Coyote Blog

From Glen Wishard:

Make no mistake, then - the Supreme Court is no longer the Supreme
Court of past fame. It is now the National Abortion Tribunal, and its
members are no longer jurists, they are the Keepers of the Abortion
Toggle Switch.

-----0-->0-----

Fig. 1A. Abortion Toggle Switch, closed.
Suction motors will engage.

As we can see from the schematic diagram above, the Abortion Toggle
Switch is currently in the closed (ON) position. The entire purpose of
the so-called Supreme Court, as current wisdom understands that
purpose, is to stare at this switch all day wondering whether they
should play with it or not.

Now this is a sad state for this once-great court to have fallen to,
and makes me wonder if we don't need another court to assume the
neglected responsibilities of the current one. Then the Abortion Toggle
Switch could be moved to some remote corner of the public's attention,
and the various abortion partisans could play their endless game of
Keep Away without buggering up the entire constitutional process.

Here's the deal:  We need a gender-neutral third person pronoun.  I am tired of all the awkward constructions I have to concoct to use his or her in a grammatically correct and gender neutral fashion. 

I fully support the use of "they" and "their" as singular third-person pronouns, as in "Each person should bring their pencil" rather than "Each person should bring his or her pencil."  Unfortunately, this is not correct grammar today, so I just spent a few hours purging they's and their's from a draft novel.  However, English is a language that has always been open-source and bottom-up (in contrast to French).  Usages such as this tend to work their way into the language, as dictionary writers for the English language have generally considered themselves catalogers of the English-that-is rather than dictators of the English-that-should-be  (the book the Professor and the Madman is highly recommended).

XKCD took on this topic a while back.

Yesterday was apparently the 300th birthday of Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time and perhaps the greatest that the average layman has never heard of. 

Euler is responsible for so much that is still important to modern mathematics it is hard to pin down his greatest achievement, but most will point to his famous equation that was sort of the unified field theory of mathematics, describing a relationship between all five of math's most important numbers:

I learned something the other day that might be interesting to you business and finance folks out there -- the constant "e" was first described by Jacob Bernoulli when he was studying compound interest rates.

Jacob Bernoulli discovered this constant by studying a question about compound interest.

One simple example is an account that starts with $1.00 and pays
100% interest per year. If the interest is credited once, at the end of
the year, the value is $2.00; but if the interest is computed and added
twice in the year, the $1 is multiplied by 1.5 twice, yielding $1.00×1.5² = $2.25. Compounding quarterly yields $1.00×1.25⁴ = $2.4414"¦, and compounding monthly yields $1.00×(1.0833"¦)¹² = $2.613035"¦.

Bernoulli noticed that this sequence approaches a limit for more and
smaller compounding intervals. Compounding weekly yields $2.692597"¦,
while compounding daily yields $2.714567"¦, just two cents more. Using n as the number of compounding intervals, with interest of 1/n in each interval, the limit for large n is the number that came to be known as e; with continuous compounding, the account value will reach $2.7182818"¦. More generally, an account that starts at $1, and yields $(1+R) at simple interest, will yield $"‰e^R with continuous compounding.

In the 20th century, we have gotten in a mind set that math is this strange discipline that lives purely out in the theoretical either.  But we forget that a lot of modern math was invented to solve real-world problems.  Newton invented calculus (yeah, I know, I haven't forgotten Liebnitz) to solve planetary motion problems, and it turns out "e" was invented to work with interest rates.

I am still getting the hard sell from cold-callers touting securities.  I am told this is because we small business owners are just behind dentists and doctors in terms of our capacity to make bonehead investments.

Before I proceed with this story, there are two things you need to know about me:

• I answer my own phone at the office
• I have never, ever listened to a sales pitch for an investment or security.  If I am in a good mood, I interrupt and say, "sorry, not iterested" before they can even name the stock.  If I am in a bad mood, I just hang up.

So the other day, I accidentally let one of them go further than I usually allow.  He said he was from Olympia Asset Management.  (There is an Olympia Asset Management web page, but I don't know if it is the same company and the web page has not been updated for several years.)  I let him run for a bit because a friend of mine runs a very well-respected financial planning firm with a different name but also with Olympia in the title, and for a moment I thought it might have been one of his folks.

