Why Don't Academics Have Real Jobs?

The question might be, why do lefties seek jobs in academics?

But another question, answered adroitly by Robert Nozick, is why do intellectuals hate captialism? Perhaps THAT is the reason they gather in self-protecting academic ghettoes to congratulate one another on how clever each is.

Big Monday

You know who had a good day Monday? Sure Krzyzewski and Mungowitz and the Dookies, but I'm talking about reigning NL MVP A-Poo.

4-5, 2 homers, 3 RBI and 4 runs scored.

Project those numbers out over a full season why don'tcha?

Student Athletes

Whatever else you say, Duke has student athletes in the old style. They graduate, they take real classes, and live right there with all the other students. No separate lives.

A nice NYTimes article, recognizing this.

My basketball team's name is Gay Human Bones!

Harlem's debut album "Free Drugs" was one of my top picks for 2008. Now they are in the big leagues, on Matador, and have another album, "Hippies", out.

It's a good one people!

Here is their Myspace page. Check out "Friendly Ghost" and note that they're on tour.

Here is a link to the video for "Gay Human Bones". I hear they are especially tough at home!

Sammy!

The "Fear the Boom and Bust" video, now with well over 1 million views, wins a Sammy!



Also, I have to point out this extremely balanced and informative review / exposition of the video on the Daily Kos.

Like, The Valley Girl

Tom Campbell, candidate for Cal Gov, goes on the Valley Girl show.

(Nod to Kevin L)

Earned Media

TV appearance on Political Connections, News 14 Carolina.

And my man Dr. Mike Beitler is there, too!

Lead, Nudge, or Get Out of the Way

KPC Pal and Most Excellent Fellow Will Wilkinson writes:

Perhaps you can set aside your ridiculous Duke boosterism for a moment and consider sharing the lead essay of Cato Unbound's new issue on "Slippery Slopes and the New Paternalism." The multi-talented Glen Whitman, economist extraordinaire and writer for TV's Fringe,kicks us off with an essay on "The Rise of the New Paternalism." Call it "soft paternalism," "asymmetric paternalism," or "libertarian paternalism"... with Cass Sunstein as Obama's regulatory czar, we all may be feeling the tender nudge of the new paternalism soon enough. Whitman puts us on guard, arguing that the logic of the new paternalism puts us on a slippery to not-so-tender plain old-fashioned paternalism.

Consider it shared, punkin'! And, I predict lots of fire on Duke's campus tonight ....and celebration.

I Can't Be the Only One....

I can't be the only one to think that Senator Mitch McConnell and Steve Forbes are becoming the same person, right?

Reader: Which one is which?




(The middle one is McConnell, top and bottom are Forbes)

Hamid Karzai has a very good idea

Here is change we can believe in:

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday."

Hey Hamid: Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, bro!

People, if Karzai was in charge of the Taliban, we'd have wrapped this whole business up quite a while ago.

The Main Thing We Stand For is Reelection

(Nod to Tommy the Brit. Careful with the video camera in the rubbish bin, Tom!)

The Nets? THE NETS?

Bizarre timing: Coach K to the Nets?

Couldn't they have waited a day? Why leak it now?

I guess I know, so people will write about it, but wow.

Tiny Butler

I am getting (as Cheech Marin used to say) a little sick up and fed with the dominant story of mighty Duke versus tiny Butler.

...on the verge of another improbable David-vs.-Goliath story, with tiny Butler in the NCAA national championship game against mighty Duke, you have to understand that the impact of this historic confrontation can't be contained within Indiana's boundaries.

It's so much bigger than that. Butler's presence in the national championship game is a true American sports success story.

"This," said Butler guard Ronald Nored, "could never happen in major-college football."

Sure, Butler has 4,500 students.

But Duke has only 6,250 undergrad students.

Michigan State, by contrast, has 47,000 students. West Virginia U has 30,000. U of NC, Duke's arch-rival (and my own favorite team) has 25,000 students.

Duke is also "tiny." But Duke kicked WVU's ass, and nobody talked about "David" winning that game. Duke beat UNC like a drum this year, and nobody raved about the tiny school winning.

The reason that Butler is not favored to win tonight is NOT that they are tiny. The reason is that Butler is not very good.

The real story (and frequent readers here know I am no Duke fan) is that Duke, in spite of being 1/4 the size of its most frequent rivals, consistently wins, doesn't cheat, and graduates all of its players with actual college degrees in actual college subjects. Why isn't THAT the story here:

Duke University provides education to students who otherwise could never afford it, and manages to win while doing it!

Mungowitz Gets Adam Smith Pin Factory Wrong!

Fred Stahl writes:

Dr. Munger,

I enjoy your podcasts with Russ Roberts. You two always sound like you are having more fun than you deserve. ( MM NOTE: Russ is certainly having more fun than HE deserves!)

Yesterday I was searching for the hunters and sandwich shop story—you know, the one showing how economies of scale make specialization more efficient even if everybody is equally skilled. I was a student in Dr. Roberts’ microeconomics class last semester when he presented the story, attributing it to Buchanan. I found a transcript of you and Roberts talking about it in an April 2007 podcast. I also came across your 2007 article on division of labor in the Library of Economics and Liberty: FEATURED ARTICLE | APRIL 2, 2007
I'll Stick With These: Some Sharp Observations on the Division of Labor

On reading the article, I saw that it might leave misconceptions about Adam Smith’s analysis of the pin factory. Here is the relevant part: And this is the period where Smith formed his impression: he saw pins being made by 3-6 men, in a small shop, each of whom performed several tasks at different points in the production process. Smith's widely quoted conclusion, which was actually just a quick estimate, was that there 18 different steps in the pin-making process.

The best research I have seen says that Smith never actually visited the pin factory he wrote about. Consequently, he would not have been able to make a estimate of the number of operations, quick or otherwise. Smith used data on a French pin factory published decades earlier. As Rothbard tells it, Smith accused his friend Adam Ferguson of plagiarizing his bit about the pin factory. Ferguson fired back that they both got the story from a French source.[1] The facts fit Ferguson’s charge. The French factories had 18 fabrication operations, as Smith mentions, whereas an English factory typically had 25. Edwin Cannan attributes the source of Smith’s production information to an article on pins that appeared in a mid-17th century French encyclopedia, thirty years before Smith wrote Wealth.[2]

One other small point, Wealth has 10 workers in the pin factory. By the way, apparently few if any economic historians know that in his 1832 On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Charles Babbage re-analyzed Smith’s pin factory. In contrast to Smith’s arm waving, Babbage used detailed cost and time data and concluded that Smith missed an important source of productivity. Smith wrote about division of labor by task. Babbage pointed out that the manager who divides labor by skill can hire cheap children and women for the unskilled work and expensive men for the bundles of skilled tasks. The productivity gain is a factor of 3 to 4, as measured in cost per pin.[3]

Rothbard comments about Smith:
Much of his analysis was wrong, and many of the facts he did include in the Wealth of Nations were obsolete and gathered from books 30 years old

Notes:
[1] Rothbard, Murray. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Vol. I and II, Edward Elgar Pub. 1995. Chapter 16. Excerpt available from Mises Institute, March 31, 2010 from http://mises.org/daily/2012 under title “The Adam Smith Myth.”
[2] Edwin Cannan edited the 1976 edition of The Wealth of Nations published by The University of Chicago Press. The attribution appears in Footnote 4 on page 8 as Vol. 5 of Encyclopédie.
[3] Babbage, Charles. 1835. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. 4th ed. London: Charles Knight. Reprint: New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1963. Babbage presents his detailed cost and time study data along with his analysis of the pin factory in Chapter 19.

