Victorian Era

"On Dec. 8, 1881, a fire consumed Vienna's elegant Ringtheater during an opera performance. Hours later, when nearly 400 bodies had been removed from the smoldering ruin, the policeman heading the recovery operation reported to the emperor's famously tender-hearted cousin, Archduke Albrecht, 'All saved, Your Imperial Highness.' In old Vienna, one maintained a good facade no matter how awful the truth."

-- Barrymore Laurence Scherer, Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2011

Fascinating.

Entropy

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold -- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Systems tend toward disorder.  This is a casual paraphrase of the Second Law of Thermodynamics--the Law of Entropy.

Orson Scott Card's "Alvin Maker" books frame evil as the destructive force, which the world tends toward, like water flowing downhill.  Whereas good, the constructive force, must work against the tide.

Things wear out, rocks erode away, the sun cools slowly.

Over a decade ago, I read something that Marilyn Vos Savant wrote.  I paraphrase it, thus.  Information is not subject to entropy.  That which stores the information is subject to entropy--paper decays, your hard drive crashes.

Other than Card's "Alvin Maker," I have not read anything which makes entropy a character in a story.  But now I am thinking about it.  Right now my ideas are soup.  I have to overcome my own entropy to make it into something solid.

And the winner is!

What should we call him?  The Nigerian terrorist?  The Christmas Day terrorist?

Mark Steyn found the perfect name for him.

The Panty Bomber!

Stunning Example of Government Failure

A decade ago a probe that NASA sent to Mars disappeared.  An investigation revealed the following:

The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit.

"Our inability to recognize and correct this simple error has had major implications," said Dr. Edward Stone, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We have underway a thorough investigation to understand this issue."

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco990930.html

The Truth About The Balloon Boy

I was home when the balloon blew across much of Colorado, pursued by helicopters and ground rescue, possibly carrying a six year old named Falcon, possibly alive, possibly dead.

The balloon touched down lightly.  Maybe he was alive!

He was not there.  Falcon's brother said he saw the him fall out.  Could he still be alive?

He was hiding in the attic the whole time.

Yes, the hoax cost multiple law enforcement agencies lots of money.

It was the best thing on television since the chase of the white Bronco.

Good entertainment at any price.

Original Joke?

What do you call the fear of being enclosed in a chimney?

Santaclaustrophobia.

Ebony and Irony

I had to laugh.

People With Jobs

P. J. O'Rourke wrote about the following exchange with a friend in his book, Parliament of Whores.

"How come," I asked Andy, "whenever someone upsets the left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever someone upsets the right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch American flag?"

We have jobs." said Andy.

In recent days crowds of people have packed U. S. representatives' and senators' speeches and town hall meetings to scream about current government attempts to reform health care.

The Obama administration and congress have dismissed these protesters as supported by various lobbying groups, implying that they are paid employees, not genuinely concerned citizens. The protesters have been said by Barbara Boxer, Steny Hoyer, and others to be dressed in Brooks Brothers suits.

I cannot figure out whom to believe--Obama/Boxer/Hoyer/etc. or my lying eyes. I have been watching these protesters for nearly a week. My eyes tell me that there are old guys dressed like my dad, in untucked collared shirts with vertical scroll patterns on the front, and women dressed in light blue cotton blouses, like my mom wore. There are middle-aged guys dressed in the collared knits shirts that I buy from Wal Mart for ten bucks. There are a few young folks, dressed in polos and khakis--like my students. My lying eyes have not revealed the rows of Brooks Brothers suits such as one can see at a banking convention.

On one hand, Obama/Boxer/Hoyer/etc. may have optic nerves that differ from mine (in fact, that would explain a lot). On the other hand, Obama/Boxer/Hoyer/etc. may not understand what it looks like when they see protesters who have jobs.

Tiara

When I first heard of her, she was the unstable wife of the mayor of a backward southern town. Then her husband was killed in a bar fight. She was convinced that he was killed as a result of a conspiracy, so she ran for mayor and won.

For a while after that I saw her on television every week, raging at the town council, accusing them of all manner of chicanery. She was entertaining. The town regressed. She did not win reelection.

The next time I saw her she had a following. She was a princess of the Dugdemona tribe of Native Americans, which she had founded. She claimed five counties of a state that had been sold in the Louisiana Purchase. She based her claims on language in the treaty which referred to the Indians. She had followers. She had opened the tribe's membership to anyone who paid the membership fee.

I looked around for her on the web today, but did not find her. She may be lost to time.

Begging

Perhaps I am the only one who does not get it. Should multi-millionaires ask for contributions when they lose a few million, though they have millions left? My answer is "no." No. No. No.

No.

Get out there and earn it, but stop the begging. Such massive public greed is unseemly.

As an economist, I understand that we are never satisfied. The Somali woman with one meager meal per day and one tattered garment knows she is needy, but feels that she would have everything she needed if she just had three meals per day and three new garments.

