Junior is Coming

In case anyone actually reads this blog from time to time, I am announcing the arrival of "Junior" Robertson on April 20th, 2010. During pregnancy so far all I do is whine and moan about how painful it is. No bipolar symptoms to report, pregnancy seems to take up all of my energy. We are tentatively excited or perhaps scared out of our minds about the baby. Will post pictures when we actually have some good ones, besides the one at seven weeks where the baby looks like a blob inside a bigger blob (my uterus). Sixteen week check up on Monday. And yes we are going to find out what the baby's sex is hopefully in time for Thanksgiving.

One Problem With Government Spending

I had an interesting experience yesterday while in the checkout line at Old Navy. A woman was at the store with her husband, and apparently she had a specific amount of money allocated for her clothing budget. She asked him if he would accept her going over her budget, and justified it by saying that some of the things she was getting were on clearance, and wouldn't be available for much longer. He gave in to her request, presumably reasoning that it would be better to spend a little more on a good deal now instead of paying full price later. (I don't really approve of the enabling aspect of that, but who am I to judge? Maybe he felt there was a good reason.)

At the register, she discovered that something was on sale that she thought was full price. It turned out that she was under budget after all. So what did she want to do? Instead of being happy that she got exactly the same things at a better price, she wanted to go buy more clothes so she would be over budget again.

This teaches us two principles. First, no matter how much we value something a moment before, if we learn that the price is lower we will tend to value it less. ("We" being a general term for the rational human beings that economics attempts to study.) Although the woman valued the clothes very highly, highly enough that she felt it was worth it to be over budget, as soon as she learned the price was lower she valued it less. The item in question (a pair of trousers, as I recall) was exactly the same. Its actual value had not changed in the slightest. But her perception of its value had lessened because she learned more about how the store valued it less than she thought.

Second, this explains a problem with government budgets. If people in a government agency gets a certain budget approved, they will do their best to spend it all. If they get an excess approved, they have no incentive not to use every penny of the excess - instead, they try to spend as much as they can get away with to signal the importance of their agency and how they need more money. This naturally leads to government inefficiency, a widespread problem under all administrations.

(Incidentally, the husband wouldn't let her spend more money, even though she got a better deal than expected. I approve of the restraint because she got a good deal by accident. Had it been a deliberate effort to maximize value, I might approve of rewarding such efforts with more money.)

Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem

We recently participated in a murder mystery dinner hosted by my brother Michael. Here are some pictures:

Out of character - Luke, Amy, Mike, Shelly, Mark, Stephanie

In character: Norman D'Adly, Vicki D'Adly, Enrique Graves, Dr. Chelsea Barren, Michael Nightshade, Kathryn Lawless

Overview: The Sour Grapes of Wrath

California Vacation '09 - Days 4 and 5

Day 4

Shelly at the haunted theater in the haunted house in old town San Diego

Me, standing in the middle of Old Town San Diego looking ridiculous
Day 5

The two of us in front of the San Diego Temple
A giant panda at the San Diego zooKoalas at the zoo.  Guess they like to hide when there are people around (which is pretty much all the time, in my understanding)

My ode to the captain.

In response to the blog post "I have a boyfriend in the UK"



I have to step up and answer this and all the other comments. First off I will give MTgirl a nod for her very true theory of "Guys want sex. The end." But I will get to that in another moment.

I have two points to make: the first is pertinent to this conversation, and the second addresses a lot of recent blog posts on the "girls and dating" subject.

First, having been one of those idiotic females who has been in a long distance relationship, I will say that she was an idiot for not going out with you.

When a girl is in a long distance relationship, it is because she sincerely believes that her guy is the one true soul mate and if she "works through it" then she will be happy. Guys do this so they can string along several girls in several locations without having to break up with them. Either that or the boyfriend is a wimp who doesn't want to be the bad guy by breaking up with her. Moral of the story: break up with someone if the relationship is going long distance. Wish I hadn't waited so long; too bad I was an idealistic early twenty-something who thought that things would work out. When I finally got done with college and realized what a loser he was and how many wonderful guys like you that I shot down I could kill myself.

Second, I would like to put forth a dating theory. Let's describe the ten percent or so, the most attractive prospects in a dating pool, as "alphas." (This "attractiveness" is largely, but not entirely, based upon physical characteristics.) Alphas are the people who never lack for dates. Nearly all guys want to date an alpha girl, and nearly all girls want to date an alpha male. The actual percentage of people who are alphas is quite low. Most guys don't even notice girls who aren't alpha females and vice versa. Once you realize that you aren't an alpha, this is the first step towards dating enlightenment. The odds of attracting an alpha when you aren't one are pretty slim. So you should automatically rule out alphas as soon as you meet them. This will save you a lot of time and trouble. The next problem you have is even when you discount that group, the vast majority of people won't even give you a chance because all they want is an alpha. This is where popular problems would come in for me once I achieved this level of enlightenment. "I know that I am on the same level as him, in fact I am probably one of the best deals he will get, so why is he ignoring me and only talking to the pathetic flat-chested vapid alpha female over there? I mean, I am smart, curvy, have a degree in civil engineering and have my own home. What more do these guys want?" (As an aside I mean curvy, not fat, not chunky, not a few pounds too heavy, I mean curvy the way it should be meant.)