Very interesting, Fred, and thanks! I haven't seen footnotes in an email in a while; many people have gone in the direction of the thing called "links." Still, I'm sure you are right, and that I am wrong about the story. Lots of good info there, Fred!

I'd be interested to know what ASLL thinks of my errors. Sufficiently corrected now?

Thunderation

A delightful piece

A delightful little article, on one man's travels among the strange and mysterious "Econ" tribe.

One of the chief priests, a "Dr. Romer," once appears to have worshipped different dieties, but now worships the god called "Porkulus." Angus had pointed this out at the time, of course, but it is worth remembering.

(Nod to the NCM)

Hot Links!

1. Kobe cashes in before the new CBA bites down on superstars.

2. Turns out Kenyon Martin does NOT like popcorn.

3. Tyler C is a club kid?

4. According to this, me and Mungo should just give up and fold KPC.

5. Ray Fisman strikes again.

Some Days, You Learn Things.

JS writes:

There some days when you learn things. I have been looking at transit data and saying that transit only covers 15% to 30% of operating expense from their fare boxes except in top 5 markets where it can up to 30% to 48%. Well after reading Sam Staley’s blog at the Reason Foundation, I now have to rethink this since it now appears that there has been some fare box stuffing. It turns out “Some 120,000 federal workers in the Washington region receive up to $230 a month for transit, which amounts to taxpayer-funded free rides or at least a hefty bite out of even the most expensive trips.” according to the Washington Examiner. Amazingly that could add up to $331 million a year for a transit agency that collects $683 million a year in fares with a $1.9 billion operating budget.
The examiner later states that “For years, federal employees received free and subsidized parking. Taking away the perk hasn't been a viable option: When President Carter tried it in 1979, federal employees protested and started a boycott of U.S. savings bonds”.
So what can be done? May be the Feds can apply a little Ricardian comparative advantage. Find the price point that Federal employees think the dough that they will get is equal to the transit or parking and get out of the “Green Washing” with the transit and the diametrically opposed “Brown” parking subsidy at the same time. There are markets in everything and I for one would be happier to be paid in dollars than in subway tokens or parking passes. I think it would be worth seeing if federal employees felt the same way.
Nor is it gloom and doom for the transit agency. There are plenty of consumers who would be willing to pay to avoid DC traffic. Now, they just would be a little more like choice riders.

Tell the Truth?

Interesting concept. Get politicians to promise to tell the truth.

"I, as an elected official, make a personal pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth while representing my constituents and conducting the business of the office to which elected."

Only about their public acts and duties, mind you. If Bill wants to lie to Hillary about Monica, that's between them.

I should note that I met Miles when we both had kids at RCHS.

Discuss, please.

Thundercats are go!

Michael Tofias Plays PIR, Bids $X420 on EVERYTHING

Idiot Trap Catches an Idiot

Economies of Scope: a continuing series

The first entry in the series is here.

Necessity is the mother of stupidity

This is how I imagine Joe Biden eats his soup!

The Problem is NOT That Women Don't Know What They Want....

...the problem is that they DO.

Mike, in an earlier comment, is led to think a bit out loud about an analogous experience.

It WOULD be amazing if one could build a single custom made piece of furniture for less than a manufactured unit that sold thousands.

England = Scary

Popehat gives some details about England.

Tommy, you okay, man?

The EYM Lays Down Some Smack

A letter in the Deadly Tar Ball. The letter:

TO THE EDITOR:

Though I’m thrilled to learn that our University is attempting to provide sustainable dining, Tuesday’s article, “Local Food, Big Business,” failed to explain what that actually means.

I’m inclined to think that “sustainable food” is food produced, transported, prepared and consumed without consuming finite natural resources or damaging the environment.

The article implies that subsumed under the term “sustainable” are the terms “local,” “organic,” “smaller farms,” “grass-fed beef” and “free-range eggs.”

The first two agree with my understanding of the term, but they get increasingly ridiculous.

Eggs produced by caged chickens are no more or less sustainable than free range eggs; they are more humane, but not more sustainable.

So by using the word “sustainable” to mean so many different things, the article robs itself of any actual weight or significance.

In my eyes, “sustainable” now means “any of a variety of liberal buzzwords designed and propagated to make people feel better about themselves.”

Kevin Munger
Sophomore
Mathematics

Oh, where, WHERE did I go wrong? Clearly, I failed as a father. A kid who doesn't realize that "sustainable" is something we worship.... well, I blame the LMM. She's a lawyer, and tends to think that words have meanings, rather than emotions.

"The Entire Island Will Tip Over and Capsize"

I just keep watching this. WTF?

Watch the question asked at 1:20.

This should be on the Onion. Is he kidding? He must be kidding.

If he is NOT kidding, then is he perhaps worried about underpopulation? I mean, the island might well float up into the sky and block out the sun if there are too FEW people on the island. Has anyone thought about that? I mean, no one worried about global warming, right?

(Nod to Angry Alex)

Lord Gaia Himself

Prof. Lovelock..."Lord Gaia himself..."

And these are our allies?

"The lawyer of a Lebanese TV psychic who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft said Thursday her client could be beheaded this week and urged Lebanese and Saudi leaders to help spare his life.

Attorney May al-Khansa said she learned from a judicial source that Ali Sibat is to be beheaded on Friday. She added that she does not have any official confirmation of this. Saudi judicial officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

A Lebanese official said Beirut has received no word from its embassy in Riyadh about Sibat's possible execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Saudi justice system, which is based on Islamic law, does not clearly define the charge of witchcraft.

Sibat is one of scores of people reported arrested every year in the kingdom for practicing sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling. These practices are considered polytheism by the government in Saudi Arabia, a deeply religious Muslim country.

Al-Khansa said she has called upon Saudi King Abdullah to pardon Sibat, a 49-year-old father of five. She also says she is in contact with Lebanese officials about the case.

She added that Sibat did not make predictions in Saudi Arabia and was neither a Saudi citizen nor a resident in Saudi and therefore should have been deported rather than tried there.

