A Quick Thought On The Bankruptcy Bill...

I usually try an avoid wonkishness on this blog, but I haven't heard this line of reasoning on the just-passed bankruptcy bill anywhere else. When banks offer to loan money, whether it is a mortgage or a credit card balance, the interest rate they offer factors in all of their costs: They have to pay interest on the money, they have to make a profit, cover their operating costs and account for some of the money never being re-paid. The interest rates for loans that are currently outstanding are based on the risk associated with bankruptcy law prior to the enactment of the new law. The changes in the law will make it harder for individuals to avoid repayment through bankruptcy. As a result of this, one can expect that banks will make slightly more profit on current outstanding loans, since the rules have shifted in their favor. This would seem to be a classic case of what economists call Rent Seeking. In the long-run all of us who will never declare bankruptcy should gain, because the market rate for loans should fall slightly. Remember, banks have to pad the margins on all loans to make up for the small percentage of dead-beats who fail to re-pay their loans. The new law will make things tougher on those who would escape debt through bankruptcy. I have a hard time feeling sorry for these folks since they are only being made to pay back what they have borrowed. dbp

Letter to Ann Althouse...

I Write so seldom that I have decided to post whatever I have got: Here is a comment I sent to popular blogress Ann Althouse in response to her call for good clear reasons why 'personal accounts' will help make the Social Security system more solvent:

Hi Ann, Regarding explanations for why personal accounts will help the long-term solvency of Social Security: For the past few years, I have been thinking about the Social Security Trust Fund and reading about it, but have never heard a take on it like the one I have. I know, I know! Now comes the bizarre fringy ‘take’ on it. The Trust Fund is supposedly for the purpose of making up funds needed for beneficiaries once outlays begin to exceed the money coming into the system. (This is expected to begin in about 9 years) The problem is that the trust fund doesn’t contain any assets, only obligations. Personal accounts divert money from the trust fund; but for each dollar diverted, a dollar of future liability is removed. This will not help the overall financial situation if nothing else changes because, each dollar diverted from the trust fund will be added to the deficit. Currently, the federal deficit is calculated by subtracting the surplus of Social Security funds from the actual deficit, thus hiding the true state of deficit spending. It is hoped that by ‘unmasking’ the true deficit, this will cause downward pressure on government spending. If the government can reduce its debt load, then the future ability to add debt will be increased. I hope this is a clear answer. I am not a politician, so I at least try to write clearly! Best regards, David

Note: I did some editing on the letter to Prof Althouse in Hotmail, so what I sent her is a bit different from what is presented here.

Let Her Die ?

On the way home from work Friday, I was listening to NPR as usual and there was a story about Terri Schiavo. Complete details can be found by linking to the story published by The Guardian above, but in brief:

Mrs. Schiavo has been in what is called "A Persistent Vegetative State" for more than a decade following a heart attack. Her husband Michael has been spending much of that time trying through legal means to have her feeding tube removed, so that she will die of dehydration. Mr. Schiavo's main opponent in his legal quest has been the family of Mrs. Schiavo. Mr. Schiavo, while still married to Terri, has in the past several years been living with another woman. This unmarried pair has produced a couple of children and will surely benefit from the life insurance which will come to them once Terri Schiavo dies.

Most marriage vows include something to the effect that one must remain faithful through sickness or health until separated by death. Of course divorce law in every state does allow a marriage to be dissolved for any (or no) reason, so Michael could have divorced his wife long ago. Terri's parents have made it clear that they would be happy to take responsibility for her care, so he could leave the marriage with a fairly clean conscience. In any case, Michael's obvious lack of faithfulness indicates that he has in fact moved on with his life. He, like many who have an ethical challenge put before them, has been found wanting: He would like to keep the power of life and death over his wife while in any but the legal sense he has long ago left his marriage. Let Her Die ? The thing which caught my interest in the newscast was when the news reader spoke of a legal victory by Michael Schiavo as having the result the Terri Schiavo would be allowed to die. There are those who argue that all language contains bias, maybe so, maybe so, but surely it is possible for there to be degrees of bias. For instance, I think a simple recitation of the facts would be fairly neutral: Here is my attempt: If Michael Schiavo wins his legal case, the result will be that the feeding tube which keeps Terri Schiavo fed and hydrated will be removed and she will die. What are the assumptions being made by the NPR reporter? When the word "allow" is used in a case like this, what it normally means is that a course of action desired by some actor will not be prevented. So the assumption here is that Terri Schiavo wants to die. She in fact has no choice: She will continue to live if she is fed and she will surely die if she is not fed. A second meaning of allow does not rely on desire, but is more like what we think of as nature. For instance, if I pull the drain plug out of a sink, this will allow water to run down the drain. In this sense, the NPR reporter is on firmer ground—there is nothing natural about a feeding tube, nor most of medical care for that matter. However, starving a baby or invalid who cannot feed them selves is not okay and would usually result in charges being filed. Most people think of machines which perform some physical function when they say things like "I don't want to be kept alive by a machine" etc. So, even here the ground gives way for our NPR reporter. I think it is safe to say that our NPR reporter has given away who's side he is on in this legal case as have I. dbp Update: An excelent view... Whose life is it to end? By George P. Bush Read it all...

