John Hagelin

I was browsing the Christian Science Monitor today, and I came across this quote.

John Hagelin, a quantum physicist says in [The Secret], "Quantum
mechanics confirms it; Quantum cosmology confirms it: that the universe
essentially emerges from thought and all of this matter around us is just
precipitated thought. Ultimately we are the source of the universe...."

Do you remember John Hagelin? I met him in Seattle in 1992, when he was the Presidential Candidate for the Natural Law Party, which claimed to be doubling in size every week. Wikipedia says "Hagelin is now a professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University of Management, and Minister of Science and Technology of the Global Country of World Peace."

So ... I'm not saying he's not a quantum physicist. I'm just surprised to see an uncontextualized quote.

Having driven on the 405, I can totally see the need

Which is a story I won't tell here.

You're not going to miss the bottom

So ... if Wheaton's right, we should be a little concerned about the subprime lenders closing up shop. I'm just saying.

The Onions says what I want to so much better, once again

So, you know, if you have any friends....

Daddy Halliburton

Did you know Li'l Orphan Annie was still kicking around? Apparently Oliver Warbucks is controlling Ratznestistan on the US Government's behalf, and has been sent to remove the strongman dictator to appease the local insurgency.

There was also a nice bit about the number 6 train.

NYC Opera 2007 - 2008 Season announced

Toni Morrison's Margaret Garner is included, and apparently they have quite a dancy King Arthur. More Don Giovanni! Wheee!

Ides, Nones and Calends

One more useless thing to know. Remember that March, May, July and October are different! These are the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 10th months, for which we need a good mnemonic.

I think I'd prefer a job that was doable

So, this posting for a Vice President of System Engineering at Integrien caught my eye. Specifically, this bit:

* Must be very, very, very smart (High Emotional Intelligence)
* 10+ years engineering experience with 7+ years of experience in management
* Must understand software and technology intimately
* Heavy technical background in computer science or mathematics
* Able to travel 50% of the time

Ah ... Now, if a job posting demands that I be smart, that's fine; they're just using space badly. It's a throwaway line. Do stupid people see that and say, "well, that lets me out?" If a posting asks that I be very smart, I break out in a sweat. This suggests that they have technical problems that they want someone to solve without spending money.

Three 'very' modifiers means things must be very, very, very bad indeed. What "very, very, very smart" communicates is that they're desperate for a savior, and you should only take this job with the intent of being hired away on the strength of it before everything comes crashing down.

And 'high emotional intelligence?' I think that means, "our management is a little unstable, and it's important that you not cry if they scream at you."

Reaping the Whirlwind

The Iraq Occupation is a complex enough beast that it supports many little pet theories. When Larry Franklin was nailed for passing classified information, I developed one that he was a pivotal figure working on behalf of Iranian intelligence -- that Iran maneuvered us into Iraq to weaken America and remove Saddam. And, if a bright light is ever shown on the ramp up to our invasion, I expect that it'll show Iran helped things along materially at the very least.

If we do invade Iran, this will be bad for them. Bad for us, but worse for them. And we wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to it without strong presences in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that'll've been a little ironic.

One of the few things I envy about the lives of people in the future is that they'll have a much better perspective on the various debacles at the start of 21st Century America.

The best superbowl commercial

As much as I love the paper, what I read in the Wall Street Journal often upsets me. Today, I was pretty happy. There was a front page reminder on how our miracle economy is due entirely to Chinese (and to some extent Koreans) giving us money and another noting that investors who looked brilliant three years ago are sitting on empty houses and quoting a 34-year-old who dumped a pair of investment homes last year saying 'it eats you alive.'

But, one thin I couldn't get past. Their superbowl commercial coverage gave panel reactions on almost every ad in the game, without even mentioning the best one. An unwieldy map refuses to be refolded, and continues to expand miraculously, growing into a monster and wreaking destruction. Ultraman, now powered by a Garmin GPS navigator, arrives to destroy him. It's pretty cool.

It makes you wonder if they throw up conceptual blind spots just for practice sometimes.

URGENT STAFFING REQUEST - Sheltering

Due to a 6th Alarm fire in Far Rockaway, Queens, 300 residents are in need of shelter for the next day or more. We are currently looking for ERV Drivers, Shelter Workers, DMHS, and DHS to respond immediately and throughout the day.

This sort of thing comes in from the Red Cross every so often; I'm a shelter worker. But, I'm tired, I have work to do and brunch and superbowl plans, I just did a 6-hour shift on Wednesday, and they don't call it Far Rockaway because it's convenient. On the other hand, my friends would understand if I bailed, people really need help, and I could spend 8 hours out there.

I'm saying 'no', but I want to keep an eye on this -- saying 'no' to institutional requests for help can be habit forming. I haven't responded to an emergent event since the Yankee flew into a building.

Unofficial 'Best Guess' Acronym expansion:
ERV -- Emergency Response Vehicle, it's a small truck with many disaster management tools
DHS -- Disaster Health Services
DMHS -- 'M' for 'Mental'. People -- both responders and clients -- get very upset at these things. There's a lot of counseling.

The futility of software project planning

This is a nice little review of Scott Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code. It has a little 'software programmers are bad people' bias, but it's understated.