Sibat made predictions on an Arab satellite TV channel from his home in Beirut. He was arrested by the Saudi religious police during his pilgrimage to the holy city of Medina in May 2008 and sentenced to death last November."

The full story is here.

I guess I just can't stomach the "realist" school of international relations because our propping up of heinous regimes like this disgust me.

Pirate To-Do List

Pirate to-do list:

1. Remember to get parrot and AK-47, and other "effects"
2. Make sure that ship you attack at night is not extremely heavily armed US warship

They forgot #2, it appears.

Here is what USS Nicholas was packin':

One OTO Melara Mk 75 76 mm naval gun
two Mk 32 triple-tube (324 mm) launchers for Mark 46 torpedoes
one Vulcan Phalanx CIWS
four .50-cal (12.7 mm) machine guns.
SM-1MR Standard anti-ship/air missiles (40 round magazine)

What is a Phalanx? It's a 20mm Gatling gun, which fires 4,000 high explosive/incendiary rounds per minute. That is putting quite a bit of lead downrange in a hurry.

Furthermore, the main gun, the Melara Mk 76 mm, gun....it can fire more than 80 rounds per minute, with each shell carrying 15 pounds of high explosive. (Yes, 80 rounds per minute, and that's limited only by the loading device. The rate of fire on the gun is actually more than 100 rounds per minute. So a three second burst is 5 or 6 massive shells.)

Wilt's Crib

more here.

When Robert met Edmond

Newish NBER working paper by Aghion, Howitt, & Murtin (ungated version here) is titled: "The Relationship Between Health and Growth: When Lucas Meets Nelson-Phelps."

They argue that Lucas, who modeled an effect of improving health on growth and Nelson and Phelps who modeled an effect of the level of health on growth are both correct.

Their evidence comes mainly from a 96 country cross sectional average growth regression where both the initial level of life expectancy and the growth of life expectancy over the sample have positive and significant coefficients, both in LS and IV models.

Of the two results, they claim the effect of initial life expectancy is more robust.

I like the piece because they take a very reduced form approach. It's health and health improvements on growth, with basically nothing else in the model.

I dislike the piece because they, as do so many others, abuse the Hansen test of over-identifying restrictions to justify their instruments.

First, failing to reject the null, or "passing" the Hansen test, does not validate your identification, the test is on over-identifying instruments. Consider that in an exactly identified equation the test cannot be performed.

Second, failing to reject the null doesn't mean you don't have an instrument problem. A p level of .13 on a Hansen test means you don't reject the null at conventional levels, but it also means (more or less, I am speaking imprecisely here), there is an 87% chance that the null is false and your instruments are suspect. Another way to say this is we are rarely given any information about the power of the test, which is crucial when failing to reject the null is what guides our modeling choices.

Police Car Chew Toy

(Nod to Angry Alex, who called this "the darnedest thing")

New RNC Symbol

(Nod to the Bishop, who cites Crooksandliers.com. I found it at Blue Gal)

Hello Lakers?

The Thunder routed the 76ers last night to push their record to 45-28

Thunder have games remaining @Boston, @Dallas, Minnesota, @Utah, Denver, Phoenix, @Golden State, @Portland, Memphis.

Going on form they will win 3 more games and finish 48-34. The number 9 team, Memphis, already has 35 losses, so the Thunder appear to at least be in the playoffs. I am assuming that the positioning race between Utah, Denver, Dallas, and Phoenix will be ongoing so that those teams will be, in the words of Sheedy, "playing hard, my man" down the stretch.

However, it's hard to see how they can hold on to the 6th or 7th seed given their schedule vs. that of the Spurs and the Blazers. Each of them has one more loss that OKC right now, but both have a bit easier schedule remaining and both hold the tiebreaker against OKC.

San Antonio has Houston, Orlando, @Lakers, @Sacramento, @Phoenix, Memphis, @Denver, Minnesota, @Dallas. So put them down for 4 wins, tying OKC at 48 - 34. However, as noted above, the Spurs hold the tiebreaker over the Thunder.

Portland has the Knicks, @Denver, @Sacramento, @Clippers, Dallas, @ Lakers, OKC, Golden State. So put them down for 5 wins (yes beating the Thunder in Portland).

That gives Portland in 6th, Spurs in 7th, and OKC in 8th.

The critical game for the Thunder will I guess be the Portland game. Winning that could keep them in the 6th spot if all three teams perform as expected otherwise. Beating Denver or Phoenix at home would be huge too. Who knows, maybe they can steal another one from the Nuggets.

All Hail Greg Weeks

Greg puts a hammering on Chuck Schumer on Immigration reform.

Here's Schumer on meet the press:

MR. GREGORY: Senator Schumer, is immigration reform dead then?

SEN. SCHUMER: I don't think so. First, let's look at how desperately we need it. Fifteen thousand people cross our border illegally every day. Most of them take jobs from Americans. And yet, at the same time, there are certain people we need in this economy to help us grow, and we can't get them--engineers, doctors, farm workers. So the system is broken--it lets the wrong people in, excludes the wrong people--and so we need to fix it.

Now here's Greg on Schumer:

This is both inaccurate and unhelpful. "Most" illegal crossers do not take jobs away from Americans. But if Schumer believes they do, then it is not useful to say we "desperately" need them to take away those jobs. Overall, he seems to think the U.S. economy needs only a tiny fraction of the workforce that is attracted to it, which ignores demography and common sense. Which "wrong people" does he think are being let in?

In short, if Schumer is the point man for immigration reform, then it is in trouble.

Kudos, Sir!

Not Fiction, but a Cartoon Videotape

I believe that this cartoon captures the essence of going to dinner with the Lovely Ms. Mungowitz. It captures the scene so accurately that I think the artist (Mr. Piraro) must have seen us in a restaurant recently.

The link is kind of hinky, so let me just give the dialogue.

Man and woman in restaurant, ordering, waiter is writing down orders.

Man: "I'll have number 7."

Woman: "I'll have a wide assortment of ingredients from your menu, in different combinations than you offer them, but first, this series of probing questions."

But, GOSH, I do love her anyway. Even though in restaurants I generally want to hide.

Whale-y boy

I wasn't going to touch the whales. I told myself, look, these are wild animals and deserve respect. If they come close to the boat, observe and enjoy, but don't touch.

As a point of reference, there were people on the trip announcing their goal of hugging and kissing a whale!

So the first couple times a baby came close to the boat, I didn't try to touch. On the last afternoon though, a particularly playful baby was romping back and forth between our boat and another while his mom rested nearby. He came up to the front of the boat where I was and tilted his body so he was looking right at me! At that point the thought hit me that the little dude WANTED me to touch him.

So, the next time he came by, I did. Here are some photos taken by someone in the other boat:

In the picture above, that's Mrs. Angus's arm in the red reaching out to touch the calf.

