this blog doesn't quite update daily). In a post entitled, "Newt Gingrich is unfit for high office," the blogger writes:

Because I consider Gingrich to be a liar and a cheat, and President Obama to be out of his depth intellectually, and out of position in political space, should Gingrich be chosen by the GOP as its candidate for November 2012, this column will go silent on the presidential election. An electorate that sets up such a dreadful competition simply deserves what it gets.

I will make no such vow. Prepare for an election season filled with the blogging equivalent of banging my head against a wall (which, in the blogging world, is called "posting").

Pear: the Iconoclast's Apple

2012-01-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that we're eating a little more healthful* lately? Well, we are.

What this means is that I have been having a pear with cheese for lunch. I could just as easily be eating an apple, except that I'm not. I'm eating a pear. Because I'm just that cool.

Really, what is a pear but a way to get attention while eating an apple? You walk down the street past a guy eating an apple and you think nothing, but change that apple to a pear and your mind is blown. "What the crap?!" you say to yourself. You possibly even say it out loud; that's just how much your paradigm has been shifted. You are, in a word, completelyblownaway.

*: Ah, "healthful," the word most people want when they use "healthy." Healthy food is food that has no diseases, like a carrot that passed its last physical. Healthful food is food that contributes to the health of its eater, like a healthy carrot.

Newt Gingrich Is Terrible

2012-01-19T10:16:00.001-05:00

Two recent things about Gingrich show him completely unsuitable for his party's nomination. One is his decision to attack Bain Capital as a capitalist parasite. As Ron Paul said of those making such attacks, "I think they’re totally misunderstanding the way the market works. They are either just demagoguing or they don’t have the vaguest idea how the market works.” So is Gingrich a demagogue or an idiot? Neither is a trait desired in a president.

Gingrich's attacks show either a Communist's understanding of market economics or a desire to win at all costs. Given Gingrich's other pro-capitalist statements during the campaign, we're left to conclude it's the latter. But why is he so committed to winning the nomination? I can think of two reasons: megalomania, or principled defense.

Gingrich's all-in fight for a nomination he won't win is the second problem. If Mitt Romney were really going to destroy the country, then it would be important to oppose him at all costs. But for Gingrich to be mounting a principled defense, there must be evidence that Romney is, in fact, going to destroy the country. And what evidence is there? The only substantive difference between the two is that Romney supports a state-based government health insurance scheme while Gingrich does not. That's hardly "destruction of America" territory.

Gingrich has not made an overt Huckabee-style attack on Mormonism, nor had operatives make a covert Perry-style attack, but it's hard to see what there is about Romney that's so important to defeat if it's not his religion.

I understand that a lot of politics is personal, even at the national level. Sometimes a guy runs for president only because he hates the other guy who's running. (Elton Gallegly's fake 2006 retirement and then reelection in 2008 certainly seems like the actions of a guy who didn't want to be replaced by Tony or Audra Strickland.) Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign could have used the slogan "I dislike Michele Bachmann." (It could have used a lot more than that, but that would have been a start.) Orrin Hatch basically concedes in his book Square Peg that he ran for president in 2000 because George W. Bush didn't seem like a serious candidate to him. But if Gingrich is conducting such a scorched-earth campaign against Romney simply because of personal differences, then he truly is driven by megalomania.

Bigotry, demagoguery, and hubris. These are the foundations of the Gingrich campaign. Gingrich is a terrible candidate because he is incapable of lasting the entire campaign without saying something destructive. He will try to make a nuanced argument for some controversial position to show he is smarter than most of the talking heads out there, and the result will be an Obama landslide. Just look at how regularly he's made a sound byte out of opposing the Tea Party. Gingrich thinks he's the most wonderful man around, and he brooks no dissent on the question. A Gingrich presidency would be like Nixon's third term.

Shocking Headlines That Shock

2012-01-18T11:33:00.002-05:00

I was worried I wouldn't have anything to blog about today, like yesterday when I didn't get out of my pajamas at all. Thank goodness for ABC News.

Imagine, if you will, a headline proclaiming that I pay rent for a woman and her kids, and that I've never told anyone about it before. Shocking secret family? Or just the most trumped-up spin on my having a family? Here are some other things I do in my life that can be made to sound scandalous:

I've fathered children in several states. (All with my wife.)
I take drugs. (Advil for headaches.)
I get naked in public. (Showering at the gym.)

It's that type of banality that leads ABC News to run an article headlined, "Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church." It's called "tithing," and it's only scandalous to people who have no knowledge of religion.

I especially love the idiot commenter who paraphrases the Bible regarding the location of one's treasure showing the desires of one's heart, and then says this article is evidence of Romney's evilness. So the guy gives money to church and he's evil. That logic seems pretty convoluted.

I'm going to spend the rest of the day writing scandalous headlines about my everyday activities. When my parents mail a birthday check for my son and I cash it, I'm laundering money! When I open Taste of Home ads addressed to my wife, I'm tampering with the mail! And of course, I routinely hook up with my high school girlfriend.

e-Confessional

2012-01-16T11:12:00.000-05:00

I used to say I liked most music, except for rap and country. But over the past 10 years or so, some aspects of rap have grown on me.

I can appreciate creative rhyme schemes and intricate meter patterns. There are only so many ways you can sing about having sex with fat-bottomed girls (and they were basically all covered by Queen before rap even got around to trying), and since that is the point of most rap songs, most rap songs are crap. But there are other, admittedly rarer, rap songs that deal with some other topic. Unfortunately, most of those are about killing disrespectful people (a topic for which I have much sympathy).

The rap songs that gain my deepest admiration are those which are not just rhythmic braggadocio. For instance: Lose Yourself by Eminem. Yes, I admit that I like that song. What other rapper meticulously details the struggles of his former life not to set off the brilliance of his success, but to show the emptiness of that success? I know there's much to hate about Eminem, but I have to respect any rapper who sings the line, "These [expletive deleted] food stamps won't buy diapers."

I Didn't Even Pay Him to Say That

2012-01-15T12:27:00.001-05:00

The story we were reading ended with, "Tom has a fat, fat bag!"

JEROME JEROME THE METRONOME: Why did it say "fat" twice?

A RANDOM STRANGER: Sometimes you repeat a word to show you really mean it. Like if I said, "I have a tasty, tasty brownie," it would mean I had a really tasty brownie. Or if I said, "You're a cute, cute kid," it would mean you're a really cute kid.

JEROME: Or like if I said you're an awesome, awesome dad?

Full disclosure: his birthday is less than two weeks away. He might just be angling for a gift upgrade. (It's not too hard to upgrade from "jack squat.")

The Mamas and the Papas: Racists

2012-01-14T12:27:00.001-05:00

Broke, busted, disgusted
Asians can't be trusted.

--Creeque Alley, as heard by me.

The Secret to a Crossed-Off To-Do List

2012-01-13T11:32:00.000-05:00

If you make your time-wasting things be items on the list, you get to cross off a lot of crap. (For instance, this blog post allows me to cross of an item!)

The Ones About Me Aren't As Funny

2012-01-12T16:35:00.000-05:00

I spent some time the other day browsing the memes at www.quickmeme.com. I laughed a lot, until I came to the Paranoid Parrot. Then I became pensively silent.

I've done the following Paranoid Parrot things:

No red underline on long, intricate word: type nonsense to make sure spellcheck's still working
Set alarm on phone: check 3 more times to see if it's correct
Copies URL to send to friend: check URL in own browser just in case
Make tiny mistake at work: assume I'm getting fired
Save, hit quit, "unsaved progress will be lost": save again
Have tickets to a show: constantly check pocket to make sure they're still there

And that's just from the first page.

The other meme that I can relate to is Scumbag Brain, but that one's not as insulting because it's making fun of my brain, not me.

Mail Bag - Monetary Crank Edition

2012-01-12T11:24:00.001-05:00

So Angela writes:

I saw something on the news about a movement to get rid of pennies? any thoughts?

Of COURSE I have thoughts!

This reminds me of when a friend from high school began our Facebook reconnection by asking what I thought about renaming Bombay "Mumbai." He knew most people would say, "Zuh?" but I would not only know what he meant, I would also have a strong opinion.

First with the penny. Yes, there is an argument to retire the penny from circulation. The idea is that prices ending with a 0, 1, or 2 would round down to 0, and prices ending with a 3, 4, or 5 would round up to five. Then the smallest coin needed would be the nickel.

When I first heard about this, I didn't like it. I like exactness, and I had a suspicion that firms with enough resources to spend would find the prices necessary to make things tilt to their advantage. (I still suspect that, actually.) But economically, it is a sound argument and, on balance, I am in favor of it.

Lots of people argue from an efficiency standpoint. We spend time fussing with pennies, and that time is generally worth more than the pennies themselves. We could unilaterally declare that we won't deal in pennies anymore and when enough of us did that, the penny would die a natural death, but we can't do that because we can't force others to round in our favor. I could refuse pennies in my change from Target, but I couldn't short Target a few pennies in my payment.