Anyhow, I just about fried my brains trying to get around that problem. So don't waste your time if they won't give you the time of day. So all I can say is dating sucks, it is hard and no fun until you find the right fit. Don't waste your time on people who aren't interested and who you aren't really interested in as well. That is why there are first and last dates. Also, think a little bit more about what attracts you to that person and what kind of people they attract. Are you attracted because they are an alpha? Are they not interested in you because you aren't an alpha? Don't ever let a girl give you crap by standing you up, and the same goes for you females. Move along, try not to be obsessed with just sex. Think about what you really want in someone of the opposite sex and work towards it.

Happy Ending! I did finally find the right guy. No he isn't perfect, I'm not perfect; but we are perfect for each other. And after having lived with 30 different female roommates, he is the best roommate yet.

California Vacation '09 - Day 2 (continued) and 3

Day 2 (Continued):

My first Ferris Wheel! (Shelly says it's very slow.)


Me 'n' the Cap'n make it happen:


Day 3
Corona del Mar beach

California Vacation 09 - Day 2

Spent mainly in Disney's California Adventure, with the evening in Disneyland.

Shelly outside A Bug's World, with a somewhat subtle companion:


A couple of Cars - Mater and Lightning McQueen:


Brief detour to Yosemite? No, just a typical outdoor setting in California Adventure:


Brick Vader - the evil villain from Lego Star Wars. Or something like that.


Shelly in front of the Disney castle, at night after the fireworks:

California Vacation '09 - Day One

Here are a few pictures from the first day of our vacation to southern California. We spent yesterday at Disneyland.

Shelly and I stand outside the castle/entrance to FantasyLand:



In the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean - Shelly in front of Captain Barbossa:



Outside the Haunted Mansion:



In front of It's a Small World:

Mark's Graduation from BYU Law School 4-23-09

Visually explaining the truths of life

If you look closely at my sidebar, I have a fondness for webcomics. I find that they can explain much of life in a form that nearly anyone can understand.

So here are a few comic images I've seen recently that just make sense out of life:



(Buy it Here.)



On correlation versus causation (from XKCD):



Calvin explains some of the problems with the bailout:

The problem with Socialism

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
—UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Whatever complaints a person might have about Maggie Thatcher, she had a good point here. This is the main reason I'm becoming skeptical about the future of the U.S.S.A. U.S.A.

Image Modifications

Okay, here they are, alternating between original and modified:

Nearly all done by way of BeFunky.com

An incentive-based web application for writing

The thing that I find most interesting about economics is not the financial side of things (which I more or less care about only in the abstract, as I perpetually gripe about government incompetence). Instead, I am more interested in the incentive-based reasoning side of things, where someone comes up with an idea to motivate people to behave a certain way. While money is obviously a good way to do this sort of thing, there are others.

One interesting example I recently discovered is Write or Die, a web application that gives incentives to people to write quickly. After only a single experimental use, I find it motivating me to write quickly even now, as I write this blog post.

As it is applicable to the post topic, I include what I wrote as part of the post:

Hello. First time to use Write or Die, and it's a new experience. Gotta wonder exactly how the "word count" feature works, as I'm pretty sure I haven't written thirty-two words just yet. Is it the classic, original method of counting every five-letter block as a "word" (like they use in measuring words per minute) or is it just a random setting that I managed to glitch up almost immediately? Interesting to consider, anyway. So the next question is, what shall I write about? I mean, it's a clever application and a downright brilliant idea (tempered by the fact that a person has to voluntarily go to the web site and choose to type the stuff), but I don't have much to write about right now. Perhaps later. Further, I'm wondering if I should turn the sound on. I understand that some of the "penalties" attached to this program include evil sound effects, at least on this level. Being RickRolled is an evil thing to have to suffer. But I don't know if there is anything beyond that for me to worry about. Interestingly, the fact that I know that there will be "negative" consequences keeps me typing quickly; this in spite of the fact that I have yet to actually suffer any such consequences, as far as I know, and if the problems are just sound effects, there's nothing to worry about. Ooh, I waited a while during the last sentence, and the surroundings of the box turned pink. Excellent. Got me going right away. Makes me wonder, how exactly do things work on this web page, anyway? I mean, exactly what do they do to cleverly determine whether I'm actually typing. Can I hit the "backspace" key repeatedly and have it still count, even though the word count would be reduced as I type? It hasn't seemed to cause a problem thus far. Self-critical thinking, somewhat recursive: It has left me thinking about why the only thing I can think to write about is the program itself, and thinking about what I should write about. And as right now I'm writing about thinking about writing about thinking about what I should write about, I think this particular recursion has reached new heights. Or new depths, or something. One thing I've noticed: It is difficult for me to concentrate on anything except writing, and as quickly as possible at that. Hmm, not sure if that's a good thing. After all, if I'm using this to motivate me to write quickly, I'd hope that I would be writing quickly about something beyond my using this web-toy to write quickly. Perhaps next time - if the novelty doesn't wear off and there is a next time. I suspect that the novelty will wear off, and that I will remember the pressing motivation to keep writing stuff as quickly as possible and decide (after the fact) to be very annoyed with this program and myself. Ah, well. At least it keeps me going for a while. Ah, I just opened a word processor window, and it immediately started turning pink, then more red. Interesting. It tells me a little more about how it works. I also tried to get right back here, but it kept blinking over to my word processor window, so I couldn't type. No multitasking allowed on this one, it appears. Or at least it screws things up. Okay, I think I'm done now. I'll post it to my blog just for the abstract pleasure of doing so, and as an analytical piece about the incentives behind such a program. Generally, I approve, and I think I might even use this one again.