I wouldn't call it a spiritual experience, but it amazed me how these creatures seem to want to interact with humans. Even some adults approached our little boats to be seen and touched. It's even more amazing when you consider that within the lifespan of some living gray whales, there still was whaling going on in this exact spot!

The NY Times Magazine recently had a great story on whales including a description of a trip to Laguna San Ignacio, where Mrs. Angus and I were.

Open Marriage

B PhD has a nice piece on "open marriage."

Best line: If you have slept with n people, then anyone who has slept with n+1 people is a slut. Our own experiences form the outer boundary of what is morally acceptable.

Amazingly perceptive remark. And it transfers to other areas. We are all immigrants, in the U.S. Even the "native Americans came here just 8 or 10 thousand years ago. But somehow, the arrival of one's own particular ancestors seems to have perfected the U.S. Before my people came: America sucked. After they came: America was perfect, and all additional immigration should be outlawed.

The KPC view--on marriage, let people do what they want. Rules=tyranny.

On immigration--let people live where they want. More people=better country.

What if the Coen brothers had written the Old Testament?

****Spoiler Alert*********

We all know the story of Job, right? God brags on him to Satan, and Satan says, "yeah sure Job's your boy, but he's got it made, so why shouldn't he be. I bet he's just a fair weather friend". Then God said, "Let's find out", and proceeded to hammer Job with all sorts of travails and afflictions. Job's friends (comforters) said "Job: curse God and die" but Job said something like, "even if he kills me, I will still love him".

I finally saw the Coen brothers movie, "A Serious Man", which to my mind is a modern retelling of the story of Job with one crucial twist: when it comes to onion time, the Coens' protagonist flinches and sins.

And in the movie, an instant after the sin, it appears like the protagonist and his son are both going to die.

Probably pretty accurate?

Oh, I guess if you haven't read the Old Testament (or seen the movie), I have got some serious spoilers in this post!

Game Theory

Game Theory: A Practitioner's Approach

Thomas Schelling
Economics and Philosophy, March 2010, Pages 27-46

Abstract: To a practitioner in the social sciences, game theory primarily helps to identify situations in which interdependent decisions are somehow problematic; solutions often require venturing into the social sciences. Game theory is usually about anticipating each other's choices; it can also cope with influencing other's choices. To a social scientist the great contribution of game theory is probably the payoff matrix, an accounting device comparable to the equals sign in algebra.

A Libertarian Protests McCain-Palin, Gets Roughed Up

I can see the point. "Freedom of speech" does NOT mean you get to make an unscheduled presentation at someone else's rally. Video Here. So, holding a sheaf of papers and shrieking "freedom of speech!" doesn't make much sense, when you are on private property reserved and contracted for by someone else.

Still, every time I think of John McCain, I do want to go do something that might get me arrested for saying bad words in public. So I don't blame the "libertarian," either. We don't think much of John McCain.

Oh Hi! Got any Fish?

Mrs. Angus and I were amazed and enchanted by the variety of colors and shapes of the harbor seals along the Monterey coastline.

Here is a link to our whale photos from Laguna San Ignacio in Baja Mexico, and here is a link to some more Monterey photos.

Congressman Rangel Goes From Avuncular to Homoncular

Look, Angus and I don't hate Democrats. We hate incumbents. So don't hate us.

Good Samaritan arrested in Pennsylvania

Can anybody 'splain me exactly why poor Donald Wolfe is being persecuted by the "man"?

Here's the AP story, in its entirety:

Police say they charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway. State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.

The Associated Press could not locate a home telephone number for Wolfe.

So is trying to help a fellow creature on the side of the road prima facie evidence of being drunk?

Or is it only when the creature you are trying to help is stone dead that you get busted for public drunkenness?

If it is the latter, let me point out two things in Mr. Wolfe's favor. (1) It was a POSSUM. One of the hallmarks of possum-ness is faking being dead. Wolfe's confusion is thus understandable. (2) Maybe Mr. Wolfe fully knew the critter was deceased. After all, one witness said Wolfe appeared to be conducting a seance!

People, whatever you do, don't attempt to make a miracle in Punxsutawney PA. You'll get tossed in the drunk tank for your troubles! Especially if you don't have a home phone number.

From the Onion: Suicide Prevention on Frozen Dinners

Stouffers To Include Suicide Prevention Tips On Single Serve Microwavable Meals

I do like the Kashi tip, at the end.

We Get Letters: The Divorce....

From a friend who has been married three times....

After being married for 44 years, I took a careful look at my wife one day and said, "Darling, 44 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25-year-old girl. Now I have a $500,000.00 home, a $45,000.00 car, nice big bed and plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 65-year-old woman. It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25-year-old gal, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve your mid-life crisis

Why Did They have to shoot the POPULAR Teacher

This is messed up.

My questions:

1. It was a "science lesson"? What in the world was the lesson?
2. Why the obsession with school shootings? These are actually extremely rare, even in the U.S. School shootings in the UK are almost unheard of.
3. This did make me want to listen to "I don't like Mondays," by the Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldoff before he became a total goofball. So I did.
4. As Anonyman points out, the best part is the claim that the students were only upset because they "shot" one of the popular teachers.

(Nod to Anonyman)

UPDATE: Read Ross's comment. EXCELLENT links.

Commandeering the State Legislatures

A number of states are considering suing to enjoin, or otherwise block enforcement, of the health care reform bill. The basis of the legal claims are constitutional. Let me review the issues briefly.

SUITS AGAINST: All of the suits I have heard would have to be based on the 10th Amendment. Here it is (since you have probably never heard of it, unless you are a lawyer)...

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Is the power to force individuals to purchase insurance, and to have that power enforced by state police and state courts, expressly delegated to the federal government by the Constitution?

On its face, no, but not so fast. Most of the expansions of federal power have been justified by invoking the "commerce clause" and the "elastic clause" of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Congress shall have the power....

Commerce clause: To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

Elastic clause: To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

So, medical insurance is private commerce, many companies operate in multiple states...you see where this is going. The fact that the Constitution does not specifically mention health insurance means nothing, bubkes. There is plenty of commerce clause and 10th amendment jurisprudence that would make the health care reform bill seem like a slam dunk for being clearly constitutional.

But...once again, not so fast.

There is one line of cases that would suggest that some aspects of the legislation are in fact unconstitutional. And they are recent. The Rehnquist Court did a LOT of work in 10th amendment stuff, and there might be a chance here.

Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a really important decision in the case of New York v. US. ( MORE BACKGROUND, AND THE DECISION). I used to study radioactive waste disposal, and so I know more than I should about this case, and this issue. (Yes, I know, SDO? But, yes. She was clear on 10th amendment issues, with a bias toward protecting the states. She wasn't clear on much else, but on this....clear).