The better (in my view) argument is related to seigniorage (pronounced like "seniorage"). That's the profit made when the monetary authority takes fewer resources to make the money than the money will buy. So if it takes four cents to make a dollar bill, Treasury earns 96 cents in seigniorage. The biggest problem with the penny is that it costs more than a penny to make one. That's negative seigniorage. To justify continued production, the penny would have to provide more value than this tax we bear to subsidize penny production by the Mint. And given the first argument about efficiency, it's not likely we value the penny enough to continue making it.

Here's the biggest problem with the argument against the penny: it doesn't go far enough. Because the nickel brings negative seigniorage, as well. The smallest-value coin with positive seigniorage is the dime.

Rounding to the nearest dime is probably even scarier than rounding to the nearest nickel. But when the half-penny was retired in 1857, it had more purchasing power than today's dime.

What about legacy? Well, luckily both Lincoln and Jefferson are commemorated elsewhere on money (another reason to start using two-dollar bills!). And I think it would be a fitting tribute to Franklin Roosevelt if the coin bearing his image has become so worthless as to be a suitable stand-in for the penny.

Here are two videos which do an admirable job making the case for the death of the penny. One is more passionate than the other.

Now about Mumbai: totally lame. The British did not rename an existing Indian city, they built their own city and named it Bombay. Go ahead and rename Calcutta "Kolkata," but leave Bombay alone!

Changed Monetary Regime

2012-01-11T11:50:00.000-05:00

Shortly before we left California, back when we were making enough money to afford to "eat regularly" and "stay alive," we decided to put $25 each paycheck into our kids' savings accounts. Since that time, we've made progressively less and less money*, and that idea went away. Our kids have money jars now, and each jar contains an I.O.U. from us.

This week we started our kids back up on an allowance. There are both positive and negative aspects to making an allowance a weekly gift, and also of making an allowance wages for chores. We decided to maximize the number of negatives by using a hybrid approach that combines the two.

To prepare for their first payment, I went to the bank and took money out. When I brought it home, Crazy Jane said, "What's that weird money?"

I said, "It's a two-dollar bill."

She said, "There are two-dollar bills?"

My wife asked, "Why did you get two-dollar bills?"

I said, "Because I've decided I'm no longer transacting in dollar bills. I'm only using two-dollar bills and dollar coins."

Crazy Jane incredulously asked, "Really?"

My wife laughed and said, "This is like when we started dating again and you told me you didn't buy anything made in China, and I thought, 'Good luck with that.'"

I said, "It was still possible to do back then."

Crazy Jane said, "You could do it now. You just wouldn't own very much stuff."

*: Just for fun, here are our reported Adjusted Gross Income figures since we got married:

2001: $X
2002: 1.40 x $X
2003: 1.50 x $X
2004: 1.56 x $X
2005: 0.91 x $X
2006: 1.08 x $X
2007: 1.13 x $X
2008: 1.09 x $X
2009: 0.77 x $X
2010: 0.21 x $X

We're livin' the dream!

(Of course, those are nominal figures. Correcting for inflation, 2010 is 0.17 x $X.)

Pet People

2012-01-10T09:36:00.000-05:00

By normal standards, I might think of myself as a "pet person." I like animals and don't look down on people who have pets. Of course, some people are pretty over-the-top about it, but often they are just people with insufficient human relationships who are filling that void with a pet, and I don't fault anyone for wanting to be happy.

However, comma, there are those whose committment to pets undermines their committment to humanity. And this type of nihilism is shocking and unsettling. I worked with a man once who said, "If I was driving a car and I had to decide between running over a guy or running over a dog, and I was reasonably sure I wouldn't get in trouble, I'd run over the guy. No doubt about it."

I worked with a woman who supports Peter Singer's idea that infanticide is not so bad, but also supports the idea of capital punishment for animal abusers. When she heard of a coworker's friend in an abusive relationship, her only concern was for that woman's dog.

Some seemingly-not-stupid people called for the execution of Michael Vick. (Many of these people also have a problem with causing mental distress to extract life-saving information from terrorists.) Dennis Prager writes, "For 30 years, I have asked high school seniors throughout America which they would save first, their dog or a stranger. In every instance (except come religious schools), one third have voted to save their dog, one third for the stranger, and one third just didn't know" (Washington Times National Weekly Edition, May 12-18, 2003). This despite the fact that Robin Hanson argues pretty effectively this week that those who say they wouldn't take a million dollars to kill their pet are lying. Our pets don't matter that much to us, but other people might matter even less.

Here's the story of a woman who spent $50,000 to have South Korean scientists clone her dead dog. Meanwhile, people near her live without reliable food and shelter.

Unlike statists, I don't respond to a story of profligacy by a call to expropriate her resources. Yes, it is her money to spend how she wants. But how she wants to spend her money shows a basic flaw in her humanity. Keynesian economics would say it doesn't matter what she spent the money on, the important thing is that it's spent. Rational humanity says her inability to cope with her dog's mortality has contributed to the unpleasantness of the lives of other humans whose plights she apparently doesn't even acknowledge worthy of her consideration.

If We Don't Over-React, the Terrorists Win

2012-01-09T14:42:00.001-05:00

I returned books to my college library today. I tried to return them last week, but the campus was closed and there is no book drop. This was the fourth time I've been stymied by a non-existent book drop. So today I asked the librarian, "Does this library have a book drop?"

"No," she said, "not since 9/11."

?!?

Seriously, the response to airplanes hitting buildings is to make library books harder to return? If we're just going to start getting rid of things terrorists might target, we'll destroy our civilization for them. (Of course, when it comes to our freedoms they hate so much, we've already made a lot of headway with this approach.)

God Isn't an ARS Fan

2012-01-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

We came home from church and checked the Steelers score. They were winning, 6-0. Then while I watched the online ticker feed, the Broncos scored 20 points. I closed the computer, ate dinner with my family, and read a church book. When I next checked the score, the Steelers had tied the game at 23. While I watched the feed again, on the first play from scrimmage in overtime, the Broncos won the game.

This is the most effective lesson I've ever had on keeping the Sabbath day holy.

Taking Care Without Caring

2012-01-07T21:43:00.000-05:00

Our ward has the ability to do nice things for us while acting like they don't care at all. It's frustrating. I want to be grateful for the kindness they show, but they show it in the most impersonal way. I know grumbling about how someone does you a favor is unbecoming, but maybe they wouldn't have to do so many favors if they treated me like a person.

Verb Transitivity in Song Lyrics

2012-01-06T12:23:00.000-05:00

I'm not very imaginative in my post titles so far this year. This blog post promises to deliver a discussion of verb transitivity in song lyrics, and that's exactly what it's going to do.

I'm all for poetic license, but not for poetic ignorance, or poetic laziness. Feel free to misconjugate a verb if it fits your rhythm or meter better, but don't use the wrong verb for no real reason at all.

I knew that you were the truth
I would rather lose
Than to have never lain beside at all.

This correct use of the past participle of the intransitive verb "to lie" comes from the Death Cab For Cutie song "What Sarah Said."

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?

This ambiguous verb usage comes from the Snow Patrol song "Chasing Cars." If he's using "lay" as the present-tense form of the transitive verb "to lay," it's wrong. If he's using "lay" as the simple-past of the intransitive verb "to lie," it's right. Which do you think he's doing?

Replacing all forms of "to lie" with a different verb, like "to stay," produces this:

If I stayed here
If I just stayed here
Would you stay with me
And just forget the world?

Nothing wrong here. So I am willing to give Snow Patrol the benefit of the doubt because they are British subjects, and everybody knows all British people speak impeccable English.

Next we have a children's rhyme.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Correct. Since the person is laying himself down, the transitive verb it right.

Lay, lady, lay
Lay across my big brass bed.

Bob Dylan, the oft-mentioned Nobel nominee, is wrong. However, one could argue that the alliterative use of long-A sounds was a desired effect, and so poetic license gives justification.

This blog post was every bit as worthless as its title led you to believe.

2012-01-05T12:27:00.001-05:00

I don't know what to make of Pinterest. I'm not even talking about what other people use it for; I'm in no position to tell if it's escapism or bragging or some of both. I just wish I knew what I should do with it.

One method is to use it as a wish list, but I'm trying to break my attachment to material things, not strengthen it. Yeah, mansions look awesome, but there's something wrong with me as long as I keep wanting to live in a mansion while others don't.

Another method I don't want to use is to pin desserts. That can't be helpful to anyone. I'm not incredibly out of shape, but I can stand to improve. Spending all day looking up new uses for cream cheese isn't going to help with that.

I had been limiting myself to dinners and not-too-outlandish bookcases (we have a lot of books). But one of the things we're going to try to do this year is eat somewhat healthier meals. We're not looking for a drastic change, but Pioneer Woman recipes with eight egg yolks, a quart of heavy whipping cream, or two sticks of butter should be abandoned. If I can't pin dinners anymore, that leaves me just bookcases. There are only so many different ways to position books and I think I've seen just about all of them. Now all that's left to do on Pinterest is guess if the other users are escapists or braggarts.

Vinyl Lettering

2012-01-04T16:55:00.000-05:00

Vinyl lettering is over-rated. (That's going to be the text of the first vinyl lettering work I commission.) Not every quote is worthy of a vinyl lettering job. (That's going to be Commission #2.)