End result: It claims I wrote 632 words in 15 minutes. Word counts it as 614. Counting characters (the traditional word count technique) at 5 characters per word yields 676.4 characters, for an average of just over 45 words per minute. It also does not include hard carriage returns (or whatever you call that on a word processor), so all my nice paragraph divisions are not included in the resulting text. I leave it in blockquote tags as it came out, rather than how I intended it, as I'm really too lazy to deal with things in a more complete and thorough way.

A surprisingly effective plan for debt reduction

It seems complicated, but I think everyone should at least consider this as a debt-reduction plan - Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford.

Shocking, isn't it? I can already imagine people's reactions, though:

What happens if I want to buy something and don't have the money? You mean I shouldn't buy it? But that seems so confusing! I don't think I can handle it!!!1!!one!!eleven!!!

Note: If the video has since been taken down, here's a transcript:

Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford Transcript
from Saturday Night Live

[open on couple trying to balance their checkbook ]

Wife: (sighs) I just can't get these numbers to add up.

Husband: Like we're never going to get out of this hole.

Wife: Credit card debt, does it ever end?

Chris Parnell (CP): [walks in] Maybe I can help.

Husband: We sure could use it.

Wife: We've tried debt consolidation companies.

Husband: We've even taken out loans to help make payments.

CP: Well, you're not the only ones. Did you know that millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control? That's why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It's called [presents book] "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford."

Wife: Let me see that… [grabs book, reads] "If you don't have any money, you should not buy anything." Hmm, sounds interesting

Husband: Sounds confusing.

Wife: I don't know honey, this makes a lot of sense. There's a whole section here on how to buy expensive things using money you save.

Husband: Give me that… [grabs book, looks at it] And where would you get this saved money?

CP: I tell you where and how in Chapter 3.

Wife: Ok, so what if I want something but I dont' have any money

CP: You don't buy it.

Husband: Well let's say I don't have enough money to buy something. Should I buy it anyways?

CP: No-o-o-o.

Husband: Now I'm really confused!

CP: It's a little confusing at first.

Wife: Well what if you have the money, can you buy something?

CP: Yes.

Wife: Now take the money away. Same story?

CP: Nope. You shouldn't buy stuff when you don't have the money.

Husband: I think I got it. I buy something I want, and then hope that I can pay for it right?

CP: No. You make sure you have money, then you buy it.

Husband: Oh, THEN you buy it. But shouldn't you buy it before you have the money?

CP: No-o-o-o.

Wife: Why not?

CP: It's in the book. It's only one page long. The advice is priceless and the book is free.

Wife: Well, I like the sound of that.

Husband: Yeah, we can put it on our credit card.

CP: [shakes head]

Announcer: So get out of debt now, write for your free copy of "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford." If you buy now you'll also receive, "Seriously, If You Don't Have the Money, Don't Buy It!" Along with a 12-month subscription to "Stop Buying Stuff Magazine." So order today!

It's even better when you watch the video

Christmas 2008

We are really lucky this Christmas to receive so many wonderful gifts from out family and friends. I want to say thank you. Mark and I are looking forward to the new year in hopes that this year will be better than the last year. The last couple of years have been good in terms of us being a couple, but bad otherwise. Mark is hopefully graduated from law school and is looking for a job. We don't know how long it could take considering how bad the recession is. Hopefully my job will continue to go on. We are still not having any luck in having kids and are going to take the next step in fertility treatment. Anyhow here are the pics, enjoy.

Cheap and expensive

"It’s a sad story, in many ways. But it can’t really be undone at this point. If we had wanted to preserve the Big Three, we would have bought more of their cars."
--DAVID LEONHARDT

"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap." --Dolly Parton

My Substantial Writing Submission - A Work In Progress

(Actually, "A Work In Progress" is the title. It fit my sense of humor, I'm afraid.)

At BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School, the Substantial Writing requirement is the equivalent to a doctoral thesis, so I put quite a bit of work into it. I've wanted to post it here for a while, and since I'm graduating fairly soon and nobody else will ever read it, I thought I'd put it up here.