American society is about to enter dangerous territory, in which the slow-motion killing of a woman by her faithless husband will have been sanctioned by the court. After Terri's death, where will we draw the line between one's right to privacy and another's right to life? Are our legislatures to have no say in the matter? It is inconvenient to Michael Schiavo and to the Florida courts that Terri Schiavo continues to live and that her parents won't relent and let her die of thirst and starvation. If Mr. Schiavo prevails, then every person whose life is considered of negligible quality by a court or a legal guardian could be condemned. There is more at stake here than the fate of one solitary woman. After this Friday, it becomes possible that, in this country, if the unwanted and the weak are simply too burdensome to us as individuals, that the right to rid ourselves of inconvenient lives will be our courts' guiding principle.

Here is a further update from The Corner where the coverage has been constant.

The time of year for this to be happening is too coincidental for my taste. A novelist would have Terri die on Friday the 25th (Good Friday) and have her spirit appear to her husband, or perhaps to all of us on Easter Sunday. Will she settle the issue and tell us if we did good or evil? Maybe she will just smile down upon us, reproachfully.

dbp

AS WE PASS 100 HOURS OF STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION ... [Andy McCarthy]

...something that wouldn't be done to an animal and couldn't be done to the worst convicted murderer." But then it actually happens ... slowly. You're powerless to stop it, and ... you find your life goes on.

There are kids and jobs and triumphs and tragedies and everyday just-getting-by. An atrocity becomes yet another awful thing going on in the world. After a day, or maybe two, of initial flabbergast, we're talking again about social security reform, China, North Korea, Hezbollah, etc. A woman's snail-like, gradual torture goes from savagery to just one of those sad facts of life.

As is the case with other depravities once believed unthinkable, it coarsens us. We slowly, and however reluctantly, accept it. We accept it. The New York Times no doubt soon "progresses" from something like "terminating life by starvation," to "the dignity of death by starvation," to "the medical procedure that opponents refer to as starvation." And so the culture of life slides a little more. The culture of death gains a firmer foothold.

Of course, the physical needs of the body are not limited to food and water. There is also air. But no judge, even in Florida, would ever have had the nerve in Terri's case to permit "the medical procedure that opponents refer to as asphyxiation." Too crude. Too quick. Too obviously murder of a vulnerable innocent. Brazen, instant savagery might wake us from our slumber. For the culture of death, better that we sleep. Posted at 10:47 PM

A whole row of gates 

Park Benches 

Here are some more pictures of "The Gates" A whole row of them, gate color shining onto park benches and gate refections off of the Met. 

"The Gates" In Central Park NYC

I am not even sure why I took this picture, but on closer inspection I am glad I did. --At the top of the picture one can see the skyline: There are interesting details if you zoom in. You can see the time and temperature when the picture was taken. There are interesting details in the building which is going up on the right hand side: Are the redish orange sheets in the building meant to evoke The Gates? At a distance from any of the gates, all of us in the group agree that what is evoked is road work rather than art. I don't know about you, but I get the opposite feeling from approaching road work as I do from art. Art makes me feel calm and serene while road work sets my teeth on edge. --In the middle of the shot, you see people going about their day among the gates. If you zoom in, lots of details come into view. Do you see the lady with a baby stroller? --In the foreground, here are a man and a woman. Is she giving him something? Maybe he is buying drugs and she is his pusher! Or maybe they are a couple and she is handing him back his gloves now that he is done taking (almost) the same picture as I took. I didn't notice these two when I took the picture, I was looking at the new building.

There are three levels to this picture. 