From the decision SDO wrote:

As an initial matter, Congress may not simply "commandee[r] the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program." Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 288 (1981). In Hodel, the Court upheld the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 precisely because it did not "commandeer" the States into regulating mining. The Court found that "the States are not compelled to enforce the steep-slope standards, to expend any state funds, or to participate in the federal regulatory program in any manner whatsoever. If a State does not wish to submit a proposed permanent program that complies with the Act and implementing regulations, the full regulatory burden will be borne by the Federal Government.

So, does the health care reform bill "commandeer" the state legislatures? That is the direction petitioner / plaintiffs will have to go.

DEFENSE: On its face, since the court now seems more conservative than in 1996, given the recent Heller and Citizens United decisions, won't the suits win, and won't HCR be struck down.

No.

Two things. First, Sandra Day O'Connor was against the 2nd Amendment interpretation in Heller, and against the 1st Amendment interpretation in Citizens United. Her departure made way for the new, more conservative, court. But she was VERY conservative on 10th Amendment grounds. Both Alito and Chief Roberts are NATIONALISTS, much weaker on 10th amendment issues than O'Connor. (Imagine that you had taken Patrick Henry off the court, and put on Alexander Hamilton. That's an exaggeration, but you get the idea.) The point is that this new court is actually MORE likely to side with the national government.

It may come down to whether the Alito - Roberts bloc votes its real principles or not.

Sure, OTHER People Can Get Fired, but Not ME!

Academic entitlement, from our friends at LvMI.

(A friendly nod to LS, who finds good stuff)

President Obama is Correct on DADT

Here at KPC, we have been a bit hard on Prez BHO. Not as hard as we were on GWB, who we pretty much agreed was the worst. president. ever.

But, anyway, let's give a shout out: Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a dumb policy. President Obama is quite right to work toward ending it.

Next, we need to government out of the cupid business, deciding who gets to marry whom. But that is on down the road, I suppose.

It's fun to do bad things

Can I get a Amen?

Strong Arm Tactics

Apparently the "strong arm tactics" of the conservative whackos have unhinged some of our friend in the media.

Consider this story in the Seattle Times:

Protesters have been demonstrating at Driehaus' Ohio home, said Tim Mulvey, a spokesman for the anti-abortion Democrat who joined Stupak in voting for the health bill. A rock was thrown through the window of Driehaus' Cincinnati office Sunday, and a death threat was phoned in to his Washington office a day later, Mulvey said.

"It's getting out of hand," Mulvey said.

Then, read this comment from Prof. Reynolds.... The problem is that the "office window" of Rep. Driehaus is on the 30th floor of the Carew Tower.

That's at least 290 feet. Some people can throw 290 feet in the air.... but horizontally. Nobody can throw 290 feet UP, and have the rock still have sufficient kinetic energy at the top of that trajectory to break a window.

My suspicions:

1. Glenn Reynolds has his facts wrong. But he seems right sure.

2. Seattle Times has THEIR facts wrong. And they seem LEFT sure.

(Nod to the NCM)

UPDATE: Turns out a rock was thrown through the county Dem Party office. An understandable mistake, if you think that "truthiness" is the job of the media, and not paying attention to the actual facts....

UPDATE II: Here is the first paragraph of an editorial.

I know how the "tea party" people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their "Obama Plan White Slavery" signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.

That's not from some crazed lefty nut job. That is actually printed as an editorial in the Washington Post. In that piece, Courtland Milloy praises the courage and forbearance of Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver. But Mr. Milloy really doesn't help, by making physical threats of his own.

"Are You Done"

Wow, we really have our work cut out for us

The big news in Norman is that Tommy Mason-Griffin Esq. a 5' 9" freshman basketball player who was named 3rd team all big 12 is quitting school to go pro.

Really.

He announced it on his facebook page as follows:

"on a mission...its a official dat i am leavin skool and enterin draft so if yue see me and ask me y i aint doin anotha yr yue mite get ignored."

People, can I get an LOL?

Here is a further analysis, and here is another.

After a promising start, Jeff Capel's program appears to be in total free-fall, and we educators appear to be badly failing at our jobs (don't blame me, I only teach grad classes).

Jessica, the Happy Hippo

I got nothing to add. This just made me happy. When the hippo stepped on the poor dog's foot... it just seemed like something that would happen to a family... of dogs and hippos.

RPG Heroes are Jerks

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

(A nod to Popehat)

I just have one question about HCR

And the question is: When in the world did Gary Coleman get elected to Congress?

Sometimes you have to do what you are told....

Thomas Hobbes: "...men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by the example.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory."



When the cops come, and you say, "I'm not going anywhere..." well, you are in fact going somewhere. And for the people who think that it was unecessary to send three policemen...the whole POINT of the state is to overawe the citizens, to make resistance futile, impossible.

The video above is not an abuse of state power, but rather its essence. This is what the state does, and it is ALL that the state is capable of: raw violence, overwhelming force, and putting a knee in your back while you are being handcuffed.

For my own view:

1. The instructor is partly, maybe mostly, at fault. You have to control the classroom by directing the subject away personal attacks. The student actually has a good point: the only reason this escalated was that the instructor insisted on having a whiny public argument, in class. Sure, the student was out of control. But this didn't have to happen. I have to admit some sympathy for the student here.

2. On the other hand, the student obviously thinks that rules don't apply to her. Look, folks, you should be afraid of the state, terrified in fact. The power of the state is limitless, and the first concern of the state is preserving the power of the state. No one is particularly concerned about you, except you.

The HuffingPuffintonPost has a thought....

Viva, Killer Amendment.

An attempted killer amendment? By that master of tactics from the great state of OK?

Jeff Jenkins wrote a great paper (and put my name on it, too) about killer amendments, in the JOP in 2003. We laid out some conditions under which an amendment might be "killer," and those conditions are pretty restrictive.

On the other hand, my friend Gerry Mackie is skeptical.

(Nod to Mr. Overwater)

Mystery book revealed!

Thanks for your suggestions via email and the comments about what my mystery book about Native Americans might be. While looking up the suggestions on Amazon, I ran across what I believe to be the book in question (give me a break, I read it in 1978 or so!).

It's called "Custer Died for your Sins" and the author is Vine Deloria Jr.

I feel so much better now.

India strikes again

People, you know I love India. It is, in my opinion, the funniest country in the world. (Here are some more gems)

Now they are claiming to be "militarizing" chili peppers!

The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world's hottest chili. After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.

The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India's northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat. It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.

"The chili grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defense laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defense Research and Development Organization," Col. R. Kalia, a defense spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, told The Associated Press.

"This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs," R. B. Srivastava, the director of the Life Sciences Department at the New Delhi headquarters of the DRDO said.

Srivastava, who led a defense research laboratory in Assam, said trials are also on to produce bhut jolokia-based aerosol sprays to be used by women against attackers and for the police to control and disperse mobs.

There is so much good stuff here that I hardly know where to start. Let's toss a few out randomly.