Adoring Sylvia Plath

Right now I want to sigh. I am reading the journals of Sylvia Plath and her writing is so expressive that it is almost too much to bear. A lot of talk has been said about her suicide and depression, but I think many miss her manic moments which makes her bipolar in my opinion. If I could write the way I really feel then it would be her writing I would copy. Everything I write is so bland after I put it down, and I just know that I will hate reading this too when I am done with it. I used to be an interesting person, but the last two years of hardships (not caused by marriage, other things that just happened to be in there at the same time) has pushed me down so hard I can barely breathe. I feel dry and dull and dusty and old, like a mummy. I think of John Mayer's song "Neon" and that was how my life used to be, and now I have faded away. I have nothing else new to give the world, I can't be a mother and I am not traveled. Nor do I have an interesting job. I am genetically programmed to self-destruct, at the end of everything I am having an existentialist crises. At the end of it all there is nothing but pain at the bottom of my heart. It aches so much and is overwhelming enough that I choke on it. I feel my chest heaving with the ache as though I can't breathe and I am drowning in air and spirit. The end whether one goes to heaven or hell must be more blissful than living any longer. Nothing after death would be better than the painful nothingness of living in this world without purpose. But I digress, and as I said I will probably hate what I have written in the morning.

Halloween 2008

Fun stuff from Halloween this year.

First, look closely at this one, as I'm rather proud of the effect:


Next, Shelly's mother pulls off the image of a witch very well:


Third, Shelly's sister's family, as the princess, the princely wizard, and . . . the dinosaur. Not sure where the dinosaur fits into it, but he has very nice spiky hair.


Another image of us in our nifty Chinese costumes.


At the Halloween party, I was in charge of a "hot cocoa walk," and it was my job to convince kids to walk around in circles and stand on assorted bits of colored gaffer tape. Here's me, in my usual dramatic way of waving them on:


PS If you didn't catch it, my shoes are floating about 2 to 3 inches above the ground in the first photo. Silly and childish, I know, and poor Shelly has to put up with it 24-7-365 1/4. So be nice to her; she does a good job of earning it.

Why I am a "retired" political scientist

These days, I am not very involved in politics. Only rarely do I actually do more than make snide comments about politics. It occurred to me that I have not thoroughly explained why. To explain this, I turn to my good friend, Friedrich Nietzsche:

"Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4, no. 146

When I worked at the state legislature, I found myself reaching new depths of morality, or the lack thereof. Nothing particularly vile or horrible, just behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get legislation through the legislative process in ugly situations.

It disturbed me that I actually enjoyed taking advantage of the rules to make changes in the law.

So I left it behind. No more lobbying, no more working as a "legislative aide" or anything like that. In my mind, the government process should be open. It is difficult enough for people to know what is going on when it is all part of the public record. Using the rules to get things past the public eye was too much fun for me, like when I know I'm about to win a game of chess against a master chessplayer. It's one of the biggest rushes I've ever had, and it could easily become addictive. (Especially to someone with my personality, and who has never done drugs or anything like that. I am particularly vulnerable to addiction.)

So I am afraid that I will become a political animal if I continue wallowing in politics. Consequently, I've left the politics business behind, beyond occasional online commentary.

And here I am now at law school, preparing for a career as an attorney for no reason beyond my desire to be more honest than a political scientist. How's that for a sick and twisted contradiction in terms?

Good capitalist reading

Since I haven't made a link to this yet, Captain Capitalism has written a book. Since his weblog is one of the few that I find worth checking almost daily, I'll recommend it without having read it. Though I'll add commentary later, once I've read it.

Watch your mouth, and a call to responsibility

What we say is important... for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
-- Jim Beggs

"[O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome."

Robert A. Heinlein

Good luck on both of those

Necessity - an open letter to the President, public officials, and members of Congress

"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

-- An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre

A lot of people are discussing what is "necessary" and what is not in these troubled economic times. President Bush justified the massive bailout package by saying that he signed it into law, not to destroy the free market system, but to save it.

This has some disturbing familiarity to me. Another version of the above quote:

One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. Air Force Major by AP correspondent Peter Arnett. Writing about the provincial capital, Ben Tre, on February 7, 1968, Arnett said: "'it became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a U.S. major says." To this day, "Ben Tre logic" is a common saying for whenever a "logical" conclusion is to destroy something out of the perceived best interests of everyone involved. Papa Bravo Romeo - U. S. Navy Patrol Boats at War in Vietnam, by Wynn Goldsmith (pages 184 to 186) attributes the quote to USAF Major Chet Brown.

Well, to all you public officials, I don't agree that it was necessary to destroy the free market in order to save it. Part of a free market system, a very important part, is the ability for private efforts to fail. If somebody screws around and does a lousy job, they need to face the appropriate consequences. You can't just bail out every company that is about to go under. I'm willing to suffer the consequences of my own mistakes, even if my mistakes bankrupt me. But I'm not willing to reward the mistakes of others, especially if they made grossly incompetent policies. I'm also not happy about putting the government in charge of fixing the problems that it caused for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.

So in conclusion, it did not, nor should it ever, become necessary to destroy the world's economy in order to save it. Your actions and the actions of Congress and continuing support for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac have begun an inevitable decline into socialism for the United States of America. I only hope that the world can survive.

