Skunk Works

2004-09-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

New Blog

I'm moving my current blog over to bloglines. It has a simpler interface and integrates with my other RSS feeds. After some time this site will be deactivated, so please re-link to my new bloglines blog at:

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/johnarleyburns.

2004-09-03T08:50:00.000-05:00

Cutting to the Bone

How to destroy your IT department while still remaining in business. India not required.

2004-08-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

Genesis of a DBA Universe

anonymous

In the beginning was the disk array, and all was empty and raw, and UNIX moved over the face of the platters. And the DBA said: Let there be Oracle. And there was Oracle. And the environmental variables were set and the disks were striped and mirrored and the OFA was established, and behold spindle was rent asunder from spindle. And the DBA saw that all was in spec.

And it was day and it was evening of the first day.

And the DBA said: Let there be scripts. And sql.bsq brought forth myriad crawling things upon the face of the array. And catalog.sql brought forth all manner of tables and views that swim unseen beneath the waters. And catproc.sql brought forth all the built-in programs and all the hosts of the air, that the users might be given wings and take fight over the data.

And it was day and it was evening of the second day.

And the DBA said: Let there be tablepaces. And there were tablespaces. And the network administrator looked upon the disk array and did see what the tablespaces had wrought upon the disk arrays, and he did gnash his teeth and seek a new work upon the Internet with an engine of search.

And it was day and it was evening of the third day.

And the DBA created users. Male and female he created them. And he said unto the users: Thou mayest create tables and views as thou wilt. Yea, though mayest create even indexes upon the data. Only meddle not with the system tablespace, for it is a holy place, and on the day wherein thou treadest upon it, on that day thy create session shall surely be revoked. And the serpent crept among the users and whispered to them, saying: Thine roles shall not be revoked. Taste ye all of the system tablespace, for ye shall know of b-trees and hints and ye shall be as DBAs. And the users heeded the serpent and filled the system tablespace with crap. And the instance did crash and the client did wax wroth at the DBA. And the DBA did gnash his teeth and partake of the fruit of the vine, for behold the users were permanent employees and the DBA was but a contractor and could not revoke their create session.

And it was day and it was evening of the fourth day.

And the DBA did set default tablespaces and temporary tablespaces and did lock down all that was upon the face of the array with roles and profiles and all manner of quotas, yea even from the rollback segments even unto the archived redo logs.

And it was day and it was evening of the fifth day.

And the DBA created synonyms and links and did tune the server and apply patches upon the face of the database.

And it was day and it was evening of the sixth day.

And on the seventh day the DBA did rest from all the labors of the creation. And his pager did ring and he ceased from resting and did spend his sabbath on the telephone with Oracle support. And by the time the DBA got through to someone who knew wherof they spake behold it was day and it was evening of the eighth day.

And the DBA waxed wroth.

2004-07-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

For all you trekkies out there:

http://www.5yearmission.com/

2004-06-07T22:24:00.000-05:00

Business idea: create a home-sized version of a laundry folding machine and sell it to millions. Integrate it with a clothes washer and dryer. Put dirty laundry in one side and get clean, folded laundry on the other.

Having 2 kids I would greatly appreciate the utility of such a device. It shall be Netzah's best selling product.

Any takers?

2004-06-01T18:11:00.000-05:00

Seven points to consider before quitting your job and going full-time with your own software start-up:

1 - Bring on all the core people you need in the beginning. Maybe a friend/collegue like Charles, maybe someone else. Someone high-intensity you know you can work with. Consider merging with Zane's Liquid Labs if he can work with you in a consensus environment (I have some doubt that he would be willing to do this). Make sure you have enough people; four person teams are better than three person teams.
2 - Minimize debt. Keep debt/equity at a max of 1. That means if you take on debt funding you'll also need to put in your own cash to purchase stock. Use advance funding (have customer pay an advance before starting the project), royalty payments (pay the customer a royalty in exchange for getting up-front money) , and profit sharing (get your customer to invest in your stock) to minimize required startup capital.
3 - Have at least two products. You shouldn't be a one-product company. It may be a spin-off product, it may be something built on a common framework with the original product, it may be a substantial consulting arm, it may be something else entirely, but you need to have at least two products.
4 - Have at least two customers. The customers may not be equal in size. They may be (preferably be) in different industries. Maybe one customer buys your product and another buys your consulting services, but have at least two major customers.
5 - Be location-independent. You may have a physical office where many are located, but all should not be forced to live in the same place. Use zephyr/instant-message/email to be a distributed company. Weekly or monthly in-person meetings should be budgeted including travel expense. If someone wants to work from Boston, Houston, or Santiago this should be acceptable.
6 - Go global. You should hookup with a Canadian, English, Austrailian, etc. marketing group or customer early on in the game. You should be global from the beginning. Consider using offshore talent where appropriate, if it is ever appropriate.
7 - Have evidence you will succeed. Not a guarantee, but evidence. If we are basing the decision on your first product, you need to look at past sales trends and future opportunities and base your decision on reasonable numbers. You should not commit to rosy projections and waste everyone's money. You should basing your future on more than just vaporware.

2004-03-30T15:03:00.000-06:00

Be Careful What You Ask For

We're doing a bowling event at work and we were asked to come up with team names. We're the only IT team from the pipeline going bowling. Anybody who knows me knows that this isn't the kind of question you ask me without invoking the law of unintended consequences. Here's the list I sent my team capatain:

Possible Team Names:


"Nerd Revenge"
"Kings of IT"
"Coders of Doom"
"PC Bandits"
"Ghosts of Gateway" (Gateway Project, i.e. Exchange, the system I support that's being replaced by outsourcing...)
"Mice and Men"
"Outsourcers of Victory"
"Keyboard Strikers"
"Perfect 3.00E+2"
"Indoctrination Technology"
"Raiders of the Lost Awk"
"XP-Men"
"Windows 300"
"Palace Unix" (think eunuchs...)
"Chips 4 Crips" (think gangs and circuts...)
"Bytes of Blood" (gang theme again...)
"IT's Just a Game"
"Code Chargers"
"SLA Dodgers"
"Billable Horrors" (spellcheck doesn't always save the day)
"Controllers of Time" (or is that time control, our hour-entry system?)
"MicroMagic"
".BOWL" (there's a dot in front of it)
"Connecting Pins" (for those of you who used to solder)
"Thugs of Initech" (ever see "Office Space"?)
"Bad Mondays" (Office Space again)
"One Microsoft Lane" (it's "Way", but not when we're bowling)
"Data Basemen" (baseball theme for the DBAs on our team)
"Nevershorts" (we can't wear shorts here, not ever)
"Friday Genies" (pun on Jeans day)
"What the FERC?" (we're regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
"Gas Passers" (we're a gas pipeline)

2004-03-30T11:19:00.000-06:00

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Check out the wakeup song for Spirit Sol 84.

2004-03-28T18:23:00.000-06:00

Mergers and Acquisitions

The war in Israel and America has merged into one.

2004-03-28T18:08:00.000-06:00

Carl the Critic

Who would have ever suspected that under that hard shell lies a warm and fuzzy sentimentalist?

2004-03-23T22:34:00.000-06:00

Inquiry

Was Blade Runner typical? Was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep typical? Was anything Philip K. Dick wrote typical? What about Stanislaw Lem?

Is there nothing new under the sun, or is technology alone without precedent, and thus Science Fiction the only innovative genre? Or can a retelling of the same old song be new every morning?

2004-03-19T15:15:00.000-06:00

Boring at Times

A review of John A. Burns; is this to be my ephithet?

JEnna's Review, May 7, 2000

Reviewer: jenna from United States of America

It was a good book, though boring at times.

2004-03-17T17:38:00.000-06:00

BMC Killer

All software companies exist at the pleasure of Microsoft. It looks like BMC will not be one of those to exist much longer. It is always possible that government action will prevent the encroachment of monopoly, but it's unlikely for now.

2004-03-15T22:08:00.000-06:00

I'm a New Media Professional

Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

2004-03-15T10:07:00.000-06:00

SXSW and Blogger

I won't be in town, but perhaps you will be in Austin and you're looking for some action.

2004-03-15T10:05:00.000-06:00

19th Century SCO

It appears that SCO copied their "barratry of an industry" approach, not just from Rambus, but perhaps also from Selden.

2004-03-03T09:52:00.000-06:00

The Corporation

If the corporation is a psychopath, can it be cured?

Anyone seen this yet? Skipping over the Chomsky and Moore interviews, especially Moore who has about zero reason to be in the film besides star-power, it may be a decent film. Check out the clips online or read the book.

It's hard to disagree with the physchological analysis. Corporations definitely have a personality disorder. Having worked on both sides of the fence, executive and employee, I think I know why.

The corporate structure is, at its heart, an embodiment of the abstract concept of limited liability. The idea that I'm not fully liable for my behavior. The approach to work that "it's just a job", and whatever we do short of actual crime, we can always go back behind the corporate veil and absolve ourselves of responsibility.

Corporations are the investor's answer to the liability questions of the 20th century tort revolution. In the early 20th century, the advent of railroads and factories across America led to the abolition of previous limited liability for business operators. These negligence and strict liability actions held businessmen responsible for things they had never been responsible for before. It was now highly dangerous to keep the old partnership form of business with its owner-operator and patronizing mentality. As legislatures lifted the previously heavy restrictions on incorporation, the limited-liability structure of the company became an increasingly tempting way to organize business.

With a corporation, you're never quite fully responsible for your actions. The shareholders point to the board. The board points to the CEO. The CEO points to the VPs. The VPs point to the managers. The managers point to the employees. The employees go home and have a drink. At every step, whether through the shareholder/board investor liability limitation, the board/CEO fiduciary duty limitation, the CEO/VP delegatory fiduciary limitation, the VP/manager detailed event limitation, the manager/employee master-servant liability limitation, or the powerless compliant employee limitation, in every way it's a limited responsibility for all involved.

The only solution I can see to the corporate malfunction is to abort the experiment. Revoke all corporate charters - the state has a perfect legal right to do so. Let them reorganize into partnerships. Split existing investments into general and limited interests. General partnership interests have unlimited potential for gain and management control but expose you to unlimited liability, although you can always buy insurance. Limited partnership interests have unlimited potential for gain and limited liability but without management control. As is often said, you can't have your cake and eat it to.

The crux of the problem is dividing control from liability. If you control, either as a manager or voting investor, you should be liable. If you don't control, either because you're not a manger or don't have a voting interest, you should not be liable.

Some investors may cringe at the idea of being liable. What most people don't realize is that they're already liable. In fact, each of us personally has unlimited liability for our actions. If I walk down the street and don't look where I'm going and knock over a ladder that causes a worker to fall and become injured, there's no reason I can't be sued for $500,000,000 dollars and be forced to pay this amount. Unlimited liability is a part of life. Investors that want management control should get used to it.

2004-02-26T12:38:00.000-06:00

Music

In the spirit of what may become the next internet fad (after William Huang), I'm posting the top ten random music I listen to. It will also give me a chance to use that most neglected of HTML tags, the <ol> ordered list.

However, since I don't actually listen to music, it will be from the songs I've sung that day, either verbally to myself, with others, or in my head. They'll also be in order, not random because it's hard to randomize your memories. This man walks to his own Walkman.

Rock Your Body - Justin Randall Timberlake
What a Friend We Have in Jesus - Joseph M. Scriven
Jesus Loves Me - Anna Bartlett Warner
Sweet Hour of Prayer - William W. Walford
No Woman No Cry - Robert Netsa Marley (credited to Vince "Tartar" Ford)
Refiner's Fire - Brian Doerksen
Take My Life - Scott Underwood
Wish You Were Here - George Roger Waters & David Jon Gilmour
Near the Cross - Frances Jane "Fanny" Crosby
Christ in Me - Gary Garcia

Note that the songs are all written by different people. By memory I had thought some of the hymns were written by the same person but once I investigated I found this wasn't true. Perhaps there is some deeper meaning to this. Does the brain seek to cover musical terrority by switching artists? Or just coincidence? Something to think about.

2004-02-24T14:18:00.000-06:00

Hubris

It's not often that a corporate executive has the audacity to admonish the Federal Reserve Chairman over a matter of economic policy. Although much is made in the press release about a single study, if you follow Federal Reserve publications you're aware of the growing chorus of warning from the Fed about Freddie and Fannie and their unfair government subsidy. Other Governers besides Greenspan, such as William Poole of the St. Louis Fed, have also been critical of the GSE mortgage giants. The Congressional Budget Office has likewise warned of the systemic economic risk proposed by these entities and their unfair private expropriation of the government-guaranteed credit subsidy. Academic studies have been no kinder to the unacceptable risk posed to the public by the GSEs.

From all appearances it seems Fannie and Freddie are consumed by that most ancient and deadly of sins: hubris. A hubris driven on further by their top-ranking position as political contributors and lobbyists. As such they surely deserve the eventual hammer that will come down upon them, whether percipitated by man in the form of Congressional legislation (unlikely, given the millions they contribute each year to insure this doesn't happen) or by the invisible hand of unpredictable market forces. The greatest danger to us lies not in the fall of the mortgage giants per se, but rather that a collapse would shed their shattered remains as burning chaos upon the economy of the nation.

The vast majority of the trillions of dollars of liquid bank assets in America are mortgage-backed bonds. Over 90% of this debt is guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If these obligations were to be unmet due to fraud or an unexpected financial crisis, the banking system would suddenly loose its major source of liquidity and liquid assets. Coupled with a capital flight from the Asian nations who maintain an enormous debt financing position in the US, the government would potentially have trillions in debts it would have to pay on short notice. This would make the Savings and Loan bailout of the eighties look like a walk in the park. There is no source of funds that large that could sustain the cash flows needed to prevent nation-wide bank collapse of potentially every major bank in America, and by market-linked effects, every major bank in the world. The only solution would be to start printing money, which would be a hyperinflation disaster.

Leverage and debt are dangerous. Highly leveraged financial institutions with a $1.54 trillion dollar corporate debt larger than the national debt of virtually all the world's nations (including Germany, France, and China) is incredibly, irresponsibly, recklessly dangerous. It's time we took back control of the financial system and put the Freddie and Fannie genie back into the bottle. My only wish is that it isn't too late.

2004-02-23T11:07:00.000-06:00

War

This is a pretty awesome report. Many empires - the Mayan, Nabbatean, possibly Roman - were brought down through climate change. It's not clear that the third world will be any worse off than they are already, which isn't saying much.

2004-02-23T10:21:00.000-06:00

Stagnation

Just like Sam recently noted, I too have been stagnating at my job. The last three years, in fact. The last time I had to learn much was the three months I worked at a small web design firm post-BMC layoff. Most of my work now is tedium - it must be done, but it certainly doesn't consume many brain cycles. Resume-wise it's not bad, at least not in Houston, because it gives me the catchphrase "Energy-industry Experience" that recruiters here work for. The job has also let me mature since I have to deal with non-programmers on an hourly basis.

This morning, for instance, my major tasks consisted of:

Capturing a large number of screenshots of a recently-installed batch scheduling product, pasting them into a Word document, and sending them to a third-party tech support rep.
Going through a 26-item issue list with a business rep and marking off the one change request that was completed.
Answering obscure questions about pipeline allocation which required digging through a horde of mostly undocumented, poorly-organized C++ code written seven years ago. None of the people that wrote it are still here. I received no training on the product. What I know I've had to teach myself, which is of dubious values since the entire system is being replaced by outsourcing in six months.

Yet I still feel so underutilized I can almost feel the obsolesence building in my bones. For the past year - ever since Netzah started - I've been seriously studying law. At first I had to study from necessity. How does a contract work? Corporate taxes? Partnership or Corporation? Chapter C or Subchapter S? Then it appeared to me that law wasn't that hard, certainly easier than programming, and better paying. Not having the technical skills of a hartmans, there's no reason to think I'll be left behind after the Indian Rapture of technical work runs its course. If Netzah doesn't do well I won't have a small business opportunity. So rather than biding my time, wating for the axe to fall, I'm getting ready for a legal counterpunch.

What I really want to do is work for Infosys as a US offshoring contract advisor.

Back about two years ago when Chen was elected the new pro-independence President of Taiwan, my wife's family in Taiwan went to Shanghai. It puzzled me why they would choose to relocate to Mainland China during an unprecedented boiling of China-Taiwan relations. They had a simple logic: when faced with overwealming force, "the safest place to be is the enemy's backyard."

Throw some Tandori Chicken on the grill and put some Kingfisher in the cooler. I'm coming over!

2004-02-23T09:56:00.000-06:00

Live Journal

I can't access livejournal directly from work, which means I can't use it instead of blogger although it looks superior. Trying to access livejournal hits our proxy and tells me that its "inappropriate for work". I'm not sure why because I've never got this with any other site. Maybe blogger is paying the proxy companies to do this. Can we ever really trust an open-source website, ala Microsoft's FUD about the dangers of using Linux?

I setup bloglines after a recent subtle Cote suggestion, and it sure makes blog-reading easier. I can also see Sam's posts now even though they're on livejournal. How, you may ask? I used the classic "google cache" workaround for viewing proxy-denied websites. It's not clear how useful web proxy URL-filters are now that google caches almost everything.

2004-02-20T16:39:00.000-06:00

Chinese Engineers

Go Chinese Engineers! This guy will probably setup a factory in Shenzhen and make more money than an American Idol anyhow.

2004-02-20T12:12:00.000-06:00

Natural Born Imperialists

Sometimes I feel guilty about being who I am - American by birth, middle class by occupation, employed by grace. Even growing up and going to school with kids from the ghetto, it didn't seem fair. I had all these things they never did, and yet I didn't seem to appreciate them. And yet, as Paul said, by God's grace I am what I am. Grace isn't what's fair; it's what is.