I browse Pinterest and see just about everything commemorated in vinyl, including instructions for entering the shower: "Get naked." Are there Pinterest users out there having trouble remembering that one? It's not worthy of vinyl lettering in the bathroom. Now, right inside your front door, THAT's where that quote would deserve a vinyl lettering job.

A few nights ago we finished our couple scripture reading with Moses 3:25 ("And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed"). I said, "I'm going to make a cross-stitch of that to hang in our house." My wife said, "You should get it in vinyl lettering instead." I said, "I'd have to get [Personal Friend] to do all our PG-13 lettering instead of [Former Relief Society President]."

I know this makes me sound like I'm anti-vinyl-lettering. I'm not. I'm anti-stupid-people-running-loose-with-vinyl-letters. I feel the same way about chalkboard paint: not everything is made better with a coat of chalkboard paint. (For instance: a baby.) There are places where it is cool and useful to be able to write with chalk, but those places should constitute the minority of household surfaces, not the majority of them.

People who go nuts with vinyl lettering and chalkboard paint seem like kindred spirits with the people who get tons of meaningless tattoos, like misspelled lines from "House." When a religious prohibition keeps you from getting "You the man now, dog" tattooed on your neck, you do the next-best thing and vinyl letter it on your stairwell wall.

NOTE: The tattoo connection has reminded me that you people have not come through with information about the girl with the giant Marilyn Monroe tattoo on her upper arm. Ask around; I can almost guarantee you know a lady who knows a lady who knows her.

New Year's Eve Biathlon

2012-01-03T15:35:00.000-05:00

This New Year's we were visiting my sister's family in Richmond again, so my brother-in-law and I ran in the Resolution Run four-mile race again. And since cross-training and muscle confusion are the new hawtness (unlike the phrase "new hawtness," which is as broke and busted as "broke and busted"), we changed a tire in the dark on the side of the freeway.

Here's some free advertising for all car manufacturers who aren't Audi: don't buy an Audi. Because the wheel doesn't fit onto bolts attached to the car, but rather has the bolts attached to the lug nuts*. This means you have to manually align the wheel to the rim yourself, with the wheel blocking your view. Then, because this is too easy, they complicate things by machining ten holes in the rim, but only threading five of them. Amazingly, the car that lost its tire driving down my street last week was NOT an Audi.

We started the race 11 minutes late. Then with all the pressure of "ahh, we're late!" we went out too fast for a comfortable run. (At least I did. My brother-in-law was probably going half-speed.)

One thing that's nice about starting a race 11 minutes late: nobody passes you. And another thing that's nice: you get to discount the results as much as you want. So I finished at 47 minutes, but my brain said, "If I'd started on time, I probably would have won my age group." (Actually, 36 minutes moves me from 14th in my age group to 11th. But don't tell my brain that.)

Last year I was dead last in my age group at 41 minutes. I think the math is pretty clear: each 11 minutes of delay results in five minutes of time reduction. Next year I'm starting 79 minutes late and finishing in under six seconds. It'll be a new PR!

* lug nuts (n): car equipment for holding on tires. (v): what I do when I walk around. (That joke was worth the wait!)

25,000 Pages Read

2011-12-28T23:40:00.001-05:00

12/29/10	The Fourth Bear	Fforde	382	(382)
12/31/10	Book of Mormon Stories for Young Latter-day Saints	Petersen	302	(684)
12/31/10	Gold	Lewis	448	(1,132)
1/4/11	Hector and the Search for Happiness	Lelord	178	(1,310)
1/14/11	Denationalisation of Money	Hayek	108	(1,418)
1/16/11	A Dog Called Grk	Doder	260	(1,678)
1/19/11	Invasion From Planet Dork	Trine	138	(1,816)
1/22/11	The Phantom Mudder	Odgers & Odgers	78	(1,894)
1/31/11	Very Good, Jeeves	Wodehouse	275	(2,169)
2/19/11	Lehi in the Desert/World of the Jaredites/There Were Jaredites	Nibley	476	(2,645)
2/22/11	Manias, Panics, and Crashes	Kindleberger	303	(2,948)
2/28/11	The Name of This Book Is Secret	Bosch	374	(3,322)
3/8/11	Money and Foreign Exchange After 1914	Cassel	289	(3,611)
4/6/11	The Iliad	Homer	472	(4,083)
4/7/11	Grk and the Pelotti Gang	Doder	202	(4,285)
4/10/11	Abel's Island	Steig	119	(4,404)
4/13/11	Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About	Millington	378	(4,782)
4/17/11	The Theory of Monetary Institutions	White	272	(5,054)
4/19/11	Ion	Plato	48	(5,102)
4/21/11	Tom Brown's Schooldays	Hughes	466	(5,568)
4/22/11	Apostles and Bishops in Early Christianity	Nibley	270	(5,838)
4/22/11	Chasing Vermeer	Balliett	286	(6,124)
4/23/11	The White Feather	Wodehouse	148	(6,272)
4/24/11	William Tell Told Again	Wodehouse	92	(6,364)
4/28/11	The Man Who Was Thursday	Chesterton	215	(6,579)
4/29/11	The Mugged Pug	Odgers & Odgers	78	(6,657)
5/8/11	The Puzzling World of Winston Breen	Berlin	220	(6,877)
5/11/11	Cicero	Everitt	368	(7,245)
5/21/11	Understanding Isaiah	Parry, et Al.	651	(7,896)
5/23/11	The Republic	Plato	490	(8,386)
5/26/11	Amazing Monty	Hurwitz	106	(8,492)
5/29/11	Grk and the Hot Dog Trail	Doder	218	(8,710)
6/6/11	Martin Bridge Blazing Ahead	Kerrin	110	(8,820)
6/7/11	One of Our Thursdays Is Missing	Fforde	367	(9,187)
6/9/11	The Last Templar	Khoury	406	(9,593)
6/10/11	Man Out at First	Christopher	60	(9,653)
6/11/11	The Great Brain	Fitzgerald	177	(9,830)
6/11/11	The Hunger Games	Collins	384	(10,214)
6/15/11	Going Rogue	Palin	413	(10,627)
6/17/11	The Blue Stealer	Odgers & Odgers	81	(10,708)
6/18/11	Economics in One Lesson	Hazlitt	214	(10,922)
6/22/11	More Adventures of the Great Brain	Fitzgerald	142	(11,064)
6/26/11	The Punic Wars	Goldsworthy	402	(11,466)
7/8/11	Long Stretch at First Base	Christopher	148	(11,614)
7/11/11	The Not-So-Great Depression	Koss	266	(11,880)
7/17/11	Babe	King-Smith	118	(11,998)
7/18/11	Empire Falls	Russo	483	(12,481)
7/28/11	Mostly Monty	Hurwitz	86	(12,567)
7/31/11	Me and My Little Brain	Fitzgerald	137	(12,704)
7/31/11	The Book of Mormon	Smith (trans.)	541	(13,245)
8/10/11	Catching Fire	Collins	378	(13,623)
8/12/11	Mockingjay	Collins	396	(14,019)
8/25/11	The Happiness Project	Rubin	333	(14,352)
9/6/11	The Closing of the American Mind	Bloom	382	(14,734)
9/12/11	My Man Jeeves	Wodehouse	125	(14,859)
9/18/11	A Confederacy of Dunces	Toole	409	(15,268)
9/23/11	Inspector Jacques	Odgers & Odgers	81	(15,349)
9/28/11	101 Commonsense Rules for Making Things Happen	Brinkerhoff	265	(15,614)
9/28/11	Grk: Operation Tortoise	Doder	234	(15,848)
9/28/11	A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, Vol. 1	Robinson & Garrett	296	(16,144)
10/2/11	Honus & Me	Gutman	140	(16,284)
10/6/11	Alas, Babylon	Frank	339	(16,623)
10/10/11	The Advanced Genius Theory	Hartley	268	(16,891)
10/15/11	The Wright 3	Balliett	333	(17,224)
10/16/11	A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, Vol. 2	Robinson & Garrett	370	(17,594)
10/17/11	Optimum Currency Areas	Bleier, et Al. (eds.)	114	(17,708)
10/18/11	Beric the Briton	Henty	404	(18,112)
10/19/11	The ECB: Safe at Any Speed?	Begg, et Al.	58	(18,170)
10/20/11	One Money, Many Countries	Favero, et Al.	88	(18,258)
10/21/11	The Crystal Bridge	Pulsipher	364	(18,622)
10/22/11	Comet in Moominland	Jansson	192	(18,814)
10/25/11	Less Than Zero	Selgin	81	(18,895)
11/2/11	A Journey to the Center of the Earth	Verne	580	(19,475)
11/12/11	The London Eye Mystery	Dowd	325	(19,800)
11/18/11	Competition and Currency	White	263	(20,063)
11/19/11	Mighty Monty	Hurwitz	106	(20,169)
11/23/11	Richard III	Shakespeare	429	(20,598)
11/28/11	Grk Smells a Rat	Doder	210	(20,808)
11/28/11	Cranky Paws	Odgers & Odgers	87	(20,895)
11/30/11	A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, Vol. 3	Robinson & Garrett	317	(21,212)
11/30/11	A Canticle for Leibowitz	Miller	347	(21,559)
12/15/11	Money Mischief	Friedman	288	(21,847)
12/16/11	Doctrine and Covenants	Smith, et Al.	305	(22,152)
12/17/11	A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, Vol. 4	Robinson & Garrett	334	(22,486)
12/22/11	Henry Reed, Inc.	Robertson	239	(22,725)
12/22/11	King Lear	Shakespeare	383	(23,108)
12/23/11	Economics of a Pure Gold Standard	Skousen	188	(23,296)
12/24/11	The Depression Cure	Ilardi	288	(23,584)
12/25/11	Becoming Metropolitan	Wood	274	(23,858)
12/25/11	The Pig Scrolls	Shipton	293	(24,151)
12/26/11	When Money Dies	Fergusson	274	(24,425)
12/27/11	Managerial Dilemmas	Miller	264	(24,689)
12/28/11	Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman	Miller	443	(25,132)