Anyway, he proceeds to try to convince me that we have talked before and discussed a certain security.  "Remember me, we talked six months ago about ____".  Of course, I had never heard of the guy.  At this point I usually hang up, because I have heard this crap before -- it is a common pitch.  The best I can figure is that they are trying to give themselves more credibility by either:

1. Trying to imply that we have some kind of relationship we actually don't have.  Or worse...
2. Trying to convince me that he touted stock A six months ago, so now he can tell me stock A has gone up in price.  Many reputable brokers built their reputation by cold calling people and saying:  Watch these 3 stocks and see how they do and I will call you back in 6 months.  That way, you can evaluate their stock picking without risk.  The modern sleazy approach is to pick a stock that has gone up a lot in the last 6 months, and then call some harried business person and pretend you called them with that pick 6 months ago, hoping that they will give you the benefit of the doubt.

For some reason, maybe because I was bored, I decided to chat with him, and I had to admit that he was trained pretty well never to give up.  I interrupted him after the "do you remember" opening and said that we could not possible have spoken about a stock, because I always hang up on people within 5 seconds of knowing it is a stock pitch.  He said he had sent me a packet of information.  I said that he had not.  He insisted that we had talked, and that I had promised to write down the name of the stock on my calendar.  I told him I don't have a calendar  (which is actually true - I manage myself through a dysfunctional combination of memory and post-it notes).  Sensing weakness, I turned on him and said "gee, I was out of town a lot 6 months ago and am surprised you got hold of me.  What date did you call."  Then he starts getting all vague on me.  Anyway, I finally tired of the game and hung up but he never relented in his assertion that he and I had had a nice chat about some security.

Please, please.  Avoid these guys on the phone like the plague.  Several years ago I had a guy call me with some oil drilling "opportunity."  In that case, I also made an exception to my rule and listened to see just how bad this thing was going to be.  Finally I broke in and said "that's ridiculous, no one in their right mind would send you money for that."  He too was relentless, until I finally said "Look, I know Tony Soprano is standing behind you in the boiler room there and putting pressure on you, but I am not interested."  Then, without a pause, he starts telling me how he once threw a Molotov cocktail into the car of someone he didn't like.  I don't know if he was just having fun with me, but he was either wildly unprofessional or very creepy.  Beware, Beware, Beware.

Bugs Bunny was never one to knuckle under to arbitrary power.  I always like the episode when he protects his home from a freeway development, and eventually the freeway ends up going around his home, which has been turned into a pillar of concrete.  I am reminded of all this by this picture from Radley Balko of a woman who would not sell out to developers in China.

We are considering switching our Blue Cross / Blue Shield individual health coverage to a higher deductible policy from Assurant.  Anyone have any experience with these guys, positive or negative?

Necessity is the mother of invention.  And who can think of an indignity humans suffer that is worse than having to get up from the couch to get a beer?  Via Market Power, the beer-launching refrigerator.  See the video here.

Apparently yesterday was Pi day (3/14) and my son's class had a contest to recite pi to the most digits.  I presumed that my son didn't really participate, but then he serenaded me in the car with the first 70 or so digits that he apparently already knew by heart.  Unfortunately, he lost to someone who knew 105.  The really geeky part was that I was kind of jealous.

Postscript: But I do know the motto on a Budweiser can by heart:  This is the famous Budweiser beer.  We know of no other brand produced by any other brewer that costs so much to brew and age.  Our exclusive beechwood aging produces a taste, a smoothness, and a drinkability you will find in not other beer at any price.

A while back, I mentioned that the police had, for the first time in my life, actually pursued and caught someone who had stolen my or my company's property.  The county has a process of notifying victims of progress in this case, and to this end I received a copy of their plea agreement.  They plead guilty to 2nd degree burglary, which the letter says is a "non-dangerous, non-repetitive 3rd degree felony".  However, I must not understand the word "non-repetitive" since the guilty parties plead guilty to five counts of this non-repetitive crime!

I am having trouble tracing this map all the way to its source, but I thought it was cool enough to show here (via TJIC and Carls Blog).  The map renames each state with a country that has approximately the same GDP as that state.

Check out Russia / New Jersey.  And is it really saying New Zealand and the District of Columbia have the same GDP?

Update:  If you enjoyed this post, check out our (free) comprehensive
guide to the skeptics arguments concerning man-made global warming.

Has the Romance Gone Out of Travel?

Yes.  But I disagree somewhat with the reasoning.  One writer argues travel has lost its romance because it is too easy.  Sorry, but travel has lost its romance because it is too hard, though hard in a different way than it was fifty years ago.  In 1957, travel was difficult like a safari.  In 2007, travel is difficult like getting a hip replacement in the British medical system. 

Hawaii is probably our family's favorite destination, but I have found that on most occasions, all the positive karma I build up through a week there evaporates on the trip home.  In selecting a ski resort for spring break, we chose the resort that represented the easiest travel experience rather than necessarily the best ski experience (we go to the Park City UT area because it is a short direct flight from Phoenix and an easy 45 minute mostly Interstate drive from the Salt Lake City airport. 