I had moved from being a journalist and an editor to being the managing editor of a Web site, and we had decided to build, on our own, some software for Salon: a new content management system. But as I tell it in the book, it turns out to be a software disaster, a classic death march situation in which everything went wrong and nothing worked as planned and when we deployed it everything broke.

It's hard to communicate exactly how unpredictable software development is. In many types of projects, once you've finished it, you know how long it would have taken. And that's the sort of process system dynamics talks about well -- particular situations and units of work. But, in software development, there are always many choices, most of which won't work. But, deciding they won't work isn't much easier than actually trying them.

[A]s long as you are not trying to do something new -- if you are doing something that has already been done -- then you have a frame of reference to estimate how long it is going to take, and to guess how many people are going to be required, and so on.

Now, he gets into the 'build vs. buy' argument a little. I used to be pretty categorical about this: building software is always a disaster; if it exists and you can't afford to buy it, you can't afford to do it. Only code when you have to. However, since moving from development to professional services, I've come to understand that buying software is also always a disaster.

[T]he programmer who says, it will be faster for me to write it, rather than to learn it, is usually correct. Except that what he will write, most likely, is something that will work but will not have its rough edges worked out, will not have the benefits of a piece of software that has actually been used for a few years, where the bugs have been found and the users have given feedback and have helped you figure out where the problems are. So what they will often be handing you at the end of that I-can-do-it-faster-myself thing is something that works, but that is kind of a mess in certain ways. Whereas the thing that you were going to pull off the shelf, maybe it will take the programmers a while to learn it, but once they learn it enough to hook it up to this project you are creating, what they are hooking up will probably have a lot fewer problems.

This isn't true. Any software you buy will have had gaps in its testing, probably just right where you want to use it. And, components are often even less well documented than business software, because there's a cultural thread which states that well written code is self-documenting, and documentation is just to please PHBs. This contributes to the bit about writing code being as easy as learning someone else's code, which is truer.

So, I'm thinking maybe I'll read it. I'll get back with you if I do.

Climate Change about 1/115 as bad as auto traffic

The worst could mean more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of
dollars in costs by 2100, said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research in Colorado

Do you feel a little like Number Two when Dr. Evil wants to hold the United Nations hostage for one million dollars? We lose Florida, invite routine tornadoes and hurricanes, create large scale famine and only lose one in every six thousand people?

Car crashes, which is a fine measure because it's a risk we're completely comfortable with, killed about 1.22 million people in 2001. Climate change will kill fewer than that over the next 94 years.

Well, maybe the industrial revolution wasn't such a bad idea after all.

COULD A LARGE MIRROR DEFLECT GLOBAL WARMING?

So, if you thought the Iraq Occupation was as bad as ideas got, check out this policy proposal from ABC News. My favorite part is where it says "Not a scientific survey."

Swampland

So, my two big questions about climate change are what's going to change and when. I don't think I'm alone in that. But, I believe that there's some confidence that temperatures are going to rise generally and the soil's going to get much less moist. I don't see any reason that water levels won't return to Miocene levels, some 110 meters above what they are now.

This combined with my love of mangroves suggests that maybe I should start looking at swamps long term.

Who knew interpolate had a homophone?

Seriously, I've been speaking this language for close to 40 years, and there's still all these words I don't know.

Interpellate's a good one to know, though. We're hoping for more of it. It's almost impossible to use it in a sentence and not get some hope for the future. As Bush cronies get interpellated during the Irving Libby's trial for impeding the nation's work on WMDs, don't you get a little charge?

[title changed in light of Brad's comment below]

The Axis of Constructiveness

Now, the president is fetishizing obstruction and indifference. This administration has totally gone off the rails.

All they're going to do is talk

From the party of climate change denial to the party of climate change inaction. It really feels like a step up, but a feeling and 35 cents will get you a cup of coffee in Tennessee.

Margarine Defended!

Emma, From I ❦ Margarine, has defended margarine from my elliptical attacks. So, I wanted to point out her comment.

The point of the piece was that trans fats were bad, arguments about whether or not trans fats were bad were dishonest and that fat replacement food additives in general seem to eventually be revealed as poisons (I only implied this, but it's a deeply held conviction.) Margarine introduced trans fats into our diets, but I haven't researched how bad it is for us in its current formulations.

You may consider margarine as incompletely condemned by this blog at this point.

Contribute 60 second video commemorations to loved ones lost in Iraq

Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films -- the documentarian behind Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (as well as Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price and The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress) will release a project in March commemorating the American Army victims of the Bush league in Iraq in the words of their loved ones.

He's asked me -- in the sense that I'm part of everyone, and he's asked everyone -- to promote the project and help solicit video clips.

So, this is it! If you know someone who has lost a soldier in Iraq, please point them at the link, and let them in on this catharsis.

The surprising thing about the Manhattan Grand Prix Half Marathon

So, the number one fact about running a half marathon in Central Park in January is that it's 13.1 miles long. Running, we often referred to the length as 13 miles, so I suspect those last 500 feet came as kind of a shock to some people. The second fact are the hills; you do two loops of the park, and there are two long hills that take on far more significance the second time.

The third thing -- and remember that it was 19°F (11° with windchill) when we started the race -- is that ice forms on the water cups the volunteers set out. You might think that they would have fewer cups of water in reserve than they do given this problem, but I guess efficiency is paramount.