Adam Smith on the Recent Financial Woes

I think Smith would have likened the behavior of most of the banks, mortgage lenders, and the U.S. Government to his statements on the East India Company:

...waste which the fraud and abuse, inseparable from the management of the affairs of so great a company, must necessarily have occasioned.
--Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book 4

A Market for Destruction

Interesting article discussing a business that allows encourages insists that its customers destroy things for stress relief purposes.

Sounds like fun. Definitely some money in it, and it would probably be a better (and cheaper) investment than therapy.

Making Sense out of the Financial Crisis 2.0

Here is how to prevent the next financial crisis.

Dave Ramsey

We are real fans of Dave Ramsey, and try in our own limited way to follow his plan. You will be glad you did.

The Bailout Explained

From the online comic Sinfest, via Captain Capitalism

This actually sums up the bailout better than almost anything I've seen. Impressive.


(Click to Enlarge)

Making Sense out of the Financial Crisis

A variety of good reads on the current financial crisis, via Freakonomics:

An explanation of the recent financial upheavals

Everything you need to know about the financial crisis

The financial crisis explained

Bomb-sniffing Dry-Cleaner

How creative approaches to problems can yield excellent results. From the Washington Post via Paranoia Weblog (they have the complete data trail there):

Sunday, October 5, 2008; Page B02
In recent years, as it has tried to improve its performance in Iraq, the U.S. military has done a lot of remedial studies of earlier counterinsurgency campaigns. This note, passed along by a Special Operations officer, describes a couple of tricks the British learned battling the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland:


I attended a briefing at the CI [Counterintelligence] Center a year ago and one of the speakers was a former British SAS officer who worked Belfast for 10 years. He provided some fascinating insights into their operations and, specifically, some of the "out-of-the-box" methods they utilized to collect and target the IRA, PIRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army], Gerry Adams and their sympathizers.

One of the most interesting operations was the laundry mat [sic]. Having lost many troops and civilians to bombings, the Brits decided they needed to determine who was making the bombs and where they were being manufactured. One bright fellow recommended they operate a laundry and when asked "what the hell he was talking about," he explained the plan and it was incorporated -- to much success.

The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded.



While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue. The analyzer was disguised as just another piece of the laundry equipment; good OPSEC [operational security]. Within a few weeks, multiple positives had shown up, indicating the ingredients of bomb residue, and intelligence had determined which areas of the city were involved. To narrow their target list, [the laundry] simply sent out more specific coupons [numbered] to all houses in the area, and before long they had good addresses. After confirming addresses, authorities with the SAS teams swooped down on the multiple homes and arrested multiple personnel and confiscated numerous assembled bombs, weapons and ingredients. During the entire operation, no one was injured or killed.

By the way, the gentleman also told the story of how [the British] also bugged every new car going into Northern Ireland, and thus knew everything [Sinn Fein leader] Gerry Adams was discussing. They did this because Adams always conducted mobile meetings and always used new cars.

The Israelis have a term for this type of thinking, "Embracing the Meshugganah," which literally translated means, embrace the craziness, because the crazier the plan, the less likely the adversary will have thought about it, and thus, not have implemented a counter-measure.

This could also serve as a great example of creative thinking for problem solvers generally (and RPG gamers in particular) - take a crazy, absurd plan and apply it in such a way that nobody would ever guess that you're doing it, since they can't possibly have a countermeasure for everything. A very practical application of economics (incentive-based reasoning applied to the would-be bombers).

The Second-Life Herald

Over three years ago I posted a political science paper on political games of various sorts. Still an interesting subject. I started off with the story of the Alphaville Herald at The Sims Online.

Well, the original publisher of the Alphaville Herald has since written a book, entitled The Second-Life Herald, discussing the development of MMOGs and the socializing that goes on therein. Interesting stuff; I highly recommend it.

He also has a website by the same name.

Senator DeMint on the Bailout

It makes me want to move to South Carolina just so I can vote for him:

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have friends and colleagues whom I respect deeply who are on all sides of this bailout issue. One of them just spoke. We all to want do what is right for America, and I believe those who have crafted this plan had pure and noble motives. They want this country to succeed. They want prosperity. I just do not believe that this bill gets the job done. In fact, in the long term, I am convinced it will do more harm than good.

We are the Nation that has been called the bastion of freedom, and we are the Nation that has sacrificed blood and treasure to share that freedom with the world. We have fought communism, dictators, and tyranny. We have helped establish democracies and free-market economies across the globe. Because of America, millions of people are now electing their leaders, and millions have been taken out of poverty and enjoyed prosperity. Yet as the blood of our young men and women falls on foreign soil in the defense of freedom, our own Government appears to be leading our country into the pit of socialism.

We have seen this Government socialize our education system and make our schools among the worst in the world. We have seen this Government take over most of our health care system, making private insurance less and less affordable. We have seen this Government socialize our energy resources and bring our Nation to its knees by cutting the development of our own oil and natural gas supplies. And now we see this Congress yielding its constitutional obligations to a Federal bureaucracy, giving it the power to control virtually our entire financial system. Americans understand this and they are angry. They are our judge and our jury. They are watching what we are doing, and they will render their verdict based on our actions.