We walked the park from the SouthWest corner (Columbus Circle) to the Met and then back diagonaly to the NorthWest corner. It had been a while since we left NJ so seemed like a good time to check up on how the grandparents and aunt were doing with our girls. 

Lots of people taking-in the gates wore a bit of orange clothing. Perhaps it was a way of being part of the art on display. I suppose that I would have worn something orange too, except that my only orange thing is a pair of gardening gloves I wear while jogging. 

The BBC and Moral Stupidity

Yesterday I was listening to NPR on my drive home and heard an interview by Melissa Block of the BBC's Frances Harrison about the reaction in Tehran to statements made by Secretary Rice. One of the things Rice had mentioned was that the human rights record of the Iranian regime was abysmal. Ms Block then asked Ms. Harrison about the Iranian response. Ms. Harrison may have answered this way due to not having heard any response yet from the Iranians, but I am speculating here. The point is that she speculated herself on what the general response might be. She replied to the question by saying that she thought the general response would be: Who is the United States to criticize us? Look at their abuses at Abu Ghraib, or Guantanimo etc. Now, this is fine as far as it goes since she is only speculating on what the Iranians would say. She should have followed up though by pointing out how ridiculous their saying such a thing would be. Why should she have followed up with such a disclaimer? Two reasons: One, a reporter should point out when an argument is made which is clearly nonsensical. Two, such a statement as she made is in fact, clearly nonsensical. I fully admit and apologize to my readers here who find all of this rather obvious, but my point is that a veteran reportrix from the BBC doesn't find it so. Let us lay it out very simply: Abuses were committed at Abu Ghraib. These abuses were committed by criminals who have in due course been prosecuted. Here is how The Scotsman put it:

A SOLDIER convicted in connection with the Iraqi abuse court martial was described at the trial yesterday as "a bit of a nutter" who loved violence so much that he was ordered to undergo psychiatric counseling.

I have heard of no abuses at Guantanimo Bay, but have full faith that if crimes come to light they will be similarly pursued. Now let us compare the case of Iran with a couple of cases: First, the case of Atefeh Rajabi who was acting about like an average American teen. as described by the Women's Freedom Forum

A 16 year old girl hanged in public in the city center of Neka, North of Tehran. The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage. In court, she told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims

Second, the case of Kaveh Habibi-Nejad from Indymedia.

14-year-old boy ‘flogged to death’ in Iran

Iran Focus News 26 Nov 2004 00:22 GMT

Another child allowed to be 'punished' to death.

14-year-old boy ‘flogged to death’ in Iran: Thursday 25 Nov 2004 Tehran - New information has come to light over the sudden death of a 14-year-old schoolboy in western Iran, who died after being flogged for “eating in public” during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan. Kaveh Habibi-Nejad died Nov. 12 and was buried in the cemetery of the Kurdish city of Sanadaj on Nov. 13, according to his death certificate.

Both of these outrages are typical in Iran. Also typical is that they were done by the authorities. The perpetrators of these acts are not considered criminals by the government of Iran, they are in fact part of the government of Iran. What kind of moral idiot compares the criminals of one country with the officials of another and looks for equivalence between the two? The BBC's Frances Harrison, for one. Who Else? I don't think it would be hard to find more. dbp

The consequences of being vague...

I should say right from the start that this post will look at a strategy employed by both Senator Kerry and Saddam Hussein and is no attempt to equate their political philosophies. Both men attempted to achieve an end by being vague about some central question: Hussein wanted the USA and other groups to think he had WMD. He wanted at the same time to give no irrefutable evidence of it. The idea would be that without hard evidence, we would be prevented from attacking him. At the same time, the feeling that he had these weapons would be a deterrent to an attack. Instead, what happened is that we figured that if he was acting like he was hiding something then he probably was hiding something. After 9/11 we were in no mood to play 'footsie' with one of the only world leaders to applaud the terrorist attack on us. I have little doubt that if Hussein's regime had cooperated fully with inspectors, he would be hanging out in one of his palaces right now. In the case of John Kerry, I don't know if he would have done any better with clarity: Senator Kerry wanted moderate and conservative swing voters to think that he would continue the effort in Iraq--just do things in a smarter and better way. At the same time, he wanted the hard-core 'bushitler' crowd to think that he would pull a Zapatero. He really had to do things this way. If he went hard left, he would unify them and go down to McGovern-like defeat. If he openly proposed the 'stay the course, only smarter' path (to the point where everybody believed him) then the hard left would go heavy for Nader and again, McGovernville. In any case, it was a fairly close election--it came down to a little more than 100,000 votes in a fairly large state. Before the advent of blogs, Kerry probably could have carried it off. The major networks and newspapers no longer have a monopoly on what people hear about. Without blogs, the SwiftVets would have never been heard of. By the same token, the Texas ANG documents would not (until safely after the election) have been revealed as the obvious fakes they were. There are no earth-shattering lessons here: Just that when you want one set of people to believe A and another to believe B, it might not work out as planned. dbp

An Ambivalentist

I have long described my self as an ambivalentist when it comes to the existence of God. Before going further into what this entails, I should add here that I think the term is lacking in an essential way which I will get to at the end of this.