At first I was able to pick up a cup of water and poke through it with my thumb. As the race progressed, I started to have to crack it with a knuckle. My last drink of water, I picked it up and smashed the paper cup -- which had something like 3/4 of an inch of ice at the top -- against the table. It created a little cascade of ice and water, but I got my fluid.

In retrospect, the Gatorade Endurance formula probably froze more slowly, but it doesn't have a name that inspires confidence. Anyway, some pictures, courtesy of a friend with a cell phone. It was a beautiful day.
1. Starting off. I'm just to the right of the speaker.


2. Running partner Rob coming in for the big finish

3. Following Rob none too closely. You can pick out my distinctive yellow pants. I'm the fifth runner in the picture.

4. Me and my enormous keister making 13 miles into 13.1.

Finished the half -- placed in the top 3/5 of men my age

NYRR Race Results About NYRR Race Results Questions NYRR Event Calendar		NYRR Manhattan Half-Marathon List by Runner Number: ☺650 Distance: 13.1 Miles, 21.1 Kilometers Date/Time: Jan. 21, 2007, 8:30 am Location: Central Park, NYC Weather: 21 F, fair, 32% hum., wind chill 14 F Search Results Wheelchair Finishers Award Winners View, Share & Purchase Photos Statistics

Last Name	First Name	Sex/ Age	City	State	Overall Place	Net Time	Pace/ Mile	AG Gender Place	AG %
MALECHEM	RIONN FEARS	M38	MANHATTAN	NY	3831	2:19:58	10:41	2606	43.3 %

By using this Web site, the user agrees that nothing contained herein may be reproduced in any manner without the express written permission of New York Road Runners. ING New York City Marathon™, New York City Marathon®, and the apple/runner logo are the property of the New York Road Runners.

AmEx just halved my interest rate

I wrote them and said, "Hey, lower my interest rate!" I don't carry a balance, but I worry.

They dropped it by half. Because I asked. So, if you have an AmEx account, ask.

For those of you who thought the Bush Administration was coming around

Well, you should read the story, to which I was referred by a comment at TPMCafe. But, here are some tidbits...

The government's ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching some of its most important new instruments, a panel of experts has concluded.

...

As a result, the panel said, the United States will not have the scientific information it needs in the years ahead to analyze severe storms and changes in Earth's climate unless programs are restored and funding made available.

...

According to the report, NASA invested about $2 billion annually in Earth-monitoring missions from 1996 to 2001, but that figure, when adjusted for inflation, started a decline in 2002 and is projected to be $1.5 billion annually from 2006 through 2010. Since President Bush announced plans in 2004 to return astronauts to the moon and later send them to Mars, many involved with the NASA science program have warned that their efforts are being curtailed, and will be restricted further in the future.

...

The problem at NOAA is different, and involves continuing and costly complications with its National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. Initially conceived in the 1990s as the next-generation weather forecasting satellite for NOAA and the Defense Department, it is now three years behind schedule and as much as $3 billion over budget, according to the Government Accountability Office. In addition, the NSC report says, many of the weather and climate instruments that the satellite was supposed to carry have been dropped to keep costs from further increasing.

I knew that Mars program was worse than just a bad idea. I didn't suspect that it was specifically targetted at undercutting climate change research, but that's mostly because I'm a moron.

I don't have much to say about the article past its content, I just wanted to share a little outrage. So, there you go. There is this, though:

NOAA officials announced last week that 2006 was the warmest year on record in the United States -- part of a highly unusual warming trend over several decades that many scientists attribute to greenhouse gases. Some climate experts think that the atmospheric warming could bring more extreme weather -- longer droughts, reduced snowfall and more intense hurricanes such as the ones experienced along the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Many? Some? How about 'all ... not fellating the power structure.'

The loss of what I never had

Ah ... so, I leaned on Asurion today, and they admitted they had some VX9800Ms lying around, which the phone lady believes are VX9800s with a software upgrade. While I was all excited about upgrading to the VX9900, really getting my phone back is what I wanted.

So, my insurance is finally grinding into motion! I should be happy!

And yet ... the eight days of promise of this fantasy phone got me all excited. What should be a time of rejoicing tastes of ashes.

Stupid human nature.

Please share your story concepts

Well, Brad's suggested maybe another posting on theSpoof. Now, when last we visited the website, it was barely holding together as an enterprise, and I was more or less forced to create my own venue. This blog is somewhat more conducive to logorrhea than full on satire, though, and the spoof writing was worthwhile. Remember this classic? Ah.

Last October, Paul Lowton came back to theSpoof. I've just found out about it. So, maybe we'll see if we can't put something together. What is there left to write about, though? Hasn't every absurd possibility come to pass? Think of these great satire titles

• NOAA attributes balmy Manhattan Winter to El Niño
• Bush thinks 20,000 more troops is the ticket
• Corporate economists claim housing slump over, nothing to worry about
• Saddam Hussein executed by Shi'ite extremists
• Condoleeza Rice to replace Cheney, lower impeachment risk cited
• Democrats win office, promise to reduce corruption

¡Dios Mío!

I win again! Or, run up again. Whatever.