If we were honest with the American people and explained the failures that have led to this financial crisis, we might have the credibility to ask our citizens to allow us to borrow another $700 billion in their name to try to fix this problem. But we are not being honest. This problem was not created by our free enterprise system. It was created by us, the Congress and the Federal Government.

With good intentions, we made a mess of things. We wanted our economy to grow faster, so we allowed the Federal Reserve to create easy and cheap credit. But this allowed people to borrow and lend irresponsibly. We wanted to help the poor, so we forced banks to make loans to people who could not afford to pay them back. We wanted every American to own a home, so we created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage and guarantee mortgages for more people who could not afford them. And all of these easy mortgages, many of which required no downpayment, inadvertently increased the prices of homes to unsustainable levels and created a massive oversupply of unsold homes. Now the value of homes has fallen, as has the value of the mortgages attached to them.

We allowed and even encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to bundle up these risky subprime mortgages so they could be sold as securities to investors in America and all over the world. We guaranteed these institutions with the full faith and credit of the Government so their securities could be sold at above-market rates, allowing them to borrow huge amounts and fuel an explosion in subprime mortgage lending. We also allowed these mortgage giants to use their taxpayer-supported profits to spend over $200 million lobbying Congress to keep us quiet, even when we saw that our brainchild had become a financial Frankenstein.

All of our good intentions are now blowing up in our face, and we are asking the American people to bail us out. We must also plead guilty to other misguided policies that have made the situation even worse. Our foolish energy policies have created a huge financial burden on every American family and severely damaged our economy. By not opening our own energy supplies, we are now sending nearly $700 billion a year to other countries to buy oil. This has dried up capital at home and made us dependent on foreign countries for our credit.

We have also squandered and wasted hundreds of billions of hard-earned tax dollars on unnecessary and ineffective Federal programs and thousands of wasteful earmarks. Last week, we passed a bill with the highest rate of pork spending in history. While our talk of gloom and doom has heightened the financial panic here and around the world, and while we are asking Americans to bail us out, we are still spending money as if there is no tomorrow. Years of wasteful spending and bad policies have resulted in a huge national debt of nearly $10 trillion. Much of this debt is held by China and Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries that some now say are dictating our financial policies.

We know Americans are now the victim of our misguided good intentions, along with our free enterprise system that has been severely damaged and weakened. We know our bad policies have taken the accountability out of our markets by artificially insulating investors from normal risk. This has led to careless lending, careless investing, many bad decisions, and possible criminal activity on Wall Street. While many are blaming Americans and our free enterprise system for the crisis, we know the Government is the root cause of this crisis.

I believe this Congress should admit its guilt, prove we have learned from our mistakes, and correct the bad policies immediately that have caused these problems. We should insist the Federal Reserve end the easy money policy. We should repeal the laws that require our banks to make risky loans, and fix the accounting requirements that force banks to undervalue their assets. We should develop a plan to break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and sell them to private investors who will run them as private companies.

We should reduce corporate and capital gains taxes to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We should also repeal the section of Sarbanes-Oxley that has driven billions of dollars of capital overseas. And we should do even more to grow our economy and lessen our dependence on foreign countries. We should immediately pass a law that expedites the development of our oil and natural gas reserves to help relieve the burden of high prices and gas shortages for our families.

We should immediately adopt a freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending and pass a moratorium on earmarks until we fix this wasteful and corrupting system. We should sacrifice our political pork as we ask taxpayers to sacrifice for our mistakes.

We have caused a terrible financial mess, and we must honestly tell the American people that whether we pass this huge bailout or not, there will likely be suffering and pain for our great country. But Americans and our free market economy are resilient. And with fewer misguided laws and less onerous regulations, we will get through this crisis, as Americans have many times before. But we must tell Americans the truth.

Congress says it was deregulation and capitalist greed that has run wild and undermined our financial system. Instead of reducing our role in the economy, we are trying to use this crisis to expand our power to control and manage the free enterprise system. We are here saying that our banks and mortgage companies have stopped lending money, that people can't get loans to buy cars, homes, or to run a business, and that our economy of the United States is on the verge of collapse.

We are telling people not to worry because we are going to rescue them with their own money. Congress is going to allow the Treasury Secretary to take $700 billion from taxpayers to buy bad loans and investments from anyone he chooses anywhere in the world. This, we say, will free up capital, get the credit markets working again, and put our economy back on track.

But this Congress refuses to change our Nation's monetary policy that created the cheap money and inflated the housing bubble. We refuse to change the accounting laws and regulations, even though they are making the problem worse. We refuse to lower capital gains and other taxes to attract capital and promote growth. We refuse to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, even though it hasn't worked and it has cost our economy billions. And we refuse to expedite the development of America's energy resources, even though it would help every American and grow our economy.

None of these things are even on the table for discussion. We are telling the American people to hand over $700 billion or the world economy is going to collapse. This is why people are so upset. It is because Congress is being dishonest and arrogant. We are not being honest with them about how we got into this mess, and we are not being honest with them about what we need to get out of it.

I strongly oppose this legislation. It takes our country in the wrong direction. It forces innocent taxpayers to bail out Government policies and Wall Street mistakes. It asks the American people to take a leap of faith and trust people who have consistently misled them.