I should note here that the concept of God that I use here is from the Christian perspective. I was raised a Catholic and live in a country which is predominantly Christian, so the only concept of God I understand well is the Christian one.

I am an ambivalentist because it is my view that the existence of God should make no difference at all to how one acts in this life. If a person is a coward then the belief in God might make them refrain from evil and if a person is self-serving it might make them do good; to avoid Hell and obtain Heaven respectively. I hope and trust that my readers are neither cowards nor self-serving when it comes to how they live their lives. I also hope and trust that if God exists, he did not format the rules of life around the baser individuals who live among us.

A truly good person will do good for the sake of good and not because of any reward offered.

I have argued that in the absence of God, it is even more essential to be a good person: If I fail, if I succumb to temptation and there is a God then it is a tragedy for me alone. I assume here that God's good is infinite and therefore my own good which is finite does not add anything in terms of the global ratio between good/evil. If there is no God then my failure to do good means that the store of good in the universe is less than it would have been--there is a finite chance it is reduced to zero or less than zero (when evil is accounted for).

I often feel more comfortable around religious people than with atheists even though I (while not at all certain about it) don't think there is a God. I suppose the reason for this is that the religious and I share the belief that there is such a thing as good and evil and that there are severe consequences associated with how you act in this life. (What I think the nature of those consequences to be may be the subject of another posting)

So, getting back to the earlier point about why I think the term ambivalentist is lacking in some essential ways: It is great at expressing how I feel about the irrelevance of God when it comes to one's own choices in life. The question of the existence of God is very interesting from an academic standpoint. I would give much to know, with absolute certainty, if there is or is not a God. This aspect of the term is its large failing. If anyone out there has a better term, I would be interested to hear about it.

dbp Update: I didn't really mean to wait so long before making an update to such a loaded post, but things have been hectic... I am aware of the school of religious faith which posits that it is only through faith and scripture that it is possible to even know how to lead a good life. (I don't want to get into issues of religious fanatics: Atheist fanatics are just as bad and have killed at least as many innocent people). The evidence that I have seen from folks I know who do try and live according to the teachings of Christ, is that it appears to work: They have a sense of purpose, are living a good life and are happy. I do not consider this to be proof of the existence of the divine, only that there is nothing irrational about, nor counterproductive to having a belief in God.

How to make a Christmas snowflake

I know that this (like my yet to be sent Christmas Cards) is a bit late to use. I was reminded of making these because now I am in the process of taking down our decorations. Here is how I make a snowflake: 1. Fold the paper: Fold a regular piece of 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper in half top-to-bottom. Then fold from left to right. One corner will represent the middle of the paper (m) and the opposite corner (o) will have all of the original paper's corners arrayed on top of each other. Fold down the edges (paper airplane style) such that a 45 degree angle is formed with the pointed part originating from corner (m). Repeat this process by refolding the flaps, so that you now have an angle of 22.5 degrees originating from (m). 2. Cut your desired shape: It should be noted that the edges of paper opposite from (m) are not all the same length. In order to assure that your snowflake is completly symetrical, you will need to trim the side opposite point (m). Other than this recomendation, let yourself go! The only cost of failure is a little time and one piece of printer paper. 3. Finish up: One should unfold a snowflake carefully. The cut-outs some times stick together a little, so be patient. I found that ironing completed snowflakes makes them less snaggy and allows them to hang better. dbp

Once the paper is folded as described above you can cut it how you please. I would estimate that about half of the paper is removed in this cutting process. 

Here is a view of the complete snowflake 

Runners are not as fast as they used to be...