Rionn Fears Malechem,

Congratulations! Your headline submission for the Overheard in New York Headline Contest has been chosen as a winner or runner-up. To find out which, check the site on Jan 11th. If you're the first-place winner, please email me your full name and the address where we can send your prize, a signed copy of the book Overheard in New York. Thanks!

-morgan

Morgan Friedman
Publisher, Overheard in New York

Two thirds of Republicans still approve of Bush's performance

What are they hearing that I'm not hearing?

A little pro-sprawl argument

So, Jan K. Brueckner of UC Irvine and some Irish woman argue that Robert Putnam was wrong -- they call him out in the abstract -- and that social capital is better in the suburbs. City people are less engaged than drivers in their communities and the latter have more and better friends.

I guess this is somewhat more credible than my sun sign affecting my driving record, but it's pretty surprising.

Manhattan Luxury Real Estate continues to inflate

Um, does this somehow not sound sustainable?

One of the biggest price surges in Manhattan took place on the Upper West Side, where four-bedroom and larger apartments cost an average of $5.7 million, or a 48 percent increase over the fourth quarter from 2005.

If you haven't been keeping track, the fourth quarter from 2005 was one year ago. This is a year-on-year increase of one half. It's nice to see exorbitant unearned bonuses for financiers going into transitory housing prices.

Still no phone

I'm starting to lose my initial delight at having my Lucky Goldstar VX9800 replaced with an VX9900. I had already given the phone over a week to show up on its own, so I've been without for going on 16 days -- without my fancy convergence device, I can't read my email during the day, which has been causing all sorts of problems.

Asurion calls me every three days and tells me the equipment is still on backorder. Are there manufacturing problems, or are they just waiting for the price to come down? LG apparently hasn't scheduled an IR call since August, so there may be something bad happening in Korea*.

Part of my increasing grumpiness at waiting for the replacement phone is the parlous state of the phone I'm using now. The whole reason I didn't give it to my mother was that the buttons became somewhat unreliable after the last time I dropped it. Besides the fact that it's hard to go back to T9 once you've been using QWERTY.

So, waiting....

* -- No, I know. I'm just making fun of the website. But, they do seem to post news pretty rarely.

Momofuku Ando has passed

And in his honor, a little haiku:
Winter cherries bloom
Cheap noodles oppose hunger
Pour boiling water

Astrology's new respectability short lived

One comment on MonstersAndCritics:

This study is bull****Dec 31st, 2006 - 07:17:22

I've written Lee Romanov for a citation to this study, but here's the reply from one of her minions:

'Thank you for contacting us.

Car Carma was written for the pure pleasure of the many visitors to our
website, www.insurancehotline.com. It is not intended to be a textbook, but
rather a light hearted commentary with a unique look at the little-known
world of insurance. The topics of insurance, accidents, tickets and the law
are factual. We have learned from drivers across Canada, USA and UK, that
the information given was both needed and appreciated by almost everyone.

The references to astrology are meant to tickle the fancy and Lee had a
great time writing this book, purely for your enjoyment. I hope you can
appreciate Car Carma in that light and thank you sincerely for your
comments.'

In other words, it's bullshit.

I try to keep an open mind, though.

So ... I followed the hypnosis link in the last post

Apparently, Wendi Friesen can hypnotize you over the web. She's automated it. Does that make you a little more wary of computer viruses? Sure, they can delete all you files, but you have backups, right? Now, apparently, if you misconfigure your firewall, you could wake up being tackled by Secret Service agents in a screaming crowd.

An astrological reading

Went to Astrology.com tonight, and got a Juno sign, which is supposed to indicate what sort of romantic partner I am. Now, I was told I have a rising sign in Aquarius, which prevents me from putting any stock in Astrology, however I heard tonight of the InsuranceHotline.com study. There's apparently a correlation between your sun sign and your insurance risk; while one would expect Taureans to be the lowest risk, we are actually middle of the pack on both tickets and accident. Despite this flaw, the study encouraged me to give Astrology another chance. I was warned off by its exhortation to wise women to get a reading, and was later notified that ...

	Determined to lure your boyfriend back? Is your girlfriend giving you the cold shoulder? Hypnosis might just bring that special someone closer. Find out how -- now. It's free!

This was the sort of people we're dealing with. But, I charged ahead. This is it:

Your Juno is in Scorpio

Some may think you a bit unkind, darting from flower to flower and breaking plenty of hearts before you commit to just one person. That's not it at all; you're just very choosy and will think long and hard before you choose the partner who will be yours for the long haul. In fact, you are wonderful at committing yourself to lengthy relationships and are extraordinarily loyal once you've decided on your course. You won't change your mind and will hang onto a relationship until the last dying end, in which case your acumen and choosiness come in very handy. Why stay in a rotten relationship? You fight to keep the relationships which are valuable to you instead. You have a tendency to be a bit emotionally controlling but your strong points are your sensuality, your intensity, your attention to both the physical and emotional sides of love. Your partner is likely to be someone with a little mystery or a few secrets but a wise Juno in Scorpio chooses a partner who is giving, one who doesn't withhold affection or information in the interest of wielding power.

Well, I do stay in relationships far too long. And I have found specifically that this business of withholding information in the interest of wielding power is somewhat grating. But, I have to wonder which Juno signs are set on the trail of parsimonious withholders.