Counting Pages

2011-12-25T21:12:00.001-05:00

So how do I determine which pages to count? I used to just write down the page number on the last page of text. Then I read Sister Carrie, which had 84 Roman numeral pages of introduction, so I started adding those pages in. Then I read The Gathering Storm, which had nearly 100 pages of endnotes, so I started adding those pages in, too. I don't count the index (because I don't read it), but I do count bibliographies, because I look through them to see if anything else would be interesting to read.

So here's an example of how this all works: I recently finished Economics of a Pure Gold Standard, which has its last page of text on Page 153. However, I count it as reading a 188-page book, because it has a bibliography that ends on Page 164, it has xxii pages of prefaces, and it has two pages of author biography and "about the publisher."

What's more, I've decided that, starting next year, I'm counting journal articles in my reading total, as well. They are recognized separately-titled works that have pagination. I will still NOT count magazine articles, though, because that doesn't seem very sporting. I mean, when I go out to eat I read the menu, but that's not really an accomplishment, is it?

King Lear, by William Shakespeare
FINISHED 12/22
Henry Reed, Inc., by Keith Robertson
FINISHED 12/22
The Pig Scrolls, by Paul Shipton
FINISHED 12/25
The Depression Cure, by Stephen S. Ilardi
FINISHED 12/24
Economics of a Pure Gold Standard, by Mark Skousen
FINISHED 12/23
When Money Dies, by Adam Fergusson
Page 0 of 274
Managerial Dilemmas, by Gary J. Miller
Page 101 of 264
Becoming Metropolitan, by Nathaniel D. Wood
FINISHED 12/25
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Page 0 of 443

Christmas Excitement

2011-12-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was lying in bed reading when out on the street there arose such a clatter I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what that was," and waited for my wife to look out the window. A car had lost its tire, nearly sideswiped our car, and come to a rest, leaving a trailing scoring of the pavement. A few hours later the car, now abandoned with its hazard lights on, attracted four police cruisers, much to the delight of my sons.

But on to the real business at hand: a reading update.

King Lear, by William Shakespeare
FINISHED 12/22
Henry Reed, Inc., by Keith Robertson
FINISHED 12/22
The Pig Scrolls, by Paul Shipton
Page 150 of 293
The Depression Cure, by Stephen S. Ilardi
FINISHED 12/24
Economics of a Pure Gold Standard, by Mark Skousen
FINISHED 12/23
When Money Dies, by Adam Fergusson
Page 0 of 274
Managerial Dilemmas, by Gary J. Miller
Page 101 of 264
Becoming Metropolitan, by Nathaniel D. Wood
Page 78 of 274
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Page 0 of 443

Vote Early and Often in South Carolina

2011-12-23T20:52:00.000-05:00

South Carolina thinks voting should be as secure as renting a movie. The Justice Department disagrees. The DOJ's explanation is complete nonsense.

"The state's data demonstrate that non-white voters are both significantly burdened" by the law and "disproportionately unlikely to possess the most common types of photo identification" needed, Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said in a letter to the state.

Long-distance bus rides require an ID. Getting a library card requires an ID. But the DOJ is fighting to keep voting less secure than those processes. Of course, driving a car requires an ID, yet no one is out making the argument that minorities are disproportionately burdened when they want to drive cars.

What if the state had a mobile ID lab that came to minorities' houses and gave them a free ID? Would the DOJ drop its opposition. No, because this isn't about racial equality. It's about allowing inelligible voters to participate in elections. That's what same-day registration does, that what "provisional ballots" do, and that's what the DOJ wants in its fight against voter ID laws. Preserving a republican form of government requires oversight of the voting process. The federal government is making travel as burdensome as possible while snuffing out any attempt to safeguard the actual basis of liberty.

Christmas Slow-Down

2011-12-23T12:17:00.000-05:00

I'll probably blog about random things over the next few days, but most of my time is going to be spent reading.

King Lear, by William Shakespeare
FINISHED 12/22
Henry Reed, Inc., by Keith Robertson
FINISHED 12/22
The Pig Scrolls, by Paul Shipton
Page 100 of 293
The Depression Cure, by Stephen S. Ilardi
Page 94 of 288
Economics of a Pure Gold Standard, by Mark Skousen
Page 74 of 188
When Money Dies, by Adam Fergusson
Page 0 of 274
Managerial Dilemmas, by Gary J. Miller
Page 101 of 264
Becoming Metropolitan, by Nathaniel D. Wood
Page 26 of 274
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Page 0 of 443

My first choice would be to finish this all by the end of the 26th. If that doesn't happen, though, finishing all of this by the end of the 28th will accomplish the same goal. (On the 29th I have 382 pages expire, so I'd have to replace them.)

Another Day At the Office

2011-12-21T13:52:00.000-05:00

When I first got my sweet office, I didn't know this was going to be part of the deal.

Two hours in the office, then upstairs for a while to return circulation to my feet. Hence my recent bleg regarding space heaters.

Celebrity Switch

2011-12-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

I have a negative opinion of most celebrities. I think there's something wrong with people who need to be known to strangers. (I differentiating between celebrities and just plain actors, musicians, and athletes. Albert Pujols is an athlete; Alex Rodriguez is a sports celebrity.)

I also have a negative opinion of people who have favorable opinions of celebrities. Once I watched Rita Wilson be interviewed on Oprah Winfrey's show. An audience member asked Rita if her husband (Tom Hanks) would consider running for office because "I just love him and think he'd do a great job." I thought, "You don't KNOW him! You know the characters he portrays and the persona he adopts for publicity events. You have no idea what his position is on ANYTHING (aside from an informed guess that he toes the elite statist line)." I already had a low opinion of the audience member (because she was in the audience at a taping of Oprah), but it fell a little lower after her question.

So I don't really subscribe to celebrity worship. But there is one celebrity that I WOULD trade lives with: Michael Bublé. That's just a no-brainer. The guy is super good-looking and rich, and he can sing like nobody's business.

When I first realized I wanted to switch lives with Michael Bublé, I thought, "Provided I could take my family with me," but then I thought about it some more and realized that proviso was unnecessary. Because Michael Bublé could bag my wife in about thirty seconds. (But then she'd have to learn to say "Bublé" without saying "Bubliet." Something tells me that, given those circumstances, she'd find a way.)

"The Government Hates Competition"

2011-12-19T12:27:00.002-05:00

I remember being a kid and seeing the bumper sticker, "Don't steal: the government hates competition." I didn't really understand it (don't governments stop people from stealing?), but, like I said, I was a kid.

On Marginal Revolution I read this excerpt from a Financial Times article:

Indeed, the basic functions of organised crime – protection rackets, narcotics, extortion and prostitution, have increasingly been assumed by the Russian state.

Just an aside ("Just an Aside" would be a very good name for a blog): I hate the Financial Times registration requirement. Yeah, I know it's free, but it requires me to log in. If you're going to inconvenience me, at least make some money from it, right? What ends up happening is I click on the link, see the log-in box, and then think, "Oh, yeah, I forgot I don't read the Financial Times," EVEN THOUGH I HAVE AN FT LOG-IN. Just make your ad revenue from counting visitors like a normal website, FT, okay?

Terminology

2011-12-18T22:11:00.000-05:00

I refuse to use fad terms. I feel like I'm in an impossible situation: I'm being insufferably trendy if I do, and insufferably boorish if I don't.

When a blogger writes about something he saw on someone else's blog, he sometimes gives the original blogger a "hat tip" for being his source. That would be bad enough, but this gets abbreviated as "HT." I can't stand that crap. I refuse to give hat tips; instead I note who pointed it out.

When we frequented Cold Stone Creamery in Lawrence (high school friends' nickname: Stone Cold Creamery), I refused to use their size names of "Like It," "Love It," and "Gotta Have It." I hate myself a little (more) for even typing them out right now. I said I wanted a "medium," and the scoop-jockey knew what I meant every time.

There have been times when I've been in an IHOP and wanting to eat the Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N' Fruity breakfast, but have ordered something else to keep from having to say the name to the waiter. Don't make me say something stupid when ordering. I won't do it.

I feel like Michael Bluth in Season 2, telling everyone in his family who uses the term "The O.C." to not say that.