The U. S. household with three people who work for minimum wage and one car feels needy, but knows that if they just had two cars and double the minimum wage, they could not want for anything.

The two-doctor household who earns half a million per year knows that if they could afford to hire their part-time servants full-time, they would not want for anything.

And the woman with $25 million knows that if she could recoup the $10 million debt she incurred, she would be doing well. So she tries to raise the $10 million by begging.

Hillary Clinton.

Write another lousy book, Ms. Clinton. Leave the freaking begging to the poor Somalis.

Your Car Has A Couple of Nuts Loose Behind The Steering Wheel

Yesterday Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, announced that U. S. auto makers must submit plans for restructuring their companies if they want to get my tax dollars to bail them out. But that is not the funny part.

The automakers must submit their plans to the foremost business minds in congress--the financial geniuses that fought valiantly against critics of the government housing giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the FMs). No one did more to encourage home loans to people who could not repay than Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. Now these Bobbsey Twins of financial idiocy will end up instructing the auto makers on how to be profitable!

Barney Frank famously said, about his opposition to more oversight of the FMs, "I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing." Barney kept rolling, along with Chris Dodd, who received a sweetheart mortgage from the subprime king, Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide Financial, until they got snake eyes. Oh well, it was not their money, anyway.

Barney Frank is the guy who had an affair with a top Fannie Mae executive at the same time that he was the ranking democrat in charge of "regulating" Fannie Mae.

Now we are turning the auto companies over to these idiots.

A friend once griped to me that Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged set up government regulators as idiot straw men that she knocked down. To my friend, I say truth is now stranger than fiction.

I'm laughing.

I'm crying.

Tale of Two Joes

Just now in the U. S. Presidential election, everyone was wondering if the McCain campaign would dissolve into endless repetitions of Obama's answer to a question from a guy known as "Joe the Plumber."

Joe asked Obama face-to-face if Obama would raise his taxes should Joe be fortunate enough to buy the plumbing business that he now works for. Obama forgot his "those who are blessed by America should be willing to pay their fair share" rhetoric and, instead, said that it is a good thing to spread the wealth around.

It was a telling moment. But if the moment had lasted another week, I would have had to stop watching the news and do something productive.

It was mildly interesting to see the news media deconstruct "average Joe" by reporting that he is plumbing without a license and has not paid all his taxes.

O. K., so Joe is a libertarian's hero. History perfectly cast him for his role.

But even that was getting stale when the other Joe--Joe Biden--fragged Obama. Biden told a group of their supporters that U. S. enemies would provoke a crisis to test his untried running mate.

It is hard to keep a running tally of Biden's questions about the Obama campaign's validity.

During the primary, Biden said that Obama had no experience and that the office of the presidency did not lend itself to on the job training.

Biden once said McCain had the experience to be president.

Biden even said that Hillary would have probably been a better vice presidential pick than Biden.

Now he confirms what every serious person knows--that Obama is a lightweight who will attract enemy fire. Obama may fight, like Kennedy did (he was deemed a lightweight by the Soviet Union). Or Obama may only offer testy rhetoric, like Carter did after the Soviet invasion of Afganistan. But Obama will be tested in ways that crotchety old McCain would not have been. (My take on McCain, as a person, is that he is the old guy who yells, "You kids get off my lawn!")

I reiterate that I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I have serious problems with McCain's active pragmatism that runs roughshod over individual freedom. But Biden said what I have been saying for months.

I can keep watching the news.

Who Is Lying?

My son is playing some game that has lots of logic puzzles. Here was my favorite.

The cops know that one or more of five suspects were in on committing a crime. They know some are lying, but some may be telling the truth. If the cops can figure out who is lying from the following statements, they will release any who are telling the truth and concentrate on the liars. If any are lying in the following statement they are also lying about their innocence.

Suspect 1 says that one person is lying about being involved in the crime.

Suspect 2 says that two people are lying.

Suspect 3 says that three people are lying.

Suspect 4 says that four people are lying.

Suspect 5 says that five people are lying.

How many (and which) suspects are lying and how many are telling the truth?

I loved that this puzzle had such a precise answer.

An Ultra-Maroon

Chuck Todd of MSNBC just commented that McCain and Palin are finding success campaigning together. He does not understand why Obama is not taking Biden along.

Chuck Todd should find a new line of work.

Should Obama schedule Biden to put the crowd to sleep before or after Obama speaks to the crowd? Oh, but maybe Biden could wake the crowd up with a patented Biden gaffe--"Hillary would have been a better choice than me . . . stand up, guy in the wheelchair . . . Obama is so clean and speaks so well!"

Chuck Todd, "Piff piff!"

Death on My iPod II

Tom Waits -- Shine, shine, a Roosevelt dime. All the way to Baltimore and running out of time. Salvation army seemed to wind up in the hole. They all went to heaven in a little row boat.