1. How 'bout the name of that pepper?

2. Umm, guys, you do know that pepper spray has been around for decades already, right?

3. How can something both be a food and so smelly that it will force hardened terrorists out of hiding due to its smell?

4. Will Indonesia now make a Durian Bomb?

5. Will India ban exports of this pepper due to national security?

 

OOOOOO! You're not good enough for me!

Okay, so this is a little hokey. A LOT hokey. Still.... heh.


(Nod to the good Dr. Karlson)

Books which have influenced me most

1. Answer to Job, Carl Jung
2. The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins

These two books somehow liberated me and let me feel much more comfortable in my own skin.

3. The Incredible Bread Machine

Just as with Tyler, this was the first book about economics I read and it got me very interested. Then I took principles of micro and didn't come back to economics again for 3 years.

4. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, Charles Beard.

This got me thinking about how economics could be applied broadly to other fields.

5. Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt

People, here is where I learned about the broken window fallacy. This was the second economics book I read.

6. A book whose title and author I cannot remember about the history of the relations between the US Government and Native Americans. This mystery book really shook my faith in government ***UPDATE*** The book in question has been determined to be Custer Died for your Sins, Vine Deloria Jr.

7. The Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson
8. The Calculus of Consent, Buchanan & Tullock
9. An Economic Theory of Democracy, Anthony Downs

Something in these books made me change my mind in grad school and decide to become an academic (my original plan was to be a macro forecaster!) and to focus on political economy.

10. Hard Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World, Haruki Murakami

This novel changed the type of fiction that I read and opened up a lot of pleasure for me going down a new (to me) literary path.

This post updated to correct the spelling of Hazlitt!

Kudos

I don't favor the bill that was passed and endorse Mungowitz's and Holtz-Eakin's concerns voiced in the previous post about the cost of the bill, but wow, I have to give it up for Nancy P.! She was relentless and got the job done. She is much better at her job than I gave her credit for being.

So, kudos to you Madame Speaker. That was an impressive political accomplishment.

 

 

Health Care Costs

I have a number of colleagues who think that anyone who worries about the increased cost of health care under the new bill is either an idiot, or an ideologue.

Many of them believe, however, that anything the CBO says, or that is printed in the NYTimes, has credibility.

So, here is a past head of the CBO, writing in the NYTimes.

Excerpt:

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs — health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits — would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

You can argue, if you want, about quality, and the advantages of more complete coverage. I may not agree, but at least those points are arguable. But you can't seriously believe that this health care bill is anything but a giant cost boondoggle, creating deficits that will affect us for the rest of our lives. This is not the sort of legacy I wanted to leave my children. "We couldn't solve the problem, and so we just charged it all on credit cards!"

UPDATE: Some interesting numbers (thanks to Angry Alex)

The 100 days

100 days of chairmanship left.

2400 hours.

Just under 8.7 million seconds.

Not that I'm counting....

that's the facts, jacks!

Don't Worry, Be Happy, Smile Longer

Smile Intensity in Photographs Predicts Longevity

Ernest Abel & Michael Kruger
Psychological Science, forthcoming

"Photographs were taken from the Baseball Register for 1952 (Spink, Rickart, & Abramovich, 1952). We restricted our analysis to players who debuted prior to 1950, and we included only photographs in which the player appeared to be looking at the viewer...Players with Duchenne smiles were half as likely to die in any year compared with nonsmilers, HR = 0.50, p = .006...In this model, smile intensity accounted for 35% of the explained variability in survival"

(Nod to Kevin L)

Spring break is great for meeting new friends

 

Above is a shot of a gray whale breaching in Laguna San Ignacio. The whale is 40+ feet long, and Mrs. Angus and I are close by in a 20 foot long open fishing boat the locals call a panga! We were about 30 feet away when she busted this move. San Ignacio is reputed to have so called "friendly" whales who will swim right up to a boat and interact with the human occupants. These stories are true as I will show later on with further pictures.

Profits = Bombs, According to German Government

"Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bundestag on March
16 that the country may have to consider ordering 'intelligence agencies to
set up surveillance of who is getting together with whom for which kinds of
speculative processes, and where' to protect the euro...Intelligence
agencies could use techniques honed in the fight against money laundering
and terrorist funding if they wanted, said Vanessa Rossi, a senior research
fellow in the international economics program at London’s Chatham House.
'Within continental Europe there are those that do think that financial
speculators are sort of terrorists,' said Rossi. 'In their lexicon it is
economic terrorism, so they may view this as more serious than the U.S. or
U.K....'
“I find it sinister and silly, it is a complete overreaction,” said Philip Whyte of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-European Union research institute in London. “There is a certain school of thought in continental Europe that everything is always the fault of hedge funds.” Schaeuble’s comments reflected “a longstanding paranoia about the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.”
" [Bloomberg]

I guess the mistake was having the East come over to the West. Apparently, the German gov is now going to restore the glory days of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Now THOSE folks knew how to prevent terrorist acts like free speech, travel, and profits. "Erich Honecker, table for 1! Herr Honecker, your table is ready!"

Of course, this view of profits is hardly new. There was that Schicklgruber guy*, who said, "Gold is not neccesary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it. Anyone who sells above the set prices, let him be marched off to a concentration camp. That's the bastion of money."

*Okay, his name was Hitler, never Schicklgruber. That's an urban legend, it appears.

Price Adjustment to Compensate for Quality Differences in Prostitution

Interesting. Network analysis in the study of markets for sex-for-sale.

I was puzzled by this passage, though:

Another discovery is that a high rating for a particular sex worker is a good predictor of high ratings in the future. That's the kind of rich get richer effect that is seen in many internet phenomena (also known as the Matthew effect). However, average or poor ratings don't seem to affect future ratings either way.

Naturally, buyers tend to use more highly rated sex-workers more often. And over short timescales this can be seen in the data. However, look at longer timescales and the effect drops away. That's probably because sex-workers do not stay in their work for long periods of time, say Rocha and co.

Well, I would have thought that the differences would disappear as prices adjusted to offset quality differences. In fact, I would have predicted that price differentials would would have increased until the marginal consumer of the service is nearly indifferent (holding income effects constant) among different providers. Sure, high quality service is likely a luxury good, but I would still expect that price differences (in effect, rents for differences in attractiveness, effort, and talent) would have explained why top-ratings don't necessarily translate into greater quantities of transactions.

On the other side of the argument, of course, there is the old claim attributed to Napoleon: "In war, as in prostitution, an enthusiastic amateur may outstrip a professional."

(Nod to Angry Alex, who never has to pay for it)
.

Churchillania

Several people were reminded of good Churchill stories, by the previous post.

The accuracy of these stories is MOST questionable, and in any case they are examples of much older jokes, attributed to Churchill. Still, it IS fun.