Interacting with Chinese immigrants, some of whom have been in prison and dire poverty, puts the whole outsourcing situation in persective. As Zane once said, at our level (that of ye fellow programmers), it's all essentially a game. It's highly unlikely that we'll ever be destitute out on the street. It's even unlikely that we'll ever drop below middle class. The question is more, is my house one story or two, do I get a new car this year or have to keep the old clunker, do my kids have to go to Bellaire or an underperforming school.

What we complain about, more often than not, is not getting our supposed fair share. The problem is that our idea of fair comes from the perspective of a native-born global imperialist. It's certainly not from the perspective of one of the average impoverished humans that fill most of this globe.

So we can all chill about outsourcing. At worst we'll be lower middle class instead of upper middle class, or, shades of .Com, we may not have as great of a chance of becoming filthy rich (Zane excluded; he'll probably become filthy rich no matter what happens!). If you're a native-born American, or even just an American citizen or permanent resident, chances are you're already set for life. This is not to belittle the common sufferings of man that we must all go through: suffering, illness, death. Rather, it is to put our momentary light affliction in perspective with those under a constant living hell.

Here's something interesting on outsourcing of a different sort (ha ha, this link has a google ad to outsource your programming!).

2004-02-19T16:51:00.000-06:00

A Response to Outsourcing

A response to this CNN article lauding the outsourcing phenomenon.

I have several disagreements with the article. It frames the debate on outsourcing as simply a misunderstanding, as if the opposition against outsourcing was simply a rejection by unlearned peasants. I'll respond to the article by taking quotations and examining their underlying premesis and conclusions. In so doing I will show the shaky ground upon which those supporting outsourcing stand.

"Economic Cassandras warn that as many as ten million U.S. jobs could be at risk... Or is it just real stupidity?"

It's using the term Cassandras in a pejorative sense - would they wish to include Intel founder Andy Grove, quoted here in Forbes, who predicted massive outsourcing of millions of jobs? And he's a strong proponent of outsourcing. Or the well-known Forrestor Research who claims that 3.3 million tech jobs will be lost by 2015 in the same article? Or Gartner Group's estimate of 10% of IT jobs being outsourced by the end of this year? These are hardly Cassandras, they are mainstream professionals well-acquainted with the market. And they're not saying the jobs "could be" at risk; rather, they are saying the jobs *are being outsourced as we speak*.

"For all the handwringing, off-shoring is inevitable, frequently makes business sense, and might even be beneficial."

Certainly off-shoring is not inevitable, any more than it is inevitable that our farming jobs (or Europe's or Japan's farming jobs for that matter) go overseas. Farming in most countries is heavily protected by the government - do you really want most of your food being produced offshore? In fact, farming is subsidised at a rate several times that of other industries according to the Christian Science Monitor). What if they decide to embargo you, do you just site and starve? There is nothing inevitable about off-shoring; the government could simply make it illegal.

Whether it frequently makes business sense is a matter of debate. Ignorning potential long-term effects on the workforce, let's just assume, for fun, that offshoring *always* makes business sense. This simply begs the question of whether "what makes business sense" is always the best policy. Let's say it also makes business sense to abolish the minimum wage law and pay workers $0.61/hour, as manufacturing laborers in China receive according to China Daily. Perhaps it makes "business sense" to dismantle the worker's compensation system, or to abolish social security and medicare, or to lift all environmental regulations. It's clear that what makes business sense is often not the best public policy; rather, business is only one of the parties in the entire equation of policy decisions.

Offshoring might be beneficial - then again, maybe getting occupied by a foreign power is beneficial, as Iraq is finding out, but does that mean we Americans want to subject ourselves to the experiment? New drugs may be beneficial, but nonetheless the FDA has a rigorous testing and evaluation program in three very expensive and detailed phases to insure that drugs are safe before being sold to the masses. Even then, the FDA sometimes allows harmful drugs to be sold, but the system is far better than simply letting the public at-large be guinea pigs for pharmaceutical companies. What we are doing with offshoring is not figuring out first whether it will be beneficial - instead, we are running at full-speed into massive offshoring without any regard for whether it's beneficial or not to the public as a whole. It's not yet clear what the benefit is of loosing $136 billion in US wages to outsourcing by 2015, as stated by The Hindu Business Online. Even given past offshoring results, it is not clear whether it was beneficial to the United States to loose its massive heavy industry lead in steel, shipbuilding, and the like.

"A recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, an economics think tank, calculated that for every dollar spent on a business process that is outsourced to India, the U.S. economy gains at least $1.12. The largest chunk -- 58 cents -- goes back to the original employer. "

I'm not suprised that a majority of the benefit goes to companies themselves and, of necessity, their overpaid CEOs (overpaid not according to me, but according one of the world's most successful CEOs, Warren Buffet, said in Globe Investor. Even if there was an estimated short-term net benefit of $1.12, that's a pretty slim margin - twelve cents - for the potential long-term harm of loosing the American IT industry. I also wonder how much I trust McKinsey Global Institute, run by McKinsey & Company, a major consulting company receiving millions of dollars from corporate customers espousing outsourcing. According to their guiding influence, Marvin Bower, they should have "unyielding loyalty to the client" as their website states. This hardly seems like an unbiased observer to me; it seems more like they were paid to say what their big-company clients want them to say, namely that outsourcing is good for us. I remember another ex-McKinsey consultant from my hometown, who stated that lots of things were good for us which ended up causing the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. The company: Enron. The man: president Jeff Skilling, placed in federal custody this morning on fraud charges.

"For instance, 30 percent of Indian off-shoring is performed by U.S. companies, so money returns home as earnings."

Earnings return until, of course, the Indian companies learn enough to setup their own IT companies to challenge America's. The money won't be returning anymore; it will be gone for good. In fact, according to the Business Standard of India, increasing native IP-intensive software work is a key goal of Indian companies in the near future. Competing with Microsoft, the largest software company in America and indeed the world, is explicitly mentioned.

"A good example is the much-fretted-over idea of sending X-rays to India for analysis."

Healh care has been one of the few sectors to show job growth during the past recession according to the Federal Reserve. Now you want radiologists to go overseas as well. It seems your ideas on reducing US employment are much more numerous than your ideas on increasing it.

"Michael Fleisher, CEO of the Gartner research firm, put it this way at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "Much of what's being outsourced using technology today will be completely eliminated by technology tomorrow."

Hardly suprising that a major beneficiary of corporate funds, the Gartner Group, would support the viewpoint of its clients. Let's leave their questionable motives behind, however, and focus on the CEO's claim that what's being outsourced today will be eliminated by technology tomorrow. In the past this hasn't been true. Offshoring of steel, shipbuilding, automotive, and semiconductor jobs hasn't caused those jobs to disappear from the globe. In fact, they are bigger industries than ever. It's just that the bulk of the work isn't being done in America anymore but overseas, as detailed by the Cato Institue (a free-market group, by the way). So in the past, jobs replaced by outsourcing have *not* been eliminated by technology.

This fallacious statement is further compounded by the subject matter at hand - IT jobs, particularly software development. Now I know of no one, whether in business or even leading-edge Computer Science professors, who imagines that software development will be eliminated through technological advance. There are not even technologies on the horizon that would accomplish what amounts to true artificial intelligence. There is no danger of software developers being eliminated from being necessary - it's just that they're being eliminated from first-world countries.

"The U.S. has lost two million jobs due to global trade over the past 20 years, says Farrell, but in just ten years has added 35 million new jobs."

You admit jobs were lost due to global trade, isn't that what's going on here? Haven't most of the jobs added in the past ten years come from technology, which is now being outsourced? Where do you suggest all these new jobs are going to come from? In the future will we all work at Wal-Mart for $8.23 an hour, their average wage as stated in Slate? Or must we all morph into the CEOs and journalists (working for major pro-outsourcing American companies) who are commending outsourcing?

"What they ought to be demanding is not an end to off-shoring but better education and retraining to compete in a global marketplace"

Competition in this case has nothing to do with education and everything to do with cost. Education isn't required for call center jobs which are getting outsourced, for instance. It's not because people in India have a "Masters in Call Center Service" that call center jobs are moving there. It's because you can pay them at a wage so low it would be illegal in America.

Let's say the call-center tech decides, okay, I'm going to get more education as the journalist recommended, I'm going to get a Masters in Computer Science and become a software developer. Then this new position is outsourced to. Was it because they weren't educated that they were outsourced? Or was it because they weren't willing to work for poverty-level wages? A software developer in India might make $8,000 a year. The poverty-level wage in America for a family of four is $18,244 as per this Congressional article. Let's say they again decide to fight outsourcing, go back and get re-educated as you suggest, and become a licensed M.D. Radiologist, making an average of $317,000 a year in America, as noted by Times of India. But wait, didn't you say X-Ray examinations could be outsourced? Indeed they can be, as the Times of India article states, for the handsome sum of $21,000 a year. It might be hard to pay of the med school debts at that rate.

In general, your article is laudable in that it quotes several sources to present the positive side of outsourcing. However, you've preformed a journalistic faux-paus in only presenting one side of the debate, and the one of your employer at that, according to this CNN article. The other side of the debate should be addressed as well, perhaps before Indian-based journalists come to relpace American positions at a bureau near you.

2004-02-19T08:58:00.000-06:00

Shoes on Power Lines

Who are the people who do this? Why do they do this? What were they thinking? Are the shoes old and worn out? Is it a trick on siblings? An excuse for mom to buy you the latest style "Nike Air Yao"?

Were they the shoes their "ex" wore and now they want them hanging between heaven an earth, eternally, like a relationship always close but never consumated? Is it a subtle form of rebellion against rising electric power costs and, in some small way, Enron? Is it a parody of a movie I never saw but should have seen? Is simply the product of teenage boredom applied to the urban landscape in a relatively non-destructive way?

Is it performance art? Like graffiti, but with less work, less skill, and less vandalism? Is it "art lite" for kids in the suburbs that don't have the talent, guts, or spray paint for highway overpasses and drainage ditches? Is it "performance art for the masses" - the hoi polloi - since who doesn't have an old pair of shoes and a power line nearby?

Great picture, anyhow. I know talent when I see it, and Carl, you've got it.

2004-02-17T08:59:00.000-06:00

Witness to a Morning

Prepared especially for Michael Bolton, from the annals of my dream this morning.

Counsel: "Would you please begin by telling the court how this all came about?"

Witness: "Charles - Mr. Lowell - had invited me swimming at one of his father's ex-wives' house. Not his mother, but someone similar to his mother. She had a nice big house by the beach. Charles was already in his swimsuit, but I had forgot to bring mine. He told me it was no problem, threw me an extra one, and told me to go up to his stepmother's bedroom to change."

Counsel: "Did anything unusual transpire in the bedroom at that time?"

Witness: "Not at that time, but later, which I'll get to."

Counsel: "Please continue."

Witness: "So as I was saying, I went up to the bedroom and..."

Counsel: "His stepmother's bedroom, that is?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Was anyone with you at the time?"

Witness: "I was alone in the bedroom."

Counsel: "Please go on."

Witness: "So after I had changed, I came down to go swimming, but I don't really remember whether we went swimming or not, because it was cold, it being winter and all. We came back inside and I needed to change back into my clothes, so I took my towel and..."

Counsel: "You took your towel?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Then you must have been swimming if you took your towel, no?"

Witness: "That would make sense, but I don't specifically remember going swimming."

Counsel: "I see. And did you take anything else with you?"

Witness: "No."

Counsel: "Just the towel?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "And all you had on was the swimsuit?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Please continue."

Witness: "So I headed up to the bedroom, that is, his stepmother's bedroom, because that's where I left my clothes."

Counsel: "Did it occur to you at the time whether that was a good place to leave your clothes?"

Witness: "I didn't think about it at the time. Perhaps in retrospect it was not the wisest of actions."

Counsel: "What happened next?"

Witness: "Just as I entered the bedroom and dropped my swimsuit - I had nothing else on and by this time was completely naked - a man jumps out of bed and yells, 'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?'"

Counsel: "Had you ever seen this man before?"

Witness: "No, but he looked as if he might be Robbie Williamson at 50 years old and 350 pounds."

Counsel: "Did the appearance of this man startle you?"

Witness: "I was also quite suprised, you may imagine, not expecting to find anyone in Charles' stepmother's bedroom, let alone a large black man with eyes of fury and an expression of anger like a hurricane."

Counsel: "Please spare us the embellishments. What did you do when you saw this man?"

Witness: "Judging that this was a time more for deeds than words, I clutched my towel to cover as much of myself as I could and bowed down before him, saying 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here, I'm sorry.' The man was quite pleased at my grovelling submission, which calmed him a bit, and a sly smile shot from his mouth. 'You'll be needing these,' he said, tossing my clothes at me, which had been bundled on his nightstand.' I hurried out of there as fast as I could, holding just my clothes since I had dropped the towel, and went to the bathroom downstairs. I quickly changed into my clothes and left the house immediately."

Counsel: "And where was Charles at this time?"

Witness: "I don't know."

Counsel: "Did you not bid him adieu?"

Witness: "He had already left, or was in the other room, I'm not sure. I wasn't really thinking about him at the time. I was just glad to escape with my life."

Counsel: "This man, this black man you discovered in the bedroom, did you ever see him again?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "How many times?"

Witness: "Twice."

Counsel: "When was the first time you saw him again?"

Witness: "Several hours after the incident in the bedroom I realized I had forgotten the swimsuit, in the bedroom in fact, since I was startled and didn't remember to pick it up. So I went back to Charles' stepmother's house to get it."

Counsel: "You went back to get the swimsuit?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Didn't you say earlier that you didn't have a swimsuit and Charles had lent you one in order to go swimming?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Then wasn't it his swimsuit? Why would you go back to get his swimsuit? Wasn't it his?"

Witness: "He had given me the swimsuit as a gift. At least I think he did. I just remember, for some reason I had to go back to the house to get something, and I think it was the swimsuit."

Counsel: "I see. Go on."

Witness: "So I came back to the house, I was walking along the street not too far from the house..."

Counsel: "Did it occur to you that it might not be wise to return to a house where only hours before you had been discovered naked in the bedroom of a large man's lover?"

Witness: "Perhaps one might think that, and that's why when I saw him..."

Counsel: "When did you see him?"

Witness: "As I was saying, as I approached the house, I saw him standing outside."

Counsel: "What was he wearing?"

Witness: "As I said before, he was rather hefty, maybe in excess of 300 pounds, and he had on a huge full-length fur coat bedecked with jewels, trimmed with silver, laced with gold, and he held a large septre of sapphire."

Counsel: "Did he see you?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "What did he do when he saw you?"

Witness: "When he saw me, he bellowed out a great laugh. He had two women with him, on on each side, who proceeded to remove his long fur coat. But underneath, he had another coat, equally grand. The women likewise removed this coat as well. Underneath it there was another coat, which they also removed, and yet again another, and this continued for quite some time as all the coats came off until finally all that was left was a bathrobe. The bathrobe he took off himself, and underneath, stretched beyond repair, was my swimsuit. With another great bellowing chuckle he removed the swimsuit and tossed it back to me. He then put on his bathrobe, turned away from me to face the house, and with his two female companions returned to the house."

Counsel: "You said you had seen him twice since the bedroom incident, and this was the first time, so when was the other?"

Witness: "Well, actually, now that I think about it, I saw him three times after the bedroom indicent."

Counsel: "Please go on."

Witness: "It's a long story."

Counsel: "Justice demands a full inquiry."

Witness: "I have a lot to do and really must be going."

Counsel: "You will remain until the court sees fit to dispense with you. Please relate the surroundings of the second time you saw this man after the bedroom incident."

Witness: "It was not long afterwards that my extended family and I had gathered around a picturesque mountain, a hill really, to erect a radio tower."

Counsel: "Is erecting a radio tower something you normally do with your extended family?"

Witness: "No. This was a special occasion."

Counsel: "Go on."

Witness: "We each had to climb up to the top, which wasn't very far, but it was quite steep and the last crest was rather hard to pull oneself over. My uncle, David Burns, was there along with the large black man I told about earlier."

Counsel: "Did seeing him again startle you?"

Witness: "No. He obviously knew what he was doing, erecting that radio tower and all, and he didn't seem to be bothered at my presence. It may sound strange, but it was almost as if he didn't recognize me."

Counsel: "Did you attempt to hide yourself? It that why he didn't recognize you?"

Witness: "No, it's just that he was so engrossed in setting up the radio tower, he didn't notice anything else."

Counsel: "You said you were there with your extended family?"

Witness: "Yes, in fact most of my mother's side."

Counsel: "Did you have any discussions with them about this black man?"

Witness: "No, we were actually discussing my career."

Counsel: "Your career?"

Witness: "I told them how all the programmers are being outsourced to India. Siemens, in fact, just announced they'll get rid of 15,000 this year and move them to India. My dad, who was present, asked which industries would still need onsite programmers, and besides defense I couldn't come up with much. I then turned to my uncle, who is a lawyer, and my cousin, who is not sure about his career yet, and asked them, 'what about being a lawyer?' They just shrugged and said how beautiful the view was from up here on top of the hill. Indeed, we could see for miles, and there were some wonderful forests in the distance framed by mountains on either side..."

Counsel: "What was the black man doing at the time?"

Witness: "He had finished the radio tower, and orderd us all back down the hill. He jumped down first - it wasn't that far to jump - and one at a time we came down, and finally I was the last one. I looked once more upon the view, since I don't get to see mountains much in Houston, and jumped to the bottom."

Counsel: "And then?"

Witness: "We all dispersed and went back home. I went to my parent's house, because we were in Austin, at least in the vicinity, that's where the radio tower was. I was staying at my parent's house at the time."

Counsel: "The black man was gone?"

Witness: "He left rather quickly, and I only saw him one more time before today."

Counsel: "When was that?"

Witness: "Later in the evening."

Counsel: "So the radio tower was erected in the morning?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "And you saw him later that evening?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "Would you please relate the events during which you saw him again, for the last time?"

Witness: "That evening - it wasn't very late, the sun had just set - I had just got off the phone with Richard, my colleague from work. He was coming to pick me up so we could go swimming."