I am deeply saddened by the tone of this debate. I am afraid many of the supporters of this bill have bullied people into supporting it, using fear. There may be good reason for fear, but I think most people will agree that some of the statements have been reckless and irresponsible. I hope I am wrong and this bill will truly solve the problem.

Let me say again that I know every one of my colleagues is doing what they believe is right for America. But based on what I know, I cannot in good conscience support it. I know the Senate is going to pass it tonight, and I can only hope the House will defeat it so we can pursue better alternatives.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

A nifty toy

Singular Inversions FaceGen Modeller is a fun little toy that converts photographs of faces into three-dimensional models.

Take a look:

My nephew, Brock:



How about another image: Ned the Pieman from Pushing Daisies:




Neat, huh?

Story of my life

"A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key." Paul Valéry (1871-1945)

Dinner Rolls for Sunday

So a short while ago Mark and I were at TJ Max looking for syrup for italian sodas when we came across some orange marmalade and some red pepper jelly. So in order to help us use some it up, I had time today to make crescent dinner rolls. Today was hectic with the primary program but the kids mostly pulled it off and we are safe for awhile. My primary kids make me so happy, it is fun to see them every week. They are used to my style of teaching lessons now and even ask when we are going to start reading the scriptures and if they can have a longer set of scriptures to read. Wow their parents must be so proud of them, I know I am. I got to take Mark's mom to the "What a woman wants" conference at the expo center, it was a lot of fun and good female bonding. We got a little carried away with the three dollar jewelry, but hey it was only three dollars. I can't believe the holidays are around the corner, I know what I am going to get just about everyone except James and Luke. Of course they are both the youngest and therefore the hardest to shop for. I am going to give everyone a very cheap yet nice gift mostly the same. That way I can stay within my budget but I no longer have guilt because I didn't give anything. I would tell you what those gifts are but then everyone might find out what they are getting. We also had a game night Friday with my sister and Jens and also my cousin Jason and his wife Tami, who were in the same singles ward Mark and I were in. They got married a month and half or so before us and we all meet each other in the singles wards. So yes singles wards can work, I guess since all six of us met our spouse in a singles ward. We got completely carried away playing games and it is so interesting to see what inside gestures and words we each have with our spouse. It is my turn this year to plan our anniversary and I am still a bit undecided on what to do. Last year I suggested that we take turns planning our anniversary each year so it was Mark's last time and now my turn. I am still studying for the PE again and haven't been my normal self all day. Mark is getting his paperwork together for the bar exam. I am still stressing about our appointment to see the infertility specialist. I thought that it would be fun to post some pics of ourselves today. Enjoy.

The Truth

From Americans for Limited Government

The monthly update post

I haven't been very good about updating. Ever. But I thought I'd give a general update.

I'm back in school, Shelly's back at work, and both of us are studying - Shelly for the P.E. exam, and me for classes and the MPRE. We're both very stressed about it these days, among other things. I'm also dead tired 24/7 because of my class schedule and commute.

My efforts in finding work after my graduation in December have met with limited success. After exchanging e-mails with one potential employer, we both agreed that we had different objectives and wouldn't get along well. (I wanted to practice family law to make people's lives easier, he wanted to destroy the opposition and make money doing it. Quite a fundamental difference in legal philosophy.)

Unfortunately, there are two law schools feeding new attorneys directly into this area, so there's a lot of competition for relatively little work. Makes it hard for me to get interviews, since most people never find out that I managed to keep going in law school in spite of the most hectic, thoroughly chaotic and difficult semesters of my life. Plus the local financial aid office can't seem to get anything right, so they keep promising money and then don't bother to deliver. They're in no hurry; after all, they haven't paid for an entire semester of law school on credit cards.

So I'm continuing my job-hunting efforts, trying to get interviews where I can. Shelly and I are doing our best to stay around here, as she has a great job that she really loves and I want to stay around here for her sake. If it is at all possible, we'll stick around Salt Lake so she can keep doing what she loves.

Anyway, that's my frustrating life. And that's actually the easy part of it, too. (I won't share the more unpleasant side.)

What's better where?

I saw a sign today outside a Wendy's restaurant that said this:

Wendy's
Now Hiring
Apply Inside
Proof that "It's Better Here!"

Pretty silly way to phrase it, in my opinion. Because the Wendy's in question has been there for years. They haven't recently expanded their operation. Essentially, they're saying "We have job openings; therefore, it's better to work here."

They seem to have missed the point - the reason that they have job openings available is most likely related to the likely facts that (1) they can't hire people to do these jobs at these pay rates, and (2) people have quit because they don't want to do these jobs at these pay rates.

That's sort of like saying, "We have lots of over-cooked, over-salted french fries that have been in our deep-fryer for two weeks; therefore, everyone should want to eat these french fries." Or, in the alternative, "The government spends lots of money for minimal return; therefore, we should want to pay more in taxes."

(Yes, I had to turn it into a gripe about government spending; force of habit, and it's such an easy target that I couldn't resist.)