1. Shortly before George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion received its first English performance at His Majesty’s Theatre in London (on April 11, 1914), Shaw sent the following telegram to Winston Churchill :
AM RESERVING TWO TICKETS FOR YOU FOR MY PREMIERE. COME AND BRING A FRIEND – IF YOU HAVE ONE.
Churchill sent this telegram to Shaw in reply :
IMPOSSIBLE TO BE PRESENT FOR THE FIRST PERFORMANCE. WILL ATTEND THE SECOND – IF THERE IS ONE.

2. Lady Nancy Astor: If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee!
Churchill: And if I were your husband I would drink it!

George Thayer (who worked as research assistant to Randolph Churchill on the latter's biography of Winston), wrote in 1971 that this anecdote was false. In any case, this joke appears to be an old one. The January 3, 1900 issue of the Chicago Tribune printed the following: “‘If I had a husband like you,’ she said with concentrated scorn, ‘I'd give him poison!’ ‘Mad'm,’ he rejoined, looking her over with a feeble sort of smile, ‘If I had a wife like you I'd take it.’”

3. Bessie Braddock: Winston, you are drunk, and what's more, you are disgustingly drunk.
Churchill: Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.

This exchange was confirmed to Richard Langworth by Ronald Golding, a bodyguard present on the occasion (as Churchill was leaving the House of Commons in 1946).
Note : in the 1934 movie It’s a Gift W.C. Field’s character, when told he is drunk, responds, ‘Yeah, and you’re crazy. But I’ll be sober tomorrow and you’ll be crazy the rest of your life.’

4. Young man (seeing Churchill leaving the bathroom without washing his hands):
At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet.
Churchill: At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands.

5. Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course...
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.'

KY v. Duke in KY Senate race

A little more, after before, about the Kentucky Senate primary, and the role of Duke v. UK.

Excerpt:
Meanwhile in the Dem race, candidates are bickering over a bracket wager. A challenge from Lt. Gov. and UK grad Dan Mongiardo to his contender, Duke grad and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway was publicly refused.

In the wager, Mongiardo suggested that if Duke lost, Conway would serve as Mongiardo's personal golf instructor. If UK lost, Mongiardo would be Conway's guide on a wild turkey hunt.

Conway refused to participate and published an open letter to Mongiardo's camp saying that a wager would "cheapen America's greatest sporting event by injecting lowbrow political attacks into the NCAA tournament."

"Evidently, he got really upset by it. He said it was a lowbrow political move. I'll guess he is part of the highbrow crowd," said Kim Geveden, spokesman for Mongiardo's camp.

Conway's camp did not respond to The Examiner's request for further comment.

Munger said Conway's decision to keep the brackets separate from the ballots was the right one.

"Absolutely it was the right thing to do. Don't ever validate something that makes you opposed to the state you are running in," he said.

Raleigh Transit Throws Mungowitz Under the Bus

As all of you know, I am ALL about the greening of my life. So, as part of my renewed dedication to making easy things difficult, and reducing my productivity by wasting my time on useless pro-environment symbolism, I thought about taking the bus from my house to the airport. It's a trip I make often, and I wanted to know if the huge public subsidy to the bus system actually provides anything we can use.

Because, my suspicion is that our bus "service" is mostly designed to provide sinecures for bus drivers. Since the busses are nearly always empty, I assume this meant that the drivers find actually stopping for passengers to be annoying.

Anyway, I went to the Triangle Transit central web site, and asked the crack computer staff (yes, I think they smoke crack) to plan a route for me. Here is.... that first route they suggested:

Walk - 3.25 miles From:
08:31PM - 10020 bushveld ln, Raleigh

To: 09:45PM - Brennan at Creedmoor
33c - CAT - Glenwood-Creedmoor Connector - 0h 21m
Get on: 09:45PM - Stop #8693 - Brennan at Creedmoor
Get off: 10:06PM - Stop #8367 - Duraleigh at Glenwood

Walk - 6.86 miles
From: 10:06PM - Duraleigh at Glenwood
To: 12:43AM - RDU Airport at Terminal 1

Okay, got that? They suggest I walk three miles, then take a bus, then walk 7 miles from there to the airport. Not exactly excellent service. That's 4 hours to get to the airport, and that's assuming I can walk at a pretty good clip, carrying luggage. But, to be fair, there was another suggestion....

Walk - 6.95 miles
From: 09:07PM - 10020 bushveld ln, Raleigh
To: 11:46PM - RDU Airport at Terminal 1

In other words, by simply walking, I can make the trip in only 2.5 hours. What I like about this is that the computer actually suggests this as a viable route. Doesn't say, "no service." It says, "Hey, fat ass, I gots yer bus route right here: WALK!"

To paraphrase Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," I'd have more respect for the bus system if they just told me to go to hell.

Of course, that was in the evening. Maybe there is a better way in the morning, right? The computer suggested:

Walk - 3.25 miles
From: 09:16AM - 10020 bushveld ln, Raleigh
To: 10:30AM - Brennan at Creedmoor
4 - CAT - Rex Hospital - 0h 41m
Get on: 10:30AM - Stop #8693 - Brennan at Creedmoor
Get off: 11:11AM - Stop #8273 - Hillsborough at Friendly

Walk - 0.03 miles
From: 11:11AM - Hillsborough at Friendly
To: 11:11AM - Hillsborough at Dixie
105 - Triangle Transit - RTP/Raleigh - 0h 25m
Get on: 11:45AM - Stop #8241 - Hillsborough at Dixie
Get off: 12:10PM - Stop #1000 - Regional Transit Center (RTC)

747 - Triangle Transit - RDU Airport Shuttle - 0h 9m
Get on: 12:20PM - Stop #1000 - Regional Transit Center (RTC)
Get off: 12:29PM - Stop #1576 - RDU Airport at Terminal 1

Remember, this is less than 7 miles. At the BEST, the bus system can get me there
in 3 and 1/2 hours, with 44 minutes of wait time.

No wonder the computer I suggested I walk. The computer knows how messed up the bus schedule is!

Three Escheats to the Wind

(Title by John Hood; article, too!)

Reminds me of a wonderful story, which of course may be apocryphal: Clement Atlee was standing at a urinal. Winston Churchill came in, goes to opposite end of long row of urinals.

Atlee: "Feeling a bit standoffish, Winnie?"

Churchill: "Why, no, Atlee. It's just that whenever you see something large and in private hands, you try to nationalize it!"