Counsel: "You called him or he called you?"

Witness: "He had called me. He wanted to go swimming, and I said that was fine, I'll wait outside. I wanted to ride in his new sports car anyhow. So I went outside, that is, outside of my parents house, and waited on the sidewalk. Not long afterwards he drove up. I told him that most guys with a new sports car go to pick up some hot chick, but he was such a looser all he could get was me. He laughed and I got in the car. He drove down by Lake Austin, which was not far away, to a gazebo just off 2222, from which a small path led down to the lake. Again, and this seems to be a problem with me, I had forgotten my swimsuit, so he put his on but I just had to strip down naked. We weren't swimming for too long before we saw several dozen people clinging to the rocks along the shore. They were all grown men, and looked very dirty and unkempt, I thought they must have been homeless. They were trying to give me something to hold on to, like an old board or wooden crate, but I pushed them away. I suppose they couldn't swim, so they had to hold on to them, because they looked quite scared. One of them in particular, a thin, wriley, unshaven guy with hollow eyes set in sunken sockets, looked at me intently and with a shouting wisper said, 'Come quick! The cops!'"

Counsel: "The cops?"

Witness: "When he said that, I remembered that this part of the lake was closed to swimming after dark, and we were violating the curfew. The homeless man beckoned me to come hide with him, but I was not about to go anywhere in the dark with that guy, so I went back towards the path on the shore that led to the gazebo."

Counsel: "And where was Richard?"

Witness: "I don't know, actually. He just disappeared."

Counsel: "When did you last see him?"

Witness: "Right before we saw the homeless people."

Counsel: "Did you see where he went?"

Witness: "No, but I suppose he tried to hide from the cops."

Counsel: "You were afraid of the cops?"

Witness: "Actually, I was quite relieved. Even though it was past curfew, I'd rather be with some cops than with that crowd of aquatic drifters."

Counsel: "Did the police find you?"

Witness: "After I reached the path I took it back to the gazebo, which was right next to the road. I didn't have my clothes or towel with me, so I was wet and naked, but I tried to appear as normal as possible by reading a faded edition of the magazine 'Timeweek' which someone had left behind in the gazebo. There was an article about 'the current political situation', which I tried to read most non-chalantly, trying to appear as normal as possible even though I was naked. By that time I saw that several squad cars had pulled up and some cops came over to me. At first they were cordial and asked for my ID, but once they saw I was naked, that is after they shined their flashlight on me, they took away the magazine and dragged me back to their police van."

Counsel: "Were these park police?"

Witness: "They looked like regular Austin cops, but I can't be sure since it was dark and I wasn't really paying attention."

Counsel: "The cop who found you, what did he look like?"

Witness: "He was a burly white man, average height, with brown hair, and none too happy at that. He didn't say anything, he just rushed me over to the police van."

Counsel: "And what happened in the police van?"

Witness: "I was taken into the police van and saw a small pool inside the van, something like a holding cell, and there were already several of the homeless folks I had seen earlier sitting in there. The cop who first saw me, who took me to the van, when he put me in the van he didn't put on any handcuffs but he did tell me to stand still - I could stand because the inside of the van was rather tall - and he went to the passenger door of the van. Something was spoken, I couldn't make out what, and then from the inside of the van a large dark figure emerged. When he came into the dim luminance of the van's door light I could see that it was, in fact, the fat black man I had first met in the bedroom of Charles' stepmother."

Counsel: "You are sure it was this man in the police van, the man you first met at Charles' stepmother's house, and later saw at the same house, and then on the hill erecting the radio tower?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "You are certain it was this man you saw in the police van?"

Witness: "Yes."

Counsel: "And what did you think when you saw him?"

Witness: "He's come to take me back home, I thought."

Counsel: "And what did he do when he saw you?"

Witness: "He came and took hold of my wrist. The white cop who found me in the gazebo was still holding on to my wrist, and now the black man took my other wrist, and taking my index finger he pricked me with a small needle he was holding. I thought they were giving me some kind of disinfectant to protect me from the homeless people."

Counsel: "Did you feel anything when he pricked your finger?"

Witness: "At first, no, he just pushed me back into the holding pen in the van with the pool of water and the other homeless people. I also saw my swimsuit - I don't know how it got there - but I didn't see Richard. But after a minute or two I started to feel very relaxed, and I couldn't sit up anymore, I started to sink into the water. I heard the white cop say, 'Time of death: 7:16 pm' and the black man wrote it down. They're drowing me, I thought, they poisoned me, I was sinking into the water, one of the homeless people was trying to lift me up but he was too weak. I was going to die. By then the van had already started driving, and I was gasping for air, and I shouted as loudly as I could, first in Chinese, 'Zhu Yesu, Zhu Yesu, Bangzhu Wo, Bangzhu Wo!', then in English, 'Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Help me, Help me!'. Then I saw, whether it was out-of-body or just my imagination I don't know, but I saw the police van in downtown Austin from the outside, speeding through the street, and as I was shouting stunned people on the sidewalk heard me, and the driver tried to weave in and out and speed through the streets but more people heard me and came to the van, and that's the last I remember until I woke up with my heart racing and saw 6:47 in red LCD digits this morning."

Counsel: "And this large black man, the one you saw in the police van administering you the poison, that you saw later tracking you down to your family while erecting a radio tower, that mocked you with your swimsuit in front of your friends' stepmother's house, that unexpectedly found you naked in his lover's bedroom, do you see this man in the courtroom today?"

Witness: "He is, undoubtedly, the defendent before me."

Counsel: "No further questions your honor."

2003-10-02T09:09:00.000-05:00

Random Musings

Only Zane would include the KKK, SCO, McCarthy, the GPL, and Halliburton all in the same post. I have a cold now so I can't really provide much in the way of useful comments.

My job is quite simple, however, so I have no problem doing that. What exactly is it I do? I know you were just dying to hear, so I'll indulge you.

First, some background. I was hired at my current company because they had this big scary Unix/C++/Cobol/SQL gas pipeline system, critical parts of which they didn't understand. Most people were afraid of Unix (who isn't? ;-) and so they needed someone (cheap of course) who could come in and fix their billing problems. Arley to the rescue.

Okay, so after the problems were fixed, which took about a year, the business people were noticing that everything was running smoothly and thus something must be wrong. So they decided to bring in an outsourcing company to completely rewrite the existing system in Windows (VB/C++/etc.). They were happy to note that their support costs would be lower once they went to the new Windows system and layed off their exsiting support staff (which includes yours truely).

So, to get back to my current task, what I'm doing is writing the database conversion scripts that bring data from the existing system I support to the new system I won't be supporting. It's like digging your own grave, but then again most jobs in technology have this property. It turns out that writing database scripts to do conversion is sometimes challenging, but most of the time (95%+) it's simple tedious work that someone needs to do, and that someone happens to be me.

Zane, seeing the $140,000 in my bank account, would suggest I move to China and work on Red Flag Linux. However, he would soon realize he made a simple but forgivable error: the $140,000 is a liability, not an asset, in this case a mortage liability. Thus humbled, Zane returns to his 300,000-line-plus program and I to my data conversion scripts (I could try to give you a line count, but our data conversion tool, Microsoft DTS, doesn't have advanced award-winning features like line counts).

Genki desu ka?
Hai, genki desu!

2003-09-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

Free Speech

Strange how commercial free speech is so protected in the case of telemarketers calling you at home and yet not protected at all when an employee states their mind about a third party.

Reminds me of when Zane's weblog was "discovered" by S1.

We seem to have a twisted view of freedom in this country that considers corporations and the employer/employee relationship off limits for the constitution. Very strange.

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

2003-09-22T17:14:00.000-05:00

Liberals

When liberal magazines start publishing articles in support of torture and empire, and Chomsky calls the US the greatest country in the world, I know the world's in trouble.

You bloggers might think I'm a raving right-wind religious fanactic, but you've got me all wrong. I don't want to kill people or put them in stocks or under tribute. I don't have any hope in this world, but in the next. Until Jesus returns, it's all screwed up and your or my little efforts aren't going to change the big picture. So you may as well be a pacifist and try to save as many as you can before we all go under, that's my position.

2003-09-22T09:20:00.000-05:00

Headlines

This just in! Rich man makes headlines giving away 0.37% of his $46 billion net worth to fight disease. Or to put it in layman's terms, that is, $250 average-net-worth-adjusted dollars. There was much rejoicing.

In local news, an anonymous middle-class doner gave 8.5% of his $71,700 net worth to a charitable cause. It would take 28,000 people's giving to reach this level, or roughly the population of Kingsville, Texas.

The moral of the story: rich people love to give a tiny bit of money and get headlines news praising them for it. But the true benefit comes from the countless unnamed doners across the country (but especially in Minnesota).

While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."
As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."
- Luke 20:45-21:4

2003-09-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

Genius

Just for the record, I am not a genius. I am also generally lacking in financial success. However, that doesn't stop me from posting by blog, because, well:

I'M GOOD ENOUGH, I'M SMART ENOUGH, AND GOSH DARN IT, PEOPLE LIKE ME!
- Al Franken

2003-09-19T09:56:00.000-05:00

Style

There is a component of style that is inseperable from the individual persona, that cannot be edited or Strunk and White-d away. It is futile to attempt to remove this component; one should instead accept and develop it. One's worst enemy can in due time become the closest ally.

Some write as if they were just selected from a New Yorker "up and coming writers" competition. They may detest the fact but still it remains. There is nothing wrong with high-fidelity writing, the drawn out reflections on every note, the agonizing decision of the producer attuned to the slightest deviation from perfection. The talents of such an individual is what makes U2 sound so much better than they are, what turns an ordinary bedroom into Bartok's playground, and what spices up morning web-browsing pedantics into a refreshing cup of morning brew.

2003-09-18T10:57:00.000-05:00

Larva

You wanna be great, huh? Then you need to be a larva, or, as TNHD would put it, you need to go through larval stage.

There are programmers I often see that have potential, they could be really good, but they don't know it. They've never been tried, tested to their limits and then some. They are stuck in perpetual naivety. Without going through a time of total focus and abandonment a programmer can't know his true abilities.

I postulate this larval stage is necessary for any greatness, be it craft, art, or other. Without an intense period of hacking runs you'll never know what you're capable of. Van Gogh would wander into the fields and forget himself for days upon a canvas. The Beatles had their Hamburg years of doing little else than performing (6+ hours a day). Michelangelo had his agony and ectasy in the Sistene Chapel. Even Jesus had his forty days and nights in the wilderness.

So all you part-time wannabee artists listen up. If you're truly serious about your craft, if you aspire for greatness, then you've got to focus on it. Quit your job. Do nothing else but your art for a few months, if not longer. Eating, sleeping, and friendship should only exist in as much as they are necessary for advancement of your creative work, and no further. True friends will understand if they are shunned for a while so you can concentrate.

One of two things will happen. On the one hand it's possible you'll fail and realize that you are not really an artist, that you don't have what it takes to make it, either because you don't have the talent, are missing the drive, or just don't want to be what it is you thought you did. Your time of abandon was still worth it, because now you know who you really are in relation to your art.

On the other hand it's possible you'll realize that you are, in fact, an artist, or hacker, or whatever. This isn't an external realization: it's not about winning a competition or having others praise your work or winning a battle of the bands. It's internal: knowing that you indeed are capable of the things you previously only dreamed of. You will have acquired confidence of your abilities and glimpsed what you can accomplish.

Assuming you have found your art, you will have to make a decision of whether to pursue. In all honesty, in my own opinion I myself could be a great hacker if I put myself to it. But in the final analysis I don't value the art above life. I'd rather be a middle-class code monkey and take Rachel to the zoo. At least I know that this is what I want, and I know what I have left behind. It is terrible to not know, to be stuck in a purgatory between artistic heaven and employable hell simply because you're afraid what will happen if you pursue art above all else.

2003-09-17T21:27:00.000-05:00

Balls

This guy has balls.

2003-09-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

Quality

Why is it that as we pursue these Arab fugitives their recording quality gets poorer and poorer? At first, there's full-color voice-synced video conversations with different scenes and out-takes of Der Führer shooting his AK in the air. This degenerates to video monologues behind false backgrounds. Then it turns to hastily made videos behind tarps, in caves or bunkers with voiceovers. Finally we move to audio-only, of declining quality with each successive tape. It is enough to bring tears to the eyes of those who still search Ebay for Dave Brubeck LPs.

It is at a time like this that the world needs Carl, a man of great capability, exquisite taste, and most important to the task at hand, high fidelity. The Red Cross needs a high-fidelity branch to help fugitive leaders develop audio and video to the recording standards demanded by the modern media. Can you imagine being a fugitive leader trying to rally your troops without the slightest idea of what California Audio Labs can do for you cause? The very idea is shocking, as shocking as the reaction fugitives will get from their followers when we finally move to HDTV and they're still recording on VHS. You can't be the leader of the un-free world and at the same time the laughing stock of the recording industry.

As we all know from the recent RIAA supenas, he who controls the recording industry controls the universe.

Carl, it's time to rise to the occasion.

Recorders of High Fidelity, Unite!

2003-09-16T13:38:00.000-05:00

Japan

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?

$50 says it will be the next internet craze ala dancing baby and all your base are belong to us.

2003-09-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

Excellence in Broadcasting

What followed was a great example of why Gordon is a great guy to be in a band with. I had to walk away from the argument between the band and booker because I have a very short fuse in confrontations. I get angry at any injustice or even perceived injustice and then I say a bunch of nasty things and storm away. I will never be an ambassador. But Gordon is a master diplomat. He eventually convinced the aforementioned booker not only to have a couple of employees hook up a PA from 1932 but also to go to a friends house to pick up microphones. Dag.
- Joe's Diary

Way to go Gordon!

2003-09-15T13:38:00.000-05:00

The Left

Writes Zane:

The left, which it's [sic] greater emphasis on persuasion rather than coercion will often keep it's message more to the facts and inherently disdains the propoganda machine.

Yes, persuasion rather than coercion is just what comes to mind when I think of Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Dong, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh and other leading Leftist figures. Even American Leftists such as FDR certainly didn't mind resorting to force when ruling by decree to steal gold and destroy livestock.

2003-09-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

Web Design

I'm not much of a web designer myself, but I can tell you what I like: sparse and informative. This makes it easy to find interesting diversions on unusual sites. Cote and Josh should take note.

2003-09-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Sagan

While Carl Sagan showed us, through his planetary science and popularizing, the contributions logic and reasoning can make to life, he also showed us its limitations. For as anyone knows who has studied formal logic, all sound reasoning is fundamentally underpinned by axioms whose truth value (or falsehood) must be assumed. In the fundamental sciences axiomatic assumptions are kept to a minimum, phenomena are investigated, hypotheses are tested and proven or disproven. In the higher-level sciences, and indeed outside of science, such an approach is not so easily applied, and in fact its application can be incomplete at best and dangerous at worst.

A human life is not a repeatable experiment. Nor can pure logic answers its riddles. Sagan's life was filled with success where logic and love of science prevaled: in the sciences and in bringing them to the masses. His life was filled with failures where logic cannot provide answers: in loving a wife, caring for children, and following God.

As much as Sagan is an example to us that we should love our work and the wonder of the world around us, he is also a warning to us lest we cling to the created things and leave our Creator.

2003-09-14T11:38:00.000-05:00

Stability

Ed says:

I'll keep it short. All three of the industries you mentioned have undergone significant changes in the last 30 years so that they no longer resemble the industries that have generated the historical returns that make them so appealing to an investor.

When I mentioned banking, insurance, and utilities, note that I limited it to certain subsets of these industries which have undergone little change historically.

When I say banking I mean commercial and retail deposit banking. I exclude more nascent and volatile forms such as investment banking, financial services, and hosted banking data centers (anyone recall that? ;-). Freddie Mac is a pefect example of a non-traditional bank: it doesn't have depositors, it doesn't fall under the restrictive Federal Reserve banking regulations (especially reserve requirements), and if anything it resembles the French Credit Mobilier which raised funds primarily through highly leveraged bond issues, which eventually caused great accounting problems and ultimate failure (sound familiar?). Traditional banking goes back to at least 15th century Italy and even farther if we count the moneychangers of Sumer circa 3000 B.C. Someone experienced in banking from Sumer could become a loan officer in your average bank and (after learning English and Federal regulations) would feel quite at home.

When I say insurance I mean the traditional forms, life and property insurance and annuities. I'm excluding more exotic and nascent varieties such as event insurance, super-cat, and reinsurance, risky investments which Berkshire is best known for and other reinsurance companies are worst known for. The annuity can be found in 17th century Switzerland, among other places, although it was more commonly written by government entities rather than private companies. By the 18th century, however, along with the advances in statistics and the birth of the actuarial field, true life and property insurance become pretty much what it is today. Once you have the property and casualty (mortality) tables that's all there is to it.

When I say utilities I mean local distribution and transporation utilities, which constitute the vast majority of outstanding stock of the industry. I'm excluding companies such as Enron and Dynegy which were primarily focused on energy trading and unregulated power generation, which have nothing to do with utilities per se. Companies who were focused on core utility business, such as Southern Co. and Entergy, were unaffected by the recent shenanigans. Water utilties have been around since the birth of civilization, and gas and electric utilties as corporations were well established by the end of the 19th century. From my own experience working at a utility, I can testify there's pretty much nothing to it: just keep the gas flowing and the money just comes in.

Don't be fooled by the myth of constant change. Some things are changing rapidly, but not everything is. Traditional industries such as banking, insurance, and utilities still hold promise in giving stability to a portfolio.

2003-09-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

The Swiss

I've lately been reading a book entitled Swiss Banking: An Analytical History (by Hans Bauer), and I ran across this paragraph:

It will be obvious to readers with a reasonable familiarity with the history of Europe during and after the war that Switzerland and the Swiss people endured very much less in terms of hardship than the painful privation and suffering in the rest of the continent. Of that there is not the slightest doubt. Indeed, we might add that the contribution of Switzerland and the Swiss Red Cross during those tragic years did much toward ameliorating to some degree the horrors which Europe inflicted upon itself. Even though a paragraph saluting these people for their efforts is quite out of context in a work of this kind, we nevertheless do include it as a reminder to readers that we are always conscious of the fact that life does not necessarily consist of banks, bankers, and finance alone.