Making Lemonade

So ... way back in 2004, I was looking for a phone, but I couldn't find one that didn't have a camera in it. Well, there was one that had push-to-talk, but I wanted that even less. So, I took the camera.

It was great! I took snapshots! Things I saw got digitally recorded! I resolved that my next phone would have not only a camera, but flash and zoom!

As with all stories of loss and heartbreak, there was this girl. She liked to text me, so I got a phone with a full keyboard. No flash. No zoom. Just a regular digital snapshot device. I spent more and more time with my phone, and the girl and I, we grew apart. She was nice and all, but didn't clip to my belt.

I left it in a cab! Devastating. There was much drama. I spoke to the cabbie over the phone, I waited for him in the rain, but the phone was lost. I called Asurion to get my replacement phone -- and I have to say I disagree with Consumer Reports about the phone insurance -- and they didn't have it. 'No longer manufactured', they said. I was crestfallen. The woman tried to console me with a VX9900, which is on backorder. I've revived an old phone, so I can wait a few days.

It has flash! It has zoom! Along with the full keyboard! I can see why people lose their cell phones, now.

Does this make me a tech blogger? Can I get a free laptop?

More underlying drivers of the housing bubble

I think if I stop pretending each post is going to be my last, I'll get out of here sooner.
Why is Freddie Mac granting all of these illegal campaign contributions? Could it be, say, to perpetuate pernicious policies promoting private property purchase?

OK, Just one more post for 2006

I'm back from vacation, and catching up on some of TPM before heading off to New Year's parties. But, I have to suggest this piece on Saddam Hussein's hanging:

Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

It's nice to read! This is more or less the gospel that I've been spreading through the country when encountering news of Mr. Hussein's death. This is really a wonderful blog.

I yield the remainder of my time to the Gentleman from Good Harbor Consulting

Talking Points Memo sent me to this little piece by Richard Clarke, which lists 7 major geopolitical crises that are currently being ignored. He charitably blames the Iraq Occupation, but does remind that Shrub was a bumbler even before he got it into his head to steamroll a foreign country to show strong leadership.
Happy New Year!

Margarine is as evil as we've always suspected

So, The Wall Street Journal is as for the New York City Trans Fats ban as you'd expect.

You wouldn't know it from the media coverage, but the science on the dangers of trans fats is still being debated

You have to love the "I'm lying to you, but I expect you to not notice" formulation. Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is being debated. The Holocaust is being debated. This just means that somebody feels obfuscation is in their interest.

But, margarine -- like all these 'low fat' substitutes for real foods -- has always been suspect. And here's the official word from the New York City Department of Health:

Trans fat is the most dangerous fat. It increases LDL ("bad") cholesterol, and lowers HDL ("good") cholesterol. Based on conservative estimates, trans fat is responsible for at least 500 deaths from heart disease in New York City each year. Trans fat has no known health benefits. Unlike saturated fat, there is no safe level of artificial trans fat consumption.

A little good news about flu vaccines

It turns out that getting a flu shot can be beneficial even if they predict the strain mix wrong. Now, I don't know how quick I'd be to extend that result to the bird flu, but the professional scientist people seem to.

Suzanne Ohmit of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and her colleagues found that in the fall of 2004, Sanofi-Pasteur's FluZone vaccine was 77 percent effective and MedImmune Inc.'s Flumist worked in 57 percent of the cases even though the flu strain making the rounds that year was not selected for the vaccine.

...

Bird flu is expected to be so novel nobody will have any immunity to it, said Monto. As a result, people are going to need two doses of the vaccine, just as children who have never been exposed to regular influenza need two doses of the flu vaccine to be protected.

He Questioned All Things

This is a neat little quote from The History Of Love.

That he questioned all things, even the most simple, to the extent that when someone passing him on the street raised his hat and said, "Good day," Litvinoff often paused so long to weigh the evidence that by the time he'd settled on an answer the person had gone on his way, leaving him standing alone.

I can tell you, this is a paralyzing way to live. But, I like to think, in a Lemony Snickett way, it makes it harder for your enemies to find you.

Iraqi Red Crescent shown what being attacked really is

Dec 15: Iraqi Red Crescent Complains Of Harassment by U.S. Forces

"The main problem we are facing is the American forces more than the other forces," Dr. Karbouli told reporters in Geneva. "The insurgents, they are Iraqis, a lot of them are Iraqis, and they respect the Iraqis. And they respect our [the Red Crescent's] identity, which is neutrality."

...

"We have flags, we have everything, we have [the] logo, so [U.S. forces] know everything, but unfortunately they come again and attack us many times," Dr. Karbouli said. He complained that U.S. forces broke doors and windows at the Red Crescent headquarters "and they didn't find anything, and they left."

Dec 17: Gunmen Carry Out Mass Kidnapping At Baghdad Red Crescent Office

Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms burst into Red Crescent offices on Sunday and kidnapped more than two dozen people at the humanitarian organization in the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness.

...

In the latest violence, gunmen in five pickup trucks pulled up at the office of the Iraqi Red Crescent in downtown Baghdad and abducted 25 employees and three security guards from an adjacent building, police said. A Red Crescent official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said the gunmen left women behind.