Empirical Work is Useful

Do Good Recruits Make Good Cops? Problems Predicting and Measuring Academy
and Street-Level Success

Billy Henson, Bradford Reyns, Charles Klahm & James Frank
Police Quarterly, March 2010, Pages 5-26

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to extend White’s analysis predicting successful police recruit performance during academy training. Using police personnel data collected on 486 officers hired between 1996 and 2006 by a Midwestern police department, the authors examine characteristics related to academy success as well as active police service. The results show that most demographic and experience variables did not predict academy or active service success. However, White recruits and those scoring higher on the civil service exam consistently performed better on multiple academy outcome measures than their counterparts. In addition, those scoring higher on the overall academy success measure generally received better evaluations from their superiors. The results also show that higher education is not related to any of the measures of academy or on the job success used in these analyses.
-----------------------

Retributive versus compensatory justice: Observers' preference for punishing
in response to criminal offenses

Jan-Willem van Prooijen
European Journal of Social Psychology, February 2010, Pages 72-85

Abstract: In the current paper, the author examines whether independent observers of
criminal offenses have a relative preference for either retributive justice (i.e., punishing the offender) or compensatory justice (i.e., compensating the victim for the harm done). In Study 1, results revealed that participants recommended higher sums of money if a financial transaction was framed as offender punishment (i.e., the offender would pay money to the victim) than if it was framed as victim compensation (i.e., the victim would receive money from the offender). In Study 2, participants were asked to gather information about court trials following three severe offenses to evaluate whether justice had been done in these cases. Results revealed that participants gathered more information about offender punishment than about victim compensation. In Study 3 these findings were extended by investigating whether observers' relative preference for punishing is moderated by emotional proximity to the victim. Results revealed that the relative preference for punishing only occurred among participants who did not experience emotional proximity to the victim. It is concluded that observers prefer retributive over compensatory justice, provided that they do not feel emotionally close to the victim.

(Nod to Kevin L)

.

Keith Krehbiel: An Artist Like It's 1999

I found an old drawing in my desk drawer. The "artist" is Keith Krehbiel, famed political scientist at Stanford.

To set the scene, the background for this drawing was the end of the 1999 NCAA tournament where Trajan "The Alaskan Assassin" Langdon screwed the pooch on two consecutive trips down the floor. The Krehbiel drawing immortalizes the second trip. Here is the video of the end of the game. The relevant events start at about 1:45. Dr. Krehbiel was moved to artistic expression....
...by the "play" Duke ran. The reason I use scare quotes is that, as Dr. Krehbiel points out, the Duke players pretty much lined up for a rebound, and let Langdon bring the ball up by himself against three defenders. And, as Dr. Krehbiel further notes on the drawing, Langdon's nickname was "The Alaskan Assassin," not "The Speedy Alaskan Dribbler."

What happened was that Langdon dribbled up, stopped, tried to dribble between three defenders, and then fell down. Never took a shot, never made a pass.

Admittedly, Davidson ran this same (non)play against Kansas in the final 8 game three years ago. But Duke actually had other players, including Elton Brand, who might well have scored. And, if you watch, Curry passed the ball and at least they got a shot off. Yes, they missed, but the guys took a shot. Langdon took a dive.

Keith Krehbiel, artiste and man of the world: Thanks.

Duke Is Key to KY Race

Kentucky senate races turn on ... Duke love?

Seriously, check this out....

Though mentioning rival basketball teams in a U.S. Senate race is unusual, it's not uncommon for candidates to paint their opponents as outsiders, said Michael C. Munger, chairman of Duke's political science department.

Voters generally want to identify with the candidates they support, Munger said. "Many think, 'You are the same as I am, therefore I will vote for you.'"

As teams for the NCAA Tournament were selected Sunday night — UK and Duke both received No. 1 seeds — Secretary of State Trey Grayson launched an online ad highlighting his key Republican opponent's medical degree from Duke, in Durham N.C.

"In March, there's one big difference between Rand Paul and Trey Grayson," says the ad, which then shows an unflattering picture of Paul with a caption that says "I'm Rand Paul and I'm a Duke Blue Devil."

Bad Guys?

The organizational structure of international drug smuggling

Jana Benson & Scott Decker
Journal of Criminal Justice, forthcoming

Abstract: While most group offending is not well organized, it is generally assumed that high levels of organization can be found in group offending that generates revenue, such as white-collar crime, drug sales, and smuggling drugs or humans. The organizational structure of international drug smuggling has typically been viewed as highly rational and formally structured. Employing interviews with thirty-four federal prisoners convicted of smuggling large volumes of cocaine into the United States, this study explored the organizational structure of high level international drug smuggling. The subjects described a general lack of formal structure and depicted the drug smuggling operations as composed of isolated work groups without formal connections among each other. These findings bring into question the idea that these groups are rationally organized around pursuing efficiency and support recent research that suggests network security or minimizing risk are key organizing principles of drug trading organizations.

-----------------------

Lost in the Mail: A Field Experiment on Crime

Marco Castillo, Ragan Petrie, Maximo Torero & Angelino Viceisza
George Mason University Working Paper, January 2009

"We send identical envelopes to different households in Lima, Peru from two American cities and record arrivals. The experiment includes a large population of volunteer households across neighborhoods of different socio-economic backgrounds. To better understand the motivation behind the commission of crime, we manipulated the contents, the sender of the mail and the gender of the recipient. In particular, every household was sent four envelopes over the course of a year. Two envelopes had a sender with a foreign name and two had the last name of the sender and recipient matched. Finally, one of each of the two envelopes contained something inside the enclosed card (a small amount of money) that could not be easily detected without careful attention. The other envelope just contained the enclosed card. All these modifications were as subtle as possible and the order in which each different envelope was sent was random. The experiments show first that the mail service in Peru is highly inefficient. The overall rate of mail lost is 18%. The loss rate, however, hides the fact that mail containing money is lost 21% of the time while mail containing no money is lost 15% of the time. That is, we find evidence of shirking as well as crime. Also, the quality of service is not independent of socioeconomic status. Mail is lost at the same rate (roughly 18%), whether it contains money or not, when sent to a poor neighborhood. When sent to a rich neighborhood, however, mail without money is lost only 10% of the time and mail with money is lost 17% of the time."

Nod to Kevin L

.

Tea it up

"'We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue,' said Ryan Hecker, the organizer behind the Contract From America. 'I think social issues may matter to particular individuals, but at the end of the day, the movement should be agnostic about it. This is a movement that rose largely because of the Republican Party failing to deliver on being representative of the economic conservative ideology. To include social issues would be beside the point.'" [NYT]

(Nods to Neanderbill and to Kevin L)

Nancy Grace Remembered

No, NG is not dead.

But I do have to remember her on this anniversary of the party on Buchanan Street in Durham.

John Stewart remembered her. (Yes, I have blogged that link before.... but it's very good).

The only better treatment was the Amy Poehler as Nancy Grace thing. That was the best. But that video does not seem to be publicly available any more. You can see in the show notes where it took place.

Still, I remember.... Nancy Grace.

Bananas Foster Hysteria

WPTF poobah, and News and Observer columnist, Rick Martinez is quite a tough guy.
But it turns out you can make him shriek like a baby who has dropped its baba.

Just use Maker's Mark as the flammable in "Bananas Foster."