In Celebration of Ebenezer Scrooge

2011-12-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

Stephen Landsburg writes on Slate.com:

In this whole world, there is nobody more generous than the miser—the man who could deplete the world's resources but chooses not to.

Pointer from Robin Hanson.

In My Sights

2011-12-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

If I finish reading this stack of books before midnight on December 26th*, I will have read 25,000 pages in a year.

In the stack:

King Lear, by William Shakespeare
Henry Reed, Inc., by Keith Robertson
The Pig Scrolls, by Paul Shipton
The Depression Cure, by Stephen S. Ilardi
Economics of a Pure Gold Standard, by Mark Skousen
When Money Dies, by Adam Fergusson
Managerial Dilemmas, by Gary J. Miller
Becoming Metropolitan, by Nathaniel D. Wood
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

* = Midnight is technically tricky. Actual "midnight" (meaning 12:00:00 AM) on December 26th is at the start of the day, but in standard usage, "midnight on December 26th" means the end of the day. I'm using it here in the standard usage sense, even though I know it's wrong.

"Overturning the Existing Basis of Society"

2011-12-16T13:26:00.001-05:00

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)

***

As Forrest Capie points out in a fascinating paper (1986, p. 117), it took a century for the inflation in Rome, which contributed to the decline and fall of the empire, to raise the price level "from a base of 100 in 200 AD [sic] to 5000...--in other words a rate of between 3 and 4 percent per annum compound."
Milton Friedman, Money Mischief (1992)

***

The inflation rate in United States was last reported at 3.4 percent in November of 2011. From 1914 until 2010, the average inflation rate in United States was 3.38 percent....
www.tradingeconomics.com, "United States Inflation Rate"

Not Dead (Yet)

2011-12-15T11:58:00.000-05:00

I don't have anything blog-worthy today. (Careful readers of this blog will know that that's really saying something.) I'm finishing a paper and giving an exam. My last paper had its deadline extended to Monday, so I'll be working on it this weekend.

I got bumped from teaching Money and Banking next semester to teaching Industrial Organization. That's annoying because I enjoyed Money and Banking and had already taught it once, so would be able to cut down on preparation time (which would mean preparing for negative amounts of time). But it's not all bad because it'll broaden the teaching experience I will have when it comes time to find a job. And I/O is a fun topic. Lots of simultaneous equations to solve.

I told you I didn't have anything blog-worthy.

The Highs and the Lows of Pittsburgh

2011-12-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

Last month I drew attention to Pittsburgh being the only American city on National Geographic's list of "must-see places."

Don't let it be said I only look on the bright side of life. (I know lots of people have been saying that about me lately.) The truth is: if you live in Pittsburgh during a bioterrorism attack, you will probably die.

I think I'm going to be okay, though, because I have plans to move away right before any attack comes.

Informer

2011-12-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

When a third-world dictator asks his supporters to report which of their friends have dissident political views, we would bemoan the creation of a thought police Gestapo. But when it happens here, it's just for purposes of friendly persuasion.

Obama's reelection campaign is asking contributors to submit the names and e-mail addresses of Republicans. "Oh, but it's just for a joke e-mail." Only if the campaign wants it to go no further. There's no disputing the fact that the administration is compiling a list of citizens who don't support its policies; the only question is what they will do with it. Instead of trusting they use it appropriately, wouldn't it be better if they didn't create it at all?

Oh, and it goes without saying that I've already informed on all of you. I can squeal faster than a pig in sexual congress. Consider yourselves Gestapoed.

Jill's Cousin Mitt Is In the Hands of Demon Vice

2011-12-13T15:09:00.000-05:00

So Mitt Romney took a page from the Bryan Caplan playbook and tried to make a bet with Rick "Somethin' 's wrong in the world when them queer-folk can act all respectable-like" Perry. And now everyone has their collective knickers in a twist.

Romney is rich, but so are the rest of the candidates. It's another example of hitting a guy with whatever is handy. Romney's rich, Gingrich's divorced, Bachmann's depressed (which should get its own blog post in a week or so). Not only do these things barely matter (if they matter at all), when it comes to riches, they all have them.

Gingrich says Romney made millions bankrupting companies. It's called liquidation and it's a vital economic activity. Attack the guy for a real position, not for a negative portrayal of a legitimate job.

They Don't Teach Geometry at Columbia

2011-12-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

President Obama said this week: "Steve, the math is the math. You can't lower rates and raise revenue, unless you're getting revenue from someplace else."

Tax revenue is the tax rate multiplied by the tax base. Call tax revenue "area," call tax rate "height," and call tax base "length." Now we're dealing with third-grade geometry. If one rectangle is 4*6 = 24, is there a value for X such that 2*X = 30?

Of course there is. But Obama thinks there isn't. You can't possibly lower rates while increasing revenue, he says.

This is unsettling. Is he ignorant of grade-school mathematics, or is he really this much of a demagogue? Neither is a condition desirable in a president.

Boredom Practice

2011-12-12T09:43:00.000-05:00

A note from my daughter:

I am Practiceing Sitting still for christmas eve. can You Please tell me some long convortation about something or other. Plus I need some thing to look forward to like on christmas eve we have presents.

I asked her, "So you want me to get you excited about something and then tell you a boring story?" She said, "Yes, so I can practice for when we have to listen to scriptures before we open presents."

Lame Dreams

2011-12-12T09:39:00.000-05:00

I got an interview with the board of directors of my father's company for a cartography position for them. I showed up to the board meeting and told the secretary I was there, and they completely blew me off.

So I left and ended up at the Saint George Deseret Book, which was gigantic from the outside, but the inside was totally lame. It was like a crafting store on the inside (which isn't too different from a real Deseret Book), with nearly no books at all. I asked a worker where the books were and she pointed to one low shelf of one display, and it was behind the legs of an unfriendly-looking old lady, so I just left.

Next I was at the Camarillo Stake Center, where I was hosing down cars. One of the cars tried to drive away and I chased it. I followed it all the way across Constitution Park and City Hall before my hose ran out. I had to wind the hose back up, and some guys from Camarillo showed up to help. Erik's brother Christian was one of them. He had tattoos on his wrists and he was frustrated with me for getting the hose tangled up in a bunch of plants. When we were done with the hose, I suggested we all go swimming at a local apartment pool.

While at the pool, I got a call from my dad's company's board of directors that didn't tell me anything, so I went back to the meeting and found out they were very angry with me for leaving. I was supposed to have waiting for my turn, but it hadn't been obvious to me that I was ever going to have a turn. My father was mad because I made him look bad in front of his bosses.

Stressful Dreams

2011-12-11T13:46:00.000-05:00

Dreams are supposed to be relaxing. That's why people say "in your dreams" about unreasonably nice things. But lately my dreams have been about my regular life. That's not relaxing at all.

Last night's dream: I exited the freeway at an offramp that had an unexpected toll booth. I turned off the engine to save gas, and I started looking for change. The booth worker said the toll was $25. I didn't have $25, so I decided to drive to the next exit. But then my car's starter, which has been slowly become less and less reliable over the past three years, wouldn't start at all. I had to call Triple-A and I was deciding to get towed to our house instead of a mechanic when I woke up.

This is bogus. I want relaxing dreams. What's the point of going to sleep if it's just going to be like being awake?

Don't Make Me Turn This Into a Private Blog

2011-12-10T17:20:00.003-05:00

I should be able to write stuff without you people getting all weird on me. My wife is concerned that I'm oversharing lately, and that someone might go and do something awkward as a result. Well, don't.

In other news, now that my semester is nearly over, I've requested Nathan's book from the interlibrary loan program again. Last time I got Georgetown's copy, but now that one is missing (I swear I returned it), so I'm going to get American University's copy. I hope not to lose every copy in the DC metro area.

What can any of you people tell me about space heaters? Aren't they huge fire hazards? Or was that just old models? Maybe the fire hazardness of it has been corrected.

Current reading: King Lear; Doctrine and Covenants; A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants, Vol. 4; Money Mischief; Henry Reed, Inc.; and The Mortal Messiah, Book 2. I hope to top 23,000 pages by the end of the year, and top 25,000 pages for year-running by the end of February.

I want to make a vinyl lettering sign that reads "Vinyl Lettering Is Over-Rated," takes its picture, and pin it on Pinterest. (Yes, I'm a dude on Pinterest. I'm confident in my sexuality.)

Spreading Some Cheer

2011-12-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a student come to office hours. She's failing badly and wanted to talk about what her options were next semester. I respected that she was taking responsibility for her grades and wasn't coming to me with pleas for unfair leniency. To help cheer her up, I told her about how I failed out of school and switched majors twice. It worked like a charm; she went away smiling and even came to class later in the day.

Not the Blog I Envisioned

2011-12-09T14:56:00.002-05:00

I don't want to write one of those complaining-about-everything blogs. Seriously, when I envision my blog, I see it filled with humorous self-deprecating tales, insightful economic analysis of mainstream appeal, and occasional sardonic anecdotes. I don't see this as a place to vent frustration, mainly because venting is not shown to actually improve mental health, but also because it doesn't really increase readership.