The Red Crescent, which is part of the international Red Cross movement, has around 1,000 staff and some 200,000 volunteers in Iraq. It works closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which visits detainees and tries to provide food, water and medicine to Iraqis. "We don't know who they are. We don't know why they did this," said Antonella Notari, a Red Cross spokeswoman in Geneva.

She also said the organization was in contact with the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which denied any involvement and had assured that they were searching for the abductees.

Well, OK. Please stop attacking the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The New York Times, typically trying to toe the administration line while hinting it knows better, suggests in its headline that the Iraqi Resistance attached the IRC, which has now suspended operations, which pointing another way in its text, to wit

Dr. Jamal Al-Karbouli, the vice president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, ... told reporters. “[The insurgents] respect our (the Red Crescent’s) identity, which is neutrality.”

And then, as if on cue (and only to prove him wrong), gunmen wearing police uniforms — easy to come by on Iraq’s black market, Marc Santora and John O’Neil note in today’s Times — raided the headquarters of the Red Crescent yesterday, kidnapping more than 30 employees.

Yeah, well, OK. Do you still think the good of our staying outweighs the good of our leaving?

Another thing I don't understand

More from the Housing Bubble Blog. Todd Martin (some economist) in a linked article in the New Haven Register is quoted as saying, ‘We’ve seen a seller’s market turn into a buyer’s market very quickly.’

Now, we hear that a lot. It was a seller's market, it's now a buyer's market. But, really, does it have to be either? If the property values have only started to slide down, isn't it not really a buyer's market? I'm waiting until prices absolutely crater. It's a 'somebody else's money' market now, I'd think. If you're trying to sell in one of the regions that has started to deflate, your best bet would seem to be to get elected to office.

One thing I don't understand

OK, so there's a website where you can sign up for a sugar daddy. Now, you quantify the financial relationship you're -- or 'your are' -- looking for.



And they're very clear that they won't tolerate their platform being used as a platform for prostitutes.

But, the line. I don't see the line.

Proving I'm only theoretically anti-pet

If I were sending out Christmas cards, I'd use this photo. Merry Christmas!

America Wins Again

Briefly mentioned at the end of a NYT story is news that President Bush
signed a bill extending the mandate of the special
inspector general for Iraq reconstruction until 2008.

You'll recall there was some anxiety about this.

Little Victory

You are, of course, familiar with Keith Knight's "Life's Little Victories" series in the K Chronicles (check the link.) I had one, so I wanted to share it. The nearest ATM that takes deposits for my credit union is at Grand Central station. I get paid like a bus boy, so I have to go deposit my own checks. Next closest is sneaking past the dogs, guards and metal detectors at the Federal Building, and then I'm in some place called 'Bergen County'.

Recently, the card stripe reader at Grand Central hadn't been working, which is how I found out about the dogs. Today, I slipped in at about 8:20 and tried my card. Nothing. I tried it in various configurations, speeds and with special patterns, pretty much what you'd do if your magnetic card stripe reader was ignoring you. I melancholically accepted my fate, and began to trudge out of the building when an incoming woman confronted me. She was there to fix the machine! It had to be reset every morning because of a network problem! This had been going on for a month!

So, I chatted with the guy behind me about industrial art (we were actually in the Whitney Museum Annex in the Altria building, across the street from the actual train station) while she fixed the machine, and I deposited my check.

I win!

More on pets

Sherry Turkle has come out against robot pets. She doesn't have any specific fears, but is uncomfortable with the emotional bonding and dependence that children and the elderly have been shown to develop with the neotonous mechanisms. We can presume this vulnerability spreads through our whole population.

Now, one of my more controversial recent posts -- and I have to warn you again to think twice before following the video link -- dissed the idea of pets as being dishonorable to the status of free animals. I get my politics from Wicked. But, this point is important, too. That our affection for pets -- robot or otherwise -- is something that wicked overlords can use against us. It's just a thought. But, if we can train dolphins to shoot divers, why can't we train a puppy to seduce a cabinet secretary into snapping the neck of ... well, I won't say whose. I don't want to end up in Gitmo.

And speaking of controversy! I had dinner tonight with the volunteer coordinator for the local Red Cross. I told her I had a blog, and she said she'd never seen one. When I told her mine was "Fears and Frets," she corrected herself, as she'd seen this.

This blog! For at least one person, the only blog she recalls seeing. It's not nothing! I believe it was this post, inviting you all out to Staten Island. But, the point is, at least one large sovereign body is aware of me. I'll try not to let it get to my head.

One more point! This is my first post with Blogger's new interface. It's almost exactly the same, both for you and for me. But, let me know if there are any problems.

Finally!

I was walking -- to church, actually -- through Union Square today and a guy handing out long cardboard boxes decorated with minorahs asked if I were Jewish. Now, I'm kind of a mutt, but ended up looking vaguely scandinavian -- people guessing my religion generally go for Episcopalian or Lutheran. A fair number hit Presbyterian dead on.

Now, the New York branch of Jews for Jesus is between my apartment and the subway. So, every day I walk past while they harrass passersby, "Have you heard the good news?" or whatever they say. But, they never talk to me. I figured it was a lost cause to try to make myself look Jewish, so I was just sort of hoping to get hit at random, maybe by somebody new to the game.