I don't really have a problem with hunting coyotes, as long as they have four legs.  They certainly are not endangered around here, and are one of two reasons (along with hawks) that we don't have a doggie door for my daughter's small Maltese.  In fact, we have a water feature out back and I found wet coyote footprints on the ground this morning when I took the dog out.  I'm not sure I personally would enjoy a contest to get the biggest pile of carcases, but I wouldn't enjoy euthanizing stray dogs either and that serves enough of a public purpose that the government pays people to do it.  Love the picture.

It must be kind of satisfying, I guess, to be absolutely certain that you are the tail end of the bell curve, at least on some dimension.

From Reason's Hit and Run:

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to
Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd
take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep.
Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the
holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American
provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of
political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas
Jefferson.

Yes that Thomas Jefferson, the one whose house Monticello is located in Goode's district.  LOL.

With my views, I can't imagine ever getting elected to office, but I wonder what book I could be sworn in on?  Ayn Rand is often suggested, but though her work has had a tremendous impact on me, I think she now sends off a slightly creepy, cultish vibe that might not work well on the PR front.  The Wealth of Nations?  Hayek's Road to Serfdom?  Free to Choose?  How about Julian Simon -- his optimism in free human endeavor probably reflects my personal outlook better than anyone.

I'm not sure about any of those.  I think that putting your hand on a copy of the US Constitution would be the most appropriate symbol, and would solve those nasty religion debates in a way I think both left and right could agree on.

Dave Barry has his end of year review up:

As the campaign lumbers to the finish line, the Republicans desperately
hope that the voters will not notice that they "” once the party of
small government "” have turned into the party of war-bungling,
corruption-tolerating, pork-spewing power-lusting toads, while the
Democrats desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they
are still, basically, the Democrats.

The other day I posted on Second Life, which seems to be trying to do something eerily similar to the virtual world in Snow Crash.  TJIC has more, from an article in the WaPo:

"¦Earlier this month, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner visited
Second Life, appearing as a balding, bespectacled cartoon rendering of
himself, and addressed a crowd of other animated characters on a range
of legal issues, including property rights in virtual reality. Posner
stressed that it was in Linden Lab's interest to ensure due process and
other rights.

"They want people to invest in Second Life, and we know
people won't invest if their rights are not reasonably secure," he told
the audience, which included a giant chipmunk and several supermodels. He went on to predict the eventual emergence of an "international law of virtual worlds" similar to international maritime law"¦

Arizona has always lacked a managed snow play area.  In the past, when the snow first flies in Flagstaff, everyone in Phoenix would hop in the car and sled any place they could find, even some downright dangerous spots on Interstate overpasses. 

After a year of work, we have opened the Wing Mountain Snow Play Area, just north of Flagstaff, Arizona.  We have a huge, managed parking lot, portable bathrooms, and concessions which include hot chocolate and sled sales.  If you live in Arizona, come and visit us this winter.

Update:  I think the season is going well, and we have good snow.  We had an enormous number of visitors on Christmas day, more than we could ever have predicted, and I apologize if anyone was not able to get in and play.  However, that day was an anomaly, and most days we have plenty of space to park and play.

To the bathroom question, we only just got the permit to run this facility from the US Forest Service a few weeks ago, so yes the bathrooms are just porta-john types.  Once we have a little time with the facility, we will work for a more permanent solution.   However, last year before we took over the facility there was only Mother Nature.

Our new puppy finally made it through the night without having to poop (or at least until 6AM, which is close enough).  The dog is small enough to be food for hawks and owls, so we have to take her out ourselves, and my sleep deprivation has been approaching levels not reached since my kids were babies.  I am new to dog ownership, so experienced owners probably could have short-cut this somehow, but I will observe that small dogs seem to have small brains, small bladders, and very short GI tracts.

Otherwise, we have been very happy with her.  She is the quietest small dog I have ever seen (she almost never barks) and she has a wonderful disposition.

[This is an update and a reprint of a post from 2004.  Lesson learned from last time I posted on this topic:  If you are going to send me hate mail, at least read the post carefully first]

The concept of a cultural celebration by African-Americans of themselves and their history is a good one.  The specific values celebrated in Kwanzaa, however, suck.  They are socialist -Marxist-collectivist-totalitarian crap.   Everyone seems to tiptoe around Kwanzaa feeling that they have to be respectful, I guess because they are fearful of being called a racist.  However, I find it terrible to see such a self-destructive set of values foisted on the African-American community.  These values are nearly perfectly constructed to keep blacks in poverty - just look at how well these
same values have played out in Africa.