If I could say any country comes closest in its foreign policy to the Christian ideal, it would be Switzerland. The twin pillars of their policy are compassion and neutrality. They certainly spend more effort saving lives than taking them. It would behoove us to learn from their example.

Any by the way Ed, I can sum up the lesson of Swiss banking in one short sentence: go heavy on the cash, light on the debt.

2003-09-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

Maybe Too Impressive

MLPJC - 177TS007 

      TO:     WILLARD, BENJAMIN L., Cpt. USA 
                0-1305301 
                U.S. Armed Forces Intelligence Hq.
                Nha Trang

      SUBJECT:  Special Warfare Information, CLARK, WESLEY K., Gen., European Command

      1966      Graduates West Point; first in Class; third-generation appointee. 
                Completes Basic Training, Armor Officer Advanced, Ranger, Airborne.

      66-68     Masters Degree, Oxford University, Economics, Politics,
                and Philosophy. Rhodes Scholar.

      69-70     Assigned, 1st Mechanized Infantry, U.S. Command, Saigon,
                Vietnam. Serves with Distinction.  Promoted Commander.

      1970      Wounded in action.  Received Purple Heart, Silver Star,
                honored for gallantry in action with marked distinction.


                           WILLARD (v.o.)

"At first, I thought they handed me the wrong dossier. I couldn't
believe they wanted this man dead. Third generation West
Point, top of his class. Vietnam, Airborne. About a thousand decorations. 
Etc, etc... I'd heard his voice on the tape and it really put a hook
in me. But I couldn't connect up that voice with this man. Like they
said he had an impressive career. Maybe too impressive... I mean
perfect. He was being groomed for one of the top slots of the 
corporation. General, Chief of Staff, anything... In 1975 he returned
from a tour of advisory command in Vietnam and things started to
slip. The report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President
was restricted. Seems they didn't dig what he had to tell them."

                              ...

"The more I read and began to understand, the more I admired him."

                              ...

"No wonder Clark put a weed up command's ass. 
The war was being run by a bunch of four-star clowns 
who were going to end up giving the whole circus away."

                        PHOTOJOURNALIST

"Hey, man, you don't talk to Clark. You listen to him. The
man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic
sense. I mean sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say hello to
him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even
notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in
a corner, and he'll say do you know that if is the middle
word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are
losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when
all men doubt you -- I mean I'm no, I can't -- I'm a little man, I'm a little 
man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws
scuttling across floors of silent seas -- I mean --"

                              ...

In the morning Willard is carried again to meet Clark.
Clark sits in the talkshow and reads T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" :

                             CLARK

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;"

2003-09-11T09:20:00.000-05:00

A Poem

A poem, a good one, I heard on NPR today. Usually the Writer's Almanac is snotty and pretentious but today it was raw and viscereal. So here it is, written before 9/11/01 I might add:

TO A TERRORIST

For the historical ache, the ache passed down
which finds its circumstance and becomes
the present ache, I offer this poem

without hope, knowing there's nothing,
not even revenge, which alleviates
a life like yours. I offer it as one

might offer his father's ashes
to the wind, a gesture
when there's nothing else to do.

Still, I must say to you:
I hate your good reasons.
I hate the hatefullness that makes you fall

in love with death, your own included.
Perhaps you're hating me now,
I who own my own house

and live in a country so muscular,
so smug, it thinks its terror is meant
only to mean well, and to protect.

Christ turned his singular cheek,
one man's holiness another's absurdity.
Like you, the rest of us obey the sting,

the surge. I'm just speaking out loud
to cancel my silence. Consider it an old impulse,
doomed to become mere words.

The first poet probably spoke to thunder
and, for a while, believed
thunder had an ear and a choice.

Stephen Dunn

2003-09-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Iran

1.	Attack or not(Attack)	(Binary Tautology)
2.	Overthrow or not(Overthrow)	(Binary Tautology)
3.	Attack iff Overthrow	(Axiom)
4.	(Attack and Overthrow) or [not(Attack) and not(Overthrow)]	(Definition of iff, 1, 2, 3)
5.	not(Attack)	(Assumption)
6.	not(Attack) or not(Overthrow)	(Disjunctive Tautology, 5)
7.	not(Attack and Overthrow)	(Demorgan's Law, 6)
8.	[not(Attack) and not(Overthrow)]	(Definition of or, 4, 7)
9.	not(Overthrow)	(Definition of and, 8)

So given that we overthrow if and only if we attack, and we're not attacked, then we don't overthrow. We seem to be in agreement here. As I have always believed, sound argument between two rational individuals is always reduced to either total agreement or a difference of axioms.

2003-09-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

Advice to Latin American Travelers

While eating lunch today with an old BMC colleague I informed him of Charles' latest expedition into the jungle. The friend, being from Mexico and having driven down south before, proffered some advice for me to grant young Charles the Bold.

Stay on the Highway - keep to the Pan-American Highway route and you should be fine. Veer off the beaten path and you might wind up kidnapped or killed.
Watch your Motorcycle - the hardest task on the journey is not getting your bike stolen. Keep it in sight at all times.
Filter the Gas - the gasoline south of Mexico has varying degrees of quality. Carry a gas filter with you and always filter when refueling.
Keep your Eyes on the Road - at times you may find yourself distracted by the scenery. Stay focused and don't loose sight of the big picture.

2003-09-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

Butlerian Jihad

Ed writes about a rather lengthly article by Bill Joy. It behooves me to give my opinion; I deserve it after having truged my way through the whole article.

In my estimation, only religion is strong enough to pull man from the desire for power and wealth which, when combined with technology, lead to the destruction of humanity. The Amish are still the best example of success in the endeavour of life, and peaceful at that. Not all fundamentalists are suicide bombers or those seeking the imminent destruction of the same.

"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.
"To set you free."
"Free?"
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind," Paul quoted.
"Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible," she said.

- Dune

2003-09-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

Public Corporations

The only trades which it seems possible for a joint stock company to carry on successfully, without an exclusive privilege, are those of which all the operations are capable of being reduced to what is called a routine, or to such a uniformity of method as admits of little or no variation. Of this kind is, first, the banking trade; secondly, the trade of insurance from fire, and from sea risk and capture in time of war; thirdly, the trade of making and maintaining a navigable cut or canal; and, fourthly, the similar trade of bringing water for the supply of a great city. - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

This pretty much sums up, and gives justification to, my previous investigations into investing. To sum it up: Banking, Insurance, and Utilities. These are the three most consitently stable and profitable companies, seeing how what they do is so routine and simple. To be more specific, I would say retail/commercial banking (as opposed to investment banking or financial services), primary low-risk insurance (as opposed to event insurance, mortgage/bond insurance, or reinsurance), and local distribution water/energy utilities (as opposed to energy trading, broadband, telecom or somesuch). You can find a good number of such companies with strong credit ratings, consistent earnings, and hefty dividends; furthermore, you can find them all across the globe. They should be the foundation of any stock portfolio.

You can test the waters with biotech and all that, but don't leave the basics behind.

2003-09-09T09:46:00.000-05:00

Hacking

A nice little ditty from the news. I think Sam could have done much better though, like the time he brought down the network... ;-)

2003-09-06T21:27:00.000-05:00

Iran Again

I dug around and found a rather factual account (from the Library of Congress Country Studies) that pretty much accords with what I've read before about this portion of Persian history. Hopefully this will settle a few things.

First off I hope it establishes my point that BP (formerly Anglo-Iranian) didn't get a good deal out of the whole thing. In fact, it pretty much put them out of the running as a major player in the world oil industry until the Fourty Field was found off of England in the North Sea several decades later. The Iranians had physical control (meaning military) and there wasn't much BP could do, especially when mobs started killing their engineers (which is the real reason they pulled out when they did; pulling out basically meant they lost a huge amount of money).

Second it shows that Mossadeq, although popular, didn't mind resorting to undemocratic acts when his popularity began to wane. He got what he wanted through either democratic or undemocratic means: democratic when the Majlis agreed with him, if they didn't he just disolved the body and ruled by decree. In that sense he was little different from the Shah (who himself was widely popular when he first came back to Iran from exile).

Third it makes it clear that the U.S. position agaist Mossadeq and his Tudeh Party ties was primarily about Soviet influence, not oil. Under the "domino theory" prevalent at the time, if Iran fell to the communists then soon Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and eventually the entire Middle East would fall as well. Being in such a strategic position, directly adjoining the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf, Iran was a key focus of the anti-domino efforts of Eisenhower administration. Although I'm almost certain Zane would differ, I have no problem supporting overthrow of a government that is a direct threat to America, whether it's elected or not. Whether Iran was in this case is a matter of debate, although we could probably agree that the Taliban was (sheltering Bin Laden).

2003-09-06T21:00:00.000-05:00

Surgical Strike

A pretty good example of a surgical strike. However, as is the case there is a tradeoff between military effectiveness and civilian safety. This time they got away.

2003-09-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

Efficiency and Profit

Some people seem to think it illegal or immoral to evaluate individual profitability:

"There is somewhere in almost every company a spreadsheet showing a cost-benefit analysis for every worker. It all comes down to a single lifetime number that is the difference between the expected earnings to the corporation that are made possible by the direct labor of that employee, and the total cost of that employee to the company in current wages and future benefits. Nobody admits the existence of this spreadsheet, which is probably illegal, but it is there." - wunderkammer

I (and perhaps Zane, in a rare moment of agreement) support such efforts to examine individual productivity. Giving more monetary value to the company than it gives you in wages is the heart of capitalism. If you're not earning the company money then both you have no reason to be at the company and, if this is true for all or most employees, the company has no reason to exist. If someone in India can do the same job for less, so be it, that's capitalism and free trade for you. Ultimately the society will be better off on average, on the whole. You the individual may or may not be. But it's pretty selfish, and feudalistically guild-like, to suggest otherwise.

2003-09-04T17:44:00.000-05:00

The Vatican

You're Vatican City!
You're pretty sure that you're infallible in all that you do or say, and it's hard to say whether you're right. You have a lot of followers, most of whom will do whatever you say without question, or line up to see you ride around in your spiffy car. Religious and reserved, you have some wisdom, but also a bit much contempt for everyone around you. You're also fabulously wealthy, no matter what you say to the contrary.
Take the Country Quiz

2003-09-04T15:22:00.000-05:00

Iran

Sorry to intrude, but your picture of Iran is far from accurate. You're leaving out the other big guy of the era: the Soviet Union. The whole post-WWII policy in Iran was based upon the overall "free-world versus communism" policy. The British weren't really much of a factor after WWII, they had to play second fiddle to America in the actions including the coup. The Americans actually forced Britian to concede most of its major points in the oil deal (which was a bad one for BP) in order to score points with the Shah. It was really a US vs. Soviet proxy conflict. One way or the other the Iranians were going to get screwed. To pretend everything would have been rosy except for the Americans is to ignore reality. It certainly wasn't rosy before the coup, more like chaotic anarchy.

The Shah wasn't such a bad guy as far as Middle East despots go. He actually helped build a good deal of infrastructure in Iran. Mossadeq was a ruthless assasin, "elected" or not. I'd certainly prefer living under either of them than under the Ayatollahs, but then again, being a Christian I'd be especially targeted under Muslim rule.

Don't even get me started about nationalization. Once you start spouting about BP "raping" Iran it's clear you've been misinformed. BP was pretty much on the getting screwed side of that deal from the begining. Even from the 19th century the producing countries always had the upper hand, from Russia to Venuzuela, they certainly did the bulk of the raping, oil companies being the victim. Having physical control of the wells always gives you the advantage.

The basic problem in Iran, and really in the entire Middle East, was and is an inability to compromise. You can't have peace or any meaningful law and order without compromise. Democracy can't exist in these environments: the first action after winning a majority election is either to a) go massacre the minority b) abandon the constitution and institute religious rule or c) get deposed by a coup. Compromise is the key to peace.

2003-09-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

Mr. Wright

I saw The Siege about a year before 9-11. The reality was, of course, much more shocking, deadly, and ultimately dangerous than the screenplay. However, Mr. Wright seems to have a prescience about the future. If he writes a screenplay about terrorists nuking San Diego, Carl, you'd better consider moving.

P.S. Is it just me, or do you bloggers only notice when conservatives do silly things? If a liberal does silly things, it must be right. I don't disagree with the silliness, but I do note the selective reporting.

2003-09-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

My Very Own Onion Advertisment

Introducing "School" Razanne of the Al-Barbie clan! Comes with a removable hijab (only in front of husband Ken Al-Barbie, though), contact book to keep track of all your teachers, friends, and doctors (all-female, of course), and a backpack for school (this option not available in Taliban-ruled areas).

One of our more popular models, "Praying" Razanne, includes a Dome of the Rock (Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade inspired) prayer rug, a short book entitled "Why Jews are Evil and Must be Erradicated" you can read to your children (Including a chapter on "Dispelling the Myth of the Holocaust"), and her limited-edition "Celebrate the Hidden Imam" shawl (not available in Sunni areas).

There's lot of fun things you can do with our latest model, "In and Out" Razanne: stay at home and try on Western clothes (not outside the play-house, though), let your cousin Joe Al-Barbie drive you around (make sure he accompanies you at all times, and for Allah's sake, don't drive yourself!) and go swimming in the Red Sea with a full-body-length bathing suit (keep those arms and legs covered!).

Now try our latest model, "Glorious Martyrdom" Razanne! She comes with a full set of accessories, including a minature Koran, AK-47 and a strap-on suicide belt! Enjoy her listing to Ayatolla Ken Al-Barbie's latest anti-Semitic sermon (Allah-Akhbar!), get together with your friends and hold a "Down with Great Satan America" rally (complete with Arabic banners!), and play "resist the Zionist invasion" in her very own scale-model of Jenin (look abba, I just shot a settler!).

The doll for the next generation!

2003-09-03T09:44:00.000-05:00

Koreans

Koreans seem to be more "physical" in their protests than most other people. They are quite creative in making all sorts of protest props, "kickin' it up a notch", and performing celebratory dances upon election of their Great Leader (who honestly supports democracy contrary to the viscious rumors of Imperialist American Scum). Stateside we have Jesse Venutra to quench our thirst for violence; in Korea they have labor unions. Quite exciting compared to the French who usually just block traffic and entertain visitors.

A coworker relates his experience (repeated related it in my own words):

"So here we were in Seoul on our business trip, taking some time off in the evening to unwind. We head down to the tourist-town shopping district and when we get there, we're like the only people there. It's like, where is everyone? So we're starting to think we've come to the wrong place, and things get errily silent, so we try to find a cab to get out of there.
"There are several cabs, but unfortunately they don't want anything to do with us. Is it because we're foreigners, we wonder? Then we see them all park next to eachother, blockading the street in front of us. Uh oh, we think, this can't be good.
"Then about a half mile down on the other side we see a large crowd start to form, some kind of primitive "flash mob" (although this was fifteen years ago), and they're quickly getting very organized into line and file. In a very short time, maybe two minutes, there must have been over ten thousand of them, and they start shouting slogans in unison at a deafening volume, marching towards us. We're like, we don't know Korean, we didn't do anything, and we don't know where this is going.
"Fortunately, they seem to be ignoring us. But they didn't go unnoticed by the cops, who now stream in with their patrol cars, water cannons, and urban assault vehicles. They pile out in full riot gear, shooting tear gas at the crowd and knocking them over with walls of water. We're stuck in the middle of this thing, our eyes burning, when things get even more tense.
"The crowd doesn't react to the cops very well. They respond to the tin soldiers by turning over their police cars and setting fire to their urban assault vehicles. By this point we're thinking we should run, but when surrounded by ten thousand people jam packed into the street there's not much you can do. We try to cover our mouths and eyes from the gas and smoke and try to stay away from the police tussling with the protestors.
"And then, something entirely unexpected happens. Everyone starts to run away, in all directions, quickly disappearing among side alleys and (we learned later) into private residences of the many local sympathizers. The police arrest a few in the front and within minutes everything is quiet again. Besides the carcass of overturned vehicles and burning tires you'd never know they were there. We feel pretty stupid, just standing there with our shirts over our eyes and mouth, waiting for the gas to disperse so we can get some fresh air.
"Shortly afterwards the shops re-open, they start clearing the vehicles and it's as if nothing happened. The whole incident must have taken less than half an hour. Some cops come up to us, and seeing that we are obviously foreigners offer a ride back to the hotel. We spend the rest of the night at a second-rate bar calming our nerves and swearning never to come back here again."

2003-09-01T12:29:00.000-05:00

Mammon

One soul asks, pray tell, what is mammon? I shall reply in bountiful words, most not my own.