I explained all this to the guy in the park, and thanked him for finally including me in being possibly chosen. It was super important to him that I understand he was not with Jews for Jesus, but a regular Jew for Judaica, but once he felt he communicated that he said that made him feel good, and thanked me for sharing.

I don't know why that made him feel good, but I''m glad it did. It was our Christmas miracle.

Later that same day, I was visited by what would in the movies have been an angel. A panhandler asked me for some money, and I demurred. He persisted, and I asserted, "I shan't help you." He wanted me to explain why.

I didn't really have a good reason. But, I didn't see a reason to help him. He told me that as a Christian (this one guessed correctly) I had an obligation to help him. This is correct, but it's never seemed workable. I pick and choose how I'm going to help the poor and contribute to the community -- but I don't know if I get to. While on the one hand it seems arbitrary to give money to whosoever asks me, I'm back to pondering the question. Which is probably a good thing.

CNN a tool in the gender wars, as well

This was a link from the Housing Bubble Blog. But, it's a fascinating story. Girl marries boy, girl and boy have children and buy rental homes, boy loses job, girl and boy avoid talking directly about the need to unload speculative properties in a weakening market, girl goes to national magazine to relate her side.

It's amazing! "CNN Money requests the attentions of pigheaded husband Brian Schuett to this part of its website and magazine."

So, keep those lines of communication in your marriage open. Otherwise, this could be you!

Housing bubble explained

You have to love criminals; they always have such a fresh perspective. If you saw insane increases in residential property valuations, what would you do? If your answer was "collude with the seller to inflate the price of a house, buy it with borrowed money, keep the margin, and default on the loan," then the housing bubble has really been working for you.

Wondering what to get me for Christmas?

I'm not a soldier in the 'War on Christmas.' But, I'm not going to pretend it's not coming up. And I feel no need to treat Hannukah and Kwanzaa with equal billing. 'Happy Holidays' and its ilk are ways to use corporate and public money to celebrate Christmas while trying to stay seemly -- I'm totally for that. I just don't understand why individuals say 'Happy Holidays.' But, for you non-Christians, does hearing 'Merry Christmas' make you feel oppressed? Is 'Happy Holidays' better?

Is it still a digression if you lead with it? This post is really about CorpWatch. You know I think Bunnatine Greenhouse and Stuart Bowen are two of the real heroes of Iraq. If the occupation is about funneling money to Bechtel, CH2M Hill, Halliburton, SAIC and their ilk, then we lose as long as that goes on. It's fine to talk about all the disasters we create there and in Afghanistan, but the reason why we did it persists.

I saw this today in Talking Points Memo (it's from The Nation):

[In] New Orleans ... [f]ederal dollars are flowing to corporate bailouts and disaster profiteers, not to affected citizens, revealed an August analysis by CorpWatch, a San Francisco-based organization that previously investigated profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And now I'm all hot on CorpWatch. And I'm going to go get me a deck for WTO Loteria.

If I publish a book, can I count on you to acclaim it highly?

Fellowships for Writers [and thinkers] at UNLV

This is new opportunity for RPCV writers [and thinkers] this was set up by Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) and others at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, check it out.

Founded in 2006, the Black Mountain Institute (BMI) is an international center dedicated to advancing literary and cross-cultural dialogue. Named after the long defunct Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Las Vegas' own Black Mountain, it is composed of the Forum on Contemporary Cultures (The Forum), the North American Network of Cities of Asylum (NANCA), and the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). A center of excellence in modern letters, BMI provides an environment where thinkers and writers from all segments of global society can fight against entrenched perspectives, whatever their political or cultural source.

Beginning with the academic year 2007–2008, the Forum on Contemporary Cultures at the Black Mountain Institute (BMI) is pleased to offer from two to five nine-month fellowships to published writers and public intellectuals. Fellowships will be awarded to candidates whose work ranges away from the American experience and into international terrain, and who have an ongoing project that would benefit from a period of sustained immersion. The program accepts applications from novelists, poets, playwrights, historians, political scientists, independent scholars, and anyone else whose work is meant for a general, intelligent lay audience. The Fellows Program will offer its first fellowships in August of 2007.

Criteria
The Forum awards from two to five fellowships each year to outstanding writers who have published at least one highly acclaimed book before the time of application. Foreign nationals conversant in English are welcome to apply. There are no degree requirements.

Terms and Conditions
Fellows receive a $50,000 stipend, an office, a computer, and full access to the UNLV Lied Library. They remain in residence at BMI for the duration of the fellowship term (approximately August 27, 2007 – May 16, 2008) and work on-site, daily, at the BMI offices. Fellows are required to give a talk on their work-in-progress to other fellows, as well as to a wide range of invited guests, and to take part in BMI programs. Additionally, fellows must make themselves available, on occasion, as visitors to UNLV graduate classes in fields related to their own work.