Bruce Springsteen -- Baby this town rips the bones from your back it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap.

Steely Dan -- In the morning you go gunning for the man who stole your water, and you fight 'till he is done in, but they catch you at the border, and the mourners are all singing as they drag you by your feet, but the hangman isn't hanging, so they put you on the street.

The Clash -- This is radio Clash underneath a mushroom cloud. This is radio Clash, you don't need that funeral shroud.

Live -- Lightning crashes, an old mother dies. Her intentions fall to the floor. The angel closes her eyes.

Tom Waits -- Someone's crying in the woods, someone's burying all his clothes. Now Slam the Crank from Wheezer slept outside last night and froze.

Everclear -- They found her out in the fields about a mile from home. Her face was warm from the sun, but her body was cold. I heard the policeman say, "Just another overdose."

Tori Amos -- Heard the eternal footman bought himself a bike to race.

David Byrne -- Maybe you just lost somebody, maybe your whole world has changed. The sun don't really care about that; it shines on anyway.

Bush -- I'd die in your arms if you were dead too.

John Prine -- Woke up this morning, put on my slippers, walked in the kitchen and died.

Garbage -- You burned me out but I'm back at your door, like Joan of Arc coming back for more. I nearly died.

Talking Heads -- Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

The Offspring -- By the time you hear the siren it's already too late. One goes to the morgue and the other to jail. One guy's wasted and the other's a waste.

Fuel -- Memories are just where you laid them. Dragging the waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

Peter Gabriel -- Lord, here comes the flood. We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood.

Tom Waits -- Now don't be a cry baby when there's wood in the shed. There's a bird in the chimney and a stone in my bed. When the road's washed out, we pass the bottle around, and wait in the arms of the cold cold ground.

Death on my iPod

Gravedigger, when you dig my grave, make is shallow, so that I can feel the rain. -- Dave Matthews.

Crawl with me into tomorrow or I'll drag you to your grave. I'm deep inside your children, they'll betray you in my name. -- Rage Against the Machine

All the young people down the ages, they gladly marched off to die. Proud city fathers used to watch them, tears in their eyes. -- The Clash

Its just a rumour that was spread around town, a telegram or a picture postcard, within weeks theyll be re-opening the shipyards, and notifying the next of kin, once again -- Elvis Costello

By the blackened wall he does it all, he thinks he's died and gone to heaven. -- Steely Dan

A heart that's full up like a landfill, a job that slowly kills you, bruises that wont heal. -- Radiohead

It's watching the miles flying by. You not my typewriter. You can be my demon movie foe, if we play indoors. You have to lose. You have to learn how to die, if you wanna wanna be alive. -- Wilco

Shallow

The publishing business is exceedingly shallow. Agents only want a few paragraphs about the novel in a query letter. Few agents want to see the book. And they read hundreds of queries every week. Many claim that if the query is no good they can nearly guarantee that they would not like the book anyway.

An experienced author and reviewer, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, agrees that the publishing business is shallow. She says that the title of a book must sell the book to the publishing company. She says it twice. The title. Staggering.

Today I posted to an agent's blog in response to another comment by Ms. Lichtenberg. I said that modern publishing evaluates gemstones with a cursory glance, instead of with a jeweler's loupe. The stone must dazzle at a glance. Keep it going for a query letter and you are in the door. I had wondered why it was so hard to buy good books. Rhinestones with good titles proliferate.

Without question the best titled book I have picked up in years is The Book of Fate. The Book of Fate is also an unmitigated disaster of a read. Maybe extraterrestrials would be blind to the obvious logical errors in the first couple of chapters (as far as I got), but I cannot see Earthlings being able to continue to read, rather than fling the book across the room. But I loved the title and loved the cover. I checked the audiobook out from the library, so I did not give the author a strong incentive to write a sequel.

Ms. Lichtenberg's other comment was reported in Pub Rants. She said that the author should write the blurb for the back cover before writing the book. I agree.

George R. R. Martin's blockbuster fantasy series would never have sold, based on the blurb. Martin's complex characters, subplots, and superlative writing (not to mention his deep knowledge of medieval society) make the series a modern classic. In Martin's story, the old king is murdered and a squabble erupts over the kingdom. Add in the reemergence of magic and the fact that a multi-year winter will bring evil creepies from the north and you have the kind of blurb that you could read on a new book every month.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game has kid geniuses training and destroying the threat of alien bugs from outer space. Not quite a unique blurb.

But Wicked--The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as told by the Wicked Witch of the West, spawns a great blurb. I have no idea if Wicked is any good, but its blurb is as good as The Book of Fate's title.

I am an economist, so I spend much more time working with the industry as it is than ranting about it on my blog. For this rant, I blame Kristin, of Pub Rants fame.

Favorite Geek Joke

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.

Those who can count in binary, and those who can't.

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If you don't like that one, you're not a geek.