My previous post on performance fabrics got me to thinking about how my level of performance in the past would stack-up today. One might expect that with better shoes, diet and training regimens; runners could be faster today than they were in the past. I have only run one marathon and so my time is etched in memory: 3:18:23. Actually, I am not that petty: I ususally just remember 3:18 and some seconds--I looked up the 23 part. I decided to look-up the times and placements of the most recent Seattle marathon to compare my ranking with the ranking that time would produce now. My place was 646 out of 2101 starters (only 1743 finished) which means that I was in about the top 30% of those who entered the race. The most current results from 2004 show that I would have come in 188th out of 2277 finishers or about the top 9% of the field. More people are participating in the marathon now than in 1980 and yet there are far fewer really fast runners. The top runner from our group: Mike Hadway, came in 4th with a time of 2:25:54. He would have won the race in 2004 by over 3 minutes. In case one might think that conditions were more favorable in 1980, they were not! The 1980 race featured gale-force winds, rain and sleet. This may be part of the reason why 358 runners (17% of the starters) never finished the 1980 race. I could not find the weather information or the ratio of starters to finishers for recent Seattle marathons, but did look at top finishing times and they are similar from year-to-year. If any readers have a theory as to why performance level has declined over the years, I would be interested to hear it. dbp

Added: Malcolm Gladwell apparently agrees with me:

GLADWELL: It’s a great question. Impossible to answer in the time that I have, but if I can use my favorite subject of running as an example. If you look at times in the marathon today and compare them to times from 30 years ago, we are radically slower today. I’m not talking about the elite level, I’m talking about at the sub-elite level. The number of Americans, for example, who can break three hours in a marathon today is a fraction of what it was in 1980 or 1985. And that goes to this point: In order to extract running talent from the general population, you need to have a really, really broad base and the broad base is gone.

There is still elite running that produces really good, fast runners. But in 1980, there was this many people running the kind of mileage necessary to run a marathon properly, and today there’s this many. And all of our attention and focus is on the 95th percentile. But what we don’t understand is, we’ll never find the next great marathoner until we re-broaden the base. When we had a base this big of mediocre marathoners we had the two greatest marathoners in the world. Now that our base is this big, we got nobody in the top 10.

From an interview here

Seattle Marathon 1980

I had fallen from cramps in my calf just before this picture. Like a fool, I sped up as I got right toward the end of the race. There was more of a crowd there and it was slightly downhill. When my calves cramped I fell down, but when I got up and started to run again they recramped. I limp/ran across the finish line.

Here is a page from the Bloomsday Road Runner's Club newsletter. You can get a larger view by clicking on the image and then zooming in from there. I am the 2nd from the top of the list--which is not organised by placement.

High Performance Fabrics

Here is the story of how I finally got good exercise clothes... For the last couple of years I have made a habit of going for a run during my lunch break. "Run" is a fairly charitable word for what I do. My slow trudge is an attempt to remain in shape in my old age. There is a shower in the men's bathroom at work and a small bank of lockers. A few months ago I found one of the lockers empty and with a key in the lock. I soon adopted it as my own and this saved me from hauling all of my stuff back and forth from my office to the bathroom. Earlier this week I discovered that the key was not in any of the places I keep it. (There are only two places, so this was not an involved search) I either keep the key in my desk or, if I accidentally bring the key home, I place it on my key chain so I will have it the next day. I had been running in cotton sweat pants and sweatshirt or sometimes a pair of cheap lined nylon running pants. They got wet and heavy in the rain, or I froze my n--- off when it was really cold--plus, they were ill-fitting and uncomfortable. I did not have a desire to wear such poor athletic-wear. It was just that whenever I went to general purpose clothes stores, all that was available was crap. I knew that good stuff could be found at a specialty store, but what I had was okay and I was too busy to waste half of a precious weekend afternoon out buying clothes. Of course, since I could not run without running clothes and mine were behind locked door...I spent my lunch hour visiting the nearby EMS store. I purchased two pairs of athletic pants: one heavy weight and one lighter, and a matching sweatshirt. They are thin, super soft and stretchy and best of all, they fit really well! The next day I looked forward to my run even more than usual. I normally look forward to it more as a break from work than for the pure joy of moving my body outside: When I was on the cross country team in high school, I enjoyed the act of running itself: I had lots of energy and my joints didn't ache, plus I was pretty fast. In this case, I was looking forward to trying out my new stuff. I was just as slow & achy as usual. No problem. I have long become accustomed to fancy gear refusing--against all expectation--to turn me into Superman. On this foggy cold (45F) day, I was gloriously comfortable and warm--but not too warm. My God! It was actually a PLEASURE to run! I should loose my key more often.