First, understand that I have no problem with people of any ethnic group or race or whatever creating a holiday.  Life is worth celebrating, as often as possible, even if we have to make up new occasions. One of the great things about living in Arizona is getting to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Second, understand that Kwanzaa is not some ancient African ethno-cultural tradition.  Kwanzaa was made up in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga.  Karenga was a radical Marxist in the 60's black power movement.  Later, Karenga served time in jail for torturing two women:

Deborah Jones ... said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vice. Karenga ... also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said."

Interestingly, after this conviction as well incidents of schizophrenia in prison where "the psychiatrist observed that Karenga talked to his blanket and imaginary persons and believed that he had been attacked by dive-bombers," California State University at Long Beach saw fit to
make him head of their Black Studies Department.

Anyway,  I give credit to Karenga for wanting to create a holiday for African-Americans that paid homage to themselves and their history.  However, what Karenga created was a 7-day holiday built around 7 principles, which are basically a seven step plan to Marxism.  Instead of rejecting slavery entirely, Kwanzaa celebrates a transition from enslavement of blacks by whites to enslavement of blacks by blacks.  Here are the 7 values, right from the Kwanzaa site (with my comments in red itallics):

Umoja (Unity)
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race

On its surface, this is either a platitude, or, if serious, straight Marxism and thoroughly racist.  Think about who else in the 20th century talked about unity of race, and with what horrible results.

In practice, the notion of unity in the black movement has become sort of a law of Omerta -- no black is ever, ever supposed to publicly criticize another black.  Don't believe me?  Look at the flack Bill Cosby caught for calling out other blacks.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves

Generally cool with me -- can't get a libertarian to argue with this.  When this was first written in the 60's, it probably meant something more
revolutionary, like secession into a black state, but in today's context I think it is fine.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
To
build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and
sister's problems our problems and to solve them together

Um, do I even need to comment?  This is Marxism, pure and simple.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

OK, I said the last one was Marxism.  This one is really, really Marxism. 

Nia (Purpose)
To
make our collective vocation the building and developing of our
community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

There's that collectivism again

Kuumba (Creativity)
To
do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our
community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

I guess I don't have much problem with creativity and make things better.  My sense though that if I was to listen to the teaching on this one in depth, we would get collectivism again.

Imani (Faith)
To
believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers,
our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

What about in ourselves as individuals?  Through all of this, where is the individual, either individual responsibility or achievement?  It is interesting that a holiday that
was invented specifically to be anti-religious would put "faith" in as a value.  In fact, Karenga despised the belief in God as paying homage to "spooks who threaten us if we don't worship them and demand we turn
over our destiny and daily lives."

However, this is in fact very consistent with the teachings of most statists and totalitarians.  They tend to reject going on bended knee to some god, and then turn right around and demand that men go on bended knee to ... them, or other men.  This is in fact what this "faith" was about for Karenga - he is a statist laying the foundation for obedience to the totalitarian state.  He wants blacks to turn over their destiny and daily lives to their leaders, not to god.

So, in conclusion, Kwanzaa was designed as a celebration of creating a totalitarian collectivist Marxist racist state among African-Americans.  I may well get comments and emails that say "oh,
thats not how we celebrate it" and I will say fine - but Marxism is the core DNA of the holiday, a holiday created by a man who thought Lenin and the Black Panthers were all wimps.

Never wishing to criticize without suggestion a solution, here are alternate values I might suggest:

Freedom
-Every individual is his own master.  We will never accept any other master again from any race (even our own).  We will speak out against injustices and inequalities so our children can be free as well.

Self-Reliance - Each individual will take responsibility for their life and the lives of their family

Pride - We will be proud of our race and heritage.  We will learn about our past and about slavery in particular, so we will never again repeat it.

Entrepreneurship - We will work through free exchange with others to make our lives better and to improve the lives of our children

Education - We will dedicate ourselves and our time to education of our children, both in their knowledge and their ethics

Charity - We will help others in our country and our community through difficult times

Thankfulness - Every African-American should wake up each morning and say "I give thanks that my ancestors suffered the horrors of the slavery passage, suffered the indignity and humiliation of slavery, and suffered the poverty and injustices of the
post-war South so that I, today, can be here, in this country, infinitely more free, healthier, safer and better off financially than I would have been in Africa."

By the way, if you doubt that last part, note that in the late 90's, median per capita income of African Americans was about $25,000, while the per capita income of Africans back in the "old country" was around $700, or about 35x less.  Note further this comparison of freedom between the US and various African nations.  Finally, just read the news about the Congo or Rwanda or the Sudan.