However, comma, my brain does need to unload some things. There are times when I need to move on to something else, but I can't because my brain keeps cycling the problem. This was why I paid our previous landlord's bogus fee; I couldn't concentrate on school when my brain kept thinking, "Those bastards need to receive the following angry letter...."

I have to finish three papers this weekend, and had plans to finish two today, but then I woke up and opened yesterday's mail and today's e-mail, and now I've spent a good part of the day contemplating alternative employment.

My non-teaching job is an independent contractor position. I work from home because the company has no physical office space. A couple times every month I have to go to meetings in DC, which requires a lot of commuting time for me (we live in a fringe suburb, Bakersfield-Near-the-Potomac). Since it is not my regular office, I bill for the travel time. Yesterday my November paycheck came in the mail. I was at school all day, so I didn't open it until this morning, when I saw that it was $70 light. Then I got an e-mail explaining that I'd get paid for travel to a different city, but not to a meeting in town because it's like going to work.

Except that it's not like going to work for me. I took the job agreeing to a commute of walking down two flights of stairs. That's my office commute. Three hours of travel time and $8 of Metro expense was not part of my accepting the job. If I'd get paid to attend a client meeting in Chicago, I should be paid to attend a client meeting in DC.

I know a normal person would say, "It's only $70; walk it off." Except for the whole crushing poverty thing I outlined earlier this week. I don't have a $70 cushion to absorb unpaid work. And the two-weeks-before-Christmas timing of the thing pisses me off, too. As does the weak-ass way of handling it. Thanks for the phone call and the discussion. Oh, wait, you just told the bookkeeper to write a smaller check and didn't mention it to me until the check had arrived.

I can't afford to work for this company anymore, but I also can't afford to leave the position until the end of January. I don't think I can avoid DC meetings for six weeks, and I don't think I can explain that I'm no longer available for DC meetings without leaving my position. I went from interviewing with an understanding that I'd get $X/hr. to being offered 80% of X, to an after-tax pay of 68% of X, to an effective wage of 34% of X when I have client meetings. This upsets me, and I think justifiably so.

Okay, now to finish two papers today ("The Vox Populi as the Vox Dei: Voter Preference and Opinion Polls" and "Prison Money: Metallist Convergence in the Post-Cigarette Era") and one tomorrow ("Optimum Currency Areas Within the United States: A Beginning Look at Region-Based Currencies").

Grammar Overthought Right(ly)

2011-12-08T13:56:00.000-05:00

Somewhere along the way, I ended up with a blog entitled "Overthinking It" in my Google Reader feed. Here I've read about such things as the economics of The Hunger Games, Belle's delusion in Beauty and the Beast, and why Justin Bieber's early songs will sound bad when sung by an adult Justin Bieber. (Curiously, though, this is not where I read about the Endor Holocaust.)

Today on "Overthinking It" is a post about verb conjugation when a singular noun has a compound name (like the singular television show "Beavis and Butt-head"). It yields gems like the following:

The Smurfs (the show) was adapted as a movie, but the smurfs (all the little blue pests themselves) were awful in it. Or, more generally, though The Smurfs smurfs smurfily, the smurfs smurf smurfily.

In summation: "The Kardashians is a terrible show, but the Kardashians are terrible people."

My daughter needs to read this. She hasn't met a compound subject that she doesn't think can include the pronoun "me." First I told her I would tickle her. She persisted. Then I told her I would bite her. She persisted. Then I told her I would sit on her head and "toot" (our family's vulgar term for farting). She persisted. Now I tell her I am going to punch her in the face. She laughs and moves on with the story about what "me and Grace" did.

My Future Epitaph

2011-12-08T13:01:00.000-05:00

"I am unhappy with what I have done but even more unhappy with the most obvious alternative." - Milton Friedman, Money Mischief, p. 98.

Christmas Comes Early

2011-12-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

In August I began another semester of graduate school. If our student loans had worked out the way we were led to believe they would, we would have eased our way out of chronic poverty and into the lower-lower-middle class.

"Why would he put all those qualifiers on 'our student loans worked out'?" Well, because they didn't. And while we were trying to figure all that out, our last landlords tried to cheat us out of a thousand dollars. Writing letters back and forth and worrying about the next step was a distraction from the things I needed to be doing. While I was trying to figure out what to do, I remembered Doctrine and Covenants 19:35. "Pay the debt thou hast contracted with the printer. Release thyself from bondage." So I paid the disputed bill, telling myself it would be fine when our student loan money got released to us.

When we found out the student loan money wasn't going to come to us, we went from chronic poverty to crushing poverty. Our kids will still have some things to open on Christmas because of grandparents sending presents, but that will be it.

(Luckily we laid the groundwork for a small Christmas after last year, when our kids got new toys even though they were perfectly content with their old toys. It's a lot easier to keep Christmas small when they aren't competing with classmates* and don't see TV ads. And it was just a trivial step from "small Christmas" to "no Christmas." But grandparent presents have pushed the needle back to "minuscule Christmas," and since we never qualified "small," we can pretend this is what we meant all along.)

My wife and I were planning on not receiving anything (at least I was; if my wife wasn't, she should be once she reads this). Her parents sent us a little money to spend on presents for each other from them. And this is how...we got a new shower curtain rod today!

Our last one broke in September and we've been using the other shower since then. (Good thing we moved to a place with two showers this past summer.) Today I got my Christmas present shower rod from my in-laws and used it for the first time. It worked admirably.

A post like this should end with a life lesson about what really matters in life. You know what really matters in life? Money. Because without it a modern man cannot provide jack crap for his family. Can my kids eat explanations of covered interest parity? They cannot. (I tried.) Will they be excited on Christmas morning to open a lecture on the Long Run Phillips Curve? I doubt it. Will my landlord take payment in plans for restructuring the Federal Reserve? The contract doesn't say he will. I have one responsibility that's mine alone: to provide for my family. That means get them the money they need. Life is terrible right now.

*: Last spring I was sort of an assistant to the assistant coach for my son's tee ball team. Once I stood by and heard two six-year-olds compare their video game systems. "I have a Didj, Nintendo DS, PlayStation3, and xBox." "I have a Nintendo DS, PlayStation, and Wii." This past fall the same thing happened between kids on his soccer team, except they went into more depth, comparing particular games. It's when I spend time around other people's kids that I'm happiest we homeschool.

Sunday School Lessons

2011-12-06T06:10:00.000-05:00

Our previous bishop would give small pieces of candy to kids who could report to him what their Sunday School lesson was about. Not so much for the Gestapo element as to give the kids reason to remember, at least for the ten minutes it takes to walk to the bishop's office and repeat.

Our current bishop is now locked into the arrangement, because who really wants to be the guy to cut off the candy gravy train? Now all three of our kids make the after-church pilgrimage to the bishop's office. We've started policing their reports after learning that Articulate Joe was walking in, saying, "I can't remember," and expecting candy. So now when they show up at the car with candy, I ask them, "What did you tell the bishop?"

Last Sunday, Jerome Jerome the Metronome said his lesson was about "not killing our pets." Crazy Jane said, "Yeah, that's what he told the bishop." We suspect it was probably about something like "God made animals for us," the teacher mentioned our responsibility to care for them, and the three-year-olds ran with it from there.

Oh well. It's a true principle (we shouldn't kill our pets), and that was good enough for a piece of candy.

Things to Do

2011-12-05T12:46:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow night I make an in-class presentation, and I'm fifty-percent committed to blowing off Thursday night's class. That's the end of me having to attend class. Ever.

Of course, this doesn't mean I'm necessarily done with school. I have a pesky dissertation to write. But it does mean that I can start thinking about what I'm going to do with my life when I'm done with school. After all, I'd like to think the dissertation will be slightly easier for me based on the fact that I've written two novels. Yes, a novel isn't a dissertation, but it is a thing that you make yourself sit down and write.

So what am I going to do when I have free time again? Well, I've been making a bit of an informal mental list over the past few years. I decided I should have a place where I write them down so I don't forget any. That place is this blog post.

Run a marathon in less than four hours.
Complete an Olympic-distance triathlon.
Learn Spanish. (I'll have to use some sort of objective standard to judge when this is completed. Do they allow random adults to take the AP exam?)
Complete my next novel.
Read the Journal of Discourses.
Learn to play the piano.
Learn Chinese. (This one reminds me of Lt. Frank Drebin: "Uh, that's a pretty tall order, Nordberg. You'll have to give me a couple of days on that one.")
Through-hike the Appalachian Trail.
Learn to play the clarinet.
Visit every county.
Summit every state high point.

Inappropriate Children's Literature

2011-12-05T12:29:00.000-05:00

"Mrs. Claus and the elves got busy."

from Laura Rader's How Santa Lost His Ho! Ho! Ho!

Awkward Silences

2011-12-03T12:27:00.001-05:00

INSURANCE REPRESENTATIVE: You got that notice because your policy is no longer offered. The Affordable Care Act banned your policy and we applied for a waiver to be allowed to continue offering it, and we recently learned our application was denied.

A RANDOM STRANGER: Funny, I thought the rhetoric said "if you like your plan you can keep it."