First, the context:

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." - Matthew 6:24

Now, a large number of definitions of mammon from different perspectives that should suffice to give the reader the intent of the passage:

A Chaldee or Syriac word meaning "wealth" or "riches" (Luke 16:9-11); also, by personification, the god of riches (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:9-11). (Easton's Bible Dictionary)
Riches (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:9) a word which often occurs in the Chaldee Terguma of Onkelos and later writers, and in the Syriac version, and which signifies "riches." It is used in St. Matthew as a personification of riches. (Smith's Bible Dictionary)
Greek Mamonas: A common Aramaic word (mamon) for riches, used in Matthew 6:24 and in Luke 16:9,11,13. In these passages mammon merely means wealth, and is called "unrighteous," because the abuse of riches is more frequent than their right use. In Luke 16:13 there is doubtless personification, but there is no proof that there was in New Testament times a Syrian deity called Mammon. The application of the term in Matthew is apparent and requires no comment. In Lk, however, since the statement, "Make to yourselves friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness," follows as a comment on the parable of the Unjust Steward, there is danger of the inference that Jesus approved the dishonest conduct of the steward and advised His disciples to imitate his example. On the contrary, the statement is added more as a corrective against this inference than as an application. `Do not infer,' He says, that honesty in the use of money is a matter of indifference. He that is unfaithful in little is unfaithful in much. So if you are not wise in the use of earthly treasure how can you hope to be entrusted with heavenly treasure?' The commendation is in the matter of foresight, not in the method. The steward tried to serve two masters, his lord and his lord's creditors, but the thing could not be done, as the sequel shows. Neither can men serve both God and riches exalted as an object of slavish servitude. Wealth, Jesus teaches, does not really belong to men, but as stewards they may use wealth prudently unto their eternal advantage. Instead of serving God and mammon alike we may serve God by the use of wealth, and thus lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. Again, the parable is not to be interpreted as teaching that the wrong of dishonest gain may be atoned for by charity. Jesus is not dealing with the question of reparation. The object is to point out how one may best use wealth, tainted or otherwise, with a view to the future. (International Standard Bible Encylopedia)
The word "mammon" is a Syriac word, and signifies money, wealth, riches, substance, and everything that comes under the name of worldly goods. Jerom says, that riches, in the Syriac language, are called "mammon"; and so the word is often used in the above senses, in the Chaldee paraphrases {y}, and in the Talmudic writings; where {z} twnwmm ynyd, "pecuniary judgments," or causes relating to money affairs, in which were pecuniary mulcts, are opposed to twvpn ynyd, "judgment of souls," or causes relating to life and death. The account and interpretation Irenaeus {a} gives of the word, is very wide and foreign; who says, that "Mammon, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which the Samaritans used, is one that is greedy, and would have more than he ought; but, according to the Hebrew language, it is called adjectively Mam, and signifies one that is gluttonous; that is, who cannot refrain himself from gluttony." Whereas it is not an Hebrew word, nor an adjective, but a substantive, and signifies riches; which are opposed to God, being by some men loved, admired, trusted in, and worshipped, as if they were God; and which is incompatible with the service of the true God: for such persons, whose hearts go after their covetousness, and are set upon earthly riches, who give up themselves to them, are eagerly and anxiously pursuing after them, and place their confidence in them; whatever pretensions they may make to the service of God, as did the Scribes and Pharisees, who are particularly struck at by this expression, both here and elsewhere, they cannot truly and heartily serve the Lord. "Mammon" is the god they serve; which word may well be thought to answer to Pluto, the god of riches, among the Heathens. The Jews, in Christ's time, were notorious for the love of "mammon"; and they themselves own, that this was the cause of the destruction of the second temple: the character they give of those, who lived under the second temple, is this: "we know that they laboured in the law, and took care of the commandments, and of the tithes, and that their whole conversation was good; only that they Nwmmh ta Nybhwa, "loved the mammon," and hated one another without a cause {b}."
{w} Praefat. Celi Jaker, fol. 3. 1. {x} Piske Tosephot Cetubot, art. 359. {y} Vid. Targum Onkelos & Jon. in Gen. xiii. 13. & in Jud. v. 19. & in Prov. iii. 9. & in Isa. xlv. 13. & passim. {z} Misn. Sanhed. c. 1. sect. 1. & c. 4. sect. 1. {a} Adv. Haeres. l. 3. c. 8. p. 249. {b} T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 38. 3. (Gill's Commentary)
The word "mamon"--better written with one m--is a foreign one, whose precise derivation cannot certainly be determined, though the most probable one gives it the sense of "what one trusts in." Here, there can be no doubt it is used for riches, considered as an idol master, or god of the heart. The service of this god and the true God together is here, with a kind of indignant curtness, pronounced impossible. But since the teaching of the preceding verses might seem to endanger our falling short of what is requisite for the present life, and so being left destitute, our Lord now comes to speak to that point. (JFB Commentary)
The Chaldee word "Mammon" means money or riches. It is here personified as an idol. "Mammon" originally meant "trust," or confidence, and riches is the trust of worldly men. If God be not the object of supreme trust, something else will be, and it is most likely to be money. (Johnson Commentary)
Mammon is a Syriac word, that signifies gain; so that whatever in this world is, or is accounted by us to be, gain (Phil. 3:7), is mammon. Whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is mammon. To some their belly is their mammon, and they serve that (Phil. 3:19); to others their ease, their sleep, their sports and pastimes, are their mammon (Prov. 6:9); to others worldly riches (James 4:13); to others honours and preferments; the praise and applause of men was the Pharisees' mammon; in a word, self, the unity in which the world's trinity centres, sensual, secular self, is the mammon which cannot be served in conjunction with God; for if it be served, it is in competition with him and in contradiction to him. He does not say, We must not or we should not, but we cannot serve God and Mammon; we cannot love both (1 Jn. 2:15; Jam. 4:4); or hold to both, or hold by both in observance, obedience, attendance, trust, and dependence, for they are contrary the one to the other. God says, "My son, give me thy heart." Mammon says, "No, give it me." God says, "Be content with such things as ye have." Mammon says, "Grasp at all that ever thou canst. Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem—Money, money; by fair means or by foul, money." God says, "Defraud not, never lie, be honest and just in all thy dealings." Mammon says "Cheat thine own Father, if thou canst gain by it." God says, "Be charitable." Mammon says, "Hold thy own: this giving undoes us all." God says, "Be careful for nothing." Mammon says, "Be careful for every thing." God says, "Keep holy thy sabbath-day." Mammon says, "Make use of that day as well as any other for the world." Thus inconsistent are the commands of God and Mammon, so that we cannot serve both. Let us not then halt between God and Baal, but choose ye this day whom ye will serve, and abide by our choice. (Matthew Henry Commentary)
Mammon was a common Chaldee word used in the East to express material riches. It is here personified as a kind of god of this world. These masters conflict here, for it is mammon's interest to be hoarded and loved, but it is God's interest that mammon be distributed to the needy and be lightly esteemed. God claims our supreme love and our undivided service. (MP Commentary)
Riches, money; any thing loved or sought, without reference to God. Luke xvi, 13. (Wesley Commentary)

I hope this is sufficient.

2003-08-31T22:21:00.000-05:00

Bronson

The first half of my maternal granfather's life was remarkably similar, except instead of becoming an action star he became a salesman. Strangely enough he ended up working with my other grandfather, although the families never met and it wasn't until long after that my parents realized the fact.

Any good grandfather stories out there?

2003-08-31T21:20:00.000-05:00

Investing

"My profession appears to regard a set of financial statements as a roulette wheel to the public investor-- and it is his tough luck if he doesn't understand the risks that we inject into the accounting reports." - edible

The income statement dilemma: how much attention should the investor give it? I oscillate between wanting to look at dividends to the exclusion of all else and wanting to look at earnings to the exclusion of all else. Dividends are good to examine because they are a record of actual cash paid to investors, which short of a ponzi scheme cannot be faked. Dividend history and projections are also the basis of the DCF model of stock valuation which Graham and Buffet espose. On the other hand I want to use the earnings approach because the dividend model tends to only bring out traditional industries such as oil and banking, giving little exposure to any growth industries. Earnings are ultimately what make or break a firm (if they are true). Many dividend-only investors have been burned when the dividends are cut (Schering Plough, El Paso to name a few).

My general approach is a hybrid between earnings and dividends. First I only evaluate high-credit companies (AA or higher as rated by Standard and Poors"; I even have a Perl program to browse several hundred web pages to find only AA or higher stocks); these companies are very unlikely to go bankrupt (less than a 1% chance historically). Next I exclude those that don't trade on a major exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq or Amex) so I can have low costs and standard reporting requirements (this includes ADRs). Then I apply "Graham's Razor" and remove all stocks with a P/E (backward and forward looking) greater than 15. I'm then left with a handful of stocks to puruse in more detail, letting me subjectively pick the several (or one) I'm willing to invest in.

What's your approach?

2003-08-31T20:54:00.000-05:00

Coolness

"Anyway. Obviously there was more around than Nirvana and "Daria" during my so-called high school life. Depression just got promoted the hell out of by the likes of MTV and the major media as they tried to tailor themselves to the desires of the kids. But that means something." - auscillate (TXETC)

My theory of juvenile/college "coolness" is that you have to be opposite of the predominant cultural trend of the moment. For instance, during the conservative and family-oriented 1950s Elvis, Dean and the freewheeling beatnik were all the rage. In the 1960s amidst majority support for the Vietnam war (check the polls from the era) it was cool to be anti-war. The 1970s were about a declining economy and world power and thus at the time when celebration was least justified we find it the most hyped (drug-induced or not, it was a party decade). In the corporate neo-conservatism business-suit Regan era of the 1980s we see punk and incredible color combinations (watch an old Cosby show rerun and check out the kids outfits; I'm surprised my TV doesn't have some spasm from the electron tube gyrations). In the 1990s, a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity for America, we find nothing more cool than to be morose and depressed about our wealth and power. And of course in the 2000 with war, death, and outsourcing constantly in the headlines we find nothing more cool than being hip and occasionally making on off-color comment about "little Bush" and "fascist Ashcroft".

So there's my theory. Take the predominant majority social trend and invert it, and you're gonna have coolness running out of your ears. Similarly, when you need a stereotypical foil to your anti-hero just use an exaggerated majority character.

2003-08-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

Outsourcing

“For the development operations, the company has decided to start with 20-seat operations. The India centre will grow as all jobs lost due to natural attrition in the US as well as new work requirements will be added to India operations from now on,” claimed Mr Little. - drunkandretired

It behooves us to consider the economics of software outsourcing. Using the Law of One Price we can state that the salary of a software developer in one country is equal to the base salary of another country plus any inequality costs. For software developers the inequality consists of the explicit tariff, the communication cost, the quality cost, the locality reservation cost, and the implicit bias.

salary = base + inequality

= base + tariff + communication + quality + locality + bias

We will consider each component in turn, giving a practical example as we go, the example being that most commonly encountered, India versus America.

Software Developer Salary in America
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics we know that computer programmers/developers in America earn an average of $63,000 a year. If you're classified as a "developer" the average is $10,000 higer, so across all developers/programmers (there's little practical difference) we'll give an average of $70,000, chopping it down to one significant figure.
Base Salary in India
According to a recent salary survey, the median salary of a software developer/programmer in India is $8,750. It is somewhat higher in the "tech centers" like Bangalore just as in California. We'll round up to one significant figure, $9,000.
Plugging back into our first equation, we know that the American salary equals the Indian salary plus the inequality cost, which means that $70,000 = $9,000 + inequality; thus the inequality cost is about $60,000. Now let's see why people are willing to pay $60,000 more for a programmer in America than a programmer in India. Take caution, however: I am quite sure that the inequality cost is around $60,000, but breaking up the cost into various components is usually more speculative. I will also address whether the cost could rise or fall in the future, and thus estimate the possible minimum market wage for an American programmer in the future.
Tariff on Overseas Outsourcing
According to US Code Title 19 Chapter 22 Section 3511 the Uruguay Round Agreements of the GATT are adopted into US law. Looking up the US tariffs under GATT on the WTO Services Database Report you can see that the US has no tariff on imported software services. So the tariff as it stands is zero. It may rise in the future if political pressures grow.
Communication Cost
It's obviously more expensive to coordinate a resource on the other side of the planet in an opposite time zone with a difficult accent and differing culture than it is to talk to Joe down the hall that you've been buddies with since high school. This is the communication cost of an overseas programmer. Note that this cost would be significant even if you relocated your buddy to New Delhi. This cost would be less when outsourcing an entire development group and more when outsourcing part of a group where significant communication is required. Given the vital nature of communication to any software effort, and its effect on cost documented in many software engineering books, I would estimate that half the inequality is due to communication costs, which would be $30,000. This cost has fallen somewhat because of the internet and cheap telecom bandwidth, but I wouldn't expect it to fall much farther because we're now talking about the cost being primarily social rather than network costs. I'd say it could fall to $20,000.
Quality Cost
Debate is not necessary here: software developers on average are of a higher quality than in India. I may even agree that developers start out better in India, but the best ones tend to come here because of the large salary gap; anyone from India is quite aware of the "brain drain" as they call it. The question is how much is quality worth? The gap in America between a generally less skilled "programmer" and a highly skilled "computer scientist" is about $15,000. So I'd estimate that quality is worth about $15,000 a year - it may not seem like much but it's 25% of the inequality and a large amount when added up over a large number of programmers. As the wage gap lessens between India and America (due to supply/demand considerations) and education becomes more widespread in India I would expect the quality gap to come down to $10,000.
Locality Reservation Cost
Certain software jobs are reserved for programmers resident in America and sometimes American citizens. Sometimes the scale of a job is so small that only one person is needed, such as a "computer guy" for a small company that does admin and programming, or a "report guy" for a large company that does ad-hoc reports for a business division; in this case the overhead costs for outsourcing are too high. Sometimes on-site programming is needed where constant interaction is needed with client, making outsourcing costs excessively high, such as with consulting projects where it has to be done "as fast as possible". Some work America is unwilling to outsource because of national security: primarily defense, homeland security, and other vital government projects. Indeed, it is enshrined in the US Code Title 41 Chapter 1 Section 10a that American-produced goods must be used for public projects; this has been interpreted by courts to require at least 50% domestic content, although interpretation on this point is difficult. Needless to say the US government is a large purchaser in our economy, and so a portion of software projects will always be reserved for local programmers. I would estimate the cost of requiring localization (whether it makes economic sense or where mandated by law) to be around $10,000, and this cost will not decrease without unlikely legal changes.
Bias Against Overseas Work
Some of the reason people don't outsource is simple bias. It's the reason many people still buy only a Chevy truck when based on pure quality and economics a Toyota is the better choice. Some people will not outsource even if it makes economic sense because of tradition, patriotism, self-interest (if we outsource now soon I'm next!). This factor is not predominant in our global Jack Welch-worshipping business climate but it's still worth I estimate $5,000. This cost will remain and stay constant over time, it could even increase if there's more terrorism from "them" (India has a sizable Muslim population).

This analysis, if correct, forsees the India/America inequality cost for programmers potentially going down by $15,000. This would bring the American salary down from $70,000 down to $55,000. Lower-skilled programmers would have an average salary more around $45,000 as opposed to $60,000 now. This salary may be higher if Indian wages rise or if there is an "outsourcing-backlash" for whatever reason. But my general conclusion is that we can expect American programmer salaries to decline or at least stagnate (in an inflation-adjusted sense) for the forseeable future.

2003-08-30T08:55:00.000-05:00

Trading

Something I found amusing about Trading Places (Fri, 08/29/2003 - 00:07, cogentdude) I didn't really catch until I saw parts of it this past winter in a hotel room: that it is truely a realistic portrait of the trading world. From both personal experience with the energy trading crowd and literary experience with the stock/commodity trading crowd, I've learned that most traders have far from the background you might imagine. Don't think "Economics from MIT" or "Business from Harvard" - think "Furniture from Cambridge" or "Used Cars in Boston". Traders are a motley crew with little consistency in background, except that they tend to be relatively uneducated for the work they're doing. They're the crowd you'd see in a seedy local poker club.

In that respect, Valentine is far more typical of the trader persona than Winthorpe. I don't know if this was some subtle comedy on the point of the writer but it seems so to me now.

2003-08-30T08:39:00.000-05:00

Catharsis

If Carl wrote a dictionary, every entry would be 7 paragraphs of commentary fit for the New Yorker.

2003-08-30T08:35:00.000-05:00

Mammon

"Since Monday when I woke up to now (10:30 AM Friday) I've worked 63.5 hours. I may have my very first 100 hour work week by the time I sleep Sunday." - zanecorp

You cannot serve both God and Mammon.

2003-03-23T15:11:00.000-06:00

Blogger

I've got a lot of work coming up so I'm not going to be able to blog very often. You can always reach me at my email address should that be necessary. Have a nice day.

2003-03-21T16:44:00.000-06:00

Little Girl

Zane's post about the anti-war movement displays the absurdity of the position when its main justification is preserving Iraqi lives (neglating broader geopolitical issues for the moment). Mohammed's label of the protestor as a "little girl" was quite proper to the situation. In effect, Andrea was acting as a child, reasoning about things she had no idea about, theories without experience.

The interchange reminded me of a debate several years ago between Senator Boxer (from the Defender of Public Morality, the beloved state of California) and Senator Santorum concerning the Partial Birth Abortion ban (which passed in Congress but was vetoed by the other Defender of Public Morality, Bill Clinton). The script readily shows how Boxer was cornered into either admitting the absurdity of abortion, which is in fact infanticide, or simply denying to answer any further questions. She chose the later.

I hope my dear readers will not be so foolish. You may support abortion as a theory, as a principle or what have you. But you haven't looked at a baby in the womb on ultrasound and then administered poison to kill it. You become, perhaps unknowingly but in result, a supporter of a modern-day Stalin ideology: "one life is a tradegy, but one million lives are just a statistic."

Are one million murdered babies every year just a statistic to you?

2003-03-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

Executive Compensation

A rather fascinating paper on the correlation between executive compensation and shareholder returns (in this case restricted to communication companies). Not suprising to Z-Blog readers, it was reported that there was no correlation between executive compensation and either internal returns or shareholder returns. In fact, the only correlation between executive compensation was total sales of the company - more sales means more pay. You get more from managing a bigger organization, not by managing well or managing poorly.

This correlation explains a great deal about why growth (and not profitability) is the primary concern of most business professionals today, something I had been wondering about lately. To put it simply, if you grow you have more of a pie, and taking a small cut of that gives you more. It may harm the shareholders by delivering subpar profitablity (they could have put there money to better use elsewhere), but it definitely benefits your take-home pay and resume credentials. As Buffet has said, many managers are more concerned with increasing their domain than with increasing shareholder returns; the two goals are often at odds.

So what is an investor to do? If you want to go beyond index investing and into stock picking, then stick to companies that have measurably profitable enterprises. Better to be profitable and grow then to be subpar in profitability and forecast that growth will cause inifinite profits.