Update:  Even years later, commenters insist on misinterpreting this last point as some sort of justification for slavery.  I am not sure how one can come to this conclusion in an article that drips with disdain for slavery, but folks will find what they want to find.  My mistake perhaps was to presume to speak for African Americans.  It is very possible that the enslavement of their ancestors and the legacy of racist crap that still exists in this country is not balanced by the prosperity blacks now enjoy in America vs. Africa.  So I will merely speak for myself and say the rest of us are immeasurably better off for having you here.

In the WSJ ($) today there is an article about the assignment of family chores perpetuating traditional gender roles into the next generation:

The latest research suggests I'm not alone. The way parents are
divvying up and paying kids for chores suggests this is one family
battle that will extend well into the next generation and beyond.

A nationwide study by the University of Michigan's
Institute for Social Research shows boys ages 10 through 18 are more
likely than girls to be getting paid for doing housework -- even though
boys spend an average 30% less time doing chores. Boys are as much as
10 to 15 percentage points more likely than girls at various ages to be
receiving an allowance for doing housework, says the institute's newly
completed analysis of data on 3,000 children ages 10 through 18.

Boys may be handling more of the kinds of chores that
are regarded as a job that should be paid, such as lawnmowing,
speculates Frank Stafford, the University of Michigan economics
professor heading the research. Chores such as dishwashing or cooking,
often regarded as routine and done free, may fall more often to girls.
(The analysis is based on aggregate samples, and doesn't compare
treatment of siblings within individual families.)

Fortunately, the Coyote cubs are fighting these gender stereotypes.  My son does the dishes at night and does the family's laundry once a week (which is great, except you have to make allowances for a 12-year-old boy doing your laundry, like shrunken shirts).  My daughter just wants to lay around all day on the couch.  I thought this was a problem, but maybe she is just trying to break through gender stereotypes and be like her dad. 

This boy from the article seems to have mastered my personal approach to household chores:

Ms. Barlow says. "[my son will] be the first guy to weasel out of his chores.
He'll say, 'Oh, I dropped a plate, you probably don't want me to handle
those any more.' "

So young and he has already learned that critical male skill of learned incompetence.  Who says the schools today are broken?

I am glad I am not the only one who experiences anxiety over when to tip.  And from my experience, this observation by Scott Adams is dead on:

Now let me digress and add some context before I continue. Those of
you who travel a lot know that if you ask a driver about his life, you
never get a story that sounds like this: "Well, I was a drifter and a
hobo for awhile, but then I got this job driving you around. It's the
highlight of my life."

Instead you usually get something more like this: "After I won the
Nobel Prize I became a dissident in my country and had to flee. I
worked as a nuclear weapons inspector for awhile. Then I did some
software programming, which is easy because I have a doctorate degree
in math. Then I invented The Clapper and retired. Now I just do this
job to help out a friend."

I already described our first Hallmark moment with the new dog.  Here is a picture.  You can see that our home defense needs should now be taken care of.

That's Dog-Day.  After 44+ years of leading a dog-free existence, my daughter has talked us into getting a family dog.  We go pick up the dog, a little white Maltese, in a few hours.  Humorous-to-everyone-but-me stories are sure to follow...

Update:  Well, that went well.  On the 60 minute drive from the breeder, the dog barfed twice, including one really nice projectile effort, pooped, peed, and had diarrhea.

Update #2: Here is a picture, proving that being cute can be a survival trait.

I had meant to post pictures of my pumpkin, and just forgot.  Here are a couple of my world pumpkin, which I carved by thinning out the pumpkin where the landmasses are, but not carving all the way through, such that the skin over the land was more translucent.

(click on pictures for larger view).  I didn't have a tripod handy so my long-exposure night photography is kind of shaky.

Nearly every dystopic novel I have ever read usually has an all-powerful state that insists on televisions everywhere in all public and private spaces to spew government propaganda and rebellion-soothing-entertainment at the masses.  (Example:  Richard Bachman / Stephen King's Running Man, which is a much better novel than a movie.)

I am reminded of this every time I go to an airport.  Why is it every airport feels the need to have CNN blaring from televisions spaced out every 20 feet or so.  You can't escape it or turn it off.  Do they really think I am so much of a moron that I can't entertain myself or even sit quietly without video Valium blaring at me every second.  Can't we maybe have some little quiet TV-free rooms, like the smoking rooms spaced around the airport?

I am an active computer gamer and much of the talk in the community is the uproar EA has caused by putting ads in Battlefield 2042.  Much of the discussion is not fact-based, but just panicky rumor-mongering, but one can see how much people don't want advertising pushed at them.  Which is funny to me, because ubiquitous TV in airports seems a much more annoying push than a few ads in a game.