INSURANCE REPRESENTATIVE: [silence]

A RANDOM STRANGER: So what are my options? Do you still offer insurance?

INSURANCE REPRESENTATIVE: Yes. What are you looking for in an insurance plan?

A RANDOM STRANGER: I already had what I was looking for and it was taken away from me by an idiot who said he was doing me a favor.

INSURANCE REPRESENTATIVE: [silence]

The Family That Stays Home Together Stays Slovenly Together

2011-12-02T14:15:00.000-05:00

I work my non-teaching job from home, and we homeschool our kids. That leads to conversations like the one I had this morning with Articulate Joe.

A RANDOM STRANGER: Why is everybody else dressed for the day but you?

ARTICULATE JOE: You're not dressed.

A RANDOM STRANGER: But I never get dressed.

Disclaimer: He and I were in pajamas, not naked. Even I have limits to my casualness. (Said limits are imposed by my wife.)

Flattery

2011-12-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

A woman who requested to follow me on Twitter wrote by way of explanation: "Dorky guys turn me on BIG TIME!!!!"

Thank you?

Qwerty Question

2011-12-01T14:30:00.003-05:00

I would think the keyboard would be set up such that the most common of a key's multiple functions is the one that happens with a single stroke, and the next-most-common function is the one that requires a concurrent use of the "SHIFT" key. Wouldn't you agree? So then why does the key to the right of the "L" give you a semicolon on the single stroke and a colon when used with "SHIFT"? Isn't the colon a MUCH more common punctuation mark than the semicolon? I'd guess 90% of computer users couldn't use a semicolon correctly in a sentence; they just stay away from the mark altogether and over-use the comma. Is this a programming thing? Is the semicolon much more prevalent in computer code?

Thinking Time

2011-12-01T12:27:00.002-05:00

So I was playing Minesweeper, imagining that someone else was watching. This person was disparaging my ability to play, saying that clicks which uncover a lot of empty space are unfair. I was saying that that's not true, because there are still 99 mines to find, and if there is a lot of empty space, that means the mines are concentrated, which will make it harder to pick out the safe squares. There's a gain (a lot of board cleared quickly) and a loss (the remainder of the board is harder to clear), and so it's probably a wash. The only way it would be an advantage is if the mines were concentrated such that there were NO safe squares left to find, because the game automatically completes once all the safe squares have been uncovered.

I began to wonder if every game has about the same number of "big clearing" clicks in it. A game can start with a huge area cleared, or it can start modestly and have a large area cleared by a single click later on. I thought how one would find out would be to stop after each game and count the number of clear areas above a certain size (say, 10 squares), and see if the number of them is fairly constant across games.

Right when I started to think how I would implement such a plan, I said to myself, "You don't have time for that; you have school work to do." Then I thought, "You know who's smart enough to do weird stuff like this and also has the time to see it through? Doctoral candidates." And I suddenly understood who came up with analyses like this one about the Endor Holocaust.

New Favorite Novel

2011-12-01T00:06:00.000-05:00

circa 1992: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

circa 1995: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Dec. 31, 2000: The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck.

late summer 2001: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee.

January 2002: Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

May 25, 2005: Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Apr. 5, 2010: A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

Nov. 30, 2011: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A quote from the book that I think relates to my previous blog posts about the underlying motivation of the Affordable Care Act:

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law--a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security. (p. 326)

"What Is It Good For?"

2011-11-30T11:17:00.000-05:00

Here's me from class yesterday: "What eventually destroyed the Bretton Woods system was the fact that a fixed exchange rate was exporting American inflation to other countries, who decided they didn't want it. Remember, in the late 60s and early 70s the US was fighting two wars, one on Poverty and one on the Vietnamese, both of whom won."

Title from the original title of Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The Deserving

2011-11-30T11:07:00.001-05:00

Everybody deserves everything, it seems.

Photo from Reuters here

What is a pension? It's either pay you haven't earned, which is robbery, or it's pay you have earned, just earlier, which is forced saving.

Most people demanding a pension would take umbrage with the "robbery" characterization, so let's look at the second claim. A pension is not the world's only saving vehicle. If you can't get a pension, create your own through saving. Problem solved.

"But wait," you say. "What if you planned on the pension as your method of saving and are now finding out it's not available?" That's a serious problem. But if you earned the money, the money should be there. If it's not, you either didn't really earn it (so we're back to "pension = robbery"), or it was mismanaged.

The thing about claims of mismanagement is that these are all constitutional democracies that are having these problems. The managers were chosen by the sovereign people. The managers spent the money in broad daylight. The people didn't replace the managers, thereby giving tacit approval to the looting of the pension. They earned the value of the pension, and they were repaid in expanded government programs and services. Now the erstwhile pensioners tell us we have to cover the costs, in effect paying them twice. Unless our calculations of the value of their work was off by half, they want money they didn't earn. And now we're back to "robbery."

Looted savings, when undertaken by a non-governmental agency, is a crime. But it's also a secret while it's going on. No one can really claim surprise that Social Security's "lockbox" is a filing cabinet in West Virginia filled with records of how much Social Security money the government has already spent. That's not saving; that's spending.

So no one "deserves" a pension unless he's earned it. If he's earned it, it should be there. If it's not, it was mismanaged. If it was publicly mismanaged, pensioners have a revealed preference for not receiving pensions. Why does this then impose an obligation on anyone else?

Recent History

2011-11-30T10:35:00.000-05:00

PROFESSOR: "[The use of the term 'inflation' to refer to an increase in the money supply, as opposed to its modern meaning of a rise in prices] was still occurring in the Mississippi Bubble, and that was in 1720, which is very late."

A RANDOM STRANGER [to himself]: "Wow, that is late!"

What has been going on in my brain that makes 1720 seem like recent history? I have no idea. Maybe it's because I've been reading A Canticle for Leibowitz, which, despite being set in the centuries after the 2600s, feels like it's set in the fifth century.

The Squeaky Shoe Gets to Kick Your Face

2011-11-29T16:51:00.003-05:00

There's a guy in my program that I don't really like. Let's call him Phil. I could catalog all the reasons, but I'm sort of busy today. (Or, rather, I'm supposed to be busy today. I mean, how busy can I really be when I'm blogging, right?) Suffice it to say, I don't like the guy.

Phil requested me as a Facebook friend and I accepted because I don't actively wish him any harm, which is my standard for becoming someone's Facebook friend. (Note: if we're not Facebook friends right now, it doesn't necessarily mean that I am actively wishing you harm; I might just not know who you are.) A few weeks later, however, he came up as a suggested friend, meaning he had defriended me.

I wasn't too broken up about it, since we weren't REAL friends to begin with (defined as someone who will help you bury a body with no questions asked), but it definitely has cooled what was an already-chilly relationship.

A few weeks ago, I walked into class a few steps behind another student. Phil said to the other student, "Oh, I heard your squeaky shoes and thought it was [A Random Stranger]." I said, "Do my shoes squeak?" Phil said, "Usually."

What? Firstly, my shoes don't squeak unless it has rained, in which case EVERYone's shoes squeak (except those of James Fenimore Cooper characters).

Secondly, why would a guy decide I wasn't worth taking one of his 5,000 friend slots, yet dedicate brain bandwidth to tracking the noises of my shoes? (Unless the reason he unfriended me was the shoe squeaking, but I refer you to my first point.)

Thirdly, Phil has a way of saying everything that is the opposite of friendly. Someone else could joke with me about my supposedly squeaky shoes, but when Phil says it, it's accusatory, as if my shoes are responsible for his terrible haircut and his boring-as-hell interest in robots and feudal Japan. (Hey, it turned out I wasn't too busy to catalog his faults after all!)

Richard III 6

2011-11-27T12:27:00.001-05:00

Richard III 5

2011-11-26T12:27:00.003-05:00

Richard III 4

2011-11-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

Richard III 3

2011-11-24T12:27:00.002-05:00

Richard III 2

2011-11-23T12:27:00.000-05:00

Richard III 1

2011-11-22T12:27:00.001-05:00

Holiday Travels

2011-11-22T11:02:00.000-05:00

K. Jack Riley writes in his paper "Flight of Fancy? Air Passenger Security Since 9/11"

Researchers have estimated that the 9/11 attacks generated nearly 2,200 additional road traffic deaths in the United States through mid-2003 from a relative increase in driving and reduction in flying resulting from fear of additional terrorist attacks and associated reductions in the convenience of flying. If the new security measures are generating similar, or even smaller, substitutions and the driving risk has grown as hypothesized, the new methods could be contributing to more deaths annually on U.S. roads than have been experienced cumulatively since 9/11 from terrorism against air transportation targets around the world.

Happy driving, everybody!

Riley's paper appears as Chapter 12 of The Long Shadow of 9/11: America's Response to Terrorism, edited by Brian Michael Jenkins and John Paul Godges. It was recommended in Timothy Taylor's "Recommendations for Further Reading" in Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Fall 2011), which was blogged about by Scott Sumner here. One of Sumner's commenters claims TSA is not designed to prevent lives, but to protect the macro economy. If this is true, the TSA is a massive tax of the "corporate welfare" variety that gets the 99% all hot in the pants. My privacy is invaded and my body is given cancer so corporations can operate in a slightly-less-risky environment. Why are there no unwashed hippies occupying airport screening lines?