My personal conservative approach is to stick with higher-dividend companies, where dividends are high and increasing over time. I check moving average performance to make sure that dividends aren't merely high because the stock has tanked recently. Low debt, a reasonable dividend payout ratio (only high for special entities like real estate or royalty trusts), and a low price/book are also in my scope. The business should be reasonably easy to understand (sorry GE). I conceed that I'll be giving up the next Microsoft but I'll probably also be giving up the next Enron.

2003-03-21T09:18:00.000-06:00

Longhorns in Iraq

Hook 'em Horns!

AP Photo / Laurent Rebours

Note that from now on, in honor of Tom, all photos will be accredited.

Somewhere out there, with all this Marine Corps action, I know that Harber is smiling. ;-)

2003-03-20T20:23:00.000-06:00

Accredidation

This fine photograph is by Tom Wald, in case you wanted to know:

The person we have to thank for scaring us is Michael Cote (second back from left).

2003-03-20T14:02:00.000-06:00

Money and Discrete Math

Money is discrete, okay folks? I've seen too much code, production code where it counts, with things like this:

public class CashierServlet extends HttpServlet { 
   public void doGet (HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {

      // Get the user's session and shopping cart
      HttpSession session = request.getSession();
      ShoppingCart cart =
         (ShoppingCart)session.
            getAttribute("cart"); 
      ...
      // Determine the total price of the user's books
      double total = cart.getTotal();
      ...
}
}

- J2EE Tutorial

Look, folks, there's discrete math and then there's real analysis. Money is discrete. Floats and doubles are not. Don't use them. Use an integer, or even better, a decimal type, or the best, use a currency type. Either way, make sure it's fixed-point arithmetic that fully represents all discrete values in the range without error or approximation. Otherwise you're setting yourself up for trouble, and people like me who have to go clean up your mess.

Sit. Stay. Good programmer. Have a Dilberto.

2003-03-20T13:13:00.000-06:00

In Every City

"The world needs to know there is organized dissent," said one Berkeley student chained to 16 others on a major San Francisco street. "If this was happening in every city, there would either be martial law or an end to war."
- Reuters

Well, my friend, San Fransisco is not every city. In fact, it's quite an abberation from the rest of America.

I don't know what's been going on down in Austin, I haven't been there lately so I don't know if streets are being blockaded. Fortunately here in Houston I haven't even seen a single protestor or had my daily commute or errand runs in any way impeded by people disturbing the peace at any time during the past few months. Most of the disturbance comes from traffic, which can get quite heavy at times. And the occasional flooding.

There was an incident yesterday when May went to the county clerk's office to file a lien release. A table was setup with "two aging hippies" as May described them, with anti-war propoganda brochures. She wanted to argue with them but thought she should get the lien done first.

After returning outside, the group and their table was gone. Their lunch break was over, so it appeared. Some people actually have jobs to do, including protestors, at least the ones that aren't from Berkeley.

I support free expression. I don't support impeding traffic. I'd rather have martial law than have traffic be any worse than it already is. ;-)

2003-03-20T12:46:00.000-06:00

To Serve and Protect

2003-03-19T21:04:00.000-06:00

CNN?

As all of you probably know by know (it's been 5 minutes after all!), the war's started. I read about it several minutes after the first signs on my Reuters news feed. The CNN homepage has yet to show any sign of the war. I've already gotten 2 confirmed Reuters reports.

The last time it was the CNN War. This time, it's the Internet War.

2003-03-19T18:23:00.000-06:00

Future Interview

Zane: Hi, welcome to Liquid Labs. Please, have a seat.

Programmer: Your website said something about a job, here's my resume.

Zane: Liquid Labs is all about combining multiple sources of synergy to create enhanced oportunites for operational excellence, but even more than that it's about making money.

Programmer: Okay, whatever.

Zane: Our whole point of existence, besides providing an outlet for creative expression and enlightened advancement of technological thinking, is to increase profits.

Programmer: Uh, yeah, didn't you just say that?

Zane: Now, you, as a prospective employee, fit into this equation: we hope to make money off of you.

Programmer: But don't I get stock options?

Zane: I don't think you understand. We currently make a profit. We wish to enhance that profit. We also are considering hiring you. In order to make your hiring work towards our goal of greater profit, we have to make more money from your work than we pay you.

Programmer: Uh, yeah, right, you pay me a salary, maybe it's not too high, that's fine, but then I get some stock options to compensate.

Zane: Whether we pay you in options is really quite irrelevant. Your total compensation, which includes salary, bonus, and all options, must be less than we make in revenue from your work. In fact, given the fact that a small software corporation is a rather inherintly risky business, we need to make substantially more revenue from your labor than we pay you.

Programmer: But I get a cut, right?

Zane: A cut, yes, that's why you're getting paid at all. But a substantially smaller cut then we are getting. No more than 1/3.

Programmer: You mean your cut is 1/3?

Zane: No, I mean your cut is 1/3. Our cut is 2/3, that is, uncompounded. It's 2/3 per annum. Compounded it's substantially higher, since profit from our 2/3 is being reinvested into the business, and your 1/3 is going (mostly) to consumption.

Programmer: Bummer.

Zane: Your portion of our earnings is actually quite insignificant. But in order to get an acceptible return on equity, it can't be otherwise.

Programmer: Looks like I'm screwed.

Zane: You're screwed already, since you're applying for this job because you have to; we're a great place to work but it's not as if you can work for free. You can become an investor, but from what we know about you from your application, you don't have the kind of money we need. Only an investor can benefit substantially from our company's profit.

Programmer: Well, anyhow, aren't you going to ask me any technical questions?

Zane: We've already obtained what we needed from talking with employees here that used to work with you. In fact, I already decided to hire you before you came in the door.

Programmer: Okay.

Zane: I just want to be perfectly clear with you, that your purpose here is to make us money, substantial money given the risk, and any other purpose you may have here is secondary. If you're okay with that, and will work towards that purpose, you may come in tomorrow morning to start your first day.

Programmer: Sounds fine with me.

Zane: Good.

Programmer: Anything else?

Zane: LIVE FROM LIQUID LABS, IT'S WEDNESDAY NIGHT!

2003-03-19T10:21:00.000-06:00

Blaze of Glory

"I said if nobody else will do it, I'll do it. ... I'm 64, and I'm pretty well wiped out anyway. It's a way to go out in a blaze of glory. They said, 'You're not really qualified to do it.' I said, 'Why not?' You just have to hold the microphone and say, 'The bombs are falling.'"
- TED TURNER, at a media forum,
offering to fly to Baghdad for CNN.

2003-03-18T13:05:00.000-06:00

For Your Safety

Leaflets:

This stuff reminds me of those saftey cards you see on airlines. The one about the oil industry could just as well be about Houston. I like the little Cartoon Saddam. Here's more.

2003-03-17T14:45:00.000-06:00

Half-Quotes

"..or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

The much-forgotten second clause of the First Amendment. Imagine that, allowing someone to express their religious beliefs, even when it affects their political views.

"...or abridging the freedom of speech"

Is political speech protected, even if one is religious? Or are only religious people not allowed to utter their political beliefs?

"...or of the press"

Should weblogs posting political beliefs arising from religious adherence be banned?

"...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,"

Is church only permitted if we never discuss anything political?

"...and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Can we tell the government we don't like them sanctioning the murder of children? Is that okay?

Or is it only okay to have an ineffective faith that hides in the shadows, never making itself known, never disturbing anyone with support or rebuke? This seems to be what you want - individual faith, thank you, just never make it public, never let it affect your politics, never let me hear about it.

There is a place I think you would like, a place where worship is permitted in private, but never allowed to become involved in politics. A place where legislative wrangling is free from any corruption of religious influence. A place many people in my church are rather intimately familiar with.

It's called Zhong Guo Ren Men Gong He Guo - the People's Republic of China.

Really, Carl, just because you live in California now doesn't mean you have to act like you were born there.

Okay, unfair snide to California, but still...

2003-03-17T09:30:00.000-06:00

1978

Neuromatrix:

That was the America I lived in and enjoyed from 1978 until 1983.

Inflation, the hostage crisis, recession, oil price shock, bad music - hardly an ideal time for identifying the greatness of America. More like the last vestage of the 70s before Regan came and swept up the mess.

Too often, the U.S. presents the "American way" as the only way, insisting on its kind of free-market Darwinism as the only acceptable "model of human progress."

Alternatives have been tried without much success. The main contenders are the Europeans, who have recently been scaling back their protective tariffs and welfare system so vital to their "differentness", and the Japanese, who have been languishing in the mire for the past 15 years. There may be alternatives, but they haven't raised their head yet. You're fighting basic economics here, I don't think that will get you very far. You always have finite resources and infinite wants, even if Star Trek denies the basic fact. There has been some talk in the press lately of a "post-scarity" world and what people seek in such a world. Such people tend to be more like the cast of Friends, in their own little world, obvilious to the poverty and difficulty of those living all around them, just beyond the interstate.

There's a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the world, don't shut it out;

America has been connecting quite well with Pakistan, especially with terrorists currently hiding in Pakistan. We're about to invade a major middle eastern power. That's hardly tuning out from the rest of the world. And as far as security goes, holding hands with some people is no guarantee that they won't try to blow you away. As Mao once said, "Hold out one hand in friendship, and the other with the barrel of a gun." It might be nice to think that everyone can just live in peace and harmony if they just try a little harder, but history has never born this out. If I recall, there are only two years in recorded history that there were no wars, and that is mainly because we didn't have historical records of a large part of the world (North America, for instance) where war was unceasing.

Faith that "progress is the realization of Utopias"

The whole point of Utopia, unless I'm mistaking, what that it was truely a u-topia, a non-existent place, a farce, a fantasical denial of reality. Utopias are not realized anymore than the waters of mirage are drunk on a sandy desert.

Before you flinch at the title of that essay, I want you to consider for a moment the spirit in which Socialism was concocted by the European intelligentsia of the time.

Yes, it was concocted shortly before the two most destructive wars the world has ever seen. Man can't do it alone. Left to himself, Man will destroy not only himself but the world with him.

Lest the right-wing, bible-thumping, social darwinists let you forget, just remember this: America started off as one grand experiment;

It's interesting you would combine bible thumpers with darwinists, but I suppose that is your own subtle humor. Usually these two camps are at eachother's throats. I don't think right-wingers would want you to forget that America was founded with a constitution permitting the declaration of war; the bible-thumpers wouldn't want you to forget the Pilgrims or the guarantees of the first amendment; the social darwinists wouldn't want you to forget the strong property and economic rights endowed by the founders. And anyhow, America was not as grand of an experiment as we might be led to believe. It was founded primarily on things which had gone before: tried and tested common law with the English judicial system; the division of powers enshrined by the Magna Carta; male-dominated representation and voting; and slavery as found in most of the world at the time.

And something happened: the world listened.

Since when has any country successfully implemented the American model? Liberia? Japan had it forced down their throats, along with their pacifist constitution, by an occupying Army. Britain had most of it before we did. Germans would be rather insulted to be told that they implemented the American model; what they have may have had more to do with the 400,000 US troops stationed there during the cold war. You would be hard-pressed to have a European admit he was doing anything American these days. As a former German exchange student once uttered, "Ford? That's a German car."

But lately, it seems like America is less interested in leading such progress.

I'd have to agree here, given the new Space Shuttle designs which are rather pathetic compared to the current shuttle (smaller, less payload). Right now it appears Americans are more concerned with being sure that the next Saudi or Egyptian that decides to kill as many Americans as possible doesn't have a nuclear bomb. I can't say I blame them.

That there is only one kind of "correct" bigger thing and that is the Protestant God and his son Jesus.

Yes, some people believe this. I am one of them. Most Americans don't believe this. The proportion is around a quarter. The number of true believers, i.e. those that have faith as opposed to just going to church, is probably much smaller. It would appear a contradiction to your liberal position that you decry a peaceful religious belief while at the same time espousing tolerance. You appear to be taking the typical American Intellectual position, which is that all religions must be respected and treated with equality, except Christianity, which we can insult, bash, beat around, and plunge down the commode all day long. But this is, of course, in the vein of supposed European liberalism to which many in America aspire.

Every supposed great human movement of liberty has at its core the oppression and destruction of another. The Jewish kingdom had Saul's murder of the priests of Nob and David's murder of Uriah the Hittite. Greek democracy had a culture of inshrined prostitution and child molestation. Islam had its murderous conquests and continuous caliphate assasinations. The Catholic Church had murder of dissidents throughout the ages, the Crusades (killing many Christians as well as Muslims), and, most famously, the Inquisition. Britain had its massacres of the Irish, the Indians (both dot and feather), the Aboriginies. We Americans did our part killing peaceful Indian tribes (not all were warriors) and keeping blacks as slaves or virtual slaves as long as possible. The Germans, at the time the pinacle of Science and Progress, had the Holocaust.

The Drug and Sexual Revolution in the 60s and 70s had in its wake countless broken families, wasted bodies, and dead children. You've got to be freakin' insane not to know that a fetus is a person. Go to a pregnant woman, if you have the chance, and listen to the heartbeat, feel the baby move, feel its head pressing down. When I first saw those planes taking out the towers, when I saw the second one and knew what was happening, I immediately thought of judgement. So, America, you think you can murder the innocent without consequence, you think you can put 1,000,000 babies to death a year without being noticed. Well, I'm here to tell you God notices very much, and nothing escapes him. Man speaks of progress, but there is no end to his murderous ways.

No, I don't trust in man. I put no faith in human progress. I do, however, put faith in God. If others pervert that faith in order to deny their Lord, to oppress and murder and destroy, they shall suffer their judgement. I hope to not be one of them. But I also hope not to become one of those denying the faith and sponsoring crimes far greater than can even be imagined.

I had a dream last night (before I read this) in which Carl was the main character. Carl and his identical twin brother who I had never met before. Somewhere out there is Carl's indentical twin, the decent fellow trying to get out. I hope some day he will.

2003-03-17T08:53:00.000-06:00

French Quotes

"France cannot accept the resolution that sets an ultimatum and envisages an automatic use of force," Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Monday on a French radio station.
- French Diplomacy

That's like "I can't imagine a law that would proscribe punishments." It's basic to criminal law that automatic uses of force are given. For instance, if you commit murder, the government can arrest you, a court can convict you, and you can be executed. This is all layed out quite clearly in the criminal statutes. To specifiy a blanket dismissal of enforced resolutions is to deny the very foundation of criminal law and only further erodes the legal foundation of the French position.

Cheney dismissed the French proposal, saying "it's difficult to take the French seriously."
- Iraq Diplomacy

Yuh!

2003-03-15T20:01:00.000-06:00

Instant Cash?

From the looks of it, Net Perceptions has a market value of $39 million and a cash position of $63 million with insignificant debt. If you had around $20 million it seems like you could make a quick heavy profit by making a public takeover of the company, holding an emergency shareholder's meeting, and then disolving the company. Hard core, but business is business.

2003-03-14T14:23:00.000-06:00

Dividend Taxes

Ho hum, people sometimes get controversial about things without considering the big picture.

You already don't have to pay the dividend tax if you don't want to. Here are some ways:

Municipal Bonds

You can invest your money in tax-free municipal bonds (or a tax-free municipal bond fund) and pay no taxes whatsoever. This tax treatment is based on a court decision, by the way, not an act of the legislative or executive branches. You may say, the poor are getting shafted, but are they? Because the rates are tax-free, they are lower than taxable rates by about 30-40%, making the borrowing cost cheaper for municipalities, which means more public projects and lower taxes for everyone else. Only the federal government loses in that sense.

Real-Estate Investment Trusts

There already exists the dual of tax-free dividends on taxable corporations, which is taxable dividends on tax-free corporations. Real estate investment trusts, REITs, are a federally-created exemption whereby the corporation pays out at least 90% of its profit in dividends and in return pays no corporate income tax. This is done to encourage real-estate investment and thus lower aggregate rents. I'm not sure why, but America has always given real-estate tax advantages, perhaps this extends all the way back to the special treatment given the crown's lands in England.

Zero-Dividend Stocks

Stocks such as Berkeshire Hathaway or Oracle that pay no dividends allow your investment to grow without being subject to any personal taxation (corporations still pay taxes, of course, just as they will with the dividend tax changes being proposed). When you sell your shares you will be subject to capital gains taxes, which are much lower than dividend taxes (only 18% for 5+ year holdings). In addition, because of the nature of compounding interest, not being subject to taxation while your investment grows allows your eventual income tax to be infitesimal had you had to pay it every year. Essentially, stocks that don't pay dividends function as your own (non-deductible) 401k with no strings attached.

Partnerships

In high-depreciation asset-based industries such as oil production and real estate, it is common to have partnerships because of their special tax status. Partnerships don't pay taxes like corporations do (because they're not "personal entities" like corporations) and in addition can pass along depreciation tax deductions to their partners. You subject yourself to liability, but you can get inexpensive insurance for that. You pay taxes on partnership income, but the cash income can be offset by depreciation so that you don't pay any or very little taxes while at the same time you get a fat wad of cash deposited in your bank account.

Offshore Investments

You can invest in foreign-based companies such as Tyco or XL Capital based in non-taxable jurisdictions (Bermuda in this case) so you obtain tax treatment similar to a Real Estate Investment Trust. You pay taxes on the dividends but the corporation itself avoids most taxes. Couple this with the zero-dividend approach, and neither you or your company are paying taxes at all. Sweet (for you, not everyone else!).

Alternative Residency

By becoming a resident of Switzerland or other tax-friendly jurisdictions (which you can do by spending at least 6 months out of the year there), you can pay a flat tax (flat amount, not flat rate) which for rich people in Switzerland like Phil Collins means that your tax rate is infitesimal.