The Forum on Contemporary Cultures Fellows Program is Deadlines
Application deadline: February 28, 2007
Notification of selection results: May 1, 2007

end application and materials to:
Coordinator, Forum on Contemporary Cultures
Black Mountain Institute

Box 455085
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV 89154-5085

Queries
Program and application queries should be sent to fellows@blackmountaininstitute.org

Prof. Richard Wiley
Associate Director, Black Mountain Institute
Director, Forum on Contemporary Cultures

Richard Wiley is the author of five novels: Soldiers In Hiding (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for best American fiction), Fools' Gold, Festival for Three Thousand Maidens, Indigo, and Ahmed's Revenge. His most recent novel, Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show, will be published next year in the new Michener Series at the University of Texas Press. In addition, also next year, Hawthorne Books will reissue Soldiers In Hiding. Wiley has been a member of the UNLV English Department faculty since 1989

Wait! I think I get it

I was just cramming an anonymous neighbor's laundry into a hamper either they or someone else left in the laundry room, and I realized that Ralph Kramden's name refers to his being 'crammed in' to his tenement, bus driving job, and depressing marriage! It's not that he was larger than life, it's that the life he was being forced to live was so small.

That took me, what? Thirty-eight years?

Kenneth Pinyan

I was clearing out old emails, and ran across a thread on Kenneth Pinyan, the Boeing Engineer who was video-recorded being killed by a horse. (ed. Please read the comments before clicking the link)It's not for the squeamish -- and perhaps only for the totally squeamless. Are you back? Do you remember I said it wasn't for the squeamish?

Mr. Pinyan, the linked story relates, inspired an anti-bestiality law. This is probably because it would be hard to hire regulators (is it a job you'd want?) and it's the Washington State legislature's job to regulate things that can kill people.

But, I'm now thinking about bestiality. And I don't know that it's wrong. I'm sort of against pets, as it seems cruel to keep this degraded animal forms around us to amuse us and reassure us that it's OK nobody likes us. I'm for breeding animals for tasks, but I think it's just indulgent to breed animals as emotional crutches or ornamentation.

However, once we allow that, why not breed animals to have sex with us? Or even allow animals bred for other uses to be dual-purpose? I'm not suggesting a specific business here, I just miss what I suspect is an obvious argument against bestiality.

Anyone?

So ... about the Thermohaline Circulation

Well. OK. You'll recall the thermohaline circulation shut down, dooming us all to nasty, mean, brutish and short lives. Now, in the link, they say they can only show that it decreased 30 %, but you know how these reporting scientists are always so conservative.

They're getting worse!

Variations up and down within 1 year are as large as the changes seen from one snapshot to the next during the past few decades

The story is that the first result was from an instantaneous reading from a ship. Before they did that, they also lay in some long term instruments in the same area, and they've started to collect data from it. So, now they can see the variability, and they'd like to mitigate the panic.

The upshot is, some of us might live. I'm going to bed more hopeful than I was when I woke up.

Mixed Results in Public Policy

So, I bought a New York Times yesterday. Not to find planted Administration talking points on WMDs or such things, or to see what US Acts of Aggression were currently being glossed over, or even to see if the White House had recently OK'd the delayed reporting of one of its criminal acts.

It takes a little bit of cognitive dissonance, but on top of being a party organ, the New York Times has a lot of fine news in it.

Two issues I've been following got an update in the newspaper. One, trans fats are now banned, and 'restaurants with static menus' have to publish calorie information. I know that's two things, but they're both implementations of the same set of recommendations.

In other news, I've been foiled again! Apparently, the government uses birth certificate gender for separating prisoners and other useful things. Private institutions segregate hospital beds and so forth. It was, I'll grant (as does the City Health Commissioner), a not "fully thought through" plan. However, it means I can't have a same sex marriage.

You win some, you lose some, I guess.

Top One Percent "far from an exclusive club"

Well, that's a relief. To be part of the top 1% of the world's asset owners, you only need $200,000. Like the Finns who wrote the report, I belong to a decimal culture, and -- armed with the knowledge that the world is on a path from being difficult for the poor to being difficult for the non-wealthy -- I'd be comforted to know I was in the "top 1 %".

The press release for the World Institute for
Development Economics Research of the United Nations University's new study on The World Distribution of Household Wealth goes on to talk about why economic stratification is such an obsession with me: I'm an American

The concentration of wealth within countries varies significantly but is generally high. The share of the top 10% ranges from around 40% in China to 70% in the United States, and higher still in other countries.

Our stratification is worse that China's. Well, we can be comforted to think that China has a lot of poor, and there might be a fair number of them in the top 10 %.

The Gini value, which measures inequality on a scale from zero to one, gives numbers in the range from 35% to 45% for income inequality in most countries. In contrast, Gini values forwealth inequality are usually between 65% and 75%, and sometimes exceed 80%.

Two high wealth economies, Japan and the United States, show very different patterns of wealth inequality, with Japan having a wealth Gini of 55% and the USA a wealth Gini of around 80%.

Man, why are those Finns always dumping on us? Do they hate Freedom? Gini's 89 % globally, so we're marginally better than nature red in tooth and claw. Of course, we have an edge...

The authors go on to note that `many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and--somewhat paradoxically--are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth.'

Ha! Take that, Japan.

Architecture is the art of how to waste space

This was a Google 'Quote of the Day (by Philip Johnson.)' The popularity of books like "A timeless way of building' and Vesuvius' 'Ten Books on Architecture' among system architects reinforces the idea that there's some correspondance between building architecture and system (or what I call 'regular') architecture.

So, I'm thinking about how this metaphor works.