Cynical Lies and the Cynical Liar Who Tells Them

2011-11-21T14:38:00.000-05:00

Since this is going to be a short week for me, I'm trying to get some stuff done in the office today (and failing spectacularly). That means I don't have a bunch of time for blogging (or do I? No, no I don't.), so I'll just jot down something I've been thinking about.

It seems pretty obvious that the "supercommittee" is neither super nor a committee. It's a collection of sound bytes about how the problem is the other side's fault. The decision has been made to miss the deadline and win voters next year.

And missing the deadline is not a bad thing. That means that the decision of what gets cut becomes automatic, getting out of the politically-inviable world of taking action against an entrenched interest.

The last time the specter of automatic cuts came up, the president said it would require withholding pay from military personnel. And that's the biggest thing I want to make sure everyone understands: THAT IS NOT TRUE.

Military pay would be withheld at the president's discretion. It wouldn't be a case of Obama saying, "Oh, I wish it didn't have to be this way." He would actively DECIDE to make it that way.

The problem is that the guy will do it in a heartbeat and lie about it for the next 11 months. Of all his lies ("I'm going to close Guantanamo," "My health-care law is deficit-neutral," "If you like your plan you can keep it"), this would be the worst, because it turns the lives of military personnel into a political tool. It would be like invading Canada to get a bump in the polls. If the public is fully informed, there will be no bump in the polls. Realize that military pay is a discretionary item when the automatic cuts kick in.

"It's Been So Long Since I Have Felt Fine"

2011-11-20T12:27:00.002-05:00

At the end of September, I realized it was the first time in over six years that I felt like I imagine a normal person feels, the previous time being May 2005. The bad news: that feeling left about the middle of October. The good news: it's still possible for me to feel like a normal person.

Title from Jim Croce's "New York's Not My Home."

Talking to Me

2011-11-19T13:02:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, I read Alison Weir's Princes in the Tower. Now I'm reading Shakespeare's Richard III. Last night my daughter was standing in front of the bookshelves, with her head blocking the SE section, which reminded me that I should add Desmond Seward's biography of Richard to my "to read soon stack." (It's a real stack, which teeters at 17 books. I feel like one of those ladies on "Hoarders" whose stack of newspapers shifts and crushes a beloved cat.)

I had Crazy Jane find the book behind her head and hand it to me. (Now the stack is 18 books.) I turned it over and noticed the dates of Richard's life: 1452 to 1485. I said to my wife, "Here's another guy who accomplished great things by the time he was 33. One more person who makes me look like a failure."

"I'm fine with what you've accomplished," she said.

"By the time he was my age, Richard was king of England."

"But that was something he was born into," my wife said. "He didn't have to do anything to get that."

"Are you kidding?" I asked. "He had to murder a lot of people. He had to kill Henry VI and his son, his brother Clarence, his nephews Edward V and the Duke of York, and a bunch of their uncles on their mother's side. That's, like, ten murders. Then he had to marry a couple times. All that's a lot of work."

Anyway, not only did Richard accomplish more by 33 than I did, but I'm almost 34 now, and Wikipedia says Richard died before his 33rd birthday, even. So I've spent a lot of this morning feeling like a terrible failure.

George Mason University economist Robin Hanson (whose Industrial Organization class I had) has a blog post today about this very thing:

In 1993, at the age of 34, I began a Ph.D. at Caltech, which I finished four years later. I probably didn’t make much more money afterward, but I’m a lot more satisfied with my life.
...
Human lives are long. If you are willing to work, you can radically change direction, even at the age of 34.

So I guess I'm not so bad off. I started my Ph.D. at 31; I might even be done before my 35th birthday. If Richard III is a better man than I, at least I have some company.

On the Prowl

2011-11-18T09:42:00.000-05:00

So I'm ready to move.

Which is terrible, because we just moved to a new place that I actually like quite a bit. But I want to get out of this town. (I'm unsure if that means my particular suburb, Bakersfield-Near-the-Potomac, or the Washington area completely.)

I'm done actually needing to be in the Washington area in less than a month. We probably shouldn't move until next August, when our lease expires, but a sufficiently-nice opportunity could entice me to incur the lease-breaking penalties. The difficulty is that there are no opportunities around, let alone sufficiently-nice ones. So I'm stuck working four hours per week as an independent contractor.

Now is the time for all good readers to come to the aid of their blogger. I mean, I've spent YEARS cultivating my five-member readership; now that capital is going to pay off. Find me an economics job and you will be repaid with a handsomely-glowing review of your friendship on my blog. (How handsomely glowing, you ask? THIS handsomely glowing. Damn, that glow is HANDSOME, yo.)

Blaming Everybody

2011-11-17T14:22:00.000-05:00

I suspect most of my readers (three of the five of you) don't know who Jason Whitlock is. He's a sports columnist who wrote for the Kansas City Star and is syndicated nationally. He also writes for Foxsports.com, where he's been among the ignorant masses howling for Joe Paterno's head on a pike.

I usually like Whitlock. Not that I always think he's right, but I think he's a pretty straight shooter. But on Penn State he is allowing illogical emotion to run roughshod over things like reason and truth.

In a hyperventilating Nov. 8 column, Whitlock claims Paterno could have reprimanded a non-employee, knew information Paterno says he didn't know at the time, should have contacted the police with the nuclear option of all possible criminal charges based on hearsay, and somehow delegitimized every victory in a 46-year career.

In his Nov. 17 column, Whitlock defends Mike McQueary thus:

I bring all this up because I think I understand the situation Mike McQueary faced when he walked in on Jerry Sandusky allegedly raping a 10-year-old boy in 2002. I bring it up because I believe many of the people loudly and quietly crucifying McQueary for apparently doing next to nothing to stop Sandusky would make the same choice as McQueary.

What.

The.

Hell.

He's got to be kidding me. He's got to go on a few more paragraphs before typing, "Ahhh, I'm just messing with you!" Right?

Not at all. Whitlock, the man who says Paterno's reasoned nonresponse to a rumor deserves condemnation, says McQueary's senseless nonresponse to witnessed child sex abuse deserves understanding.

Whitlock says we hate McQueary because we see ourselves in him. To which I say, don't you dare tell me who I see myself in, Jason. First you claim Paterno has some sort of moral shortcoming that should bar him from his past accomplishments, and then you claim every American has a far-worse moral shortcoming. If we're all McQueary clones, then why can't Paterno keep coaching? Whitlock isn't giving up his columnist position. Everyone's terrible, but only Paterno has to lose his job for it.

Whitlock thinks replacing an S with a $ amounts to a cogent argument. In the first article he writes, "There should be an asterisk next to JoePa’s 409 victories. And if not an asterisk, at least a dollar sign, America’s favorite religious symbol, our justification for valuing institutions more than human beings." Then in the second column he writes, "Brooks wrote that people 'suffer from Motivated Blindness.' Not that I disagree with Brooks, but I believe he would’ve strengthened his column by referencing Motivated Blindne$$, America’s most powerful force when it comes to willfully ignoring lapses in ethics and adherence to law, common decency and morality."

A kid in my fifth-grade class, Marc, had a habit of repeating things he couldn't understand that he'd heard from his grandfather. Among his repertoire was the phrase "the almighty dollar." He'd bring it out at random, hoping he might one day stumble across an appropriate setting. (Sadly, fifth-grade never yielded one.) Aside from differing in age, name, and race, I'd swear maybe Marc grew up to be Whitlock. Blaming Paterno, exonerating McQueary, blaming dollars (and calling on Obama to fix it!) seems like the work of a guy making arguments he can't possibly understand.

Officeless Office Hours

2011-11-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

At Undergrad U., my office was a "bullpen" type of cubicle setup. Here at Graduate U., I get a workstation open to the public that I have to share with seven other instructors. And since it's open to the public, a random student is using it as study space right now. So I'm holding my office hour on a couch in a hallway.

Fortunately for everyone, nobody comes to office hours.

Relying on the Smallness of the Mormon World

2011-11-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

Once I was a regular reader of a stranger's blog until the blogger decided to make it private. Then I discovered that my wife's friend knew this blogger, and so the friend asked for an invite and then gave us her Google login information so we could continue reading.

That opened my eyes to how the smallness of the Mormon world can work for me. So now there's some information I want, but I don't know the involved parties well enough to just ask for it. I'll describe the situation to you, and I hope one of you knows the details I need.

A high school friend of mine is rarely on Facebook. When I requested him as a friend, his wife friended me, too, since she actually updates stuff. At first I was all, "I don't even KNOW you, mister," but now I've seen that it is actually quite sensible. I have a general knowledge of their family's activities and have a way to contact them.

So now I'm Facebook friends with a woman I've never met. And I happened to notice once that she was tagged in a photo with some friends/relatives of hers. And here's the situation I want to learn more about: one of the women in that picture has an enormous tattoo on her shoulder of either 1. Marilyn Monroe, or 2. herself. I want to know which one it is, and (in either case) what the hell it's doing there.

So think it over and let me know if you know a woman with this tattoo, and then give me the background information I seek.