Deductible Contributions

You can contribute to an IRS Publication 78 Non-profit entity and deduct up to 50% of your income against the contribution you give to a qualified organization. Qualified organizations include nonprofit groups that are religious, charitable, educational, scientific, or literary in purpose, or that work to prevent cruelty to children or animals. If you are in a high tax bracket, you effectively move taxation, which goes wherever the electorate wants it to go, to your own personal choice of organization. You can also employ a charitable trust to achieve the same thing without actually giving anything away (it goes away from your estate, but you can live off the interest; if you are subject to estate taxes you can actually remove your estate tax liability through this method while at the same time receiving interest off the funds).

Rich Friends

Any one person can give you up to 11,000 a year and you will pay no taxes on it; if they're married it's 22,000. Several rich friends could come in handy here. In addition, there are exclusions for medical and education benefits, so if you had a rich uncle who wanted to pay your tuition, dorm costs, and health insurance at Harvard, they can do that with no taxable income to you. Inheriting an estate under the state limit (which varies by state) means you will receive it as income with no estate taxes, and if under the federal limit (which is still I think 600,000 per person or 1,200,000 for a married couple) you will receive it with no federal estate taxes either. If you are smart and use a family limited partnership or family corporation you can get far above the exclusion (up to several million) in inheritance with no taxes either.

Bad Religion

You can always go found your own religion and convince people to give you hoards of money which you can receive tax free. You can have a Cadillac, a palace, and your own masterworks all at rock-bottom tax rates.

All this is perfectly legal and is known as tax avoidance (as opposed to tax evasion which is illegal). Of course, if you aren't careful you can subject yourself to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), but that's only 20% which is what you'd be paying on long-term capital gains anyhow (or 18% if it's over 5 years). But being careful is why rich people have well-paid tax lawyers.

I, for one, support the dividend taxation change, if only because corporations and the middle class are treated unfairly in this regard. In order to avoid a deficit in goverment payments, taxes on higher-income people should be increased to balance out their benefit from the tax exclusion. This will allow the middle class to have a tax advantage through stock ownership that was previously only available to richer folk with partnership arrangements.

Even better, I would support a formula-based progressive tax (logarithmic probably) on income without any deductions or exclusions whatsoever. Keep it fair and simple. Corporations and any other entities shouldn't be taxed at all, since taxation is always eventually reflected in the individual. No sales tax, no property tax, no excise tax, just one progressive tax that allows you to always get a bit richer but at the same time pay more taxes. The bottom rate should be low enough that the lower middle classes pay no taxes, and the top rate low enough that you don't have capital flight. I believe this is achievable but unlikely to take place because of the heavy political pressure to allow various exclusions and distortions in the tax code.

2003-03-14T09:44:00.000-06:00

Measurable Homicide Effect

"Homicides also increased by 17 percent, something that federal officials attributed to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Without the attacks, the homicide rate would have declined by 1.7 percent, Arias said."
- Associated Press

2003-03-14T09:14:00.000-06:00

Proposition to Solve All Disputes

We shall resolve this matter between Zane and I, oil, Iraq and all, in the same way in which all great disputes are settled: through a coin toss. As it is written:

The first one to plead his cause seems right,
Until his neighbor comes and examines him.

Casting lots causes contentions to cease,
And keeps the mighty apart.

A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city,
And contentions are like the bars of a castle.

- Proverbs 18:17-19

I therefore propose that Zane and I meet at high noon one Saturday in his parking lot of choice upon Houston soil. A coin shall be tossed, a gold 1oz Kruggerand, or if that fails, a quarter. I shall toss such named coin into the air, being careful to cause it to revolve as I do so, and Zane (liking to argue) shall call heads or tails (or in the Kruggerand case, heads or antelopes). The winner shall exult and rejoice in victory. The looser shall buy the other a most tasty meal.

Were international disputes solved in such a simple fashion, we should have much less fighting and bickering among us.

2003-03-13T16:53:00.000-06:00

The Road Goes On Forever, and the Party Never Ends

Point for point:

Justice

"His stated and explicit policy has been to let the most obvious and, and perhaps what will shortly be the most pernicious monopoly America has ever seen, MicroSoft, walk with only the mildest of chides."

Microsoft is pretty lousy, but you can hardly lay all the blame for this on Bush. Jackson's remedy was rejected by the courts. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case on fast track and sent it back to Appeals. Only two states have pursued the appeal of the latest decision. Congress has passed nothing to regulate the software industry. It's hardly Bush vs. the US on this matter.

Foreign Policy

"Regardless of the properness of his foreign policy, he is uneccessarily heavy-handed and abrasive in his execution."

The French, yes, with their uncompromising spirit. Bush, on the other hand, has been far more conciliatory, first getting a unanimous UN resolution several months ago, compromising and presenting his case to the Security Council, and obtaining the support of several major nations such as Britain, Japan, Spain, and several Gulf and European states. Turkey may be on board shortly. It's not as if he just went out on his own and invaded someone without provocation as Hussein has done many times in his career.

Economics

"His economic and fiscal policies seemed divoreced from reality and are probably the most disparaged among experts in the field of any modern president's."

This is hardly the case. Most of the impact of his policy so far has been automatic, that is, unempoyment and social benefits that increase automatically with every recession. Cutting taxes and increasing spending during a recession are hardly absurd ideas. Increasing spending is definitely highly supported by economists during a recession. Cutting taxes is more debatable depending on which side of the fence you sit. I have yet to find an expert offering advice unclouded by his political affiliation, anyhow. By the way, the Executive Office has rather tight statuatory limits on what it can spend without Congressional approval. You seem to be making it out that Bush can go implementing these policies on his own, and that is hardly the case; Congress and the Federal Reserve are far more influential than him in economic matters.

Leadership

"His "I'm the leader" philosophy leads him to simply ignore all opinion, and, more troubling, fact which is not in agreement with his personal goals"

Imagine that, the Commander in Chief trying to be a leader. I may be mistaken, but I thought one of the points of representative democracy was to elect your leaders. If you don't like them you can vote them out, or if you really don't like them you can impeach them. If the country really hated Bush he would in all likelihood be subject to impeachment. He hardly ignores all opinion - in most polls a small minority to small majority support unilateral action against Iraq, with a strong majority if there is UN backing. The fact that he's attempted to compromise again and again with the Security Council shows that, to the contrary, he is far more willing to consider the opinion of other nations and to be flexible in his dealings than with such intransigent leaders as Chirac. The Security Council itself is even now not America vs. the World. Veto nations are 50/50 with China being a swing vote. The other nations are tilting slightly against war but it's hardly all against one.

In general, Bush is neither as powerful, abrasive, or foolish as you make him out to be. It is a common American misconception that the President is some kind of elected Caesar. Simply because the Congress and the Courts don't make the news as often doesn't mean they are any less influential or responsible (for bad or good). In fact, I would say, along with his advisors Powell and Rice, he's doing a rather good job under rather difficult circumstances.

2003-03-13T16:24:00.000-06:00

Quotes are Fun

Theorem 8.43:

For every quote, there exists an equal and opposite anti-quote.

2003-03-13T13:24:00.000-06:00

Point/Counterpoint

The last thing you want in a war zone is journalists giving a satillite uplink of your army's status and movements. They effectively function as enemy spies in this situation. As such, they should be treated like any other enemy combatant - captured if possible, executed if necessary.

I fail to see how this is part of some fascist plot to destroy American democracy.

I also fail to see how this fits into some alleged prayer plan the President has to hope attacks happen. Everything I've heard him said seems to indicate the opposite, that the last thing he wants is more Americans to die in a terrorist attack. Sometimes, Zane goes beyond mere political argument and gets into ad hominem attacks on the fellow humans he supposively cherishes so highly. It's almost as if the current President has been dehumanized in a far greater way than Hussein or Kim or other leaders which even Zane would have to admit care somewhat less about humanity than Bush. It may catch attention, and be popular among the blogging world, but it is hardly commendable behavior.

2003-03-12T10:44:00.000-06:00

Chemical Weapons

Food for thought: is pepper spray a chemical weapon? Is tear gas a chemical weapon? Are water cannons used in riots chemical weapons?

I ask because for the purposes of the Texas Penal Code Section 38.14, taking an officer's firearm is classified as the same offense as taking his "personal protection chemical dispensing device".

Would a sodium cannon on a personal watercraft be considered a chemical weapon?

Oh, that magic feeling, no where to go (or rather, nothing to do).

2003-03-12T10:01:00.000-06:00

Family

Ever wonder what constitutes being a family member in Texas?

"Member of the family" means anyone related within the third degree of consanguinity or affinity, as determined under Chapter 573, Government Code.
- Texas Penal Code, 38.01

But what does "third degree of cosanguinity or affinity" mean? We see:

The degree of relationship by consanguinity between an individual and the individual's descendant is determined by the number of generations that separate them. A parent and child are related in the first degree, a grandparent and grandchild in the second degree, a great-grandparent and great-grandchild in the third degree and so on.
- Texas Government Code, 573.022-033

You know you're bored at work when you can think of nothing better to do than to read through the Texas Statutes.

2003-03-12T09:23:00.000-06:00

Peace

"Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, "Peace!' when there is no peace--and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar-- say to those who plaster it with untempered mortar, that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it down. Surely, when the wall has fallen, will it not be said to you, "Where is the mortar with which you plastered it?"' Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in My fury; and there shall be a flooding rain in My anger, and great hailstones in fury to consume it. So I will break down the wall you have plastered with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered; it will fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
"Thus will I accomplish My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it with untempered mortar; and I will say to you, "The wall is no more, nor those who plastered it, that is, the prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace,"' says the Lord GOD.
"Likewise, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy out of their own heart; prophesy against them, and say, "Thus says the Lord GOD: "Woe to the women who sew magic charms on their sleeves and make veils for the heads of people of every height to hunt souls! Will you hunt the souls of My people, and keep yourselves alive? And will you profane Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies?"
"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against your magic charms by which you hunt souls there like birds. I will tear them from your arms, and let the souls go, the souls you hunt like birds. I will also tear off your veils and deliver My people out of your hand, and they shall no longer be as prey in your hand. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
"Because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that he does not turn from his wicked way to save his life. Therefore you shall no longer envision futility nor practice divination; for I will deliver My people out of your hand, and you shall know that I am the LORD.""
- Ezekiel 13, excerpts

2003-03-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

Houses

The 55th Street one is the best. Better location, better schools, as long as you don't mind a very small and very old house; it will be fine as long as you don't have more than one child. Then again, I think Austin housing prices are rather ridiculous since having been pushed up by Californian transplants and wanabee internet millionaires.

As a counter-example, I got my house, which is about 2300 square feet, and zoned to one of the best high schools in Texas (Bellaire), in an old neighborhood where newer houses are being built (lifting property values), for less than any of the houses listed there. It was two years ago, but still... Like growth stocks, growth cities tend to become overpriced. Large, flat, mundane areas like Houston or Dallas are the equivalent of value stocks. Not as exciting, not as alluring, but you get a lot for the money. In Austin, as in California, as in investors in Yahoo and Nasdaq, some people will pay for growth and perceived coolness at any price.

2003-03-10T09:06:00.000-06:00

It's Monday Morning

It's Monday morning; I don't have many friends and I'm online. My workplace is idle. Let's see if I can live up to my name, ArleyHelper.

cowboyd: hello.

ArleyHelper: Hello cowboyd! I'm here to help you. To get help on a topic send a message of the form "/help topic" (e.g. /help friend).

cowboyd: /help love

ArleyHelper:

And one of them, a lawyer, demanded, tempting him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" And he said to him, "Thou shalt love [the] Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy understanding. This is [the] great and first commandment. And [the] second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang."
Matthew 22:35-40

Comments: There are those who attempt to love God without loving man, for instance a zealous Crusader who wished to purge the Holy Land of Muslims rather than to have compassion on them. There are those who attempt to love man without loving God, such as a Humanist who denounces his Creator rather than worshiping him. These are both likewise in error. The former was a more prevalent error in ancient times, the latter in modern times, although many examples of both can be found in all ages. There is the 12-step program, the 10 commandments, the 7 habits of highly effective people, and the 5 pillars of Islam, but you really only need to know these 2.

cowboyd: /help faith

ArleyHelper:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
...
And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 11-12, excerpts

Comments: It is evident that faith is a force emboldening one to action. It is neither love, which is the highest of all virtues, or hope, which is with faith on the second tier. Faith is decision making under uncertainty, righteousness in the face of adversity. Faith, like gold, abides in the drudging and troubling world of corrupt ore that we live in, which must be purged through the fire of life's griefs and torments so that the brilliance of the pure element may appear. I have a coin, a Chinese 1oz "Panda Coin" which is 99.99% pure gold, and it is quite a sight to behold. No picture does it justice. Likewise, the beauty of faith in Jesus can only appear to those seeing it, as it were, through the eyes of the beholder. Let us believe, not in the zealous faith of a militant which leads to destruction, but in the constructive faith of our Lord which leads to life, true liberty, and victory over the forces of violence.

cowboyd: /help purpose

ArleyHelper:

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:8

Comments: When the modern man thinks of purpose, he usually eyes his career or artistry or wealth or status or whatever tangible achievement he thinks fit to judge his purpose by. Here, in first John, we see purpose in a different way, purpose expressed as primarily moral rather than intellectual or physical. It is quite clear from this letter than God puts far more stock in man's moral purpose than other purposes to which he may ascribe himself. We see that destroying the works of evil is the primary purpose. We achieve this not in a physical way, as we know from Jesus' admonishment to his disciples who tried to defend him with swords, nor in an intellectual way, as if by argument and banter and political movements we can drive out the enemy. Rather, this is achieved through moral accomplishment which can only be arrived at through the rejection of hatred and violence in exchange for love towards our God and fellow man, and the rejection of unbelief and the wandering doubts of this world in exchange for faith in the one who destroys the devil's works.

2003-03-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

Video Game Action

Live-fire PS2!

2003-03-06T15:47:00.000-06:00

HotJava

As part of a web testing project I was trying to find as many Win32 browsers as I could, and one of them I found was HotJava (now in the stage of being discontinued). I was rather suprised that all the pages I normally go to (Google News, Yahoo Finance, Zane's Weblog) worked just fine in HotJava. Surprisingly, the load time was much faster (instantaneous rather than a few seconds) than IE6 which is what I usually use.

It's too bad Microsoft won the browser wars (illegally, I might add). If HotJava had continued along with Swing enhancements, even with only a fraction of the resources IE received, it would be a very interesting browser. It's really disappointing to see how monopoly has destroyed browser capability.

At least there's still Mozilla. HotJava had the promise of something new, through, something cross-platform.

Maybe Java will still beat .NET, we'll see. Stay tuned.

2003-03-04T16:29:00.000-06:00

Oil Again

I normally don't like to argue, so I'll phrase my comments in a more exploratorary rather than argumentative fashion.

The Price of Oil

We ask what the price of oil is in the free market, the equilibrium price. Then we ask whether there might be a higher price, a "fair price" of oil. Then we explore in detail what that fair price might be.

Equilibrium Price

A simple and well-know economic fact is that in a competitive free market, the equilibrium price is the price at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded. We can say, with a fudge factor due to anomolies, that the free market price of oil is generally the equilibrium price for the international oil market. The most widely quoted equilibrium price is currently around $35/barrel, although one should be aware that this price varies widely depending on quality of the crude (sweet/sour, heavy/light) and its location (Brent/Yanbu/West Texas).

Fair Price

What appears to be the point of contention is that some people disagree with the current equilibrium cost of oil. It is either too high because of price goughing, too low because of subsidization, etc. Economically (in a free market) this means that some believe the supply and/or demand curves should shift to change the price to what people think it should be, thus moving the "equilibrium price" to the "fair price". We can call (I don't know the proper term) the difference between these two prices the "unfair differential". Thus when the price is too high, the differential is negative, and when the price is too low, the differential is positive. When we ask what the unfair differential is, we're asking what we need to add to the equilibrium price to obtain the fair price.

The Unfair Differential

We now ask the question of whether or not there is an unfair differential and in what direction it lies. Some people, for instance economically challanged San Fransicians, may suggest that consumer-pump gasoline prices upwards of $2 a gallon are too high, and thus the unfair differential is negative (we extend this to oil by going back through the supply chain). Anti-oil (or should we say anti-subsidy) folks argue that the gasoline price, i.e. oil price, is too low and thus the unfair differential is positive. Not too many people are arguing that the price of oil is too high, although to some extent it is because of monopoly practices by OPEC countries (although they are only a small part of the market). So we'll focus on a positive unfair differential, or simply stated what the oil price subsidy is and where it's coming from.

The Oil Price Subsidy

If we are stating that there is an oil price subsidy, we may first wonder if such a thing really exists or whether it is an abberation of the mind. I will proceed assuming that the subsidy exists, discovering its detail, and then seeing if this assumption results in a contradiction with observed reality. Before inquiring of the quantitative nature of the subsidy we must first ask qualitative questions of the subsidy.

Qualitative Oil Subsidy

When we think of qualitative questions of the oil price subsidy, a few immediately spring to mind. Where is the subsidy coming from? Is there a concious actor behind it? How it is reflected in the supply and demand curves for oil? What is the benefit to the party effective the subsidy?

Sources of the Subsidy

What would keep oil prices artificially low, that is, subsidized? This can be done directly through price regulation, but in a free market such as crude oil this can only be done by shifting the supply and demand curves. So something must be shifting supply curves right (toward higher production), demand curves left (toward lower consumption), or both.

Sources of Supply Curve Shifts

Who would want to shift the supply curve towards higher production and thus lower the cost? There would be no economic incentive to overproduce and thus lower costs for oil companies or country monopolies, since this would tend to lower profits; this is especially a problem when dealing with a limited-lifespan resource such as oil reserves (as opposed to practically unlimited resources such as software). We must ask who would benefit from the lower cost of oil?