Dealing with Irrational Co-Workers

Taken from Scott Adams' The Joy of Work (c) 1998 United Features Syndicate, Inc. pp 152-56. Frankly, my quoting it here likely violates copyright, so if anybody honestly cares they should just reply to this in a comment and I will remove it.

But since on p. 151 Mr. Adams clearly instructed readers to "[c]ircle the irrational arguments that apply to your situation and give a copy to the person who is bugging you," this gives implicit permission to copy it under certain circumstances. I've done this only for the convenience of having it available for copying when I need it.

You Are Wrong Because
For your convenience, I have circled the brain malfunction(s) that most closely resemble(s) the one(s) you recently made on the topic of (fill in topic): _________________________________________.

1. AMAZINGLY BAD ANALOGY
Example: You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore, you can train a potato to dance.

2. FAULTY CAUSE AND EFFECT
Example: On the basis of my observations, wearing huge pants makes you fat.

3. I AM THE WORLD
Example: I don't listen to country music. Therefore, country music is not popular.

4. IGNORING EVERYTHING SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT THE BRAIN
Example: People choose to be obese/gay/alcoholic because they prefer the lifestyle.

5. THE FEW ARE THE SAME AS THE WHOLE
Example: Some Elbonians are animal rights activists. Some Elbonians wear fur coats. Therefore, Elbonians are hypocrites.

6. GENERALIZING FROM SELF
Example: I'm a liar. Therefore, I don't believe what you're saying.

7. ARGUMENT BY BIZARRE DEFINITION
Example: He's not a criminal. He just does things that are against the law.

8. TOTAL LOGICAL DISCONNECT
Example: I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.

9. JUDGING THINGS WITHOUT COMPARISON TO ALTERNATIVES
Example: I don't invest in U.S. Treasury Bills. There's too much risk.

10. ANYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IS EASY TO DO
Example: If you have the right tools, how hard could it be to generate nuclear fission at home?

11. IGNORANCE OF STATISTICS
Example: I'm putting ALL of my money on the lottery this week because the jackpot is so big.

12. IGNORING THE DOWNSIDE RISK
Example: I know that bungee jumping could kill me, but it's three seconds of great fun!

13. SUBSTITUTING FAMOUS QUOTES FOR COMMON SENSE
Example: All things come to those who wait." So don't bother looking for a job.

14. IRRELEVANT COMPARISONS
Example: A hundred dollars is a good price for a toaster, compared to buying a Ferrari.

15. CIRCULAR REASONING
Example: I'm correct because I'm smarter than you. And I must be smarter than you because I'm correct.

16. INCOMPLETENESS AS PROOF OF DEFECT
Example: Your theory of gravity doesn't address the question of why there are no unicorns, so it must be wrong.

17. IGNORING THE ADVICE OF EXPERTS WITHOUT A GOOD REASON
Example: Sure, the experts think you shouldn't ride a bicycle into the eye of a hurricane, but I have my own theory.

18. FOLLOWING THE ADVICE OF KNOWN IDIOTS
Example: Uncle Billy says pork makes you smarter. That's good enough for me!

19. REACHING BIZARRE CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT ANY INFORMATION
Example: The car won't start. I'm certain the spark plugs have been stolen by rogue clowns.

20. FAULTY PATTERN RECOGNITION
Example: His last six wives were murdered mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven.

21. FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE WHAT'S IMPORTANT
Example: My house is on fire! Quick, call the post office and tell them to hold my mail!

22. UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT OF SUNK COSTS
Example: We've spent millions developing a water-powered pogo stick. We can't stop investing now or it will all be wasted.

23. OVERAPPLICATION OF OCCAM'S RAZOR (WHICH SAYS THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATION IS USUALLY RIGHT)
Example: The simplest explanation for the moon landings is that they were hoaxes.

24. IGNORING ALL ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE
Example: I always get hives immediately after eating strawberries. But without a scientifically controlled experiment, it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat strawberries every day, since I can't tell if they cause hives.

25. INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THAT SOME THINGS HAVE MULTIPLE CAUSES
Example: The Beatles were popular for one reason only: They were good singers.

26. JUDGING THE WHOLE BY ONE OF ITS CHARACTERISTICS
Example: The sun causes sunburns. Therefore, the planet would be better off without the sun.

27. BLINDING FLASHES OF THE OBVIOUS
Example: If everyone had more money, we could eliminate poverty.

28. BLAMING THE TOOL
Example: I bought an encyclopedia but I'm still stupid. This encyclopedia must be defective.

29. HALLUCINATIONS OF REALITY
Example: I got my facts from a talking tree.

30. TAKING THINGS TO THEIR ILLOGICAL CONCLUSION
Example: If you let a barber cut your hair, the next thing you know he'll be lopping off your limbs!

31. FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND WHY RULES DON'T HAVE EXCEPTIONS
Example: It should be legal to shoplift, as long as you don't take enough to hurt the company's earnings.

32. PROOF BY LACK OF EVIDENCE
Example: I've never seen you drunk, so you must be one of those Amish people.

Regretfully, in a recent discussion Shelly and I were both guilty of a number of these. That probably means that we're both wrong.