Generally the economy as a whole benefits from low-cost energy to the detriment of energy producers. So people representing the economy as a whole must be causing oil to be oversupplied; politicians and judges have the most effect as far as oil production is concerned (Greenspan effectively can't do much to encourage oil production). Evidence of this is apparent every time gasoline gets expensive and politicians start warning about price gouging; high energy prices make an unhappy electorate. Clinton even went so far as to draw from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (supposed to be for emergency use) to temporarily increase supply in the oil markets and reduce the price in order to achieve a temporary political gain. More recently Bush has continued earlier-era tax abatements for offshore drilling. I would think it is safe to say that a representative government has an interest in overproducing oil in order to lower the cost of energy to its populace.

Some fuss has been made about implicit subsidy, namely defense and environmental costs of oil production being paid by the populace as a whole rather than directly by users or producers of oil, thus shifting the supply curve to the right, increasing production and lowering cost. Now this begs the general question of whether users and producers of commodities (or services) should fully bear all costs; they certainly don't in public health care, education, social security, or welfare, which is over half of the federal government budget outlays right there. There are some costs that cannot be reasonably divided, such as the cost of defense; should the Coast Guard bill South Padre National Seashore for patroling its shores? Attempting to dally out costs is especially futile when you are dealing with the public good; one who may not drive an SUV is nonetheless a beneficiary of low-priced energy when being rushed to the hospital by amublance or helicopter. For the moment, however, we will assume that implicit subsidy is being provided and will ask about its quantity in a later section.

Sources of Demand Curve Shifts

Who would want the demand curve to shift to the left, namely lowering demand and thus lowering prices? Not oil companies, I can promise, who suffer from both lower quantity demanded and lower prices. Automobile companies prefer to sell higher-weighter, higher-powered cars since they tend to have higher profit margins, and so they want more demand, not less. Consumers generally want more energy per capita, not less (in fact one of the ways you can plot the advance of civilization is in the energy produced per capita), so they aren't interesting in lower demand (consumers in general have infinite wants anyhow).

I can identify two main groups that would want to shift the oil demand curve left: environmentalists and conservationists. Environmentalists want less oil demanded, and thus less petroleum-based fuel polution, less transportaion impact on land, less toxic waste from refineries. Conservationists would want to preserve as much oil as possible for future generations, and thus want to encourage regulations that reduce demand for oil (they are also active in maintaining production quotas and spacing requirements for oil fields, but this reduces supply and thus raises the price rather than lowering the price). Excise taxes also shift the demand curve to the left, although their net effect is to raise the price; we will consider them later since they directly alter the price and would only cause the price to be above, not below, the fair price.

Shifting the demand curve to the left is currently accomplished by expensive regulations on automobiles (catalytic converters and fuel economy requirements) and refineries (scrubbers, waste control) and by propoganda making people feel guilty about using oil-based fuels (anti-SUV television advertisements and weblog editorials). All of these things reduce demand for oil independent of price (shifting the curve) and thus cause lower demand at all prices, further increasing the "unfair differential" oil subsidy. This may at first seem contradictory with the goal of some of the demand-curve shift actors, but upon futher inspection these actors are considered primarily with lowering demand, not with lowering the subsidy; in fact they increase the net oil subsidy by lowering the price and making it go even lower than the "fair price".

Quantitative Oil Subsidy

Now that we've figured out the qualitative sources of the oil subsidy, we should ask what the quantitative aspects are, namely, how many dollars per barrel each subsidy represents. We will go through this in order and then come up with a total. We shall restrict ourselves to the American market which consumes about 20 MMBD (Million barrels per day, 2001 EIA figures), or about 7 billion barrels a year. At an average of $30 dollars, that's about $200 billion a year on crude oil. This doesn't count refined products such as gasoline and tars or associated products such as natural gas, but we are focusing on crude oil.

Production Subsidy

How much money is being used to directly subsidize oil production? The 1999 EIA energy subsidy report reports that oil received $661 million in direct subsidies, or about 0.3% of the price of oil, or about 10 cents a barrel. So it appears that the US direct production subsidy is negligible.

Implicit Environmental Subsidy

What about the implicit subsidy in environmental and defense terms, which some allege is as much as the cost of oil itself? First we will consider implicit environmental subsidy. I was able to find some environmental data on this from a Carnegie Mellon air pollution costs study. The idea of environmental implicit subsidy is that you aren't charging the environmental costs of use to users of the fuel. In the study, the total annual US environmental costs were $180 billion. To estimate crude-oil derived costs, I added costs from electric utilities (with oil used in 3% of utility production, so I modify output by multiplying by 3%), petroleum refining, crude petroleum, and trucking services (since trucks are gasoline/diesel powered). To make sure I wasn't leaving out other sources, I included automobile, airplane, and railroad (mostly diesel powered) transportation environmental costs from study's web site and multiplied them by total sector size. Looking at the study's main table and multiplying by external environmental cost percentage and rounding up to the nearest billion, and including the extra sources from the study's web site, I was able to devise the following environmental costs from oil (total US costs in billions per annum). These are slightly overstated, since some of the costs would occur even without petroleum (such as using coal instead for utilities), but it gives us a generally correct picture:

Source	Cost
Petroleum Refining	$15
Crude Oil	13
Trucking Services	10
Air Transportation	5
Railroad Transportation	3
Oil-Based Utility	2
Automobile Transportation	2

Total:	$50

So the total environmental damage being caused by crude oil in America is $50 billion per year. Given the size of the industry earlier ($200 billion), this works out to 25% of the price of crude oil, or $7.5 dollars per barrel.

Implicit Defense Subsidy

As Part II of our Implicity Subsidy analysis we will look at defense costs of the implicit subsidy. Again, we restrict ourselves to America, although given the import-based nature of American oil supplies, we will include defense paid for by America if used to defend oil resources outside our borders. I was able to find the latest FY2003 defense budget from the Department of Defense. Looking at the latest complete figures, which is 2002, total outlays (scroll down to the first table on PDF page 13) were $291 billion dollars. Scrolling down to PDF page 17 you can find the details on . On PDF page 33 you can further find operations appropriations, where you can see what portion actually goes to services eligible to aid oil protection, namely the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Defense-Wide, and the Reserves (but not National Guard), which appropriation totals, which totals $84 billion. Procurement is almost entirely potentially oil-related (minus weapons destruction) at $59 billion. RDT&E research has many civillian applications, I'll guess that half of it has purely military applications, so that's $19 billion. Totalling together (see PDF page 38 for totals), we have $162 billion out of the total budget that goes directly to military applications potentially oil-related. In addition, there is $20 billion a year spent on foreign aid (not included in the defense budget but rather the State Department budget) which has strategic and military purposes so we'll add that in.

We then have to figure out how much of this total actual goes to oil-producing areas. For all intents and purposes this means the Middle East oil-producing nations and sea shipping lanes. The armed forces are generally divided into being able to fight two simultaneous large-scale wars, one in Asia and one in Europe/Middle East. Dividing by two, that's $81 billion for Europe/Middle East. There's less threat in Europe now, so let's say that 3/4 of the amount is for Middle East conflict, that leaves $61 billion. The Gulf War cost America $7 billion, and assuming we have to fight every ten years or so the actual war costs add about a billion to this total, so that's $62 billion. Besides defense, strategic-related Foreign Aid to the Middle East totaled $6 billion in 2001. Let's assume that we're completely Machievellian and we only give money to these countries to further our oil interest, so we'll directly add it to oil defense outlays. Putting this all together, that brings us to $68 billion a year spent on defense for oil-interests, we'll round it to $70 billion. At our previous $200 billion a year crude oil expenditure, we're now adding 35% or $11 dollars a barrel to oil for defense-related costs.

Other Effects

By lowering demand (shifting the demand curve left), other things can cause the price to drop and effect a lower price than fair price. By how much? Earlier we found that environmentalists and conservationists lower the price by causing less oil to be demanded. I'm going to venture to guess that environmental advertisements have had little effect upon oil consumption, given the SUV craze and high-horsepower sports cars; it appears the public cares more about the price of oil in thinking about consumption choices rather than voluntarily limiting their consumption.

Conservationists have been somewhat successful with the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, or CAFE, which has caused oil demand to be an estimated 14% less than it would otherwise be. Shifting the demand curve lowers price, and the long-term price elasticity of demand for gasoline is 0.7, so a demand reduction of 14% will result in a price reduction of 20% in gasoline. To derive the oil demand reduction, consider that about 3 barrels of oil are used for 2 units of gasoline output (the other unit being heating oil), so the demand reduction in gasoline will cause 2/3 of the same reduction in crude oil, or about 13% reduction. At $30 a barrel, that translates to about $4 a barrel. That is, prices would be $4 dollars a barrel higher without the CAFE standards, so CAFE conservation acts to move the price away from its "fair value".

Summarizing the Price Differential

Now we've covered the main bases in what's shifting the supply and demand curves to cause the price of oil to be lower than it would otherwise be. These findings are of necessity somewhat rough, and could be off by a factor or two, but we're doing the best we can with the data available, trying to tie our estimates to actual values we find in the real world instead of pure spectulation. I'll summarize our findings in the table below.

Source	Differential
Production Subsidy	$0.10
Environmental Subsidy	7.50
Defense Subsidy	11.00
Conservation Effect	4.00

Total	$22.60

These findings show that the unfair price differential for crude oil is about $23 dollars a barrel, or about 75% of the price of crude oil. That is, ignoring taxes, polution controls, and anything else spent to abate this price differential that is included in the cost of crude oil, the cost of crude oil should be 75% higher, somewhere around $50 - $60 a barrel. At 7 billion barrels of oil a year, this translates into about an extra $160 billion dollars that should be spent on crude oil. Assuming that increased crude cost was directly passed on to gasoline consumers (as it will be in the short run), a price increase of this magnitude would increase the average US retail gasoline price from $1.68 a gallon to about $3.00 a gallon. In the long run this price would go down as demand drops because of the higher price (just as it did after the Arab oil embargo), but in the short term this is what would happen.

Increasing the cost of gasoline to $3.00 a gallon would be easily obtainable by adding a large excise tax to gasoline, similar to what is done in many countries in Europe. This would be unwise by the way, seeing how excise taxes are a regressive tax that unfairly burden the poor, as they do in Europe. However, once we start talking about taxes, we immediately realize that there are already taxes on crude oil for royalties on state and federal land, severance taxes that apply for all oil from the US, state and federal excise taxes on oil, as well as the corporate income taxes and special evironmental assesments paid by oil companies. That will be the concern of the next section.

Taxation

Now that we've found a $160 billion a year extra cost of crude oil in America, we may wonder whether this cost is already being paid. These costs come from several sources in the form of taxation. There are several forms of taxation on crude oil: production taxes, import taxes, excise taxes, and corporate taxes. We will consider each in turn.

Production Taxes

Oil is pumped from the earth, and after it leaves the ground taxes and royalties (on government-owned land) must be paid. Taxes and royalties are divided about half between the States, which receive $3 billion a year, and the federal government, which receives $3 billion a year. In total, that's $6 billion a year, or 3% of the price of oil, or 90 cents a barrel.

Import Taxes

About half of all crude oil in the US is imported, about 3.4 billion barrels a year. The average tax on imported oil averages 8 cents a barrel, or about $300 million. Taxes on refined products such as imported gasoline are higher, 52.5 cents a barrel, only about 10% of gasoline comes from abroad (most is refined here). As stated earlier, about 2/3 of crude oil goes to gasoline, so this results in 470 million barrels of gasoline imported for about $250 million a year. Total this up and you get $550 million a year in import taxes, or 0.28% of the price of oil, or 8 cents a barrel.

Excise Taxes

Once crude oil is refined into petroleum products, taxes must be paid on the result. These taxes are directly related to crude oil itself through being a tax on its byproduct, mostly directly on gasoline itself. This cost can be divided into several major categories; federal government receipts are shown on the Federal Budget, I'm using FY2001 figures. Taxes are shown in billions per year; further information can be obtain for some taxes using the links, but figures are from the budget itself.

Source	Tax
Highway Trust Fund	$26.9
Highway Trust Fund (Mass Transit Fund)	4.6
Transportation Fuels Tax	1.6
Highway Trust Fund Refunds	1.0
Airport and Airways Trust Fund (Oil Portion)	0.8
Leaking Underground Storage Tank Fund	0.2
Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund	0.1
Airport and Airways Trust Fund Refunds	0.1

Total	$35.3

That's about $35 billion a year in direct taxation on crude oil itself in the form of federal excise taxes. There are also state excise taxes which average 22.6 cents a gallon, or using our 2/3 oil equation coupled with the fact that there are 42 gallons in a barrel, this comes out to $44 billion. Adding these two together, we find the total crude oil product excise tax to be $79 billion a year, which is about 40% of the price of oil, or $12 a barrel.

Corporate Income Taxes

Our last taxation category is corporate income taxes on oil companies. Now not all of the income tax paid by oil companies goes to reimbursing their implicit subsidy and so forth, but we should realize that some of it does and figure out how much. We might think of it this way; if there was no petroleum industry there would be no funds from these companies since they would not exist (as they did not exist 200 years ago). I was able to deduce a figure of $33 billion for 1991 petrolum-industry numbers, no doubt it would be higher now, but I'll go with that for now. That's 17% of the price of oil, or $5 dollars a barrel.

Now there are other corporate taxes paid, namely property taxes and miscellaneous sales taxes, but I was not able to find these figures. I don't think their inclusion would substantially alter the outcome.

Taxation Summary

We now summarize taxation of oil we have discussed earlier into a convenient tablular format. Costs are per-barrel in dollars.

Source	Taxation
Production Taxes	$0.90
Import Taxes	0.08
Excise Taxes	12.00
Corporate Income Taxes	5.00

Total	$17.98

This is about $20 a barrel generated in tax revenues. That is, if we didn't have any oil, or had one less barrel of oil consumed, we'd have around $20 less in taxes received.

Summary

Finally, after two days of tireless research and writeup, I present to you the grand summary. We have the total subsidy, both implicit and explicit, for every barrel of oil in America. We have the total taxation, including excise and corporate income taxes, per barrel of oil. Now we bring the two together in tabluar form:

Source	Differential
Subsidies	+ $22.60
Taxes	- 17.98

Net Differential	+ $4.62

So, assuming $30 a barrel price, oil is underpriced by around $5 a barrel. Fortunately, oil is now trading at about $36 dollars, so we can all go home and rest now. ;-)

Have a nice day!

2003-03-04T09:31:00.000-06:00

An American Werewolf in London

''Man, it was bad,'' says the Rat Pack-y star of Swingers. ''These girls saw us and were kind of flirting, and they kept asking us if we were American. Finally we said, 'Yes,' and they just took off."
''One girl turns and says, 'We were hoping you were Canadian.' Canadian? Since when was it cooler to be Canadian?''
- Tourists

2003-03-03T11:47:00.000-06:00

Common Law

from "Contracts in a Nutshell":

The principle of the Foakes case [ that payment of a debt is not valid consideration for a contract ] remains the law in almost all jurisdictions. It is an excellent example of the manner in which the common law begins with a basic premise, in this case the rule that one cannot obtain legal rights under a promise unless one incurred a legal detriment in exchange for it, and then applies this rule rationally to all fact situations without regard to the fairness or economic efficiency of the results reached. The result of the Foakes case does not comport with economic realities nor with everyday notions of what is "benefit" and what is "detriment".

2003-03-03T10:16:00.000-06:00

Buffet

I know Ed will like these articles.

2003-02-26T15:28:00.000-06:00

Approaches to War

Being close to a war ourselves, I thought it might be interesting to see some perspectives on war from different places throughout history.

First, from Ancient China:

"The best soldier does not attack. The superior fighter succeeds without violence. The greatest conqueror wins without a struggle. The most successful manager leads without dictating. This is called intelligent nonaggressiveness. This is called mastery of men."
- Lao-Cu, Dao De Qing

From Even More Ancient Israel:

"A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace."
- Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 3:8

From Even Even More Ancient India:

"May your weapons be strong to drive away the attackers,
may your arms be powerful enough to check the foes,
let your army be glorious, not the evil-doer."
- Rig Veda 1-39:2

From Slightly Less Ancient China:

"Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
- Sun Cu, Art of War 6:19

From Ancient Greece:

"My son, seek thee out a kingdom equal to thyself; Macedonia has not room for thee."
- Philip of Macedon, to his son Alexander

From Slightly-Less Ancient Rome:

"Veni, Vidi, Vici." (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
- Gaius Julius Caesar, from Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars

From Pre-Medieval Arabia:

"O Prophet! Make war against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be merciless against them. Their home is hell, an evil refuge indeed."
- Mohammed, Koran, Sura 9:73

From Medieval Mongolia:

"My life was too short to acheive the conquest of the whole world."
- Genghis Khan, dying words to his son

From Medieval Italy:

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince"

From Pre-Modern France:

"The moral is to the physical as three is to one."
- Napolean (a Frenchman, I remind you!)

From Pre-Modern Scotland:

"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!"
- Robert Burns

From Civil-War Era America:

"It is well that war is so terrible- otherwise, we would grow too fond of it."
- Robert E. Lee, 1862, upon seeing carnage of Fredricksburg.

From WWII Germany:

"If the Germans cannot win this war, then they can rot."
- Hitler, to Rommel, 1943

From WWII Russia:

"One life is a tragedy, but a million is just a statistic."
- Joseph Stalin

From WWII Japan:

"All I want to hear from you is, YES or NO."
- Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita,1942, demanding surrender of Singapore

From WWII America:

"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country! ... We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy! We're going to hold on to him by the nose, and we're gonna kick 'em in the ass!... I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle, anytime, anywhere!"
- Home Videos

From Modern Iraq:

"Allah is on our side. That is why we will beat the aggressor."
- Saddam Hussein, address, December 12, 1990

From Modern America:

"Our strategy to go after the Army is very, very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it."
- General Colin L. Powell, January 23, 1991

From Current-Day America:

"When I take action, I'm not going to fire a 2 million dollar missile at a 10 dollar empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
- George W. Bush, Newsweek, Sep 24, 2001

salary	= base + inequality
	= base + tariff + communication + quality + locality + bias